Chapter Twenty-Seven
In which it is time for a Primal Dash.
Caroline…
A week later…
I get a text on my phone. The ID comes up as Primal Dash.
"Huh?" I stare at the text. He was so outraged when he stepped in on my night run and dragged me off in that ridiculously arrogant way. And he set this up for me?
When I married Nikandr and was paired with my ever-present besties Isaak and Rafail, I knew I'd have to give up the night runs.
I was terribly sad, but there was just no feasible way to do it.
Now, he wants to re-create it somehow? Nikandr's been busy.
We haven't been home alone enough to even address where I should put my books, much less our rising sexual tension.
I sleep in the same bed with him, after that first night alone.
Our marital bed, where nothing remotely marital was happening.
Because Lady Luck is an asshole, there's a lot of brushfires that Nikandr is constantly being called upon to fix, leaving the penthouse with a quick apology.
He comes home late, often just as the sun is rising.
I'm a coward, sliding out of bed to dress in one of my Boss Woman suits and heading to the hotel for the day.
***
There was one night though, last Thursday, to be exact, when he came in around 2 am.
He stripped off his beautiful navy-blue suit and dress shirt, bundled them into a trash bag and opened the bedroom door just enough to hand it to a blank-faced Vasilisa.
You didn’t have to be a member of Mensa to know she was tossing that in the incinerator.
Then, he had the absolute audacity to walk out of the bathroom after his shower, naked, casually drying himself. The moon was bright that night and I could see the tattoos all over his stupidly gorgeous body.
There was a crow on his back, wings spread across his enormous shoulders.
Whoever does his ink is a master, the crow's shrewd eye seemed to track me in the moonlight.
His chest… flames erupted from his ribs with faces inside the fire.
My gaze drifted lower over his chiseled abs, and his cock shorted out my executive functioning skills.
Thick, and resting against his thigh. Yep.
It was as big as I remembered. That wasn't the orgasms talking. That was all Nikandr.
We'd never done it naked. Which is a shame.
I slid out of bed, mumbled something about a pipe bursting at the Lyric and got my ass out of there. He watched me, his mouth curled up on one side in his signature half-smile. He didn't even have the common decency to put on a shirt!
***
So yeah, a brisk midnight run will be good.
Clear my head. I'm walking in little circles in front of the elevator in my running shoes, leggings and a dark hoodie well before it's time to leave.
Isaak is trying to pretend he doesn't see me wearing a hole in the granite flooring with my incessant pacing.
Eventually, though, his shoulders slump and he checks his watch.
"Mrs. Morozova, would you like to go now?"
"Yes please! If we leave now, we can get there early and I can scope it out before the Sovietnik shows up."
He looks genuinely puzzled and I'm guessing that Nikandr has not informed him and Rafail of our plans.
It's a crisp October night. Perfect weather.
The night sky is lit by a sullen crescent moon; it won't be much help in finding my way.
The Maybach glides along some of the quieter streets in this section of New York, and I watch the autumn and Halloween decorations grow more and more elaborate.
Grinning pumpkins, witches dangling from trees, and in the fancier neighborhoods, there are explosions of ornamental gourds trailing down the steps of well-kept brownstones, with pots of mums, brightly colored flame reds, oranges and yellows.
We turn into a section of town that I know pretty well.
Liria and Alexsey used to live in this neighborhood before they got pregnant with the twins and wanted something different.
Liria and I used to take runs through these streets.
I know the fire escapes and rooftops. Which apartment buildings don't lock their back doors.
Is Nikandr deliberately giving me an edge?
Oh, honey, I think, I don't need one.
Rafail opens my door as a gust of brisk wind tears down the alley where we've parked and I shiver.
The night feels dark in a different way.
I look for Nikandr, but I can't see him.
It's not a bad alley, the pavement is dry and there's no trash, everything is well-tended.
There are garbage dumpsters lining the walls. Is he behind one of them?
I'm an idiot. Yes. Nikandr, the Morozov Sovietnik is hunched behind a dumpster in his twenty-five-hundred-dollar custom suit.
The dark energy is traveling up my spine, spreading like a blissful venom in my veins. I'm bouncing on the balls of my feet, ready to sprint like an arrow shot from a bow. I just need an endpoint.
"Isaak, Rafail, you may leave."
Nikandr's deep voice is above us. I look up, searching for him on a fire escape or leaning out an open window.
Where is he?
They look at each other. "Sovietnik, are you sure?" Rafail says, looking around us.
"She's safe with me. Leave."
