Page 97 of Scarlet Chains
My hands find the hem of her dress, and she doesn’t stop me when I lift it over her head with the care of someone unwrapping something too precious to damage. The golden light of the lamp— copied directly from the venue in Boston— paints her skin in shades of gold and amber, transforming her into something that belongs in museums rather than the shadowy world I used to inhabit.
“Here?” she asks, though her hands are already working at my shirt buttons with urgency that makes the question pointless.
“Zdes’.”Here.I set her onto the sumptuous couch that occupies the same position as its Boston counterpart. “Where it all started.”
The irony isn’t lost on either of us— the anonymous encounters once defining us led to this moment of complete recognition, complete claiming, complete surrender to something larger than either of us alone.
We strip each other bare with eager hands, anxious to strip away the barriers that keep us apart. And then, I take my time, tracing each inch of her body until I’m certain I could map out every pore of her skin. She takes her time too, nimble fingers finding places she’s come to know intimately during these past blissful months together.
When I finally sink into her, it’s with slow deliberation of someone savoring a moment they’ve waited their entire life to experience. She arches beneath me, head thrown back in abandon, and I can see pulse beating frantically at the base of her throat where my lips find their target.
“Osip,” she gasps, and the sound of my name on her lips in this space— this recreation of where we first found each other— makes something fundamental shift in my chest.
This is what completion feels like.
Perfect alignment of past and present, of memory and reality, of two souls that were always meant to find each other regardless of obstacles Fate threw in their path.
The rhythm we find is ancient and immediate, bodies remembering without prompting. Every movement is both new and familiar, charged with the depth of everything we’ve overcome to reach this moment.
When she comes apart in my arms, it’s with a cry that echoes off the burgundy walls that are a carbon copy of the room I first took her in. I follow her over the edge moments later, burying my face in the curve of her neck where her pulse beats frantically against my lips.
After, we lie tangled on the antique sofa, her head on my chest and my fingers threading through her hair in that way that’s become so familiar to me now. The room holds charged silence of secrets shared and boundaries dissolved.
“I can’t believe you recreated this place,” she murmurs against my skin, voice still breathless.
“I can’t believe you’re here.” I press a kiss to her head, inhaling scent that’s become synonymous with home. “After everything that should have kept us apart.”
She lifts her head to study my face, those expressive eyes searching for something she apparently finds because her smile takes on a quality that makes my breath catch.
“Speaking of things that should be impossible…” she begins, and there’s something in her tone that makes every instinct sharpen to attention.
“Chto?”What?
Her smile grows wider, touched with mischief that usually precedes announcements changing everything. “I have something to tell you.”
The words send a bolt of something that might be panic through my chest. “If you’re having second thoughts about the restaurant—”
“Not about the restaurant.” She silences me with a finger against my lips, eyes sparkling with barely contained excitement. “About us. About our family.”
Family.
The word always stops me heart, even after all these months, bringing memories of loss and dreams I thought died with Galina. But there’s something in Ilona’s expression that makes hope unfurl in places I’d thought permanently scarred.
“Ilona…” I start, but she’s already moving, shifting position so she can look directly into my eyes.
“I’m pregnant, Osip. Again.”
The words are simple and earth-shattering and completely impossible based on everything I know about her medical history. For a moment, I can’t process what she’s said— information bounces off my consciousness like bullets off steel.
“That’s not possible,” I whisper, though even as I say it, I can see truth shining in her eyes like captured starlight.
“That’s what I thought too.” Her hand finds mine, guiding it to rest against her stomach where something miraculous and impossible is apparently taking root. “But Dr. Patel confirmed it yesterday morning, before the wedding. The endometriosis surgery, combined with stress reduction from… well, from everything being resolved… it created conditions my body had never experienced.”
My hand spreads against her abdomen, fingers trembling with enormity of what she’s telling me. Inside her, something that’s part of both of us is growing, defying medical odds andcreating the kind of future I’d forced myself to stop dreaming about.
I’m going to be a father… again.
My family is growing.
