Chapter 9: A Question Unanswered
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"Sasha"I shivered when his lips freed mine." I'm freezing. Mink or no mink, I'm cold. It's late and Russavini will be looking out for me."
"Surely not when you are with me?"
"She is coming to the states in the fall. She is the coach of the current Olympic champions. I'm a pairs skater with no partner and no coach. It might be a good idea to impress her?"
"Ahh, then we shall return, for while I could warm you and delight in it, I cannot help with Russavini." He held my fingers, and then leaned to kiss them.
"I earn my own way."
"I know." he said as he laid a last kiss on my open palm." We go."
It was a quiet ride. The quality of silence was much different. He smiled to himself often and I was too confused at my warring body and mind to talk. I'm glad that I didn't have to. I waded in that great lake of confusion as he escorted me to the outer door of the suite. He stood close behind me as I dug for the key, leaning in to place a soft kiss on the nape of my neck. My breath just whooshed out and I stopped moving.
"Sasha,"I growled,"If you do that I'll never find the key."
I opened the door. He stepped in right behind me. He tried to encircle me with his arms, but I dumped the heavy mink coat on him. I crossed to sit in one of the chairs while he gravely hung the coat up. He came resolutely to the front of the chair. He couldn't possibly sit next to me. I was not going to let him get anywhere near me. It was too intoxicating and it made thinking impossible. I needed to think. He took my hand and with one firm tug, pulled me up to standing. I could feel his hip tight against mine and his arm across my waist and his hand on my backside. He would have let me go if I struggled, but I didn't. I was surprised at the strength in his embrace.
He touched my cheek with his other hand. I was intensely aware of the bareness of my skin. This dress left little to the imagination. His touch whispered across my cheek, down the side of my neck to the hollow of my throat, across the line of my collar bone, over the tip of my shoulder where I lost track of it. His lips covered mine: insistent, passionate and exhilarating. His fingers raked across my back, my own fisted in a death grip on the lapels of his tail coat.
Russavini's voice.
"It is late child, send him on his way."
"Sasha,"I pushed him away and then again more strongly when he did not budge." Sasha, you must go." I showed him the door and almost pushed him through it. I made to shut it behind him but he had turned,
"You never said... "
I shut it in his face.
As I leaned against the door to catch my breath, I heard his deep voice softly...
"... if you loved me. Yelena, do you love me?"
His answer was the click of the lock. I escaped to the bedroom, if such a thing could be called an escape. I could not get him out of my mind. Surely he had claimed to love at least some of those other girls? I wanted to love him... or at least I wanted to believe that I could love him... or that he could possibly love me... or... or. It was a long night. The dawn was cold light before I fell asleep.
Text Copyright © 1998-2003 Mary E. Tyler
