Dmitry's Closet (9 page)

     Royal sat on the side of the bed for a moment, as still as could be in a daze. Her mind began to drift again, back to Dmitry. It had been so thoughtful to put on such a grand affair for her. However, she was pained by his unexpected interruption. And she was even more pained by his return.

     With Dmitry, she could never tell what was next. He was a
spur of the moment
type of man, something that was not always a good thing. What bothered her more was her growing connection to him. Was it possible that she was the only one who felt the strong, red emotions? Were all the smiles, kisses and compliments simply kind gestures of a seasoned man who felt sympathy for an underprivileged youth? Had she romanticized their friendship into something more because of her lack of intimate relationships? Her questions were endless.

     Blinking fast to push back the tears, she thought about the work that was still left to do and grabbed her notepad off the nightstand. There were other things to occupy her time with besides sulking. Things that had to be done. Feeling sorry for herself would do her no good. Dmitry was probably having drinks with his real friends at that very moment—not thinking about her.

     To change her dismal mood, she would make herself a cup of hot tea, sit in front of the fireplace in the living room and tweak her marketing plan.

     The thought comforted her. Work. It was the one thing that she could depend on to numb her senses and to remind her that there were things more important than silly, overrated emotions, like not starving to death or having a place to stay.

     Remembering what it felt like for her stomach to growl with no end, to have stomach cramps due to lack of food snapped her out of her thoughts of Dmitry. Grateful for evident and more importantly current blessings, she got up and headed to the kitchen.

     As she entered out of her bedroom, she looked across the large living room in its darkness to see Dmitry quietly sitting by the fireplace on the couch sipping out of a crystal goblet with his long legs crossed. He stared into the fire. Thinking. Brooding. Stunned, she stopped in her footsteps. Her heart pounded in her chest. She caught her fleeting breath and cleared her voice.

     "Dmitry?" she whispered softly.

     "Royal." He looked up from his glass but didn't move. His eyes focused on her.

     "What are you doing here?" she asked.

     Dmitry chose his words carefully, visibly fighting with himself over what to say.

     "Remember in restaurant, I said that I would see you later. Well, it's
later,"
he said, putting down his glass.

     "Yeah, it is," she looked over at the clock. A quarter past midnight.

     He followed her gaze to the grandfather clock and sighed.

     "Sorry to come so late. It couldn't be helped."

     "What was so urgent that you had to come tonight?"

     "Don't you already know?"

     "If I did, would I ask?"

     There was complete silence. The fireplace crackled.

     "You know that you have money to burn when you have the air on and fireplace," he said, redirecting his sudden discomfort. "It is just like you, you know. To have two forces working in the same room at the same time to satisfy you, and you never even notice." A smile crept across his face as he looked over at the fire.

     "Did you come over to tell me to turn off my fireplace?" Royal snapped.

     "No." Dmitry looked over at her and sighed. "I know that messed up with you tonight. And I wanted to come to you before it was too late to mend." He smirked. "Tonight was supposed to be special. I wanted to talk to you about us now that shop is out of the way."

     "Us?" Royal's voice was barely above a whisper.

    
"Dah,
I want there to be an
us.
You can't tell me you don't know how I feel about you. Everyone knows. It's grown to be too difficult for me to hide."

     Royal bit her lip. So he did care. She was relieved, even without clarification.

     "I know how I feel about you, but I'm clueless about how you feel about me," she confessed, voice quivering. "I haven't had much training in this. So, I'm really confused. I don't know if you give me all this stuff and all this attention because you think of me as your pet or if you really like me or if you really, really like me."

     The darkness cloaked her face and the range of emotion that flashed over it, but Dmitry could detect her guard down without visibly seeing it. He stood up and walked over to her, towering over her. Taking her chin under his finger, he lifted her head where he could see her face under the moonlight shining in through the blinds.

     "Royal, I don't like you. I love you. There is big difference between the two."

