by Zoe Chant
Nick broke off. She knew all that. Gloomily, he finished, “And I look like a fucking idiot in this suit.”
Chapter Five
Raluca
Nick fell silent, staring down at the floor. He still wore the white kid gloves of a gentleman over the hands of a warrior. Nick was no dragon, but his posture was that of a hero from some tragic tale who sacrificed all that he loved for honor’s sake.
Had he sacrificed something that he loved?
Ellie and Catalina had asked Raluca if she’d felt dizzy, lightheaded, or unsteady. She’d told them she did not. But now she did. And she didn’t think it was the dragonsbane. Could she truly have misunderstood Nick so badly, or was she misunderstanding him now? And could he have misunderstood her just as drastically?
She opened her mouth to ask, but instead blurted out the most absurd reply possible, to the one trivial thing he’d mentioned amongst all the important ones. “You look great in the suit.”
Nick raised his head, his emerald eyes bewildered. “I do?”
Since she’d already said it, she might as well commit herself. After all, he’d been honest with her. “Yes. You look like James Bond.”
Nick’s expression of doomed determination dissolved into a grin. It wasn’t particularly Bond-like, boyish rather than suave, but it made him look a lot more like himself. “Which one?”
Raluca had been thinking of the archetype of the elegant and deadly spy rather than a specific actor. She ran them through her mind’s eye, considering each in turn, then said, “Timothy Dalton.”
“Not Daniel Craig?”
“Daniel Craig has yellow hair and blue eyes,” Raluca pointed out. “And very large ears. You have black hair and green eyes. And your ears are... proportional.”
“Proportional ears,” Nick said doubtfully. “That’s not exactly number one on the ‘What Women Find Hot’ list. Destiny says Daniel Craig is the sexiest Bond.” Then he seemed to reconsider her words. “But Destiny has a thing about blonds. Who’s your favorite Bond?”
“Is this a trick question?” Raluca inquired. “Since I have already said which one you most resemble...”
“Nope. If I’d meant ‘Who do you think is sexiest?’ I’d have said so. I meant, which one do you like best as a character?”
“Oh. In that case, Sean Connery is my favorite.” Raluca wondered if she’d revealed her naiveté again. Probably Sean Connery was too old-fashioned, even apart from his lack of resemblance to Nick.
“Mine too,” Nick said, far too promptly for it to be anything but the truth. “First and best.”
“You do not prefer the most modern version?”
Nick shook his head. “Sean Connery is the fucking definition of timelessly cool.”
Silence fell. The air between them seemed charged with electricity, as if before a storm. Raluca no longer wanted to embarrass Nick or make him uncomfortable. She wanted to keep talking with him about which Bond was the best and why, even if it meant hearing a million more f-words. She wanted to dance with him in a place where they were both comfortable, if such a thing even existed.
She wanted to strip off his elegant clothes and adorn his bare body in silver. She’d still never seen him naked. She’d never even seen him with his shirt off. How far did his tattoos go?
He’d never seen her nude, either. She wondered if he wanted to.
When she looked up at him, she knew that he did. His brilliant green gaze was fixed on her, hot and hungry. Whatever she’d said or done to anger him, he seemed to have forgotten or forgiven it.
“God, you’re gorgeous.” His voice was husky; he swallowed. “Can I say ‘God?’ I’m reminding myself every fu — every second not to say that other word.”
“It does not bother me.” Raluca’s reply echoed strangely in her own ears. It was her own voice, but it sounded so unnatural. False, even though her words were true. “And thank you. For the compliment — for the attempt to not say that word — for protecting me — for everything.”
He shook his head, the shadow of that bone-deep hurt falling over him. “I didn’t protect you.”
“Here I sit beside you, alive and breathing,” Raluca pointed out. “You protected me in the only way that matters. Nick, you are too hard on yourself.”
“But —” Nick began.
“Hush.” Raluca laid a finger across his mouth.
