Reign: A Royal Military Romance (17 page)

My breathing hitches. I swallow and then just nod.

“Good,” I whisper.

He slides his hand between my legs and along my lips, kisses me deeply again, and smiles.

“Shark,” he says, then pulls me toward the desk. He sits on the chair and I straddle his lap and before I know it his cock’s in my fist again and he’s kissing me, my back up against the cold steel desk.

I swallow.

“Do you have—” I ask, but he opens a desk drawer and starts fishing through it.

I raise my eyebrows. He closes that drawer and opens another.

“One of these has a false bottom,” he says, opening a third drawer.

He feels around for a moment, then grins and pulls out a condom.

“The bunker has condoms?”

“People get bored down here,” he says, unwrapping it and rolling it onto his girth.

“Is that why we’re doing this?” I tease. “We’re bored?”

He runs his fingers down my body slowly, then moves them between my legs and starts rubbing my clit lightly.

“If it is, let’s get bored together all the time,” Kostya says.

He kisses me, fingers on my clit, spikes of pleasure already working their way through my body. I put my feet on the seat of the chair behind him, my elbows on the desk behind me, and arch myself up until he’s right at my entrance.

Then I take a deep breath, because while Kostya definitely has the biggest cock I’ve ever seen in real life, I’m also ten times as wet and ready as I’ve ever been before. He stops rubbing my clit and moves both hands under my ass, the muscles in his arms bulging.

“I promise to fuck you slowly,” he says, and kisses me right below the sternum, the strangest combination of filthy and sweet I’ve ever heard.

I relax a little, my elbows still on the desk, and ease the head of his cock into me. It’s bigger than anything I’m used to, but God it feels
good
and my eyelids flutter shut as I sigh.

He lifts me a little and then I sink another inch onto him, then another. I feel like lava is running down the inside of my skin, and then his lips are on my neck.

“You feel even better than I imagined,” he whispers.

I arch and ease down a little more, and he growls into my ear.

“Going slow might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “But now I can feel every inch of your pussy. And
zloyushka
, I can already tell I’m never going to get tired of watching you slide onto my cock.”

I take the last inch of him staring straight into his eyes. Even sitting on him, he’s a tiny bit taller than I am. I wrap my legs around him and then pull his face down toward mine and kiss him hard as I move my hips back and forth, still leaning against the desk.

Kostya moans into my mouth. I gasp and stop, because
Jesus
that felt good, almost dangerously good.

“You okay?” he murmurs.

I just nod, breathing hard.

“Better than okay,” I whisper.

Kostya moves again, gently, his hands on my hips. I moan softly, holding my forehead to his.

“Still okay?” he asks, but now there’s a teasing edge to his voice.

“You feel incredible,” I say. Now I’m moving my hips in time with him, squeezing him with my legs, taking him as deep in as I possibly can and moaning every time he hilts himself. We’re not moving fast, but every time he moves it hits every pleasure spot inside me.

Suddenly Kostya pulls me all the way down, as hard as he can, and stops.

“Don’t stop,” I say, but he holds me there.

“You’re gonna make me come,” he says, kissing me slowly. “Fuck, I’d come just watching you fuck me.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I say, and flex my hips, moving him inside me.

“Don’t,” he murmurs.

I move again, and he groans.

“Come on,” I whisper.

He growls something in Russian into my ear and moves his hips against mine, sinking himself deep, the edge of the desk digging into my spine.

I gasp, sparkles flickering through my vision.

“Kostya, make me come again,” I whisper.

He pulls me onto him hard, again and again. My legs are still wrapped around him, my toes curl, and I know I’m going to have a bruise tomorrow where I’m up against the desk but I don’t give a damn. I feel like I’m disintegrating and being carried off by the wind.

Then Kostya puts his lips to my ear and says something in Russian, a long string of rough, guttural consonants that send prickles down my spine. He fucks me again and I squeeze my legs around his waist, right on the brink.

“Oh,
fuck
,” I whisper, and then I come so hard I almost can’t move.

I feel like I hit a brick wall but in a good way, stunned and gasping as my body takes over and it’s all I can do to hang on and ride this out, jolt after jolt as Kostya groans into my ear. Just as I slow, I can feel him pulse and then explode inside me as he pushes me hard against the desk, his face in my neck, my arms wrapped around his shoulders.

Finally, we go still. We’re both breathing hard and I can feel Kostya’s heart beating against my chest.

“
Below never at no,
” he murmurs.

I stroke his hair.

“What?” I ask.

He squeezes my hip in his hand one more time and then sits up so we’re face to face.

“Sorry,” he says, a lazy smile lighting his gray eyes. “Fucking incredible.”

He kisses me one more time, and then we untangle ourselves clumsily until we’re both standing. The concrete floor isn’t as cold as I was expecting, and I look down at my feet.

I’ve still got the ugly Soviet tube socks on.

I just start laughing.

