Sloane
The second it was just us, Nikolai stepped forward and pulled me into his arms like he thought I might vanish if he waited another moment. He didn’t say anything at first.
He just held me.
His hands were warm and gentle, one sliding up to cradle the back of my head, the other wrapping fully around my waist. His chest was solid against mine, his heartbeat steady and strong beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. I let myself lean into him. His mouth brushed my temple. I felt him exhale.
Then he leaned back, just enough to look at me, his eyes scanning every inch of my face like he was memorizing me all over again.
“You’re not hurt?” he asked, his voice low, barely more than a growl of restrained panic.
I shook my head. “No. Just… tired and sore.”
His gaze dropped to my wrists. They were raw from the rope—angry red marks circled the skin and bruises were forming. He took my hands in his, turning them gently, carefully, like I was something fragile, like I might break if he moved too fast.
A muscle in his jaw flexed.
Then he dropped to one knee.
His fingers brushed my ankle where the rope had dug in—matching abrasions, tender to the touch. He didn’t say anything. Just stared for a long moment.
Then he lifted my leg and pressed a gentle kiss to the inside of my ankle.
“I should’ve gotten here faster.”
“You got to me just in time,” I whispered.
He stood and gathered me into his arms again, this time lifting me clean off the ground. I let out a surprised breath as my arms instinctively wrapped around his neck.
“I’ve got to go,” he said to his brothers, and they nodded, not saying anything at all because they understood.
Nikolai carried me out of the warehouse like I weighed nothing at all.
Out into the night, into the car, and then straight to the spa he apparently owned a stake in. It was an upscale, velvet-curtained sanctuary hidden on a quiet South End Street. The entire place was cleared within minutes of our arrival. He didn’t explain or apologize. He didn’t need to. The staff didn’t ask questions, they just obeyed.
Someone handed me a silk robe. Another brought hot tea and placed warm towels around my shoulders. A massage therapist appeared with soft hands and gentle words, promising not to touch the sore spots, just to soothe the knots. A woman named Juliette came in to draw me a hot bath, pouring in something lavender and herbal, the scent immediately relaxing.
And Nikolai never left.
When they tried to suggest he wait outside—offering a private lounge, a drink, even a full room to himself—he just shook his head once.
“She’s not leaving my sight.”
So he stayed seated in a leather chair in the corner of the room, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, elbows on his knees. His eyes never left me, not while they rubbed cream into my wrists or when they cleaned the grime from my ankles and gently laid cool cloths across the abraded skin. Not even when I slipped into the bath and sank under the water with a sigh so soft I barely heard it myself.
He was there, watching, the whole time.
Silent. Fierce and resolute all at once.
I understood then—really understood—that this was devotion. This was what it looked like when a man who’d killed for power decided to live for love.
I laid back, closed my eyes, and just let myself be taken care of in a manner befitting royalty.
By the time we returned to the penthouse, the sky had lightened. The streets of Boston were mostly quiet, the world outside still unaware that it had shifted on its axis. One king had fallen, and another had carried his queen home.
The elevator opened directly into the living room, dimly lit by warm sconces and the reflection of city lights in the windows. I was barefoot. Wrapped in the softest robe I’d ever touched, skin still damp with lavender oil and heat. My wrists were bandaged with silk gauze. My body floated, somewhere between exhaustion and the strange, blooming peace that only comes after surviving something that should have broken you.
Nikolai didn’t say anything as we stepped inside. He locked the door behind us, checked the perimeter out of habit, then returned to me with a quiet certainty and gentleness that unraveled me just the slightest bit.
He reached for my hand, pulling me gently toward the bedroom.
“I want you in something of mine,” he said. “Something that won’t touch where it still hurts.”
I nodded. I didn’t have the strength to fight him on that, but I didn’t want to either.
In the bedroom, he opened a drawer and pulled out one of his shirts—white, worn-in cotton that smelled like him. He helped me out of the robe, careful with every movement not to touch the tender places on my wrists. His touch was patient. Not slow from caution, but reverence.
