"For what?" he asked as he looked over his shoulder at me.
"For tonight."
Nikolai let out a harsh little laugh that held absolutely no humor in it. "All I did was manage to traumatize you a second time," he muttered. "Those fucking cops…"
“It's not the first time I've dealt with insensitive cops," I informed him. I waited until Nikolai was looking at me before adding, "Thank you for getting me out of there. For knowing that I wasn't going to be able to stay there tonight."
I hated the silence that hung between us. I wondered if Nikolai was thinking about the kiss he’d laid on me or the fact that he’d pretty much flat-out refused my request to go to Cliff's apartment.
I watched Nikolai work as he made what I was guessing was the omelet he'd mentioned to me earlier in the evening. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but I kept that to myself as he set the plate with a huge omelet in front of me along with a glass of juice. I planned to force a couple of bites down just to satisfy him, but as soon as I got the first forkful of egg, meat, and cheese in my mouth, I actually groaned out loud. Something inside my stomach switched and all of a sudden I was ravenous. By the time Nikolai was sitting down with his own omelet, I was halfway done with mine. I told myself to slow down, but my belly was telling me to eat faster.
"Good?" the man across from me asked with a smile. God, he was so beautiful when he smiled.
"Amazing," I said between bites.
Nikolai dug into his own food. We ate in silence. I ultimately ended up leaving a couple of bites of the omelet on my plate because I was already uncomfortably full. When Nikolai was finished, I got up to help him with the dishes.
After drying the few dishes that Nikolai handed to me after washing them, I noticed he was watching me intently. "What?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said with a shake of his head.
I couldn't help but feel like a bug under a microscope. I glanced at the dishes I'd been drying to make sure I hadn't left them too damp. To be on the safe side, I started drying them all over again. Or I tried to, anyway.
I hadn’t gotten more than one dish in when Nikolai covered my hand with his and said, "Jude, they're fine."
"It's okay, I'll just make sure," I reassured him.
"Jude," Nikolai said more softly this time. He didn't continue, and I knew why. He wanted me to look at him.
It became this stand-off of sorts as I stared at the plate in my hand while Nikolai stared at me. I couldn’t look at him. I was terrified of what he would see. The man already saw way too much as far as I was concerned.
“I wasn’t looking at the dishes to see if you did them right,” he said softly. He turned to face me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
Despite my determination to stay quiet, I found myself whispering, “Then why?”
I couldn’t look at him. I just couldn’t. If I did, he’d see the ridiculous hope in my eyes.
It seemed like time dragged endlessly on before he murmured, "It's late, let's go to bed."
I fought back the disappointment that he hadn’t answered my question. On the heels of that came my body’s response to his comment about going to bed. I knew he’d meant separately, but my dick didn't seem to care.
Despite my exhaustion, I could feel the agitation within me starting to build as I looked at Nikolai’s bed. While I’d been excited at the idea of sleeping in his bed, surrounded by his scent, the reality of the situation was starting to kick in and my mind began to go a dozen different directions as the anxiety grew. I tried to tell myself that a different routine wasn’t a big deal as I excused myself and went to Nikolai's bathroom to get ready for bed, but as I did the things I would normally do at home like washing my face and brushing my teeth, my mind knew things weren’t right.
None of it was right.
I didn't realize how long I'd been in the bathroom until Nikolai knocked on the door and said, "Jude, you okay in there?"
I almost laughed hysterically. I was so far from okay that it bordered on insanity.
I unlocked the door and opened it. I nodded and said, "Fine," before making my way to Nikolai's bed. I used the time Nikolai was in the bathroom to try and focus my jumbled thoughts. I kept my body turned so I was facing the wall and squeezed my eyes shut as I brought up the image of my own room in my head. I was dimly aware of Nikolai saying good night and shutting off the lights, but I couldn't get out of my head long enough to respond. The more I tried to calm myself, the more wound up I became.