She's used to hiding her immediate discomfort, gag reflexes and tension in the first seconds of being touched, but he always knows, no matter how fast she moves to hide it. He always stills, pausing until she breathes again, and then moves to something new, something different, as if he's trying to lay out a map of what's okay for her and mark certain paths as off-limits for himself.
Eventually, she stops trying to hide it. He knows, somehow, that his hands on her breasts make her think of rough squeezes and degrading punishments, so he uses his mouth instead – no one has ever taken the time to kiss her body, only use it for their own pleasure. There's no painful recollection or muscle reflex that comes with the touch of his lips across her skin, and it's a revelation for her, how it feels to have her body so open, so trusting, in the hands of someone who – if not loves – at least cares for her.
They're building their way towards sex (in the traditional sense), like virginal teenagers in a first relationship, which they might as well be, despite all the things they've seen in the world.
The first time she lets herself fall apart for him, his head is buried between her in the crevice of her hips, his arms are stretched by her side (close, but carefully not touching her). Despite all her sexual encounters, she's never felt this vulnerable, this sensitive to the world.
Right before she heads towards complete oblivion, she reaches for his hands beside her and holds onto them tightly.
Afterwards, he presses himself on his forearms, carefully hovering over her, and brushes the lightest of kisses over her lips, and she swears she could fall apart again just from that gentle gesture.
"Was that alright?" he asks, forcing her to breathe again.
She manages a nod, and smiles at him.
"Better than alright."
"Don't stop."
The first time they have sex, it begins as their nightly ritual always does, with Nika reaching over 47 to turn out the light.
Usually, 47 will wait out the last of her orgasms, teasing it out to make it last for her and then settle onto his back next to her, careful not to touch her until she seeks him out.
But this time, as he's about to turn over, she manages to cup her hands around his face, stroking the angular lines of his jaw.
"Don't stop," she whispers.
He looks at her, quirking an eyebrow (he's been doing that a lot lately – she hopes Leo picks it up from him).
"Are you sure?" he actually asks her out loud this time, and she nods, more confidently this time.
As he enters her, slowly and with more restraint than she thinks a man in his position should have, she is pleasantly relieved – there is none of the pain or humiliation or shame that existed before, only the sense of him moving within her, for her, with her.
She feels him freeze, and finds his eyes on hers.
"Okay?"
She smiles, laughing in relief at her own fear that he could ever be anything like Belicoff.
Her laugh must confuse him, because he tentatively begins to pull out of her. She uses her knees to push him back towards her, and makes a mental note to start paying more attention to his butt.
"No, I'm more than okay. I'm just happy, that's all."
This seems to calm him down, and he smiles back at her. She might be imagining it, but he seems relieved.
"Okay."
And as he begins to move, she keeps her eyes on him, his face a mask of control, strained with effort. She gives him the okay to speed up, by not so subtly rocking him with her hips. If he startles for a moment, he quickly recovers, picking up the pace to match her.
This is new for both of them, she realizes. The pleasures of sex without any of the horror that they've come to know with it.
She keeps watching him until she can't anymore, her eyes rolling upwards as she falls apart against him as he slows down his motions to gently bring her back down to earth.
"Condom?" she pants out?
"I won't need it," he murmurs, strained this time.
She's slightly confused, but her rational thoughts are gone at this point.
"Let go," she whispers in his ear, using her hips to ensure his compliance.
Later, when he shudders against her, she swears she'll never forget the look on his face or the feeling of his body trusting her completely.
Afterwards, she lays her cheek against his ribcage – his breathing is no longer ragged, but the quickness of his heartbeat belies his calm exterior.
She never knew. She never knew it could be like this – tender and soft and so good for her.
"Nika."
His voice breaks the chain of thoughts in her head.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes."
He accepts her answer, but she senses another question within him. She's learned to wait for him, too, though.
After a few more seconds of silence, his buried question rises to the surface.
"Did you enjoy it?"
Oh, this man. He sounds nervous – as nervous as his stone-cold expression allows, anyway.
She doesn't think he'll take well to any false reassurance, so she answers him with her own truth.
