The Scandall
Third POV
In a hotel…
Anna moaned Nicolas’s name, low and throaty, her voice breaking. Her nails raked across his chest, leaving faint red lines that welled and faded under the light.
She moved against him with a restless energy that carried more rage than passion, her body demanding, her rhythm jagged, as though each movement were an attempt to purge the venom boiling inside her.
Nicolas lay beneath her, unbothered, the silk sheets pooling around his muscled frame. His green eyes watched her with that same detached glimmer, cool and analytical, as if he were observing a storm from a window rather than lying in the middle of it. His hands lingered lazily at her hips, guiding only when her frustration made her movements falter, anchoring her to him but never surrendering control.
“Mm… Nicolas…” Anna gasped, her moan dissolving into a hiss, her lips curling as she pressed harder against him. Her breath caught, sharp, before words slipped out, poison masked in the cadence of pleasure.
“I hate her,” she spat, venom slicing through her panting. “That girl… Lana. She disgusts me a lot.”
Nicolas’s brow ticked upward. The corner of his mouth tugged into a faint, indulgent smirk. “Venom and moans in the same breath,” he murmured. “You’re truly a remarkable woman, Anna.”
But Anna wasn’t smiling. Her hair, dark and silken, tumbled forward to veil their faces as she leaned closer, her gaze burning with fury. Her lips brushed his jaw, then she bit it a little and continued riding him.
“You don’t understand, Nicolas,” she hissed, her voice trembling with hatred more than lust. “That place.. the crown prince’s fiancée, it should have been my daughter’s. Not that cursed, unwanted child.”
Her body arched harder against him, driven by anger, every thrust a physical manifestation of her outrage. She bit down on his shoulder, her breath ragged as her rant spilled unchecked.
Nicolas tilted his head against the pillow, his smirk widening as though her fury amused him more than it disturbed him. His grip on her hips tightened even more just enough to remind her who was in control, his voice a low purr against the storm of her words.
“Your hatred,” he drawled, “is far more intoxicating than your devotion to your daughter.”
Anna shuddered, her body trembling with equal parts desire and fury, her moans tangled with her venom.
Nicolas’s green eyes gleamed as he looked up at her, his hand trailed idly up her spine, slowly, while his voice held a dangerous softness. “Tell me, Anna… is it really Lana you hate, or the mirror she holds up to you?”
Anna froze for a heartbeat, then snarled, shoving her hands against his chest. “Don’t toy with me, Nicolas. I despise her. She carries the face of that whore. Every time my husband looks at her, I see it. He doesn’t see me, he doesn’t see our daughter…he only sees her. That bitch he loved before me.
Her lip curled as she spat the words, hatred dripping from every syllable. “Do you know what it’s like to live with that? To know your husband beds you but dreams of another? To raise his child in your home while he reminds you, silently, that you’ll never measure up? He should have erased every trace of her, but instead he clings to it. And now… now that little bastard of hers takes belongs to my daughter.”
Nicolas shook his head, his smirk deepening. He let her rage pour out, feeding on it, encouraging it with the faintest of touches and murmured hums. His voice slid into her ear, low and taunting. “So the crown prince’s fiancée is more than a thorn to you.”
Anna’s eyes glittered with unshed tears of fury. She shook her head violently. “No. She’s filth. She doesn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as my daughter.”
She ground her teeth, her nails raking against Nicolas’s chest hard enough to leave marks. “But I’ll see her ruined. I’ll see her stripped of everything, humiliated, begging for mercy she will never receive.”
Nicolas chuckled softly, the sound curling through the air like smoke. “Ambitious words, Anna. And dangerous ones. But gods, how beautiful you are when you wallow in hatred.”
Anna’s chest heaved as she glared down at him, still trembling with fury. Her moans had turned jagged, her obsession burned hotter than any pleasure, an unrelenting fire that Nicolas found endlessly fascinating.
“Nicolas’s green eyes narrowed, catching every flicker of madness, every fracture in her mask. He brushed a thumb across her hip, steadying her. “Focus more on fucking me, I’m getting a little jealous of this Lana girl.”
Anna’s laugh was brittle. “Should I move faster then?”
The low lights guttered in the draft, shadows flickering across their tangled bodies. Nicolas held her gaze, unflinching, as her fury bled into silence, leaving only the sound of her uneven breaths.
And Anna blinded by rage, consumed by jealousy never saw that he was studying her just as intently as she raged against Lana.
His voice came rough, teasing, filled with curiosity.
“What did you tell him, hm? To let you slip away so early in the morning?”
Anna threw her head back, laughing breathlessly. Her laughter was mocking, filled with scorn for her husband. “I didn’t tell him anything. He doesn’t care. He never pays attention to me. He never does.”
Nicolas’s smile deepened. In a sudden movement, he sat up, one arm snaking around her waist, dragging her closer until their mouths hovered a breath apart. His green eyes gleamed with wicked amusement.
“He’s an idiot,” Nicolas murmured against her lips, his voice low and intimate, every word laced with deliberate cruelty. “Not paying attention to such an appetizing woman as yourself…” His gaze flicked down her body, then back up again, lingering with calculated hunger.
Anna’s breath hitched, her laugh faltering, replaced by a tremor she hadn’t expected.
Then Nicolas moved. In one swift, fluid motion, he flipped her onto her back, pressing her into the mattress. He hovered above her, not rushing, not violent, but with a heavy, deliberate intensity that stole her breath. His hands pinned her wrists briefly, then slid lower, spreading heat along her arms and sides.
Anna gasped, her chest rising sharply against his weight.
“You mock him,” Nicolas said softly, leaning down until his lips grazed the shell of her ear. “But you ache to be seen. Don’t you?” His words were taunting, cruel in their accuracy, and yet they slipped inside her like the confession she could not deny.
Her eyes burned with need. She tried to turn her face away, but Nicolas caught her chin, forcing her to meet those merciless green eyes.
“You hate your husband,” he continued, his mouth brushing her cheek. “But what you really hate is being invisible.”
Anna shuddered, torn open by his words. Her lips trembled, but no denial came.
And Nicolas smiled. Slow, deliberate, as if savoring her madness.