The door opens almost immediately, as if he’s been standing right on the other side of it, which he probably has. Of course, he has. Nikolaj has never been patient when I’m involved. That should comfort me. Instead, it robs me of breath.
My ruin stands there barefoot in black trousers and nothing else, as if he shed the gala skin the second he got back and never bothered to replace it.
The lamplight from inside the suite turns his body into planes of shadow and muscle, catching on the tattoos, the scars, the carved word on his chest, the old X beneath his ear. His hair falls loose around his face, and his eyes go straight to mine with a look that doesn’t let me breathe properly for the space of a heartbeat.
And there he is—not The Blade, not the Pakhan in his cold church of stone. Not the furious king in a ballroom with shattered glass at his feet. Just my Nikolaj, looking at me like I am the answer to a question he’s been bleeding out over for months.
He doesn’t say a word as his hand catches the front of my shirt, and he yanks me inside with enough force that I barely clear the threshold before the door is kicked shut behind me. Then his mouth is on mine, and every part of me not already ruined by him is lost beyond recovery.
I make a helpless sound into his mouth and feel it turn into a laugh against my lips. Not mocking. Relief. God, the relief of him.
He tastes cleaner than he did at the gala, soap and whiskey and the same dangerous male heat that belongs only to him. But underneath it is the familiar thing, the one I knew young and should’ve forgotten and never did. The thing my body has been starving for so long, it no longer knows the difference between hunger and pain.
It is the kind of kiss men trade when they have already lost too much time and know it. His hand fists in my lapel while the other finds the side of my neck, thumb rough under my jaw, and I go into him like I’ve been dying of thirst since the last time he looked at me properly and only just now reached water.
My hands are in his hair before I consciously decide to put them there, dragging the loose strands completely free, needing to feel something real enough to anchor the force of this.
I make a sound into his mouth that I would be embarrassed by in any other context. He swallows it greedily, kissing me as if he’s punishing me for every day I stayed away and himself for every day he asked me to.
The world is suddenly narrowed to only hands and breath, and the brutal familiarity of his body fitted to mine like eight years was an accounting error we no longer have to honor.
“Nikolaj,” I breathe against his lips.
He answers by kissing me harder.
I let him.God, I let him.My head tips back against the door. His hand leaves my waist just long enough to catch my jaw and turn my face where he wants it, and the authority in the motion makes something bright and unbearable spark under my skin.
He is not gentle, but there’s a care buried deep in the violence of it, a desperation that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with finally being close enough to verify that I’m real, that he’s real, that memory can come back in kisses as well as blood.
When he finally tears his mouth from mine, both of us are breathing like we’ve been running. I can feel the rush of his pulse everywhere our bodies touch.
“You came,” he says, and the words are half statement, half disbelief.
I laugh softly because there are tears springing to the backs of my eyes already, and laughter is the only thing keeping them there.
“You gave me a room number and a keycard, Nikolaj. What exactly did you think was going to happen?”
His mouth brushes mine once, almost absentmindedly, like he can’t quite stop doing it now that I’m here. “I thought maybe you’d make me wait another five months out of spite.”
“I considered it.”
“Liar.”
I stare at him, and my chest aches so hard it feels almost sweet. “You know I’d have come to you anywhere.”
The look in his eyes shifts, darkening with something almost painful in its intensity.
“You look different,” he says.
“So do you.”
A ghost of the old grin pulls at one corner of his mouth. “I meant your eyes.”
Of all the things I expected tonight, that wasn’t one of them. But of course, the love of my life would notice the change in my eyes when no one else could.
“You look,” he says slowly, searching my face, “like you’ve been holding your breath for years.”
A disbelieving laugh leaves me then. “I have.”
