14. Kira
KIRA
Nikolai had surprised me this evening by inviting me to dinner.
We hadn't spoken in over a week, though I was awake every night when he came to bed.
My pretending had gotten better or his ability to detect it had gotten worse.
But now that I had a bit more freedom to leave the bedroom, I had made myself more at home.
Yakov had to follow me around, but I sat in the study reading or spent time with Anya in the kitchen.
This afternoon when he requested for me to join him for this meal, I had been sitting on the back patio with Vlad, enjoying the warm sunshine and fresh air.
And he was polite enough about it. How could I refuse him?
"You think that would work?" he asked me, of the several attempts he'd made to sleep through my supposed snoring. Though, I still thought he was picking on me and lying. If anyone snored loudly, it was him.
"You could try anything." I snickered, picturing him with noise cancelling headphones on his head while trying to sleep. We'd been joking and talking about anything and everything for this whole meal, and three glasses of wine in, on the final course, things were winding down.
I was right to question him on every turn, after everything he'd put me through, but having seen him at a very low moment for him, I felt I owed him a second look.
The Nikolai Dragonov whom I got to know over a few weeks of messaging, previous to our failed date, had been so charming and alluring.
Like the man I sat across from tonight. When he said he'd been genuine with me, I originally dismissed him as a liar. Now I felt there was more depth to him than I’d given him credit for.
I plunged my fork into my last piece of lamb and brought it to my mouth as Niko topped off my wineglass without asking. And the way he dived back into stories about his childhood made me smile. He'd already told me several of them, and it appeared he enjoyed remembering those days.
"My grandfather had this fishing boat in St. Petersburg," he said, leaning back in his chair.
"God, it was a tiny thing. My mother told me he glued it together out of popsicle sticks.
" He chuckled, and it warmed his entire expression.
"Anyway, one morning when I was maybe eight, my grandfather took me out before sunrise to check his nets, and I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.
"So he hands me this thermos of coffee and tells me it'll wake me up.
" Both of his eyebrows rose and I already knew what he was going to say.
"I'd never had coffee before." He gestured impishly with his hands.
"I took one huge gulp and spat it all over the side of the boat.
Pops started yelling because I'd spat it directly onto a fish he'd just pulled in.
" The belly laugh that erupts is heartwarming.
"He spent the next twenty minutes rinsing coffee off this fish while it flopped around the deck, and I sat there crying because I thought I'd poisoned it. "
I laughed so hard I had to cover my mouth with my napkin to keep from spitting out wine. I knew I was tipsy and the story wasn't all that funny to me, but his laughter was infectious, and thinking of Nikolai as a child humanized him. It was easier to relate, and it sucked me in.
"Did the fish survive?" I asked, still grinning.
"He sold it at the market that afternoon.
Told the woman it was a special blend." His mouth twitched and I could see the kid in him, with sparkling eyes and high hopes that the woman seated across from him was enjoying him.
"My grandmother found out he made me cry and hollered at him.
" He sighed deeply and it sounded like he was content.
He picked up his wine and finished it as I wiped my mouth.
"Were they close?"
"Until the day he died, I'm told. My parents brought me here to the States when I was so young, maybe ten…
I can't remember." His joy lifted, like someone had suctioned it out of him at the mention of his move.
I pictured a happy life there in St. Petersburg with his grandparents, and I wondered what made his family uproot themselves.
I set my fork down and picked up my glass.
There was something about the way he talked about his family that didn't line up with the man I'd been held captive by.
But when he spoke of his childhood, I found myself resonating with him.
It put me at ease the way "Niko" had, and I almost could forget why I was here and what The Dragon had done to me.
"What about you?" he asked. "What were you like as a kid?"
"A nightmare, honestly." I smiled and shrugged a shoulder.
"I never stopped talking. My mom used to hide in her study just to get five minutes of peace.
" I laughed fondly at the memory. That was long before my mother decided that her long trips to Europe were a better escape than the lock on her home office.
I missed her, though, and the longer I was away from my father, the more time I'd had to think about how right she was.
I needed to reconnect with her somehow, bridge that gap, and hope and pray she cared more about me than my father.
