Page 10 of Tarnished Tyrant (Zhukova Bratva 1)

With every thrust, he’s touching places inside of me that have never been touched. My thighs start to quiver and before I can properly prepare myself, another orgasm is rocketing through me.

This one is even more powerful than the last. My muscles contract, my body clamping down around Nikolai’s length.

And then I feel the handsome stranger pulsing into me.

He grunts as he drives all the way in. His sounds and his thrusts fade little by little until there’s just the white noise of the roaring engines and my own panting breath.

When we’re done, I hurry to put my leg down and stand up. Warning bells are going off in my head.

What have I done?Whohave I done?

He could be married. Or a murderer. He could be a married murderer. Nikolai might not even be his real name!

The same panic that was just sexed out of me starts to creep back in, but I swallow it down.

I feel warmth flowing down the inside of my legs, the evidence of what we’ve done painted between my thighs.

Nikolai zips his pants and reaches for the door handle. “Get dressed and we’ll leave together.”

He stares at me while I wipe off my legs and tug on my jeans. Whatever boldness had briefly possessed me, it’s gone now. I’m a walking, talking blush.

“Okay,” I say softly once I’ve fixed my lipstick in the mirror and smoothed down my hair. “I’m ready.”

Nikolai opens the door without looking at me. The flight attendants are moving about the cabin now. At some point while we were in there, the seatbelt light turned off. An older woman with curly gray hair is waiting outside the bathroom door. If she overheard anything that happened inside, she doesn’t make it known.

I follow Nikolai down the center aisle. When he reaches his seat, I nearly follow him, before I remember where I’m supposed to sit.

I hesitate for a second, waiting to see if he’ll look up at me and offer a smile or a wave. Some kind of recognition for what we just did together in the bathroom.

But he doesn’t look up.

And as pathetic as I may be sometimes, I’m not desperate enough to embarrass myself by begging for his attention.

So I keep walking to my seat.

Before I sit, I glance at the row behind me where Elise is sitting. She has her legs curled up underneath her and her head resting on her folded-up sweatshirt. She’s fast asleep. Looks like she has been for a while.

“Figures,” I mumble. I shake my head and drop down into my chair.

I can still see Nikolai’s squared jaw from back here, but he looks farther away than ever. If it wasn’t for the ache between my legs, I could believe it was all a dream.

Maybe it would be better that way. For the Handsome Stranger to fade away like a dream you can barely remember after waking.

Maybe then everything that happened next wouldn’t have hurt so bad.

2

BELLE

If the plane ride was a dream, the hotel is a nightmare.

“You can’t expect me to sleep here.” Elise draws away from the bed like she’s afraid it’ll swallow her whole.

I don’t entirely blame her. The comforter is threadbare, the pattern faded. The thin carpet looks clean enough, but it feels sticky against my feet. And the porcelain in the bathroom is tinged yellow in a way that makes my skin crawl.

“It’s not that bad.”

Her eyes bug out. “Belle!”

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