Chapter 60
Izzy
“I just realized something.”
Nik, lounging across the bed—part of an extremely fancy suite overlooking downtown Brisbane—props his head up. “What’s that?”
“I need a new life’s dream.” I join him on the bed, enjoying the taste of chocolate on my tongue from our shared slice of
cake at dinner. I take off my earrings. “I’ve held a koala. I don’t know what’s left for me. I didn’t expect to experience
my greatest wish this early.”
He holds out his hand for the earrings and places them on the nightstand. “Hard to top, I know.”
The smile on his face is so smug, I have no choice but to pinch his thigh. The spontaneous trip, the amazing day spent at
the sanctuary, the donation—I never imagined that anyone outside of my immediate family would care so much about my happiness.
He’s right, I needed the break. I’ve been running at full speed since the semester began, and it was starting to wear on me.
I pulled Maren aside earlier to ask about the donation details, and the number made my mouth drop open. That, and the fact
it’s yearly. It’s outrageous, and yet it’s not a complete surprise. He’s so hard on himself, when in reality, he’s one of
the best people I’ve ever known.
I lean in for a kiss, wanting to taste the sugar on his lips. I’m proud that he’s starting to let himself enjoy sweets when he wants them. He deserves chocolate cake every now and again. He unclasps my necklace, careful not to snag it on my hair.
“Thank you. For all of it. This has been amazing.”
He holds my gaze, his gold-brown eyes bright in the lamplight. His finger traces from my wrist to my elbow with deliberate
slowness. I bite the inside of my cheek, pressing my legs together.
“Do you want to go out? To a bar maybe, or a nightclub?”
“Is that why you packed that yellow dress?”
“It’s the dress I first saw you in. Last fall, I mean. At the party with Victoria.”
“It makes me look like a highlighter.”
“A fucking sexy highlighter.”
I burst into laughter. “You’re so full of shit.”
He laughs too, snagging me around the waist and pulling me into his lap. The skirt of the dress I’m wearing—fortunately not
highlighter yellow, but rather a beautiful blush pink with a short skirt and sweetheart neckline—rucks up as my thighs settle
on either side of his. He’s half-hard in his charcoal slacks; earlier, I couldn’t stop staring at the way they molded perfectly
to his ass. The top two buttons of his white shirt are undone, giving me a tantalizing peek at his sculpted chest.
He finds the zipper on the back of my dress and tugs it down. I’m not wearing a bra, so his hands span the width of my bare
back, the blunt tips of his nails digging in. I’m torn on whether I want to wriggle into the yellow dress and dance with him
or keep the party going in private, until I see the look in his eyes. It’s not yearning, not even hunger—it’s practically
starvation, as if even this position, with both of us fully clothed, has him close to the edge.
I lean in, letting my breath wash over his lips. He swallows, his Adam’s apple moving.
“Is that what you want?” I tug on the lock of hair hanging over his forehead. “To dance with me at a nightclub?”
“This trip is about you, sweetheart.”
I let the dress fall off my shoulders. His gaze drops to my tits, unabashedly admiring them.
“Let me thank you properly, then.”
Before I can kiss him, he grips my wrist, shaking his head slightly. “You never have to do that. Sex doesn’t have to be...”
“I know that.” And I do; I know he’d never expect anything. “But this is what I want. I always want you, Nik.”
I nearly call him Kolya, but I’m not sure if I’d be pushing my luck. I couldn’t help myself earlier; it slipped out before
I could change course. I could have sworn something changed in his expression when he heard it. Not a bad something, but noticeable
all the same.
I push the hair away from his face, suddenly so full of fondness I couldn’t stop smiling if I tried. I kiss his scar, then
lick it, and he makes a noise in his throat that sounds close enough to a growl, I don’t know whether to giggle or moan. He
rolls us over, so I’m on my back and he’s caging me in with that lithe body I fucking love, and bites my lip before kissing me properly.
“Give it to me like this.” I wrestle out of the dress, tossing it aside. “Like this, baby, please.”
