Sex, Lies & Nikolai (10 page)

This man….

This man is fucking with my senses.

His hands fall to my waist, and he grips me and we move. I don’t know where we’re going, but it’s a handful of steps from where we were before my back hits a brick wall.

“You want to earn it again, rybka?” he huskily says, his voice thick with urgency. Usually he’s much more composed than this, but he sounds undone.

I make a humming sound in the back of my throat. It’s a yes, I think. I don’t really know. I just know I still have my hands gripped tight on his suit jacket, and his mouth hovers over mine, teasing me every so often with that tongue of his.

“Say yes,” he demands.

I’m too distant to, so I hum again and it’s enough for him. He curses in Russian – words I recognize from Ivan – and his mouth crashes to mine. The kiss is hard and unyielding, quickly filling the silence with heavy breaths. His hands are everywhere, on my thighs and hips, then up my back and wrapped around my neck. I melt into him as he’s flushed against the length of me, owning my mouth as he dips his tongue and searches for mine.

There’s a part of me that comes alive. A part I’ve never given attention to because it makes me feel dirty and used. It’s that part between my legs. It sparks and warms, and for the first time I don’t feel sick for feeling it. In fact, I…I
like
it, especially when his hand around my neck tightens and his kiss deepens. The sparks grow, and the feel of his dick pressed firmly against my stomach excites me. There’s no revulsion. No urgency to push him away or hurt him.

It’s so foreign.

Twice he’s done this to me. Fucked my mouth and made me want more without wanting to burn my skin off after it’s done.

He wraps his large hand around my thigh and lifts it up, settling himself between my legs as he makes me taste his mouth. Oh, I taste it. I taste it thoroughly, without holding back. Then his kiss slows, but doesn’t stop. It becomes tender and long, and between the clash of our tongues he mutters something in his language that I wish I understood.

The erotic session lasts seconds, although in the moment it feels like an eternity and yet not long enough. When he pulls away, breathing harshly against my mouth, I can already feel his eyes burning into my own long before I open them. There’s a heavy silence that follows, and I’m still standing there, back against a brick wall, eyes closed, mouth parted, yearning for more of him.

“I’m sure you figured it out,” he murmurs achingly. “I want you to come to me, Alina.”

I open my eyes – I’m in the alleyway between the diner and another store –  when I realize what he means. It’s not what I expect him to say. The warmth inside me cools instantly and I slide along the wall, detaching myself from him. “You want me to be your whore,” I say shakily, my voice hard.

He watches me closely, his intense gaze drilling into me. “You need money. I want you pinned beneath me. The arrangement works.”

Arrangement? Money? Pinned
beneath
him? This is what this is all about. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I’m an idiot. An utter fucking idiot thinking he was being sweet. That maybe his intentions meant something else all along. How could life have hardened me and yet made me soft for
this
guy? This…Russian egotistical dick that thinks he can have anything he wants if he throws money at it?

And I fell for it. Oh, my God, I let him take me into an alleyway and kiss the fuck out of me. I’m so unfocused, so unbelievably shocked by how stupid I am.

“I wanted a loan,” I tell him edgily.

He licks his lips while he stares at my own. “I’m not giving you a loan, Alina. I’m sparing you a debt as it is.”

I scoff. “You’re
sparing
me?”

“I could have easily made you owe me the few grand your mother ripped off me.”

“I’d rather you did.”

He tilts his head to the side, confused. “Why? So you can suffer more?”

“I’m used to suffering.”

“And your sister? Is she used to it too?”

My heart falls in my chest as I narrow my eyes at him. “Go fuck yourself, Nikolai.”

The softness in his face fades and something eerily cold replaces it, but I don’t care. I take a step back and boldly add, “If you’re looking for whores, they’re all over the corners of the Estate. Find yourself a good fuck there and leave me alone.”

I pause just then, like I’m waiting for him to strike back. I think I secretly itch for it just so I can keep standing as close to him as I am. It’s sickening the way my body responds to him; the way my skin feels like it’s being licked by pleasure even when his expression is unforgiving.

He says something, but it’s in his language and I don’t know what it is. It’s said in a murmur, almost inaudible. I try to capture the words so I can relay it to Benji, but they slip from mind within seconds.

“Go back inside and eat,” he suddenly demands, his jaw tensed as he recognizes my indecision. “Stay away from people like me, rybka. All we want is to take, and I’m not a man that likes to be teased.”

“I’m not teasing you,” I retort.

“Everything about you is a tease,” he returns just as harshly. “From the clothes you wear to your wanting eyes burrowing into mine every morning, and” – he cuts the foot of distance again and lowers his face to my level – “the way you came alive against my mouth then and now. You didn’t want it to end. Neither did I.”

He’s right, I didn’t, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to tell him that.

“That’s why I haven’t returned,” he explains, his voice softer now as his gaze settles on my mouth. “I’m extremely attracted to you. I want to fuck you wide open. You want it too. End the song and dance when you want to, but don’t act like me wanting to use you is that much of a surprise. I’m dirty, but you knew that. If you want a man that’ll read you sonnets and make love to you in missionary under God’s watchful eye, go to church and find your soft dick there.”

He doesn’t end it there. He leans even closer, so much so I can feel his breaths hitting my mouth as he adds, “But if you want to fuck with a
purpose
, you know where to find me. I’d make it worth your while, rybka.”

I’m absolutely gobsmacked. My jaw drops in shock, but I don’t dare retort. But I’m angry. So angry, I can’t resist glaring at him. His face is stone-cold, not one single emotion spilling. Yet despite this, there’s tension too. He lingers to me, and I cut even closer, desperate for his touch again but hating him for his words just the same. We hover ever so closely, like we’re tempting each other, waiting for one to fold and cut the distance. It’s a vile war of emotions. One that triggers a response in me to push forward, but I don’t get the chance to.

