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 laughing 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.