7: In Which She Totally Disregards All Sense that is Common (1/2)

7: In Which She Totally Disregards All Sense that is Common

*********************************

The day of the wedding came so quickly, it felt like only yesterday that I was staring at the invitations and contemplating the idea of making my excuses not to attend. The fact that Inga and I weren’t all that close meant that I literally had nothing to contribute to the wedding but my presence and my presents. This was absolutely fine by me because, at the end of the day, this was a royal wedding and I was completely out of my depth. Besides, I just couldn’t wait to get this whole thing over with so that I could get the hell out of Dodge and forget about it.

“You OK, babe?” Sav peeked into my bedroom, already dolled up in a strangely respectable peach sheath dress.

“Why?” I asked, although I already knew. I’d slept for an unbelievable ten hours straight and I was still standing in my towel in front of the full-length mirror at four in the afternoon.

“Well, after last night...” Her voice trailed off and she arched a questioning brow.

I scowled at her. By “last night”, she was referring to our walking in on the bachelor party in the dungeons of the castle. It was stupid, to be honest, but when I was with Sav, we reverted to kids that did the dumbest things together. It didn’t really matter that was I mad at her for her and her husband for their brainless attempts at making their marriage “exciting” and putting an innocent baby’s life at risk. Sav could bring out the worst in me and nowhere more so than at a shindig.

Inga’s so-called girlfriends’ poor excuse of a bachelorette party had consisted of a fucking Bridget Jones marathon and sodas and poorly mixed martinis. Fortunately, Sav knew where the good stuff was in the parlour and she’d snuck in to swipe some pretty freaking expensive bottles of red for me. Then, slightly drunk and giggly, I dragged her down into the dungeons, which I knew from Mikhail had been turned into a replication of a Vegas nightclub.

Seriously, the stone cells were big enough to host hundreds of horny, intoxicated men and a harem of whores. I guess princes going out to strip joints were frowned on in Ruslavia, but it was perfectly OK for the strippers to make house calls.

Mikhail was standing awkwardly in a corner, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans and holding a beer. He was on his phone, probably texting his fiancée to tell her how much he missed her, sad face and hugs and kisses.

Most of his friends, on the other hand, weren’t missing anything or anyone. Throwing cash at the dancers or receiving lap dances, half of them looked as drunk as I felt. That would’ve been totally fine with me if I hadn’t seen Ryan – Sav’s husband and one of my oldest friends – with his dick shoved down some hooker’s throat. It was one thing to listen to my best friend recount her sordid tales of her complete lack of respect of the sanctity of marriage and another to witness said best friend’s husband wave at her with his cock down another woman’s throat.

And she fucking waved back, grinning like a total fucking clown.

I wasn’t drunk enough to think that that was anything but shitty.

“Sav, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” I yelled over the thumping electronic music. “You're both disgusting.”

“Oh, shut up,” she retorted, giving me a stupid grin that was probably the result of two cans of Red Bull. “I slept with one of Inga’s brothers yesterday and Ryan watched. We’re even, don’t’cha think?”

I was going to be sick and it wasn’t the Chateau Margaux. I mean, I even tasted bile and my stomach was churning. How could someone I’d known for almost my whole life drop these kinds of bombs on me?

“There’s your prince, by the way,” she hastily remarked, eyes moving rapidly as she peered over my shoulder in a classic Let’s-Change-the-Subject move. “Damn, she’s flexible. Remember when we went through our ballerina stage? She must’ve torn that shit up!”

I spun around, regretting the abrupt movement when the effects of the alcohol made my head spin as well. Sure enough, a ballerina-type in nothing but a crimson thong was hanging upside down with her legs spread in a V between Nikolai’s big, arrogant head. She was gyrating in time to Benny Benassi’s I Love My Sex and her double-D breasts were all but splattering against her face with every fluid movement.

“Wouldn’t you pass out? You know, from the blood rushing to your head and all?” Sav wanted to know.

