Page 133 of Kept in the Dark

His fingers tighten around me.“Da.”

“Are you sure? No internal bleeding? Your vision is okay, no unexplained pain anywhere? I’m pretty sure I don’t have a concussion, so I’m fully capable of treating any symptoms you have. I just need you to tell me what hurts.”

He’s silent for a moment, breathing noisily through his nose. “Everything.”

My brows come together in concern. “Dimitri—”

“I hurt everywhere, my med. I nearly lost you. I feel like I cannot breathe.”

“What do you need?”

“I need… to know that you are all right, Nicole,” he says. I gently take his face in my hands, and he closes his eyes, his voice breaking around an unsteady inhale and exhale. “I need to… Fuck, I do not know. My med. I need to hold you, to know you are here with me, that you are staying with me…”

I swallow, watching him grapple for words. Seeing it breaks my heart. It’s even worse—more alarming—as tears leak out from the corners of his closed eyes. Words in Russian spill from his mouth, too fast and urgent and pained to be filled with anything but horrible emotions.

“You need me to show you,” I realize.

It’s time for me to take care of what’s mine.

Not waiting for him to even stop murmuring what must be apologies, I lean forward and take his mouth, still framed in my grip. I stroke his lips with my tongue, tangle it with his, hold his jaw tighter when he slides his arms around my back to pull me closer against him. He moans, and I steal his breath into me.

I feel his cock against my belly, hardening and stretching into the area between us to match my energy. He unties my robe, and our arms get tangled as I spit in my hand and reach down and rub it across his tip. I let him take control of aiming his own dick, and lift up as much as I can on my knee to one side. Then, I sit on him. I take him all the way, all at once, and swallow his groan of satisfaction into my mouth with another kiss.

With as tightly as we’re holding each other, I can’t move very much, but I rock against him, small and unsatisfactory movements that leave him so deeply inside of me that there’s no respite from the twinge of pain of the head of his cock against my cervix. I don’t care. I want it. Because after experiencing so much intentional brutality tonight, this pain feels almost sweet—it’s not the kind that wants to hurt. It means he’s in me, with me, feeling me.

“Nicole,” he murmurs.

Nee-cole.I close my eyes and breathe the word. How is it possible to miss something you’ve only gone hours without hearing?

“Dimitri,” I answer the unvoiced question with one of my own.

No, he’s not okay.

No, I’m not okay.

Butwewill be.

His hands find their way under the flaps of the robe, and he uses a firm grip on my hips to help us find the friction we both need. I ride him, taking and giving, feeling the sweat building on my skin and my heart racing from exertion. The raw physicality of it shuts out the outside world and shuts down the internal monologue. All I am—all I can be—is the way my nerves fire under my skin, the way his hard body feels under my fingertips, and the rasp of his smooth shaft in and out and in and out.

“Tell me,” he demands on a gasp. “Say the words. Tell me you are staying with me.”

“I am. I’m staying. Dimitri, I’m so sorry—”

“No,” he cuts through my apology, slashing it to pieces. “No. Not sorry. I do not care about sorry. Tell me. Tell me what you want. Tell me about this life you want. I will give you anything—everything—just tell me what to do so you will never leave me again.”

A million apologies are on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow them back. “I, uh… I want to travel.” I sniffle, wiping the wetness from the edge of my jaw onto the fluffy fabric covering my shoulder.

His lips find my throat, like I bared it to him for just that. “I will take you wherever you wish to go, my med.”

I groan, rolling my hips up.

“What else?” he demands.

Feeling silly, and impossibly inadequate and undeserving of his adoration, I tighten around his cock with my pelvic floor muscles and greedily watch his face crumble. I feel so powerful in his arms.

“I want stupid hobbies that I have to leave the house for, like rock climbing and pickleball.”

“Pickle…” he repeats, panting, then shakes his head. “Fine. Whatever you wish. I will climb rocks and make pickles into balls with you.”