by Vivian Wood
“Rugby,” he says. “I don’t think I broke a rule until I was twenty-three.”
“And now you’ve broken at least a couple,” I say. “Better stop now or you’ll develop a taste for it.”
He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses it.
“Too late,” he says. “You’re a very bad influence, zloyushka.”
“Good,” I say. “You needed one.”
He kisses me briefly, both of us still leaning against the wall.
“I’m coming over tonight,” he says, lowering his voice.
I can’t help but smile.
“You don’t have to escort Yelena home or something?” I ask.
A tiny twinge of jealousy worms its way through my chest, but I ignore it.
“I might,” he says. “But I’m coming all the same.”
We kiss again, longer this time, his lips moving against mine before we pull back.
“Keep your dress on,” he says, his voice dropping. “I want to take it off you with my teeth.”
My whole body flushes with heat.
“Then don’t take too long,” I say. “I’ve waited enough already.”
We kiss, longer and slower. He puts his hand to my face and runs his thumb slowly along my cheekbone, just underneath my mask.
“I should go before someone comes looking for me,” he says when he pulls back.
“We could go to my room now and you could make excuses later,” I say. “It’s better to apologize than ask permission, you know.”
Kostya just chuckles, his voice low and gravelly, and kisses me again.
“Keep the dress on,” he whispers, and stands, straightening his uniform. I stay on the bench, kicking my feet.
As he turns to leave, his back suddenly straightens and his face goes stony. A bad feeling gathers in the pit of my stomach, and I sit up straight and slide my feet into my shoes.
Please not his father, I think.
“Yelena,” Kostya says.
That’s better, but not by much.
She answers him in Russian, her sweet voice soft and confused. Then she walks forward, sees me, and freezes.
“Good evening, Miss Sung,” she says, still very formal with me.
She reaches out and takes Kostya’s arm, her eyes flicking from me to him and back, like she’s trying to add something together and can’t quite manage it.
“Good evening, Yelena Pavlovna,” I say, and stand in my unfastened shoes. I hope I don’t need to take a step, because I’ll fall over.
She looks up at him.
“Your father asked me to find you. He’s giving a toast before the final dance.”
Kostya nods once.
“Of course,” he says. “It was a pleasure talking to you, Hazel.”
“You as well, Kostya,” I say.
Yelena gives me one last glance, and they walk away. I sit heavily on the bench and stare at the stonework path for a moment, trying not to think what if she’d come thirty seconds earlier.
I refasten my shoes, take a deep breath, and delicately scratch my face underneath my mask.
We’re not keeping this secret, I think. Just because I haven’t actually told anyone doesn’t mean they haven’t found out.
Hell, Yelena, his actual date to this event, came about ten seconds too late to catch us making out. This secret thing isn’t working.
I walk back toward the ball, just as Kostya escorts Yelena back into the ballroom through the open glass doors. I don’t want to be jealous, but right in that instant, I am.
I’m stupidly, childishly, petulantly jealous that she gets to have him escort her around, that she can come find him if she wants. That she gets him in public and I get him in garages and bunkers, after midnight, in the dark.
Put on your big girl panties, Hazel, I think.
Then I walk into the ballroom and listen to toasts.
I walk with my parents back to the guest wing of the palace. The moment we’re out of sight of Svelorians, I make my parents wait for me to take off my shoes, then stretch my toes against the wooden floor.
“I don’t know how those women do it,” I say. “They’re robots, Mom. Robots with robot feet.”
She laughs.
“They’re just used to wearing heels,” she says.
“I gotta say, being a man is pretty great,” my dad teases. “No heels, no childbirth...”
“Shut up,” my mom and I say in unison.
Then we laugh again. We’re both slightly tipsy. I think she’s still relieved that the assassination attempt turned out to be nothing, and I’ve got my own reasons for being in a great mood.
We reach the junction of the hallway where they go left and I go right, and my mom gives me a hug.
“We’ll see you Tuesday,” she says.
“Tuesday?” I say.
“The King set up some meetings while he’s at the economic summit over the weekend and asked me to join him,” she says.
“I just wanted to go to Kiev,” my father adds.
It sounds vaguely familiar, so I just nod.
She hugs me again, a little tighter this time.
“Hazel, be safe,” she says. “And behave yourself.”
She emphasizes the last part just a little too much.
“Don’t I always?” I ask.
My mom just sighs, then relinquishes me to my dad.
“Stay out of trouble, freckles,” he says. “At least try.”
We head to our respective rooms. I shut the door and lock it behind me, then toss my shoes under the bed, and get the mask off my face and toss it on the dresser.
I hesitate for a moment, then reach into my dress, unstick the jellyfish bra, and throw it into a drawer. It’s not exactly a sexy look.
Then I wonder what I’m supposed to do while I wait.
After a while I settle for reading in a big leather armchair, but I can’t focus. I’m reading the same paragraph of Alice in Wonderland, the only English book I could find in the Kiev train station before I left, over and over again, listening for a knock on the door.
I read it again. Think about the dessert table. Squirm. Read the paragraph.
I want to take it off you with my teeth.
Read the paragraph again.