I was five seconds away from socking my best friend in her adulterous little face.

“What a man-whore though.”

Four... Three...

This was a bachelor party and every guy was excused for being a chauvinistic, hormonal teen for this one night because that was the golden rule. The groom was allowed to get lap dances while his groomsmen cheered the stripper on. As long as the groomsmen were free agents, they were allowed to do whatever the hell they wanted and even if they weren’t single, every guy knows that what happens at a bachelor party stays at a bachelor party.

Since Nikolai was a free agent, he was entitled to an awkward-looking 69 from an awkward-looking hooker. Who was I to judge? I had no claim to him.

That didn’t mean that I didn’t feel like a class idiot for believing the bullshit he’d fed me. Men were dogs and this man had a kennel as big as his ego inside his bedroom.

“You know what, Sav? I probably would’ve ended up getting a disease from him,” I slurred, kicking my heels off, “but you know what’s pretty awesome? This is a fucking party and I wanna dance. Because I’m flexible, too.”

“Ooh, great!” Sav clapped her hands together and jumped on the spot. “’Cause this is our song!”

“Our song” just happened to be Icona Pop’s I Love It and to be honest, Sav got a little crazy whenever it came on anywhere – but that was OK because I was a little crazy myself, thanks to some really good red.

“What are you women doing here?” a horrified voice exclaimed.

We turned and caught Inga’s older brother, Sergei, narrowing his eyes at us. Who could blame him? We were gatecrashers.

“Wanna dance?” I asked, grabbing his hand without waiting for an affirmative.

He was tall and lanky, which was probably why I was able to drag him onto the dance floor with ease. Dark-haired, green-eyed and bearded, he was the male version of his sister. I was in the mood to be with someone who hadn’t been forced on me by my best friend. It had nothing to with the guy who was solely responsible for all the orgasms I’d had in my life slathered with some Slut Lotion.

“You're supposed to be upstairs with Inga,” Sergei was saying into my ear, sounding affronted that I’d dared to set foot into their little den of sin. “What are you and Savita doing here?”

“Relax, buddy,” I replied, turning and shimmying down his front and splitting my legs. He froze, obviously stunned.

“Ophelia, you’re drunk,” he yelled down at me, his eyes following me as I rose again, using his legs as anchors.

“Duh. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. Dance with me.”

He tentatively placed his hands at my waist.

“What is that?” I snorted, glaring up at his jade-green eyes. “Stop being such a pussy.” I pushed his hands lower, until he was cupping my ass, and looped my arms around his neck. “Much better, no?” He reddened.

God, Sergei was an even bigger female than Mickey was, and that was saying something.

“I, uh, think I should...go,” Sergei faltered, loosening his already-loose hold on my ass.

“Go?” I wrinkled my nose. As far as I could see, the party had just started.

“I, uh, need the bathroom.”

He released me as if I’d burned him, practically running in the other direction. Baffled, I stared after him for a while, until I Love It melted into Magnetic Man’s I Need Air and I snagged another warm body to dance with.

I didn’t recognise him but he was tall, dark and more than willing to let me grind up against him. I hadn’t been clubbing in a long time – what with work and everything – but grinding was something you just didn’t forget.

Like your two-times tables.

This guy moved well and ensured that my back and his front were glued together, which I would’ve found disgusting on any other given day. Hands firmly on my waist, creeping dangerously low, he pressed himself into me. At some point during the song, Tall-Dark-and-Willing tilted my head to the side and latched his mouth onto mine – something I also would’ve also objected to. Even in my inebriated state, I could tell that he was a shitty kisser. Either that or no one could ever match Nikolai Alvonich’s sensual mouth-fucking. I was a little disappointed about that. It wasn’t fair that Nikolai was the best everything I’d ever had.

I felt like Drake, except Nikolai was the one with sweatpants and no make-up on; the one that could be irresistible even half-dead and decomposing.

Dead.

