Page 26 of Charmingly Obsessed

S omeday, I imagine, I’ll actually get to see how breathtakingly beautiful Mykola Frez’s master bedroom is.

From this particular vantage point, however – pinned beneath the owner himself, tangled in thousand-thread-count sheets that probably cost more than my entire art school tuition – the decor is a hazy, irrelevant blur.

I lie still, frozen in a state of suspended disbelief, overwhelmed by the foreign, intoxicating softness of what’s happening between us.

I understand now . Or at least, I’m beginning to.

Mykola Frez exists in a perpetual loop of slamming on the gas and then immediately, violently, slamming on the brakes. One moment, he’s an eruption of volcanic, all-consuming emotion, a raw, untamed force of nature. The next, he’s the gentle.

Or is it only with me that he’s like this? This unhinged, unpredictable, utterly captivating mess.

But I won’t last long like this. I can’t.

My entire system, every nerve, every carefully constructed defense, is hanging on by the last flimsy, splintered planks of a collapsing shack. Ready to crumble into dust, leaving nothing behind – not walls, not a roof, not even a foundation. Just… ruins.

We’re rubbing against each other like overeager, inexperienced teenagers. Clumsy. Desperate. Insatiable.

His hand, large and warm, traces the same possessive path again and again – from the sensitive skin of my ribs, down over the curve of my waist, to the swell of my hip, pausing for the briefest, most electrifying caress before starting its journey anew.

I’m ready to accept that he’s going to see my hips in all their womanly, un-supermodel-like glory. No amount of Pilates or kale smoothies will ever change their fundamental shape.

But everything, everything, still hinges on these damn nipples. On these damn breasts. The thought of his eyes on them, his mouth, his hands… it sends a fresh wave of panic through me.

Still. I’ll do it. For him. For this… whatever this is. I’ll take off my dress. I’ll even take off my bra. Eventually.

Frez rolls us onto our sides, his body a solid, comforting weight against mine.

We kiss like we’re lost in a shared delirium, like we’re the only two people left on the planet. Even my hair gets tangled in the moment, a curtain falling between our faces, unnoticed at first, until he impatiently brushes it away.

My hand hesitates as it skims over the hard, warm planes of his chest, his torso.

It moves in fits and starts, unsure, almost…

shy. Leaping from one spot of heated skin to another instead of gliding with the smooth, confident strokes I see in movies, in my imagination.

And I can’t tell a thing about the precise firmness of his muscles or the exact build of his powerful body.

I just want to touch his skin. To feel him. Nothing else matters.

He starts pulling my dress up. Slowly. So goddamn slowly. So carefully.

Each tiny movement, each inch of exposed skin, sends a fresh spiral of nerves deep inside me. Damn it. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just… relax? Surrender?

My fingers dig into the sinfully soft sheets, my nails biting into the luxurious cotton. I nearly clench my teeth against the rising tide of anxiety.

Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t breathe. Let him do it. Just… endure. It’ll be over soon.

The soft wool fabric of my dress reaches my hip bones. Mykola presses his cheek against mine, his stubble a surprisingly erotic rasp against my skin.

He paints warm, tender strokes of reassurance across my face with his lips, his breath. I don’t dare exhale. I don’t dare move a muscle.

Then, with the slightest, almost imperceptible tilt of his head, he exhales sharply. Lets go of my dress. And pushes himself up onto one elbow, breaking the intoxicating spell.

What… what did I do wrong?

Panic crashes over me before he even speaks. It doesn’t matter that his smile, when he finally offers one, is soft, patient, almost… understanding.

“Diana,” Frez murmurs, his voice rough, laced with a husky amusement that somehow makes the panic worse.

His fingers, gentle now, sweep through my tangled hair, tucking a stray strand behind my ear.

“Let go of the sheets, sunshine.” He glances down at my white-knuckled grip on the bedding.

“I get it. They’re Egyptian cotton. Probably much more seductive than a finance-obsessed, socially awkward bore like me.

But still. Give me your hand. I promise, I’ll only bite it a little. ”

I look down at my hand. My nails are buried deep into the pristine white cotton. Mortified, I release my death grip. “Sorry,” I reply, my voice stiff, formal. “I just… I thought you were going to take it off.”

“It?” He raises a questioning eyebrow, the amusement deepening in his eyes.

“The dress!” I nearly yell, the word exploding out of me, fueled by a volatile cocktail of shame, frustration, and a bewildering, overwhelming desire.