     She looked up, tears in her eyes. Swallowing hard, she tried to control her beating heart. Dmitry's words sounded like an angel playing his harp.

     "Do you know how impossible that is to believe," she asked, blinking fast to push back her salty calamity.

     Dmitry was confused. Why would she not believe him? What had he done? Were the gifts and attention not a reflection of his growing admiration? He tried to simplify his thoughts, focusing on the primaries of their relationship.

     "Why is it so impossible for me to love a woman who is so innocent, so beautiful?"

     "Because I have nothing to offer you. And the one thing that I do have, I'm so damned reluctant to give up... even though I want to." She made sure to clarify her desire. "Men like you are hard to read, Dmitry. You've said it yourself. I don't want to sound like I don't have self esteem, but it's pretty hard to battle my shortcomings when everything comes up
short
against you."

     Dmitry was shocked and humbled.

     "But you are worth more than all of my possessions. I will trade everything for you. I mean, don't you love me even just little bit?" He had to know. His voice ached.

     "It would be impossible not to love you, Dmitry."

     "Oh... because of my money."

     "No," Royal shook her head adamantly. "Not at all. It's because you make me feel... special, like I'm the only woman in the room. No one has ever made me feel like that."

     "You
are
the only woman in the room." He spoke softly. "Do you love me?" He wanted to hear her say it again. "Yes, I love you," she confessed with tears in her eyes.

     Dmitry smiled like a new born seeing his mother for the first time. His suspicions had been correct. His timing was not off. It had been hard to come to her for fear of possible rejection and how it would affect their working relationship, but she had made is easier for him now. She loved him.

     "Would it be absurd to see yourself dating a man like me? I mean, I know I am older than you, nearly old enough in some countries to be your father, but."

     "It wouldn't be absurd. I'm just not fully sure what type of man you are, Dmitry?"

     Dmitry's eye twitched as if the answer was far too complex to explain, even to her.

     She shifted her weight to one side and put her hand on her hip. As she took a deep breath, Dmitry watched the swell of her breasts under her robe. In the sudden outpour of emotion, she had forgotten that she was naked with the exception of a small slip of silk fabric, but he had not.

     "I want you so bad it hurts," he whispered running his fingers over her collarbone. He watched her breaths quicken. She looked up at him wantonly, lips formed for a kiss. He could not resist her or the throbbing below controlling him, pushing him to have her. His fingers caressed her soft silk. Pulling her to him, he leaned down and grabbed her by the waist. He picked her firm, voluptuous body up in his arms and held her at eye level.

     She smiled at him.

     "So you've broken in my house; we've confessed that we love each other; you've picked me up; I guess I know what's next."

     "Umm... are you afraid?" he asked, carrying her to her bedroom.

     "Yes," she nodded. She wasn't expecting for him to ask for her now. His sudden assumption, however, prevented her from backing down. In fact, she wanted to make love to him. That in itself was a foreign emotion to her. She had never desired someone the way that she desired him.

     "Don't be afraid. I make sure that you enjoy."

     Dmitry had never seen her hair down before and enjoyed very much how naturally beautiful she was. Smelling of vanilla extract, its mass fell down her back and around her shoulders in an inky, full mane. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulders while he carried her. The trip was short.

     The candles had created a beautiful aroma of sandal-wood and jasmine and the large bedroom casted a romantic glow over Royal's body.

     "Are you sure that you didn't know that I was coming?" he asked amused.

     "This wasn't for you."

     "It is now."

     Dmitry sat her down on the bed carefully, marveling at the contrast of her dark skin and the monochromatic comforter. His liquid eyes looked almost silver in the dark; they barely blinked. Taking off his suit jacket, he kept his gaze on her. She lay in bed waiting for him, still covered by the silk robe, clinging to it nervously. Watching his every move, her eyes became bigger as he approached. Clothes still on, he crawled in between her long, shapely brown legs and rested his elbows beside her.

