“"I have been too busy. I wasn’t avoiding you.”
“If you’re going to lie, at least look me in the eyes while doing that, will you?” He sounded amused.
“Alright. There was nothing to talk about. Mr. Odin makes sure any problem concerning the kids is solved.” Shifting uncomfortably in his arms, her eyes darted to the door behind him with longing.
“What about the problem between us?”
“Mr. Raskin—”
He kissed her. Gently. Passionately. Intensely. His lips molded with her perfectly, licking and tasting hers so thoroughly that a moan tore through Anarieveta’s throat. Her body flared alive once his lips tasted hers. Every part of her that had been asleep for the past five years roared wide awake.
For a moment, she felt sheer panic. Tearing her lips away, she tried to get away from him. “No, please...” She didn’t want to be that person ever again—that needy, slutty person she was five years ago. That whore.
“Ana...dearling.” His lips searched for hers and found it again.
Anarieveta tried to keep her head, but her body had different thoughts. It was burning for him. With a moan of surrender, she kissed him back. Wrapping her arms around his neck, their lips danced together, tasting each other, licking each other. Devouring each other.
Finally, what seemed like an eternity later, Gedony broke the kiss. Foreheads pressed together, they breathed harshly, trying to catch their breaths.
“Heavens,” Gedony let out in a whisper. Twenty-four years had no hold on his feelings for this woman. It turns out that all those times he hated her, his feelings didn’t abate. They only went to sleep. Now, they’re wide awake.
“I hated you,” he blurted out, his breath harsh.
Anarieveta stiffened slightly, her eyes turning sad. “I deserved that. You’re supposed to.”
With a step back, he severed all contact with her. “That night, thirteen years ago...” Paused. “When you ran out of Yeaha’s chambers, your hands covered in blood and bawling your eyes out, I knew instantly that something was wrong. I had no chance to be happy that I saw you again after eleven years. I had no chance to rejoice about seeing you after worrying myself sick every day about your life in slavery.”
Anarieveta lowered her eyes to hide the age-old overriding pain and guilt. She knew this day would come one day. As she ran out of Yeaha’s chambers thirteen years ago and bumped into Gedoni Raskin, she knew that this confrontation would come one day, and she wasn’t wrong. Tonight is the reckoning.
He continued. “I had none of those chances because you were covered in blood. I knew instinctively that the blood didn’t belong to you. When I ran into the bed chambers and saw Yeaha covered in blood, dying, I knew what you did.”
“Why didn’t you have the household guards catch me?” she asked the question that had bothered her every single day for the past fourteen years. “They could have caught me if they chased. I wasn’t far...”
His eyes found hers. “Because I knew you were sent by King Cone. It was his doing. He was the perpetrator.”
“He was, but I was the murderer. He ordered, I killed.” The pool of sadness in her heart was too heavy; eyes filled with pain and remorse held Gedony’s. “I killed your wife. I killed Mistress Yeaha, and I will forever be sorry about that. I am so sorry...so sorry. I know my apologies will never be enough, and I understand if you want to punish me…”
“You didn’t kill my wife, Anarieveta.”
The words, softly let out, were like a nuclear bomb to her ears, successfully cutting her off mid-sentence.
She looked at him with confused eyes. “Wh-what? What do you mean?”
Gedony Raskin took a deep breath then. “Our medicine men were able to save Yeaha’s life. Her survival was kept a secret so that King Cone would not target her again,” he confessed. “Yeaha died a year later from a heart attack. And yes, she forgave you after she was treated because she knew it was King Cone, and you were just a slave following commands...trying to survive.”
“Sh-she didn’t hate me?” Tears filled her eyes as she tried to process everything he was saying. She didn’t kill Yeaha Raskin. Yeaha Raskin did not die by her hands. “She f-forgave me?” The words were a whisper.
Gedony nodded firmly. “None of us held any grudge, so I think it’s time you let that guilt fall away. It’s time you forgive yourself for that too. It was one of the reasons I’ve been trying to get a private moment with you for the past two years. You didn’t kill my late wife, and she never hated you.”
Anarieveta began weeping then. Gedony Raskin pulled her into his arms and let her cry. She let it all out for so long, no one knew how much time had passed.
What seemed like forever later, she raised her head from his shoulders and apologized for wetting his clothes. He waved her off, got her some cloth, and walked her to a chair. Anarieveta wiped her tears and blew her nose before putting the cloth away. She was seated beside him on the big leather sofa covered with expensive fur.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Raskin. I needed this.” She felt lighter, relieved, and better, knowing she wasn’t Yeaha’s murderer.
