Chapter 7 - Nico
What woke me was not my alarm but a sound instead.
For a few seconds, I remained half asleep, staring at the ceiling of my bedroom while my brain attempted to make sense of it.
It almost felt as if I was imagining it, not wanting to ruin my sleep for mere whims. I had already slept really late after driving around aimlessly and had a long day ahead of me.
I need these few minutes. The house was usually silent in the mornings.
The floor-to-ceiling windows inside my bedroom were still dark with the last traces of the night, and the city beyond them had not yet fully come alive.
The gardens were spilling with soft moonlight, but I didn’t care.
The sound came again. It was soft and familiar, and my eyes closed briefly.
Jesus Christ.
Not again.
I was so tired of dreaming about Vera. For months, she had occupied every corner of my head without fail.
No matter how much I tried letting her go, I just couldn’t.
She was there during the day and during the night.
During meetings and even during negotiations.
During the rare moments when I actually managed to relax and sleep and have some time to myself.
I didn’t mind it so much while we had been together because it reminded me how much I loved her, but after the breakup, it was a constant reminder of the betrayal and hurt she had caused me.
I didn’t wish to feel that again and again.
“Go away, Vera,” I whispered groggily in the empty room, willing for the voices in my dream to go away.
But no matter what I did, she was there and refusing to leave. I rolled onto my back and rubbed a hand across my face. The sound came again, and this time my eyes snapped open. I waited for a couple of seconds for the sound, and it was still there, loud and clear, someone in my room.
That wasn’t a dream.
The shower was running just a few steps away, the sound of water combined with soft moans forcing me awake. For a second, I thought Bianca might have returned and was pulling another episode to get me, but I knew that voice. I could recognize that voice in my sleep. It was Vera. Undoubtedly.
Slowly, I sat upright as a strange feeling settled in my stomach. Then I noticed something else.
The door to my walk-in closet was open, and I was certain I had closed it shut before going to sleep last night. I never left the wooden panels open. My entire body went still because I knew exactly what I was going to find on the other side. I was going to find Vera.
I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood up.
The closer I got, the more obvious it became that she was in there.
For a moment, I considered turning around.
For a moment, I considered giving her privacy because even without seeing her, her voice was enough to tell me what she was doing.
I could imagine her fingers over her pussy, pushing into her slick folds as she pleasured herself.
She had done that countless times in front of me. She liked it when I watched.
My jaw tightened at the thought of her naked and wet in my shower.
But I knew that whatever was happening here was intentional.
She wanted me to find her in this manner.
The realization settled heavily as I stepped into the doorway and walked straight towards the open bathroom doors.
I had already seen her through the glass walls, but I wanted a clearer view. A closer look.
As I inched further, my gaze finally found her.
Her pink pajamas were in a heap on the floor beside me while she herself was seated comfortably over the bathtub tiles beneath the spray of water showering over her from all sides.
Her back was against the wall, and her eyes were closed as if whatever she was doing was no longer even a performance. She was clearly enjoying herself.
The moment I saw her, time seemed to slow, not because of what she was doing but simply because it was her. Because after everything, my stupid heart still recognized her before my brain had a chance to intervene.
She had changed since I last knew her in such an intimate manner, and she hadn’t changed at all.
The same dark hair. The same stubborn chin.
The same woman who could walk into a room and somehow make everything else disappear.
But she looked thinner. Her collar bones were more pronounced, and the small chub of her belly had completely flattened.
I could see she had lost a significant amount of weight.
I hated that. God, I hated that so much. It worried me about her.
Months ago, I would have crossed the room without hesitation.
Months ago, I would have wrapped my arms around her and kissed her until neither of us remembered how to breathe.
Months ago, she had been mine. But now she was the woman who had destroyed me.
Or at least that was what I forced myself to remember.
My fingers curled into fists. She still hadn’t noticed me.
“Oh god,” she moaned again. “Yes, fuck, yes.”
