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Nikolai waits. Then he pulls back slowly and thrusts into me again.
I nearly sob into his palm.
“That,” he says against my ear, voice rough and low, “was very dangerous.”
I nod helplessly.
“You liked it.”
I shake my head, because I refuse to give him that satisfaction.
He thrusts again, deeper. My body answers for me.
His hand leaves my mouth and returns between my thighs. “Liar.”
I come hard and silent, shaking around him, one hand braced on the shelf and the other gripping his wrist as if that can hold me together. He keeps his mouth against my shoulder, muffling his own groan while my body clenches around him again and again.
He lasts maybe half a minute after that.
His thrusts lose their perfect rhythm. His hand leaves my clit and grips my hip, holding me still as he drives into me with short, hard strokes that make the shelf creak under my hands. I hear his breathing change. Feel his body tighten.
Then he comes with his face pressed against my neck, silent except for one rough breath of my name.
For a while, neither of us moves. We are both breathing too hard.
My dress is still around my waist. His chest is against my back. Somewhere outside this ridiculous little room, the house continues as if I have not just been fucked against a shelf full of guest towels.
I press my forehead to my arm. A laugh shakes out of me before I can stop it.
He pulls out carefully, fixes himself, then helps me straighten my clothes with a seriousness that makes the whole thing worse. My legs feel unreliable. My face is hot. My hair is probably ruined.
He notices all of it.
“Don’t look at me,” I whisper.
“I’m trying to see if you can walk.”
“I can walk.”
“Prove it.”
I take one step and immediately grab the shelf. His mouth twitches.
“This is absolutely the last time something like this happens,” I say. “Do you get that?”
“Yes ma’am,” he says.
21
NIKOLAI
“This is absolutely the last time something like this happens,” she says. “Do you get that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
She gives me the kind of look a woman gives a man when she knows he is agreeing only because the alternative would be insulting.
I try to look innocent.
