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"Naí," Jason agreed, nodding. "They're running point right now, waiting at the end of the block." The new restaurant wasn't all that far, just a short block away from the church. Jason wanted to walk, since it was a gorgeous, cool, sunny day, and Natalia suffered it, all too aware of her looming shadow just two steps behind her.

The little bistro was actually very nice, bright and cheery and very welcoming. Greek owned, of course, so there was much family banter, good wishes, and great service all around, but the Russian princess was too distracted to take part in most of it. Jason's security detail tried, and didn't exactly manage, to fade into the background; both were large hulking men that loomed even without trying.

But Natalia noticed that everyone simply gave Nikolai a wide berth without even realizing they were doing so. Must be that silent aura of sheer menace he projected, she thought, casting a sidelong glance at her beloved, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, brow broodingly low, and her belly shivered. God, but she wanted him!

Nikolai never smokes where Natalia can inhale it and he doesn't now, leaning against the bricks and makes sure to keep his smoke downwind from her. He hasn't chain smoked like this in a long while, possibly not since he first came to her, and stress is wearing on him. How did she manage to be the one to make him addicted? He was the experienced one.

He watches her mouth as she eats, watches the shape and fullness of it, and wants to kiss her all over again. He wants to spend hours kissing her and just learning every curve of her body and he decides he's going to do that as soon as he gets a chance to.

One of Jason's guards says something to him but he ignores it. He only has eyes for Natalia.

The gyro she'd ordered was, in fact, delicious, full of lamb, provolone, fresh greens, and sweet onion oil, but Natalia hardly tasted it as she pretended to listen to Jason chatter on about this or that, and had to work hard to keep up with the conversation to provide the right answers here and there. She was all too conscious of her fidgeting, squirming in her chair, and tried to keep still, but she could feel sharp blue eyes roving over her body, all but leaving scorch marks on her skin.

It was cool inside, but she was so hot beneath her church clothes, and it was all she could do not to drown in the sea of lust she'd only waded from before services this morning. God, but she'd become far too addicted so very quickly, it was almost pathetic. Another sidelong glance at her guardian revealed him pulling his cigarette from his mouth between his thumb and forefinger, almost angrily, and she stifled a whimper by hurriedly dabbing her lips with a napkin.

"...so that's the plan, hopefully the weather will hold out and we can make a weekend of sailing," she dimly heard Jason saying, and met his wide-eyed gaze with a blink, realizing he'd asked her another question. "Hm? Oh, da, that sounds wonderful, Jace."

"You all right, Nattie?" he asked, leaning over the table a bit. "You seem...kinda out of it today. Still have that nasty headache from the other day?" He didn't wait for her to answer, but rambled on with a list of headache remedies she might want to try, and Natalia did, a little, feel somewhat sorry for the boy, that she couldn't give him her full attention.

Not with her Nikolai just a few yards away, suit jacket hanging open, sapphire tie a little loose and askew, with dark hair combed back from his sharp features and those blue eyes raking over her every thirty seconds. Christ, but it was so unfair-!

It was unfair, stuck where he couldn't touch her and he had to listen to well-meaning but ill-timed Jason ramble on about headache remedies. At this point, Nikolai thinks he'd be willing to settle for just a cuddle as long as he was alone with Natalia and not outside at a crowded bistro. He thinks he might have even enjoyed bringing Natalia here to eat himself if he weren't so damned wound up.

He takes a last drag off his cigarette before stubbing it out in the outdoor ashcan and taking another, lighting it with practiced ease. His lungs won't see the damage from the smoke and he needs something to do with his hands and mouth that isn't devouring his printsessa whole in public.

He shoves his left hand into his jacket pocket and smokes with his right, eyes cutting over to look at Natalia as a guard should and catching her looking at him. When he sees her face, he looks at her through lowered lashes and makes a point of letting his fingers rest on his lips a little longer than they need to for him to take a puff.

Teenager she might have been, but she was also so inured and sensitive to the man across the way that just that subtle little hint was enough to have her nethers clenching almost painfully, and the urge to get up and climb him like an oak tree was so powerful she nearly gave in before she realized it.

The very air seemed to crackle between them, and she dizzily wondered if everyone else in this little cafe was aware of the energy sizzling back and forth between the Imperial princess and her bodyguard, slowly filling to the brim and just waiting to explode. If Jason sensed it, he didn't show it, since he was still jabbering on like a monkey in a tree, happy and carefree.

Finally, finally, she finished her sandwich and swallowed the last of her tea, then rose from the table to visit the ladies room in order to wash her hands, give her teeth a quick brush, and retouch her makeup - a lady never went without the essentials - because she had plans once she was finally able to get free of her Greek friend, bless him.

