Chapter Fourteen - Nikola #2
“Terrible idea.” My voice comes out rougher than intended. “Worst decision we could make.”
“Good.” She pulls my boxers down, freeing me, and the cool air against heated skin makes me hiss. “I’m tired of making good decisions.”
When her hand wraps around me properly, skin against skin, my head falls back against the couch. She strokes me slowly, learning what makes me tense, what makes my breath catch, what makes my fingers dig harder into the cushions.
“Elara—” Her name comes out like a warning, but I’m not sure what I’m warning her about.
She doesn’t respond with words. Instead, she leans forward, and the first touch of her tongue against my cock destroys whatever coherent thought I had left.
I’ve had this before—countless times, with women whose names I don’t remember, encounters that meant nothing beyond physical release.
This is different. This is Elara, my wife, the woman I’ve manipulated and protected and possibly destroyed, kneeling between my thighs and taking me into her mouth with an intensity that suggests this means something to her too.
Her technique isn’t practiced or perfect—there’s hesitation in her movements, uncertainty in how deep to take me, when to use her tongue.
What she lacks in experience she makes up for in sheer determination, in the way she watches my reactions and adjusts accordingly, in the soft sounds she makes that vibrate against sensitive flesh.
My good hand finds her hair, not to control but to ground myself, to maintain some connection to reality while pleasure threatens to pull me under. She looks up at me through her lashes, and the sight of her like this—lips wrapped around me, eyes dark with desire—nearly undoes me completely.
“Christ, Elara—” The words come out strangled. “You need to stop or I’m going to—”
She doesn’t stop. If anything, she doubles her efforts, taking me deeper, using her hand in conjunction with her mouth, and the combination is devastating. I try to pull back, to give her an out, but she follows me, refusing to let me retreat.
The orgasm hits like a bullet, sudden and overwhelming and completely beyond my control. I come with a harsh groan, her name on my lips, fingers tight in her hair. She stays with me through it, swallowing around me, gentling her movements as I come down from the high.
When she finally pulls back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, I’m completely wrecked. My carefully maintained composure is in pieces, my control shattered, and I can’t bring myself to care.
She climbs into my lap—carefully, avoiding my injured arm—and I wrap my good arm around her waist, holding her close. We sit like that for several long moments, her head tucked under my chin, both of us breathing hard.
My hands find her hips, enjoying those lovely curves.
“That was—” I start, but I don’t have words for what that was.
“Necessary,” she finishes quietly. “For both of us.”
She’s right. Something shifted between us in those moments—some invisible line crossed, some threshold passed that we can’t uncross. This isn’t a fake marriage anymore. Isn’t a strategic alliance held together by threats and necessity.
This is real. Dangerous. Consuming.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” I say, but I’m already pulling her closer, already pressing kisses into her hair, already planning how soon I can have her again.
“Probably not.” She shifts in my lap, and I can feel her smiling against my throat. “Are you going to tell me what happened tonight?”
“No.”
“Are you going to lie to me about how dangerous this is getting?”
“Yes.”
She huffs a laugh, but there’s no real amusement in it. “At least you’re honest about your dishonesty.”
“It’s one of my more admirable qualities.”
“You don’t have admirable qualities, Nikola.
” She pulls back to look at me, and her expression is complicated—affection mixed with exasperation mixed with something deeper that I don’t want to name.
“You have dangerous qualities that I’m apparently attracted to despite every bit of common sense I possess. ”
“Is that a problem?”
“Probably.” She cups my face in her hands, thumbs tracing my cheekbones. “But I’m choosing it anyway.”
The echo of her words from two nights ago—I’m choosing this anyway—settles something in my chest that’s been restless since the moment I met her.
She’s not being forced anymore. Isn’t staying just because I’ve eliminated her other options.
She’s choosing this, choosing me, with full knowledge of what I am.
The trust in that choice is more intimate than any physical act could be.
I stand, careful of my arm, lifting her with me. She wraps her legs around my waist automatically, and I carry her toward the bedroom.
“Where are we going?”
“To bed.”
“Are you actually going to sleep this time?” There’s skepticism in her voice. “Or are you going to wait until I pass out and then go back to work?”
“I’m going to hold you until morning.” I kick the bedroom door closed behind us. “Everything else can wait.”
“The world isn’t going to stop just because you decide to take a night off.”
“Let it burn.” I lower her onto the bed, following her down, wrapping myself around her despite the protest from my injured arm. “Right now, nothing matters except this.”
She goes still in my arms, and I can feel her holding her breath. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
The terrifying thing is, it’s true. If Marcus Hale burned down every operation I have, if my entire empire collapsed tonight—I’d burn it all myself before I’d trade this moment for strategic advantage.
“You’re more important than any of it, Elara. More important than business, than control, than the careful structure I’ve built around everything. If I have to choose, I choose you.”
“That’s insane,” she whispers.
“Yes.” I press a kiss to her temple. “Most things about me are.”
She laughs—actually laughs—and the sound is unexpected enough that I pull back to look at her. There’s genuine amusement in her eyes, but also something softer. Something that looks dangerously like affection.
“You’re using my own words against me.”
“They were good words.”
“They were fucked up words.” She’s smiling now, and it transforms her face. “We’re both messed up, aren’t we?”
“Completely.”
“Good.” She pulls me down into a kiss that tastes like trust and surrender and terrifying possibility. “I wouldn’t know what to do with someone normal anyway.”