15. NIKOLAI
As soon as I hear the floorboard creak outside my office, I know what she’s up to.
It’s the same thing, in fact, that she has been doing since the moment she set foot in this place last week.
Ever since I made it clear to her on the plane just what was going to be expected of her as my wife, she’s been pushing against it, railing back endlessly against the newfound restrictions placed on her, as though I’m not putting them there for her own damn good.
I moved Andie into my home on the Upper East Side, a handsome old townhouse that would be a dream home for practically any New Yorker—but she has treated it as a prison since the moment she set foot inside.
She insisted on bringing over some of her stuff from her old apartment, though I assured her I could replace it all and with better things than she had before.
But she has made it clear that she wants to hang on to as much of her old life as she can, for reasons that are beyond me.
I can provide everything she needs. More, even.
Give her luxury, give her comfort, make it so she doesn’t have to work a day in her life.
I know that the way our marriage came to be is far from conventional, but that doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of playing the role of a husband to the best of my abilities.
I’ve bought out her wedding planning contracts so she doesn’t have to pay a cent toward them, and she has all the time in the world to herself to do whatever she wants—and yet, she still seems determined to find ways to get under my skin.
The first issue arose when I found her trying to sneak out of the house last week, telling me that she wanted to go to a nearby art gallery for the afternoon. When I insisted that she take guards with her, she rolled her eyes skyward in fury.
“I want to go myself, not with some babysitter hanging over my shoulder,” she protested.
“It’s not safe,” I pointed out. “You need someone there with you. I’ll inform one of the guards now?—”
“No, don’t bother,” she muttered. “Forget it. I don’t want to go anymore.”
“Don’t speak to me like that.” I flexed my hands at my sides. I don’t like being brushed off. I’m not used to people taking an attitude with me, let alone someone inside my own house. No, I’m used to people jumping to do what I tell them, not pushing up against every boundary I lay down.
“Like what?” She locked eyes with me, as though daring me to try and shut her down.
“The way you just did.”
She took a step toward me then, trying to hit me with those big, sweet green eyes that make it hard for me to think straight. “It’s just a gallery, Nikolai. Nothing’s going to happen?—”
The mention of the gallery alone was enough to spark a memory that I don’t want to spend too much time on—the cold steps, her blood on my hands, her blank eyes staring up at me as the life leaked from them.
I know I can’t let the same thing happen to Andie.
She doesn’t know what she has gotten into here.
In that moment, something snapped shut in me, and I turned my back on her, cutting her off before she could go any further. “You’re not going. That’s final.”
She has tried a couple of other times to slip out without me noticing, though luckily she has been intercepted by security every time.
She just can’t seem to get it through her head that she isn’t the woman she was before she married me—that the ring on her finger makes her a target, whether she wants to admit it or not.
I know it must be hard for her to make sense of, but by now, doesn’t she see that there’s more on the line that there ever was before in her life?
It’s late now, and I can only imagine that she’s hoping the later hour is enough to keep the guards off their game and distracted. But she has another thing coming if she thinks it’s going to be that easy for her to just sneak out right under my nose.
I rise to my feet, heading to my office door, and sure enough, there she is, standing out in the hallway in a jacket and sneakers, as though she’s going somewhere.
“Got plans?” I ask her dryly.
She shrugs, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. “So what if I do?”
“Take a guard with you,” I reply. “You know it’s not safe out there for you alone.”
She lets out a sharp sigh, shaking her head.
“No, listen to me, Nikolai,” she snaps back.
“I’m not just going to roll over and let you tell me how to live my life, okay? I already let you close off my contracts, move me in here, all of it. Just let me go out for a walk around the block by myself so I can clear my head.”
I stare back at her, impassive. “There’s a gym on the ground floor,” I remind her. “If you want to blow off steam?—”
“I don’t want to blow it off like that!”
she exclaims, rubbing a hand over her face, as though she can’t believe that I’m just not getting it.
“Don’t you understand? I just want some space to myself. Somewhere outside of this house. Somewhere I don’t have to have some guard reporting back on everything I do to you.”
