What You Must Accept
Anastasia tried to draw back in shock at an invasion she had never known in all her life. Yet Mikhail’s arms had anticipated even that much; they locked around her body with unyielding firmness.
The water in the tub churned and slapped wildly against her thrashing limbs, sheets of it cascading onto the floor, but Anastasia could spare no thought for any of it.
Never once had she received another person in this way. The soft thing that had pushed deep into her mouth ransacked her with ruthless thoroughness, sweeping across the tender membrane and then stroking the softest places with the tip of its tongue. Thought simply vanished.
Her body shook as though lightning had struck. Held fast inside Mikhail’s arms, every avenue of escape sealed, she could only tremble within his embrace.
Her mind emptied so utterly she half-believed her soul had been stolen, yet Mikhail seemed far from sated. Only when Anastasia, breath driven to the brink, beat weakly at his shoulder in mute plea did he at last draw back.
“Haa… haa…”
Her body went slack as she dragged air into her lungs. Heat returned to the chill that had claimed her, and a languid warmth began to unfurl through every limb.
Mikhail looked at the mouth he had just claimed so freely. The lips that had been blue were slowly reclaiming their flush—the same luscious hue that made him want to suck them every time he saw it.
He brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip, already beginning to swell. When Anastasia tensed, fearing he meant to swallow her whole again, Mikhail smiled and pointed it out.
“I truly have no idea when you started putting ‘sir’ after my name again. Consider this your punishment.”
As expected, the earlier kiss had not satisfied him. His hungry mouth claimed her once more. Knowing neither what nor how, Anastasia could only follow wherever he led.
A wet sound that was not water filled the bathroom—the lewd, slick noise of flesh rubbing and sucking. She thought simply remaining still would be enough, as before. But Mikhail, having entered her, wove their tongues together as though this time were different.
For all that he called it punishment, his movements were remarkably tender. Little by little Anastasia grew accustomed to the rhythm he set. Before she quite realized it, she was answering of her own accord.
At that small initiative Mikhail’s free hand slid to the nape of her neck and drew her closer still.
“H-ngh…”
Contrary to his expectation, though strained sounds escaped her, Anastasia did not try to flee. Instead she struggled to take him more fully. The sight of her small lips and tongue working desperately to endure him was so maddeningly lovely that he stroked her hair in silent praise.
Their breathing grew hotter than the steam that filled the room.
Mikhail drew away again. He wiped his mouth—glistening with something other than water—against the back of his hand. Anastasia truly was an excellent pupil. This had surely been her first kiss, yet she had grown proficient with astonishing speed.
She had clung to him so desperately he had nearly lost all reason and fallen upon her. Barely mastering himself, Mikhail whispered to the girl who leaned against him, still panting inside the circle of his arms.
“Now then. Call my name again.”
“Mi… Mikhail…”
“There. At last you say it properly.”
His fingers traced the returning color in her cheek, then slid slowly downward, brushing her lips and caressing her chin. In the interval the water stilled; color continued to rise in her face.
The same fingers traveled lower, stroking the neck and shoulders that had already begun to dry. Anastasia flinched at the ticklish touch, yet Mikhail did not lift his hand. It pained him to see how quickly her body had withered again the moment his attention wandered. Only a few days, and already she had come to this. How little had she been eating?
A short while earlier he had nearly taken her then and there. Had he finally yielded to the hunger he had held in check for so long and fallen upon her, Anastasia would almost certainly not have fled.
He recalled the confession she had cried out to him in the rain. Simply remembering it made a smile rise unbidden. He knew it might look foolish, yet he felt no desire to suppress it.
For days he had wrestled with himself. Reason had insisted from the start that Elizabeth was the woman he ought to choose. Yet every night, just before sleep, it was Anastasia’s face that rose before him.
That version of himself was a stranger. Once Mikhail chose, he never looked back with lingering regret. Yet the image of Anastasia that haunted him night after night felt like a warning from instinct itself—a warning that he was about to make the wrong choice.
Even so he had trusted his reason. Until a moment ago, when Anastasia’s confession reached him through the rain and he heard the sound of that reason collapsing in utter ruin.
