Page 138 of White Wolf
Through the haze of arousal, she managed to look doubtful.
He touched her again, teased her where they were joined, and she moaned, just a quiet little throaty sound that pushed everything else from his mind.
She leaned down and kissed him. Warm and wet. A little sloppy as she started to move again, and he lifted his hips to meet her.
He pressed his thumbs into the little hollows above her hipbones and she arched into him, gasping into the kiss. Her breasts soft and heavy where they pressed into his chest.
Sweet torture, and then the release.
Nikita closed his eyes and wrapped both arms around her when he came, panted against her throat. He wanted that brief, blissful moment to last an eternity.
But good things didn’t last, and soon she was sliding off his lap with a regretful sigh and settling in at his side. She pressed her hand over his still-thundering heart, her breath tickling at his armpit.
With his free hand he fumbled two cigarettes from the packet he’d left within easy reach on the bed and lit them both together before he handed her one.
“Hey, Nik,” she said after a moment, voice sex-drowsy.
“Hmm?”
“Do you ever think about after?”
“After?”
“After the war.” Her voice turned wistful. “If there is an after.”
He hadn’t thought about it, because his life had been nothing but a war strategy up to this point. It still was, but now there was a warm and beautiful woman leaning against him, and she was wondering what would come next. And suddenly, hewantedthere to be an after. So much it hurt.
A knock sounded at the door, and they both sighed in unison.
“Nik.” Feliks’s voice floated through the door. “Rasputin wants to get out of bed.”
~*~
For the first week, Rasputin had looked like an animated corpse. But now, almost four weeks later, he looked disconcertingly alive. Hewasalive, Katya amended. The boogeyman from every childhood ghost story, and here he sat on the side of the bed, holding onto Philippe’s shoulder for support, black brows drawn together in concentration.
His voice was stronger, no longer full of dirt and sleep. “Sasha, my wolf child,” he said, and Sasha moved to his other side and took the weight of his hand on his shoulder.
Katya was surprised. So far, Sasha had avoided him altogether, recoiling from the mere mention of the strarets. But now he put a supportive hand on the man’s waist and helped Philippe hoist him upright.
She shared a quick glance with Nikita, who looked troubled.
It took Rasputin a long moment to get his feet under him, but then he grinned, triumphant. “Standing!” he exclaimed, as if it was a magic trick. When you’d been in the ground for that long, she guessed it was, in a way. He laughed. “Oh, I never thought I would…” Tears filled his eyes and he blinked them away, a few escaping down his cheeks. “Thank you, Friend Philippe. Thank you, Sasha.” He looked at them both in turn, grinning and crying. “You’ve saved me.”
Sasha stared at the floor, expressionless.
They took thestaretsa few turns around the room, and then helped him back to bed. A lab assistant brought lunch, and a mug of steaming red liquid. Sasha blinked a few times as Rasputin raised the cup to his lips, then shook his head, and ducked out of the room.
Katya followed him, and finally caught up with him on the first landing of the stairwell.
“Sasha, wait,” she called, out of breath from trying to keep up with him.
He waited, turning to face her slowly, looking more than a little dazed.
Her pulse kicked up another notch. When she reached him, and put a hand over his on the rail, she found his skin cool and clammy.
“Sasha, what’s wrong?”
He frowned into the middle distance a moment, gaze remote, then blinked, like he had in the room. When his eyes lifted, she saw the first stirrings of panic in them. “I think…Everything got all fuzzy. Like I’m drunk. Or not there. Or.” He wet his lips and sucked in a deep breath. “I think he’s getting to me.”
