Chapter 23 #2
I swear I feel the moment he turns feral when he grabs my hips and pulls me closer. I gasp, clutching at the railing of the bed, knowing I’m already half-gone.
Then I feel him. The blunt head of his cock pressing against my entrance, and every single thought scatters.
All I do is feel.
He pushes in slowly, inexorably, stretching me wider with each inch until I'm gasping, fingers clutching the rail like it’s a lifeline.
The burn. Exquisite. That perfect edge between too much and not enough. My toes curl, eyes sting. He’s everywhere—under my skin, in my breath.
"Christ, Elle," he groans once he's fully seated. "You feel like heaven."
His hands find my hips, gripping tight enough to leave marks, and then he's moving.
The first thrust knocks the air from my lungs.
The second makes me moan.
By the third, I'm incoherent.
My face presses into the mattress, ass grinds in the air, taking everything he gives me and still wanting more.
He fucks me like a man possessed, like he's trying to mark me from the inside out, until the only sounds that remain are skin slapping skin.
He moves inside me with the kind of focus that makes time collapse. Every thrust is a vow, every sound between us a confession. My body meets his on instinct, learning his rhythm like a song. My breath breaks into soft, needy sounds I can’t swallow.
And then he finds that angle —the one that makes my vision go white —and stays there. Relentless but careful, like he’s trying to rewrite the way my body understands pleasure.
“Elle,” he murmurs, voice rough against my ear. “Look at me.”
I turn my head just enough to meet his eyes. What I see there steals the breath from my lungs. It isn’t lust anymore. It’s something deeper. Fiercer. The kind of thing you only get once someone’s seen every sharp, broken, unlovable piece of you and wants you anyway.
He leans forward, body pressed to mine, lips finding my shoulder, my neck, my jaw — everywhere he can reach. His cock drives deeper, curling in the position, and I scream out his name, arching my back to feel that little spark of pleasure growing into a tendril.
“Fuck, Elle, I feel you. You hear me? I feel you?” he growls, twisting a hand through my hair, pounding viciously now.
I moan, letting my face drop to the mattress, trying to breathe through the inferno crashing through me.
The pressure builds again, faster this time, a tidal wave I can't outrun.
When it hits, it's like I’m a wave, and his cock the shore. I pulse around him, screaming, the pleasure so intense it borders on pain.
“That’s it, baby!” Nikolai hisses, his hips stuttering as he follows me over the edge, emptying himself inside me with a groan.
Then he eases out of me, slow and careful, leaving behind a pulse that still thrums through every nerve. The loss feels sudden, like being yanked from a dream mid-kiss.
He collapses beside me, chest heaving, breath rough in the quiet. I fall with him, boneless, the remains of my dress hanging in ribbons from my shoulders. His arm finds me automatically, strong and warm, pulling me into the curve of him.
His hand drifts across my back in lazy circles, the touch so gentle it almost hurts.
Piece by piece, my brain starts booting back up. Right. Dinner. Candles. Words I was supposed to say before I lost my clothes and my common sense.
I shift slightly, tilt my face up to him. “Hungry?”
He smiles, that slow, devastating thing that could ruin nations. “Starving. What’s on the menu?”
This is it. My cue. The moment I tell him his life’s about to change. I'd better get it over with now, before life comes knocking. I’ve played truant long enough, I tell myself. We can celebrate the news over our meal.
Yuup…that’s it. I’m telling him now, that we’re having a baby.
My heart hammers so hard I can practically hear it echo. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something—”
His phone buzzes on the nightstand. Once. Twice. A third time. The sound slices through the softness like glass breaking.
He ignores it at first, still looking at me. “You were saying?”
I open my mouth, but it keeps buzzing, insistent and sharp. Finally, he sighs, reaches for it, glances at the screen, and the entire mood changes.
His body goes still.
He sits up, already reaching for his clothes.
“Nikolai?” I ask, clutching the sheet around me. “What is it?”
“Business.” His tone is clipped, distant.
“Now? You just got home!” I can’t bring myself to keep the disappointment from my voice. Here I am, trying to tell him some life-altering news, and he’s got business?
He doesn’t answer right away. Just buttons his shirt, checks his phone again. His face has gone unreadable to the same mask he wears when he doesn’t want me inside his world.
“I need to tell you something,” I press. “It’s important.”
He stops for half a second. There’s a flicker of guilt, but then his phone lights up again and the flicker’s gone. “It can wait. This can’t.”
The words hit like a slap I didn’t see coming. “What kind of business?”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he says, already tucking his gun into the back of his waistband, as casually as if he’s grabbing his keys. “Go to bed, Elle.”
He walks over, I feel his lips on my forehead, but I’m already dipping…down and deep into myself.
“See you soon?”
I can’t bring myself to say a word. He leaves without even waiting for a goodbye. The silence that follows is suffocating.
I curl into myself, feeling like my heart’s just been ripped into shreds. My hand drifts to my stomach, instinctive now, protective.
He doesn’t know yet. About the baby. About how everything just changed while he’s still living in the same brutal world.
The father of my child kills people for a living.
It’s a thought I’ve been side-stepping, dressing up in softer words.
Enforcer.
Protector.
Provider.
But beneath all that, it’s still violence. Still danger.
What kind of life am I bringing this child into? What kind of man will he be when half his heart belongs to shadows I’ll never see? I look at the table by the window, at the meal gone cold, the candles burning low.
I close my eyes, forcing myself to breathe.
He’s still the man who holds Pasha’s hand when he’s scared. Still, the man who looks at me like I hung the stars. Still the man I love.
But tonight, for the first time, I wonder if love will be enough.