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Her anger is a living, breathing beast, that wants to ride his back at every opportunity, waiting, waiting, just to strike him down. Her anger isn't a new thing, her rigid control rarely cracks, but he sees something new inside of her these past few days.
Words build up inside his head and he plays the conversations they would have, if only she'd let him in, merely an inch would be enough. He is here to help her, to guide her when she (never) wavers, to protect, love and cherish. The last three she would not appreciate or approve of, because it blurs the lines of their mission. An emotional attachment to each other that serve isn't appropriate.
Their children are something that goes beyond the mission and attachment is inevitable, love even more so. Their children are the one true thing that belongs to them and it's a powerful thing. No matter how hard she had tried to down play it (before), she knew it as well as he did.
And now even between the children there's strain around the edges. Her anger seeping through ever so slightly.
He wants to be gentle with her. To press his lips to the pulse at the hollow of her throat and savor the beat, to taste her skin, to show her that he cares, that his love is not a weakness, and all she need do is let him in.
He wants to give her time.
He fears there is no time as it all seems to crash together in a way no one could have foreseen.
Living near an FBI agent or any member of one of the many American federal agencies isn't unexpected, they are like cockroaches, creeping up everywhere, but to have a Counter Intelligence agent move in next door? He doesn't believe in coincidences.
His family is his first thought. She is his family, for twenty years, they've built this life and done for the motherland.
Enough.
Thoughts and plans are discarded as he leaves their bed and strides quickly and silently towards the garage.
His family.
They come first, always.
She will have to adjust. He wants to believe (she won't) that she will.
He brings Timoshev out of the trunk, his fingers sure and steady as he unbuckles the bindings, and he's talking quickly because he knows their time is short.
She comes in silently and he curses himself for not sensing that she was awake as well, his mind too preoccupied, and now she's here. She doesn't seem too surprised and he's reminded of how well she knows him, he's let her in, and how well she doesn't want him to know her.
She's angry and the anger has a different flavor to it now. Harsher and less restrained.
He doesn't understand it.
He thinks of the money and what it can do for their family, he thinks of the weight that will be off their backs, and he thinks of her. It will be a chance for her to become what she should have been, without the KGB, and he wants that, he needs that. For her.
They're fighting.
Timoshev and his wife.
There's ringing in his ears from her elbow blow and he slowly gets to his feet. Anger spikes through him as he rushes forward when she's thrown against the side of the car and tossed onto the work table and rolls onto the floor.
She stops him.
She wants to fight Timoshev.
Something crawls along his spine as he watches them trade blows, as she presses harder and stronger, and then Timoshev is tossed against the car and she stands above him.
She means to kill him, he realizes suddenly. He knows she's wanted him dead from the start. When he hears the words, and watches her knuckles turn white against the tire iron, he feels something seize inside of him.
This man, this traitor, a filthy fucking bastard who hadn't meant to hurt his wife, sits there with blood dripping down into his eyes and says it was a perk.
A perk of his rank.
It does something to her too and he hates it.
She drops the tire iron and walks away.
Defeated.
Resigned.
Says to do whatever he wants.
No.
No.
No.
It's over before there's time to think. The neck muscles against his fingers, the soft give of a larynx, and the sound that echoes when the trachea is crushed, gives him a deep thrill of satisfaction.
He's breathing heavily as he turns and lets his hands drop away and the body falls to the floor. Disgust makes him wish for his knives. It would be a pleasure to carve the filth up and scatter body parts far and wide so that no one will ever put him back together again.
He knows that's a fantasy he'll keep in his mind because it's not feasible, but he wishes fiercely that it was.
She's looking at him with wide eyes, shocked, he thinks. And something else. He's not sure exactly what he sees, only that he likes it, and he wants to see it again and again.
For you I would kill a thousand men a day, he thinks. Anything for you.
It seems as if he's falling, further, faster, and harder than ever before.
He feels dizzy with it.
She turns away and he comes back to himself and the situation at hand.
They have a body to dispose of.
The look remains as they drive from their house and when they zip the body up and their eyes sting and their noses burn from the acid, and when they toss it into the water.
It stays as they get into the car.
Her anger is a living, breathing beast, a familiar one.
This...is something else altogether.
He feels it pulse between them and it makes his blood race and he's halfway to hard from it alone. He feels ashamed that he wants her now, desperately, when they've just come from disposing of her rapist. It's no wonder she didn't want his touch, his kiss, and all he wants right now is to touch, kiss, and fuck.
He glances at her and feels his stomach plummet at the look on her face, something fragile and delicate, and it eats at him. She has to know.
For you, he thinks as he watches her lean towards him. Anything for you.
Her mouth is warm and at once familiar and not. He watches her through lidded eyes to be sure, willing to stop, and for a second he thinks they will as she pulls back. His eyes fall closed briefly. To savor this moment. Where she is open to him and her passion is equal to his.
But she doesn't stop.
There is something new between them now.
He keeps his eyes on hers and wills her to know that this is him, her husband, her partner, and her friend if nothing else.
The heat of her body seeps through the leather of her jacket when he grips it as she straddles him.
He thinks of nothing but her. The silkiness of her hair as it slides through his fingers, the soft warm skin of her belly as he unsnaps her jeans and the wet warmth of her against his knuckles as he tugs down her underwear.
Being inside of her feels brand new all over again. Discoveries made new again and again as his hips move against hers, as she clenches tight around him and his eyes are held trapped by hers.
She's a revelation.
And then he's shuddering and gasping against her mouth and free falling.
He's afraid that things will resume with an even odder tension between them the next morning.
It doesn't.
It's different, yes, but not a bad different.
Something new.
His knuckles ache pleasantly as they lay side by side that night. She reaches for his hand and intertwines their fingers and starts speaking softly.
He had wanted an inch.
Hope sprouts sturdy roots straight into his heart when she gives him her name.
Nadezhda.