by Alyssa Cole
He’d also sent the link to Greta to ask her to look into it. He was a little surprised that she hadn’t seen this sooner—she was usually on top of this kind of thing.
Not having any control over the situation was what had Johan wide-awake in the middle of the night and pacing. If he didn’t know where the threat was coming from, he couldn’t lie or charm to neutralize it.
There was a chiming sound through the door. Nya’s phone.
He was already annoyed, but an uncharacteristic anger bloomed at the sound, which he’d also heard the night before. He hadn’t asked her about her mysterious text lover since they’d agreed to the fake engagement, but he’d seen her checking her phone in their bed in Njaza, and each time that chime went off, she scrambled for the phone, angling it away from him.
Johan tugged at his hair, reminding himself he had no claim on her and that policing her use of her phone was crossing several lines. Then he walked over to her door and knocked, wiping the frustration from his face.
There was the sound of her getting out of the bed and then of the door unlocking. She wore a silky-looking black scarf around her braids, which were up in a bun, and black gym shorts with a plain white tank top.
She was beautiful.
“Hi,” she said.
Johan understood he couldn’t very well demand to know what she was doing on her phone, and that he shouldn’t.
“I couldn’t sleep and thought I heard you moving around,” he said, casually leaning against the door.
She looked sheepish—or was that guilt?
She has nothing to be guilty about.
“Oh sorry. I was playing a game. I had the chime up loud so I’d receive the notification.” She ran a thumb under the strap of her tank top, which had twisted as she slept.
“Hmm.” His gaze followed her thumb’s arc over her shoulder because he didn’t want to look at her face and see if she was lying to him when she had no reason to. He lied all the time, so he was the last person to judge, but he didn’t lie to her. If she’d lied to him—that would hurt, even if she wasn’t really his.
He nudged his suspicion aside.
“Want to come in?” he asked. “I feel like we haven’t had much time to talk with everything going on.”
Her gaze brightened. “Are we going to spoon again?”
Johan’s body went taut at her enthusiasm. “Do you . . . want to?”
“I think it could be nice. It’s a bit drafty with these high ceilings.”
Ah. So he was going to be a living blanket. That worked for him, as long as he got to hold her. “Then yes. Come spoon with me.”
She stepped over the threshold, and then past him as he moved out of her way.
She climbed into the bed and looked at him expectantly, and he walked over slowly, moving around the bed to the other side. She rolled over to look at him.
“I liked when we shared the bed in Njaza, and this one is much more comfortable than that one. And the one in my room. Not too hard, not too soft.” She pulled the duvet over her shoulder.
Johan couldn’t help himself—he reached over and tucked the blankets around her.
Her hand snaked out from beneath the blanket and caught his forearm gently as he pulled away. “Phoko . . . about that woman. Were you telling the truth?”
It was a valid question, but it still hurt, especially when his senses told him that she was hiding something from him.
“I wouldn’t abandon a child,” he said. “And I have no idea who she was other than someone trying to make me look bad for voters. I don’t know if you’ve read much about it, but the opposition has promised ridiculous tax breaks to the wealthy if we’re voted out. There’s incentive for Arschlocher and others not to play nice.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I keep remembering things about my father. And today I thought about how he was also a good liar, and it scared me.”
“I told you that I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said because it was the only thing he could give her.
“That’s why I asked you,” she said, the barest of smiles on those lips he’d gone too long without tasting. “Maybe I should be more cynical, but I believe you. Because you’re a good liar, but you’re also a good man. My father isn’t, and I shouldn’t compare you. It’s also kind of creepy thinking of you like that.”
He stretched out beside her, wanting to run his hand down her bare arm but restraining himself as if a sword lay in the bed between them.
“It’s not creepy to try to figure out if you’re attracted to me or to a pattern that you were caught up in and had no control over. You do have control now and you’re trying to protect yourself.”
“See?”
“What?”
She was looking at him all wide-eyed, and he shook his head.
“Oh no, I’m not nice. That’s common sense.”
“Whatever you say.” Her eyes were still bright with pleasure. How could he think she was hiding anything?
“Have you heard any news? About the hunger strike thing?” he asked gently.
She shook her head, her expression flattening.
“I know you don’t like talking about this, but you should know that whatever happens to him as a result of this isn’t your fault.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “Well, my brain knows. My heart doesn’t. And also . . . this is terrible. I hate that I even think things like this.” She turned her face into the pillow.
“Like what?” He still didn’t reach for her.
“I’m worried for him, but I don’t want to be.” Her voice was muffled by the pillow. “Even behind bars, he’s still able to make me feel like a bad daughter.”
“You’re not a bad daughter,” he said gently, and she turned her head toward him, sorrow in her eyes.
“Maybe I am. I’m also angry because I want to be the one to hurt him.” This came out in a pained whisper. “I wanted to hurt him, to shock him, to make him realize that he has no power over me. And now he’s taken even that away by hurting himself. It’s terrible, but I hate that he’s taken this one weapon I had and turned it against me.”
God, she was right. Johan saw now how her father had strung her like the marionettes at the market. Even when she thought she was free, there was yet another string she’d have to saw through.
