9: In Which She Might Have Nikolai in Her Browser History (1/2)

9: In Which She Miscalculates Her Feelings

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“What the hell?” was the first thing Nikolai groggily murmured when he woke up at the crack of dawn and began to realise that his wrists were cuffed to the wooden headboard of his ridiculously large bed.

His blue eyes focused on me as he made a futile attempt at freeing himself. Since his arms were raised up on either side of his head, I wasn’t too worried about him dislocating something. I was, however, worried that Nikolai was a possible kinky fucker because he had one drawer dedicated to handcuffs of various designs and sizes in his bedroom.

But that was neither here nor there.

“Has anyone mentioned that you sleep like a corpse?” I remarked, cross-legged and appraising him from the foot of the bed.

“I can’t say it’s ever come up in conversation,” he countered, his voice heavy with sarcasm. He jerked his wrists again, shooting me a dark look. “You're going to release me now, Ophelia.”

God, the way he said my name… Like it was something mysterious and exotic, and not something out of the only play my mother ever read and finished in high school.

“I don’t think so,” I told him, grimacing when he began to pull at his restraints once more. He was going to bruise himself if he wasn’t careful. His skin was no match against the cold, hard metal.

He stopped fighting, watching me warily. “Is this a game?” He ran his tongue along his pouty lower lip. I stifled a moan at how hot that was. “You like cuffing me? Well, pussycat, let me go and I’ll cuff you. Think about how much you’d like that…”

I did. Briefly. It was tempting to allow him to confine me to his bed, to have his wicked way with me. I had no doubt it would be wicked… But there were some things I needed to get straight; things he probably would never tell me under normal circumstances. Things I needed to know before I went back home.

“I guess you could call this a game,” I said slowly, running a hand up one of his long, exposed legs and pausing at his knee. I traced his kneecap in small circles, no doubt tickling him. He tried to get his leg away from me, groaning when he realised how impossible that was. “It’s called Truth and Reward.”

“Truth and Reward,” he echoed, and we both stared at the erection straining at the crotch of his silk boxers shorts.

“Yeah.” I licked my lips, moving to straddle him. He automatically jerked, his cock unerringly hitting my exposed clit through the thin silk of his boxers. I gasped. “We’ll start easy,” I breathed, ignoring the sweet sensation. “Favourite food?”

His blue eyes were fixed on me, registering disbelief. “My favourite food?”

“Like I said – easy.”

“But I could lie to you. How would you know that it was the truth?”

“Why would you lie about something like that?”

“Fair enough,” he slowly conceded. He tilted his head to one side. “Pelmeni.” At my blank look, he elaborated: “They’re dumplings. Pastry dumplings stuffed with meatballs. My mother would make them all the time. For a time, that’s all I ate.” His eyes danced with fond memories and I knew that he was telling the truth. No guy could make up a story like that.

“Reward,” I murmured, lowering my mouth to his heavy chest and closing it over one of his dusky nipples. I nibbled at the pebbled nub gently with my teeth and he arched his back, groaning as if in pain.

“Pussycat,” he hissed, beginning to grind against me. “You're killing me.”

I raised my head, stilling his distracting movements with firm hands on his thighs beneath me. “Truth,” I said softly. “When was the first time you saw me? Because I know for a fact that it wasn’t after we…accidentally had sex.”

Nikolai’s gaze devoured me, dissolved me from the inside out with its intensity. “Your graduation.”

I exhaled the breath that I’d been holding. “You were there?”

“Briefly,” he said quietly. “My brother couldn’t make it and I went on his behalf. Little Mikhail needed at least one family member there, right?” Taking a deep breath, he said, “I felt like a pervert, getting hard for someone so young, but God, it wasn’t just sexual. You were laughing during your valedictorian speech and I wanted to…to I don’t know what. It scared me and when I got back here, I tried to force you out of my head.” He gave me a small smile. “I didn’t count on having to force you out of my bed. What were the odds of you falling into my bed when I wanted you so fucking badly?”

I swallowed, knowing that I should never have started this dumbass game. A flurry of emotions threatened to knock me out. This wasn’t what I had expected to hear. It didn’t feel even close to being real.

