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.
Tears of frustration stung the backs of my eyes. All I wanted to do was sleep. Just close my eyes and drift off. It should have been such an easy thing to do and yet I couldn't manage it. I couldn't get past my own brain long enough to do something as simple as give in to my body's exhaustion.
The need to crawl out of my skin was overwhelming and my limbs began to jerk involuntarily.
Just as the tears of frustration that I couldn’t control anymore began to slide down my cheeks, I felt the bed dip behind me. Humiliation rolled through me because I knew what that dip meant.
"I'm sorry, Nikolai," I croaked. "I'll try to be quieter."
I waited for Nikolai to speak, to ask me what was wrong. But to my surprise, I felt his big body pressed up against the back of mine and then his arm went around me. Instead of firing questions at me, Nikolai’s soft lips coasted over the shell of my ear. When he did finally speak, the words that came out of his mouth weren’t ones of judgment or frustration.
He didn’t say the words I’d been hearing my entire life like “Get control of yourself, Jude” or “Why can’t you just be normal, Jude?”
No, what he said was worse.
So much worse.
Chapter 17
Nikolai
"It's okay, Jude, I've got you," I whispered into Jude’s ear as I pulled his body back against mine.
I'd been listening to him toss and turn for over an hour and had just