10: In Which She Closes a Chapter (1/2)

10.0: In Which She Closes a Chapter

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After Lev hauled Nikolai’s one suitcase up into the guestroom, I sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed and watched Nikolai set it beside me and open it. LV might have been spattered all over the outside but the inside was a warzone.

“What?” Nikolai followed my open-mouthed stare to the mound of clothing in the valise. “I was kind of in a hurry.”

I rose and stooped, snatching a creased V-necked T-shirt with disdain. “They all need pressing, unless you want to look like you slept in every single item in here.”

He laughed, throwing an arm around my waist and pulling me into his solid front. “Is it strange that I’m getting turned on from you talking about ironing my clothes?” He buried his nose in my hair.

“Hey, I didn’t offer,” I told him, reaching behind me and unravelling the towel that hung low on his hips. “Get dressed, Prince.”

He slapped my ass, making me squeal. “Don’t call me that,” he growled, his mouth against the back of my neck. “Mm. Apples.”

“Don’t,” I whispered, although the air felt charged with sexual electricity now. “We have to go down for breakfast.”

“And we will,” was Nikolai’s husky response as he fisted my hair in his hand, away from his twister of a tongue.

I jerked myself away and landed on the bed, breathing heavily. “My parents are very…particular about meals at the table,” I explained, playing with the hem of my T-shirt. “If we take way too long, they’ll… Well, they’re not stupid. They’ll know we’re having sex upstairs.” I sighed heavily. “Plus my brother’s home for some kind of mid-term break. This will be awkward.”

Nikolai was pulling on clothes as I spoke and I studiously kept my gaze on the cream wall behind him.

“We’ve already had sex upstairs,” Nikolai helpfully pointed out with a smouldering stare.

I threw him a glower. “Which shouldn’t have happened. It’s disrespectful.” I felt my face soften with the memory. “Not that I wouldn’t do it again.”

He laughed, looking too delectable in a not-too-rumpled lime-green T-shirt and low-riding black jeans. He settled beside me and laced his black Converse. “Did I mention that your stepmother is a little…strange?” he said conversationally, rising to all his impressive six-foot-something height.

“Strange?” I followed suit, still amazed that Prince Nikolai Alvonich was actually standing in the house I’d more or less grown up in; that he had actually said the B-word and I hadn’t freaked out.

Oh, fuck.

It was right then that I remembered what time I’d stumbled into the house and who’d met me at the front door: Rory the night-time writer. I usually called Sav up whenever I was drunk but since I’d been ignoring her calls since I’d come home, that was out of the question. Mikhail, my second closest friend, was literally related to the problem and besides, he was on honeymoon in Brazil.

“I might or might not have described your dick to her last night,” I mumbled, allowing Nikolai to take my hand in his and lead me out the door. “In graphic, HD detail.”

He cut a sharp look at me. “What?”

“I was drunk, OK? All kinds of things came out my mouth last night, including my plea for you to come.” I cleared my throat. “Rory and I might or might not have gotten into an argument about Prince Alberts versus apadravya piercings.”

Nikolai froze mid-step. Heat crept up his neck and stained his shadowed cheeks. God, he was adorable when he blushed. If I ignored his five o’clock shadow, staggering height and extreme sex appeal, he could’ve passed off as a kid.

“You discussed my dick piercing with your mother?” he said in an incredulous voice, his eyes wide with mortification. “Ophelia.” My name came through clenched teeth.

God, this was going to be a freaking day like no other. Rory and I were close but not that close. In fact, I shuddered to think what else I’d said to her –that Nikolai was my Exalted Bringer of Orgasms? Or that I loved the way he looked at me as if I were an oasis in a desert? The humiliating possibilities were endless. It took me under five seconds to remember, and I instantly wished the ground would open up and swallow me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of those people that got shitfaced and conveniently forgot every embarrassing thing that happened under the influence.

The L-word might or might not have been thrown around last night, coupled with a debate about love at first sight and other fairytale bullshit Rory believed in and I didn’t.

“Did you go into length and girth as well?” Nikolai muttered sarcastically, his dark brows slashed into a frown. “Did you draw a diagram from memory?”

Despite myself, I let out a laugh, instantly stifling it when Nikolai’s scowl deepened. We were standing on the landing having this surreal conversation and Nikolai was practically hyperventilating.

