Page 49 of Kept in the Dark (Hitmen of Ulysses #2)

Nicole

My dreams were once red with blood

The harsh midday sun hitting my eyelids wakes me, but it’s not an abrupt shift from sleep to awareness.

I’m gently roused with the growing awareness that Dimitri and I are naked and tangled in each other—ankles stacked, his stomach expanding slowly behind me, his breath warm and even against the back of my neck, blowing at a piece of hair and making it tickle against my cheek.

I’m trying to adapt to his weird sleeping schedule because I love him like this, filling the space behind me. Even though his hand is on my belly, I’m not even self-conscious about it anymore—

That hand is moving. He’s not as asleep as I thought.

I remain completely still, though my eyes pop open.

His fingers are pressing small circles into my skin, a light massage that’s slowly traveling towards my breast. My body wakes instantly with a zinging sensation of awareness and arousal.

As I work to control my breathing, I register the rasping quality of his.

His large, warm, rough palm brushes my nipple, which instantly hardens against his hand.

He kneads the flesh softly and delicately for a moment, sweeping his thumb across the taut tip.

I let out a longer, louder breath, and heat prickles at my skin, pooling between my legs.

I feel the telltale throbbing beginning as my sex swells with an excited demand.

I love how he cups and squeezes my breasts and plays with nipples I was taught to be self-conscious of long ago. Not that I’d ever tell him that. Instead, I take a mental picture of each look of reverence and enthusiasm as proof that boys do like big, dark nipples and huge tits.

I work not to squirm against his hand as he starts tracing it down, along the lines of my soft body. I know where he’s headed now.

My pulse thrums quicker as my body reacts to being touched with a rush of moisture between my legs—how far is he going to take this?

Does he think I’m asleep? Would it change anything for him if I were?

My enjoyment is important to him, I know, but the finer details of blanket consent might be lost on him…

So why is it so hot to me that he would touch me, thinking I was asleep? That he wants me so badly, he doesn’t want to wait?

“Always so wet for me,” he whispers into my ear as his fingers slide around the curve of my stomach, in between my legs.

There’s no friction, just the silky desire and pulsing, heated skin.

When he taps my clit, I can’t stop my body’s shuddering reaction.

I jerk against his hand, and my insides clench around nothing.

The jig is up, so I move my leg out of the way—back and bending my knee towards the ceiling, making a tent of the covers—to make room for his hand. “Always so hard for me,” I pant back.

Dimitri’s other arm shifts, creating a cradle for my head as I turn my body halfway towards him. “Would you like to have awakened with my cock deep inside of you, my med?”

I shiver, and it has nothing to do with the little frizzles of sparkling heat from his fingers against my nerve endings.

Maybe I was wrong about the blanket consent thing…

I catch sight of his face in the strange, golden light filtering in through the windows, and I suck in a breath at the intensity in his expression.

Scratchy black stubble on his chin makes the insides of my thighs prickle with the memory of its texture.

He’s clenching his jaw, which makes his scar look more pronounced around his temple.

There’s no trace of sleep in his eyes, though I still feel like I’m wading through the viscosity of drowsiness and arousal, both of which cloud my mind in different ways.

Pinned under his icy stare, all I can do is nod.

I would. I really would. I want to be so full of him that he takes over my subconscious.

I want to be dreaming of him so that when I wake in startled confusion, aroused and unsure why, he’ll be my first thought long before I register the stretch of him deep inside me.

I want to be able to recognize his weight on me, to breathe him into my lungs so he’s everywhere at the same time.

His lids lower, softening his stare, and his finger glides across and around my clit. “Do you like it when I take what I want from you?”

“Yes,” I breathe, my pulse quickens as his fingers pick up speed. Flames lick the inside of my skin, triggering a wave of goosebumps that prick at my nipples and making me shiver at the heat.

“That is good,” he hums, close enough that his warm breath is a puff of air against my ear. “I wake wanting you, Nicole. I go to sleep wanting you. I am filled with wanting.”

I whimper, rolling my hips and grinding against his hand as the sensations he’s calling forth start to collect and grow. The frankness of his words emboldens me to the same level of bare honesty.

“So am I,” I manage. “I want you all the time. It’s never been like this before for me.”

