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

Nikolai’s hand landed on my bare knee as he leaned into me. “I like that you're a jealous feline,” he murmured into my ear. “You have no idea how much I want to fuck you right upon this table.”

“Even with kids around?” I panted, instantly swallowed into the perverse fantasy.

“I wouldn’t be thinking straight, pussycat,” he replied, his tongue flickering to capture my earlobe, diamond stud and all. “I’d pay for therapy later.”

I let out a strained laugh. “Nikolai…stop.”

“I can’t,” he rasped, his hand sliding up, up, up…

“Are you ready to order?” a voice said from above us.

I blinked repeatedly, my eyes focusing on the beer bottles on the table. The blonde was tapping her foot impatiently as Nikolai slowly detached himself from me.

“I’ve got this,” said Nikolai, opening the leather-bound menu and giving it a cursory glance as if he ate here regularly and knew it by heart. “We’ll have your Texan-style hamburger and fries. With extra hot sauce.”

“Great choice,” she told him excitedly, as if he’d just told her that he had a big D. Great choice to be well-endowed, sir. Great choice you made, choosing such awesome big-dick genes…

Whoa, I thought, watching her sashay away. Where’s all this stupid jealousy coming from?

It took me a minute to realise that Nikolai was leaning on his elbow on the table watching me in amusement, the bottle of Coors in his hand.

“What?”

He shook his head, a curl flying across his forehead. “Nothing. Nothing that wouldn’t scare you, that is.”

I sighed. “Nothing you say could scare me.”

And that was freaking true.

So he asked me to tell him my “deepest, darkest secrets” and I obliged. It was easy to talk to him, to bare my soul, so to speak. Just as it was easy for him to tell me. Heads close together, we talked. By the time the food came, our beers were finished and Nikolai asked for water.

“You’re kidding me, Prince,” I said, dipping a French fry into a dollop of ketchup before eating it. “You’d pick Carrie over Misery?” Once it was established that we were both huge Stephen King fans, Nikolai played the Ebert to my Roeper.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that, kotik?” Nikolai ran a ketchup-tipped fry across my lower lip. My tongue flickered out to lick it away. “Please don’t let me see your tongue,” he said quietly. “You can’t say Kathy Bates didn’t creep you the fuck out. Rock beats scissors. Misery beats Carrie.”

“Well…”

“I’m your number one fan,” Nikolai quipped in a false falsetto, sounding nothing like Kathy.

He dipped ketchup on my lip again but this time, before I could get rid of it, his mouth descended on mine. My eyes fluttered closed and my fingers fisted his T-shirt. Nikolai slid a hand around the back of my neck, slowly swiping his tongue across the seam of my lips. Moaning, I opened for him and his tongue slid inside, briefly teasing.

He pulled away, his eyes dark, electricity sparking inside them. “Fuck, baby. No touching,” he said hoarsely, returning his attention to the towering hamburger on his plate.

I was breathing heavily, heart racing, blood bubbling in my veins. All from a little brush of his tongue against mine. All from the way his lips uttered a simple endearment. I reached out and gulped down the glass of water the waitress had set on the table.

The rest of our dinner passed in much of the same way – jokes and arguments, sexual innuendo and teasing touches – until we were among the last to leave. Nikolai settled the bill with his VISA, despite how much I asked him to at least consider going Dutch.

Outside, Nikolai took my hand in his. I was beginning to understand that he enjoyed doing that, which was absolutely fine by me. I had never been into the hand-holding, lovey-dovey thing with boyfriends but with Nikolai, anything to get us closer was more than acceptable. Necessary.

“This must have been an incredible place to grow up in,” Nikolai observed, leading me to the kerb where Lev was parked.

“It was,” I admitted, remembering how I’d met Savita. “But I didn’t know that until Rory blew into town.”

He chuckled, opening the backseat door of the Mercedes and guiding me inside.“Yeah. Devin said as much. Back when he liked me.”

Nikolai was sitting beside me, his hand on my knee.