I was dead if I slept with him again, and not from a disease. No, I had the distinct feeling that this man could become addictive and if we fucked – deliberately, this time – once would never be enough. He was a contradiction: Casual-fling material on one hand and serious-relationship material on the other. I didn’t want any of that right now but there were so many facets to him and I’d only scratched the surface.

These dangerous, crazy thoughts were buzzing in my mind as I was being kissed by someone I didn’t really want to be kissed by because he really, really sucked.

I bet he thinks he’s the shit, I thought, when he’s just shit. Men. They’re all the same.

I was unable to stop the laugh that left my lips and only laughed harder when Mr. Eager Beaver made a soft moan in his throat. Apparently, in Ruslavia, a girl laughing with a guy’s tongue down her throat translated as the girl wanting that guy very, very badly.

But then Mr. Eager Beaver pulled away from me with such force that I was left wondering if I was the sucky kisser. His lips left mine so fast, they left a rash. My momentary insecurity gave way to hot anger when I realised that Nikolai was currently holding my conquest by the scruff of his neck. Really, they were almost the same height – although there were four of them, thanks to my double vision – so it was pitiful of Eager Beaver to be dragged away like an errant schoolboy.

“What are you doing with her?” Nikolai snarled, keeping me beside him with his free hand around my upper arm. It was pointless to try and escape.

“She came to me!” Eager Beaver snapped, trying to wriggle away from Nikolai.

“I’m giving you five seconds to fuck off before I fuck you up, Tomas,” Nikolai said through clenched teeth, abruptly releasing the other man. “Five...”

Tomas wisely turned on his heel and stalked off.

“He’s acting like he didn’t have an erection twitching against my back,” I scoffed, slightly insulted by the insinuation that I’d forced myself on him. “And he sucked, by the way. Both literally and figuratively.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, dancing like a whore?” Nikolai’s eyes were midnight blue and his brows were slashed into a frown. “You're not wearing any panties and I fucking saw that from across the room.”

“Don’t yell at me! We’re not dating and you’re not my father.” I shrugged. “Besides, I can’t wear underwear with this dress and I couldn’t find my thongs. I mean, hello – panty lines?”

His grip tightened. “Bed. Now.”

“Bed. Now,” I mimicked, dropping my voice several octaves to match his low growl. “Fuck off back to your blonde.”

“My blonde?” He stared down at me, looking enraged and puzzled in equal parts. “What –”

“Would’ve been a mistake.” I reached up with my free hand and played with the collar of his navy shirt. “Sleeping with you.”

His brow furrowed even further, worry lines indented in his forehead. I ran a forefinger across one.

“You’ll make yourself look older,” I let him know.

“You’re making me older, kotik,” he said on a heavy sigh. “I would have punched that sonofabitch, had he not been the son of a Russian politician.”

“Why?” Because, come on, he had no right to be jealous. Just like I had no right to feel betrayed by him for living it up with a paid dancer for one night. I was astonishingly stupid when it came to this man, the king of my orgasms.

“Because I like being the one to make you feel like this, pussycat.” Nikolai blindsided me and darted a hand up my dress to find my crotch. I automatically keened against his hand when he pressed a long, blunt finger inside my wet heat.

“Stop it,” I forced myself to say, and had to wage a war with the voice in my head to recoil from his touch. “You just had your paws all over someone else. Excuse me if I don’t find that a turn-on.”

“Bed,” he repeated in an angry growl, punctuating this command by stooping slightly to deftly manoeuvre me over his shoulder.

He cracked a palm across my ass when I started kicking out. I immediately stiffened in shock – because I had liked the sting of his hand through my thin satin dress.

What is wrong with me? I thought, squeezing my eyes shut in an attempt to ease the pounding of my head and the sudden swirl of nausea I was experiencing.

Nikolai silently waded through the tiny sea of people and made his way out the dungeons without so much as brushing a shoulder against another body. We were in my suite in a blur of long strides.