Reemerging from the lavatory with all four men standing and waiting for her, Natalia deliberately took Jason's offered arm as they meandered towards the parking lot where both sedans were waiting. "Thanks for coming with me, Nattie," Jason told her, leaning down to peck her cheek lightly. "We should hang out more often. Sometimes it gets so boring here."

She made sympathetic noises, kissed his cheek in return, let him hand her off to Ivan, who opened the back door for her, and slid inside, saying to the tall Russian, "How about we just drive around for a while, Ivan? It'd be nice go for a good, long drive on such a nice afternoon." Natalia smiled at him. "Put your music on and just keep going."

Agreeing, Ivan settled her in and closed the door, starting the car as Nikolai slid in on the other side, the darkly tinted windows shrouding the backseat in cool dimness, hidden from all eyes without.

"Did you really have to agree to that lunch?"

It's a pointed question, yes, but he's been dying since this morning and going to church had been bad enough. He'd damn near ended the lunch prematurely three or four times and then held back so he could make sure everything seemed normal. The last thing he needed was for something to look amiss and the crawling paparazzi notice it.

He presses up next to her, though, and tugs her to sit in his lap. "At least we're alone now, da? I can't really do anything I want to do in here but we can at least touch one another without causing an international incident."

"You were distracting me," Natalia reminded him again, needing only that little tug to have her swinging astride Nikolai's lap and pressing her open mouth to his, licking between his lips to kiss him as she'd been needing to since they left their bed earlier this morning.

"Da," she whispered, nuzzling her nose with his when she finally had to breathe, "we're alone for a while." Clever little fingers made their way beneath his open jacket and fiddle with the buttons on his fine linen shirt. "And I need to touch you, moya zvezda...mmmm, pozhaluysta..."

"Be sure you can put me back together without me looking disheveled," Nikolai warns her. "We have photographers to worry about when we get out of cars. Now that I've said that, we can get back to having fun...because you've tortured me all morning."

Nikolai slides his hands down her waist and pushes up her skirt as far as it will go with her seated in his lap as she is. It's enough that he can see the bare skin above the tops of her stockings and he strokes his thumbs - one titanium and one flesh - against her inner thighs.

"Where do you want me to touch you?"

Yes, yes, photographers, whatever. She didn't intend on getting out of the car until they were back at the house, which was located behind a high wrought iron fence with plenty of shrubbery, but the staff didn't need to see them looking tangled and heated, either.

Nevertheless, she pulled open Nikolai's shirt and fanned her fingers over his magnificent chest, sighing in bliss to feel warm skin under her hands. A muted moan left parted lips when she felt his touch between her thighs; her hips instinctively rolled to meet him and Natalia leaned against him to kiss and lick her way up Nikolai's throat, purring directly beneath his ear.

"Anywhere," she breathed, nipping at the soft lobe. "Everywhere...Nikki..."

"You ought to be more specific," Nikolai says, sliding his left hand up higher so he can brush against the edge of her silk panties. She's damp already and he imagines some of this might have gotten started during church and continued throughout that tense luncheon. He hopes so, anyway, but if it had all happened because of this kiss, well. He cannot be too upset.

"Do you want my hand here?" he asks, stroking his titanium thumb up and down the edge of the fabric. He hasn't gone under yet and he hasn't touched her there yet at all; he's been saving it until he can control exactly how she's going to react and how he can best savor those reactions.

"Or somewhere else?"

Specific? He wanted specific right now? Impossible. She was burning up beneath her clothes, beneath her skin, and Natalia wanted little more than to rub all of her over all of him, so that she might carry his intoxicating scent and sate this need way down in her loins.

But the touch of that thumb between her legs had her lurching, breaking off a sharp gasp as her hips bucked eagerly, and another series of whines and moans fell from her throat, eagerly. The silk was soaking wet; she'd been miserable since they'd first arrived at the church earlier.

"Da," she panted, nipping at his neck, his chin, and licking at his lips, oh so eager, wanton. "Please, Nikki, touch me there...please..." And she'd thought his hands on her breasts had been mind-blowing..

Nikolai rubs his thumb against the front of her underwear, pressing in just a little, and keeps the titanium well away from her skin. He has the idea that if he uses this hand and does this through her clothes, it's a step toward more intimacy without jumping completely into the deep end. He leans in to kiss her neck as he does, sucking a dark mark against the pale column of her throat.

"You're going to have to wear scarves," he murmurs, hand moving a little faster. "Do you mind wearing scarves for me? Covering up my marks? Because I have to mark you. I need to know you're mine and you don't belong to anyone else."