No other figure remained on the scales of his heart. The instant he heard the words “I like you,” the balance shattered. Only Anastasia remained—smiling shyly, lifting a hand toward him. And so Mikhail was forced to admit a rather mortifying truth:
This was the first time he had ever held someone in his heart.
By now the only sound left in the bathroom was the slow drip of water. Anastasia kept her head bowed, unable to answer. Mikhail gave a wry smile, cradled her face between both hands, and carefully lifted it so that she would look at him.
“Anastasia. You said you like me.”
“……”
“Do you understand what that confession requires you to accept?”
“I know. I will become… a mistress, won’t I?”
“……”
“But I… still thought that would be all right.”
She drew out the true feeling she had buried deep in her chest. She knew perfectly well how a mistress was pointed at, how she was made to live.
Yet even so Anastasia believed it was fine. She did not dare ask to be cherished. He need not care for her more than a kept dog. She only wanted to remain somewhere inside his future. Please—do not cast her aside. Simply keep her near…
“So… won’t you take me with you as well?”
What she feared most was that he would leave with everyone else and she would be left alone. How strange that the solitude she had known all her life had become the thing she dreaded most.
“I don’t know how to do anything, but if you teach me I will work hard. I can never be as good as Natasha, but practice will make me better. I don’t even need wages. Only a place to sleep and something to eat. So please—won’t you take me too? I won’t ask to share meals. I won’t pester you for lessons. If you simply speak to me once in a very long while, that will be enough.”
Listening to her pleading, Mikhail felt only a crushing desolation. What Anastasia feared was not the eyes of others, but loneliness itself.
He lifted a hand and brushed back the wet, tangled red hair from her face.
“You truly did not understand, Anastasia.”
“What?”
“I think you need to know exactly what it is you must accept.”
Mikhail rose and peeled away the shirt that clung wetly to him. Under the light a body both sculpted and hard was revealed. Not knowing what was happening, Anastasia could only blink and watch. After discarding shirt and shoes he muttered, “I have no intention of taking you right now,” and stepped into the tub where she sat.
The water that had reached her chest surged instantly to her throat. Mikhail leaned back languidly against the porcelain that had been prepared for him and drew the crouching, bewildered girl toward him.
Suddenly astride his body, Anastasia squirmed in mortification. Mikhail simply looped one arm about her waist and pulled her fully onto his thighs. Through the thin fabric the feel of the other was terrifyingly clear.
“Anastasia. Open your hand.”
The low voice brushed her ear like velvet darkness.
He took her wrist with care and guided it. With the palm of a girl who still did not know what was expected of her, he made her stroke his throat, then his chest—and then lower still.
“……!”
At the first sensation of something utterly new, Anastasia started and trembled. Mikhail only pressed her hand more firmly against himself and whispered,
“It will not do for you to be startled. This is something you must grow used to.”
The voice tickling her ear sent a shiver racing down her spine. A languid sound escaped her without her meaning it.
“From this day forward. Always. At my side.”
Hearing for the first time a future spoken of as shared, Anastasia closed her eyes.
It was deep night before Mikhail carried Anastasia from the room. Natasha, who had been waiting outside in helpless anxiety, hurried forward the moment he appeared and examined the girl’s condition.
Anastasia slept deeply in his arms, wrapped in his own bathrobe. Because Mikhail was so tall and broad, she looked for all the world like a child rolled snugly inside a quilt.
Still holding her, he made his way to the annex. Inside the bedroom he laid her upon the bed with the exquisite care one would give the world’s most fragile glass.
“Mm…”
Sensing the warmth that had held her vanish, Anastasia frowned and opened her eyes a fraction. Exhaustion from the long day still glazed them with sleep, yet she caught at the edge of his clothing and spoke in a soft, murmuring voice.
“…Don’t go.”
“Dangerous words.”
He had bitten his lip and returned her to her own room precisely because he did not trust what he might do if she remained in his. And now she told him not to leave. If he stayed beside her like this, his restraint would burn away with alarming speed.
Mikhail sat on the edge of the bed and covered her face gently with his palm, as though bidding her eyes to close. Beneath his hand he felt the long lashes flutter and tickle his skin.
“Just sleep tonight.”
He felt the delicate tickling grow slower and slower, and thought:
Let her simply sleep today.
But from this night forward, sleep would never again come so easily.