“So that night? At the end? You pretended not to know me,” I said, but it was more to myself than to Nikolai. “You made up a story about thinking I was trying to seduce the king. And then that time Mikhail properly introduced us? You deserve an Oscar.”

Out of habit, he pulled at his restraints again. “No, Ophelia. I knew it was you the minute you opened your mouth,” he murmured. “There was no fucking way I could have forgotten that voice.”

For a second, I was speechless. Then, “Reward,” I mumbled absently, bending and laving Nikolai’s other nipple with my tongue. I bit down harder than I’d intended and he growled low in his throat, jerking his hips.

“Stop this, pussycat,” he pleaded, his chest heaving beneath my mouth. “I know you're mad, and you have every –”

“I’m not mad,” I told him truthfully, tracing the contours of his pecs with the tip of my tongue. I paused, lifting my head and meeting his blazing eyes. “I’m…overwhelmed.” I sat back up, sucking in air before hoisting myself off him and ambling to his vanity table. “Another truth. What are these?” I held the stack of photographs I’d stumbled upon and watched as heat stained his upper chest and face a deep red. “Oh, you’re a blusher. I would never have guessed,” I muttered sarcastically, walking over to him and flinging the snaps at him.

“Trust me, this is a first,” he said under his breath.

“Trust you? Right. Trust the guy who’s basically admitted that he’s stalked me for the past six years. Got it.”

His eyes narrowed up at me. “Stalked you?” He snorted. “I’m not that far gone.”

“Then how can you expect me to not be creeped out by this? I thought you were normal. I thought you were – God, I don’t know – a player. But then you drop this on me and act like I’m overreacting?”

“I guess you’ve never Googled yourself,” he said, sounding like the soothing voice of reason to my high-pitched hysteria. He sighed with defeat. “You’re not going to let me loose until I tell you everything, are you?”

“No.”

Nikolai’s nostrils flared. “I suppose you're waiting for me to admit that I spent the last six years jerking off to your college photos, pining away for you like a lovesick fan,” he growled through clenched teeth. He tugged at his restraints for good measure. “I’m sorry to disappoint. You obviously don’t know this but” He didn’t look away from me and I didn’t look away from him. “After that night, I just didn’t want to forget your face.”

I swallowed and sat down beside him, on the edge of the bed, processing everything. Firstly, how could he have been at my high school graduation without my knowing? Wouldn’t I have noticed someone as…well, as freakishly hot as he was? Back then, that’s all that mattered to me – looks, then congeniality. Shallowness aside, I would’ve noticed him and besides, Mikhail had never mentioned that his uncle was coming to graduation. Then again, I’d been in my own world during that time, afraid that Natalya would gatecrash that ceremony and further destroy my life. Secondly, why me? He could’ve wanted – and attained – any woman. Yet he was stuck on me, an unemployed wannabe actress whose life was spiralling out of control…

I picked up a photo from the Zara Paulsen shoot. “This is recent.” I was stating the obvious but deep down, I felt the beginnings of a stupid warm feeling because a guy – a prince, for fuck’s sake – cared enough about me to keep tabs on me over the years.

Nikolai surprised me by letting out a laugh. “I never thought you’d come to the wedding. Wasn’t that obtuse of me?” His laughter died. “In my head, I had claimed you. Fuck, you have no idea what you do to me, Ophelia.”

“Truth, Nikolai,” I said softly, turning to face him. “Do you think I should be scared of you?”

His eyes clouded over with…distress. He made a weak attempt at freeing himself again.

“Because I am,” I admitted. “It’s not about the pictures. I was freaked out at first but I’m flattered that someone like you would…” My voice trailed off and I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. “It’s the things you say that scare me. They scare the shit out of me because you sound so…serious and I-I’m going to remove the cuffs now. I don’t want to play this game anymore.”

He sat motionless as I snatched the key that would open the cuffs around his right wrist and unlocked them. Without waiting for any further assistance, he unlocked the second pair on his left wrist, leaving both pairs on the bed.

