CHAPTER THIRTY
They celebrated in true Manhattan style with dinner reservations at a trendy bistro, and Emma dressed the part. Her simple ivory sheath dress had elbow length sleeves and stopped several inches above sedate. Niko, still buzzed from his shoot, couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
“I’ve missed this,” Emma sighed, letting her gaze travel the restaurant. Nine o’clock on a Thursday and the place was packed. Blue Moon didn’t have the energy of the city. And she was pleased to find New York’s vibe was edgier, busier, than L.A.’s.
“You know,” Nikolai said, leaning in conspiratorially across the table. “We could just ask them to pack up the entrees to go.” He was dashing in a dark suit. He’d skipped the tie and left the top two buttons of his tailored shirt open. And Emma wasn’t the only female in the place who couldn’t take her eyes off of him.
She laughed. “You’re insatiable.” He’d proven that fact yet again when they returned to his apartment after the shoot. They’d very nearly missed their dinner reservation.
“You look beautiful,” he said, lifting her hand to his lips. “It’s not my fault that I can’t get enough of you.”
“You Vulkovs certainly know how to pour on the charm,” she said, fanning herself with her napkin.
“Emma, you know you’re special to me, don’t you?” Niko asked, his dark eyes intent on hers.
She glanced down at the table, fighting the blush that threatened her face. “I am aware that you have certain friendly feelings toward me.”
“It’s more than that, and you know it,” he argued. “And you’re going to see it tomorrow at the show. I don’t want you to feel ambushed.”
“You used pictures of me?” Emma’s heartbeat picked up.
“I asked your permission,” he reminded her. “I would have shown them to you in advance, but I really wanted you to experience them as part of the whole.”
She did vaguely recall Niko demanding in the throes of passion that she allow him to use her images and was also fairly certain she’d shouted or sighed out “Yes, God” about a hundred times after that.
“Oh, Jesus, I’m not naked in any of them, am I?”
“Let me put it this way, you can’t see anything.”
“Oh, my God, Nikolai!” she hissed.
He grabbed both her hands, squeezed. “Emma, I would never do anything that I thought would hurt you. Maybe push you a little outside your comfort zone but never anything that I thought would really hurt you. Okay?”
“I’m not feeling inclined to trust your judgment right now.” She felt panic, slick and hot in her belly.
“How many pictures of me are there?”
“Five.”
“Five?”
“Too many or too few?” Niko asked.
“One feels like too many!”
Niko signaled the waiter and ordered another round of drinks. “Emma, please don’t make me tell you what an inspiration you are to me. It’s corny and embarrassing to have the ‘you’re my muse’ conversation.”
She glared at him. “And I wouldn’t buy it anyway.”
He sighed. “Please trust me. You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
She wasn’t happy about it. But maybe having pictures he’d taken of her would lessen the sting of meeting a bunch of beautiful women he’d slept with. “For future reference, don’t ask me to make important decisions during sex. I’ll just say yes with no concept of what I’m agreeing to.”
A wicked grin lit his face.
“You sneaky bastard. You did that on purpose!”
“Are you mad?”
“I’m certainly not thrilled right now.”
He released one of her hands and cupped his palm to her face. “I’m sorry, Emma.”
She slapped his hand away. “Don’t try to charm your way out of this. I’m going to withhold judgment on how much trouble you’re in until after the show.”
“That’s fair.”
“How many of your ex-dates will be there, by the way?”
He grimaced as if considering it for the first time. “A few probably. Will that be a problem?”
Emma leaned in and traced a finger over the back of his hand. “Let’s just turn the table for a moment. How would you feel if I was taking you to an event where you would be meeting ‘a few’ of my ex-lovers?”
She had the great pleasure of watching the color slowly drain from his face and the tic in his jaw appear.
He swore quietly, and she smiled.
“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.”
He released her hands and pressed his fingers to his eyes. “I think I’m having a stroke.”
Emma smiled smugly. “Oh, good. Here comes our food.”
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Dinner was followed by drinks and music at a boutique club with chic white walls, purple neon, and thumping music. Niko, still ashen faced from dinner, ordered a bottle of wine before collapsing back against the plush cushion of the booth he’d scored for them.
It had taken them a while to get to the booth since they’d been stopped every few feet by people Niko knew. But he’d been distracted, cutting conversations and introductions short and dragging her toward their private oasis.
Finally alone, he leaned forward again, elbows on his knees. “Emma, I never thought how meeting women I’d…” he swallowed hard before continuing, “known would make you feel.”