He pops a few buttons in his haste to take off his shirt. I drink in the sight of him hungrily as he fumbles out of his belt
and pants, too. He has a wild look in his eyes, and I bet I’d see the same thing in my own expression. He hooks a thumb in
my pink mesh panties and tugs them down an inch, enough to expose some of my trimmed hair. My breath quickens as he slowly,
slowly takes them off, freeing one leg, then the other. I expect him to dive right in, but instead he just spreads my legs
and looks .
“Nik, what—”
“You’re so beautiful.” He shakes his head slightly, as if in disbelief. “I can’t fucking believe how lucky I am, that’s all.”
Blush creeps up my cheeks. I’ve been bare for him so many times now, and in so many positions, but this feels different. Charged,
somehow. He stays still for another moment, just looking, before finally splaying his hand over my tattoo and coaxing my legs
further apart. He seals his mouth right over my clit, making me gasp. I arch my back, hoping for more friction.
He doesn’t waste time on finesse or teasing; he licks and sucks everywhere he can reach. When his tongue slides into me, I
bring my legs up reflexively, but he holds them down. He slips in a finger, too, and I whimper, reaching for his hair. I wind
my fingers through the soft strands and pull. He moans against my skin like he can’t fucking get enough, even though I’m the
one at his mercy.
He meets my gaze. “You have the sweetest pussy.”
My belly tightens. I’m slick, I know I am, but the sight of his wet mouth has me panting. He wipes his hand across his mouth
before going back in for more, his thumb stroking my clit in time to the rough thrusts of his tongue.
He pulls out long enough to add, “Your taste, Isabelle, it makes me want to bury myself inside you, make you cry on my cock.”
I jerk my hips up. He rumbles against my skin. He pushes two fingers into me, curling them so they brush against my G-spot.
“Please,” I whine, bearing down on his fingers. “I need it, I need it—”
“That’s my girl. Let me hear all those beautiful noises.”
As he talks, he plays with my clit, his fingers plunging in and out of me. I wobble right on the edge, my breath coming short
and fast, until finally, I gush with his name on my tongue, clapping a hand over my mouth out of habit. He laughs against
my skin, his fingers still rubbing my inner walls. I twist, oversensitive, but he holds me in place.
“You’re soaked,” he says, voice rough with lust. He pulls his wet fingers out of me and wraps them around his cock, jerking with a satisfied groan. “I could slide right into you, just like this, and you would take me so perfectly, wouldn’t you? My dirty girl.”
I prop myself on my elbows, watching as he fists his cock. I whimper at the thought of how snugly he fits inside me. His thick
length gets so deep, pressing against places I hardly know belong to me. He looks sinful like this, dragging his teeth over
his lip, forearm flexing with each stroke of his hand. I sit up all the way, kissing his messy mouth—messy with evidence of
me —and help him jerk himself, coaxing him to that last bit of hardness. He pants into my mouth, our tongues clashing as I taste
my own slick.
“So do it,” I whisper against his lips. “Fill me up, Kolya. Just like this.”
He shudders, his grip on himself faltering. “Let me get a condom.”
I stop him, shaking my head. “No.”
“No?”
“I want to feel you. Really feel you. Every inch.”
My heart pounds as the words leave my lips. I’ve never done this with anyone before, not even Chance. But we’re as exclusive
as it gets, and I want to experience this with him. I want to crawl inside his skin and make a home there. To know that he’s
still inside me long after we finish this particular dance.
His brows knit together. “Are you sure?”
“Remember when I said I was looking into birth control?”
“You said the pill gave you bad side effects, back when you took it in high school,” he says, frowning.
“Yeah. But this time, I was able to get an IUD. It doesn’t have hormones.”
“And it’s fine?”
“Totally fine. I promise.” I smile at the look of concern on his face. “I want to do this with you.”
It must finally sink in for him, because he groans, jerking his hand through his hair. “Fuck. Okay, sweetheart.”