I fell onto my bed the minute he put me down. “You have some fucking nerve, asshole,” I weakly asserted, allowing him to raise my legs in the air, pry my pumps off and hurl them onto the floor.

“Do I?” he asked, unfazed. He kissed my big toe. “We both know that while you are here, your pleasure is my pleasure, and vice versa. You don’t dance with anyone, you don’t look at anyone and you don’t fuck anyone when I am here.”

“You’re crazy,” I slurred, trembling from where his lips continued to touch my skin. “We’ve only known each other for a few days. We have no claim to each other. You’re crazy,” I repeated.

“Wrong, pussycat. So very, very wrong.” He parted my thighs, exposing my cunt. “You were jealous back there. Why?” He ran experienced fingers down the smooth, damp skin leading to my opening.

God help me, I was panting. His touch made the minute hairs on my skin stand up; sent electricity to every nerve in my body and jolted them awake. Alcohol made me especially horny but, combined with the heat Nikolai generated, I was an eleven-point-five on the Arousal Richter Scale.

“Why were you jealous, pussycat?” he repeated, lightly dancing the pad of a finger against my pulsing clit.

I shook my head more times than were necessary. “I wasn’t. Ah, please, Nikolai,” I wailed, not caring if I sounded desperate.

His touch was enough to give me sensation but not enough for satisfaction. I needed more and now I didn’t understand why I was running away from him. I wanted this. This was going to be good and it would be a one-time thing and hopefully – hopefully – I’d never have to see him again once the deed was done.

“What’s stopping me from sliding my cock into this wet, tight cunt, pussycat?” He slid his finger up my slit instead, watching my reaction with lust-darkened eyes. “You're not wearing any panties. I could drive myself into you right now and fuck you until you understand how badly I want you.”He pressed my foot against his cock, which was bulging against the pants of his suit. “Just thinking about my cock in your cunt has me hard, myshka. I need to be inside you, so what’s stopping me?”

What’s stopping him? my alcohol-fuzzed brain asked.

Diseases, that's what, the killjoy in me yelled incredulously. You’ll be sleeping with the entire bridal party if you have sex with him!

Envy, green and intense, reared its ugly head. I pulled my foot away from his erection and crawled up the bed, as far away from him and his freaking allure as possible.

I kicked him out and that was that. Even if I wanted a fling, he was the last person I’d have it with because I knew that once would never be enough. He talked a good game but it was obvious that he didn’t just talk to me. The fact that I was jealous of a stripper was enough warning that I had to resist the temptation Nikolai presented.

Of course, I couldn’t tell Savita all of this. So I forced a smile onto my face and calmly said, “Last night was just us being idiots, Sav. Don’t ever get me drunk again, OK?”

“OK.” She chewed on her lower lip. “By the way, I found this outside your room when I came in.” She reached into her handbag and produced a white box, shaking it in the process. “It feels empty, though.”

Intrigued, I took it from her and took the top off.

“Well?” Sav was impatient as she waited for me to divulge. “What is it? Who’s it from?”

“No one,” I answered nonchalantly, simultaneously closing the package. “I’ll see you downstairs, Sav. I should get dressed.”

She pouted at me. “Seriously? You're not going to dish? At least tell me who sent it to you, O.”

“No one,” I reiterated, turning and setting the box on the vanity table. “I need to get ready.”

“OK, OK.” She held French-tipped hands in the air in surrender. “Don’t take too long, Heidi Klum.”

I rolled my eyes at her parting shot, watching her sashay out my room. When I heard the door in the living area close, I went back to the box, laughing to myself.

I owe you a pair, the note still said, in elegant cursive. Wear them if you dare.

I pushed it aside and picked up the stretchy black thong, holding it up in the air. The sides were made of pearl-pink silk and the crotch and thin back were lace. My inner Lingerie Whore was going crazy and doing the Harlem Shake.