“Yes, I can see that,” she said, offering a small, amused smile.
“No,” he shook his head. “No. I mean it really didn’t occur to me at all.”
The server returned with their bottle in a chiller and two glasses.
Niko drank deeply before continuing. “What I mean to say is that they don’t mean anything to me. Which now sounds incredibly callous, but there was never a woman who afterwards I wanted to…” He groaned and shoved his hands through his hair. “I don’t know how to be honest without sounding like an asshole.”
“Just spit it out,” Emma sighed. “Get it out, and we’ll work through it, or if it’s really that bad, I’ll dump this ice bucket on you and cause a huge scene.”
“None of them meant anything to me. Not compared to you. With them, each one was just a temporary distraction. You? You’re different.”
Emma ran her tongue over her teeth and waited.
“I meant what I said at dinner. You’re special to me. Very special to me, and I think you’re going to see that tomorrow night. But I never thought how difficult it might be for you to meet other women that I’ve—”
“Fucked,” Emma supplied.
Niko winced. “Shit. I’m fucking everything up, aren’t I?”
Emma took pity on him. “Niko, relax. Seeing you feel bad makes me feel better.”
He shot her a look, and she smiled brightly. “Gee, thanks,” he muttered.
“I just wanted you to understand how uncomfortable it might be for me tomorrow.”
“I feel like an asshole. I never even considered… no one has ever meant anything to me before you—and I get that that makes me a callous asshole—but you’re going to see that tomorrow night at the show. You’re going to really get it. And that’s all that I was thinking of. Not about anyone else. I think since they didn’t mean anything to me, it didn’t occur to me that they’d mean anything to you. But if you dragged me into an event with men you’d slept with?” His knuckles whitened as his fists balled. “It wouldn’t mean nothing to me.”
“As ungraceful as that was,” Emma said, sliding onto Niko’s lap and slipping her arms around his neck, “it does make me feel better.”
Niko held on tight and dropped his forehead to hers. “Emma, please know that you mean the world to me. Your friendship and stubbornness got me back to where I need to be professionally. And the way you look at me when you’re under me? The way you make me laugh when we’re having breakfast, the way you make me sweat at the gym when I’m trying to show off? I’ve never felt like this about anyone.”
Emma could hear her heartbeat pounding in her head. She knew, knew what he wanted to tell her. But she couldn’t hear it, couldn’t let him say the words. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t sure it was right.
So she kissed him. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him until she couldn’t breathe, kissed him until he was hard and throbbing beneath her. Here they were even. Here she could give as well as she got. Here they could forget everything else if even just for the moment.
He broke the kiss with a shaky breath. “Are you sure you’re okay?” The tenderness in his eyes slashed her across the heart.
“Take me home, Niko, and make me forget to breathe.”
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He called for their driver, and the second the door closed behind them, Niko’s hand trekked up her thigh as he kissed her, drawing the skirt of her dress indecently higher. The driver climbed behind the wheel and pulled into traffic. Emma clamped her hand on Niko’s. “Don’t you dare,” she whispered to him in the dark.
Of course he took it as a challenge. Her resolve weakened and then failed completely when he nibbled at the sensitive flesh of her neck. Dark deeds in the backseat of a Lexus. With the brush of his lips, Nikolai Vulkov managed to convince her to do things she’d never do if left to her own devices.
When his hand coasted higher again, making her throb with anticipation, she didn’t stop him. His fingers found the apex of her thighs and prodded gently, warm flesh over white silk.
“Open.” He whispered the command against her ear, and Emma shivered with need. She spread her knees an inch wider, teasing him as much as herself.
“Emmaline, I have twelve blocks to make you come.”
Her knees fell open of their own volition, welcoming his clever fingers. He probed and stroked, touching her only there with the exception of the gentle brush of his mouth over hers. And it was enough to have her soaked with desire. Her nipples tightened, and her breasts felt heavy and full with the aching need for his touch.
She wanted to whimper, to beg, but the driver’s presence kept her silent. Instead she trembled when Niko slipped his fingers under the edge of her silky thong. He used the pads of his fingers to circle her greedy nub.
Streetlights flashed past the tinted glass of her window, but Emma was oblivious to anything beyond the leather backseat. Her legs spread wider still, begging without words for more, and Nikolai obliged, sliding back and forth through her drenched sex. Teasing her with gentle circles before dipping just the tips of two fingers into her.