“Do svidanya,” he finally says tightly, like he’s putting in effort to be cordial. He takes the first step back, and my chest feels empty. What did he even fill it with? I don’t know, and I feel lost as he turns and walks off, his body taut once again, his hand curled at his side as he rounds the corner of the alleyway and disappears. I want to stop him and watch him leave at the same time. I want to curse at him but with his lips attacking mine all at once.

Nikolai is fucking me up. Or I already am fucked up and he has a way of surfacing it. Regardless, it’s a fucked up situation, period.

When I return to the diner moments later, I realize I’ve only been gone a few minutes. My anger is worse than before after I collapse in my chair and clench my fist together, wanting to rid the betraying tugs of pleasure I feel at the thought of him using me in any way.

Maybe I am a whore at heart.

Because I want that mouth back on mine. I want him sucking me dry, want his cock – that felt thick and hard – inside me. And that makes me frightened of him even more. Because I’ve never wanted a man before him. I hated the feelings they gave me. Nobody ever turned me on. Nobody made me feel like I would die without their touch.

It makes Nikolai more powerful than I imagined him.

Scarlett stops eating and takes me in, her concern forcing me to clear my face and smile at her.

“Is it good?” I choke out, fighting to keep the trembles from my voice.

She nods heartily. “So good, Alina.”

My heart blooms for a second, and then it falls the next when I think of what I just did. I stare idly at my food, tapping at the plate with this forlorn look on my face. There’s an awful knot in my stomach, and it diminishes my hunger in an instant with such fierceness, the idea of eating makes me want to throw up. I’m so pissed at him, but in the end, I’m angrier at myself. I know what he is, and I’m delusional for spending so much of my time thinking we shared something.

Mostly, he’s confirmed the fantasies I’ve had of him, of being dirty and wanting me. I suppose I hoped he’d be a let-down. A good man at heart instead of the cold Russian I see who longs to turn me inside-out every time he looks at me.

I’ve been so silly, because if there are any good men left in this world, I won’t find them in the Estate.

And, let’s be real, I’ll never find a way out of the Estate anyway.

Nikolai

I spend my evening in the Banya. With nothing but a towel wrapped around my hips, I lay sprawled on a high bench, eyes closed, enjoying the silence in the steam room as I try to cleanse my mind of everyday bullshit.

It’s not easy when I’m lusting after pussy.

I nearly laugh at myself.

This girl…

There’s something about this girl that makes me want to undress her, fuck her, pin her beneath me, wrap my hands around her neck until she’s struggling for breath as I make her come time and time again.

I shake my head. The girl rejects me, looks at me like I’m filth, and it just makes me lust after her more.

It’s funny because it’s so fucked up. I usually spend this time empty and emotionless, like my father before me. I know why that is. I know why I made myself this way.

I was fourteen when I first saw my father slam his fist against my mother.

She wanted to leave him.

He couldn’t be without her.

She tried to sneak out with nothing but the clothes on her back when he caught her. We’d just come back early from a meeting with the Sokolov and she was there at the gate, getting ready to leave in another man’s car.

I’ve never seen my father erupt the way he did. He always remained in charge. Suit was always ironed out, hair always slicked to perfection. He never hesitated for a second in his life, and he never gave away his emotions.

But he broke when he saw her on the other side of our black iron gates getting ready to slip inside a car with a man behind the wheel. Instead of getting out, my father accelerated the vehicle and slammed it into the gate, bending it so it wouldn’t open. Then he got out, and I stayed put in the front, watching as he slipped between the bent bars of the gate and came barrelling at them.

I’ve never seen him like that. Never seen him lose his control. He was an animal. A crazed being. A man I feared now more than anything.

He slammed his fist into her and she fell to the ground, sobbing at his feet. Father then grabbed at the man behind the wheel and dragged him out of the car. The man had pulled out a knife from his pocket.

“Father!” I screamed. “He’s got a knife!”

He stabbed him in the leg, but that didn’t slow my father down. I would soon learn why that was. When the adrenaline overtakes you, when anger is so thick you can taste it on your tongue, you become numb. You don’t feel as quick as others. You become a machine, bent on raining down hell on your enemies.

He pulled the knife out in an instant and he threw it as far away as he could. Looking down at the man, he slammed his foot into his face, knocking him unconscious.

Then he turned to my mother, and I’ll never forget the way he kneeled down before her, spitting in her face before grabbing at her hair and forcing her to look up at him. He shook, cursing at her, raising his hand to strike her again. I got out of the car, about to scream for him not to, when he dropped his hand and collapsed to the ground, growling words at her instead.

I heard bits of them from where I stood.

I gave you everything.

You never went without.

How could you?

How could you do this to me?

My mother lay bleeding, but she never cried. She never begged for forgiveness. She stared at him instead, her eyes filled with hatred, uttering four simple words.

Because you’re a monster.

My father just stared at her. He wanted to kill her, but he loved her too.

He had his men pick the unconscious man up and take him somewhere. I never saw what happened to him. I never learned who he was, though I quickly learned he was her lover. My father would have taken his time killing him.

When he saw me later that night, his face neutral, his suit and hair back in place, he icily turned to me and said, “This is why we don’t love, Nikolai. It is weakness. It is madness. It will soften you, and men are not created to be soft.”

I followed his advice.

I became him, until becoming him turned me into the very thing my mother – and I – loathed.