Chapter 19
NINA
“Well.”
“Well?”
“Are you going to apologize?
“No. You don’t own me, Art.”
The brakes screech and the car jerks to a stop.
“Look at me, Nenoka.”
Art fixes me with his burning hot gaze.
“Tell me, honestly, that you wanted that man. That you didn’t just do that to provoke me.”
I can’t lie. Art knows I’m a useless liar. “I—”
He pulls me onto his lap, so that I’m straddling him in the driver’s seat, my bloodstained dress hiked up around my thighs.
His lips brush my ear.
“Don’t try to lie to me. It’ll only make things worse,” he murmurs.
I run my hands over his chest. I can’t help it. In this position, with Art beneath me, I can’t imagine ever wanting someone else. Can’t conceive of why I would let another man touch me.
I arch my back into him as he unbuttons the front of my dress, slowly, taking his time. When my breasts bounce free, he traces his fingers over my bare torso.
Then he runs his teeth up from my breast to my jawline, making me shiver.
“You don’t want to be involved in my world.”
“I don’t.” I nod my agreement.
“Then why are you like catnip to the most dangerous men in this city, Nenoka?”
I can only let out a sigh as his mouth closes around my nipple. His teeth graze my sensitive peak, and I yelp with a mix of pain and pleasure.
“I— I don’t know.”
His hands move lower, sweeping over my hips and coming around to cup my ass.
Art pulls me roughly forward, so that I’m pressed closer to his chest, and I can feel how hard he is beneath me.
The size of him always takes my breath away. He lifts his hips, rocking his bulge against me, and I let out a moan.
“Just admit that you want me. That’s all I need to hear right now.”
I find his eyes strangely vulnerable as I lose myself in those beautiful, asymmetrical irises.
He really needs to hear this. As if I’m not already soaked just from straddling him.
“I want you, Art. You can feel how much I want you.”
He dips a hand inside my panties and lets out a groan.
“God yes, Nenoka. You’re dripping for me.”
I hear him unbuckle his pants in a rush, then the tip of him is nudging at my entrance, his firm but blunt pressure ready to split me open.
I sink down onto him, and we both moan in relief. I tighten my hands on his shoulders and use him for support as I start to ride him.
His lips find mine, and it starts to feel different.
Art is still ruining me, bouncing me on his cock like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do, but his mouth is slow and tender.
He moves down to my neck and inhales deeply, before he presses his lips against my pulse point and sucks.
These are messy, claiming kisses that I know will leave marks tomorrow.
All the while, Art cups my ass and bounces me faster until I’m crying out for release.
“Yes,” I gasp as he thrusts into me with his hips, holding me still with his hands wrapped around my waist.
His thumb finds my clit just as he whispers his command.
“Give it to me, Nenoka.”
I dig my fingers into his thick shoulders, and he thrusts up into me, one hand keeping my hips pressed down, taking his length while he unloads inside me.
“God,” I gasp as he floods me with his cum. “God,” I repeat, collapsing forward against his chest — a blood-soaked, sweaty mess, totally spent and exhausted.
Art just lets me curl up against him, stroking my hands over his chest, and we breathe together for what feels like hours.
Then he drives me home. He seems so unbothered by the night we’ve had. Meanwhile, my head is pounding with a hangover and I can’t sleep as I think of the blood on my hands.
“I don’t understand why you made me do that.”
“You think you can forget you’re mine and act like that?”
“I can.”
“You can. But everything has a cost, little thief. I will damage every man who’s touched you. And I won’t be able to hold back in the same way that you can. I never took the hippocratic oath.”
“So you’ll never let me move on. With anyone. As if I even could.”
“I made that mistake once before, Nina. I’m not gonna make it again.”
I frown as I try to figure out what he means by that. But as my trembling nerves start to calm down, I relax against Art and allow myself to be held by him.
He’s the reason I’m a mess right now. But he’s also the only person who can make it go away. He runs me a bath, picks up Ava from Ms. Orlov’s, reads to her until she’s asleep, and I allow myself a glimpse of what it might’ve been like if everything had been different.
He doesn’t offer to leave, and I don’t ask him to.
If I said I was okay, I’d be lying. I’m still shaking like a leaf, and every sudden noise scares me.
Later that night, I wake up to check on Ava like always. When I get back, I watch Artyom sleep.
His lips move all the time, like he’s rehearsing speeches. I can’t make out a word, until he starts saying my name. Well, my nickname.
I don’t think in Art’s head I’m anyone other than Nenoka. The 20-year-old medical student he made that deal with.
I don’t think he realizes that she’s gone. I’m not the same person I was, and I don’t know if he wants the new me, or the old one back.
My nickname is so soft on his lips, it’s almost like a moan. I watch him repeat those three syllables again and again.
I don’t ask about it in the morning. It seems too intimate.
Instead, I make a joke.
“I guess this is what it’s like to have an ex,” I say as I head to the bathroom to clean up.
A split second later, I am pinned on the bed again. His honey-like voice is a low hiss. “Don’t you dare call me your ex while I’m still dripping out of you, Nenoka.”
“I’ll be late…” I begin, but Art is already notching himself at my entrance.
He pulls my head up to his with a hand fisted in my hair. “Should’ve thought of that before you provoked me.”
And fuck, my cunt still aches from last night, but it feels so right to have Art inside me again.
I arch against him as he fills me, again and again, with quick, rough strokes that shudder through my body.
With every thrust, my nipples rub against his chest, my clit grinds against the heel of his hand, and the nostalgic haze floods me.
It’s just like it used to be. Or is it even better?
I descend further into pleasure. Into pain. Into reliving the past.
Even as I collapse beneath him, even as I shudder at the sound of his low moan, I can’t help thinking that we need to stop this, soon, before it becomes a habit.