After a quick glance, waiting for me to nod, they do.
Another surge of wind sends fallen leaves skittering along the pavement.
Shivering in my hoodie, I try to keep my voice down. "Do I get a route to follow, or…?"
"My game, my rules." Nikandr's behind me now, almost touching me and I spin with a little shriek. His huge hand goes over my mouth. "Shhh…Plokhoy kot, my bad cat. Don't make me gag you."
I don't think Nikandr's idea of a night run is the same as mine.
His hand is big enough to spread over my mouth and leave his thumb free to stroke along my pulsing carotid. "Your heartbeat is thundering." He pulls his hand away, stroking his fingertips over my lips.
His hand moves to my neck, fingers tightening slightly.
My mouth is so dry. Nikandr's looming over me, casting a shadow against the brick wall.
The sheer bulk of him, the heat from his body, his hard, muscled shoulders in a black t-shirt…
It's overwhelming. "Do- do you have a route for me? Where's the end point?"
"We're playing a little differently tonight." His calloused fingertips rasp against the soft skin of my neck and then he squeezes it, yanking me forward abruptly and slamming his mouth down on mine.
He's rough, his lips hard and his tongue pushing between my lips, pulling my breath from me before he pushes me away. My back smacks against the brick as I stare up at him, shocked.
"Tonight, you're running not to be the fastest," he murmurs in my ear.
I make a little noise. Something needy. "You're running to keep me from cutting those tight leggings off you and fucking you.
Right where I catch you. Bent over a wall…
on your back on the sidewalk…" He cups my pussy, the heel of his hand rubbing my clitoris with only a thin layer of spandex between us.
Both times we've been together it was frenzied, this is different. Nikandr's moves are harsh and deliberate. He knows exactly what he wants tonight. The meaning of his name for the run tonight hits me. Primal Dash.
Oh, shit. This isn't parkour. This is primal play. I've never done this.
"What's your safe word, Caroline?" He's a demon, whispering in my ear.
"Uh…" Nothing is coming to me. "Tortoise. It's tortoise."
Nikandr's close enough that I can feel his grin against my cheek and I realize my mistake. Damn him! He was giving me a chance to back out and instead, I set my safe word.
You've never played blushing, shy maiden before, I remind myself. Own it.
"The safe point is 19th Street and Cairn Way.
The safe point, Plokhoy kot, not the finish line.
If you get there first, I can't fuck you the way I want to.
Clothes ripped…" His knee pushes between mine up and up, sending me on tiptoe.
"Panties hanging off one ankle." His hands clamp down on my hips, pulling me hard against the sculpted muscles in his thigh.
I'm instantly, needily, embarrassingly wet.
"My hand over your mouth so no one hears your screams." Another hard pass over his thigh and my clitoris sends a shockwave through me. "And you will be screaming."
He holds up his phone and I blink, it takes me a minute to recognize the map. "I sent this to your phone," he says. "If I catch you before 17th Street…" Those giant paws of his slide down to cup my ass and he squeezes. Hard. "I'm going to fuck you here."
The sound I emit is high and girlish and in no way attractive. "I've never done that."
Lifting me up and down against his thigh, he gives a guttural chuckle.
"Then you'd better not let me catch you.
" He sets me down abruptly and I feel the jolt all the way to my clitoris.
My legs are shaky and my center burns. My nipples are hard and rubbing against my sports bra and I'm grateful my hoodie covers them.
"Pull up the text on your phone so I know you have it," he urges, and it takes me three embarrassing fumbles to get it out of my pocket.
The route is clear. Less than two miles but there's some rooftops and a waterway included and I can't use the footbridge over it.
Still, I've run harder courses, just not with the threat of getting my ass ravaged by an enormous cock before.
The strumming excitement of the run takes over, coiling through me as he steps back.
Nikandr in an expensive suit is gorgeous.
My husband dressed down is fucking lethal.
His arms are bulging with muscle under his t-shirt and he's wearing those black tach pants again which are outlining his ass perfectly.
No Prada dress shoes tonight, he's wearing boots.
Sucker.
I can jump from rooftop to rooftop faster and easier in my running shoes.
Nikandr smiles at me, one I've never seen before. Not the tight-lipped, barely patient smile he uses for strangers, or the grin he saves for family. His face is half in the shadow of the building, eyes gleaming and this smile is dark, hungrier and more savage than a normal human's should be.
He claps his hands together loudly and I jump. "What are you waiting for, Plokhoy kot? You have a ten-minute head start, and then I'm after you. Go!"
I run like the hounds of hell are after me.