I take a step toward her. I know I shouldn’t let her get under my skin, but there’s something about the defiance in her tone that flares a reaction in me, even where I know I should contain it.
“And if you’re not doing anything that you wouldn’t want me to know about,” I say, “why would it matter what they tell me?”
She crosses her arms over her chest, but I can see her cheeks flushing slightly in the dark of the corridor. “You really don’t get it?” she mutters. “I’ve given you everything you want. I married you, flew out to Moscow with you, moved in with you, and you won’t even give me this.”
“It’s not a matter of giving you anything. It’s a matter of keeping you safe.”
She lifts her chin, meeting my gaze with narrowed eyes. “Maybe I don’t want to be kept safe,” she replies. “Maybe…maybe I want a little danger. Isn’t that what this world is all about? Danger? Putting yourself in situations that most people would go out of their way to avoid?”
The air is still between us. I can tell she’s trying to get a rise out of me.
And as much as I hate to admit it, it’s working.
The way she looks at me, the way she speaks to me, I’m not used to anyone daring to come at me with that kind of attitude.
It stirs something in me, something that craves her submission in the face of all this pushback.
We haven’t been together since we returned from Moscow, now that she has a room of her own. But I’d be lying if I said that my mind has not drifted to the possibilities of what I know I’m missing.
I’ve caught glimpses of Andie getting out of the shower, padding around the house in a long tee and a pair of panties and nothing else, and each time, my hands have flexed at my sides almost of their own accord at the thought of touching her, feeling her, fucking her all over again.
And now here she is, all but daring me to do just that.
“I’m not letting you walk out of here by yourself,” I warn her, my voice dropping pointedly. I can feel the heat crackling in the air between us, the need throbbing through every inch of me even as I will it to stay under control.
She doesn’t break my gaze, clearly all too aware of the effect she’s having on me right now. “Then give me a reason to stay.”
Before she can say another word, I close the distance between us, pushing her against the wood-paneled wall behind her and kissing her hard—the kind of kiss born from days upon days of waiting, holding back, craving her like an addict craves a hit.
Her mouth parts against mine, letting my tongue slip inside, and I wrap my arms around her, pushing the jacket off her shoulders and letting it pool on the floor at her feet. I hitch her off the ground, pinning her against the wall, and she gasps against my mouth.
Did she really think I wouldn’t take her up on this, that I wouldn’t give over to the desire she so clearly has for me?
In all the clashes between us since we’ve arrived back in America, there’s still one thing between us that works, completely, without question, and I’m determined to remind her just how much sense we make together when it comes to our physical relationship.
She’s wearing a dress that falls away from her thighs as I pull them around me, and I press myself against her, letting her feel the erection that’s already starting to grow beneath my pants. “That a good enough reason for you?” I growl against her lips.
“Getting there,” she gasps back, and she kisses me again, catching my face in her hands and holding me steady like she wants to lose herself completely to this moment.
I reach down to pull aside her panties, sweeping my fingers up between her slick folds until I find her clit, and she moans against my mouth again.
I might not have fixed this tension between us, but I’ll be damned if I can’t find a better use for it than the constant complaining she’s been doing since she arrived here.
I move my hand down, slipping two fingers inside of her, and she groans again, running her hands down my back. She leans her face into my shoulder, breathing hard, and I can feel her body starting to tense as she aches to feel me inside of her.
“The guards…” she murmurs, as though just remembering that I have men on the door at all times, just a few dozen yards away from where we are right now.
“I don’t give a fuck,” I tell her, and I draw my fingers from between her legs and slip them into her mouth, letting her taste herself on my skin.
She parts her lips without question, and I grin as I feel her tongue circling around my fingers, feeding her the musk of her own arousal.
For all that she might claim to take issue with me, it’s clear that all of that just vanishes from her mind when it comes time for the two of us to hook up again.
If there’s one thing we can both agree on, it’s how damn good it feels to give ourselves over to this sexual tension and let it blur the lines of everything else between us.