There’s a noise on the balcony, and I freeze. Even though I’m on the second floor of a literal fortress, I reach up and turn off the light, then turn off all the lights as I move through my rooms, still in my formal gown.
Quietly, I walk to the French doors and stand behind the curtains. Part of me thinks I’m being crazy, and part of me is remembering that someone wanted the king dead. Maybe they’re trying again and they have the wrong room.
In the corner of the balcony, a hand grips the railing of the balcony, then another. I realize there’s a third option and I’m an idiot.
I swing the French doors open and lean in the doorway just as Kostya pulls himself up and over the stonework railing, then stands on the balcony.
His formal jacket is open to his white undershirt and he’s breathing hard from the climb, his chest expanding against the thin fabric. Slowly, he reaches up and takes a rose from between his teeth.
If this were in a movie, I’d roll my eyes, but as it is I’m breathless with desire, totally captivated as we stare at each other.
“I told you I was coming,” he says, just a hint of a smile on his face.
“I believed you,” I say.
Kostya walks toward me across the balcony and holds out the rose. It’s ragged at one end where he ripped it from the bush, and I take it from his fingers, my heart beating so hard I can feel it in the soles of my feet.
“You should have told me you were going to climb the balcony,” I say, holding the rose up to smell it.
“Why’s that?” he asks, but he’s smiling.
“I’d have let my hair down so you could climb it,” I say.
Kostya puts one fingertip in the hollow of my throat and then slides it down my sternum, still smiling, his eyes lit up like he’s la
ughing at some joke.
I shiver as his finger moves between my breasts, my nipples hardening instantly.
“Zloyushka, you’re impossible,” he says, his voice low and gravelly.
I want to lean back against the doorframe and beg him to put his hands on me. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for this, and now he’s torturing me with one fingertip.
“Why?” I whisper.
“I climbed up a stone wall in my dress uniform, and now you’re making fun of me,” he teases, moving forward. He’s still warm from the climb and I can feel his body heat radiating off of him, making every inch of me feel warm and feverish.
“Don’t you think climbing a tower with a rose in your teeth is a little too fairy tale?” I tease back.
He just chuckles, then wraps his hand around my back and pulls me to him.
“If you think I’m here to rescue you, you’ve got the wrong idea,” he whispers into my ear.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kostya
I don’t know what’s gotten into me. Maybe it’s that I’ve had just enough drinks at the ball to do something crazy and questionable, like climb up a stone wall to a balcony when I could just use the door.
Maybe it’s how crazy hot Hazel is, and how I’ve been wound like a spring for two days now. Maybe I needed to let off some steam before I saw her so I could take my time.
But maybe it’s the way she laughs sometimes and I don’t know why, but I laugh anyway because she makes me happy. Maybe it’s how she swears like a sailor and doesn’t bat an eye. Maybe it’s how despite all her missteps, the spandex pants and the vodka shots and smoking on the roof, she’s more than capable and poised when it matters.
I could have any girl I want, but I want to win Hazel.
“Then what are you here to do?” she asks.
I kiss her on that spot right below her ear, and she gasps softly.
“I already told you,” I say. “I’m here to take your dress off with my teeth, like I promised I would.”
I kiss her neck, and I can feel her pulse racing beneath my lips.
“And I’m going to take it off you slow and lick every single inch of your body until you’re wound tight enough to snap,” I say.
I nip at her collarbone with my teeth, and she makes a soft noise, her fingers clutching at my side. I can’t help but chuckle again.
“So you’re going to torture me?” she asks, her voice vibrating against my mouth.
“Only for a little while,” I say, and put my face to hers, our foreheads touching. “Then I’m going to make you come so hard you forget your own name.”
I kiss her and she opens her mouth under mine, like she’s desperate to have me inside her somehow. Even though my dick is already hard enough to cut glass I go slow, sliding my tongue along her bottom lip and into her mouth before I pull back, both of us breathing hard.
Hazel gives me a long, burning look. Then she takes my hand in hers and leads me from the balcony through her living quarters and to the bedroom, her long dress swishing along the floor, her ass swaying from side to side in her dress.
She doesn’t usually walk like that, not even in heels. My mouth goes dry.
The second we’re in the bedroom I shut the door and pull her against me. She’s still facing away, her back against my front.
I run my hands up her torso slowly, reveling in every inch, over the bottom curve of her breasts until I reach the hard peaks of her nipples. I brush my fingers over them lightly, one by one, and Hazel gasps.
I do it again.
She reaches one hand up and puts it around the back of my neck, then arches against me. Her breasts press forward into my hands, and her ass is against my erection.
“Not bending you over and fucking you right now might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” I murmur.
As I say it, I pinch both her nipples between my fingers and she sighs.
“There’s nothing stopping you,” she says, her voice low. “For the rest of the night, every time I looked at that dessert table I got a little wetter. Now I’m always going to associate petit-fours with wanting you to fuck me.”
Dear god, I like hearing her say she wants to fuck me.
“I already told you what I’m going to do,” I say.
“You told me you’d take my dress off,” she says.
“Impatient,” I say.
“Torturer,” she says.