He cut off his words with a sharp inhale that she felt as well as heard. His lips were so soft to the touch. So cool, compared to her own heat. Like a perfect spring morning. He sat absolutely still, his emerald eyes growing brighter and brighter. She didn’t have werewolf hearing, but she was sure his heart was pounding as hard and fast as hers.
Raluca felt as if she’d drunk several cocktails in quick succession. It was all she could do to keep from closing his mouth with kisses, from tearing off his clothes, from finally touching every part of his body with her own. And she knew he felt the same way. She could feel it, like a mist hanging in the air between them.
Surely a brief but sincere apology, an even briefer conversation about James Bond, a stumbling but honest explanation of his behavior, and an attempt on her life in which he failed or succeeded in protecting her, depending on one’s point of view, should not have changed her feelings so much. Was she so fickle?
But it wasn’t his words, or even his actions. It was the look in his eyes, the emotion beneath his voice, the way he’d visibly struggled to confess that he loved his teammates but had done it anyway, so he could make a point that she otherwise wouldn’t have understood.
They’d somehow found a delicate balance, as if they were dancing and he held her in a dip. It would probably vanish in the next minute, when one of them said the wrong thing and the other lost their temper. But it was here now. And Raluca wanted to make it last as long as she could.
She dropped her hand to the bed between them. Nick grabbed it, his knuckles paling from the force of his grip.
“I’m scared to talk.” His voice dropped, rough with desire and raw with honesty. “Everything I’ve said has come out wrong. But I can’t just — I have to ask —”
Raluca tightened her hand around his. Their fingers locked together, their shifter strength creating a hold that no power on earth could break.
“Are you asking if I want you?” Raluca said.
“Yeah.” Then his eyes blazed with wolfish intensity, brighter and brighter until she imagined them burning a brand right into her soul. “But if you say yes, you gotta take me as I am. I don’t mean my temper. If I’m being an asshole, feel free to call me on it. Everyone else does. But I can’t watch my mouth every time I open it. I’m not Prince Charming. I’m a fucking wolf from the streets. If you want me, you gotta want me.”
When Raluca had taken her first leap off the balcony, she hadn’t known if she’d be able to transform in time, or if the fall would kill her. But she hadn’t cared. As she’d thrown herself into the air, her heart had lifted with the pure joy of freedom, of the chance to be something other than a princess cut to shape like a paper doll. To be Raluca, a woman and dragon questing for her true self, whatever that might be.
She had that same sense of freedom as she replied, “I want you, Nick. As you are, and everything that comes with you. Words included.”
Nick swallowed. Raluca realized that he hadn’t expected her to agree. She could hear him breathing, hard and fast, as if he too felt like he was in free-fall.
“Then take me,” Nick said.
Inside Raluca, her dragon took flight.
“I had a fantasy...” she began.
Nick sucked in another harsh breath. “About me?”
Raluca had never told anyone about any of her sexual fantasies, not even the few men she’d had rather unsatisfying sex with. It hadn’t even occurred to her to do so. But she could see the pulse beating at Nick’s throat and see the bulge growing within his pressed pants, and knew that her words alone were driving him wild.
If he can be wild, you can
be wild, hissed her dragon.
“I knew you would not be able to show tattoos at a ball,” Raluca said. “So I imagined you in gloves. And I imagined pulling them off. With my teeth.”
Wordlessly, Nick offered her his hand. Raluca delicately took the edge of kidskin between her teeth and pulled. The glove began to roll off, exposing his pale skin and the curling green of the vine. Her upper lip slid along his skin in a long, slow kiss, moving along the smooth back of his hand to his big knuckles, feeling the tiny raised scars scattered across them. He must have cut his knuckles over and over to make his shifter flesh accept those marks as part of his body.
Her lip slid over the hard slickness of his nails, and the glove came off. Raluca let it fall on the bed between them, then took his hand in hers and traced the vine, sliding her finger around his and then over the back of his hand, until she was stopped by his starched cuffs.
“How far does it go?” she asked.
