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Her eyes meet mine, dark and embarrassed and hungry. Then my hand slips beneath the sheet and finds her bare.

She’s already wet.

The discovery hits me low and hard, turning the last of sleep into something darker. I rub my fingers through her slowly, watching her face as her lips part and her lashes lower. She tries to stay still, but her body betrays her immediately, hips tilting into my touch while my mouth returns to her breast.

She makes a frustrated sound, and I reward it by pressing two fingers inside her, and feel her body tighten around mine.

I hold her there, back to my chest, my mouth on her breast, my fingers moving between her legs while morning gathers slowly around us. There is something indecent about it, something more intimate than last night because she is still warm from sleep, because my bed smells like both of us, because downstairs the house is probably beginning to wake while I have my hand inside her and her nipple in my mouth.

She turns her face toward me. I kiss her before she can speak.

The angle is awkward and perfect. Her mouth opens under mine, her hand still buried in my hair, and when I curl my fingers inside her, she moans straight onto my tongue.

“Do you regret last night?” I ask against her mouth.

She is breathing hard now, her hips moving in small, helpless rolls against my hand.

“That’s what you’re asking me right now?”

“Yes.”

“You’re inside me with your fingers.”

“I know.”

“And your mouth was on my breast.”

“It still can be.”

Her eyes flash. Then she kisses me, hard enough to answer, hard enough that I feel her teeth catch my lower lip before she pulls back and whispers, “No. I don’t regret it.”

I lower my mouth to her breast again. “Good.”

Her body arches when I suck her nipple back into my mouth, and this time she doesn’t try to hide the sound she makes. I work her slowly with my fingers, keeping her trapped against me, letting her feel exactly how much I want her pressed against her lower back.

She reaches behind her and touches me.

My breath stops for half a second. “Elara.”

“What?” she whispers. “You started it.”

I almost laugh, but then her hand closes around me and there is nothing funny left in the room. There is only her breast in my mouth, her wetness around my fingers, her hand stroking me under the sheet, and the very serious problem of how little I care about anything waiting downstairs.

The knock comes just as her body starts to shake.

Both of us freeze.

“Nikolai?” Galina calls through the door, calm as ever. “Breakfast is ready.”

When he doesn’t respond, she knocks again.

“I heard you,” I call back.

Elara’s eyes widen at my tone, as if she thinks being rude to Galina will somehow make this less obvious.

There’s a short pause outside the door.

Then Galina says, “There’s something else—Miss Elara is not in her room.”