A/N: Meant to be a fluffy chapter but I'm not sure it came out that way. I thought I'd give our main characters a little break for once (since it's Christmas Eve). Happy holidays!
Warm.
I'm really warm.
I know without having to open my eyes with our legs tangled together that Dimitri is still safely wrapped around me just as he was when I finally fell asleep last night.
As promised, he let me go as far as I was willing and wanted to.
Or more accurately he let me go as far as he thought it safe to go but still. We didn't go too far but we did most of what I wanted to accomplish.
Am I stupid to want to test my limits when I know I'm not exactly at the most stable point in my life?
Yes. But I'm luck enough to have an amazing man like Dimitri who doesn't take advantage of me. The only thing he does do is take care of me better than I do myself.
Am I awful for putting so much responsibility on someone else as a time when I need to be my strongest, when I should be able to stand on my own to feet without having to completely rely on anyone else? Again, yes but I'm learning. I'm getting better.
I realized that before last night, I kept myself at a distance. Sure, I occasionally held Dimitri's hand or made the rare first move to kiss him. I even did it yesterday at the courthouse. But whenever I did make any motion towards Dimitri, I felt it was because I should, the moment called for it and not always because I wanted to.
Last night I wanted to.
I wanted to have him and hold him as close to me as tight as humanly possible. I wanted him so much that it hurt.
And I don't really know why.
Dimitri's sweet, he's kind, he's amazing, he's caring, protective...all the reasons I feel my breath fade and heart stop every time I see him. He's never pushed me to do anything and he never would.
But last night I wanted that to change and I'm not completely sure why.
I was scared yesterday of going on the stand. I was frightened of facing a courtroom full of people, telling them my story in excruciating detail only for them not to believe me. I was confused and angry that Ibrahim suddenly appeared out of thin air and wouldn't tell me a damn thing about my mother except that she was alright and that I'd see her eventually. I was tired from so many long nights spent drifting in and out of nightmares only to be rocked to sleep by Dimitri. I was happy that the judge gave everyone a two day break before we reconvene on Monday. I was...every possible emotion yesterday.
By the time all of that was said and done I wanted to take Dimitri up on his offer and let him protect me in every possible meaning of the word.
I wanted him to crush me against him, kiss me with all the emotion he could muster up, wrap his body around me, and look at me with those deep eyes that I often feel myself falling completely in to.
And I think in normal circumstances, he would have.
He wouldn't hesitate to grab me and have his way if he wasn't so afraid of breaking me, if I wasn't so already broken.
I love him more for it.
Love...
Whoa...
Is that what this breathless feeling is? This sensation of falling, with Dimitri being the only one to catch me? Feeling like I'm just not...whole when I'm not with him and he's my only cure, a part of me?
Maybe.
I don't have much experience with love outside of my friendship with Lissa, my mother, and all the new editions to our makeshift family. I know I love Dimitri, that I care for him but I don't know if I'm in love. And I don't want any possible admissions to happen right now. Not during a time like this. If I am in love with Dimitri, I want to say it at a time when I'm not at the center of a town scandal. I want to tell him, I want him to know when my biggest worries in life are about college classes or working.
For now, I'll keep it to myself.
Who knows, maybe I'm wrong and all these emotions are just driving me crazy.
Dimitri's right.
I should see a shrink.
Behind me, Dimitri groans.
"I thought we were going to sleep in," he grumbles. He squeezes me a little tighter, pulling me closer to him not that it's even possible.
It's as tight as he held me last night.
And I loved every moment of it.
"You're up really early. Nightmare?"
I shake my head as I shift and turn to bury my face into his shirt. "Just thinking."
"About?" His voice is low with sleep in his voice and mumbled into my hair.
Images of last night play through my head.
"It feels good."
He let all of his weight press against me and I've never felt any safer covered by my own personal Dimitri Belikov.
The last time I'd had someone's weight on me like this-
No. Not now. I'm not going to think about that now. This is about me and Dimitri.
Dr. Odenlenski, Olena, Stan, Christian, and Dimitri have all said at one point or another that rape isn't about sex. It's a violent aggressive act about control and dominance.
