Nikolai
She was still trembling when I pushed myself back up to my feet.
Her breath came in slow, uneven pulls against the sheets, her body bare and boneless, every inch of her flushed and open and ruined in the most beautiful fucking way. The soft marks of my hands lingered across her thighs, her hips. Her skin was damp with sweat, her mouth parted, lashes low. Her pussy glistened with her arousal, sweet, swollen, and satisfied in the deepest possible way.
She looked like mine.
She was mine.
And that… that should have satisfied me.
I was supposed to be thinking about what came next—how to keep her in check, how to keep her close without letting her crack me open any more than she already had.
But instead, I stood there staring at her like I’d never seen anything like her in my life.
Because maybe I hadn’t.
This wasn’t about punishment, and it wasn’t about discipline either. I hadn’t pinned her to the bed because she broke the rules. I hadn’t made her cry because I wanted to remind her who was in charge. No. This was something entirely different.
I’d worshipped her like she was something sacred.
And that scared the hell out of me.
I sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand down her arm. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t shift away from me. Just breathed deeper, softer. The weight of her trust was heavier than I expected.
She trusted me.
After everything.
She trusted me enough to fall apart in front of me and let me catch her. She trusted me enough to moan my name, spread her legs, and come all over my tongue.
I looked down at her—the necklace still around her throat, the fading pink between her legs where I’d kissed her until she cried and came and shattered for me.
She was beautiful like this.
Unmade. Quiet.
Not because I’d silenced her, but because she had given me her silence. Her softness. Her fire still burned underneath.
I brushed her hair back, fingertips grazing her temple.
“I could keep you like this,” I whispered, even though I knew she was half-asleep. “I could wrap you in gold and silk and keep the rest of the world out. And I would. I will.”
Because I’d tasted what it felt like to be good to her.
To give.
And now I wanted more.
I wanted her on her knees and in my lap and under my palm, but most of all, I wanted her beside me. At my table. In my bed. Wearing my ring and my name and every mark I ever gave her like my fucking queen.
She thought I’d brought her into this life to tame her.
But the truth?
She was taming me right back.
She was still in my arms when the first light hit the windows.
Her body curled against mine like it had always belonged there, her breath soft and slow, her thighs tangled with mine beneath the sheets. One of her hands rested on my chest, the tips of her fingers barely grazing the edge of the scar near my ribs, like she’d found it in her sleep and decided to hold it.
I watched her for a long time.
Her lashes flickered against her cheeks. Her lips, parted slightly in sleep, were still kiss-bruised. I could see the faint trace of where she’d bitten her own lip the day before, trying not to scream when I’d made her ride my thigh. Her skin still carried the warmth of what I’d done to her, where I’d touched her, tasted her, broken her open just to put her back together again.
She was beautiful like this, not because she was perfect, but because she was real. Vulnerable. Bare. In a way no one had ever been with me before.
I wanted to reward her for it. Not with control. Not with praise. But with pleasure.
Slow. Deep. Unrelenting pleasure.
I let my hand drift down her spine, light and careful, just enough to make her stir. She let out a soft sound in her sleep—half sigh, half question—and shifted closer.
I pressed my mouth to her shoulder, let my lips graze the skin there as my hand slid lower. Over the curve of her hip, between her thighs, where she was still tender and warm and already wet.
She moaned, her body arching instinctively into my touch.
Good girl.
I dragged my fingers through her soft folds, lazy and unhurried, and whispered into her neck, “Wake up.”
She blinked, breath catching as her hips pushed into my hand. “Wha—”
“Shh.” I kissed her temple, her cheek, the corner of her jaw. “Don’t talk. Just take.”
Her legs parted for me without a second thought, and fuck, the way her body reacted—like it remembered me even before her mind had caught up with what was happening—nearly broke me.
I circled her clit with two fingers, barely enough pressure, just enough friction to make her squirm. She whimpered, pressing her face into the crook of my neck, one hand clutching the sheet like it could ground her.
“Keep still,” I murmured. “Let Daddy give this to you.”
She nodded, dazed, breath shaky.
I dipped a finger inside her, then another, curling them just right, the way I knew she liked. She was tight, hot, already close. I could feel it in the way her walls clenched around my fingers, in the way her breath quivered with every stroke.
“You don’t have to earn this,” I said softly. “Not this morning. This one’s mine to give.”
I pumped my fingers into her, making her moan and writhe and shake.
“That’s it. Come for Daddy. Let me hear those pretty sounds.”
She came with a gasp, biting her lip, trembling in my arms, body melting into mine like she was finally learning how to stop holding herself together so tightly.
I held her through it. Kissed her shoulder. Whispered her name like a prayer. When it was over, when her breathing slowed and her body went still again, I didn’t let go.
I just pulled the blanket over us, kissed the back of her neck, and whispered, “That’s what it’s going to be like.”
She didn’t answer, but I felt her press a little closer.
And that was enough.
By the time she padded into the kitchen, I was already done cooking breakfast. She was barefoot, hair a sleep-tangled mess, wearing nothing but one of my shirts, and she moved like she belonged in that space, in my space, without needing to ask permission.
To be honest, I really liked it.
She didn’t say anything as she entered the kitchen. Just took one look at the breakfast already plated and sat down without a word. Scrambled eggs, toasted sourdough, smoked salmon, and black coffee poured into a heavy mug.
We ate in silence, and it felt comfortable. Her foot brushed my leg once under the table. Not by accident. She didn’t meet my eyes, but she didn’t need to. I could feel her gears turning. She was thinking about something. I just had to wait to find out what.
She swallowed her last bite and finally looked up at me, pushing her empty plate a few inches forward. “What are you doing today?”
“Business this morning,” I said. “Meeting with Maxim and Sergei. Some friction at the new warehouse near Boston Harbor.”
“And after that?”
“I’ve got a fight tonight.”
She didn’t flinch, but I saw the half-second pause, the way her breath caught before she smoothed it out. “At the gym?”
I nodded once. “Private match. Closed door.”
There was a long pause. Then, with a voice too even, too light, she asked, “Can I come?”
I set my coffee down with a soft clink.
“No.”
She blinked. “No?”
“You’re not going to the fights anymore,” I said, my voice stern, my word final. “Not alone anyway. Not without me by your side and I can’t be there with you if I’m fighting in the ring.”
She leaned back in the chair, arms crossing slowly over her chest, her chin lifting just enough to tell me the fight was coming. “You’re serious?”
“I don’t want you putting yourself in danger.”
She pushed her chair back, just enough to scrape against the floor, and narrowed her eyes at me like I’d just insulted her intelligence. “You brought me into this world,” she snapped. “You can’t keep me locked up here for the rest of my life.”
I stood slowly, rounding the table. The air shifted the second I reached her. I didn’t touch her. I just leaned in until my mouth was near her ear, my breath warm against her neck.
“If you walk into that gym again without me, baby girl, I’m going to take my belt to that pretty little ass,” I said quietly.
She stopped breathing for a second.
She didn’t reply, but she didn’t need to. I pressed a slow, tender kiss to the side of her neck, letting my lips linger long enough to make her shiver.
Then I straightened, grabbed my keys off the counter, and gave her one last look.
“I’ll be gone a few hours,” I said. “Don’t leave the penthouse.”
She didn’t promise anything, and I didn’t ask her to because I already knew what she was going to do.
She was going to disobey me, and I was going to have to punish her. I grinned as I made my way out of the penthouse.
Truth be told, I was looking forward to it.
