3: In Which She Isnst Glad She Came (1/2)

3: In Which She Isn’t Glad She Came

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The fireplace was moving.

According to my phone, it had just gone past midnight and I was curled up on the couch with a blanket reading a well-thumbed copy of Carrie. So, given the ominous circumstances, I was entitled to be creeped out…because the fireplace was moving.

I hadn’t even noticed the stupid stone-carved thing until I saw a section of the wall slowly swing open, like a door. In a castle like this, ghouls were inevitable and since my old Chasing Ghosts character, Bibi, hunted ghouls for a living, I was duty-bound to be badass and check it out.

But maybe after this chapter, I thought, giving the tattered novel in my hand a wistful look before glancing at the partly-open fireplace

“Fucking dust,” the ghost muttered, ducking its head and creeping out from under the mantel.

The “ghost” turned out to be Nikolai, which was just my damn luck.

“What the hell do you want?” I hissed, jumping to my feet so quickly everything on my lap went tumbling to the carpet.

He was too busy dusting himself off to answer me so I took that opportunity to march over there and peer into the space he’d crawled out from.

Amazing. Dim lighting inside revealed that there was a passageway; a stone passageway that probably linked to other corridors behind other walls. I was so engrossed by thoughts of eighteenth-century Alvonich children scampering about behind the walls that I didn’t realise that Nikolai had closed what little space between us that there was.

Once again, I jumped like a cat thrown into water. Nikolai was sniffing me. Sniffing my hair like I was…like I was a flower.

“What are you doing?” I murmured, trying to get as much space between us as possible. “You want an autograph or something? Is that it?”

It was incredible that I was able to string complete words together and make inflections at the end that indicated a question. No sane woman would have been strong enough to do the same when this man was in a pair of freaking silk boxers alone that left little to the imagination. Not that I was imagining.

In fact, I was only more aware of my own state of undress. The flimsy tank top I wore revealed that my nipples couldn’t withstand the cold and my cotton boxers were practically nonexistent.

Nikolai laughed loudly, his eyes scanning my front. “An autograph?”

“Why are you here, then?” I took a defensive step back when he moved forward. “I think that’s far enough.”

He paused mid-step, making an exaggerated show of inhaling loudly. “God, are you using apple-scented shampoo?”

“What?” I sputtered, because that was so left field I just had to have imagined that.

“I smell it now – just like I smelled it that night,” he said thickly, tilting his head to one side. “That explains why apples get me hard.” Ignoring my obvious hostility, he crowded over me, invading my personal space. “Still crawling into men’s beds and calling them Mikhail? You sure as hell know how to bruise a man’s ego.”

“Fuck you,” I spat, drowning in his freaking intense eyes as they pulled me in. “I’m not that Vegas woman. I’ll do more than give you a black eye. You can bet on it.”

His lips crooked into a wry smile. “Pussycat is such an applicable pet name for you, Ophelia.”

I didn’t want him to say my name; didn’t want him to be here. It was bad enough that I’d had to suffer through dinner with him – a dinner that included him becoming my father’s new best friend – but for him to be in my bedroom half-naked? It was just too much. All the memories of what his body was capable of doing to my body filled me with an intense longing. A longing I wasn’t supposed to have.

“You must’ve been running low in the pussy department if you seriously remember a mistake that happened nearly seven years ago,” I sneered, “because I certainly don’t. It wasn’t that memorable.”

“Oh?” He arched an inky brow. “I saw the look on your face tonight, up there on the rooftop. Like a deer in the headlights.” He surprised me by leaning forward, his hot breath fanning my ear. “Were you afraid I’d tell everyone how you bucked and sobbed and begged when I was fucking you?”

I shuddered, but not with disgust, as I realised seconds later. No, this was a spastic reaction to such a dirty question – filthy, really – because his wording had succeeded in turning me on. Dammit, why can’t he be as prudish as Mikhail?

“Cat got your tongue, kotik?”

I felt him smiling against the shell of my ear because I felt his lips against my skin. They were soft, so soft it was as if I were imagining the feel of him there. The heat radiating from his body as he further leaned in scorched me; my skin, my insides. He was only a hair’s breadth away from me, so close that I could feel the bulge of his…

“Wow,” I groaned, and that was all the invitation Nikolai needed to kiss me.

The next few embarrassing sounds I made were swallowed up by his mouth. He fisted a clump of my hair in his hand, tilting my head for a better angle. Gripping his shoulders, I pressed my breasts against his chest and whimpered when his fist around my hair tightened in answer. Our tongues curled together before I pulled at his, sucking on it like I’d never tasted anything better. He released a low groan of pleasure into my mouth.

