Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91149 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91149 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“Please,” I cry out. “Not like this, Nika.”
He freezes. I’ve never used such an intimate endearment with him, but I’m using it now. Time is suspended as I listen to his labored breaths, waiting to see what path he will take.
When his hands find the back of my thighs, they are unexpectedly soft and overwhelmingly large. He could easily pry me apart and never put me back together again, if he wanted to. But instead, his calloused thumbs press against my flesh in slow, shallow circles. A shiver charges up my spine, and Nikolai cups the globes of my ass in his hands, emitting a low, throaty groan.
“You are too obstinate for your own good,” he says. “You don’t deserve kindness from me.”
“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.”