Chapter 321 Chapter 322

Chapter 321 Chapter 322
Chapter 322
Nina’s POV

We left the cave when the sun climbed higher and turned the outer water from black to bright blue.

Nikolai kept me against his side the whole walk down the rock path. His palm stayed on the small of my back like he thought I might slip back into the dark and disappear. Sand met our feet at the bottom. It was warm and fine and stuck to our still damp skin. The sea here was calmer than the cliff side. Small white waves rolled in and melted like they had nowhere urgent to be.

I sat first. My legs felt used and sweet and a little weak. Nikolai dropped down beside me, close enough that his shoulder bumped mine. He had carried the last of the fruit in that leaf bundle. He unwrapped it and put a piece in my hand without asking.

“Eat,” he said.

“You already fed me.”

“That was in a cave. This is a beach. Different rules.”

I smiled around the bite. Juice ran down my wrist. He caught it with his thumb and put his thumb in his mouth like it was nothing. My stomach flipped all over again.

“You cannot do things like that and then look at the ocean like a soldier,” I said.

“I am looking at you.” He said it plain. No extra dressing. “The ocean is just there.”

A breeze came off the water and lifted my drying hair. I lay back on the sand. The sky was a hard clean blue. Nikolai leaned over me on one elbow and blocked part of the sun with his head. For a second he was only a dark shape and a mouth I already knew.

He kissed me slow.

Not like the fountain. Not hungry enough to bruise. This kiss was the kind you give when you already had someone and you still cannot believe they let you. His lips were warm. Salt lived at the corner of his mouth. I licked it and he made a small sound that was almost a laugh.

“Nina.”

“Mm.”

“If you keep tasting me like fruit I will forget we are in the open.”

“There is no one here.”

“There is a whole sea.”

“The sea does not gossip.”

He kissed me again for that. Deeper. Still sweet. His hand slid under the hem of my damp top and rested on my ribs, not grabbing, just there, like a promise he was trying to keep gentle. I arched into it because gentle from him felt rarer than gold.

We stripped without rushing. Cloth hit the sand. Sun touched skin that the cave had kept in shadow. I should have felt exposed. I felt chosen. Nikolai looked at me laid out on the white beach and his throat moved.

“You are going to burn,” he muttered.

“Then put your shade on me.”

He did. His body covered mine and the rest of the world went away. The sand was warm under my back. His chest was warmer. He kissed my forehead first. Then my eyelid. Then the side of my nose. I giggled because it tickled and because this man, this cliff jumper, was being careful with me like I might crack.

“You giggle,” he said, wonder in it.

“You kiss like you are checking I am real.”

“I am.”

He moved down. Mouth on my throat. Mouth on the place over my heart. He lingered there long enough that I put my fingers in his hair and held him. When he took my breast into his mouth it was slow, almost worship, tongue tracing until my breath went thin. I whispered his name and he hummed against me like the sound pleased him.

He settled between my thighs like he had all day. The first push inside me still made my mouth fall open. I was tender from the spring and he felt it. He froze.

“Too much?”

“No. Stay. Just go slow.”

He went slow. God, he went slow. Inch by inch until there was no space left and our hips sat flush in the sun. He rested his forehead on mine and we breathed the same air. A wave collapsed somewhere behind us. A bird cried. None of it mattered.

“You feel like peace,” he said, and then looked annoyed at himself for saying it.

“Say it again.”

“No.”

“Say it again, Nikolai.”

He thrust once, shallow, and the word came out anyway. “Peace.”

I smiled so wide it hurt. He kissed the smile off my mouth and started to move. Long easy strokes. Sand whispered under my shoulders. Sweat gathered where our stomachs met. Every time he sank deep I made a small broken sound and he kissed that too, like he wanted to keep the noise for himself.

“Talk to me,” I whispered.

“I am busy.”

“You are always busy. Talk.”

He huffed a laugh against my cheek. “Your sand is in my hair. Your legs shake when I do this.” He rolled his hips and proved it. “You look at me like I am safe. I am not safe, Nina. I am just yours right now.”

“Right now is enough.”

“No.” Another slow thrust. “It is not. I want the next hour. I want tonight. I want the stupid fruit and your terrible fish logic and this beach.”

“That was almost a poem.”

“Do not tell anyone.”

“I will tell the dolphin.”

He bit my lower lip for that, gentle, smiling into the kiss. We found a rhythm that was less like taking and more like rocking. The sea kept time. I came first, quiet and shaking, face pressed to his neck so the open beach would not steal the sound. He followed with a groan he swallowed against my mouth, hips tight, holding me through it like the tide might drag me out if he let go.

We stayed joined. Lazy. Sticky with sun and salt and each other. He slipped to his side and pulled me with him so I lay half on his chest. His fingers drew mindless shapes on my spine.

That was when it happened.

A butterfly. Small. Yellow with a dust of black on the wings. It came out of nowhere and landed on the tip of my nose.

I went cross eyed looking at it. A shocked laugh burst out of me. The butterfly stayed, patient as a jewel.

Nikolai went still under me. Then his face changed. All that sharp watchfulness melted into something boyish and stunned.

“That is so perfect,” he said, voice low with real wonder. “You are literally my beautiful precious butterfly.”

I giggled harder. The butterfly tickled. I did not dare shake my head. “It is on my nose.”

“Do not move.”

“I am not moving.”

“Good. I want to look.”

“You are looking like I grew wings.”

“You did.” His thumb hovered near my cheek, afraid to scare it. “Look at you. Sand in your hair. Sun on your mouth. A whole little life sitting on your face like it picked you on purpose.”

“Nikolai.” I was still laughing, soft, helpless. “That was the sweetest thing you have ever said and it is about an insect.”

“It is about you.”

The butterfly opened and closed its wings once. I felt the tiny air of it on my skin. Nikolai watched it like the moment might vanish if he blinked. I watched him watching me and my chest went tight in the best way.

“Kiss me,” I whispered. “Slow. Do not scare my new friend.”

He leaned in with ridiculous care and kissed the corner of my mouth. The butterfly stayed. I giggled into his lips. He smiled against me, rare and full, and kissed me again, sweeter still.

Then the butterfly lifted, drifted, and was gone over the water.

Nikolai let out a breath as if he had been holding the whole sky.

“See,” he murmured. “Even the small things know.”

I started to answer.

That was when I felt it.

The wetness between my thighs had been his and mine and the sea air. Now it felt thicker. Heavier. A slow warm slide that did not match the lazy afterglow. I frowned. Shifted. The slide came again, too much, too marked.

I pushed up off his chest.

Looked down.

Looked back up at him.

Panic hit my throat cold.

“I am bleeding.”