Page 66 of Pas de Trois
His silence reminds me of the first night we kissed in my bedroom at Mikhailov Manor—the night Nikolai raped me with Ezra’s involvement. Ezra gave me silence when I needed it, allowing me quiet to process my thoughts before telling him what I was really thinking. He’s doing the same now—one of the many things I love about him—giving me pause and letting me think. It makes me feel as though my thoughts are valued…wanted.
I press up onto my elbows and he moves as I do, sitting up and sitting back on his heels. “Ezra…we have to escape.”
A neutral expression washes over his features and for the first time, I feel like I don’t really know what he’s thinking. He takes a breath, rises on his knees to pull his pants back up and buttons them, then lowers to sit back on his heels. “Do you mean it?”
I start to sit up, but it’s a little challenging with my position; even with such a small bump, my movements have begun to feel awkward and clumsy. Ezra reaches down to help me, grabbing me easily from my armpits and practically lifting me off the floor toward him. He pulls me up onto his lap where he kneels, my knees spread on either side of him. Immediately, I look down between us as I feel the evidence of our encounter drip out from between my legs, right onto the crotch of his jeans.
“I’ll leave a wet spot,” I warn him.
But he only wraps his arms around me tightly, holding me close to him. “I don’t give a fuck, Anya. Are you serious about escaping?”
I wrap one of my arms around his neck, but let the other fall between us, landing on my belly. “I’ve never thought it was possible. And I suppose I still believe that’s true.”
Hearing myself say that out loud makes me feel flutters in my belly like tiny butterfly wings that fan an anxious, urgent feeling through my body. It could be the baby moving for the first time—Doctor Lombardi said it would feel like tiny flutters at first, but likely not for several more weeks. More likely it’s a feeling of instinct.
“This probably doesn’t make any sense, but…I feel like I have to attempt the impossible. Like I’ll regret it forever if I don’t try. If we don’t try.” I lift my hand to join the other around his neck as I lean forward and place my forehead against his. “I know this baby is yours, Ezra. I just…I just know it. It has to be. I won’t accept anything else. And even if he’s not, the thought of him being raised among the four families?” I blow out a breath as the idea of it spikes anxiety and Ezra rubs my back. “It’s unthinkable.”
“It’s absolutely unthinkable.” He sighs. “Wait. You said he?”
I lift my head to look at him better. “I don’t know for sure yet. But I had a dream. I have dreams all the time actually. Nightmares. But he’s always a boy. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking because I don’t know what they’ll do if the baby is a girl.” They might kill her and probably me with her—not that I’d want to live if my baby died.
Ezra nods. “You know I’ve had dreams, too.”
My cheeks twitch, tugging a smile from my lips. “Yeah?”
“Always a boy. A little blond-haired boy with my eyes.”
My shoulders relax at that. “Always green eyes.”
“I know it doesn’t mean anything,” Ezra says. “It’s just a dream. But it feels real sometimes.”
I kiss him, just a peck at first, but it turns into a slow burning fusion of my mouth with his. We stay that way for minutes, holding each other, kissing each other, loving each other to spite all the ways we’ve been denied that privilege.
“I do mean it,” I tell him when we come to a stopping point. “I want to escape this life. I’ve been talking to Kostya.”
“Yeah?”
“I think he’s…Well, I feel like he’s on our side. And with Nikolai gone, it almost feels like I’m the only family he has left. I think he might help us if I foster a friendship with him. I have to try. I want to try.”
He seems relieved, as if he’s been waiting for me to say something, as if it would be so easy to just up and leave.
It won’t be anything resembling easy.
“Then I’ll find a way for us, baby. I will.”
“We’ll do it together. Because we’re better together?” For some reason, it comes out of me as a question.
His hands slide up from my back and he grabs hold of my face, leveling his eyes with mine. “Listen to me. You and me, together? We can do anything.”
I nod and he kisses me. Then we wrap our arms around each other tight, and he hugs me in a way that warms my soul and positively melts me.
The icy cold exterior that’s kept me shielded for all these years melts away, drop by drop, the permafrost threatening to fade away for good.
And I hope it does.
I want the tundra to become a desert.
I want to spark a fire in the dry heat, explode into flames, and burn down the four families with Ezra by my side.