“I don’t know if you can ever really hurt a man like that,” he said carefully. “He will take anything you do and make it about him instead of wondering why you’re doing it.”
Johan thought of how he’d behaved with Lukas and felt a stab of shame. How was what he’d done any better?
“This is how I know you’re different,” she said, her voice a little wobbly. “I see how you are with your brother. I see how he hurts you. You care about him, not just whether he does what you say.”
Johan tried to force a laugh, as if she hadn’t just assuaged his fear. “Tell him that.”
“You tell him. And then it will get better,” she said. “Most people have a rebellious stage. I mean, look at me! I’m so much older than him, and I’m still trying to shock my family. I should ask him for some of that pink hair wax.”
Johan laughed, and he didn’t have to force it this time. Talking with Nya like this made everything seem easier somehow. She’d called him a friend, and even though they pretended to be more—even though in his fantasies they truly were more—he imagined this was what true friendship was: chatting in the middle of the night about those problems you thought you couldn’t share with anyone.
“But people do rebel for a reason,” she added quietly. “You should let Lukas know that, whatever that reason is, you’ll be there for him.”
“Do you want to be big spoon or little spoon this time?” he asked as he watched her blink rapidly, trying to fight sleep.
“Little spoon. Please.”
He slid under the duvet and they met in the middle of his bed. He gathered her in his arms, ylang-ylang scented and luscious as she curled against him. Her shoulder blades slotted into place against his
pectorals, and her thighs and calves nestled against his, like a warm breathing puzzle piece.
She sighed and the tension seemed to drain out of her as she relaxed fully against him. It did something to him, more than making her shudder in his arms had—though he’d enjoyed that and wanted to make her cry out again and again. There was a deep trust in letting go of your worries in someone’s arms, in going soft and pliant not from arousal, but because you felt safe.
He leaned back to hit the light switch, and then wrapped his arm around her again.
“Phoko.”
“Hmm?” He was already slipping into sleep. She wasn’t the only one who felt safer this way.
“Just so you know . . . you are not the weapon.”
“Sie parles de waat?” He couldn’t quite hold on to his English as he sank into dark slumber, but he knew that what she said pleased him.
“I keep saying I want to hurt my father, and to shock the world. That’s one part of it, but I like just being here with you, too.”
Johan was already half-asleep but he hugged her close as peace descended on him.
“JOHAN.”
He squeezed the warmth in his arms, nestled against it. Rubbed against it.
Mine.
Wait.
“Phoko!”
He blinked awake to his room awash in morning light. He was holding Nya very tightly and, given his state, he’d also likely been dreaming about her.
“Scheisse, I’m sorry,” he said, groggily rolling away from her and adjusting himself so that the elastic of his sweatpants controlled the outward projectory of his erection.
“It’s all right. I only woke you because you were, um, poking my peach emoji. Like, poke, poke, poke!”
She poked his back with her index finger, and embarrassed heat rushed to his face. He was a grown man, but this had to be a high school nightmare.
“Is that normal? Can you make it move like that at will?” she asked through her laughter. “It was a funny way to wake up.”
“Funny? Excuse me, I’m going to go jump off the esplanade now.” He threw his cover off dramatically and tried to hop out of the bed, and she grabbed hold of his arm.
“Phoko.”
“Sorry for . . . my eggplant emoji’s behavior, and thus mine.”
“It’s okay. I thought it was something both of us should be awake for. Which is why I woke you.” She looked up at him with a shyness that was almost brazen because she held his gaze in spite of it.
“You have my attention,” he said, flopping back down into the bed on his stomach, his arms around his pillow and his gaze on Nya.
“I was thinking . . .”
“Thoughts are magnificent,” he said in a low voice. “Share them. All of them.”
“I was thinking that maybe we could try some morning debauchery. Above-the-underwear debauchery, still. Are you interested?”
Heat flared in him, and that admiration he had for her. From what he’d discerned, Nya was a woman unused to asking for what she wanted, but here she was, asking for him of all things.
“Very much so.” He sat up, his back to his heavy wood headboard, and stretched his legs out before him.
“Come here,” he said, and she grinned so sweetly in anticipation of his touch that Johan groaned. She moved toward him on hands and knees, climbing onto his lap to straddle him, but he took her by the waist and guided her to turn so that her back was against his chest and her ass was pressed against his cock as she settled between his legs.
She turned her head back to meet his gaze, her eyes wide with uncertainty.
“One order of over-the-underwear debauchery coming up,” he said, then angled his head to kiss her. How had he ever even pretended to ignore this mouth? It was lush and warm and perfectly shaped, and now that he’d felt it pressed against his own without the slightest hint of hesitation he didn’t think he could ever settle for another.
He pulled his mouth away and nudged her cheek with his nose so that she was facing forward. “Look over there.”
“A mirror,” she whispered after turning her head. Johan dropped his mouth to her neck, licking and kissing at the same time his grip tightened on her hips and he ground his hips up.
“Is this your sex mirror?” she asked with just the slightest hitch in her voice.
Johan chuckled at the real curiosity in her voice. “No. You’re the only one who’s ever been in this bed, so the mirror has led a single-function existence until now.”