“Baby, don’t worry,” I told him in a singsong voice, squeezing his hand reassuringly, “about a thing. ’Cause every little thing is gonna be all right.” I cocked my head to one side. “Well, in your case, big thing.”

Nikolai’s lips twitched. “You have a horrible singing voice,” he said serenely, leaning in to peck my nose, “and an even worse sense of humour. I love them both.”

It was with those words that I dragged him downstairs and towards the dining room. Loud laughter filtered out the room and stopped when my parents got a look at us standing in the doorway. Calvin, who usually came down in cotton PJs, had actually dressed up, probably against his will.

Dad pointedly stared at our linked hands. “So,” he casually began, “not entirely a roll in the hay?”

“Dad!” I hissed, at the same time Rory said, “Dev!”

“Well, I guess this is better than GTA,” Calvin said animatedly, shovelling cornflakes into his mouth as his eyes swivelled back and forth from Dad to us as if he were watching a tennis match. “Hey, I’m Calvin, by the way,” he told Nikolai, receiving a greeting in return.

“Thank you for opening up your home to me on such short notice,” Nikolai said politely, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Rory, who grinned back at him. He pulled open my chair opposite her and sat down beside me once I’d settled.

“That’s no problem,” Rory said cheerfully. “You’re Mikhail’s uncle. He’s a good kid. You’re also Fee’s friend.”

I cleared my throat. “Actually, he’s my boyfriend,” I declared. Had I ever said that word to my parents? No. “The, um, bacon smells good. You’re such a great cook, Ror.”

“Your what?” This incredulous demand came from my dad.

I forced myself to meet his disapproving stare. “Nikolai’s my boyfriend. Is there a problem with your twenty-four-year-old daughter dating, Dad?”

Rory laughed, clapping her hands together. “God, you haven’t brought a man home since… well, since high school! This is exciting.”

“Exciting?” Calvin sputtered. “O brings a dude home and that’s exciting?” He grunted.“You know what’s exciting, Mom? The fact that I’m maintaining good grades and captain of the junior basketball team. That’s exciting, if not pretty damn awesome.”

“And we’re proud of you, sweetheart, but I only heard about O’s dude yesterday and –”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t stop being her boyfriend if you stayed all the way in Ruslavia,” Dad said loudly, his menacing hazel eyes fixed on Nikolai. “What exactly are you doing here? ”

I shot my father the dirtiest look I could muster at the tone of his voice but Nikolai placed his hand on my thigh, squeezing gently. The gesture was supposed to be soothing through my jeans, but it was ultimately intimate, affectionate.

“I missed your daughter,” he replied, nodding his head at Rory’s innate offer of coffee. “Thank you.”

I loved my father; I really did. But when he got like this, overprotective and difficult, I always considered shutting him out from my life. Screw our full-disclosure pact.

“You missed her after, what, a one-night stand? Which wasn’t even at night. Which was in a fucking barn, of all places.”

“Devin Lateef Shaw!” Rory exclaimed, slapping my father’s shoulder, hard. “Will you behave?”

“Thanks for the mental image, Father,” Calvin grumbled. “Why don’t you tell us what the weather was like on that day, too?”

“I’m behaving!” Dad protested, raising his hands in surrender. “I just find this hard to wrap my head around.” He gave me an assessing stare. “I thought you were smarter than this, gorgeous.”

I gripped the edge of the tabletop, seething. I was going to say something I was going to regret; I just knew it. Nikolai’s hand on my thigh squeezed once more and I exhaled, quelling my anger.

“I don’t need anyone to tell me how crazy this seems. I know,” I said softly. “But don’t tell me that you and Ror were sane when you first got together.”

Rory gave me a soft look before turning her reverential gaze to her husband. “We were quite mad, weren’t we? Especially you!”

“I think I’m going to barf,” Calvin muttered. “If anybody loves me, gouge my eyeballs out and shove them in my ears.”

“Shut it, Squirt,” I said automatically.

“You're the one who’s turned a great breakfast into an episode of Jerry Springer,” he countered.

“And how’s this going to work out? Long distance?” Dad’s eyes shifted to Nikolai. “I liked you, Nikolai, but that was before you deflowered my little girl in front of some horses.”

