Page 16 of Gilded Shackles
And I'm not ready for it to be over.
4
NIKOLAI
Ilie still, holding her close, and listen to her breathe.
Slow. Uneven. Post-storm quiet and the sheets a mess.
I didn't plan this. But I don't plan most good things.
She shifts closer without thinking, her knee grazing my thigh. I can feel her heartbeat. Quick but steady.
Virgin.
Hadn't seen that coming.
She breathes again, deeper. I look down. Her cheek on my shoulder, golden hair everywhere. She smells like champagne and sex and something softer underneath, something that makes me want to press my face into her neck and stay there, which is a thought I'm going to strangle before it grows legs.
"Don't overthink it," she murmurs, a smile dragging at the corner of her mouth.
"I'm not," I lie.
"Liar," she smiles wider.
“I’m trying to understand how a woman who looks like you is a virgin at twenty-six.”
“It’s very complicated.”
I don’t care. I shouldn’t care.
But I took her virginity. That makes her mine. Those are the rules.
“Your birthday…why are you alone?”
“Because I don’t have any friends.”
“Why?”
She sighs. “It’s complicated.”
She’s got secrets. So do I.
“Happy birthday.”
"Thanks. I think that... counted as a present."
"Did it?" I huff out a laugh.
"Mhm."
I look at her mouth and feel the tug to taste it again. Not because I can. Because I want to. I ignore the instinct. I'm good at ignoring instincts that could ruin me. Usually.
She rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling like answers are written in the paint if you squint.
"My mother is... protective."
I listen. It's one of the few things I'm actually good at.
