Page 39 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

Nicole

What self-respecting woman asks a man to ruin her?

This feels appropriately circular.

I’m sitting alone on a cold bench overlooking a manicured property, shivering in a thin dress, staring up at the moon, waiting for a tall, dark stranger to find me.

Last time, I didn’t know I was waiting for Dimitri.

Now, my hands are clasped tightly in my lap, and every large shadow in my periphery draws my attention.

There are other differences, of course. This bench is wood; that one was stone.

It’s not the same dress; now I'm wearing a silky nightgown that was calling my name from the sale page where I did most of my shopping. He bought it for me, but he hasn’t seen it yet.

And it’s not the same moon—it’s in a different phase of its cycle now.

But there’s only one reason I’d be freezing my tits off in a skimpy nightgown.

It’s a gesture. One I hope he takes as the seduction attempt it is.

I’ve never tried to seduce anyone before, and turns out I’m pretty bad at it.

In my defense, it’s mortifying trying to seduce someone.

And logistically hard, too, since it feels like we’ve been on opposite schedules for over a week now.

Every day I wake up in the bed alone with nothing but a warm memory of him holding me that feels more like a dream.

I know he moves my pillow wall, and I stopped caring ages ago.

When he holds me, I don’t have the nightmares .

So every night I go to sleep, hoping I’ll work up the courage to say something the next day. I’ve almost told him a dozen times that I’m ready for whatever he wants to do to me. I’m more than ready—I need it. I might even say it exactly that way, desperate wording and all.

But what self-respecting woman asks a man to ruin her?

I racked my brain to find a way to show him.

I came up with and immediately discarded a handful of bad ideas—waiting for him on my knees, letting him hear me masturbate in the shower, going to bed naked, grinding back on him when he curls himself around me in the wee hours of the morning, “accidentally” brushing against that fat cock after his shower or before he changes out of workout clothes…

I mean, I know he wants me. There’s been no shortage of yearning in this pool house; I feel like I’m living in a damn Hozier song. I know this frustrating delay has nothing to do with a lack of desire. He’s down bad. It’s honestly exhilarating.

And for my part, I’m going out of my mind. I want him so badly it hurts sometimes—I’m constantly fantasizing and making myself wet, constantly clenching so hard it makes my inner thighs ache. My poor clit is sore, and my fingers just aren’t doing it for me anymore. I need to be properly filled.

So yeah, the idea is to seduce him, but it’s not really why I’m out here. If it were just sex, I wouldn’t be trying so hard. Just sex is easy. I know how to do that.

No, I’m out here because I… like him.

I actually like him.

I’m so screwed.

If it had just been this crazy attraction, maybe I could deal.

Everyone knows nothing kills a fantasy you’ve built up in your head quite like the mundane realities of actually having sex with another person.

No matter how intense the buildup, there’s no way to get around the awkward clothing removal, the cold toes, the cramping positions, the slapping sounds. ..

Even good sex, where I’m actually able to come, is still just a thing you do and then you can move on, in my experience. And maybe I’ve never been quite this on edge for quite this long, but the higher the pedestal I build for him, the harder he’ll hit the ground when he gets knocked off.

So why did he have to be legitimately charming? And funny? And endearing without trying to be? Why did he have to be interesting and attentive and thoughtful and generous? Why did he have to be caring and broken?

It’s not fair.

I didn’t want to like him. I shouldn’t like him.

I thought “ruining me” would be violent—powerful and savage, like him.

In a good way, of course, but in a thoroughly physical sense of the word.

I didn’t think he meant he’d ruin me with anticipation, or with gifts, or little acts of service like bringing me coffee and washing and folding my clothes for me, or with smoldering looks of masculine appreciation of my body, or with soft little forehead kisses.

Fucking forehead kisses? That’s not fair .

I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to fall in like with my kidnapper, and it’s definitely a terrible idea. Because when all of this is over, I’m leaving. Disappearing. It’s safer for everyone that way. All this can be is temporary—scratching that purely physical itch.

But now, as I sit here, waiting for him to find me, I’m genuinely worried about what’s going to happen when we do have sex.

What if it’s bad? Worse, what if it’s as good as I’ve imagined?

Worst of all, what if it’s sort of just okay —the kind of sex where you convince yourself it might get better with practice, and you end up dating a loser for months because it’s got “such potential.”

If there’s anything worse than a disappointment, it’s a disappointment after you’ve wasted your time .

A shuffling noise on my left startles me, and I turn. All thoughts and worries disappear as Dimitri settles next to me on the bench and his heat seeps into my body despite several inches of separation. I shift a little closer.

My eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and we’re facing the brightest thing in the sky, so I can make out some of his features.

Same strong jaw and cheekbones, same down-turned lips, same thick brow and pensive frown.

He hardly ever sleeps in, but on the few times I have woken before him, I just… stare.

It’s such an interesting face. Strong, powerful features.

