Chapter 32
thirty-two
Vincenzo
Iwake up before Nikolaj, which feels so unnatural. I lie there for a second, convinced I’m still dreaming.
The room is washed in that pale, uncertain hour before full morning, the sea beyond the windows still more shadow than color, the villa quiet in a way that feels almost sacred after the night we had.
For once, he’s the one fully out, one arm thrown heavy across the place I was a second ago, hair a mess against the pillow, mouth softened by sleep.
He looks younger asleep. Not boyish, exactly—he’s too carved by everything he’s survived for that now. But some of the brutality leaves him in sleep, enough that I can still see flashes of the version of him who used to sneak into my room at Vintermoor.
I lie there and stare at him longer than I mean to.
His chest rises slowly, tattoos disappearing beneath the sheet twisted low on his hips. There’s a bruise darkening near his shoulder from the fight the other night, and another on his ribs.
Even in sleep and peace, he looks dangerous. Heavy-limbed, broad through the shoulders, all that impossible Dragovich beauty sharpened by age and violence into something almost unfair.
My body answers the sight of him immediately, warm and aching and embarrassingly eager, and I close my eyes briefly because, Christ.
This is what I’ve been reduced to. Sneaking out of bed on a private island to go make myself presentable for a man I’ve already let see every ruined, desperate version of me there is.
The thought should embarrass me more than it does. It does embarrass me. It just doesn’t stop me.
I ease out carefully from under the sheet, moving slowly so I don’t wake him. That alone feels like an absurd little victory.
Nikolaj almost always wakes first, and when he doesn’t, he usually wakes the second the mattress changes under him.
This morning, though, he only makes a low, displeased sound and rolls half onto his stomach, arm still reaching across the empty space where I was as if his body notices the absence before the rest of him does.
My chest tightens so stupidly at that, I nearly climb right back into bed.
Instead, I head for the bathroom.
The stone floor is cool under my bare feet. The bathroom is still faintly humid from last night, mirrors touched at the edges with old steam, the whole room brightening gradually with the dawn outside.
I shut the door most of the way but not fully. Habit. Or maybe hope. I’m not examining which.
Then I stand there for one second too long at the counter, looking at my own reflection and feeling ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Thirty years old. King of the Five Families.
Political husband. Professional liar when necessary.
Survivor of enough blood and grief to qualify as my own cautionary tale.
And here I am, before sunrise, opening a drawer for lube with all the nervous determination of a man about to meet a lover for the first time instead of one he’s spent years ruining himself over.
“This is pathetic,” I mutter to myself.
My reflection does not disagree.
Still, I do it.
Carefully. Quietly. Efficiently at first, until the awareness of what I’m doing catches up and heats my whole face with a kind of private humiliation that would be easier to bear if I didn’t also feel absurdly pleased by it.
There’s something almost unbearably intimate in preparing for him like this. Not because he needs the help—Nikolaj has never lacked patience where it matters, no matter how rough his mouth is or how filthy his tongue gets when he’s teasing me into losing my composure.
I want to… and because part of me likes the idea of going back to him already open, ready, and his in every private way I can manage before he even wakes.
That thought makes me feel sillier and hotter at the same time.
I hate how much I love him.
When I’m done, I brace both hands on the marble counter and let my head hang for a second, breathing slowly until the rush of heat leaves my face enough that I can look at myself again without wanting to laugh.
I do laugh anyway, quietly and at my own expense.
“Hopeless,” I whisper.
Then I rinse my hands, straighten up, and head back into the bedroom.
The room brightened while I was gone. Not fully. Just enough that the edges of things are softer now, dawn turning the white walls faint gold and silver. The bed is still a wreck. So is the man in it.
Nikolaj is sprawled like a pagan offering, the sheet tangled low around his hips, one leg kicked free, foot hanging off the mattress as if gravity’s too polite to drag him the rest of the way to the floor.
He snores once, a single rough catch of breath, then goes silent again, mouth falling open just enough that I see the tip of his tongue, pink against all that damnable Dragovich bone structure.
Part of me wants to laugh. Part of me wants to climb on top of him and stay there until the sun is at its highest and my knees are weak. Instead, I stand at the edge of the rug, ridiculous and naked and already slick, wondering how a man can look fierce and peaceful in the same frame.
