Chapter 12 Nik
NIK
It’s been five Fridays now.
For five weeks, Ana has danced for me.
For five weeks, I have enjoyed the sweet smell of peaches, the feel of her small hands on my chest and thighs, always over my clothes.
I still haven’t seen her face, and somehow, that makes it sacred. There’s power in the not-seeing.
Something raw and intimate in surrendering sight.
It’s a kind of vulnerability I don’t allow outside this room.
But, I have an idea of how she might look, naked and on display for me—a visual feast.
I imagine those round breasts, plump and ready for play.
I imagine a light, pink nipple, peaked in the cool of the room.
I imagine a flat stomach and wide hips, long legs spread wide.
I imagine a bare pussy, creamy skin, and pink folds glossy with desire.
I have never asked Ana to make me come. I want it badly.
I want it in her mouth, in her pussy, in her ass.
I want it on her skin.
Oh, how I want to drench her in my desire the way her sweet pussy has drenched me every time I’ve fingered her, every time she’s climbed into my lap, riding me through my pants.
“What’s wrong?” I hear her ask in that soft-as-silk voice of hers as she moves, one of my knees between her spread legs. “You’re extra broody today.”
To punctuate her observation, she rubs her thumbs along the edges of my mouth.
“I am not broody,” I answer. The ghost of her hands on my mouth does things to me.
“No?” she asks, dipping so her bare pussy brushes against my thigh. “Then what?”
“Thinking,” I say.
“About?”
“Fucking you,” I say. “I’m sorry if that is crass.”
Ana is quiet for a moment, and I fear that perhaps I have indeed been too crass.
Another heartbeat, then, “Oh? Tell me about that.”
“Perhaps I’d load you into the swing over there, your feet in those stirrups, your hands bound above your head. Perhaps I’d get you ready with my tongue, my fingers, but then with the toys in the black cabinet over there. Do you like to play with toys, Ana?”
“I—” she sounds so painfully aroused, so breathless. “I don’t know.”
This stops me. I feel myself physically react with a jerk backward. “You don’t know?”
“I’ve never tried it,” she answers, and oh, how I wish I could see the color stain her cheeks. I can feel her palpable embarrassment.
It turns me on. So much.
“You are such a mystery,” I say, putting my hands on her back, pulling her toward me. She adjusts so that she straddles my lap. “Will you touch me, Ana?”
“Touch you?” she asks.
“Yes, unzip my pants. Touch my cock.”
I hold her so she can free her hands to unbutton and unzip my pants. She reaches beneath my boxer briefs and grips my cock, shoving the elastic down clumsily, freeing it.
“Oh,” she says, sucking a sharp breath. “Big.”
I can’t help but chuckle. “Every man’s dream is to hear that.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard it before,” she says.
“Not from you, malyskha,” I say.
“What does that mean?” she asks, her hand moving along my shaft. It’s a painfully slow effort that makes me grit my teeth, not wanting to tell her to go faster.
“Baby girl,” I translate.
“Baby girl,” she repeats, her voice slightly breathless.
“Is it turning you on to touch me?” I ask.
“Yes,” she breathes. “It’s been killing me.”
“Not touching me?”
“Yes. I don’t see how you can stand it. I don’t see how you don’t want to…to…”
My lips twitch. “Come?”
“Mmm.”
The lip twitch turns into a grin. “You can’t say the word?”
Again, that hesitation. I’m sure she must be blushing.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I say. “This space is safe. It’s for pleasure, for both of us. Say the words you want to say. Feel the things you want to feel. Ask for what you want.”
“I thought I was…I thought I was here to pleasure you.”
“You do.”
“But you never…this is the first time I’ve even touched you. Do you…like it?”
I pull her closer, pull her wet pussy to meet my hard cock, where she has continued to stroke so slowly.
“Feel that,” I say darkly. “Feel that and tell me what you think. Do I like it?”
Her hips move. There’s no penetration, just the feel of my cock sliding through her wet folds, friction against her clit. She moans at the skin-to-skin contact.
Normally, I would never allow this, never allow this type of contact without a condom, but I need to feel her. I need her to feel me. No one has ever made me feel this crazy, this hungry. I don’t know why she’s different, but she is.
No matter how much she gives me through her pleasure, I want more. When I am not in this room with her, my thoughts drift to her scent, her voice, the softness of her skin, her responsiveness to my touch, and the sounds she makes when we are intimate.
My hands stay on her lower back as she moves against me, but when I move them up to the middle of her back, pulling her forward so I can kiss the skin at her clavicle, she goes rigid. I hear a tiny sound of discomfort, different than any other sound I’ve heard her make in these past weeks.
“Did I hurt you?” I ask.
