Page 55 of Fate and Fury

Niko withdrew his fingers, drawing a whimper from Katerina, and turned her so that she sat astride him. Arms tight around her, he arched upward, rolling his hips. Even through the rough linen of his pants, she could feel every inch of him, and from the way he shuddered helplessly beneath her, she knew he felt the same.

“I think,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear, “that you know exactly what I would have done, Katerina. But in case you need proof of how well I take instruction, perhaps we should experiment with it now. Hmmm?”

Katerina would have loved nothing more. She ached to finish what they’d started, to tell him every filthy thought that had gone through her mind when she’d seen him framed in that doorway. But that would only end one way, and no matter how much she wanted to lose herself in Niko, they had important things to discuss. Kalach was crumbling around them, and Elena might know more than she should.

She opened her mouth to tell him so, but Niko stopped her with a kiss, his tongue sliding against hers and his teeth skating along her bottom lip, devouring her. “Since you’re so uncooperative,” he murmured, “maybe I should tell you whatIwanted to do that night. I wanted to get on my knees and crawl to you, my Dimi. Peel off your fighting leathers and taste every inch of your skin, until you called out for me instead of for the Saints.”

Katerina gasped, and her Shadow gave a sinful, knowing smile. He thrust against her, his hips arching in a punishing rhythm, and Katerina’s core clenched, aching for him. “Niko—” she bit out, knotting her fingers in his hair.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted—to tell him to stop, to tell him to never stop—but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t manage more than the two syllables of his name.

“I’m not done,” he promised darkly. “Then and only then, when I had you pleading for more beneath me, as desperate for me as I’ve been for you, would I bury myself inside you.”

Niko wasn’t inside her now, but Katerina felt him everywhere, nonetheless. Her body pulsed, climbing higher and higher. It would be so easy to reach that peak and slip over it, to forget everything but how good this felt. And yet?—

“If you had done that,” she panted, drawing back to see his face, “then Dimi Zakharova could well have caught us. And where would we be then?”

“What do you take me for?” He tugged her close again, one hand twining in her curls. “As soon as you licked the first bead of water from my body, I would have locked the door.”

“I mean it, Niko.” Much as it pained her to do it, she caught his free hand as it threatened to slip between their bodies, driving them both to a fever pitch from which there could be no return. “Stop for a moment. We need to talk about this.”

A groan escaped his throat. “Right now?”

Katerina ignored the way her body throbbed in protest. It had no interest in conversation, unless said conversation involved more descriptions of what Niko had planned for her. She closed her eyes, fighting for a shred of common sense amidst the frenzy that threatened to consume her.

“Yes,” she said, nodding vigorously. “Because if we don’t talk now, we won’t talk at all.”

Her Shadow gave a dissenting rumble, but he disentangled his hand from her hair, leaning back against his palms. She opened her eyes to find his fixed on her, dark with need. His pupils were dilated in the firelight, his lips swollen from their kisses. The sight almost undid her.

“Hell’steeth, Katerina. You’re going to kill me. But all right,” he said, blinking up at her. “A small percentage of blood remains in my head. By all means, proceed.”

Katerina struggled to put it into words, especially because she wasn’t finding it all that easy to concentrate herself. Not with Niko sprawled beneath her, looking at her like he’d far rather be following the agenda he’d had in mind in Rivki than talking. “Dimi Zakharova is one thing,” she began. “But Elena… Normally there’s an air about her—not diffidence, exactly, but a hesitation…a shyness, almost…”

She drummed her fingers against her thigh in frustration. “I’m not saying it properly. It’s just—she won’t look directly at me. She hasn’t since she saw us together in the courtyard, after Alexei was hurt. I swear she disappears sometimes. And there’s this sense I get from her—a smugness, as if she knows something I don’t…”

Niko pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat. “You’re imagining things, Katya. You feel guilty, and so do I. It makes you see things where there’s nothing to be seen.”

The nighttime breeze wound through the cottage, bringing with it the scent of rain. Katerina drew a deep breath, steadying herself, and made a low, skeptical sound.

Her bed creaked as Niko shifted her off his lap and got to his feet. Gone was the playful Shadow who’d doubted his imagination was up to the privilege of determining what she had in mind for him, or the hungry one who’d crooked his fingers inside her and lowered his mouth to hers. His expression was set in harsh lines as he looked down at her, his body rigid.

“This is hurting you,” he said, his face grave. “I hate it. You know I don’t believe in the prophecy, but still. Maybe—maybe we should stop, even before I wed.”

She stared at him, trying to hide the grief that ran through her. “Is that what you want?”

Niko shook his head, sending his black hair flying. “I want to be with you for as long as I can, in whatever way I can. But I know how selfish that is. If you want to end this now, I’ll do it, even if it breaks me.”

She regarded him in silence, interrupted only by the thunk of the broken shutter as it moved in the wind, trying to see him with her eyes, instead of how she usually did…with her heart. It didn’t matter. His gray eyes, his scar, the pleading expression he was doing his best to disguise—all of it was Niko. She wanted what he wanted: to be together as long as they could. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t want to stop.”

Relief lit his face. He reached to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear, the gesture tender. “I’m glad, Katya. Still, I’m sorrier than you know.”

The guilt in his voice gutted her. “Don’t be. After all, I’ll be married one day too. It’s the way of things.”

His jaw set. “I have no right to object.”

“And yet you do,” she said, studying him.

“I hate the thought of you with another man.” His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “All the more because I know he’ll be someone you choose. At least, with us at Rivki, I won’t have to watch you marry that fool Maksim, with his insipid smile. Or Konstantin, who looks at you like you’re something to eat. And not in a good way,” he added, lips rising in a bitter smile.

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