"Christ, Elle." His voice behind me is reverent and ruined at the same time. His palm slides down the curve of my spine, slow, and I shiver from scalp to toes.
I feel him position himself. The blunt head of his cock pressing where I'm slick and aching and completely, embarrassingly ready.
"Please," I breathe into the pillow.
He pushes in. One long, deep, devastating stroke that fills me so completely I forget how to make sounds. My fingers claw the sheets. My spine arches. He grips my hips with both hands and holds me there, pinned on his cock, while we both remember how to breathe.
Then he moves.
The first thrust shoves me forward into the mattress. The second makes me moan into the pillow. By the third, I'm making sounds I didn't know I was capable of, and I don't care who hears.
He fucks me like a man who just fought to keep me and won. Hard, deep, relentless, his hands bruising my hips, his cock hitting a spot so deep I see white behind my eyes.
"God, Nikolai." I can barely form words. "Don't stop."
"Not a chance."
His hand slides around my hip, fingers finding my clit from behind, and the dual sensation of him inside me and his touch against me is so overwhelming I nearly collapse.
He circles slow while he drives hard. The contrast is maddening, gentle fingers and vicious hips, and I can feel the orgasm building like a wave gathering height before it destroys the shore.
"You feel what you do to me?" he growls, driving deeper. "You feel how hard you make me? This is what you do, Elle. You wreck me."
His words, the raw honesty of them, push me right to the edge.
"I'm going to..." I gasp.
"Then let go. I want to feel it."
The orgasm detonates through me. Not a wave. An earthquake. I scream his name into the pillow, my body clenching around him so hard he curses, hips stuttering as he buries himself to the hilt and follows me over.
We come apart together. Loud and graceless and shaking.
He collapses over me, chest heaving against my back. His mouth finds the curve between my neck and shoulder and presses there, breathing hard, staying close.
For a long time, neither of us moves.
He rolls to the side eventually, pulling me with him, and I curl against his chest, boneless and buzzing and unable to form a coherent thought.
"Guess that counts as forgiveness," I whisper.
His lips curve against my hair. "Temporarily."
I smile, eyes already closing. "I'll take it."
19
ELLE
Natalia's been here two weeks, living in the guesthouse, and Nikolai still hates that she's here. But I've reminded him that I'm not dead yet and Pasha hasn't gone missing. So now he's evolved from asking when she plans to leave to just scowling at her from a distance.
That's progress, I suppose.
He still refuses to deal with her at all. Won't speak, won't look, won't acknowledge her existence. Which, for him, is basically a peace treaty.
But me? Against all logic, I actually like her. Which means the job of hostess-slash-referee between Nikolai and Natalia falls squarely to yours truly.
I know. Bad idea, Elle. But Natalia's nice. Calmer than I expected. She has this old-soul energy that makes you want to sit down and tell her your secrets. Not that I've done that yet.