H
azel doesn’t get dressed
before she walks to the bathroom, still laughing at her socks, and I watch her walk away. I never want her to put clothes on again.

Once the bathroom door shuts, I take the condom off carefully, tie a knot, and drop it on the desk. There, at least, I won’t forget to deal with it.

There’s a surge protector on the desk, lying there like a dead eel. The monitor cables are splayed over the desk, and I think I bent one of them when I ripped it out. Not to mention when I unplugged everything that was below the desk.

This stuff is going to take forever to reboot. You’re supposed to turn computers off, not rip the cords from their sockets, but it’s not like I’m sorry.

I came so hard I
forgot English
. I’ve spoken it fluently since I was a kid. Hell no, I’m not sorry.

Hazel pads back in and then leans against the doorframe. Nothing but socks is a
good
look on her.

“I guess we should plug everything back in,” she says, eyeing the computer.

“We should,” I say, looking at myself reflected in the glossy black screen. “But for the record, I’d rather watch you walk around the bunker in nothing but socks.”

“I’m improper enough fully dressed,” she says, and walks to the other side of the desk, leaning over it on her hands.

I stand and lean in as well.

“I know,” I say, and kiss her.

* * *

W
e get dressed
, I flush the condom and pray that it doesn’t clog the pipes, and then I spend the next fifteen minutes lying on the concrete floor as we figure out what plugs into where. If this were a regular computer, it wouldn’t be so bad, but of course it’s not. It’s a super-secure, top-secret, ultra-powerful government computer, though all that really seems to mean is that the tangle of wires involved is nearly impossible.

I hear a thump on the desk above, and then Hazel sighs.

“Okay,” she says. “Try plugging in the monitor now.”

“Which cord is that?”

A thick black cord wiggles. I grab the end and push it into the surge protector, then wait.

And wait.

“Mother
fucker
,” Hazel mutters.

There’s a pause.

“Oh!” she says.

I hear duct tape unwind and tear, and I pull myself out from under the desk, peering over the top as she does something with the tape behind the monitor.

“You broke the hell out of this,” she mutters.

“I had a good reason,” I say.

“Tell me if it’s on,” she says, and wiggles something.

The screen flicks to life.

“Yes, there,” I say.

She tapes something very carefully, then pulls her hand away.

“Still?” she asks.

“We’re good,” I say.

First, the computer has to scold me for improperly shutting down, then check that I didn’t fuck it up too much, THEN re-catalog a library or some bullshit. Finally, I’m logged into the video conference again, and the second I do, a screen pings and pops up with Niko’s face on it.

“Oh, Kostya,” he says, like he’s surprised.

“We had technical difficulties,” I say.

He just nods. I can’t tell whether he believes me or not.

“We’ll probably be cleared to leave in the morning,” he says. “But not before then.”

Hazel’s still standing behind the monitor, watching me. I look at the clock and realize that it’s two in the morning.

“Hold on a moment,” I tell Niko, and mute the microphone, then walk around the desk.

“What’s going on?”

“Still nothing,” I say, and put my hands on her shoulders. “We’re here overnight, though. Go to bed.”

“You sure?” she asks, flattening one hand against my chest.

“Unless you want to listen to endless, boring details on air traffic control in Russian,” I say.

“Not particularly,” she says. “You’ll be in?”

“Soon, I hope,” I say.

I kiss her again and force myself to keep it short and nearly chaste, because Niko’s waiting.

“Call me if you break the cable again,” she says, and walks out.

I watch her go, disappearing into the pitch-dark dormitory room. Then I turn and look at the back of the monitor, which is half-covered with some sort of duct tape harness keeping the cable in place.

I’m probably going to be hearing about that soon, but right now, I still don’t care.

I un-mute myself and sit. Niko sighs.

“Okay,” he says. “Status report...”

* * *

A
fter forty-five minutes
, Niko’s finally gone through everything important. He’s got circles under his eyes, and I probably do too.

I sign off and walk back into the main room of the bunker, open a cabinet, grab a flashlight, and then hit the lights. Everything plunges into pure, inky blackness, the kind of darkness that only exists when you’re fifty feet underground, so thick it feels like it’s running through your fingers.

I turn the flashlight on for a moment, see where the furniture is, and turn it off again. Even as a kid I kind of liked the dark, because it made me feel invisible, and sometimes that was what I wanted.

Then, in the Guard, that comfort with the dark came in handy night after night when there were no fires, no lights, not even cigarettes for fear that the enemy could spot us. Some of the men I served with still sleep with a nightlight on, but I’ve never been able to do that.

At the door of the dormitory I flick the flashlight on again and point the beam at the floor. In the reflected light, in the last of the eight bunk beds, I can see Hazel curled up under an army-green blanket, her hair fanned out behind her.

I turn it off and run my hand over each bunk bed until I get to the one next to hers, where I strip and pull back the scratchy sheets, get in, and stare at the bottom of the bed above me even though I can’t see it.