Intimacy and affection are something else completely. It's two people deciding to take the risk of opening up and revealing the most vulnerable part of themselves to one another.
I focus on all of my favorite parts of Dimitri, all of his aspects and characteristics that make him Dimitri. His clean soapy smell, ever changing shade of brown eyes, the light shadow of scruff along his jawline and sprinkled on his cheeks.
His hair is usually my favorite but right now, it's his lips...
These soft lips that I lean up to feel against my own.
Our kisses always start out gentle and end the same way. This time it's completely different. I kiss him with every bit of strength I have in my body and he returns it just as fervently. There's a small part of him holding himself back keeping himself in control but like I said before I don't want this to be about control.
This is going to be about only me and him together, alone, going as far as we possibly can.
"Kiss me," I say against his lips, pulling back just the slightest bit.
I can always trust Dimitri to understand what I mean without having to clearly state it. He leans his forehead against mine for a moment, contemplating if he really should have agreed to follow my lead in this. I can see he's worried about how far I'll take this before I'm scared and trembling but eventually he does as I instruct and really kisses me this time.
Soon we're both out of breath, gasping for air when we can but unwilling to completely pull away. His hands are tight against my back, gripping me tight against him while my hands are locked around his neck with my fingers tangled in the soft waves of his hair. He finally breaks the heavy kiss giving me a chance to catch my breath but his lips move down until he's kissing my neck that same way I'd done to him before.
One of these days I'm going to have to let Dimitri take the complete lead when we're together.
In fact he's doing a pretty amazing job right now, seemingly having forgotten I'd wanted to set the rules here but with kisses like this the only rule I can come up with in my cloudy mind is that he can only stop when I tell him to. And at this point that may be never.
I feel his teeth graze and nip at the sensitive skin at my neck and my entire body shudders before I have time to stop it. Immediately he stops. He pulls back, lifting his weight off of me and pulling me up into a sitting position.
"Wh-why did you-"
"Are you alright? Did I hurt you? Scare you?"
I shake my head and reach for him again at the same time but he holds me a little ways away from him so he can read any fear in my eyes. I try my best to avoid his gaze and smile embarrassed as I tell him the truth.
"No you didn't it just...it felt really good," I admit.
It's a second, a full heartbeat of silence as he process what I've said and determines that I'm really okay before he finally gives me a small smile. He leans in slowly, brushing his nose with mine before placing the sweetest of slow, tender kisses on my lips.
"I'm glad I could do that for you," he whispers. He tucks my hair behind both of my ears, cradling my face gently in his hands.
"Me too," I murmur. With the sweet taste of him still on my lips, I move to go back to the previous position we'd been in but he hold me still.
"But let's stop for now."
I can feel the disappointed frown on my face but he's quick to assure me that he isn't rejecting me.
I trust Dimitri but I think there's always going to be a part of me expecting him to ask that we go back to the basic instructor/student relationship we had before. I always think that one day he'll see I'm a little bit beyond repair. I'm too broken and have too many wounds that even Dimitri can't heal.
I wouldn't blame him one bit.
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
I try to turn away but he isn't having any of that tonight. I guess he's decided that right now he's going to take the lead.
"Don't start trying to convince yourself that I shouldn't want you. Believe me Roza, I want you." He says it so firmly and with such conviction that have no choice but to believe him. "But I want you to be safe too and part of that is knowing your limits. You wanted to test it but I don't want to risk scaring you just so you can prove a point to yourself. You feel as good to me as I hope I do for you but-"
"Not tonight?" I guess, finishing for him with the words he'd spoken earlier.
He shakes his head as he releases my face and grabs a hold of my hands, clasping our hands together.
"Whenever we both decided to really be together, I want it to be special. Not right after a court date."
I have to say I agree with him. I don't want Adrian and everything he's done tainting any of the memories Dimitri and I create together. It should be special.
"I wasn't lying when I said you know how to melt a girl's heart."
He smiles. "It's a gift," he answers in a rare show of arrogance.
I laugh and the sound is almost foreign to me.
"So, even though you don't want to do anything further tonight...will you still hold me?"