"Yes, I've never made love before. Thank you. It was - "
She pauses, her voice catching.
"- it was something I didn't know was possible."
She stops, knowing she sounds foolish, knowing she could have just given him a simple yes.
But he keeps her arms around her, and says something unexpected.
"I didn't either."
It's the most affectionate thing he's ever outright said to her, and for some reason it makes her giddy as she burrows into him more, trying to memorize everything about this moment.
"Have you ever had any romance in your life?"
"No."
"None?"
"Not unless it was useful for a mission, but we are always careful to avoid romantic entanglements."
"Oh."
They're lying against each other, him only in his boxers and her only in his shirt. This time it was different, less slow and gentle, more frenetic and fast and fun, surprising both of them, she thinks.
"Have you?" he asks, turning his neck to look directly at her.
Had she? She was too bookish as a pre-teen to really notice the boys in her village, and she had once harbored somewhat of a crush on Nikolas, the delicate looking son of the local butcher. But romance, with actual courting and flowers and butterflies flying in the stomach – in Nika's mind, romance could have been about as real as fairies and unicorns and Santa Claus, so far was the distance from her reality.
"No, I don't think so. I don't know if this counts."
He seems to be think about the response she gives before giving his own.
"Would you want it to count?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want romance, Nika?"
She almost laughs out loud at how earnestly he says that. But she doesn't when she realizes that he is a hundred percent serious. He wants to know. Sweet man. He wants to give her what she wants.
"I don't need anything more than you want to give…"
Damnit, when did she start getting shy all of a sudden? He lays there, patiently, looking at her intently, with no expectation in his eyes.
"Yes," she sighs, "sometimes I think romance would be nice." There, she's let it out, her girlish fantasies of princes and castles.
She rushes to assure him, "but not necessary, you know? I don't need it in my life. I have everything I need."
And she means it, she really does.
"Okay."
Typical. She rambles on and on and he responds with one word.
Her husband is not one to waste words, but he is always one to take action.
Their first date is the following evening. It's too short notice for them to have old Alexei and his wife stay in the guest house to watch Leo for the night, so they improvise.
He dims the lights, cooks her dinner, plays soft jazz in the background, and pulls out her chair for her.
She's wearing a dress, fancier than her normal cotton sundresses but certainly not elegant enough for a night out at the Ritz. Even though it's her own home, she can't help but feel nervous. She doesn't know anything about dating or courtship, and she's almost positive her hitman doesn't either. She's worried about it being awkward, of them running out of conversation, of feeling silly for telling him about wanting romance.
But then he sits down across from her, and she remembers, this is her husband. The man who sat beside her bed for three days keeping vigil at the hospital, the man who sleeps less than four hours a night tending to their son so she can rest.
"This meal is wonderful – salmon is my favorite."
"I know."
Of course he would notice.
"Do you know why it's my favorite?"
That gives him pause.
"No. Why?"
And so she launches into a story of her childhood, telling him about the salmon fishers who would sometimes throw the smallest fish that wouldn't sell at her market into a rubbish bin that her and her brothers would pillage afterwards. How her mother would salvage even the worst fish and create the best meal.
He listens to every word, not saying anything. Nika's not bothered by his silence. No, how could she, when she knows that he hears her in a way nobody ever has.
Later, when he pulls out a bottle of her vineyard's first batch, she's surprised when he pours himself a glass.
"You're drinking," she says stupidly.
"Yes."
"I've never seen you drink before."
"We were trained to avoid alcohol so that we didn't lower our guard at any point."
"And now?"
"I don't think I need to keep my guard up here with you."
She has no response to this – sometimes she feels her words are so inadequate compared to his, which are so precious and infrequently gifted. And so she tells him what she's thinking, because she feels she can always do this.
"Thank you for this – I'm really enjoying this dinner."
He smiles at her – he's been doing this more often lately, and it never fails to send a warmth through her entire body.
They continue talking. Nika tells him story after story. She stops drinking after a glass because she still wants to feed Leo tonight, so he switches them over to tea. The candles burn lower, and Nika begins to feel an anticipation grow.