A few feet to my left, Hazel shifts in her sleep. Then she shifts again, and sighs.

“That’s you, right?” she says.

“Reporting in,” I say.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she says, her voice quiet and dreamy in the big space.

Her bed creaks, and I hear her shift again, and then her hand’s on my shoulder.

“God, it’s dark,” she says. “I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”

I scoot over and she gets into bed next to me, gingerly feeling out where I am.

“Just for a minute,” she says. “Then I’ll get in my own bed.”

“You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?” I ask, rolling onto my side.

I put one hand on her belly, and she puts a hand over it. She’s wearing a t-shirt from one of the dressers down here, underwear, and nothing else.

“Not anymore,” she says. “When I was a kid, at my first-ever sleepover, my friend convinced me that all closets were portals to monster-world, and when it was dark, they’d slowly push the door open, come out, and eat me.”

A sleepover?
I think.

I’ve seen them in movies, but I never spent the night at a friend’s house when I was a child.

“Not a very good friend,” I say.

“I think we were six,” she says. “And I got over it.”

“Americans really have sleepovers?” I ask.

Hazel laughs.

“What do you mean?” she says.

“You go to someone else’s house, eat pizza and watch movies, and then sleep there?”

“Yeah,” she says, sounding confused. “Well, not as adults, but we do it all the time as kids.”

She pauses.

“Why?”

“I always thought they were made up for movies, like pie-eating contests, or beer pong,” I admit. “I never attended a sleepover. I don’t think they happen here.”

Now
she’s laughing even harder, her stomach shaking under my hand.

“You laugh at me too much,” I say, nuzzling my forehead into her hair.

It’s not true. Even though I’m always puzzled, I’m getting attached to the sound of her laugh, the way her eyes crinkle at the corners, and I’m always surprised at what she finds funny.

“I thought you’d been to the U.S. a couple of times,” she says.

“I have,” I say. “Everyone is too friendly, but the burgers are delicious and you’re very orderly drivers.”

“Pie-eating contests and beer pong are also both real,” she says.

I exhale into her hair.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“People make pies only to see who can eat them the fastest?” I ask.

I’ve never made a pie, but I understand it to be a time-intensive process.

“Yup,” says Hazel.

“And people also toss balls into cups full of beer and then drink them,” I say.

“Also yes,” says Hazel.

“Why not just drink the beer?”

She pauses for a long time.

“Because there’s an added element of fun, I guess,” she says. “It’s sort of competitive, and silly, but it also gets you drunk?”

“But you could just get drunk,” I point out.

“Sure, we could all sit around drinking vodka alone, stoically looking at pictures of our dead ancestors,” she says. “Or we could enjoy ourselves.”

“Now you’re making fun of me,” I say.

“You can be very serious sometimes,” she says.

I stroke her stomach with my thumb and think for a moment. I
should
be trying to get some sleep, but I’d rather lie here, talking to Hazel.

“Are cowboys real?” I ask.

She drums her fingers against mine.

“They used to be,” she says. “It’s a job that doesn’t really exist any more.”

“Prom?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “Think of it as a masquerade ball, without masks, for teenagers.”

She’s teasing me again.

“
I’m
not throwing the ball,” I say. “I didn’t even remember it was soon.”

“I didn’t think masquerade balls were real,” Hazel admits. “Especially the part where I have to actually wear a mask.”

“This is only the second that’s been held,” I say. “The first was last year. Before that, the last was probably more than a hundred years ago.”

“Why’d they start again?”

I sigh.

“Yelena,” I say. “She wanted it, so her father convinced mine that it would be symbolic of the return of the monarchy, remind the people of old times, inspire national pride, that sort of thing.”

“And you disagree.”

“I think the people would rather have their roads kept free of potholes,” I say into her hair.

Hazel wiggles, turning onto her side so that I’m spooning her, my arm tight around her chest.

“It’ll at least be something to tell people about,” she says. “I went to a real castle, met a real prince, went to a real masquerade ball. God, it sounds like Cinderella or something.”

“I don’t remember the Soviet bunker in Cinderella,” I say.

“She didn’t smoke pot on the roof either,” Hazel says. She sounds like she’s starting to drift to sleep, and I can feel my body finally giving up.

As small as this bed is, it’s warm and cozy with her against me, her body fitted perfectly to mine.

“In the original version, her stepsisters cut off their toes to fit the slipper and it filled with blood,” I say.

Hazel squeezes my hand in hers.

“Kostya, you say the weirdest shit,” she says.

“It didn’t work,” I say. “The prince still knew the right girl.”

There’s a long, long pause.

“Was it because she still had toes?” Hazel finally asks.

“You need toes to be a queen,” I say. I can feel sleep tugging at me, and I’m not sure I’m making much sense.

“I should get in the other bed so you can sleep,” Hazel says.

“Two more minutes,” I say, and pull her tighter against me.