He nodded again, his eyes scrutinizing her red face carefully.
“But you said you hated me,” she remembered sadly. “You never forgave me, did you?”
“Oh, I did. I hated you not because of that incident but because you became the king’s mistress,” he revealed with a lift of his shoulder.
“Oh.” Anarieveta had nothing to say to that, but it was more relieving knowing that Gedony forgave her for what happened.
“Yeah,” Gedony Raskin remembered all those years he hated her. She became the king’s property—so out of reach. And it wasn’t exactly a secret how much she loved King Lucien—he heard the scores over the years.
He was man enough to admit to himself that he was jealous all those years because he wanted Anarieveta to be his, just like she was once upon a time. But he always consoled himself with the truth: Anarieveta belonged to him first. She loved him first. He was her first in everything.
“It’s getting very late. The road will soon become dangerous. Shouldn’t you be going?” That kiss had opened her up. Her feelings were all over the place, and she needed some time alone in the lonely world that had become hers.
“Nope, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine,” he responded adamantly. Instead, he stretched out on the couch. “But I’m famished.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Oraine will make you something good to eat when you get home.”
“But I don’t want to eat her food, unfortunately, but yours.” A dreamy look crossed his strong features. “I miss your omelets. I want to eat them again.”
Anarieveta’s heart skipped. He still remembered the omelets she made him all those years ago?
“It has been ages since I made them. I’m sure I wouldn’t remember how to get around making it again after all these years.”
“You didn’t make them for any other person? You didn’t make them for...King Lucien?” Somehow, he needed to know—the answer mattered to him.
“No,” she shook her head. “You were the last. The first, too.”
Satisfaction coursed through him. “I know. I was the first indeed.”
Anarieveta had the feeling that he wasn’t only referring to omelets now, and her cheeks heated, which surprised her.
She never blushed. She hadn’t blushed since King Cone tortured the innocence out of her.
Who would have thought that Gedony could evoke such a reaction from her again after all these years?
Gedony grinned delightfully and in satisfaction when he saw her face change. Obviously, she got his pun. He was happy. He needed that answer because all the memories of eating her delicious omelets were ones he cherished a lot. It mattered that he was the only man she had ever made it for.
“I want to eat them again,” he requested.
“Okay, but I’m not promising perfection,” she agreed, defeated.
Several hours later, Anarieveta admitted to herself that she was happy again for the first time in a long time. Genuinely, womanly happy.
He was right there in the kitchen with her when she was making omelets, and he found every reason to make her laugh. At first, it was difficult—she didn’t really have a lot to smile about. But he was always making jokes. And when jokes weren’t working much, he told her stories about his children when they were younger. The stories were so funny, they made her smile. Smile so hard. Laugh. It didn’t take long before she was laughing out loud as he told her tales elaborately.
They ate together. Went out on a walk together. When they got back, they sat in the wooden chairs in the backyard, talking with each other.
It was beautiful. It made Anarieveta so happy.
Gedony hadn’t changed in the past twenty-four years. He grew in age, maturity, and accomplishments, but he was still the same funny, witty, carefree, caring, compassionate man he always was to the people he cared about. Did it mean he still cared for her?
By the time they walked back into the house, it was almost midnight. They were holding hands. None of them wanted to let go of the other’s hand, not even Anarieveta.
Then they were kissing. Fire licked underneath her skin as her arms wrapped around his neck while he ravished her mouth. This time around, it was not a soft, tender kiss but one filled with hunger and passion. He lifted her, and she pointed him through the short routes to her bedroom.
They undressed in quick motions in between kissing and touching each other. Oh yeah, Gedony Raskin did grow and mature better over the years, Anarieveta thought when her eyes caught his naked form completely. His perfect naked physical form made her suddenly anxious and insecure about hers because she had scars in most places on her body.
After she'd made her school a success, she'd used a lot of money on herbs and treatments, which minimized and cleared some of the scars on her body. But some of them still remained.
However, Gedony wouldn't have any of that. He undressed her completely while telling her verbally how beautiful she is. And she was indeed very beautiful to him. He saw scars, of course, but he also saw toned skin, voluptuous and so beautiful she took his breath away, just like she did twenty-four years ago. She was barely a woman the first time they were together, but now, she is all woman. And all beautiful. He told her so.