I clear my throat. The noise is small, but in the hush, it sounds like a gunshot. Nothing. He stays dead to the world. I could probably bring down a chandelier, and he’d sleep through it if he’s decided the territory is secure.
The realization does something warm in my ribs; he trusts the island already. He trusts me. Dangerous thing, that trust. Makes me want to live up to it.
I pad to the coffee station by the balcony doors, grind beans by hand because the machine will scream. The smell fills the suite fast—dark roast, nutty, a touch of smoke.
I pour two cups, set them on the low table, then swipe one of the apricot pastries the staff left last night, bite into it, and chew while watching him.
Crumbs stick to my lip, so I lick them off, imagining his mouth following the same path.
Heat licks low again. This is what loving him does—turns basic breakfast into foreplay.
Hopeless, indeed.
Enough staring, Vincenzo.
I crawl onto the bed, the sheet slithering under my knees. The mattress barely dips before his brows pull together, some deep-wired alarm tripping under the calm.
But he doesn’t wake, so I slide a palm up the outside of his calf, over the swell of his thigh, stopping just below the crease where hip meets groin.
Warm skin, faint rough stubble under my fingertips, a new bruise I can’t remember giving him blooming at the top of his quad. I lean down, kiss that mark, taste salt and sleep, feel him exhale a deeper breath.
My cock twitches, half-hard already from everything I did in the bathroom, slick where I’m still holding myself open. I breathe out slowly, try to be patient, and fail.
I wrap my hand around his thick cock, lazily stroking from base to tip just to watch the blood flood bluntly into width under my palm.
That does it. Nikolaj’s eyes snap open, blue going bright and sharp in a blink. He focuses on me, then on my fist, and a ragged, half-cursed Russian question drags out of his chest.
I grin, pump harder, and feel him swell to full thickness, almost violently in my hand.
“Morning,” I say, pitching my voice low so the air vibrates between us. “You were sleeping too sweetly. Had to check you were alive.”
His lips curl, part threat, part humor. “Fuck.”
“Always happy to serve.” I swing one leg over, straddle his waist, and settle with deliberate pressure so the slick head of him nudges the mess I made of myself.
His breath catches, both hands coming up to clamp my hips, fingers flexing hard enough I’ll have prints in an hour.
“Fuck, Vincenzo, you’re—” He swallows, drags eyes down my torso, nails digging lines that ache. “You’re ready to swallow me whole.”
“Got bored waiting.” I rock my hips, let his cock slide against me, not in yet, just a tease that makes his grip tighten. “Figured I’d do the prep work so you could wake up to something useful.”
He laughs once, low, edges fraying. “Useful, huh? My cock-hungry King.”
“Your fault.” I bite my bottom lip, reach between us, and line him up. The stretch burns even though I’m slick, a bright ache that runs electric up my spine as I sink down slowly, inch by inch, eyes locked on his until his jaw clenches and the vein in his neck pops.
The bastard fills me like a promise—wide, heavy, the impossible at first burn—and I savor every millimeter. When I finally bottom out, his head thuds back on the pillow, and a guttural fuck breaks from his chest, deeper than words.
I brace one hand on his sternum and feel his heart kicking against my palm.
“Keep them open,” I tell him, sliding my thumb over his nipple, until it hardens. “I want your eyes while I ride you.”
He obeys. Of course, he does; he’d gut a country for me if I asked in that tone. I start to move—slow lift, drag of tight slick heat, then drop, letting gravity do half the work, the slap of flesh muted in the soft light.
His mouth falls open, breath punching out, hands straining to control my pace, but I slap them away, plant them over his head against the pillow.
“Let me.” My voice hits gravel. “You can fuck me through the headboard tonight. Morning is mine.”
A spark of challenge flares, but he nods, lets his wrists lie there, a concession that costs him visible effort. I ride him harder, roll my hips, find the angle that scrapes my prostate sweetly, and hit it over and over until pleasure scatters through me like sparks.
He watches every twitch of my face, pupils huge, breathing rough. “You look fucking obscene,” he mutters.
He’s right—I must look obscene: hair falling into my eyes, lips parted, chest heaving while I milk every inch of him.
It’s what I want. I want him to see what he does to me without lifting a goddamn finger. I tighten my thighs, take him deeper, grind down hard. My vision edges with static, sharp enough I almost lose rhythm.
