Page 98 of Charmingly Obsessed
I feel disconnected from reality, from my own body. Like watching a bizarre, slightly terrifying art-house film in extreme slow motion, lagging seconds, minutes, lifetimes behind the actual, real-time events unfolding before my eyes.
He exhales sharply, his movements controlled, almost… reverent, as if he’s carefully, painstakingly handling something incredibly fragile, something priceless.
He watches me closely, his gaze intense, unwavering, as his hands graze over my bare skin with a deliberate, almost agonizing slowness.
“You’re beautiful,” he mutters, the words slipping out with each ragged breath, as if he can’t hold them in any longer. “Everything… all of you. Fucking… beautiful.”
His lips press against my skin, my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. I stare down at myself – at him – at his dark, handsome head against my pale skin, at his large, tanned hands on my small, inadequate breasts. And something in my brain, some long-dormant, long-broken circuit, finally clicks into place.
I haven’t really looked at myself, at my own body, in a long, long time. I’d stopped noticing. Stopped paying attention. Avoided mirrors. But now… now, through his eyes, through his touch, I see.
There’s a shift inside me. A crack in the ice. A tremor in the foundations of my carefully constructed prison of self-loathing. It’s as if I’ve been locked away, sealed in a dark, silent, windowless bunker for years, completely cut off from the world, from myself.
And now, finally, the heavy, reinforced door has been thrown open. And the light… the light is blinding.
The shock of witnessing something so blatantly, beautifully depraved in the bright, unforgiving light of day leaves me staring – staring as Mykola, my husband, my temporary, contractual,ridiculously handsome, and utterly, completely insane husband finally joins our bodies together.
“What is it, sunshine?” he murmurs, his voice rough with emotion, his eyes searching mine. “Talk to me, Diana. Please.”
He grips my legs, spreading them wider, pressing down harder.
He’s unusually composed now, almost severe, his gaze drilling a portal into another world, another dimension, deep within me. But then he takes a deep, shuddering breath through his nose, and for just a moment, a flicker of that vulnerability returns.
“I… I feel good,” I whisper, the words stumbling, tripping over themselves.
“It’s going to feel even better,” he promises, his voice a guttural growl. He squeezes my waist, shifting to a different, deeper angle, and I—
—I don’t know how much time passes. Seconds. Minutes. Lifetimes. But it feels like hours. Our sweat mingles, our bodies slick, as we occasionally, desperately, collide in messy, open-mouthed, all-consuming kisses.
Later, much later, Mykola massages my breasts, gripping them roughly now, almost carelessly, his thumbs circling my still-aching, hypersensitive nipples. I watch, detached, almost… clinical. Like I’m floating outside my own body in a strange, silver spacesuit. But for some reason, for the first time in a very, very long time, I feel… peaceful.
He isn’t gentle when he kisses me all over my chest, his mouth hot, wet, possessive.
I feel so exhausted, so boneless, so completely utterly sated, that I can’t even muster the energy to pull the sheet over my naked, exposed body. Movement, in general, feels… pointless. Unnecessary.
When Mykola finally rolls off me, his powerful body trembling with the aftershocks of his own orgasm, he reaches for the hotel phone on the nightstand.
His fingers, surprisingly steady, lazily trace the curve of my leg, pulling it slightly over his own.
“My wife,” he says into the phone, “wants something sweet. Yeah? Send up… everything you have, I will choose then. And some nuts. She ate all of ours earlier.”
He kisses my cheek before getting up, then starts speaking, in rapid-fire, fluent French, to the undoubtedly scandalized room service staff. He’s walking completely naked into the adjoining living area. His back is taut with a lingering, coiled tension, but his steps, I notice, are light. Almost… happy.
I nestle deeper into the mountain of pillows, relishing the cool, smooth feel of the expensive Egyptian cotton against my sensitised skin. It feels like lying on a cloud. A very rumpled, very well-used cloud.
Well. That wasn’t so bad after all, was it?
In fact, it was… it was fucking incredible.
I suppose, I think with a small, secret, triumphant smile,that I won’t be filing that police report against him after all.
38
Chapter 38 Diana
The next morning, after another, equally spectacular, and slightly less… coerced… round of marital negotiations, and a truly decadent room service breakfast, I feel a strange, unfamiliar surge of energy.
Honestly, it’s like I’ve stopped constantly looking over my shoulder, stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. Though, to be fair, I never actually, physically, did that. It was all internal.
