“Yes,” I gasp as he thrusts into me with his hips, holding me still with his hands wrapped around my waist.
His thumb finds my clit just as he whispers his command.
“Give it to me, Nenoka.”
I dig my fingers into his thick shoulders, and he thrusts up into me, one hand keeping my hips pressed down, taking his length while he unloads inside me.
“God,” I gasp as he floods me with his cum. “God,” I repeat, collapsing forward against his chest — a blood-soaked, sweaty mess, totally spent and exhausted.
Art just lets me curl up against him, stroking my hands over hischest, and we breathe together for what feels like hours.
Then he drives me home. He seems so unbothered by the night we’ve had. Meanwhile, my head is pounding with a hangover and I can’t sleep as I think of the blood on my hands.
“I don’t understand why you made me do that.”
“You think you can forget you’re mine and act like that?”
“I can.”
“You can. But everything has a cost, little thief. I will damage every man who’s touched you. And I won’t be able to hold back in the same way that you can. I never took the hippocratic oath.”
“So you’ll never let me move on. With anyone. As if I even could.”
“I made that mistake once before, Nina. I’m not gonna make it again.”
I frown as I try to figure out what he means by that. But as my trembling nerves start to calm down, I relax against Art and allow myself to be held by him.
He’s the reason I’m a mess right now. But he’s also the only person who can make it go away. He runs me a bath, picks up Ava from Ms. Orlov’s, reads to her until she’s asleep, and I allow myself a glimpse of what it might’ve been like if everything had been different.
He doesn’t offer to leave, and I don’t ask him to.
If I said I was okay, I’d be lying. I’m still shaking like a leaf, and every sudden noise scares me.
Later that night, I wake up to check on Ava like always. When I get back, I watch Artyom sleep.
His lips move all the time, like he’s rehearsing speeches. I can’t make out a word, until he starts saying my name.Well, mynickname.
I don’t think in Art’s head I’m anyone other than Nenoka. The 20-year-old medical student he made that deal with.
I don’t think he realizes that she’s gone. I’m not the same person I was, and I don’t know if he wants the new me, or the old one back.
My nickname is so soft on his lips, it’s almost like a moan. I watch him repeat those three syllables again and again.
I don’t ask about it in the morning. It seems too intimate.
Instead, I make a joke.
“I guess this is what it’s like to have an ex,” I say as I head to the bathroom to clean up.
A split second later, I am pinned on the bed again. His honey-like voice is a low hiss. “Don’t you dare call me your ex while I’m still dripping out of you, Nenoka.”
“I’ll be late…” I begin, but Art is already notching himself at my entrance.
He pulls my head up to his with a hand fisted in my hair. “Should’ve thought of that before you provoked me.”
And fuck, my cunt still aches from last night, but it feels so right to have Art inside me again.
I arch against him as he fills me, again and again, with quick, rough strokes that shudder through my body.