Because… because I already crawled so far out of my carefully constructed shell for him.

And now everything is tangled and confusing and terrifying again.

A roiling sea of emotions I can’t swim across, can’t contain, can’t understand.

And no one – no one – is responsible for any of it except me .

My stupid, broken, hopelessly inadequate self.

I kiss him. Fiercely. Desperately. As if completing some crucial, pre-ordained step in a grand, cosmic plan. But it’s both intoxicatingly sweet and agonizingly painful, and I don’t want to surface for air. I want to drown in him. In this.

I try to mimic him, everything he did to me earlier.

In the kitchen. On the table. I even nip at his cheek, a clumsy imitation of his possessive bites.

And then we’re kissing wildly again, desperately, mouths open, tongues tangling.

He presses me back into the mattress, his weight a comforting, possessive pressure.

And it’s perfect. Truly, unbelievably, terrifyingly the best, most intense thing in the entire goddamn world.

But I have a plan. My own desperate, misguided plan.

He has to like it if I touch his cock… or if I do it again… the way I did in the living room… Then maybe… maybe I can make up for all this mess. This awkwardness with the dress, the undressing, everything. My stupid, crippling insecurities.

Heat flares through me again.

I even start sliding down the bed, a deliberate, inching movement towards his waist, towards the hard, enticing bulge straining against the fly of his jeans.

I’m almost proud of my quick, desperate thinking. Frez doesn’t catch on right away. He was too lost in the kiss, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged.

I sweep my hair over one shoulder, then barely, tentatively, ghost my lips over the thick ridge of his erection through the denim. I give a gentle, experimental squeeze with my hand – because last time, in the living room, that had made his breathing hitch, had made him groan my name…

Frez grabs my wrists. Pulls me up. Hard. Fast. I don’t even have a chance to resist.

He shifts his weight, pinning me easily beneath him, his eyes blazing down at me. His unfocused, passion-hazed gaze tries to harden into something stern, something… disapproving?

“Diana,” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically rough, almost… strained. “Do you remember what we agreed? Just a little while ago? That you could tell me anything? Anything at all?”

I take a deep, shaky breath and meet his intense, searching gaze. “I… I stole a ream of expensive Vergé paper from the office supply closet once. For my sketches.” There. A confession. Not the one he wants, probably. But it’s something.

A muscle twitches in his jaw. “My wife can’t steal anything from my office. It’s her office too, Diana. Anything she wants. Anything she needs.”

“It was a long time ago,” I mumble, feeling foolish.

“Doesn’t matter.” He sighs, a deep, weary sound, glancing away for a moment, towards the rain-streaked windows.

“And you didn’t just take the paper from my office, did you?

” he mutters, almost to himself. “It just took ten goddamn years off my life, pulling you away from… from that… but we don’t do sacrifices here, Diana.

Not… not against someone’s will.” His jaw tightens, his gaze snapping back to mine, fierce and possessive.

“There was no sacrifice against my will. That… what happened in the living room… that was the best sex of my entire life. Fifteen minutes ago. If you don’t want… me to… touch you… like that… again…”

He shifts his weight, his hips pressing intimately against mine, effectively locking me beneath him.

He tilts my head where he wants it, with a gentle but firm pressure of his hand against my jaw.

“I’ll show you what I want, Diana,” he growls, right before his mouth crashes down on mine again.

“I want you to feel… I want you to… God, I just want you.”

Our intertwined hands move on their own, fingers exploring, tracing, learning. Slowly. Tentatively.

Everything else, every other part of us, is the epicenter of an explosion .

This is just… something that happens. Like the way primitive, cave-dwelling teenagers must have first discovered the raw, untamed fire of flesh. Instinctive. Overwhelming. Irresistible.

My dress is hiked up to my waist again. My fingers dig into the hard, corded muscle of his bicep. And for some reason, I keep craning my neck, arching into his touch, needing more.

Frez doesn’t spare my neck this time. He bites. Hard. Possessively. Right as he pushes into me, hot and thick and impossibly deep, holding his breath, his whole body rigid with tension.

The smooth, agonizing pressure keeps breaking into sharp, unexpected thrusts. Deeper. Harder. Faster.

Every choked, breathy moan that escapes my lips is met with the answering, guttural rasp of his voice, murmuring my name, murmuring praises, murmuring filthy, delicious promises.

“You’re my beautiful little thief.”