“You found me,” I say softly, hoping to show my approval.

“You were thinking so hard I could hear you from all the way over there,” he says, pointing behind him towards the pool house.

I smile. His humor is so dry. “I was starting to think I’d have to make you chase me.”

His lips part, and I hear a forceful inhale—his version of a gasp of surprised delight—and he settles into his seat with a low grumbling noise. Interesting. Perhaps my predator likes to be a bit primal.

The bench creaks, straining to support him, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “You were waiting for me?”

There’s a note of longing, of tentative disbelief that makes me feel oddly powerful and wanted.

When his gaze drops to the thin straps of my nightgown, the low cut of the bodice, and the thin, lacy material that’s scratching against my nipples and keeping them taut with the sensation, he licks his lips.

I shrug, and it makes the tiny strap fall off my shoulder. His eyes dart to it, following the motion and then lingering on my bare skin, and I have to suppress a smile.

A paid actor, that strap.

“I thought we could start over, in a manner of speaking. Well, not start over, but recreate how it should have gone at the wedding. ”

“How should the night have gone, my med?”

I hum at the nickname, like it drives home my point. If it had gone differently, I never would have ended up on a houseboat, treating a gunshot wound.

“You would have found me on the bench and offered me your coat when I shivered. We would have talked, flirted, exchanged numbers…” I inhale sharply. “Gone home together.”

“That is how it should have gone,” he agrees quietly. His voice is a rasp.

I tilt my head back, conscious of his eyes on my neck. Heat crawls under my skin with a potent surge of energy. Being the sole subject of his intensity is heady. Powerful.

“YA revnuyu k lune, potomu chto ty smotrish' na neye,” he murmurs.

“Hmm?” I ask.

“You were also looking at the moon the night we met.”

“I love the moon. I used to pretend there was this tragic love story she had with the sun—they loved each other but were doomed to be in different skies forever. She would disappear once a month, and that was when they could be together, and she’d come back getting fuller and fuller of love, which would start to wane when she missed the sun.

” I laugh a little, hearing it out loud in my adult ears.

“Doesn’t make a ton of sense, but I was, like, five. ”

“It makes sense to me,” he says quietly. “My mother told me when I was a boy that the moon was watching me sleep. I remember thinking it was a very large eye, blinking very slowly.”

I smile. I like that. I like how he listens. I like how he offers his own details to make mine feel less lonely. It’s just so fundamentally human to make up stories about things we don’t understand.

“How do you say ‘moon’ in Russian?”

He turns his head. I can feel his breath against my temple when he says, “ Luna . ”

“Oh,” I say, a bit surprised at the familiarity of the word. His boat. “That’ll be easy to remember.”

“Da.”

I can feel his eyes on me, and it’s making me hyperaware of the rise and fall of my chest, of the way my lips are slightly parted, of the tiny white puffs collecting around each breath in the cold air.

My face is warm, like he’s breathing his own heat into me, or like his eyes alone are capable of eliciting a thermal reaction from my skin.

“Da,” I repeat faintly.

“You look cold, my med. Let me bring you inside.” He stands, not waiting for my response, and holds out his hand to me.

My heart thumps fast and loud, and I swallow the thickness stuck in my throat as I take his hand. This is it. This is the moment where he fulfills his promises, or I find out that I waited for him in the dark, on a cold bench, not wearing any underwear for no damn reason.

He leaves me in suspense as we cross the patio, heading for the pool house, but he wraps his large hand around mine and rubs his thumb lightly across the skin of my knuckles as we walk in silence.

I start to get concerned that he meant what he said exactly as he said it—I look cold, he’s taking me in to get warm.

When I reach for the door handle, since I’m closer, he drops his hold on me, and disappointment swells.

He’s killing me.

It’ll be the first documented case of death by yearning.

Screw being mortified. Apparently, I have to say something and explain just how badly I need him.

I turn to face him, but he fills the space behind me.

He doesn’t let me pivot away; he steps us both forward through the doorway.

I feel his lips on my neck, and my knees turn to jelly.

I fall back, leaning against him for support.

“Nicole,” he breathes into my skin.

Nee-cole .

My breath is coming in way too slowly to keep up with my racing heart, and my body feels like it’s prickling in all the most sensitive places.

I ache. Everywhere. From that deep, clenching emptiness inside my core to the heaviness in my breasts. I’m burning for him.

He kicks the door closed, plunging us into darkness, and I spin against him.

His mouth is on mine in a second, and I part my lips immediately to let him in.

Our kiss is all desperation. It’s sloppy, and open, and hard with the need to get as physically close as we can.

I feel surrounded by him in the best possible way—his scent, his taste, his warmth—and I can’t wait to know what it feels like to be so full of him that I can’t breathe.

I reach up to grab his waist, to pull him even closer. My hands settle against his soft cotton shirt, clenching as I bite his bottom lip. When I give it a tug upwards, he pulls away.

“Take off your dress. Now.”