“I love you too,” I said automatically.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, then urged me up by a hand beneath my chin, up to his waiting lips.
Nikolay kissed me as he hadn't kissed me in years. As if I were important to him. A real person who he cared about. This wasn't his usual, fake kindness that led to terrible things. It was tender and giving. Beautiful. He pulled me up, straightening my torso so he could wrap me in his arms, soft sounds coming from him as he kneaded his fingertips over my scalp. Then he eased back and pressed our foreheads together.
“I'm sorry, my love,” Niko said.
I gaped at him.
“Misha?” He rubbed a finger over my lips.
“There is nothing for me to forgive. I deserved what you did. I withheld something from you.”
“It was a minor deceit. I punished you too harshly for it, and we both know that. Will you forgive me?”
“Niko,” my voice shattered.
“Misha, shh.”
Then Niko did something even more shocking; he pushed his chair back and went to his knees before me. My head fell to his shoulder as he cradled me, just as he'd done so many times when I was a child.
With that thought, I went tense. Was Kon right? His words circled my mind, making me rethink everything I'd accepted as normal behavior. A man shouldn't have memories of his lover cradling him as a child. But we were immortals, and things were different for our kind. There were often great age gaps between couples. So what if Niko had looked after me? That didn't mean we couldn't be together. It didn't make us disgusting. I'd been young when he claimed me, but not so young as to make him a pedophile.
“I've been cruel to you,” Niko said. “My little Misha. How I've mistreated you.”
“No, you haven't,” I said even though I knew it was a lie.
Part of me wondered if this was a new game for him. If he had apologized only to get me to vindicate his actions. His victim becoming his supporter. But then he was kissing my face and stroking my neck, easing his hand into my shirt. And I was feeling things for him that I hadn't felt for many years.
The Swan King laid me back on the thick carpet, right beside his desk, and tenderly undressed me, kissing every part of my body as he revealed it. My breath grew ragged as he lowered my underwear and spread my legs.Was he going to . . .
“Oh, Goddess!” I cried out as Nikolay took me into his mouth.
The King's lips tightened around me as he sucked me deeper. Then he began to move over me. Slowly, up and down. That hot, wet vacuum sent ecstasy swirling around my pelvis. Coalescing. Tingling in my sacs. A storm gathering. My breath became a ragged panting. My lover's deep blue eyes glittered in the late afternoon light coming through the windows, brightened by the snow. They locked on my face. Adoring me as he pleasured me.
When my thighs tightened and hips started to rock, he eased off, hands sliding slowly over my inner thighs as he rose to his knees. He removed his shirt, then opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a bottle. With practiced movements, he squeezed some lubricant into his palm and coated himself.
I hadn't even realized that he'd slid his pants to his knees. Must have been while he'd been sucking my cock.Sweet Goddess, the Swan King had just pleasured me.In over twenty years of being his lover, he'd never done that for me. And now he was smiling tenderly at me. Really seeing me.
“Will you lift your legs for me, Misha?”
A request, not a demand? What the fuck was happening?
I bent my knees and lifted my legs, propping one foot on his desk and the other on the wall.
“There it is, that blushing ring.” He rubbed the residue on his fingers over my hole, circling it before sliding a finger inside. He pumped me gently and twirled, easing me open before slipping out. Then he squeezed more gel onto my cock. “Rub yourself for me, Misha.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” I spread the gel over my shaft.
“No. Call me by my name.”
I looked up at him in surprise. “Yes, Niko.”
Niko smiled as he placed himself at my entrance, then, still gentle, he slid inside, careful to pump slowly, going a little deeper with every thrust until, at last, he was in to the hilt.
“Oh, Misha, you feel so good,” he groaned and took my thighs, holding them for me but also using them to pull himself in and out of me.
“So do you.” I gasped as a different kind of pleasure arrived, shooting up my spine like a laser beam.
