Chapter Twelve

Well, the whole studying vs writing thing has obviously become a factor in how quick I'm posting... told you it would happen!!

A little tune to go along with this chapter... guess this could be a song from Lana's point of view, but it could easily be from Alex's too. Take your pick!

Ch. 12

I found it slightly easier to get up the steps and to the front door this time around.  The only thing I was carrying was a bag of oranges and a pineapple.  Alex texted me a few minutes after hanging up to let me know that he didn’t have any OJ and asked if I could stop and pick some up.  I remembered seeing a juice machine in his cabinets when I had dug for the trays the other week, so I decided fresh juice would be perfect with whatever he was planning on making.

I rang the doorbell and soon it swung open.  Alex was standing there in just a towel wrapped around his waist, allowing his nicely toned torso to take center stage for my eyes.  He wasn’t grossly chiseled like a body builder, but he obviously worked out and had definition around muscles I was sure I never learned about in my Health classes.  A gold cross, and two #8’s with a slightly gaudy chain, hung from his neck.  His stick straight, yet unruly hair was sticking out all over the place, obviously damp from his shower.  To finish off the site was his missing tooth grin.  Probably someone, somewhere, was going to call for my head to be examined, but I would be the first to admit that I found him roguishly handsome and the smile added to the endearment of him.

“Don’t you know it’s not really kosher to answer the door in just a towel?” I chirped, making sure I kept my eyes focused on his, especially I was feeling the undeniable temptation to stare at his waist where those faint indent lines were calling my attention.

“I thought it would be more appropriate to answer like this, than just in my underwear, but if you think this is inappropriate, then I’m fine with the no towel,” he smirked before turning to walk away.  No two steps after closing the door behind me, he ripped off his towel, revealing he was in a pair of dark grey low-cutbriefs with bright blue stitching.  He dramatically draped the towel on the banister before continuing into the kitchen.  I stopped, covered my eyes and groaned.  Of course I couldn’t help but split my fingers enough to peek through them so I didn’t miss how good his ass looked while he was walking away. 

He was already bent in the fridge when I got into the kitchen.  I set the bag of fruit on the counter and when I turned around he was holding things out behind him for me to grab.  I laughed and took the eggs and milk from him.  When I turned back around he was standing right there with a box of strawberries, grinning at me.

“Yes?” I asked, still attempting to ignore the fact that he was standing there in just his skivees.

“Did you sleep well last night?”

I laughed nervously and nodded my head.  “I did.  You?”

“I didn’t.  I was too…uh, how do you say it…worked up?”

“If you wanted to stay out dancing last night, I could have gotten a ride home from someone, I’m sure…”

“No, I was ready to leave with you,” he stated before leaning in and kissing me fully on the lips.  He tasted like mint-toothpaste which mixed oddly with my own cinnamon toothpaste; add in the heat that was radiating off his almost naked body, I left out an unexpected moan.  He broke off the kiss before I passed out from the lack of oxygen and left out a cocky laugh.  It was as if he already knew the exact time I was going to be in his bed and that the time was sooner than later.

“S-s-so what is blini?” I stuttered.

“My favorite Sunday morning breakfast!” he declared excitedly.  “My mom makes the best, but I hope you can maybe help me make it just as good.”

“Oh wait! You said you were making me breakfast!  You said nothing about helping you,” I chirped.  “Besides, how can I help ya if I have no clue what we are making and have no recipe?”

He spun around, opened up one of the cabinets and pulled out a 3-ring-binder that had something written in Russian on it.  He placed it on the counter in front of me and opened up to a page somewhere in the middle of the binder.  It too was typed up all in Russian.  The only thing I could decipher was that it was a recipe.  I looked up at him and frowned.  “Ya know Alex, Russian was only offered in the school I went to in Cali when I was a freshman in High School.  I barely passed Spanish 1.”

“So you tell me you don’t know Russian?” he joked.

“Nyet.”

His eyes grew wide when I said the only word I knew in Russian and he burst into laughter.  If it was one thing I was picking up, Alex loved to laugh and have fun.  “We will have to change that…” he growled into my ear after he had shuffled behind me to grab more ingredients. 

Soon we went to work.  He would first recite the ingredients in Russian and then translate into English and I began creating my first Russian dish.  Listening to him speak in his native tongue had a sexy appeal.  Of course, Russian wasn’t as smooth sounding as French or Latin, but hearing him speak it so comfortably made me envious of him. 

It didn’t take long for me to catch on to the fact that we were actually making pancakes.  “So what makes these any different than the American version of pancakes?” I asked, pouring a teaspoon of vanilla into the homemade whip-cream he insisted I had to make to go along with the strawberry filling.

He was carefully tending to the batter he had just placed in the frying pan.  It was a large frying pan and he had filled the whole circumference of it with the batter.  “Pancakes are thick, no?”

“Well, I guess that would be the way to explain it.”