By way of answer, he holds his arms out and reels me toward him. I fall against him in a heap and he lets out a joking 'oof'. My foreign laugh rings through the air again before we settle into one of our comfortable silences where we're both just letting the wheels in our head turn.
Soon, I'm at that point where I feel myself falling in and out of sleep with Dimitri's hand rubbing his familiar slow circles into my back while the other is gently combing through my hair pushing it out of my face. I'm starting to think this is some sort of magic, Dimitri trick he's created to get me to fall asleep because it never fails.
I feel him when he lifts me up and walks with me in his arms back to the bedroom. He lays me on top of the blankets, getting ready to help me under them but I wake myself enough to make one last request. I tug at his shirt and undo one of the top buttons.
Again, Dimitri understands what I want and with surprisingly little hesitance, he complies. The sight of Dimitri's skin, smooth end unflawed save for a few barely noticeable scars on his chest is like a bucket of cold water. I'm awake more than I was before but I'm having trouble focusing and it's not because of sleep. I brush my fingers along the thin line of scars and holds my wrist guiding my fingers along each of them, letting me feel.
I open my mouth to ask where their from but I suddenly remember his father, how abusive Dimitri once told me he was, and I don't say anything.
I have a few scars of my own but mine are less noticeable. Mostly inner demons trying to fight their way out but Dimitri knows all about and has seen all of those.
I want to show him as much of myself as he's agreed to show me. Well, what he agreed to show me after I asked him too. Even though we won't go any further than what we did on the couch, I still want to be as close to Dimitri as he'll let me.
It's my turn to surprise him when I take a deep breath, sit up and ask him to unzip the back of my dress.
"Rose..." he starts.
"I know. I just want you close, as close as possible."
He hesitates a little longer this time.
"I won't go to sleep until you do."
"I think I can wait you out," he counters, a playful smile appearing on his face. "You're pretty tired," he points out, running his thumb gently under one of my eyes.
He's actually pretty wrong about that considering the sight of his naked chest is pretty alerting. Even so, I can still feel my exhaustion with every passing second and even though I'm doing my best to fight it, I'm losing.
"I'll just reach around and do it myself if you don't," I try.
Still not moving.
I know I can't easily unzip the dress myself, not with my bad shoulder still kind of healing from before and he knows it. It doesn't mean I won't try though, even if it'll hurt later, and he knows it too.
I'm making a point. I made a decision and I'm being a little stronger by being stubborn enough to stand by it.
The slightest bit of pride, the same pride I've seen in his eyes any time I learned a perfect defense move and demonstrated it successfully on him during one of our training sessions, appears in his eyes that I'm being so firm. I can see he doesn't approve of me being willing to further injure myself to get what I want though and I know he won't let me.
I move slightly, starting to reach for the sipper but he's quick to stop me.
"I'll do it."
I grin and he can't resist smiling back at me. It's amazing sometimes, when I'm not self-pitying enough to notice the affect I have on Dimitri.
"But you have to eat a full complete breakfast tomorrow," he adds.
Bargaining.
I should have seen this coming.
The deal is pretty good though. I really don't want to hurt my shoulder any more. Not that he'd let me.
"Fine."
I'm facing him as he reaches around to unzip the dress. I watch as he visibly swallows and his breaths is as audible as I'm sure mine was when he'd pulled his shirt off. In fact, both of our breathing is a little labored right now, just as heavy and intense as it had been when we'd been making out on the couch earlier. It's weird considering we're barely touching right now, like just being this close too each other is enough to steal either of our breath away.
Is this normal?
Probably not.
It probably has something to do with this whole idea I have in my head that I'm starting to really fall for Dimitri but considering I have zero experience with love, I don't know.
He's quick to unzip the dress in one fluid motion that has me wondering just how many times Dimitri has unzipped someone's dress. I don't ask though. That's not something I can handle knowing right now. As far as I'm concerned Dimitri is as inexperienced as they come. I wonder if he'd tell me...
Before I can convince myself to ask, I realize he's slow to help me move the straps from my shoulders. In fact he's not even letting them fall naturally. In fact, he's holding them purposely on my shoulders so they won't fall.