Anarieveta was able to let go of all the insecurities when she saw the sincerity and stark desire in his eyes. Their lips merged again. They laid down on the bed, he came up above her. Her knees clasped Gedony's narrow waist, his hands on her, his mouth on her, demanding more. She whimpered deep in her throat.
“Hurry up,” she moaned, her entire being on fire.
But instead, he went slower. Kissing all over her body. Suckling her breasts. Touching her intimate parts that are all liquid with desire for him. He took his time giving her the one thing she had never got from any other man. Not from King Lucien, not from men when she was a 'whore slave.'
Foreplay.
He took his time licking and touching all over her body with such expertise that left her crying with emotions and sobbing for more. When she couldn't take it anymore, she begged him to come inside her.
“Please. Gedony, I want y-you inside me,” she pleaded, her body stretched with so much desire she's literally burning.
He penetrated her to the hilt then. No more preliminaries, no easing—just pure, primitive possession. He instantly moved in and out. Strong fingers dug into her hips, moving her to meet his thrusts.
Good heavens. What was she feeling? Her body wet and willing, she fought to adjust to his penetration...it had been so long for her. Her breath catching painfully in her throat as he plundered to unexplored depths.
The orgasm had a life of its own, mercilessly, fiercely bearing down on her and ripping through her entire system. His name filled her head and then there was silence around them when she cried out and stars exploded behind her eyes.
Still, he thrust. “You okay, dearlin’?” His voice rumbled to a tone deep enough to echo along with her every nerve ending.
“Yes.” She pushed up into the hard planes of his amazing body. “Do it again.” Never did she know that such pleasure as this existed.
With King Lucien, there was no foreplay. He never loved her that way, and she was always trying to please him. Always trying to manipulate him to belong to her.
But here, there was no trying to please or manipulate, but pure, unadulterated pleasure from a man that cared for her. It was a new exhilarating experience.
"Do it again," she whispered against his neck.
He may have chuckled, tightening his hold, somehow increasing his speed. She could do nothing but hold on for dear life, her legs wrapped around his solid hips. A painfully sharp desire washed through her again.
The wide girth of him filled her to the point of pain, his mouth hot on her neck. She had no control over the pace or her own body as the next orgasm slammed as suddenly as the first.
She bit into the hard flesh of his chest as she rode out the waves. She wouldn't have missed this for the world.
Gedony's teeth penetrated his flesh. When the waves stopped tearing through her, he reared up and flipped her over onto her hands and knees, pumping his hips the entire time. His thrusts increased in speed and strength, and her last image of his strong face burned into her memory—the sharp angles set into brutal lines of desire, his thick, dark hair wild around his shoulders.
She gasped as he pushed her shoulders to the bed, one hand moving up to tangle in her hair, the other clenching her hip as he rode her. Burying her face in the soft quilt, she sobbed his name. “Ge-doooo-niii!”
A stirring started deep within. It spiraled out into a sensation that stole any breath she might have kept. It strengthened to a pinpoint sharpness. She teetered on a fine edge, fighting against falling over, fighting against the unknown, when, with a fierce twist of his hips, he forced her over.
She gave a sharp, keening cry as her pleasure spiraled higher and hotter until her world exploded. She could only open her mouth in a silent scream. Intense waves of ecstasy rippled through her.
She came down with a whimper, her eyes shut tight, her body slowly relaxing. He continued to pump in and out. His roar filled her head when a nearly painful release tore through him, echoing throughout her own body, her emotional shields in tatters.
She was sated and filled with exhaustion.
Gedony Raskin watched Anarieveta sleep. Her face was so relaxed and beautiful, her eyelash shielding her brown eyes.
They had been separated so many times in the past by forces he couldn't control.
His marriage.
Her slavery.
Her mission by the late King Cone.
Her status as the king's mistress.
Her love for the king of Avalon.
But they are all in the past. She had been avoiding him, and he had no idea if it was because she still had strong feelings for the king, or she had no feelings for him at all anymore, or because she did not want her orderly life disrupted.
Whatever it was, he was not letting her go. Never again.
Anarieveta belonged to him first. She loved him first. She cared for him first. He was her first. In almost everything.
If she could love him before, she could love him again. He would do his best to make sure it happens. He would do his best to make her happy too. He wants her back. He wants to spend the rest of his life with her.
Gedony knew for a fact that she loved Merrily and Aiden very much, and his kids loved her back—she's basically all they talked about for the past two years.
Oh yeah, he wanted this woman in his life again—this time, not as a slave, but as his wife.
If she would let him.
.