The right thing to do was shove them back into the box and write a neat “Go to hell” note for Nikolai but he’d cashed in on two of my weaknesses: Challenges and expensive sexy underwear. I might have sworn off Nikolai but I would be crazy to refuse such a sexy pair of underwear. Totally batshit crazy.

So I unravelled my towel and pulled it on, aware that the crotch was a little...lumpy against my sensitive parts.

But that was probably the design, and what was a little discomfort for a sexy pair of panties? Oh, I totally dared.

***

The ceremony and reception were both held on the castle grounds. On this day, the slowly-setting sun was shining exceptionally brightly for freezing Ruslavia. This good omen made Mikhail and Inga’s day that much memorable. Mikhail’s father, the king, and his wife (who was probably nearer to Mikhail’s age than his father’s) were on their best behaviour, considering the fact that they’d only gotten in late last night.

I zoned out through the entire ceremony – weddings just weren’t my thing right now – out on the beautifully manicured castle lawn.

Still, I would’ve had to have been blind not to recognise how lavish and intense the affair was, despite the fact that, as Inga had indicated, there weren’t that many people. The bridesmaids wore different styles – strapless, short-sleeved, knee-length, floor-length – of lavender dresses and the bride shone in a gorgeous A-line silk gown that hugged her top before cascading in a waterfall of lace. Her inky hair was piled up in a bun, loose tendrils only adding to her allure.

Mikhail watched her mother walk his soon-to-be-wife down the makeshift aisle toward him. His blue eyes sparkled with love and a swirl of strong emotions, his gaze never wavering from Inga as she approached him. The rest of the service passed with me trying not to concentrate too much on my emotions and focus instead on the wine that was singing my name like a siren.

I perked up considerably when we were finally allowed to leave the elaborately decorated pergola and head inside for the reception. I spotted my dad with the king and mentally cringed, wondering what the hell he was saying. My father wasn’t known for his diplomacy and he’d made it expressly clear that King Mikhail, II was not his favourite person.

My worry for his freedom was put on the backburner when I felt a hand on the small of my back, firm and possessive. Nikolai’s cologne wrapped around me and I stiffened.

“Hello, pussycat,” he purred, rubbing my lower back in circles. “Enjoy the ceremony?”

The whole time he’d been standing up there beside Mikhail as his best man, I’d thought about how his tousled, damp inky hair made him look like he’d just gotten out of bed. Then I’d thought further indecent thoughts in the presence of a priest.

“It was exquisite,” I forced myself to say, picking up my pace in a futile attempt to get away from him.

His hot breath tickled my ear. “Are you wearing my present?”

“Nikolai, stop.” I mentally berated myself when my voice came out breathlessly, like I’d just been fucked.

“You know I’ll find out soon enough,” he said teasingly, and then I didn’t feel anything else because he cut in front of me, shoving the hands into the pockets of his pants and disappearing into the small crowd.

I sighed with relief. If all went well, I’d be ushered to a table with other nobodies and I wouldn’t have to suffer through the torture of being in Nikolai’s presence. I accepted an usher’s gentle directions toward a table close to the bride and groom’s, and sat at one of the chairs draped in white silk.

“Ophelia,” my father jovially said, by way of greeting. He pecked my cheek before finding his name opposite mine and taking a seat. “I’m pleased to inform you that yours truly has a meeting with the king in a few days’ time.”

“A few days?” My eyes widened. “But Dad, our flight is –”

“Being changed,” he firmly interjected. “Come on, gorgeous. If I can make this dickhead see sense, it’s worth a delay in our schedule. Besides, what are you going home to?”

I didn’t know what to be annoyed about first: That he was still publicly insulting the king despite my warnings, or that he’d reminded me that I was jobless and therefore able to follow him at whim.

“Don’t give me that look, Ophelia.” He flashed me a megawatt grin. “We both know you have a reason to want to stay longer.”

I nearly choked on air. “What?”

“The castle,” he said, gesturing at the massive room we were in. “Remember all the princess stories Rory would tell you? You wanted to be a princess but I could never give you a castle.”