All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(35)
Alicia gave him a challenging stare. She wasn’t strong enough to force him to let her touch him, of course, and she didn’t want to force him, anyway. She kept up the pressure of her grasp just enough that he had to make the effort at keeping her from touching him. It lasted only a moment before Nikolai bit his lower lip, and, brow furrowed, he took her hand and put it on the thick ridge of him. He moved her hand up and down, his briefs sliding between her grip and his bare skin.
He pushed his other hand between them to find the front of her panties again. With a curl of his fingers, he pushed aside the damp, silky fabric and found her heat inside. The tight knot of flesh, the slickness—the angle was wrong for him to push deeply inside her, but it was enough. Oh, it was more than enough.
Alicia pushed herself up just a bit to give him more room. She used the motion to release him from the confines of his briefs—nowhere near enough for her to have full access, but in the heat of the moment, it was working. They moved together as she leaned to kiss him again.
Incredibly, she felt the rise of climax twisting inside her. Sex was something Alicia had always needed to work at, pleasure a goal she’d had to strive for. It had never come easy for her. Yet here, dry humping on this ancient mattress in a chilly attic room with her childhood archenemy, all her body wanted to do was fill itself up with the sweet electricity of ecstasy.
All she could do was let it.
Nikolai was the one who kept her hand moving on him, matching the pace to his own fingers now sliding inside her, then, coated in her arousal, over the place where she most needed him to touch her. Nikolai kept the rhythm. Nikolai was the one now murmuring encouragement into her ear while Alicia rode the waves of desire beginning to consume her.
“C’mon, girl,” he whispered into her ear, his voice thick and rough with need. “I want you to feel good . . .”
She felt better than good. Alicia sat up, arching her back, letting her body move to some inner pulse Nikolai had so skillfully initiated. She moved her hands up her body and beneath the fall of her hair, letting it slide through and tangle between her fingers. Her vision had gone a little hazy, red tinged around the edges.
Pleasure cascaded through her, and she shuddered. Her fingers dug into Nikolai’s bare sides below the hem of his shirt. He gasped, thrusting harder into her curled fingers. At the very last second, as she looked into his eyes and gave him the full sight of her climax coursing all through her, his fingers bore down on hers, and he stopped her from moving.
“Someone’s at the door,” he whispered hoarsely. “Get off me.”
They rolled, shifted, moved. Alicia was up and off the bed, standing by the shelving unit laden with old photo albums and board games, with swift fingers twisting her hair back into the semblance of a knot rather than a sex-tangled mess. Her clothes were easy to rearrange, she thought with a horrified laugh she bit back—they’d barely come off. She could do nothing about the slickness between her legs or her still-throbbing center, but fortunately all she had to do was force herself to catch her breath. Nobody could see she’d just come hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.
“What’s going on?” Ilya spoke from the stairs, only his head visible. “We’re waiting for you.”
She risked turning, half expecting to see Nikolai in a compromising position, but it seemed he’d been as fast as she was at hiding any evidence of what had been going on. She caught his gaze across the room. His eyes flashed. His mouth thinned. He gave her the tiniest shake of his head.
Like she was going to tell Ilya anything, Alicia thought sourly. “I’m looking for some old pictures. Nikolai said there were some here in the dresser.”
“I’m just getting my tie,” Nikolai said. “I know I packed one.”
“You don’t need a tie,” Ilya said. “We’re supposed to be mourning. You think anyone’s going to give a shit if you’re not wearing a tie?”
Nikolai cleared his throat. “People talk.”
“You think I give a shit what people say?” Ilya took another couple of steps higher into the room, his hand on the railing.
“You’re a business owner. You should.” Nikolai flipped open the lid of his suitcase and rifled around inside it, keeping his back to them both.
“You think I—”
“I found some.” Alicia held out a handful of loose photos she’d pulled at random from one of the albums in the top drawer. “Let him wear a tie if he wants to, Ilya. It’s not a big deal.”
Ilya frowned. “It’s a big enough deal when I’m down there with her, and you’re all off doing whatever it is you’re doing and I have to deal with it.”
“Galina? What’s she doing?” Alicia knew she shouldn’t be glad for the distraction her semicrazy ex-mother-in-law provided, but it had already been established she was of the morally gray persuasion by the simple fact she’d just been getting a hand job from her ex-husband’s brother.
“She’s not doing anything. She’s just being herself.”
“Say no more.” Alicia shook her head and glanced at Nikolai, who seemed to have found his tie and was busy putting it on with the help of an age-spotted mirror hung at an angle on the slanted wall. Ilya must have missed that one. Nikolai caught her gaze in the reflection, but she looked away. “I’ll come down.”