Thief (Boston Underworld #5)(41)

“I never wanted him,” I whisper again.

“So who then?” he demands. “If not Mischa. Or would you still insist on saving yourself for your precious Dante?”

When I don’t answer, his fingers move between my thighs, and there is no mistaking his effect on me. I am slick, and I am wanting. Wanting things I’ve never had. Things that are no good for me.

Nikolai slides over the moisture gathering between my parted thighs and dips a finger inside me, making me clamp around him.

“Answer me.” He squeezes my ass cheek with his other palm.

But I can’t. Because now his fingers are on my clit, massaging me in a slow, circular pattern. My hips are tilting back toward him, opening without shame. I want more.

I need more.

He grabs a fistful of my hair and tugs, inflicting pain while he gifts me pleasure. “I’m not going to ask you again, zvezda. Tell me now, or I will bury my cock inside you without consideration of your fragile virtue.”

I moan into the pillow and thrash against him. This isn’t right. None of this is right. I hate him. His body has no right to take my virtue. He doesn’t have the right to bring me pleasure when he takes no value in the sanctity of what I’m giving him. But it would be weak to deny the truth when he can so clearly see, or feel, it for himself.

“It should have been you,” I say. “But you are a hedonistic coward who thinks only of himself.”

In the next breath, I’m flipped onto my back, Nikolai’s hand wrapped around my throat as he breathes into my face.

“Say it again,” he challenges. “Tell me to my face.”

“You are a coward,” I spit at him. “Go and marry your Russian bride and set me free. You have no need for me now.”

His eyes move back and forth between mine, and I am a fool for revealing the jealous undercurrent in my voice. I’m a fool to let him believe for a second that it bothers me. More importantly, I’m a fool for reacting the way I do when his lips crash down onto mine as if he owns me.

I breathe him in and part my lips for his, allowing his tongue to sweep through my protests and lay claim to my mouth. His body is naked and hard against my stomach, and his flesh is on fire.

My legs curl around him as he drinks from my lips, and I plead between breaths for freedom. His answer is to unleash my hands from the restraints and drag them over his body. I curl my fingers into his hair and twist, encouraging the pain I want him to feel. But it makes little difference. He is a thrusting, pulsing, grunting machine.

“Tell me you want me,” he demands.

“You disgust me.” My nails sink into his back while my words lay into his ego. “You don’t deserve to take me when this means nothing to you.”

He groans and shoves his throbbing cock against my wetness. “You are a little liar and a stuck-up bitch,” he answers. “And I will take pleasure in stripping you of your crown.”

“Then do it,” I challenge.

He kisses me to shut me up while he fingers me to make me pliable. I claw at him. I inhale him. We binge on each other, and I feel him everywhere. But mostly, I feel my willpower careening out of control as pressure builds deep inside me.

“Come on my fingers,” he coaxes. “Show me what a princess looks like when she has fallen from grace, zvezda.”

Explosions of light burst against my eyelids as white-hot lava melts between my legs. I unravel for him, spinning and spinning until I collapse, wrung out and useless. Everything comes back slowly. The awareness of him. The image of his face so close to mine. His ocean eyes are calm and serene, absent of the lies he likes to weave.

His honesty is brutal, even in silence. And the reverie on his face terrifies me more than any of his words ever have.

“Ruin me,” I whisper. “And never let anyone else touch me again.”

He closes his eyes and wrestles his cock against me. This trip is a one-way ticket, and there are no refunds or returns. He’s going to take my virginity. He’s going to ruin me for all other men. I don’t feel sorry for it. I only feel impatient.

He squeezes the head inside me as he did before, giving me tiny micro thrusts. His eyes fall shut, and he looks intoxicated before he’s even all the way in. It’s hard to fathom that it’s because of me.

I did that.

“Breathe, little doll,” he whispers.

And I do. His body collapses forward, and as he does, his cock takes root inside my body, fracturing my virginity and possibly my sanity too.

He shudders, and I shiver, and together, we breathe. It hurts, as I expected it to, but mostly, I just feel full. Full of Nikolai. And he is raw. There’s nothing between us, and I’ve never felt so exposed.

He buries his face in my hair, inhaling me. The muscles in his forearms shake. He’s holding back until I’m ready. And I have the suffocating realization that I need him. I need him on my side until I can find my way out. This is what I tell myself. This is what I try to focus on so that my heart remains caged.

“I’m ready,” I whisper.

His pelvis rolls back, and it drags his cock away, leaving me impoverished until it fills me all over again on the return. I touch his hair and smell his skin and watch his face while he fucks me. I watch the way his eyes open and close while he murmurs how good I feel around him.

He squeezes my face and kisses me again. He kisses my throat and my jaw and my hair.