Her dress has an eye hook at her neck and then a zipper at her lower back, so I unhook the first with my hands and then hold it there as I get on my knees, take the zipper pull between my teeth, and slide it down, pressing my other thumb into the dimple in her back.
I plant kisses all the way up Hazel’s spine, and she arches it slowly as I work my way back to standing and finally let her dress fall to the floor. Now all she’s wearing is a thong, and she leans her head against my shoulder, then slides the flat of her hand against my aching erection.
I growl, the sound coming from somewhere deep inside my chest, and Hazel laughs softly. She does it again, her palm traveling from root to tip and this time her whole body moves in one slow, sensuous roll, my hands digging into the points of her hips.
I’m starting to wonder if I over-promised, because I don’t know how long I can last, my cock practically ready to explode. She does it again, her head against my shoulder, her eyes closed, and she bites her lip.
I lean over and kiss her while I slide one hand between her legs. She moans into my mouth, and her panties are so soaked that her thighs are damp. Her body jolts when I run my fingers over the fabric between her legs.
“Is this because of the dessert table?” I ask.
“You make it sound like tiramisu turns me on,” she says, sliding her hand down my cock again, her voice low. “It’s from looking at the dessert table and thinking about you fucking me.”
I rub her lightly through the soaked fabric, and a noise comes out of her throat. I rub harder, then slide my fingers underneath the side of the fabric and touch her skin-to-skin, pushing my fingers back and forth slowly over clit.
Now she’s stopped rubbing my cock through my pants and she’s just leaning back against my chest, breathing hard, like she’s surrendering. I rub her again and she makes a soft moan, her head turned to one side, and I withdraw my hand.
Before Hazel can move I spin her around and kiss her hard, then walk her backwards toward her bed, my mouth still on hers. I toss my jacket behind me without looking and she tugs at my shirt so I take that off too.
I push her further onto the bed and she squeals, then laughs as I bend over and kiss her fiercely on her stomach, expanding and tightening as she breathes, her hands on my head. As I work my way down, past her bellybutton, I can smell how aroused she is.
It’s intoxicating. Beyond maddening. I nearly lose control and bury my face in her, because what I want to do is lick her until she comes again and again. I want to hear her scream as I suck on her clit and I want to put my tongue in her pussy as she clenches around me, because Hazel losing control is the single most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I’d watch it all day if I could.
I take the band on her thong between my teeth and pull it off her to the sound of her soft laughter, then push her thighs apart with my hands and kiss the inside of one knee, then the other.
Hazel moans softly and I work my way up, my fingers digging into the soft flesh as I try to slow down and tease her, but I don’t know that it’s working. I don’t even know who I’m torturing any more, me or her, as I finally reach the juncture of her thighs and lick her slowly, the tip of my tongue just barely touching her lips before I roll it over her clit.
A tremor runs through her whole body when I do it, and I hear her breathing hitch.
“Fuck, Kostya,” she whispers.
I do it again and again until she groans, and then I force myself to pull back. I trace a circle around her clit with my tongue as she sucks in a breath. After a moment I repeat the cycle, lick-circle-lick-ci
rcle, and then I repeat it again and again.
Each time she gets louder, her breathing rougher, I can feel her body tensing. Finally she grabs my head with one hand and when I stop licking her, her fist closes around my hair.
“Fuck!” she shouts, and I can’t help but laugh, kissing the soft inside of one thigh as I watch her chest heave.
“I told you what I was going to do,” I say. “Zloyushka, I could tease you all day and never get tired of watching you come undone.”
I’m still wearing pants, and I’m so hard I think my dick might just fall off, but I can’t help myself. Watching Hazel like this does something to me I can’t explain, lights some fire so far buried inside me that I didn’t know it existed.
I lick her again and this time she just says, “Oh...” so softly I can barely hear it, but she lifts her hips toward me like she’s pleading with me. This time I take her right to the brink before I stop. Her toes are curled and she’s crushing her pillow in one fist, the other still in my hair.
I get my pants and boxers off in half a second and toss the condom from my pocket onto a pillow. She’s flushed, her hair wild, and her eyes are half-closed.
“You’re a sadist,” she whispers as I crawl over her.
“I warned you,” I murmur, guiding her hand to my cock. I groan as she wraps her hand around it, and then she strokes me as I kiss her deeply, kneeling between her thighs. I can’t keep myself from thrusting into her hand, and she wraps her legs around my hips.
I want to be inside her so bad I can barely breathe, but somehow, I resist.
I break the kiss and reach between her legs again, sliding two fingers into her wet, swollen pussy. I just barely bend them and her eyelids flutter the way they did in the stairwell, so I do it again. This time she grabs the back of my neck and pushes back against my hand, looking at me through half-closed eyes.
My cock throbs, but I force myself to ignore it. I move my fingers again and again, and Hazel’s hand drifts from my neck to my shoulder as her hips move faster and harder against my hand. She puts one leg over my shoulder and pushes back hard, like she wants me deeper.
I add a third finger and she groans, eyes closed and her head to one side. Now I’m barely moving my hand at all, because she’s doing all the work, moving her hips and fucking herself with my fingers, biting her lip, sighing and moaning.