     "This is our first kiss," she said, voice quivering.

     "Umm... among other things." He raised his brow at her.

     Slowly, Royal lifted her head as she felt Dmitry's massive arms swaddling her like a blanket. She rested back in his hands and wrapped her arms around his neck. Like when they first met, they caught each other in a mesmerizing gaze—happy to have finally arrived at this moment.

     Still smiling, Dmitry dipped his head and carefully, slowly kissed the fullness of Royal's sweet lips. He met her wet mouth with a gentle greeting, tasting of wine and chocolate. She barely responded at first, but the more she smelled his cologne and felt his hard body between her thighs, the more her lips parted and her own body came alive.

     They wrapped themselves in a passionate embrace, synchronizing their kiss to move with the ebb and flow of the moment. Angelic. Erotic. Beautiful. She felt herself drifting away in a sweet euphoria of her own. Kissing him was like floating, like the first high of some dangerous and illicit drug. The inviting shape of his full pink lips drew her in more, and she moved past the initial shock of being there with him and began to kiss him deeper, stronger.

     He moaned a little as she opened up, exciting him more by the moment.

     Inhaling his cologne as he ran his hand down her stomach, she felt the robe open. His hands brushed against her hot skin causing her to gasp. A new tingling sensation ran through her.

     He caught her lips and kissed them again, releasing her only to push closer to her body. Her long thin fingers glided through his fragrant hair as she tasted his kiss, curling her fingers in his large blonde tendrils. It felt like cotton.

     "We'll go very slowly," Dmitry whispered, cupping her breasts in his large hands.

     Royal eyes opened wide. Excitement and urgency mixed like a strange medicine in her blood. Her heart raced, beating against his own like a drum.

     "Wait," she stopped. Planting her elbows in the bed, she glared up at him.

     Dmitry stopped and sat up. His eyes focused in on her, their diamond prisms flickering in the darkness.

     Royal took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She swallowed hard.

     "I... need a minute," she panted, pulling her long tendrils from her face.

     Moving from in between her legs, Dmitry ran his hands through his own hair, trying to calm the beast that had been nearly released in him. "Okay, baby," he said, allowing her to crawl out of the bed.

     "Just a minute," she said, lifting her index finger. "I'll be right back."

     "Alright," Dmitry said, watching her run into her bathroom and close the door behind her.

     Leaning against the wall, Royal looked at herself in the mirror. She wiped his kiss from her mouth and went to the sink. Running water over her face, she tried to stop her shaking hands. She was in complete shock. Peering at her reflection, she took the towel and wiped her face. Her cheeks were fire red.

     The weight of her actions consumed her. Twenty-three years of waiting and here she was about to do
it.
Her heart started to race again. The sound clearly audible through her chest.
Twenty-three years.

     God, please let me be making the right decision, she prayed silently. I hold on to it for twenty-three years, but I meet this guy and in less than three months it's thrown all away because of some diamonds and money.

     She berated herself, but inwardly she knew that he had given her much more than material gain. He had given her true and utter happiness.

     What if I do it wrong, she continued as she grabbed her toothbrush. What if I'm just horrible at this? She opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed her toothpaste and deodorant.

     The climate was much different outside of the bathroom. Dmitry sat back on her pillows with his hands behind his head listening to her rattle through the cabinets and the water running. He yawned and pulled himself out of the bed.

     Pealing out of his clothes one slow layer at a time, he watched the door, waiting for her to finish her unneeded beauty regiment. Once he had pulled the covers back and put his clothes on her dresser, he heard the racket stop.

     The door slowly opened, illuminating the bedroom as she walked back out. She stopped at the entryway with the robe tightly tied around her waist. Perfume floated out and tickled his nose.

     Dmitry sighed when he saw her. She was absolutely breath taking. Her long hair was pulled up in a pony tail. Her caramel-colored skin while only slightly revealed, glowed in the darkness.