I was still trembling when I reached up and pulled Lyonya’s face down to mine. “Do you have something?” I asked, and kissed him. He tasted of vodka and pine.
“Something?” He was already kissing me back, hands in my hair, both of us lurching against the dugout wall.
“You know.” I pried at his collar; he pried at mine as his mouth traveled down my jawline. A button spanged off the table. “Do you have—”
“I don’t have a ring,” he confessed. “It was hard enough getting a loaf of decent bread and a damned can of stew.”
“For the love of—” I pushed him into the chair, climbed into his lap, put my forehead against his so we were eye to eye, dark eyes drowning in blue, and locked my other hand around his belt buckle. “I will not get pregnant on the front line, Lyonya. Do you have something?”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes,” he added, producing a small packet from somewhere.
“Good,” I said, and our mouths nailed back together as my jacket and then his hit the floor. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, not with my company commander, not after knowing him less than two months, but I had no idea if we’d be alive next week or not. This, I thought, kicking off my boots, give me this while I’m still alive to enjoy it.
“I’ve never had to disarm a woman before bed,” Lyonya murmured into my collarbone, tossing aside my combat knife, my pistol, my belt with its ammunition pouches, pulling me back into his lap in the chair as trousers were shoved away. It was too cold to be naked like this, we were both shivering despite the little dugout stove, breath pluming in the air between us and melting again in every kiss. He was broad-shouldered, long-flanked, his hair soft under my hand, his wide hands steadying my hips as I tore the little packet open.
“It’s been a while,” I murmured as we fitted ourselves together, thinking despite myself of the boy last year with whom I’d enjoyed a laughing romp on a visit to the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. That had been good fast fun, a little perfunctory, nothing serious on either side. There was nothing fast or perfunctory here. Lyonya smiled into my eyes the entire time, palms sliding the length of my spine, my throat, the back of my neck, our bodies rocking breast to breast in silence, the prosaic muddy world of the regiment moving by outside in its nailed boots.
I love you, his lips murmured soundlessly into mine, and his hand against my throat must have felt the stutter-stop of my pulse in response to those simple, terrifying words, because he smiled and said it out loud so I couldn’t mistake him: “I love you,” simple and stark as he moved in me, as my eyes brimmed. The terrifying lock of our eyes didn’t break until the end, when he saw me biting my lips fiercely as the tide built in us both. He put his broad hand to my mouth and let me cry out into it, stifling his own shout in my shoulder.
We clung silently after, still coiled together in the chair. “Marry me,” he whispered against my throat. “Marry me, Mila.”
“I can’t,” I muttered, still trembling in his arms.
He pushed my hair back. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes, but—” There was a conversation we’d need to have, but did it have to be now? “Do we have to talk about the future, Lyonya? Can’t we just—”
Can we have this? Just this, for now? Because I felt more alive than I’d felt in months.
“We’ll work on the marriage part.” He kissed my temple as we began to disentangle. “I’ll ask you again tomorrow. In the meantime, do you want to sleep over?”
“Sleep over, like we’re on holiday? We’re in a dugout. Shells may cave the roof in at any moment.”
“Well, you can’t say it doesn’t add excitement . . .”
Chapter 17
My memoir, the official version: Lieutenant Kitsenko sent in an application to our superiors to formalize our new relations in the official way. It would need to be stamped and signed by Lieutenant Dromin and the regimental commander, then given the regimental seal of approval and filed for implementation at the staff headquarters of the 25th Chapayev Division.