Then I rinse my hands, straighten up, and head back into the bedroom.
The room brightened while I was gone. Not fully. Just enough that the edges of things are softer now, dawn turning the white walls faint gold and silver. The bed is still a wreck. So is the man in it.
Nikolaj is sprawled like a pagan offering, the sheet tangled low around his hips, one leg kicked free, foot hanging off the mattress as if gravity’s too polite to drag him the rest of the way to the floor.
He snores once, a single rough catch of breath, then goes silent again, mouth falling open just enough that I see the tip of his tongue, pink against all that damnable Dragovich bone structure.
Part of me wants to laugh. Part of me wants to climb on top of him and stay there until the sun is at its highest and my knees are weak. Instead, I stand at the edge of the rug, ridiculous and naked and already slick, wondering how a man can look fierce and peaceful in the same frame.
I clear my throat. The noise is small, but in the hush, it sounds like a gunshot. Nothing. He stays dead to the world. I could probably bring down a chandelier, and he’d sleep through it if he’s decided the territory is secure.
The realization does something warm in my ribs; he trusts the island already. He trusts me. Dangerous thing, that trust. Makes me want to live up to it.
I pad to the coffee station by the balcony doors, grind beans by hand because the machine will scream. The smell fills the suite fast—dark roast, nutty, a touch of smoke.
I pour two cups, set them on the low table, then swipe one of the apricot pastries the staff left last night, bite into it, and chew while watching him. Crumbs stick to my lip, so I lick them off, imagining his mouth following the same path. Heat licks lowagain. This is what loving him does—turns basic breakfast into foreplay.
Hopeless, indeed.
Enough staring, Vincenzo.
I crawl onto the bed, the sheet slithering under my knees. The mattress barely dips before his brows pull together, some deep-wired alarm tripping under the calm.
But he doesn’t wake, so I slide a palm up the outside of his calf, over the swell of his thigh, stopping just below the crease where hip meets groin.
Warm skin, faint rough stubble under my fingertips, a new bruise I can’t remember giving him blooming at the top of his quad. I lean down, kiss that mark, taste salt and sleep, feel him exhale a deeper breath.
My cock twitches, half-hard already from everything I did in the bathroom, slick where I’m still holding myself open. I breathe out slowly, try to be patient, and fail.
I wrap my hand around his thick cock, lazily stroking from base to tip just to watch the blood flood bluntly into width under my palm.
That does it. Nikolaj’s eyes snap open, blue going bright and sharp in a blink. He focuses on me, then on my fist, and a ragged, half-cursed Russian question drags out of his chest.
I grin, pump harder, and feel him swell to full thickness, almost violently in my hand.
“Morning,” I say, pitching my voice low so the air vibrates between us. “You were sleeping too sweetly. Had to check you were alive.”
His lips curl, part threat, part humor. “Fuck.”
“Always happy to serve.” I swing one leg over, straddle his waist, and settle with deliberate pressure so the slick head of him nudges the mess I made of myself.
His breath catches, both hands coming up to clamp my hips, fingers flexing hard enough I’ll have prints in an hour.
“Fuck, Vincenzo, you’re—” He swallows, drags eyes down my torso, nails digging lines that ache. “You’re ready to swallow me whole.”
“Got bored waiting.” I rock my hips, let his cock slide against me, not in yet, just a tease that makes his grip tighten. “Figured I’d do the prep work so you could wake up to something useful.”
He laughs once, low, edges fraying. “Useful, huh? My cock-hungry King.”
“Your fault.” I bite my bottom lip, reach between us, and line him up. The stretch burns even though I’m slick, a bright ache that runs electric up my spine as I sink down slowly, inch by inch, eyes locked on his until his jaw clenches and the vein in his neck pops.
The bastard fills me like a promise—wide, heavy, the impossible at first burn—and I savor every millimeter. When I finally bottom out, his head thuds back on the pillow, and a guttural fuck breaks from his chest, deeper than words.
I brace one hand on his sternum and feel his heart kicking against my palm.
“Keep them open,” I tell him, sliding my thumb over his nipple, until it hardens. “I want your eyes while I ride you.”
He obeys. Of course, he does; he’d gut a country for me if I asked in that tone. I start to move—slow lift, drag of tight slick heat, then drop, letting gravity do half the work, the slap of flesh muted in the soft light.