I choked on the little coffee that I’d managed to sip. “Deflowered?” I sputtered, feeling heat stain my cheeks yet again. “If you thought I was a virgin before –”

Rory interrupted with a flustered, “Fee, sweetheart, I don’t think –”

“For fuck’s sake, Dad!” Calvin moaned. I felt bad for him. There was no way I wanted to hear about his sexual exploits, either.

“Calvin Shaw! Watch your filthy mouth,” Rory screeched, her creamy skin becoming crimson. “We have company.”

“I don’t think this is the time or place to discuss my relationship with Ophelia, Mr. Shaw.” Nikolai’s voice suddenly cut into the air. It was deep, self-assured and successfully calmed my father down.

“Fine,” Dad conceded after a long moment of silence had elapsed. “After breakfast, I’ll show you the beach.”

“Why does that sound like a threat?” I said under my breath, loud enough for only Nikolai to hear.

He chuckled, and for a long while, we were focused on eating. Only the sound of cutlery scraping against plates filled the air.

Until Rory serenely asked, “So, Nikolai, what do you think about male piercings?”

***

Tonight, Quincy’s was full of loud chatter and the incessant squeals of excitement of little kids. On a good day, the restaurant was filled with murmuring couples. Tonight was all about families.

“Sorry about this,” I told Nikolai, struggling to be heard over the noise.

A slow smile spread across his face. He slid around our booth until we were side by side, our thighs touching.

“We don’t have to shout,” he said into my ear, “if we sit close, kitten.”

I shivered. The cool air and high ceilings inside had nothing to do with it. “No touching.”

Nikolai chuckled, low in his throat. “I agree,” he said, still keeping our thighs in contact. He sat back, surveying the place. The packed eating booths. The bustling wait staff. The oven, in full view of the diners, and the bar out in front. “I like it,” he pronounced. “It’s…charming.”

I eyed him. “You’ve never been to a family eating place?”

“No. I used to be too poor to eat in a place like this,” he said pensively. “Now I’m too rich.”

I laughed. “I guess royals are too good for hamburgers and rambunctious kids.”

“Not me,” Nikolai said softly, his laughing eyes trained on a pair of five- or six-year-olds breaking free from their parents and scampering across the red-brick floor. His cornflower blue eyes turned to me. “If you don’t want me too touch you, why are you wearing such a sexy fucking dress?”

It was as if his eyes were searing through the black lace of my knee-length dress. A blush stole across my face. That same heat burned between my legs.

“Don’t think this is any easier for me, buddy.” I yearned to touch him, to stroke him. To run my fingers across the whiskers on his face. To yank the onyx curls on his head.

I had never craved physical contact with any man the way I craved it with Nikolai Alvonich. He frazzled my brain, scrambled my thought processes – and I loved it.

“I am so going to fuck you senseless,” he casually informed me, sending heat directly to my throbbing clit. He tore his eyes from me. “On the phone, you said your mother’s in hospital?”

Hospital? Rory? What the hell’s he talking about?

Frazzled. Scrambled.

I shook my head and squeezed my thighs together, trying to quell the aching between my legs. “I don’t want to discuss Natalya.” One day I would have to make peace with her, if only for my own peace of mind, but it wasn’t going to be anytime soon. She was a drama queen and overdosing on prescription drugs was something she’d done to get me to go see her.

Nikolai was regarding me, his eyes assessing. “Maybe another time,” he conceded, looping a lock of my hair around his index finger and tugging. Instead of in my scalp, I felt the sharp jolt of pain in my crotch. “Tell me what you plan on doing now that Chasing Ghosts is through,” he said, swiftly changing the subject.

“I don’t…know.”

Saying the words out loud made it ten times scarier. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Acting? I’d called my agent the minute I came home with my father and she had no news for me. Modelling? It was way too shallow and I knew my dad would freak. Law school again? I’d dropped out for a reason… Fortunately, the sight of a bread basket and various spreads appearing on our table gave pause to my inner freak-out. I looked up at the waitress, who towered over us with pen and pad in hand.

“Evening, folks,” she said brightly, her eyes sliding appreciatively to Nikolai. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Coors, please,” I said, receiving a look from Nikolai. He obviously hadn’t expected me to order a beer. Well, I needed it. Desperately.

“And you, sir?” The blonde woman was eating him up as if he were on Quincy’s menu.

“He’ll have the same, thanks,” I snapped, startling her into hurrying away.