He brought his mouth back to her ear to whisper dark promises. “Imagine my mouth between your thighs, Emma. Do you feel me tasting you?”
When she shivered, his teeth sank into her ear, and she had to cover her gasp.
“Five blocks, Emmaline.”
Ruthlessly, he worked her up. She was so close to coming that she was terrified she wouldn’t be able to stay quiet. Emma began to fight against his hand.
“Let it happen, baby. Let me take care of you.”
She could feel his erection against her hip and bit her lip. He could make her come like this, but it wasn’t going to be enough until he was inside her.
She clamped a hand over his shaft through his pants, and he groaned in her ear. “Imagine me pumping into you, Emma. Nothing between us. Bare, raw, slamming into you until you shatter around me.” His words carried her up the steep cliffside, those perfect little circles nudging her alone. She bucked her hips against his hand. “Imagine me coming inside you, Emma, filling you up with every drop I have while you squeeze me with your sexy little pulls.”
With one masterful flick, he shoved her off of the cliff into her release. She felt it spread like a spotlight from her toes up her legs until the orgasm unfurled in her core.
“Fuck,” he growled in her ear. “I could come right now just watching you, baby.”
She barely heard his words through the mist in her mind. Her body felt hot and heavy, her limbs useless as the aftershocks made them tremble.
Lightheaded and still needy, she didn’t even realize they’d arrived until Niko pulled her skirt back in place. “Just hang on to me, baby.” He half dragged her out of the car and, with an arm around her waist, pulled her toward the building.
She couldn’t make eye contact with the driver or the doorman, but Niko smoothly thanked both of them and shoved her inside. In the elevator, any evidence of the controlled Niko was gone. He yanked her underwear down her thighs and, when gravity didn’t work fast enough, ripped them from her.
He shoved two fingers into her and groaned as if he’d been desperate to be inside her. Emma fisted her hands in the lapels of his suit holding him against her. “I want your cock inside me now.”
“Greedy girl,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck and flexing his fingers inside her.
She felt her muscles clench around him, and he growled his approval.
He withdrew his fingers from her and brought them to his mouth. She watched in fascination as he slid them between his lips to taste. God, was there nothing that wasn’t erotic about him?
The elevator dinged, announcing their floor, and by the time they made it to his door, her dress was off her shoulders and being worked down by a determined Niko. He shoved open his door with a violence that had her shaking with anticipation.
Dragging her across the foyer, he kicked the door closed and pushed her back up against it. With one swift yank, her dress gave way and crumpled to the floor.
She gasped. “That was a very expensive—”
“I’ll buy you ten more,” he promised, his eyes glazed as he looked his fill. Her breasts were rounding over the top of the sexy lace cups of her bra. Barely contained when she’d put it on, her breasts were spilling out now, swollen with the need to be touched.
“You are my fucking ideal,” he said softly. He didn’t move fast enough for Emma’s liking. So she moved for him. In her bra and heels, she dropped to her knees and worked his belt free.
“Baby, don’t do that. I’m too close—” His argument ended with a pained groan as she slid her mouth over the wide crest of his engorged cock. He put his palms flat on the door behind her and let her take.
Emma brought him to the back of her throat, taking as much of his shaft as she could. He whispered praise to her as she sucked and licked the length of him. And when she settled into a wicked, mesmerizing rhythm, he met her eager mouth with shallow thrusts. She knew he was close, could taste him as he leaked into her mouth, and it excited her knowing she could take him to the edge so quickly.
And then he was yanking her to her feet. “Bed. Now.”
This time, it was Emma who didn’t move fast enough, and Niko swept her up, throwing her over his shoulder. He tossed her none too gently on the bed and shrugged out of his jacket. She kneeled in the middle of the bed and watched as he shed his shirt next followed by his pants and underwear. When he was naked, magnificently naked, she reached for the closure of her bra, but he shook his head.
“Let me,” he said.
He crawled onto the bed and, reclining against the pillows, pulled her over him. She straddled his hips and gasped when she landed with his erection nestled between her thighs.
With a deft flick of his wrist, he opened her bra and spilled her breasts free against his face.
Yes. Her body sang as he finally cupped her heavy breasts. He slid down lower on the mattress and ordered her to lean forward, bringing her nipples in perfect line with his mouth.
He took one hungrily between his lips, and Emma felt lightning explode in her veins. She felt it all, every stroke of his tongue, every change in the pressure of his mouth. She was electrified. Restlessly, she grinded against him, and when his cock slipped between her wet folds, she moaned.