“Take off my clothes and see,” Nick replied, with a wolfish grin. “And by the way, that was about the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever had anyone do to me, but I don’t know if I can sit still long enough for you to do it all that slow.”
“I don’t know if I can, either,” Raluca confessed. She was trembling with desire, her voice catching, her nipples hardening against the silk cups that contained them.
Nick peeled off his other glove and tossed it to the floor, then indicated the dragonmarks on her shoulder. “How far do these go?”
“Take off my gown and see,” Raluca said immediately.
She stood up, turning to put the zipper tab within his reach.
“I remember that.” Nick caught it and pulled. As he did, Raluca reached up stealthily and rolled off her damp panties. They came off as the gown slid down her body, falling into a heap of silk and gauze and jewels at her feet.
Raluca, once again clad in nothing but the black sheath undergown, indicated the silver zipper. “If you pull that, you’ll get to see something you don’t remember.”
Nick took the tiny tab between his finger and thumb. His hands captivated her with their strength and startling dexterity. They were big and rough and looked like they should be clumsy, but their touch told her that he could juggle eggshells.
He undid the zipper in one quick tug. The dress fell at her feet, leaving her completely nude before him, clad only in her jewelry. She stood straight and still in the warm air, letting his hungry gaze roam over her naked body.
Raluca felt bare in more ways than one. He could see her chest move as her breathing quickened, see her nipples hardening and eyes burning silver, no doubt smell her arousal. With other men, she’d been reluctant to expose herself so completely, and had turned out the lights before undressing. But Nick had seen her spit wine all over a table, and he still wanted her. The only way she could change that was if she chose to push him away.
“Your dragonmarks,” Nick said. His voice too caught; he too was breathing fast and hard, as he had when he’d swept her into his arms. “They do go around your breast. I kept wondering if they did.”
“You can touch them, if you like.”
Nick put a finger on the beginning of the dragonmark, at her shoulder. The intensity of the sensation made her gasp.
He froze. “Does it hurt? Or is it just sensitive?”
“Just sensitive,” Raluca managed. “In a good way.”
Nick grinned. “Gotcha.”
He ran his finger down her dragonmark, following it as it swirled over her shoulder. Her entire body felt drawn into the path of his caress, so intimate and unexpectedly gentle. His hands looked rough and big, but the pads of his fingers were smooth, his touch moving easily from strong to feather-light.
Then he stepped up close, moved his hands to her waist, and began to trace the dragonmark with his mouth, kissing and licking his way from her shoulder to her chest to her breast. Raluca stood trembling as he worked his way around her breast, following the line of glittering silver as it spiraled around her breast and nipple. Electric shocks of pleasure went through her whole body, not just her breast.
It was just as it had been in the dressing room. Small touches from Nick were more powerful than the entirety of every sexual act she’d had before.
She bent her down and kissed what she could reach of him, which was the tousled black hair on top of his head. She didn’t have werewolf senses, but she enjoyed the scent of his hair. Like the rest of him, it smelled like leather and steel with an underlying warmth, masculine and enticing.
He tipped his head back, offering her his lips, and she kissed him there before he bent his head again. But Nick didn’t stop at her breasts. He slid downward, kissing and nibbling past her dragonmarks, to her belly. Then he was down on his knees before her, still fully dressed. He glanced up at her, and she saw the same intensity of purpose blazing in his eyes that he’d had when he’d drunk the cocktail she’d offered him.
Then he bent to lick between her legs. Raluca jumped at the shock of pleasure. No man had ever done that before.
“Just sensitive?” Nick murmured.
He spoke from where he was, sending his warm breath over her wet folds. She jumped again, then grabbed on to his shoulders for support.
“Yes,” Raluca managed. “Don’t stop.”
He didn’t. His tongue flicked over her swollen bud, then moved to caress every tender inch of her. Raluca’s control dissolved under his lips, leaving her shaking and crying out aloud. His strong hands held her safe and tight, and she clutched his shoulders with an abandon that she’d have never been able to do with a human man. But Nick didn’t flinch. If anything, he seemed to enjoy the strength of her grip.