“With blini’s we make the batter thin, so the pancake is thin and workable.”

“Workable?  You mean so you are able to roll it up or something?”

“Yes.  The fruit filling will be wrapped up in the pancake then.”

“Oh,” I smiled before tasting the homemade whip cream.  Before I could turn around and ask if he wanted to try it, he was beside me, dipping his finger in and tasting it.

“Mmm,” he moaned.  I laughed until he dipped his finger in again and placed a dollop of it on the tip of my nose.  I went to move from his reach, but it was too late.  He wrapped an arm around me and licked the cream off my nose despite my protests.

I wasn’t lying; I really couldn’t sleep last night because I was too wound up.  It was not normal for me to have an awesome night with a girl and not wake-up with her in my bed.  Once again, Lana was in control, despite my best efforts of running the show.

To get her back, I had already decided to walk around the house in just my underwear.  I was comfortable with myself and this was my house, so why wouldn’t I try and get a reaction from her.  It pleased me to no end when I saw her fighting the urge to stare at my body.

She was looking pretty sexy in her own way this morning.  Her hair was still hanging damp on her shoulders; the black and white striped t-shirt accentuated her tits and her jean capri’s hugged her curves just perfect.  I smiled to myself when I noticed the color of her toe-nails were now painted bright red instead of the pale pink.  Red nail polish means only one thing in my book…

“What are you doing?!” she suddenly cried as I threw the first Bilini in the trash.

I laughed and put the frying pan back on the stove.  While pouring more batter into the pan I recited the saying my grandmother had taught me when I was little, first in Russian and then in English.  “The first blin is always poor, the second one you should give to your friends and only the third one is yours.”

She paused from cutting the strawberries and smiled softly at me.  “Who taught you that?”

“My grandmother,” I smiled back.

“My Grammy always had silly sayings like that too…”

“So does this remind you of cooking with your grandmother?” I asked thoughtfully.

She left out a loud laugh and shook her head.  “No, definitely not.  My grandmother would never be cooking in just her underwear.”

I won’t lie.  Her innocence turned me on.  She didn’t always act like the most self-confident person when it came to things she had never been involved with before, but when it was something familiar, she made me think she could control the world with the flick of her hand.  Despite only being in my kitchen once before, she moved around it as if she had put it together herself.

“What are you searching for?” I inquired as she crouched down on the floor and opened one of the cabinets.  Once again her underwear peeked out from her pants, this time I found she had on a black, lacy thong.  Suddenly new thoughts began swirling in my head and nothing of them had to do with the food we were making.

“Your juice machine,” she said, reaching deep into the cabinet and pulling out the brand-new machine that had maybe been used once since I bought it.

I was still focusing on her lacy thong when I asked, “How do you know about that?”

I quickly forced myself to look at her face when she turned and smiled proudly, “I saw it when I was looking for the trays the other night.  Fresh juice is so much better than store bought.”  I took it from her hands and set it on the counter next to the sink and at that, she went to work.  I turned back around and took a few controlling breaths.  I wanted her in my bed, but it was a fact that it would have to be on Lana’s terms, not mine.  I am never known to be a patient man, but I had a distinct feeling, Lana was going to either turn me into one or make me crazy.  I was working on the 3^rd blini when a glass of juice was placed in front of my face.  “Taste it,” she coaxed.

I looked over at her like I was hesitant, just to play her a little and then took the glass and sipped it, allowing the fresh pineapple and orange juice hit every taste-bud.  When I looked over at Lana, she was still standing next to me, smiling and looking up at me with her beautiful brown eyes, awaiting my thoughts.  “You are next barefoot countessa,” I growled before leaning down and kissing her easily on the lips.  “I am locking you up and never letting you out of my house,” I said, breaking the kiss.  The look in her eyes at that point told me she knew it could happen and that she wouldn’t be wholly against it either.

I sucked in a dramatic breath and held my fork just above the blini that was filled with strawberries and crème.  I added some powered sugar on top for a little decoration before setting the plates onto the big dinning room table.

“Are you ready to try it?” Alex, asked excitedly.

I looked up and nodded.

“Ready…set…go!” he prompted.  I cut it with my fork and took a bigger helping than I had realized.  Alex was watching intently and soon began laughing at me as tried to talk without much success.  It was a pancake, but from here on out, I would probably be making them this way every time.

“Amazing!” I gasped, finally swallowing the big bite.

“I think your whip crème makes it even better,” he mused after finishing his own taste-test.  “Thank you!”

“Thank me?  Shouldn’t it be the other way since this is your house?” I giggled.

“Nyet.  I probably wouldn’t have made this if you didn’t come over.  I don’t cook often.  Only time I eat a breakfast like this is when my parents are in town.”

“Oh.  You don’t use your cooking skills to impress the ladies?” I boldly asked, not quite sure why I even asked the question.

He laughed at this and shook his head.  “No, I just walk around in my underwear and they seem to be impressed just by that.”

