a/n: Thank you so much for reading and reviewing last chapter! :)
As you've probably figured out, the parts that are in italics are flashbacks. I hope you enjoy this installment.
"Dance with me," Dimitri said softly, extending his hand toward Rose as he stood up from his living room couch. She groaned even as she grasped his hand, and with a solid tug, Dimitri had her on her feet.
"You're just trying to pacify me," Rose said with a pout that was entirely too tempting.
"If I was trying to pacify you, Roza, my lips would be on yours," he teased huskily. But the truth was-enough was enough. He'd reached his restraint capacity for the night.
"Then you're trying to find a way to keep things PG," she complained as his hands came to rest on her back, pulling her closer to him.
"Yes," he agreed, dropping a kiss on her forehead. "And you're making it nearly impossible."
He watched as Rose took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Dimitri, please," she begged in a whisper.
"No," he said with much more conviction than he felt.
"But I want you," she insisted stubbornly.
A grin tugged at the corner of his lips. That was his Roza-always stubborn. "And I want you," he said with a squeeze. "And when you're eighteen-"
"But that's more than six months away!" she exclaimed as she stepped back. To glare up at him, apparently. "I'll never be able to wait that long! Dimitri, it's already been ten weeks," she said shrilly.
"Roza-"
"No!" she said, shaking her head violently. "You don't understand. I ache...in places I didn't even know existed. Do you know what that's like?"
"Yes," Dimitri said wryly. "I know what that's like."
"Then why are we doing this to ourselves?" Rose demanded. "I want to feel you, Dimitri," she said as she closed the distance between them. She rose to her tiptoes and circled her arms around his neck, making her body flush with his. "Inside of me," she finished in a whisper. She buried her face in the curve that went from his neck to his shoulder and ran the tip of her nose back and forth over his flesh.
"Roza," Dimitri said in a scolding tone as he gave her a half-hearted push away.
It gave Rose just enough room to reach between them and open the top button of his shirt. He noticed her hands shaking, but her anticipation must have been enough to spur her on. She leaned forward and placed a kiss in the center of his chest; Dimitri nearly jumped back. Every time they kissed, it was electric, but he'd never imagined her lips would do the same thing to the rest of his body.
She stroked his chest, her hand reaching around to his lower back and pulled him closer to her. She lifted her lips to his, and he was powerless. After ten weeks with her, he could no longer hold back. He knew he should have, but he couldn't.
He'd been unable to resist her that night, and the ones that followed. It would have been impossible to turn her away once he'd been with her.
Rose was surprised when she glanced at her watch and realized her flight had landed more than forty minutes early. But that was a good thing; she'd had a lot of time to think on the plane and then the four hour layover. She didn't want to see her mother quite yet, and after a quick call to one of Lissa's 'people' in Los Angeles asking them to call her mother and let her know that her flight had been delayed, she'd gained a bit of time.
Her mind was still whirling. She'd spent the last four years trying to pretend that she'd never been pregnant, that she hadn't given birth to a baby girl and then buried her. It was easier to pretend it never happened than to relive the grief every time she remembered it had. Maybe a bigger person, a stronger person, could have done it. But after losing Dimitri, and then their daughter, Rose hadn't had it in her.
But it was a lie...all of it.
All this time, she'd been a mother. She just hadn't known. But her mother had...and her father. And apparently the midwife who'd helped her to deliver. Rose scowled. She wondered how much money it had taken to keep the woman quiet. Did the woman regret what she'd done...lying to a seventeen year old girl about her daughter dying? Rose hoped she did...that she couldn't sleep at night because she was haunted by what she'd done. But she doubted it. The woman had probably never even given her a second thought.
And I shouldn't be giving her one, Rose thought angrily.
She glanced down at her phone and scrolled through her most recent calls. After finding the number she'd called just before boarding her flight, she hit redial.
Dimitri had just finished loading the dishwasher when there was a knock on his front door. He lifted the dish towel and was wiping his hands as he made his way to the door when the knocking came again. It was more persistent this time.
"I'm coming," he barked. When he reached the door, he hauled it open with a scowl that made his students shake in their boots. It immediately disappeared. "Roza," he said in a low voice.
"Hi, Dimitri," she said in a voice so small it instantly let him know something wasn't right.
"Are you OK?" he asked softly.
To his shock, the young woman before him who had always been so strong crumbled. Her chin fell to her chest and she began to sob. The dish towel he'd been holding fell to the floor and he stepped forward, taking her in his arms.