Chapter 27 #2
I could put up with almost anything for the kind of money he was offering.
Change-my-life-forever money.
The unreality of the way he threw money around like sparkling fairy dust is what made me believe for a few drunken moments that Nicolai and his friends might be fae folk from beyond the Wall again. “Nicolai, why are you doing this?”
He leaned in and brushed a gentle kiss across my lips, then retreated a few inches, his eyes still dancing like he was drunk. “Because I’m rich as fuck, and that means I can. Now, you will share a bed with me, wife. Lie down and close your eyes before I decide to tire you out some more.”
I could feel my eyelids stretching because Nicolai was still in my face, invading the layer of air touching my skin like his aura was flaring around me. “That sounds like a threat.”
He didn’t blink, but his smile grew, showing straight, white teeth. “Take it however you like.”
I slunk down, wiggling between the sheets that were as tight as a cocoon from his hands and knees pinning them down around me, until I was peeking out from under the covers at him. “Is this okay?”
“Better.” Nicolai flipped open the covers on his side of the bed and rolled over to slide under them, settling close to me even though the bed was the size of a football field.
His hands found my waist under the covers, and he rolled me onto my side and dragged my hips back in contact with his pajamas.
“Now go to sleep, little angel. I think this day has been too much for you, and you’re a tired, sleepy little wife. ”
I was, like, stunned.
No thoughts, empty head.
Had Nicolai just calmed me down and put me to bed like a fussy puppy?
Was that allowed?
Jimmy would have gotten exasperated at my dithering and started a fight, and then I would’ve had to calm him down and promise not to be so stupid anymore.
Nicolai’s lips brushed the back of my neck, his breath a minty warmth that trickled over my shoulder.
Thoughts fled again.
Okay, no thoughts. That’s fine. I’m fine with that.
The way he calmed me down was like magic. “You’re sure you’re not a fae high lord, huh?”
“I can confirm that I am definitely not any sort of fae.” He paused. “But wait, maybe I am a—what did Clemmy call it—a shadow daddy.”
I laughed at him. “What?”
Nicolai rolled away from my back a little. “Kreest-yanin, lights off.”
The ceiling chandelier and bedside lights clicked off, and darkness filled the room. My eyes strained to see.
His phone’s female voice intoned, “Da, Nicolai. Good night.”
I was still laughing. “No way.”
Pale glow from the lights of the Strip a few blocks away radiated through the dark-tinted window, throwing spires of ghostly light onto the ceiling.
From behind me, Nicolai snickered. His suppressed laugh had a devious edge. “And, according to some, I have a magic dick.”
I cringed and cracked up, though softly. “I should never have told you they said that.”
“I’m not sure whether it’s gratifying or objectifying, but I find it awfully funny.”
I could hear the smile in his sigh as he tightened his arm around me, and he relaxed.
And so I relaxed, first onto the mattress, then against him. “How you live is so different than how I grew up. As far as I can tell, you might as well be faeries, or sexy elves, or Greek gods from Olympus. I’m so out of my league, Nico.”
“We’ll practice before the next event. By John’s wedding, you’ll fit in like you were born to royalty.”
His arm tightened around my waist, pulling me more firmly against his huge, muscular body.
I was being spooned.
I’d always wanted to be spooned, to be lying in a man’s arms and resting, feeling his strength.
I even got to be the little spoon.
Every night in my twin bed in my one-room apartment, I’d wadded up a roll of blankets behind my back because it helped me sleep to lean against something other than the cold wall.
But this was what I’d been missing.
The warmth.
His hand, resting on my hip.
Nicolai’s mint-tinged breath leaked over my neck, and his body deflated a little behind me, like he had sighed out the tension of the day. “Now sleep, angel. Tomorrow will come soon enough.”
But surely I wouldn’t sleep. Feeling every second of Nicolai, a gorgeous and ripped man like Nicolai Romanov, spooning me was more important than sleep.
I could sleep anytime. I could sleep for hours when I was alone again.
Right then, I wanted to feel him.
His warmth seeped through the blankets, surrounding me.
The weight of his arm wound around my side, bearing me down into the mattress.
The even puffs of his light breath, pleasant on my shoulder through my tee shirt, like the gentlest of kisses.
It was really nice.
Very soothing.
I shouldn’t get used to it, because in a year, he was going to leave me.
I must not forget that.
My heart would not withstand another shattering. My whole soul was a rattling bag of broken-glass shards.
I couldn’t let Nicolai crush me, too.
I sighed, and my body melted into the bed and into his arms—
—and everything became quiet.