He turns off the bedside lamp, letting the deep blue nighttime wash over us. His eyes shine in the light spilling through
the window. There’s tenderness in his expression, the way he pushes me against the bed. The hunger is still there, that passion
that I know by now never leaves him, but I understand, without him saying it, that this moment means as much to him as it
does to me.
He strokes my face, cupping my cheek and rubbing his thumb over my lips before leaning in for a featherlight kiss. His other
hand slides over my ribs and lower, pressing my legs apart again.
I’m still dripping, but he checks anyway, quirking his lips in a slight smile as he rubs over my hole. My breath hitches as
I look into his eyes. He’s a work of art, so gorgeous my heart skips a beat whenever I look at him. I’m so familiar with him
now, but that just makes me fonder. I’ve never felt this way for anyone, and I never want to feel it for anyone else. Just
him. Only him.
Because he’s safety. Comfort. Joy.
Because I love him.
Maybe it should feel like a life-changing realization, but it doesn’t. It’s just the truth, something that part of me already
knew. I love him.
Love him, love him, love him.
He works into me slowly. Taking his time, grounding us both in this moment. I loop my arms around his neck, kissing him as
he presses in inch by perfect inch. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but before I can say them, he pushes in the rest
of the way, and I can’t focus on anything else. He moans into my mouth. I clench around him, reveling in the slight ache.
He rubs my clit with two slippery fingers, sparking an even deeper level of pleasure.
“Good?” he murmurs.
I nod breathlessly, digging my heels into his back, needing him even closer. He strokes his hand through my hair, fingers
catching on the ends of the strands. Slowly, he rolls his hips. He snaps them back, then forward, coaxing a moan from my throat
as he settles inside me all the way once more.
“You take me so perfectly, solnishko.”
“Nik.” My voice catches on the word.
Another kiss, soft and lingering. “My sunshine girl.”
My sunshine girl. He said that for the first time last summer, forever ago. If I’m sunshine to him, then he’s the earth beneath my feet, the
grass between my toes, grounding me like nothing else. That feeling has been building for months, upon hundreds of tiny moments.
I belong to him, and he belongs to me.
I meet his thrusts with my own, snapping my hips up. A growl, a deeper thrust. I dig my nails into his neck, crying out as
he finds a particularly good angle. He lifts my hips with ease, pounding into that spot over and over. I’m shaking, so close
to the edge again that I can’t stop the moans spilling from my mouth.
He says something—in Russian—into the crook of my neck. Even though I don’t speak it, I sense the gravity in his tone. Three
words. Three words, repeated like a prayer.
My eyes widen. “Kolya.”
His thrusts falter; he’s buried deep inside me as he climaxes. He pinches my clit so I’ll come over the edge with him, and
after a moment, my pleasure blooms, overtaking my senses. There’s only him, inside and out. His body pinning me against the
mattress. His scent. His groans. His words, echoing in my mind like music.
We’re quiet for a moment, catching our breath in the cool dark of the bedroom. I curl my toes, shifting underneath him. I
can’t help but smile. His seed is inside me. A claim to match the one he said aloud.
“I love you, too,” I whisper.
“I realized earlier,” he says hoarsely. He lifts his head. “I think some part of me has known for a long time.”
I push the hair away from his forehead as I give him a kiss. “Say it again.”
“ Я люблю тебя .” He shifts, but doesn’t pull out of me. I’d happily stay like this all night. “I love you.”
I try to repeat it, but stumble over the unfamiliar pronunciation. He smiles. He catches my hand and laces our fingers together
as he says it once more, slower this time. “Ya lyublyu tebya.”
I listen, then try again.
“Good.” He eases out of me gently, rolling us onto our sides. “You’re getting the hang of it, solnishko.”
I tilt my head against his shoulder, shivering as his hand splays over my belly. “It’s pretty.”
“It’s home.” He kisses the soft spot behind my ear. “Part of it, at least.”
“Maybe one day, we’ll go there together.”
“Maybe. The country has serious problems—I don’t know if I would take you there now. But one day, if we can, I’d like to show
you where I grew up.” His tone is measured, thoughtful. “You’d like Moscow in springtime.”