“What did you two talk about after breakfast?” I asked, unable to keep the wariness out of my voice. I really didn’t want to know. My father had thought Nikolai had deflowered me. Either he was deliberately naïve or he simply wanted an excuse to disapprove of Nikolai.

“Numerous things,” he whispered in response, his fingers tracing a path up the inside of my thigh. My eyes shifted to Lev sitting in front. His eyes were on the road as he drove and it was dark.

“Like what?” I said on an exhale. Nikolai had just found that I wasn’t wearing any panties.

“Are you trying to torture me, kitten?” he demanded, dipping his index finger deep inside me.

I moaned, bowing my back away from the seat. Fire heated my insides, scorched my skin. Soon I couldn’t say anything, much less worry about what threats my father had made, because Nikolai slid another finger inside me. Stroking. Curling. Fucking. And slowly, skilfully bringing me to a sharp, painfully intense orgasm.

***

Naked, he was moving between my legs, his mouth like an inferno on my cunt. His breath was hot against my clit, setting it alight and unapologetic. My flesh was swollen from his stubble, from his assault. Even in the pale glow of the moon, I could see what kind of erotic image we made on the beach. I moaned, cried his name.

“So good,” he was groaning. His hands were on my hips, holding me down against the velvety blanket beneath me. “You taste so fucking good, Ophelia.” He licked. Set his tongue on the stiff nodule of my clitoris. Raised his head. “So good, baby. Does it feel good?”

His voice was hoarse, his breathing ragged. I had never heard anything so…feral.

“Yes,” I hissed, dragging my nails against the blanket and pushing my hips up to meet him. “Dammit, Nikolai,” I exclaimed, squeezing my eyes shut. “Please. Please fuck me.”

He slid a finger inside me, swirling it around beneath his tongue, stretching me. I was soaking, wet from my orgasm in the car, wet from the momentous build-up to this one. He slipped another finger inside me.

“I need you to come for me, baby,” he rasped, his hungry voice still audible over the crash of the waves before me. His fingers were quick, as frantic as his tongue had been. “I need to watch you come.”

He needed me to come. Not wanted; needed.

Fireworks exploded behind my closed eyelids and I clamped my legs together, keeping Nikolai down. Sensation spiked in my veins, heated my blood. I came, screaming his name. Eyes still shut, I felt him gently prise my legs apart; felt him move over me.

“Look at me, Ophelia,” he commanded, his breath fanning my mouth. He pushed damp tendrils of my hair out of my face.

I looked up at him through heavy lids, breathing heavily.

“Good, baby,” he murmured, kissing the tip of my nose. “Keep your eyes on me while I enter you.”

“Okay,” I breathed. His erection was pressed against the damp inside of my thighs.

Eyes locked, we groaned together as he ran the head of his cock up and down the slick folds of my opening. The feel of the top of his barbell against my swollen clit made me buck against him, made me dig my nails into the rippling muscles of his back.

“I can’t wait any longer,” he whispered, his gaze still unwavering.

“Please,” I rasped, tilting my pelvis beneath him, spreading my legs even wider.

His hand was between us, guiding his cock into me. In one push he was inside, dragging himself out of me after a second.

I moaned, skating my hands down his back and gripping his ass. He thrust into me again, so hard, so deep. I cried his name, breaking apart underneath his smouldering blue-eyed gaze.

“You feel so good,” he said softly, drawing out of me before pushing in. “You feel so good, squeezing me with your tight cunt, kitten.”

I wanted so desperately to close my eyes, to give myself over to the sensations he was causing, but the moment my eyes started drifting closed, he whispered for me to keep them open. He suddenly moved onto his knees, grabbing my legs and pulling me down towards him.

“I wish you could see what I see,” he said roughly, his large body illuminated by the moon. He slid into me, his eyes fixed on the crude place where we joined. “My cock sliding into your beautiful pink cunt. You’re so wet, baby. I can see your juices shimmering in the light. Such a fucking pretty sight.”

He was deeper now; oh-so-wonderfully deep. It felt like I could feel him in every inch of my body.

“That feels so…so good,” I cried out, jolting against him when he reached down and cupped my breasts, fiddling with my beaded nipples. “Oh, Kolya, fuck.”