I steady myself with the heel of one hand planted against the mattress near his shoulder and circle my hips to keep that perfect pressure. The move makes a slick sound, wet and hungry, and Nikolaj’s hands fist in the pillowcase, knuckles white, forearms trembling from the effort of not grabbing me.
“Touch yourself,” he says, voice rough stone.
“No.” I bounce once, hard, feel him throb inside me. “You want me to finish, you work harder for it.”
“Such a fucking brat.” He tries to keep the words even, but his throat works around them. He’s close; his pulse hammers under the thin skin at his neck, and I want it between my teeth.
I lean forward, the new angle driving him deeper, lips hovering just shy of that thudding vein.
“Tell me,” I demand, rocking faster. “Tell me how it feels to watch your King wreck himself on your cock.”
His breath leaves him on a growl. “Feels like power; like I own every stutter in your heart right now.”
I bite him then, not deep enough to bruise but sharp enough that he hisses. “You do. So do something with it.”
The dam in him cracks—he bucks, hips punching up, thrust meeting me mid-grind. The headboard thunks once against the wall. I gasp, claws raking his chest for balance.
“Fuck, Nikolaj—”
“You wanted it,” he snarls, hands shooting from the pillow to clamp my ass, guiding me, forcing me down to meet each brutal upward drive. The bed creaks under the new tempo.
He’s fucking me now, just like he threatened, and I let him because the angle is savage, perfectly filthy, each bottom-out stroke knocking a small, ragged sound out of my throat. My cock slaps my abdomen, leaking onto his stomach, every nerve drawn tight and humming.
“You gonna spill for me?” he taunts, thumb sweeping to tease the stretched edge where he enters me. “Or do I need to choke it out of you?”
The flash of heat that rips through me at the threat is humiliating and perfect. I brace both palms on his chest, ride harder, chasing the burn.
“Choke later,” I gasp, sweat dripping off my chin onto his sternum. “Right now, shut up and fuck—”
He squeezes, driving up so deep the slap echoes. My vision whites out. “Ask nicer, My King.”
“Please.” The word rasps free, half curse, half prayer. “Please, Nikolaj, I need—”
He gives it. Hips jackhammer, grip punishing, the headboard slamming a steady cadence. My world narrows to piston and pulse and the swirl of heat coiling low and tight.
I reach down without thinking, fist my cock, only needing two noisy strokes before orgasm detonates—white hot and body locking, ropes striping both our stomachs.
The clench of my muscles drags a guttural, “Fuck, Vincenzo!” from him, and he slams deep, stays, hips jerking while warmth floods inside, filling me until it seeps around the seal of us. He holds there, breathing hard, eyes locked to mine.
When the last tremor leaves us, I slump forward onto his chest, breathing as if I ran a mile uphill.
For a long minute, we breathe each other’s air, his cock softening where it’s still inside, cum leaking slowly out of me. He strokes my back soothingly, the brutality of a minute ago melted into something weirdly tender.
“Useful enough for breakfast?” I mumble against his skin.
He huffs a shaky laugh and presses a kiss to my temple. “Fuck yes.”
I shift, groaning at the hypersensitive slide when he slips free and rolls off to his side. We lie there in the midday-gray of dawn turned full morning, cum cooling on our skin, the sheet a wreck under us.
He turns his head and watches me, a lazy, softened wolf. His fingers find my wrist, drag it to his mouth, lips brushing my racing pulse.
“You’re staying in bed today,” he decides.
“We have calls at ten.”
“They can burn.”
“I thought kings didn’t miss executive summaries.”
“Kings who just got fucked stupid can.” He grins, eyes teasing but fond. “Lie still. I’ll bring you coffee this time.”
The idea—the man capable of burning nations bringing me coffee—hits something tender and absurd in me. I grin back, swipe my thumb across the drying bite on his throat, and admire the red print. “Only if you drink it off me.”
His eyes darken again, promise flickering. “Deal. But after a nap, or I’ll kill us both.”
I laugh, flop back, let his arm hook around my waist, let the sun warm the mess on our skin.
The villa is silent except for gulls and the distant churn of sea against rock. For once, there’s no countdown ticking loudly in my head, just the echo of his heart under my cheek.
I press a lazy kiss to the bruise above his heart and let sleep drag me under.