But I needed more, which was why I almost cried with gratitude when Nikolai slid one thick thigh between mine. It was hot, rigid muscle nudging against my aching apex and I ground myself against it, moaning when Nikolai cupped my ass and heaved me up, raising his knee and putting pressure where I needed it the most.

“I’m going to fuck you soon, Ophelia. Fuck you until my name is the only one you know,” he grunted sharply, his mouth already trailing gentle, teasing kisses full of promise down the hollow of my neck. “What’s my name?”

“What?” I couldn’t even remember mine, not when the only thing that mattered was seeking friction between my clit and the cords of muscle in this man’s thigh. Locking one leg around his hips, I pressed myself into him, grinding towards something that felt so freaking incredible. It had been a long time since I’d gotten this hot and I didn’t know where to go from here because we were not going to fuck. Absolutely not. Especially not when just this felt so good.

“My name, myshka,” he ground out, squeezing my ass in his hands. “What the fuck is my name?” And he bit down into the soft flesh of the crook of my neck.

I cried out, arching my back and inadvertently brutalising my clit in the process. Two things happened in that instant: One, I realised that that smidgen of pain – the sensation of his teeth biting into my skin – was absolute heaven. And two, I came.

All over his leg like a bitch in heat.

“Oh, my God,” I panted when I realised.

It had happened so fast and honestly, I wasn’t used to the…explosion. After all, it had happened only once before. Mortified, I snarled for Nikolai to put me down.

He did, examining the exposed, tanned – how the hell was he tan in this icy wasteland? – skin of his thigh.“Did you just…?” He skimmed a finger along the trail of slickness I’d left and brought it to his lips, flicking his tongue out to taste it. I needed the ground to open up for me. “Shit,” he said breathlessly, giving me a look of pure wonder. “You’re so responsive.”

“Leave,” I whispered, still shell-shocked. “Dammit, please leave, Nikolai.”

He stared at me for a long time before reaching out and gently brushing a lock of my coal-black hair out of my face. “You're seriously embarrassed about that?”

I chewed on my bottom lip and narrowed my eyes up at him, nearly succumbing to his pale blue orbs. “What exactly is that, huh? A little wetness between my legs?” I gave him a fake laugh. “Here’s something you might not know. I was thinking of someone else and he made me wet. Not you.”

Nikolai dropped his arm to his side. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what game you're playing here but you can’t expect me to believe that you’ve been holding a candle for me all these years.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Holding a candle to you?” Once again, he was in my personal space and I had nowhere to turn, nowhere to look but at him. “I have a plan, little cat, that involves fucking any and every single woman coming to this wedding. You were my first stop tonight but certainly not my last.”

I swallowed. “Get. Out. You're disgusting.”

He laughed again. “You don’t really mean that, kotik,” he drawled as he turned on his heel and strode to the fireplace. Before he bent, he called over his shoulder, “Next time, why don’t you wait for me to actually touch you before you come all over me?”

“Get out!”

***

I was one minute away from committing patricide. Killing my father had never crossed my mind until today when all I could think about was shooting him and his new best friend in their heads.

Since the snow had more or less thawed and the sun was peeking out from behind a silver cloud, the bridal party was finally allowed to get a tour of the castle grounds. Most of the remaining guests – who were mostly made up of Inga’s and Mikhail’s fellow undergrad students and Inga’s extended family – had arrived and completed our modest group of people strolling through the grounds. There weren’t as many people as I’d expected and Inga had explained that she wanted to make this the smallest, most intimate Ruslavian royal wedding in history. They hadn’t even invited any foreign heads of state.

“Wanna tell me why you’re looking a tad bit homicidal this wonderful morning, O?” Savita chirped in my ear, linking arms with me. Since we were both in parkas, her death-grip was slack.

I directed my “homicidal” look at my best friend. “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Sue me.”

“I think I will,” she quipped, flashing me a grin, “for not turning that frown upside down.”

“What’s got you so chipper this morning?” I asked, although I had a bad feeling that I didn’t want to know.

Someone laughed at the front of the herd – my dad – and I had to force myself to remember that patricide – well, murder in general – was illegal.

“Ryan did this tongue thing last night that was so good, I swear I saw stars and stripes.”

I knew I wouldn’t want to know, I thought, curling my top lip in disgust. TMI and Sav knew each other well.