47. Isla
ISLA
The door closed on the noise of the reception, and for the first time in an entire day it was just the two of us, the silence so complete after hours of music and laughter that I could hear my own heartbeat in it.
"Turn around," Nikolai said quietly, already reaching for the first of the tiny buttons running down the back of my dress. "I have been wanting to do this since the ceremony."
"You have been wanting to unbutton my dress since the ceremony?"
"I have been eager to help you out of everything that took three fittings and a small argument with Renee to get you into. There is a difference."
"Is there?"
"A significant one." His fingers moved slow and careful down my spine, taking their time in a way that made my breath catch more than urgency ever could have.
"I intend to enjoy every part of this evening. Rushing it would be a waste."
I let my head fall forward, giving him better access, feeling the fabric loosen inch by inch under his hands.
"You are good at that."
"I have had practice." A faint smile in his voice, the kind I felt more than heard.
"You wore an extraordinary number of pins in your hair today. I counted fourteen before I lost track."
"Renee's doing. She takes hair architecture very seriously."
"Remind me to thank her. Quietly. From a safe distance."
I laughed, and the dress finally loosened enough to slide from my shoulders, pooling soft at my feet while his hands settled warm against my bare skin, steadying me the way they always did, like he still could not quite believe he was allowed to touch me without asking first.
I turned to face him, and found him watching me with none of the careful distance he used to keep even in his gentlest moments, nothing held back, nothing measured for my sake or his own.
"What?" I said, when he kept looking without saying anything.
"I am simply trying to decide which part of today I want to remember first, when I am old and my memory has finally started failing me."
"That is a very specific worry for a man who is not even forty."
"I intend to live long enough for it to matter. I would like my memories in good order when it happens." He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, unhurried, like the gesture itself was something worth savoring.
"Tell me which part you have decided on."
"I have not decided. There are too many strong contenders." His thumb traced the line of my jaw.
"Though this part is currently winning."
"Your turn," I said, reaching for his tie.
"I have been standing here waiting."
"You have terrible patience."
"I have an abundance of it. I simply refuse to waste it standing here doing nothing." He let me work the knot loose, watching my hands the entire time with an intensity that made the room feel smaller than it actually was.
I pulled the tie free and let it fall, then started on the buttons of his shirt one at a time, measured, the way he had just done for me, giving myself the same slow permission to enjoy it that he clearly intended to take for himself.
His chest came into view inch by inch, scarring and unscarred skin both, nothing hidden anymore, nothing he needed to angle away or explain. I pressed my palm flat against his sternum, feeling his heart working hard and fast under my hand despite how still he was holding himself.
"You are nervous," I said, surprised.
"Attentive. I am simply aware that this is the first night of the rest of my life, and I find I want to remember every second of it clearly."
"That is a lot of pressure to put on one evening."
"I would not call it that. I would call it gratitude." He reached up and pulled the last pins from my hair himself, careful, watching each strand fall like it mattered.
"I intend to be grateful for a very long time."
I reached for him then, no more words needed for a moment, and he met me the way he always did once he stopped thinking and simply let himself feel, urgent underneath the unhurried surface.
His mouth found mine slow and deep and certain, one hand cradling the back of my head like something he had no intention of letting fall, and I felt the low sound he made against my lips before I ever heard it, his tongue tracing the seam of my mouth until I opened for him and let the kiss go deeper, both of us breathing like the whole day of vows and toasts and careful smiling had used up more air than either of us realized.
We finished undressing each other without hurry, both of us pausing more than once just to look, to trace a line of scar or skin with fingers that already knew every inch by heart and still wanted to learn it again.
He lifted me onto the edge of the bed and knelt over me, the mattress dipping under his weight, his hands sliding slow up the outside of my thighs like the shape of them was something worth learning all over again.
His mouth found my throat first, open and unhurried, then lower, tracing the line of my collarbone before closing warm over one breast, his tongue slow and deliberate in a way that pulled a sound out of me I did not try to hide.
He lingered there, one hand shaping the curve of my waist while the other braced beside my head, until my back was bowing up into his mouth, my hands gripping the sheets on either side of me.
He kissed a leisurely path lower after that, over my stomach, along my hip, taking his time with every place that made my breath catch, until I was arching into his hands and no longer capable of anything but his name.
"Nikolai." It came out rough, half a plea.
"I have you." He said it against my skin, low, steady, working his way down the length of me with the same patient deliberation he brought to everything that mattered to him.
"Tonight there is no clock. No door. Nothing waiting on the other side of this room but morning."
He settled between my thighs and looked up once, giving me the same chance he always gave me, and I answered by threading my fingers through his hair and pulling him closer, needing no more permission than that.
He was thorough about it in a way that undid me slower than anything urgent ever could have, learning me with his mouth like he had all night to spend doing exactly that and intended to use every minute of it.
He found the place that made my hips rise on their own and stayed there, patient, unrelenting, drawing the same broken sound out of me again and again until my thighs were trembling around him and my hand had fisted hard in his hair.
"Do not stop," I managed, barely a whisper. "Please, do not stop."
He did not stop. He kept me right at the edge of it, longer than either of us strictly needed, savoring the sound of his own name breaking apart in my throat every time he found that exact place again, until I finally came apart with a low, helpless sound that had nothing hidden left inside it at all.
He kissed his way back up my body, giving me no time to fully recover before his mouth found mine again, and I reached for him in turn, wanting to give him the same quiet attention he had just given me.
I traced the ridge of scarring along his ribs with my palm, lingering over every inch of it, before my hand found him fully, wrapping around the length of him with a slow, deliberate confidence that pulled a rough sound out of him he clearly had not meant to let go.
"Isla." My name came out of him rough, both a warning and a plea.
I did not stop, working him without hurrying, learning the exact rhythm that made his breath catch and his hips rock forward into my hand, until his restraint looked like something he was actively losing.
I bent and took him into my mouth then, slow, tasting salt and heat, feeling the full, heavy weight of him against my tongue as I drew him deeper by degrees, and felt the sound that broke loose from him vibrate through my own chest. His hand fisted gentle in my hair, not guiding, just holding on, his hips jerking forward once before he caught himself and went rigid, like letting go completely was a thing he still had to give himself permission for.
Only when he caught my wrist, softly, did I finally release him, breath ragged, a helpless laugh escaping him despite himself.
"You are relentless."
"I learned from the best."
He moved over me then, settling his weight between my thighs, and I opened for him without hesitation, my knees falling wide on either side of his hips like my body had already decided something my mouth had not caught up to saying out loud.
His forearm braced beside my head, both of his arms bare and unhidden in the low lamp light, nothing left between us that either of us needed to explain or apologize for.
"Look at me," he said, low, and I did, holding his eyes the way I had held them all day, through vows and rings and a hundred witnesses, now with nothing left standing between us at all.
He reached down and guided himself to my entrance, taking his time about it, watching my face rather than anything else, reading every flicker of it the same careful way he read everything about me that mattered.
I felt the blunt, damp weight of him settle right where I needed him most, thick and slow against me, and rocked up to meet him before he had given me more, the small, impatient motion pulling a sharp breath out of him.
"Not yet," he said, low, more to himself than to me, holding there a moment longer, gathering himself before gathering me.