She looked back at him, tearing her eyes away from the sight of the two of them. “This is a new bed? No wonder it’s so comfortable.”
“Not new.” He nipped her ear, and his hands began sliding up her waist and taking her shirt with them. “Do you like the mirror?”
“It’s very nice,” she said uncertainly, facing forward again.
“Do you like watching us in it?” His hands cupped her breasts beneath her shirt, his knuckles pressing through the fabric.
“Oh. Well, right now there’s not much to see,” she replied, gyrating her hips so that she rubbed against him. “Ask me in a few minutes.”
Johan knew a challenge when he heard one. He kissed her earlobe, then the junction where her neck met her jaw, and when she exhaled hard he grazed her with his teeth.
Her breasts were smooth and warm and heavy, overflowing his hands, and he stroked them gently, watching her face from over her shoulder. He stroked under her breasts, avoiding the areola that had tickled her last time even though the hard peaks of her nipples poked through the fabric of her shirt.
She arched her back, pushing her chest forward.
“You can touch them,” she said, her gaze on his in the mirror. “Maybe I’ll like it this time.”
He nodded, lifting her shirt to expose her completely. She raised her arms and he lifted the shirt up and tossed it onto the bed, then cupped her breasts again. He ran his palms over her nipples, then his thumbs, brushing back and forth.
Her hands were on his thighs, and her fingers pressed into the muscles there as her hips rolled. She let out a shuddering sigh and a tight nod.
He took one hard peak between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, rolling gently, and watched her face in the mirror. Her teeth grazed her bottom lip as her head knocked back into his shoulder with a sudden jerk.
“It feels good this time,” she said. She rolled her hips against him harder, then turned her head to the side to drop a kiss onto his bare shoulder. It was such a simple, innocent gesture, but Johan shuddered with need, his cock swelling against her.
“Good.” He kissed her hair, the side of her face, any part of her within reach of his mouth as he kept his gaze locked on them in the mirror. Then he pinched, gently.
“Oh goddess, yes.” Her voice was low with passion, and she reached up and back with both hands, gripping his hair and tugging so that she held him in place as inextricably as he held her. A hot surge of pleasure pulsed in him at the slight pain, and at the way she had opened herself to his touch.
He hardly recognized himself in the mirror, his flushed face and the dark, possessive focus in his eyes. And her . . .
Her gaze was soft with passion and her mouth slightly agape as she made sweet sounds of pleasure. He raised a hand to her mouth, running his thumb over her plump lower lip. Her tongue darted out and licked at the pad of his finger and Johan groaned, taking her chin with thumb and forefinger and tilting her head to the side.
She met his kiss with a moan and he greedily swallowed it. His tongue slid over hers, thrusting into her mouth in a hot, ungainly clash. She pulled away as she trembled against him and her hips worked in his lap, and then she clutched one of his hands.
He thought she was pulling it away, but no—she was guiding him. They both watched in the mirror as she led his hand over her belly and pressed it against the crotch of her shorts. He could feel the repressed spring of her curls through two thin layers of fabric, could delineate the folds of her pussy.
Nya held his gaze in
the mirror as she lifted her hips, as if offering herself to him, and he pressed down on her clit. He rubbed slowly, relentlessly, watching the pleasure build in her. The mirror revealed everything to him: how the muscles of her stomach undulated, how her feet pushed down into the mattress, and how her expression contorted as sensation overtook sense.
He gave her nipple a final squeeze before sliding his arm across her chest, holding her close as she bucked beneath the circle and flex of his fingers on her clit. His own cock was so hard that it was painful, but his attention was fixated on the way her eyes fluttered, how she gasped for breath, the press of her fingertips into his forearm as she held on with both hands—pushing and pulling as if she couldn’t decide what she wanted from him except his hand on her.
“Johan. Yes. Yes.”
Her eyes squeezed—he already knew this tell of hers—and when she let out a harsh yelp and shivered in his arms, he slowed, but didn’t stop.
She met his gaze in the mirror.
“Oh goddess, I think you could make me come again just looking at me like that.”
Her words pulsed through him as if she’d taken his cock in her hand. It seemed her orgasm had helped her get rid of some of her shyness. Johan wondered what a second one would do.
“That’s going to be inconvenient,” he said, rubbing her hard again. “Because every time I look at you, I’m going to think of how sexy you look right now and I don’t think I’ll be able to help it.”
She turned to kiss him again—he wouldn’t have to wonder long. Her second orgasm hit her harder, longer, and made him glad they were the only two in this wing because it seemed his quiet Nya was not always quiet. She keened into his mouth as she rode his hand, and Johan thought one more errant rub of her ass might send him over the edge, too.
He held her as she slumped back against him. In the mirror, her lips were turned up in a sated smile and her eyes were shut as if she was going back to sleep.
“That was fast,” she murmured. “You have magic hands.”
“Yes. I was cursed by a witch with an ‘orgasm hands’ spell,” he said blithely, though his cock was still hard and he desperately wanted to know what her hands felt like on his body, and how tightly she would fit around his cock. He could live without knowing, though. He wouldn’t rush her into anything.