This answer caused me to practically choke on my blini and I found myself thrown into a coughing spell.  Once I could catch my breath again I just sat there and glared at Alex, who was still laughing at my reaction.

“Little Lana, just admit it.  You are falling for me.”

I didn’t have the strength to deny that accusation.  He was completely right.  The Russian mafia leader showed me that he wasn’t all about driving fancy cars, dancing the nights away at expensive dance clubs and scoring hockey goals.  If he was, then he was doing a fine job at putting on a domestic show for me this morning.  I couldn’t imagine him doing all this just to get me into his bed, especially since there was most likely a line of women standing down the street just waiting for me to leave and take my place.

“You have no rebuttal?” he grinned cockily.

“Nyet,” I smiled shyly.

“But you are still scared of me…”

I nodded my head.  “Yeah.”

He nodded his head to and took another bite of his breakfast, chewing thoughtfully before speaking again.  “I admit I feel like everything we’ve done has been backwards to how I normally do things.  In fact, you are the first girl in a very long time to eat breakfast with me…”

“And even this is probably backwards,” I commented, knowing that if he did eat breakfast with a girl, it was probably after he they slept with him.  Of course this thought didn’t really sit well with me, once again reminding me that I could possibly become a part of a list that included many.

He looked down at his place and smiled, almost remorsefully.  “This is true…”  He popped the last bit of strawberry into his mouth.  Finished off his juice and got up from the table and took his dishes into the kitchen without saying one word.  Feeling a little strange sitting in the big dining room by myself, I quickly finished off my own plate and followed his path.

When I walked up and stood next to him to rinse off my dishes in the sink, a tension easily filled the small space between us.  His silence was deafening while he was just stood there, looking out the window.  I had just turned off the faucet when he turned and looked at me with the most serious look I had seen from him since we met.  “What exactly are your reservations about me?”

I was so shocked at his serious question that I didn’t know what else to say but, “Huh?”

He moved closer to me, effectively pinning me in the corner of the kitchen counters.  “Why do you keep fighting your attraction for me?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at this cocky-ass question.  “How have I fought it?  We have kissed a few times now, right?” I asked, suddenly feeling very vulnerable with him caging me and staring dangerously at me.  His eyes suddenly dark with lust and I didn’t dare let me eyes go anywhere below his nipple line.

“You didn’t come home with me last night…”

“And most girls with morals wouldn’t sleep with a guy on the first date,” I informed him smartly.

“So you say last night was a date for us?”

I bit my lip, knowing he was somehow going to use this for his cause.  “Yeah, I guess…”

“And what about this morning?” he raised an eyebrow at me.

I opened my mouth and scowled.  “I know what you are trying to do, Alex!” I cried, pointing accusingly at him.  “You want me to call this a date, which would be our second and you would use that as a good enough reason for us to be upstairs in that bed of yours!”

He didn’t even argue with my accusation.  Instead he pushed me farther into the corner by placing his warm, all-but naked length of his body against me.  I couldn’t even put up a fight.  His lips came down on mine and I was lost.  Possessively, he held me to him and drank from me.  I smiled inside when I tasted some left over powered sugar in his kiss.  I shivered when his large, rough hand slid up my neck threaded into my hair.  All the kissing and the close proximity of his body made my head spin.  It had been way too long since I had been physically involved with anyone.  And to add to it, Alex wasn’t just anyone.  He was obviously the Russian playboy of the modern era and I was quickly becoming his next victim.  Somehow, I got both of my hands on his chest and pushed him away for some air.

“Alex… I don’t know what you expect from me, but I promise, it most likely won’t be like any of the crazy things you might be accustomed to…”

He was breathing a little harder than normal and the look in his eyes was 90% lust and 10% humor.  “What constitutes as crazy, Little Lana?”

I looked at him and shrugged helplessly.

“We don’t have to use the sex swing the first time if you are not comfortable…” he said seriously, only to laugh hysterically after my eyes grew to the size of bowling balls.  He leaned in towards me again, reminding me that I was no match for his strength and that when I pushed him away a few moments prior, it was probably him just moving backwards on his own accord.  “Lana, I like you for you.  Yes, I might be all-for some crazier things, but right now I just want you and only you.”

“But why me?” I asked quietly.

He pulled back enough to put his nose against mine and tugged on my lip get me to stop biting it.  “You are nothing like the others.  You treat me like I want to be treated and not like some czar of the country.  You like me for me and not for everything else, no?”

I nodded my head and looked into his sparkling blue eyes.

“I trust you,” he said slowly.  “Please, trust me.  I am not playing you, Little Lana.”

I nodded my head again allowed a small smile to play at my lips.  His warm armed wrapped low around my waist and pulled me close against him again.  I took a breath and before I could exhale, we were kissing once again.

The only thing I could comprehend was the little voice in my head that said I wasn’t going to make it out of this house today without getting a personal and intimate tour of his bedroom.