He's always been possessive of her. He's been jealous of her time, her affections - now he wants to be the only person she needs and wants. The only one she can depend upon. He wants to be her everything.

"...or we could just stay inside forever," Natalia suggested on a breathless little moan. Her hips rolled and bucked against that tantalizing hand, and she mewled when she felt his lips latch to her skin and suck; the sensation was so damned erotic. The thought that he wanted to mark her as his sent desire flooding through her blood, and she sank her fingers into Nikolai's thick hair, holding him tight against her as she writhed in his lap.

"I'm yours," she told him, head falling back to offer her throat and everything else to him. "Always have been, moya zvezda. Always will be." Her breasts ached, feeling bereft with the tight nipples straining against constricting satin, and Natalia dimly realized that she still had her shirt on.

"I love you, Nikolai," the princess panted, slender body trying to ride his hand, not knowing how but knowing she needed to do so in order to sate this aching yearning deep inside. "...love you so much, malyshka...always."

"And I, you," Nikolai returns. He presses his thumb harder against her and slides his right hand up to cup her breast through her shirt. He wants to be gentle but he's getting as desperate as she is and he wants her to come on his hand more than he can possibly say. The last time he made her come, it had been on accident. This time he wants it on purpose.

"Ride me," he says, words rough. "Ride my hand and you'll get where you want. Only I can make you come. Only I can make you feel like this. Only me. No one else will touch you here. No one else will make you sing for them. Say it again. Say you're mine."

The privacy partisan kept the back of the sedan enclosed in its own little bubble, which was a very good thing since Ivan definitely didn't need to know what was happening in the backseat of the sleek black car. Russia's Imperial Princess was currently straddling her bodyguard's lap with his hand beneath her skirt, whispering filthy encouragement in a guttural voice as she rocked back and forth in his lap.

And teenager though she still was, she definitely looked like a wild woman grown, back arched, head back, red curls spilling down over Nikolai's knees as she bounced arrhythmically and a little erratic, both of her fists gripping his open shirt with tight fingers. God, but she was so close...! Natalia felt her stomach tying itself into knots, her loins ached and throbbed with her ceaseless want, and before she entirely knew what was happening, she felt her beloved's thumb press right there--

--and then she stiffened, gasping for breath that simply wouldn't come, but a heartbeat later she fell entirely apart, mewling and crying out in a soft, wrecked little voice that was panting Nikolai's name, begging him for more, and she had to bury her face in his neck as wave after wave crashed right over her, torrid enough to leave her gasping.

It's probably because of her age but Nikolai thinks that Natalia comes easier than any other woman he's ever heard about or known himself. He grins at her, satisfied, and withdraws his hand.

"You come so easily," he murmurs. "It's perfect to see your face when you come for me. Did you know that? Did you know how pretty you are when you're coming for me?"

He's still teasing her, even if it's with words and not his fingers.

She was still shivering lightly, but her cheeks flushed deep crimson when she heard him speak. "No," she told him, a little tartly, her face still buried in the crook of his neck, "of course I didn't. I haven't ever...I mean, you know. --never before now."

It was a little unnerving to just talk about these things, even if her skirt was still hiked up around her waist, her panties were soaked and slick, and her heart was still galloping a mile a minute from an orgasm she'd never even imagined she could have had.

But that didn't stop her from purring beneath her lover's ear, lifting her head to take his mouth again in a sensual kiss far beyond her years, stroking her tongue between his lips to taste him fully and deep. "...I'm yours, Nikolai," Natalia murmured when she managed to put a little air between them. "...now, forever, and always, malyshka..."

"I know," Nikolai says. He shifts a little under her, trying to get relief himself, and wonders how exactly he's going to manage to get full relief from anything inside of this damned car. He'd rather be back in the house where she could spread him out on her bed but he guesses the sedan is just going to have to do.

"You're so pretty when you're like this," he says lowly. "Perfect, too. I don't know how I've kept my hands off you as long as I have. When I finally fuck you, you'll be so desperate for it that you'll scream my name."

He thinks he's going to be the desperate one, actually, but this is about working her up and not about him.

She started to say something in return, but before she could there came the tell-tale sound of breaking glass, then the car suddenly lurched to one side, throwing the princess across the seat with a high yelp. The sedan's speed increased as if something heavy landed on the accelerator, then the car abruptly slammed into something hard and solid, sending the occupants tumbling.

Even though she'd managed to latch hold of Nikolai beforehand, Natalia nevertheless had her head knocked against the door handle, leaving her bleeding and woozy. Before the car even came to a complete stop, amid shouts, screams, and other noises, the back doors were yanked open and dark figures reached in, snatching both the Imperial Princess and her bodyguard, dragging them from the wrecked vehicle and out into the street.

