“God, I missed you,” he says.
“I have something for you,” I say. “It’s just little.”
I pull it out of my bag—wrapped, even though it’s impossible to disguise a book.
Mikolaj rips off the paper. He smiles when he sees what’s inside.
It’s a first edition of “Through the Looking Glass,” to replace the one I ruined. It has a rich red cover, stamped with a gold border and a cameo of the Queen of Hearts.
He opens to the first page—an illustration of a knight on horseback.
“You don’t have that in a tattoo yet,” I say, teasing him. “Do you have any blank space left? Maybe on the bottom of your foot?”
He kisses me again, squeezing me tight.
“Thank you, Nessa. It’s perfect.”
“So,” I say, “Should we go upstairs? I’ve been missing your room, too . . .”
“Don’t you want your present?” Miko says.
I try to hide my grin, without success. I’ve always loved gifts. Even the littlest ones make me happy. I love to be surprised.
I’m thinking Mikolaj probably got me a new record. He let me keep the old turntable, and the box of vintage vinyl. He knows I’ve been using it for the new ballet. So I’m guessing he has an addition for my collection.
But Miko really does surprise me, by dropping down on one knee.
“It’s not a gift exactly,” he says, “Since I didn’t pay for it . . .”
He pulls a little box out of his pocket and opens it up. Inside I see the last thing in the world I was expecting: my grandmother’s ring.
“What?” I gasp. “How did you—”
“I was a corpse when I met you, Nessa,” he says. “No breath. No heart. No life. I felt nothing. I cared about nothing. Then I saw you, and you woke me up inside. I was such a fool at first. I was so numb that I thought that spark must be hatred. If I was a normal person, I would have realized it was love. Love at first sight. From the second I laid eyes on you.”
He takes the ring out of the box and holds it up. The diamond sparkles as brightly as ever in its antique setting.
“I wanted to hate you, because that was easier. But as I watched you, it was impossible to ignore your kindness, your intelligence, your creativity. You’re good Nessa, truly and intrinsically good in a way that most people could never dream of being. But you’re so much more than that. You’re talented, and beautiful, and the sexiest fucking woman in the world. Shit, I wasn’t going to swear during this.”
I laugh, and also give a little sob, because I’m so, so happy. I want to speak, but I don’t want to interrupt Mikolaj. I want to hear everything he has to say.
“I hated being apart from you these last few weeks,” he says. “But when I got to know you Nessa, I understood how important your family is to you. I stole you the first time. This time, I wanted their blessing.”
His fingers tighten on the band of the ring.
“Your mother gave this to me. She knows that I love you. I love you more than money or power or my own life. I stole you, Nessa. And you stole my heart. It’s yours forever. I couldn’t take it back if I wanted to. So will you marry me?”
“Yes!” I cry. “Of course, yes!”
He slips the ring on my finger.
It looks different on my hand. It looks like it belongs to me. Like it was made for me.
“Did they really give it to you?” I ask him, in amazement.
“Grudgingly,” he says.
I laugh.
“That still counts,” I say.
He sweeps me up in his arms, kissing me over and over.
Then he does carry me up to his room.
There’s a fire blazing in the grate. He sets me down in front of it, on the thick rug.
“Let me undress you,” I say to Mikolaj.
He stands still, letting me unbutton the front of his shirt.
Inch by inch, I bare his broad, flat chest, hard with muscle and dark with ink. I run my fingertips over his chest, down the centerline of his navel. Mikolaj’s skin is incredibly smooth, for a man. It’s one of those deceptive things about him. How he looks and how he feels never match up. He looks as pale as a vampire, yet he’s always warm to the touch. He’s so lean that every muscle looks like it could cut you, but his skin is butter soft. His eyes look like shattered glass, but they’re not just a mirror, reflecting all the pain in the world. They see inside me, all the way down to my soul.
I strip off his shirt. I gently touch the scars on his stomach, shoulders, and arms. They’re mostly healed now, but the white ridges stand out against the dark tattoos. Every one of those marks is a cut he took for me.
I unbutton his pants and slide them down. His boxers, too. Now he’s standing naked in front of the fire. The light dances across his skin. It animates his tattoos, making them seem as if they’ve come alive, moving across his flesh.
His eyes are gleaming in the flickering light. They roam over my face, my body. He’s got that look of hunger on his face. The look that never fails to jolt my heart and make it beat at triple its normal pace. We’re not even kissing yet, and already my skin is prickling, my nipples tightening, wetness soaking through my underwear.
I can’t tear my eyes away from him. There’s never been a man who could look so commanding without a stitch of clothing on. There’s power in every ounce of those tensely coiled muscles. There’s ferocity in his gaze.
Mikolaj would do anything for me. And anything to me. He has no limit, no line he won’t cross. It’s terrifying and incredibly arousing.
His cock lays heavily against his thigh. As soon as my eyes fall on it, it starts to thicken and stiffen.
Like everything about Mikolaj, his cock is insanely aesthetic. Thick, white, smooth, perfectly proportioned. The harder it gets, the smoother and tighter the skin stretches. I know how soft that skin is—the softest on his entire body. I want to touch it with the most sensitive parts of myself. Starting with my lips and tongue.
I drop down to my knees in front of him. I let the head of his cock rest heavily on my tongue. I tease the tip of my tongue around the ridge between the head and shaft. A little drop of clear fluid forms on the tip of his cock, and I lick it up, tasting him. It tastes almost the same as his mouth—clean and rich and just a little salty.
I close my mouth over the whole head, sucking harder. More fluid seeps into my mouth, like a reward. Mikolaj groans.
I bob my mouth up and down on his cock, as far as I can go, coating it with my saliva. Then I use my hand to stroke his shaft while I lick and suck the head.
I’ve only done this a couple of times, but I already feel like I’m getting much better at it. I’m learning how to relax my jaw, how to use my mouth and hands in tandem. Mikolaj moans. I can tell what feels the best for him based off his breathing and the way he moves his hips.
After a minute he stops me.
“Don’t you like that?” I say.
“Of course I like it,” he growls.
He strips off my clothes so we’re both naked, then pulls me down on the rug in front of the fireplace. He pulls me on top of him so we’re facing opposite directions, my thighs wrapped around his face and his cock back in my mouth.
It’s a little more diffiMy Bookcult doing this upside down, but I think I can handle it. Until he delves his tongue inside of me at the same time.