“No,” she lets out an exhale as I move my hands back down her back. “No. It’s just, I fell the other day. I must have a bruise back there or something. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” I ask.
“I just…it kind of changed the mood. Don’t you think?”
I huff a bemused laugh. “I suppose?”
“I’m so embarrassed,” she says.
“That’s silly, Ana. I get hurt all the time. If it weren’t for a good training and therapy team, I’d be the one in pain. It happens.”
She takes a long breath in and then lets it out. “Why do you have a team of people to help you with your injuries? What do you do…outside of here?”
Mmm. A dangerous question.
If I give her too much, she might start piecing things together.
And that can’t happen.
For her safety.
For mine.
For what we’ve built here in the shadows.
But damn…
There’s a part of me that aches to let her in.
To strip away the mask, not only the one I wear in this room, but the one I’ve worn for years.
The one that hides the man behind the fame, the brutality, the blood on his hands.
So I give her a sliver. “A professional athlete.”
She hums, thoughtful. “Ah. That doesn’t surprise me.”
That catches me off guard. “No?”
“No. I mean, I haven’t seen your body without clothes on, but I can tell you’re muscular. I can feel how powerful your body is. I…enjoy it.”
My mouth twists nearly into a smile, and my cock jumps at the compliment. “You enjoy it, do you?”
“I’d enjoy it more if I could see more of it,” she says shyly, almost a question.
“Perhaps another day,” I answer. “In the meantime, if you’re in pain, we can stop. I won’t be angry.”
“No,” she says. “No, I want to keep touching you.”
“You lead, then.”
And so she does.
She resumes her movements.
Her hand on my skin, her pussy’s wet and hot as her hips move rhythmically against my length. It’s messy and intoxicating.
When I murmur, “Can I taste you?”
She gasps a soft, “Please.”
I start with her jaw, my lips trailing down her neck, across her clavicle.
She arches beautifully, surrendering to every kiss.
I nip at her nipples through the sheer silk of her chemise, and she whimpers at the attention.
But I need more.
We’re running out of time. I can feel the edge coming.
So I lift her—small and perfect in my arms—and carry her to the red velvet chaise.
Lay her out like a feast.
Spread her thighs wide.
And then I drop to my knees. The mask still hides me, and I taste her. She’s soaked. Sweet. Fucking divine.
My tongue slides over every slick fold, circling her clit until her hips buck.
She tries to escape the pressure, the pleasure, but I won’t let her.
My fingers dig into her hips, anchoring her, dragging her closer so she can’t escape the rhythm I set. I bury myself in her, relentless, devouring the way she writhes against my mouth.
“Let go,” I rasp against her heat. “Just feel me.”
She moans and squirms beneath me, and when I slide a finger inside, she cries out, raw and beautiful.
“Do you like it?” I growl, curling deeper inside her. “Remember your safe word.”
“I like it. I like it.” It’s a chant on her lips.
“What is your safe word, Ana?” I press.
“Blue,” she gasps. “Blue. But I’m not using it.”
A dark chuckle rumbles out of me, “Good girl.”
I push another finger inside, then a third, stretching her until she’s trembling, open for me, only for me. My tongue and teeth work her clit mercilessly, drawing broken cries from her throat.
“Yes. More. Please. Oh God.” She arches off the chaise.
Her hips buck against my face as I ravish her, punishing her with my tongue and teeth.
Her cries get louder and louder, and then she explodes. Her pussy clenches around my fingers, hot cum trickling onto my tongue. I lap it up. I take every bit of her, the salt, the sweetness, the musk. I lick and suck and finger-fuck her until she’s whimpering, aftershocks rocking her body.
And I want desperately to take this mask off. To see how her skin glistens with perspiration after I’ve made her come. I want to see how boneless she is.
But this is better. Better that she doesn’t know who I am, so she wouldn’t be intimidated by it.
Here, I’m just Nik. Not Nikolai Ivanov. Not the head of the Barkov family’s American operations. Not an orphan of Russian mafia violence. Not a man who beat another man nearly to death just this morning.
“I’m Nik,” I say. “I never told you.”
“Nik,” she says, still catching her breath. My fingers are still inside her. My head is on her lower belly. Then, as if she’s read my mind, “Does the mask bother you?”
“We all wear masks. This one is no different.”
I slip away from her as the chime announces the end of our time together. I hear her sigh, then the sound of her rising from the chaise.
She says, “Thank you,” as she always does, and then she leaves.
I am left thinking about her injury, this mysterious bruising on her back. Something in my marrow tells me it was more than a simple fall, and I wonder if I should go after her and ask her for more information.
The thing is, I think I might kill someone if I knew they’d hurt her.