It felt so good, so perfect, to have nothing between them. He released her first breast and moved to the next, nuzzling her flesh gently before latching on to suck and stroke.
She rolled her hips, reveling in the friction of him against her. “Nikolai,” she breathed. “I need you. I need you inside me.”
Her nipple popped free of his mouth. “Hang on, baby. I need a condom.”
“No,” she whispered the word, and he froze. She bit her lip. “I want you like you said in the car.”
His fingers flexed on her hips. “Are you sure?” He wanted it so badly that she could feel his entire body coil as if to pounce, yet he still held back to make certain. And that convinced her.
“Positive.”
“Are you—”
“Birth control,” she answered.
And then they were rolling, Emma on her back with Niko over her. He was already testing the resistance at her entrance, already probing with the thick tip of his erection.
She brought her knees up, begging him with her body to take her.
He looked into her eyes, into her soul, and she saw a tenderness she didn’t know was possible in those dark eyes. Carefully, patiently, he pressed her arms over her head and braceleted them with one of his hands.
His weight was on her, pressing her into the mattress, and instead of feeling trapped, Emma felt powerful, desired.
His eyes seemed to darken, and with excruciating patience, he worked his way into her. Emma had luxuriated in having Niko inside her before, but this? This raw fullness was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Stretched, stripped, bared. They were one. He pierced her with his gaze, dark and possessive and wondrous. And then he began to move.
She thought he’d lose himself to the speed and the craving for fulfillment. Thought they would race to the finish, but instead Niko took his time worshipping her body with his. He brushed his lips over her forehead and cheeks and jaw, skimming a hand over the curve of her breast and hip while stroking in and out of her with something that glowed like… love.
He moved in her with reverence. There were tears that clouded her eyes. It was too much. He made her feel too much. But her body wasn’t afraid. Her body wanted more of this beautiful, gentle pleasure.
With steady, venerating strokes, Niko primed her body. She was so slick around him that he moved easily in her, yet she felt every thick inch of him, every vein and ridge. He was grunting softly with each thrust, and the sound of his pleasure drove her mad.
She wanted him wild and fast but couldn’t fight the sweet, torturous pleasure complete surrender had given her. Every breath, every stroke, every whisper was golden and perfect. Their bodies warmed and slicked with sweat. The exquisite fullness she felt when he was sheathed in her was an impossible joy. The ache when he withdrew was an unimaginable torture.
They shared no words, only shallow breaths and whispered moans as each thrust brought them closer. He pulled back just enough so that she could see his face.
He knew her body so intimately, knew that she was seconds away from losing herself to the bliss that his body provided. Emma wanted him to go with her. She felt the first warning flutter deep inside her.
“Now, Nikolai,” she whispered.
And that was all it took. She was coming, and everything behind her eyes went black before glowing gold. The first wave closed her around his shaft, and she felt him come, not just in the stuttering jerk of his hips but how it let loose deep inside her. It took her pleasure to new levels, feeling him fill her, and she went blind again as she came and came and came, shattering around his release until they were coming as one.
He buried his face in her neck, grunting softly, hips thrusting, until he was empty, and she was so full. The beauty of it, the incredible cohesion brought the tears back to her eyes.
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He was playing with her hair, toying with fiery strands. “I’ve never had sex without a condom before.”
Her fingers paused in their tracings over his chest and stomach.
“Neither have I,” she confessed.
“Why with me, Emma?”
Leisurely she returned to stroking his skin, making it sing under her touch. “Because you’re special to me.”
She used his own words, and he smiled softly. He knew what he was saying with those words, but she didn’t. Not yet. She’d know tomorrow night. For better or worse, he was painfully, irrevocably in love with her. And once she saw the pictures, she’d know.
There were so many things they need to discuss. Where would they live? How would it affect their work? What compromises needed to be made? But they could figure it out. Together.
He’d never anticipated this. Not when he’d shown up on Summer’s doorstep, expecting to remind himself how perfect his life was. He’d ended up finding what he was desperately missing. Family, love, Emma.
She’d hit him harder and brighter than a bolt of lightning, and what he’d thought had been a case of lust at first sight had quickly transformed into a love he’d never imagined. She was his other half, his inspiration and conscience. And she needed him, needed him to push her to feel, to do, to let go of her strict rules every once in a while. Together, they had something special, essential. And he didn’t want a life without it, without her.
He only hoped Emma was prepared to accept his love. Because, if not, it would be one hell of a fight to make her see the light.