Page 52 of Runaway Queen

She glanced curiously at me over her shoulder. “Together?”

“Yes, together. Just assume that your days of sleeping alone are a luxury you’re no longer afforded.”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” She tossed those intriguing words at me as I rounded behind her. Putting a hand to her lower back, I pushed her toward the bed gently.

“I suppose that depends on how lonely you were, Sofia, doesn’t it?”

She reached the mattress and climbed on. I followed, snapping the light off on the way. The smell of her sheets rose around us, that particular scent unique to Sofia. My head spun. She moved to the other side of the bed to get away from me, and I tutted, dragging her back to the middle.

“You don’t sleep over there. You sleep right here,” I told her, arranging her on her back in the middle of the bed and lowering myself between her legs, dipping my hips to line my drooling cock up with her entrance again.

She was still wet from coming on the table. My dick was already getting hard again. Another legacy of my abstinence seemed to be recovering my youth, in terms of having an unstoppable hard-on around this woman. I wasn’t complaining. I slipped inside her like a hot knife through butter, her slick muscles parting beautifully for me.

She gripped my shoulders, a breathy moan leaving her. When I was deep inside, I relaxed my weight to the side and pulled her with me, hitching one of her legs over my hip. We were face to face, heads sharing the same pillow, and I was still sunk balls-deep in her perfect little cunt.

“Every single night, you’re going to fall asleep just like this, on my cock. I want to know where you are every night. I’ll know if you move. I’ll know if you so much as sneeze. I can’t have you running off again on me.”Not when I just found you.

I thrust in and out of her a few times, and she groaned, arching her hips. I grinned at her reluctant enthusiasm. It was too dark to make out her face, but her body’s reactions told me everything I needed to know. She was turned on, desperate to be fucked. Well, too bad for her, I wouldn’t be obliging her anytime soon. I would wait until she was asleep and wake her up fucking her. Then I’d do it again, and again, until morning.

19

SOFIA

My classes the next day were sleepy and quiet. No doubt the kids were tired or hungover after the dance. It took a special kind of mean to hold an event on a weeknight with an early start the next day. Lillian and Cayden were both absent, which made my bullshit meter hum, but I just hoped she was okay.

Cayden had Nikolai potential, from what I’d seen of him, and Lily was too young to deal with that. Normal people wouldn’t be able to deal with that.

I wasn’t remotely normal.

I’d slept better than I had in years. Washing the smell of Nikolai off in the shower this morning, I allowed my mind to drift over my encounters with him since he’d found me. Maybe I was dangerously sex-starved, like Chiara constantly accused me of, but they were the hottest things that had ever happened to me.

I wanted more to happen. I wanted more of him. I wanted it all.

Even more than the physical relief of being fucked by a man who took no prisoners and whose body fit mine like it was designed for it, was how light I felt this morning.

I’d been carrying so much guilt. Endless pounds of it were a constant weight on my shoulders. Last night I’d come close to telling Nikolai everything and letting the chips fall where they may. Maybe he didn’t know about Leo yet, but taking his punishment for lying about being dead made me feel better. All my childhood years of going to church and learning about the healing power of doing penance for my sins must have stuck somewhere inside. The day flew by, and I checked my phone more often than I could admit.

When the last classes ended, I hurried to get ready to leave. I was going to the hospital, and I couldn’t wait to see Leo. Yesterday, not seeing his little face all day had been torture.

I made it to the door of the classroom before a knock sounded.

Fighting irritation, I plastered on a school-friendly smile and opened the door.

It fell abruptly as I took in who was standing there.

Edward Sloane, and he’d brought flowers.

“Sophie, I came to apologize.”

He pressed the bouquet into my hands and walked around me, simply letting himself into my classroom, forcing me to stay.

“It’s not necessary. I’m busy, I have to run.”

“It is necessary. I was rude the other day, forcing you into lunch and imposing my schedule on you. I apologize.”

I watched him warily, waiting for the catch.

“I’d like you to finish the portrait. No one can do it as well as you can.”

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