Page 8 of Nikolay

The couple came up from the side stairs a breath later, and the room quieted with a different kind of hunger.

He was beautiful in a way that made beauty feel too flimsy a word for the work. Tall. Broad across the shoulders. Skin a deep, flawless mahogany that made the black iron behind him shine almost gray by comparison. His face looked carved with almost mathematical care—high cheekbones, a full mouth, a straight nose, and eyes that caught what little light there was and held it in dark bronze depths. He wore fitted black trousers low on his hips, no shirt, no jewelry, nothing to distract from the grave authority of his body.

The woman with him was just as arresting. Her skin was a warm, deep brown that glowed under the stage lights like polished chestnut; her body long and lean and strong in that beautiful, tensile way some women had. A slip of sheer fabric fell over her from shoulders to mid-thigh, barely there and somehow still more intimate than nudity would’ve been. Her hair was swept to one side, exposing the clean line of her neck. She didn’t look frightened. That was what struck me first. She looked open. Ready. Already a little wrecked by anticipation.

He brought her to the cross with one hand at her waist, unhurried, neither dragging nor displaying her like a possession. More like guiding her into a place they had agreed she wanted to be.

The room held itself still around them.

He stood behind her and lifted both hands to the straps at her shoulders. Even that small movement slowed the air. He slid the slip down her arms with deliberate care, baring first one shoulder, then the elegant line of her back, then the full length of her body as the fabric whispered to the floor. No one spoke. Crystal paused halfway to mouths. I stood motionless near the end of the aisle, tray hanging loose from my fingers.

He bent and fastened one velvet-lined cuff around her right wrist. Then the left. The iron gave back a low metallic click each time the buckle closed. He spread her arms until she stood open against the cross, back to the room, face turned slightly to one side so her profile remained visible. Her lips parted on a breath.

He did not rush to the implements.

Instead, he set both palms flat at the nape of her neck and drew them down in a single long pass along her spine.

The reaction was immediate. Her skin pebbled beneath his hands. Her shoulders dropped. She exhaled, soft and shaky, and the sound of it somehow carried farther than it should have in a room full of supernatural hearing.

He did it again, slower. Down the neat groove of her back. Over the sensitive points at her waist. To the curve of her hips.

Then he reached for a flogger.

The tails were soft leather, supple and dark, and before he struck with it, he only let it trail over her shoulders. Across the tops of her arms. Down the length of her back in dragging, feather-light sweeps that made her shiver harder than a blow would have. He watched her response with total focus, head slightly tilted, as if her body were speaking to him in a language he had spent years learning.

The first measured strike landed across her upper back with a muted thwap of leather and a sharp inhale from her that cut right through me.

Not pain exactly. Not only pain. Something cleaner and stranger.

A ripple moved through the watching crowd, almost imperceptible but real enough I felt it in the pressure of the room.

He waited.

Then struck again. Not in the same spot. A little lower this time, the leather fanning out over muscle and skin with practiced precision. She leaned into the cross, fingers curling inside the cuffs. Her breath came faster, each exhale rougher.

He alternated the flogger with his hands. A slow pass of leather. A palm down her spine. Then one open-handed strike to the plush curve of her backside that landed crisp and sure. Her hips jolted forward, then rolled back against the iron as if her body had nowhere else to put the sensation.

Again.

A measured slap to the other side, not wild, not punishing for punishment’s sake. Rhythmic. Deliberate. His hand left a blooming flush that deepened by increments under the lights. Every impact looked chosen. Every pause, too.

The woman’s composure thinned beautifully. Not breaking yet. Just coming loose at the edges. Her mouth opened on a sound she seemed too deep inside herself to censor. One knee bent a little, then straightened when the restraint at her ankle reminded her where she was held.

He set the flogger down and stepped close enough that his chest nearly brushed her back. One hand slid into her hair and drew it over her shoulder. Then he lowered his mouth to the back of her neck.

The room went dead still.

I watched the line of his jaw move against her skin, watched the subtle parting of his lips. His fangs grazed, not breaking, just enough to make the threat of it visible. Her entire body arched against the restraints. The sound that left her then was small and ragged and so nakedly needy that heat licked clean up my spine in answer.

He pressed a kiss there after, almost tender. Cruel in its tenderness, maybe.

Then one hand came around the front of her body, broad and steady, splaying flat over her sternum. Possession wasn’t the right word. Control was closer. Containment. The certainty of a person who knew exactly how much another could take and exactly how to bring her to it.

His other hand slid down her stomach.

I swallowed.

He took his time. Over the line of her ribs. Across her navel. Lower. His fingers spread and stroked the soft inside of one thigh first, as if he intended to unravel her one nerve at a time. She was shaking now in earnest, small tremors through her legs and belly. When his hand finally settled between her thighs, the breath that tore out of her made several people in the crowd exhale with her.