"What did you do for fun?" Nikolai picked up the bottle of wine, only to find it empty and set it back down.
"Oh I loved to read books back then," I told him, though the habit died hard. I still loved reading, just not quite as much.
"What kind of books?"
"Whatever she had on the shelves. I was reading Dostoevsky by fourteen, which was way too young, but I wanted to read what the adults were reading. I thought it made me sophisticated." I rolled my eyes at my younger self. "Mostly, it just gave me nightmares and made me afraid of basements."
"Dostoevsky at fourteen?" He looked at me with admiration. "That explains a lot."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I narrowed my eyes at him as I smiled.
"It means you're not afraid of things that are dark or complicated.
Most people go out of their way to avoid that.
You went looking for it with a flashlight.
" If I wasn't mistaken, Nikolai was impressed, and perhaps turned on, by that.
His eyes darkened as he relaxed forward, resting an elbow on the table.
His compliment unnerved me, so I deflected, changing the subject. "Can I ask you something?" I said.
"Go ahead."
"The age thing. Did it ever bother you?"
He tilted his head like the question caught him off guard. "No…" Then his eyes narrowed in concern. "Should it?"
"I mean," I said, tracing the rim of my wineglass, "you're twenty years older than me, Niko.
When you were my age, I was learning how to walk.
That's a pretty significant gap." I felt nervous asking this because this was about as honest as either of us had been with each other to my knowledge.
I felt like I was finally seeing the real Nikolai Dragonov, without his muscle or firepower, and without his anger or intimidation tactics.
"It's a number, Kira. I've never made decisions based on numbers unless they had dollar signs by them..
" He turned his glass slowly. "What matters to me is whether someone makes me think, or whether I find myself looking forward to hearing from them.
You've done both." He held my gaze and my face went warm.
He had this way of saying things that shocked me, and I could never get my defenses up fast enough to know how to respond. "When we were texting," I said carefully, "the things you said about wanting someone who actually saw you, who didn't just want what you could provide. Was that real?"
"Every word." He seemed to get a bit antsy, rearranging the silverware on his plate, then he stood and held out his hand. "Come to my study," he said. "I've got a bottle I've been saving and I don't want to drink it by myself."
I looked at his extended hand for a second and knew how foolish I'd be to let my heart fall for this man, but I let the wine and chemistry speak for me. "Okay," I mumbled, sliding my hand into his.
Nikolai led me down the hall to his study where he shut the door behind us. He paced across the room to the sideboard and uncorked a fresh bottle of wine. By the time I joined him, he'd poured two glasses, lifting one to hand to me.
"A Bourdeaux?" I sniffed it and swirled it in the cup. It was an expensive label too. He really had saved this for something special, so why waste it on me?
"Nineteen forty-five…" he said, sipping slowly. He moaned, and it made my skin prick with goosebumps. It was the same sound he made when he came. When his eyes opened and I was staring at him with hooded eyes, he asked, "Are you cold?"
Realizing my mistake, I set the glass down and tucked my arms against my chest, hoping he didn't see my hands shaking. "Uh, no… just…"
I itched to touch him. My body was on fire, loosened by wine and good conversation and remembering how incredible Niko had been to me. And he must've seen it in my expression because he set his wineglass down too, then whispered, "Dance with me?"
I slid my hand into his as he pulled out his phone, turning on a soft song to sway to. Then his arms were around my waist, pinning me to his body, and I lost myself. I looked up at him, dropping my gaze to his lips, which were too tempting to avoid, and Nikolai bent to kiss me.
"Can you fuck me?" I asked him, realizing how slurred my words were.
"I think you're drunk," he growled, kissing me harder.
"So? You fucked me the first night when I was drunk…" I bit his lower lip, sucking it into my mouth. "And besides, if you're making me be your wife, I think you have to perform your duties as a husband." I grabbed his dick outside his pants and he growled again, hips jerking against my touch.
"Careful," he cautioned, but I had no desire to be slow or careful right now.
"Or what?" I asked him when he gave me a second to breathe.
"Or you're gonna regret telling me I'm your husband."