“I believe I dreamt of you—I think I always do, now. My dreams were once red with blood, but they are now tinted like golden honey. Like your hair…” he nuzzles closer, breathing in like he can’t get enough of my scent, “and your skin, and your eyes… my med.”

Fuuuuck. The things he says…

I cry out sharply, feeling the pressure in my abdomen build towards the peak.

But his hand stills against me, and he swallows my frustrated groan as he turns my neck and fits his mouth over mine.

His kiss is lazy, unhurried, self-satisfied, and I clutch at him, trying to draw him down more fully over the top of me.

I spread my legs to make room for his body between them.

“I need you,” I moan, breaking away and panting. I’m so empty, so painfully empty.

He smirks. “And you will have me. After I prepare you.”

An idea strikes through the shroud of helplessness.

I don’t have to lie here and let him toy with me.

My hand around the side of his neck moves down to his sternum, and I shove at him.

I’m strong, but he’s obviously stronger—so when he shifts back, I know it has to be due mostly to surprise.

I use it to my advantage and follow him, coming up on my knees and pinning his back to the mattress with both my hands squarely on his chest.

He watches with a laid-back kind of interest, like he wants to see what I’ll do before he decides whether to intervene.

I throw a leg over his hip, pressing down on his chest for leverage and to keep him in place.

His cock folds upwards against his body, and I position the length of him along the seam of my pussy.

Then, I roll my hips forward and grind. And groan.

The look in his eye shifts to one of rapt focus, watching the head of himself disappearing between my legs under my stomach, then reappearing wet and slick with our combined desire.

I watch him watching us, and it only makes me hotter.

He’s so hard, and I’m so wet; all it takes for him to slide right in is me leaning forward and rocking my hips to find the right angle.

Then, it’s his turn to groan. I shut my eyes as I slide back and down onto his length.

It stretches me deep inside, a brief, fleeting sting that proves my memory a liar.

Somehow, he fills me more than I seem to remember, every time.

“See? Isn’t this…” my breath shudders as I grind my hips in a circle.

There’s got to be some sort of pleasure button buried in the deepest part of my vagina.

Every time he brushes it with the head of his cock, it sends me into orbit.

But now? With the weight of my body on top of his, his tip is pushing it. Repeatedly.

“What?” he asks, caressing my hips with his thumbs. His grip there is gentle, instead of a controlling hold meant to spur me on or move me at his pleasure.

“Isn’t it nice?” I gasp, letting my head fall forward and my hair curtain my face.

“No. I would not call being inside of you nice ,” he rasps. “It… is… everything.”

I still at that, emotions rising in the back of my throat.

His hand moves to my face, pushing my hair back and placing his thumb on the edge of my mouth.

I move my neck slightly to purse my lips against it in a kiss, then I take it between my teeth.

He watches with heat in his eyes, breathing audibly as he locks in on the movement.

I hold that hand to sweep it down my collarbones and rest it on my breast. He takes over from there, massaging the full weight of it, then plucking at just the tip. “You know I mean, isn’t it nice with me on top,” I counter. It feels like a moot point.

His smile is a ghost of a flicker at the edges of his mouth. “ Da .” Breaking the intensity of the moment, he stretches back, placing both arms behind his head in a way that both lengthens and displays all the hard planes of his upper body. “Very nice. I enjoy the view.”

I nearly laugh, but the cocksure look on his face makes me want to ruin his composure, so I lift up and snap my hips down, tightening at the same time. It makes both of us groan, but it also makes him whip his arms out to grab me again.

“ Zlaya zhenshchina ,” he hisses. “Wicked, wonderful woman.”

“Ah, ah,” I tsk, knowing from how tightly he holds my waist and how his lower abs tense against me that he’s about to flip us.

I splay my fingers on his chest, one on each pec, pushing him back against the pillows as I lift myself up and down just a few inches.

I want to keep him as deep inside of me as I can while still giving each of us some friction.

Even now, even in this position where I’m supposed to be in control, his power and strength are a coiled spring, ready to be released.

I can tell from the look on his face he’s not going to let this go on much longer, and it fills me with an illicit kind of heat—half nervous and unsure about what he’ll do next, half delirious with desire because I don’t know when or how it’s going to happen.