Stroke after stroke, dirty word after dirty word, the torture continued. I needed to come. Needed to let it go. Needed to admit that I would never, ever feel like this with anyone but him.

“Yes, baby,” Nikolai said roughly, his hands firmly planted on my bucking hips as our flesh pounded together. “You’re so beautiful. Beautiful when you come. Beautiful when you fuck me.”

I blinked away the sweat that was trickling into my eyes. I didn’t want to miss the sight of him exploding inside me, scorching my insides with his semen. I didn’t want to miss the almost tortured look on his beautiful face.

When it finally came – when he finally came – I let go as well. His roar of completion sent goosebumps skittering down my spine and the only thing that was left was for me to say his name, to give him the only thing he really needed from me.

“Nikolai, Nikolai,” I chanted, revelling in the aftershocks of my orgasm. I quaked. Nikolai held me.

And then he was on me, our sticky bodies still joined.

He rolled over and I was pressed against his heaving chest. Post-coital bliss took a lot longer to dissipate with Nikolai than it was supposed to. But I was still acutely aware that if my parents or my brother decided to take a midnight walk and came outside, they would find Nikolai and me in this incredibly compromising position. In any event, sex on the beach was a lot more inviting than sex under my parents’ roof. Again.

“About how the minute I saw Ophelia, I wanted to know her.”

Nikolai’s voice broke into the silent night. I raised my head, quirking an eyebrow down at him.

“What?” I asked, stroking his bristly cheek.

“You wanted to know what your father and I discussed, didn’t you?”

“You said that to my dad?”

“I did, carefully leaving out the part about your high school graduation,” he said. I could hear the laughter in his voice.

“What did he say?” I genuinely wanted to know. I mean, he hadn’t been hostile when I’d told him that Nikolai and I were going to dinner, but he hadn’t been Mr. Happy, either.

“He asked me if I meant know in the biblical sense.”

“Oh, God.”

“That’s what I said,” Nikolai laughed, threading his fingers through my hair. “He doesn’t beat around the bush, your father.” He paused. “I let him know that I don’t care where his daughter is – Miami, Ruslavia, Mars, here – as long as I get to be with her. As long as I get to be the man she chooses.”

“Nikolai,” I began, racking my brain for something to say.

“I told him that I worship the ground his daughter walks on and that I can’t help it,” he continued. “I told him that she’s worth more than a roll in the hay, that she probably deserves a man that knows her inside and out. But that I deserve to be that man.”

I cupped his face in my hands. “What did he say when you were done?”

“That he would break my kneecaps if I switched religions,” he said pensively. “You know, because I kind of worship you? Devin’s funny, I’ll give him that. Afterwards, he took me to the garage behind the house and showed me the car he’s restoring for Calvin.” His brow furrowed. “You managed to fuck up a Camaro?”

“Hey, we were talking about me, not my poor Ruby, rest her soul.”

Laughing, he shifted us and now he was hovering over me, his cock growing inside me. “I love you, Ophelia,” he whispered, so low I almost had to read his lips. “I’ve only said those words to one other woman – my mother. I don’t want to lose you but you have to believe –”

“I love you, too,” I softly interjected.

And I did. It was more than sex, more than a stupid list that I hadn’t thought was stupid until I met this man. It was the way I couldn’t imagine living without his arms around me, without his husky laughter in my ears. It was the way we could talk about anything, the way he listened with open adoration.

All thoughts of long distance, of how I was confused about my career, of how whirlwind this would inevitably seem to people, of the implications of dating a prince… All thoughts of these complications were irrelevant.

I was in love with this man. He was in love with me.

“Nikolai? Say something.” I realised that he’d been silent for a long time.

“Tell me again, pussycat,” he said, his voice broken. “Please.”

“I fucking love you, stalker.”

Nikolai laughed, the vibrations of his body echoing in mine. God help me, I was wet again.

His forearms bracketed my sides. “Didn’t you know?” he said huskily, eyes boring into mine. “I’m your number one fan, sweetheart.”

And then he began to move.