Page 83 of Gilded Shackles
“Fuck, Elle, I feel you. You hear me? I feel you?” he growls, twisting a hand through my hair, pounding viciously now.
I moan, letting my face drop to the mattress, trying to breathe through the inferno crashing through me.
The pressure builds again, faster this time, a tidal wave I can't outrun.
When it hits, it's like I’m a wave, and his cock the shore. I pulse around him, screaming, the pleasure so intense it borders on pain.
“That’s it, baby!” Nikolai hisses, his hips stuttering as he follows me over the edge, emptying himself inside me with a groan.
Then he eases out of me, slow and careful, leaving behind a pulse that still thrums through every nerve. The loss feels sudden, like being yanked from a dream mid-kiss.
He collapses beside me, chest heaving, breath rough in the quiet. I fall with him, boneless, the remains of my dress hanging in ribbons from my shoulders. His arm finds me automatically, strong and warm, pulling me into the curve of him.
His hand drifts across my back in lazy circles, the touch so gentle it almost hurts.
Piece by piece, my brain starts booting back up. Right. Dinner. Candles. Words I was supposed to say before I lost my clothes and my common sense.
I shift slightly, tilt my face up to him. “Hungry?”
He smiles, that slow, devastating thing that could ruin nations. “Starving. What’s on the menu?”
This is it. My cue. The moment I tell him his life’s about to change. I'd better get it over with now, before life comes knocking. I’ve played truant long enough, I tell myself. We can celebrate the news over our meal.
Yuup…that’s it. I’m telling him now, that we’re having a baby.
My heart hammers so hard I can practically hear it echo. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something?—”
His phone buzzes on the nightstand. Once. Twice. A third time. The sound slices through the softness like glass breaking.
He ignores it at first, still looking at me. “You were saying?”
I open my mouth, but it keeps buzzing, insistent and sharp. Finally, he sighs, reaches for it, glances at the screen, and the entire mood changes.
His body goes still.
He sits up, already reaching for his clothes.
“Nikolai?” I ask, clutching the sheet around me. “What is it?”
“Business.” His tone is clipped, distant.
“Now? You just got home!” I can’t bring myself to keep the disappointment from my voice. Here I am, trying to tell him some life-altering news, and he’s got business?
He doesn’t answer right away. Just buttons his shirt, checks his phone again. His face has gone unreadable to the same mask he wears when he doesn’t want me inside his world.
“I need to tell you something,” I press. “It’s important.”
He stops for half a second. There’s a flicker of guilt, but then his phone lights up again and the flicker’s gone. “It can wait. This can’t.”
The words hit like a slap I didn’t see coming. “What kind of business?”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he says, already tucking his gun into the back of his waistband, as casually as if he’s grabbing his keys. “Go to bed, Elle.”
He walks over, I feel his lips on my forehead, but I’m already dipping…down and deep into myself.
“See you soon?”
I can’t bring myself to say a word. He leaves without even waiting for a goodbye. The silence that follows is suffocating.
