Nikolai holds out his arm as I reach the first step. “My perfect rose,” he murmurs as I stand there, frozen in place. He takes my hand and hooks it around his arm, his fingers pressing down on mine, warm and making my skin tingle. “I’d love to pluck your petals apart until they release their real perfume.”
A jolt runs through me. Even as innocent as I am, the sexual promise of those words shock me, make things inside me quiver. They make my pussy ache. What is wrong with me?
He laughs softly as we head down the stairs, and I latch back on to my hate as we cross what I presume is the great hall with large, towering doors. Two burly men stand guard, a sleek panel to the right. The panel will be the alarm, the men for show, I know. It’s obvious—Wilder has taste, so the men are for show. Is vanity his weakness?
“Oh, Rosalind,” he says as we move down the hall towards voices and laughter. “I know you’re trying to find a way out. You won’t, not unless I release you. If you’re looking for weakness, my little Rose, I don’t have any. Not even a heart.”
There’s an oak door in front of us leading downstairs, light and chatter spilling out, and I press my lips together to stop from saying something I might regret. I’m a beauty queen; I can parade around and pretend for a night.
“So, if you’re thinking of appealing to that, forget it.” He pulls me to a stop as he looks at me with a hard look, those dark eyes both ice and flame. “But Iama man of vast appetites.”
Without letting me respond, he spins me back around to walk through the door. The men inside are sitting around a large, polished dining table, sharing a bottle of scotch. There’s more than one look my way, a double take, whispers.
“Nikolai. Introductions?” asks one fat man wearing too many gold rings.
“This is Rose.” He doesn’t elaborate past his nickname for me.
My head spins as Nikolai sits, taking the last chair. Am I meant to stand? My internal question is immediately answered when he looks up at me, a flicker of a glance, and pats his knee.
Oh my God. I’m meant to sit on his lap. I swallow as my vision swims, everything going numb. Obviously annoyed at my lack of movement, he taps his index finger, not looking up at me, but the meaning is clear. Taking a deep breath, I sit, perching on his lap. His fingers dance lazily down my bare spine as he ignores the stares and whispers, instead engaging the man to his right.
Food is served, and though there’s some in front of me, I don’t touch it, except to push it around my plate. I want wine, but my glass is empty. Conversation flows around me, and I’m completely left out—thank goodness. I try to focus on it, on something, anything I can use, but I can’t. Instead, all I can focus on is how low his hand is now, dipping into the lowest part of my dress as he slides his fingertips back and forth across my ass.
Without warning, he reaches under the table to part my legs so I’m further onto his lap, his fingers a whisper on the delicate, sensitive flesh of my inner thighs. I stifle a yelp as I feel his fingertips come into contact with my skin, wiggling back a bit as his hand comes to rest on the top of my thigh. I swallow when I feel how hard he is against my back. Big. Hard. Way too there.
I almost blush in mortification at how wet it makes me.
He shifts as he talks to someone across the table, his hand starting to move, slowly, until he’s at the folds of my pussy, practically radiating heat by now.
Nikolai slides his fingers along the outer lips, and God help me, I want to moan at the feeling. He’s moved up now, running a whisper of a finger across my clit. It’s a hell of a tease when he puts his mouth to my ear.
“Little Rose, don’t make a fucking sound.” He slides two of his fingers into me as he whispers in my ear, filling me in a way that makes me swallow a gasp.
I’ve fooled around, but I’ve never had anythinginside me. He slowly moves his fingers in and out, the sensations are like nothing I’ve ever felt. Everything in me is focused on my core, on him inside me, on the building pressure in my spine. His breathing changes and I’m trying not to moan, not to writhe as he picks up speed, and I can’t help pushing down on his fingers as the pleasure in me grows.
Nikolai adds a third, then starts to move his thumb over my clit, back and forth, pressing down, playing me inside and out, like I’m an instrument to make sing. I slide back a little, gripping his thigh as the pressure builds as he keeps going, stretching me out, curling up to hit a spot that makes me almost leap up or slam down, I don’t know which. I bite my lip so hard, I taste little pinpricks of blood wash over my tongue. I bite to stop screaming, to stop moaning as waves of something big start to wash over me.
I’ve come before, but they were little laps of pleasure. Pings. This is huge, a tidal wave, and I can’t stop it. He knows, too, because he doesn’t change the rhythm he’s found and I’m trembling, coming apart in a room full of strangers.
Without warning, I explode, the pressure too much, the inner muscles of my pussy clenching down hard on his fingers. He slowly shoves them deeper and presses down hard on my clit as I twitch. It’s a fine line I’m riding—half pleasure, half pain. Just when it gets to be too much, he pulls his fingers from me.
Nikolai turns, makes me meet his eyes. I’m sure he can feel me shake on his lap, the boneless jelly of my legs as they splay around him. I can barely move. He just stares at me as I drift back to Earth, suddenly all too aware I’m in a room of men who probably know what just happened.
Nikolai lifts his hand to his face, his fingers shiny with my release, and that’s when I notice the tattoos peeking out from the wrist of his collared shirt, dipping down to his hand. It shouldn’t be so hot, but damn it, it is. He smiles, just a little, not breaking eye contact, as he licks my taste off his fingers. He does it slowly. Deliberate.
His expression tells me everything.
Instead of the taste of blood, it’s the taste of my arousal on his tongue, and something tells me now he has it, he might never let me go.
Chapter8
Nikolai
There’s another slip in her room. I haven’t decided if I’m going to let her keep wearing it, or if I’ll have delicious Rosalind naked unless otherwise necessary.
The party is done, its purpose served, and Rosalind is back in her room.
Instead of joining her there, I’m sitting on my sofa inmybedroom, in front of the roaring fireplace, the crackle of the popping wood relaxing. I tap my lowball of whiskey against the leather arm of my chair, scowling at the flames.