The Double

And then I realized he was looking at me in a very particular way.

“What?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, just stood at the foot of the bed, staring down at me.

I glanced down at myself. I wasn’t doing anything sexy. I was just lying there untidily, my skirts all in a mess, barefoot and with my hair all disheveled but—

But his eyes...they were like I’d never seen them. Not just a faint flicker of blue but a steady gleam. Not just lust. Something deeper.

“What?” I asked again.

This wasn’t the dungeon. This was our bedroom. Nothing was allowed to happen, here, but….

But his knuckles had gone white where they gripped the foot of the bed. The tension that had been building for a week rose up between us, the air going thick and heavy.

“Wha—”

But I never reached the t because he suddenly lunged forward, grabbed me, and kissed me.

39

Hailey

IT ALL HAPPENED so fast. He almost dived onto the bed, his knee between my thighs, and then his hands were on my cheeks and his lips met mine—

And suddenly, he was unleashed.

I’d caught those tiny glimpses. I knew there was emotion buried under all that ice. But I hadn’t realized just how long he’d been denying himself any real feelings. Years...decades. And I could feel every single second of it in how he kissed me. He needed me like a man twenty years in the desert needs water.

He was actually growling with the urgency of it, the sound coming from low in his throat and rolling up through our lips as he moved and pressed and spread me open, the tip of his tongue meeting mine. A crackling wave of energy rolled through me and I pushed up against him, needing to sit up so that I could kiss him back. We twisted, both of us frantic, never breaking the kiss. My hands found his shoulders, sliding under his jacket and over those thick, hard muscles, and we fell back onto the bed with me on top, straddling him. Then he flipped us over, my skirts rustling and fluffing between us, and he was on top, kissing down into me. We rolled and twisted, breathlessly kissing, until I had no idea which way we were facing anymore: I hadn’t opened my eyes for what felt like an hour. We wound up on our knees in the center of the bed, our bodies pressed together and our fingers intermeshed, kissing just as desperately as when we started.

He started to run his hands over me and it was as if he was touching me for the very first time, his palms smoothing over my shoulders and sides and hips and then back up to my breasts, exploring me even though he knew me so well….

I realized with a jolt that I felt like me. Not like I was being someone else. Was that why it felt so different?

He was mumbling something between kisses, his lips so close to mine that they stroked me with each syllable. “Ya khochu potselovat' tebya” He was so out of control, he was talking in Russian.

“I have no idea what that means,” I panted.

“I want to kiss you and never stop kissing you,” he muttered. “I want to fuck you and never stop fucking you. You’re mine, now and forever.”

My chest filled and lifted, a warm glow flooding through me. “...uh huh,” I panted, and kissed him hard.

I was exploring the hard contours of his back through his shirt. I’d been longing to touch him all week, but he never let me: my hands were always tied. Now I was going crazy: the more I touched him, the more turned on I got.

His hands found my breasts through the layers of dress and corset, squeezing and lifting them, his thumbs rubbing in circles over my nipples. We twisted again, the dress flaring out around me as I tipped sideways and across him, winding up lying across his knees.

I managed to push his jacket off his shoulders. Then, as I ran my hands over the warm bulges of his biceps, he leaned me back and kissed me again, one big hand running up and down my body, squeezing my breast and smoothing over my hip and ass, and the other—

The other hand dived under the layers of skirt, searching me out. I gasped as his fingers found bare leg, then followed it upward...over my knee...up my thigh...I gripped his shoulder with both hands, but not to stop him.

His fingers glided over my upper thigh...my inner thigh. I drew in my breath, his stubbled cheeks burning my palms as I grabbed him and kissed him, open-mouthed and hungry. God, it hadn’t felt like this since I was a teenager, fooling around with my boyfriend and from his breathing, he felt the same. My whole world narrowed down to the feel of his fingertips, scalding hot against my skin as they dared higher, higher...nudged up against the softness of my panties—