I knew how much she loved moaning. Her thumb was administering slow circles over her delicate clitoris while two fingers probed inside her wet pussy.
Her legs were plastered to her boobs, giving her complete access to herself.
Her body had tensed, and that alone told me how deliberate this entire performance was.
Because Vera noticed everything. Her legs were getting further and further apart, and I knew she was close. She would orgasm any minute now, knowing I was watching. The blush on her white skin told me she knew exactly where I stood. Eventually, her eyes opened, and the second she saw me, she froze.
The expression on her face lasted less than a heartbeat.
Satisfaction. Victory. Challenge. Then it disappeared.
We stared at each other. Neither speaking. Neither moving.
The air between us felt charged enough to start a fire, and I knew exactly what this was.
Retaliation.
She wanted a reaction out of me. She wanted to torture me the way I had tortured her, but even for her this was an extreme step. She knew how she affected me and the attraction I felt towards her, and she was exploiting that completely. I hated it.
But the worst part was that she had succeeded.
My pulse was hammering, my self-control was hanging by a thread.
I was seconds away from joining her in the shower, and I knew damned well she wouldn’t even stop me.
She would let me touch her and hold her and drive my fingers inside her until she orgasmed all over my hand.
But giving her the satisfaction she wanted would mean losing.
She wanted me to lose control. She wanted me to admit I still wanted her.
She wanted to act as if she didn’t want me back and make me feel awful about it, and I wasn’t ready to give her that.
I had already lost enough because of Vera Stavros, and I was not ready to lose anymore. I was determined to not lose anymore. It was enough already. So I forced myself to remain still, turning my face into an impassive mask, refusing to let her see how precarious my control was in the moment.
I needed to be cold and controlled, and it wasn’t too difficult because I was still a Romanov. And this was the very version of me that she had created. The cold monster she had left in the wake of the destruction she had caused. And now I was going to be just that.
“Agh,” she moaned again, her eyes closing and ignoring me.
I could feel my cock straining against the trousers I was wearing, but I ignored it.
I had to ignore it. If I had gone out with Bianca last night, this might not have been a problem because being in the same house as Vera all the time only meant I stayed horny all the time.
“Oh God,” she moaned in a small whisper, the sexiest sound another human could make. I wanted her. I wanted her so much, but I was not going to give in.
Just as I opened my mouth to ask her to get out, she continued moaning.
“Oh, Adrian,” she whispered loud enough for the sound to reach me. “Oh yes, Adrian, please. Oh god, Adrian.”
The blood rushing to my dick stopped cold, and my arousal faded completely. She was moaning the name of the asshole she had been about to marry. The asshole she had cheated on me with. The asshole I had stolen her from and who, according to my reports, was already looking for her everywhere.
“Adrain, yes, god, yes.”
My face heated up once again, realizing this was not just an attempt at torture but revenge.
She wanted to hurt me. She wanted me to feel the pain of choosing someone else over me, but I had gone through a much worse version of that months ago.
This hurt in a completely different way, but it only made me angrier.
“Yes, yes, yes,” her body tensed, and the pace of her fingers increased rapidly. She was about to come. I could tell.
Within seconds, she was orgasming all over the bathroom floor, her entire body flushed red as water continued to pour over her. I waited for her heartbeat to slow down. When I finally spoke, my voice sounded calm enough to belong to somebody else.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself.”
Something flickered across her face. Something akin to the satisfaction of a person who had just come and felt victorious about it.
But the victory vanished within seconds and was replaced by something else which I couldn’t quite name.
I did not know what she was feeling, but I had no desire to find out either.
I took another step forward inside the bathroom, still not close enough to touch her, but close enough to make my point.
“The next time you feel like going downtown on the pleasure market, perhaps you would be better off doing it in your room. I don’t want you barging into my private space for no reason and wasting my time with this crap.”
Red-hot fury flashed over her face.
“I’m going to do whatever I want, Nico. Stop me if you can.”
She had always been a little rebel, and it had always turned me on.