"So…" she begins, with as much seduction as she can muster without returning to her former façade.
And just then, a cry breaks across the baby monitor.
"Walk me up?"
And so he offers her arm and walks her up the stairs, and then before she opens the door to Leo's room, he kisses her, not unlike what she imagines the first kiss after the first date would be like.
He breaks the kiss, opens the door, and leads them in.
They venture into the real world the following week. She feels nervous, dressing up for him in a red silk dress, with matching garters underneath. As she fastens her earrings in the mirror, she can't help but admire her reflection – not a gaze out of vanity but rather a relish in her own happiness.
She looks so fucking happy.
He tells her it's a surprise, so she doesn't bother trying to pry the secret out of him (that's quite impossible). She simply asks him what the attire is for the evening and if she should make any preparations.
"Evening wear. I'll take care of everything else."
And she trusts that he will, but still, it never hurts to be prepared. Nika slips in a silky pair of underwear into her clutch.
She re-touches her lipstick and runs her fingers through her hair – there's no product in it, she wants to look as close to herself as possible for him tonight.
She hears a knock at the bedroom door. Confused, she takes one last look in the mirror at her happy reflection and turns to open the door.
Fucker.
He's there, with flowers, dressed in one of his usual Armani suits, but there's no red tie this time.
Roses. White this time, the color of friendship.
He looks at her, a strange look passing across his face, but only for a moment.
"You look lovely, Nika."
They go out to a fancy restaurant, do the dinner and dancing routine that she remembers once telling him about on their drive through the countryside.
There's a moment on the dance floor when she wonders how he knows how to waltz, but she rests her head against her shoulder, content to forgo words for now and making a note to ask him about that later (preferably when they're naked and in bed).
And just when she thinks the night is coming to a close, he helps her with her coat and asks her if she needs to use the restroom before they go.
"I can just use it at home."
"We're not going home."
"We're not?"
"No."
And so she sits in the passenger seat, lulled by his smooth driving and the remnants of a particularly expensive bottle of wine, as the car twists and weaves through dimmer and dimmer roads. They must drive for an hour, and Nika dozes on and off throughout the drive and she's not even curious after a while, just content.
When she wakes, the first sound she notices is the lapping of waves.
"You don't expect us to go swimming, do you?"
She's half teasing, but part of her doesn't see what else they could be doing at the coast.
"No."
It's then that she notices the ship.
"Is that - "
She doesn't want to assume, make him feel bad if that's not his plan for the evening, but she can't help her excitement.
"Yes. I made arrangements for Dora to look after Leo tonight. If you want to go home, though, there is still time for us to drive back."
She's never even been on a boat. She told him about that once, while they were driving to a doctor's appointment, about how her brothers and her had heard stories of lavish yachts growing up, and how not even the fishermen would let them up into their smelly boats.
He was listening, of course he was.
"No."
"Okay, I'll drive us back."
"No, I mean. I mean I don't want to go back. Dora will be fine with Leo."
"Okay. We'll still be able to call in case we want to check in."
"I know."
"The dockhand has to let us on board. Are you cold?"
She shakes her head, still stunned by the sight of the crisp white lines of the lone ship docked to the shore.
Before she knows it, he's opening her side of the door.
"We can always go home."
Poor man, he almost seems nervous.
"Let's go."
When they make it on the yacht, she is surprised that there is nobody else on board (not that she was expecting anyone else).
"How did you get this?"
"I made a call or two."
"Is it ours for the night?"
"Yes. If you like it - "
"I love it," she gushes, not wanting him to ever doubt how much she loves this.
"If you like it, then it's yours."
"For tonight?" she teases.
"For as long as you want."
"Oh."
She thinks about his statement for another moment.
"Wait. What?"
"You should have everything you want in this world, Nika."
Her stupid, stupid husband. She leans against him, breathing into his collarbone.
"I just want you. And Leo. All of us. Safe and together," she breathes as she kisses him.
He kisses her back and looks at her, eyebrow arched.
"So no yacht?"
"Oh, I'll still take the yacht."