Page 143 of Reign
Not the kind that weak men show when they’re afraid of pain. This is quieter. Worse. The kind that makes Nikolaj careful with his hands because he doesn’t trust himself not to grab too hard and make me vanish out of spite.
I hate seeing it on him.
I hate it more because I understand exactly how it got there.
“Come here,” I say softly.
His mouth tightens. “You keep saying that like I’m trained.”
“You are. Badly.”
A ghost of a smile touches his mouth, but it doesn’t stay. He crosses the room anyway, still in his black shirt and trousers, barefoot now because at some point he took off his shoes without my noticing.
The domesticity of that almost gets me. Nikolaj Dragovich in my bedroom, barefoot and brooding, looking like a man who can overthrow governments but has no idea what to do with an apology once it’s been accepted.
When he reaches me, I take his hand, strip off his clothes, and lead him to the bed.
He lets me.
That, too, matters.
I pull him down with me, and he follows, tension still coiled through him as he stretches out beside me. My bed has held many kinds of emptiness over the years. Tonight it holds the exact opposite, and somehow that’s harder to adjust to.
His body is large and warm beside mine, too real to be memory, too familiar to be new. He lies on his side facing me, one arm bent beneath his head, eyes fixed on my face as if I might change shape if he looks away for even a second.
“You’re staring,” I murmur.
His expression shifts, a faint flicker of old humor under the fear. “Can you blame me?”
“No,” I say. “I’m devastating.”
That gets the smallest huff of air from him, almost a laugh. “Still arrogant.”
“You came into my room to apologize, and now you’re in my bed. I’m feeling supported in the arrogance.”
His hand lifts, then stops in the narrow space between us. It’s such a small hesitation that anyone else would miss it, but it goes straight through me.
Nikolaj, who has never hesitated to take, now pauses before touching my face because there’s some part of him still waiting for me to change my mind.
I catch his wrist and bring his hand to my cheek myself. “There,” I say quietly. His eyes close.
“Look at me,” I say. He does immediately, and the obedience in it is so raw I have to swallow before I speak again.
“I am angry,” I tell him, keeping my voice steady because he needs the truth, not softness pretending to be mercy. “I’m also here. You’re here. We’re in my bed. You apologized. I heard you. That doesn’t erase the mistake, but it does matter.”
He stares at me like I’m offering him a language he forgot and desperately wants to relearn. “I don’t know how to do this without fucking it up.”
“Neither do I.”
“You’re better at pretending.”
“I had eight years of practice.”
Pain flashes across his face, and he starts to pull his hand away, but I hold it there.
“No,” I say softly. “Don’t retreat every time the truth hurts. That’s not what I’m asking from you.”
His throat works once. “What are you asking for?”