“Ophelia, look at me,” he prompted, cupping my cheek with one hand.

I caught sight of the marks that were already appearing on the inside of his wrist and winced, snagging his hand before he could move away. “I’m sorry,” I told him, pressing my lips onto the pink welts across his skin. His pulse thrummed in his veins there and I raised my head again, meeting his eyes. “This was stupid. This whole thing was stupid. I wish I’d never asked. I was better off not knowing.”

He dragged his free hand through my hair and tugged me to him, our mouths now inches apart. “You invade my dreams, my thoughts, my fantasies. I don’t know why so how can I begin to explain it to you?” he said, his voice laced with frustration. His breath fanned my lips, making them tingle in anticipation of his kiss.

My eyes snapped shut. “You’ve fucked me. Why isn’t that enough?”

Nikolai’s hold of my hair tightened. “Because I’m not lusting after you. I don’t want your body. I want you. Tell me you understand that, pussycat.”

And then I felt his lips, softer than I always expected them to be, on mine. I parted my lips instantly, allowing myself to be swept away by the heat and intensity Nikolai constantly provoked. Gently pushing me flat onto my back, he sat astride me, never breaking his mouth away from mine.

He slid open my gown, his mouth creating a trail of molten lava as it descended down the side of my neck and into the valley between my breasts. I held in a moan, choosing instead to thread my fingers in the thick, velvety hair of his head and pull for all I was worth as he moved lower and lower, dangerously lower. He hissed, his tongue flickering into the hollow of my navel, and I arched my back, able to smell my arousal in the air.

“So responsive,” he murmured into my skin, pulling me to the edge of the bed and kneeling before me. Parting my legs, he skipped my dripping apex, his mouth landing on the inside of my thigh, sucking gently; hard enough to leave a hickey. “You’re so beautiful in your ecstasy.”

“Nikolai,” I gasped. Pulsating. Aching. Needing.

I felt his mouth move to my other thigh, giving it an identical love bite there, and I writhed, desperate for more. It didn’t matter that I was still filthy from our earlier lovemaking. I didn’t give a damn that I reeked of me, that I reeked of him – I wanted his mouth there…

And eventually, it was.

He kissed the throbbing bud, slowly, as if he were kissing a mouth. I yearned to shove his face into me but held back, knowing that Nikolai’s way was the better one. With steady fingers, he further parted my cunt, his tongue leaving my clit and exploring my parted folds. This time, I couldn’t suppress my moans of pure ecstasy. The faint stubble on his jaw brought added pleasure when the pressure of his tongue intensified. He licked me thoroughly, tasting me, tasting himself. And all the while I was floating, drifting into nothingness.

A finger slid inside me, joining his darting tongue. His nose bumped against my clit. The squelching sound of his entry and retreat intermingled with my breathy cries of his name. I was climbing, climbing high on my way to yet another delicious orgasm à la Nikolai Alvonich.

But then he raised his head, emerging from my cunt with a face that was glistening with my juices.

I shuddered when he rose above me, his breathing ragged as he appraised me, his eyes dangerously dark.

“Do you trust me?” His voice was rough, gravelly.

Against my better judgment, I did. Nikolai would never hurt me. “Yes.”

“Then I’m going to cuff you.”

My breathing sped up, sweat trickling down the place where my breasts separated. I needed to come, needed to have him inside me. How had I lived so long without crippling arousal like this?

Nikolai didn’t wait for my assent. He reached above me and dangled a pair of cuffs over my head.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”

His face softened. Running a finger along my bottom lip, he whispered back: “I like you.”

“I like you, too,” I said, and I did. Despite how crazy he seemed, despite how intense he was coming off, despite how badly I wanted to stay and turn a fling into something meaningful…

“Didn’t doubt it,” he lied, getting off me. “Robe off. Ass up.”

I slipped out of the nightgown, my entire body alight and perspiring. Nikolai instructed me to get on my knees, to hold my forearms against the headboard. The unfamiliar circling of metal around my wrists followed, and I was bound to the wood, unable to get away.

“Good?” That was Nikolai, his voice coming from behind me.