Page 34 of Gilded Shackles
His tongue drags slow, then harsh. His beard scrapes against the swell of my breast in a rough, maddening contrast to the wet heat of his mouth, and I arch into him, my fist still locked in his shirt because I might genuinely die if I let go.
His other hand moves.
Lower. Between my thighs. Fingers trailing fire through the thin cotton of my underwear. He doesn't ask. He traces the line of me through the fabric, finds the wet patch, and presses his thumb flat against it.
I jerk like I've been shocked.
"Soaked," he says against my breast, voice like gravel wrapped in velvet. "All four days of this. You were soaked?"
I can't answer. Can't think. My hips roll against his hand on their own, chasing pressure I didn't give them permission to want.
He slides the fabric aside. No preamble. No warning. Just his fingers, two of them, pushing into bare, slick heat so deepand sudden that a choked moan claws out of me loud enough to echo off the stone.
His mouth clamps harder on my breast like he wants to swallow the sound whole.
"You walk into my room in this flimsy excuse of a nightdress," another slow, devastating curl of his fingers, "and expect me to let you go?"
I'm shaking. Clinging. Forgetting why I came down here, forgetting my own name, forgetting everything except the way his fingers drive slow and deep inside me, curling exactly how I remember from that night. That goddamn night that led us down this path.
His rhythm is cruel with control. The kind that keeps me right at the edge but won't let me fall. I could cry from the ache. I could beg. I'm dangerously close to both.
"Nikolai..."
"It took you four days," he says, voice like soft sin against my throat, "to come begging."
His lips find my breast again. Hungry. Claiming. His tongue circling my nipple while his fingers work me open, and the dual assault is too much, too good, too everything.
"And you think," he adds, thrusting deeper, thumb pressing against my clit in a slow, merciless circle, "that I haven't been losing my fucking mind since night one?"
I can't breathe.
I can't think.
I can only fall apart.
The orgasm tears through me like something feral, clenching around his fingers, my spine arching off the wall as the pleasure crests and crashes and keeps crashing. He doesn't stop. Doesn't slow. Works me through every pulse until I'm boneless, trembling, barely holding myself upright.
His mouth curves against my skin in quiet, devastating victory.
I'm a shaking mess, collapsed against his chest, but already reaching for his belt because I'm not done. Can you blame me? I've felt this man's cock before. I'm ready for second helpings.
But he stills. Catches my wrist. Pulls it away from his belt.
"We're done."
"You're kidding." My voice comes out furious, squeaky, incredulous.
His jaw ticks. "I said we're done."
"And why," I say flatly, "would we stop now?"
"Because the first time I fuck you in this house won't be against a wall where anyone could walk in." He steps back, and the loss of his body feels like gravity dropping out. "And because we're both pissed," he adds, breathing ragged. "And this doesn't fix shit."
"So that's it?" Ice in my tone.
His eyes flare. "I'm not a good man, Elle. But I'm trying to do the right thing."
"The right thing would be finishing what you started." I tug my nightgown back down.