Though she was dazed, Russia's scion had nevertheless been raised by the Winter Soldier himself, and she put up an impressive fight with her assailants, leaving two unmoving on the asphalt, another with a broken face, and yet another groaning on the ground, but another black-clad figure appeared to replace those she incapacitated until she was finally successfully restrained.

Her last conscious sight was of Nikolai, wrestled to the ground beside the ruined car by five burly black-garbed goons, and a pistol aimed directly at his chest. Three shots rang out; Natalia screamed in pain, fury, and terror; then all went white as she felt something hard strike the back of her head, and the world fell away into nothingness.

This is not a situation Nikolai had planned to be in. Why on Earth would anyone want to attempt to kidnap the Imperial Princess, knowing he is at her side? The pistol at his chest isn't really a deterrent; he can heal fast enough that only a head wound would be truly fatal.

He feels the shots hit him but he wears kevlar on top of being damn near indestructible and while it's difficult to fight off five men, he's managed to do it.

They have him, though, because the printessa is unconscious and she can't do anything to help herself. He snarls at them.

"What do you want? Money? You know we'll pay."

The streets were filling with onlookers, more than a few holding up phones to view the carnage. Natalia hung limp between two of the assailants, and one of them strode forward and aimed a taser right at the former Winter Soldier, hitting Nikolai directly in the neck. Ten thousand volts crackled into his large body, and as he hit his knees, his attacker pulled off his hood, revealing Vasily Karpov's face.

"Money is good," he rasped in guttural Russian, staring hard down at his former creation. "But revenge, better." He kicked Nikolai in the chest with a steel-toed boot, adding to the electricity coursing through the former's veins. "Tell your master: one for another. He takes something of mine, I take something of his. Only fair." A shout, a warning, and Karpov dropped the taser, adding in a snarl, "I will do to her what I did to you, Soldier. You will see."

Then they faded into the crowd, bearing with them the limp, unconscious body of Russia's Imperial Princess.

Nikolai knows he has to get her back. Revenge. Who do they want revenge on? Him? He is over half a century old. Who would have a vendetta against him? Besides, they hadn't made a goddamned demand. How can he even work to get her back if he doesn't have a demand?

He didn't even get a good look at where they took her when it dawns on him. He knew the face. He knew the face. It's goddamn Karpov and it's HYDRA who has her. Is the vendetta against him or the Tsar? These are questions he's going to have to stab at when he undertakes the op to get her back.

The perimeter is already on foot and investigating and Nikolai resets his arm after the shock made it hang limp and useless along his side. He pulls out his phone to inform the Tsar not only of Ivan's death but Natalia's kidnapping and asks for leave to investigate. It's immediately granted. He pulls aside one of the other security detail, Kuznetsov, and asks if he saw anything.

"Northeast. They went northeast. That's all I know, Nikolai."

Northeast led them to the city's marina, where overly excited civilians were all too eager to provide information about the speedboat that ran out to sea not fifteen minutes after the attack, and the harbor patrol reported an unauthorized seaplane drifting just offshore, which took off without filing a flight plan or reporting a transponder number.

Not a scant hour later, the Tsar of Russia was on video-conference with his daughter's security detail, and gazed through the screen at Nikolai, his green eyes hard but also filled with worry for his only child.

"Nikolai," Alexander commanded when the other man's visage filled his own screen. "Tell me what you know. Every last detail. Leave nothing out."

"It was coordinated. They...we didn't come directly from the church back to the compound. We went to a cafe and nothing seemed amiss and then we were riding around. The Grand Duchess wanted to sight-see."

The lie comes easily. He's done this kind of work before and he can do it again. The last thing the Tsar needs to worry about is what he and Natalia had been doing in the backseat before she got attacked and kidnapped.

"I've tracked them to the marina and it looks like they took a boat and then took off via seaplane from the water. No flight plan registered, as you can imagine. Tapped into the government systems to have them watch for unauthorized aircraft but I imagine they didn't fly far away. We might have to wait for contact before I can track them further but I'm going to do my damndest, sir."

Alexander looked down, unable to stymie his sorrow and worry any longer. When he lifted his eyes to the video again, they were glassy, sad. "Thank you, Nikolai. I know you will do all you can. But I must allow Federal Security into this investigation, regardless of my opinion on the matter. They will be arriving early tomorrow morning. And will expect full cooperation."

The Tsar took a deep, shaky breath. "In the meanwhile, I will of course keep you informed if I receive any word, any contact. We must have her back, my friend. We simply must." He couldn't swallow a small sob. "--she is...my child." Alexander passed a hand across his face, endeavoring to smooth it to blankness once again. "I have not told her mother. Honestly...I don't know if I can."

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