Eventually, slowly, he lets each one fall slowly and I tug it down the rest of the way. I stand beside the bed, in front of him, letting it fall to the floor leaving me in my black tank top and stockings. I get ready to tug the stockings off but I'm in for my hundredth surprise of the day when I feel Dimitri's hands on my hips. He looks to my eyes for approval, and when he finds it, he releases his hold on my waist to draw me on to his lap so he can help me tug off the stockings.
In only my tank top and underwear and with Dimitri in only his dark jeans, a different heat builds between us, one that's never been there before.
He shifts and suddenly I'm laying back on the bed again and Dimitri has already to managed to tuck me in like a burrito.
When I look up at him amused, I don't find a similar smile waiting for me. Instead there's nothing but the blank expression that crosses his face any time he tries to hide his emotions from anyone."What's wrong?" I ask worriedly but before full panic mode can set in about Dimitri being disappointed seeing me so undressed, his reply makes me laugh.
"I really wish you'd understand just how beautiful you are." It's an answer I'm not expecting and comes completely out of left field. Taking a really long look at Dimitri it's like he's having a little trouble breathing, not really able to catch a proper breath, and I imagine that I'd be able to feel his pulse if I was pressed against his chest. I can't help it and I end up laughing out right for the third time tonight.
He relaxes a little and laughs with me before kissing my forehead and forcing me to settle completely down.
"Sleep," he instructs, standing up from the bed.
I reach for him, wondering where he's going and if he's going far.
"I'm just going to shut off the lights in the living room and make sure I locked the door." A ritual I've noticed he always days every time I'm over here.
I nod and quickly release him hoping he'll return just as quickly. I force myself to stay up a little longer to wait for him to get back so that I know for certain he's beside me. I'm halfway to sleep by the time he does return and I feel the bed dip behind me.
Before I can shift myself closer to him, he's already reaching for me and pulling me against him. With Dimitri wrapped around me like a blanket I finally fall asleep.
Dimitri nudges me gently, tilting my chin up so I'm facing him. I realize I drifted for a bit and never answered him.
"Us," I finally answer.
He doesn't ask me to elaborate. I'm really starting to believe Dimitri reads me as well as he reads his westerns sometimes.
He rolls so I'm laying on top of him and just kisses me and it's too perfect for words.
Last night's agreement of us not going too far any time soon is still in affect though because jut as quickly he rolls me off and sits up, pulling me up.
"Come on. You promise me you'd eat a full breakfast."
"I'm starting to think your main goal in life is to make me eat."
"I just want you to take better care of yourself," he reminds me semi-seriously since he's smiling as he says it.
"I know but I want to point out that you just had a girl that you deemed 'beautiful' in your bed a few moments ago but you're choosing food as more important," I teased.
Quick as ever, he's able to grab a firm hold of me and has me squirming and struggling to not be tickled as we reach the kitchen. He lifts me onto the counter as though I weigh nothing and cages me in with his arms on either side of me.
"You're health is most important to me." He leans in close and presses his lips to the same sensitive spot they were in last night. "Believe me, unless that's the last time you plan on ever being alone with me and in my bed, I plan on dedicating just as much time and attention to everything else later."
A night's sleep certainly makes a man more willing and less hesitant! For a moment I'm speechless and it's a little hard to swallow the dryness in my throat. I feel him smile against my skin and I actually giggle nervously. Once I regain control of my senses, I take a risk and wrap my arms around his neck, wrapping my legs around his waist to see how much I can get away with.
"That's definitely not the last time I plan on being in your bed."
A night's sleep certainly does more for my bravery too.
I'd thought it would have worn off from last night and everything I said and did last night was because I was running on exhaust. At least that's what I could chalk it up to but it seems I'm feeling just as bold even now.
Dimitri breaks the lingering kisses he's leaving at different spots on my shoulders and neck to look at me.
I'm afraid he's going to say no, change his mind, and say he was just kidding.
But when I see his face he's smiling, just as amused and playful as I feel right about now. Maybe this was all we needed. Time completely alone together, time we haven't had a lot of lately. Even when Dimitri does spend the night with me it's usually at my house with Lissa near by and we never feel completely alone.
Something's completely changed between us since last night and it's definitely for the better.