Raluca let herself be carried away on the tides of ecstasy until they peaked in a climax more intense than she’d ever be able to give herself. She drifted on its currents, warm and content, then came back to herself as Nick lifted her off her feet and laid her down on the bed.
She looked up at him and was startled into laughter. He was still in his suit, though it was crumpled and the handkerchief and carnation had come off.
“What?” he asked.
“You do look great in the suit,” Raluca said, her words breaking up in fits of giggles. “But you don’t have to keep wearing it!”
Even as she spoke, she worried that he’d take it the wrong way. But Nick laughed too, easily and without defensiveness, his eyes sparkling and his body taut with nothing more than arousal. “Take it off, then. I’m not sure I even know how.”
Raluca rose, pulled him down to the bed so they were both sitting on it, and began to strip him. She knew her way around a white tie suit, if only from watching her cousins learn to put on theirs. Nick looked startled when she began with his feet, and she knew he hadn’t expected a princess to touch his shoes.
“You knelt for me,” she pointed out.
“Well, I wanted to do that,” Nick replied. “And you liked it.”
“I want to do this.” Raluca slipped off his socks, discarding them beside the bed. She hadn’t expected to be captivated by his bare feet, but she was. She’d never seen them before, and they were so nicely proportioned and strong-looking. She caressed them, and was rewarded with another surprised but pleased inhale. “And you like it too.”
“A princess giving me a foot rub...” Nick cut himself off. “No. You’re not a princess now. You’re just Raluca, right?”
She nodded. Now that they’d found their balance, they understood each other so easily. “Just Raluca.”
Rather than work her way up, she left his feet bare and started again from the top. It always looked so awkward when men took off their pants before their shirt. Besides, there were no tattoos on Nick’s feet or ankles, and she was curious about those. She stripped him of his mother-of-pearl cufflinks and pearl studs (placing them respectfully by her own hoard pack), then bow tie, tailcoat, and waistcoat, as he sat laughing.
“There’s just so much of it,” Nick said at last.
“Not fo
r long.” Raluca unbuttoned his shirt, sliding a finger down his chest as she did so.
He sobered then, his thick black eyelashes fluttering as he briefly closed his eyes. His muscles tensed and he shivered once as she pulled off his shirt. She couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or desire.
“Nick...” she began. Then she stopped, staring in fascination at his tattoos.
They did cover his entire chest. It was a single work of art, showing a pack of wolves hunting deer in a forest, all done in the same meticulous, exquisitely shaded and detailed style that she’d seen on his arms and hand.
The wolves had different colors of fur, some gray, some white, some black. But they clearly hunted as a unified pack, their eyes of yellow or green or blue fierce and intent. A herd of deer fled before them, and four deer lay dead on the fallen leaves, moss, and rich earth. Some of the wolves had either been injured in the hunt or spattered with blood from the deer; the scarlet drops on their fur stood out with stunning clarity. The gray wolf who led them all stood with his paws atop a fallen deer, his fangs showing white and his green eyes ablaze.
Raluca touched the lead wolf. The muscles on Nick’s chest jumped, making the wolf seem to move.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” Raluca asked.
“Yeah.” Nick swallowed, his breath coming faster. She could see the vein pulse at the fine skin along his throat, and feel his heart pounding. “It all has a meaning, it’s not there to just look good. But don’t ask me what it means just yet. I’ll tell you after, okay? Not now.”
She nodded. “It is beautiful, though. Whatever the meaning. And so are you.”
He didn’t laugh, though she belatedly recalled that in America, one didn’t use that word to describe men. But he was. His shoulders and chest were much more muscular than she’d realized, but more wiry than burly. He wasn’t as lean as a dragon, but he looked as agile and quick as she’d already seen him to be.
Raluca stroked his chest, then stopped as her fingers encountered something rough and pitted. It was invisible to the eye, hidden in the trunk and branches of a gnarled oak, but she could feel it. Scar tissue.