He didn’t look at me like I was fragile. He looked at me like I was something sacred.
Once the shirt was on, he guided me to the bed and pulled back the covers. I slid under them, the sheets cool and clean against my skin. I watched as he stepped into the bathroom, removed his watch, his rings, his shirt and pants. He washed his hands, scrubbed them clean, and dried them with methodical precision.
When he returned, he joined me in bed without hesitation, lying beside me like there had never been any other place in the world he could have belonged.
He pulled me into his chest, one arm tucked beneath my head, the other wrapped around my waist, and I curled into him without thought or hesitation.
He pressed a kiss to my hair, another to my cheek, and then, finally, to the inside of my wrist, just above the bruising.
“I should’ve killed him,” he whispered.
“But you didn’t,” I said. “You listened to me.”
He exhaled slowly. “Only because I knew he’d suffer longer this way.”
I smiled faintly and closed my eyes, letting the sound of his breathing wrap around me like the most relaxing lullaby.
He shifted, easing me onto my back, moving over me slowly, his body warm and solid, his weight held carefully as he hovered above me. His hand cupped my cheek, thumb stroking beneath my eye.
“I want you to know something,” he said softly. “You’re not just my future wife. You’re not just mine.”
His voice deepened.
“You’re the other half of my soul. Your place isn’t just beneath me here, it’s beside me, as my partner and as my queen.”
He kissed me then like every inch of me was hallowed ground, something he had to relearn with his mouth.
He started with my lips, soft and patient, tasting the truth between us. Then lower, the curve of my jaw, the hollow of my throat, the pulse point that fluttered beneath his tongue.
He held himself up with one hand and then the other drifted over my hip, up my side, fingertips grazing the gauze at my wrists with a touch so careful it almost undid me.
Then he went lower.
His mouth moved like a vow—over my collarbone, the swell of my breasts, the soft skin beneath. He kissed every place the ropes had touched, every place I still ached, like he could erase the memory of my pain and replace it with absolute devotion.
By the time his lips reached the inside of my thighs, I was trembling.
Not from fear or shame, but with fervent arousal.
He held me open with warm hands and kissed the inside of my thighs, before he moved to kiss my clit directly—each passionate stroke of his tongue a reminder that I was still here, still whole, still his. My breath caught, my body arched, and his mouth was relentless.
He worshipped me like I was his religion, an altar he’d been denied for too long.
I whispered his name.
He answered with another kiss directly over top of my clit. With a flick of his tongue, I arched clean off the bed, moaning and squirming and coming undone in the gentlest, most sensual way I could have ever imagined. His mouth closed over my most sensitive place, suckling and kissing me, sending my head reeling straight up into the clouds.
He took his time. He teased and taunted me with slow licks, varying the pressure until I was moaning and begging for him to let me come.
But he didn’t let me, not right away.
His tongue circled over my clit, dancing over the sensitive bundle of nerves and just when I thought I could take no more, he plunged two fingers inside of me and curled them just so, forcing me right over the edge into a deep pool of ecstasy I didn’t know if I would ever be able to surface from.
I came hard, but it wasn’t sharp or fast—it was slow and incredibly deep. A letting go I didn’t know I was holding in my bones. The type of climax I would remember for the rest of my life. It rolled through my body like a tsunami, powerful and irresistible, wave after wave of bliss washing over me.
When it was over, I gulped down a breath of air, then another and another, just trying to put my shattered pieces back together once again.
He didn’t move right away. Just stayed there, pressing soft kisses to my inner thighs, my hips, my stomach, like he was telling each part of me that I was safe.
That I was loved.
When he finally pulled me into his arms again, I sank into him with a new joy in my heart. He wrapped the blankets around us, tucked me against his chest like I was something rare and valuable, worth protecting long after the danger had passed.
In that peaceful darkness, with the city blinking far below us and his breath soft against my hair, he whispered the words I needed to hear.
“I love you, baby girl.”
Once. Then again. And again. Over and over until I pressed my lips to his and kissed him before saying, “I love you too, Daddy.”
