Page 51 of You Belong to Me
The stiffness didn’t leave her posture. If anything, her chin had gone up a notch, and her spine was actually a little more stiff.
“There’s nothing sophisticated about having the sense to share body heat on a night like this,” she informed him. “So don’t get the wrong idea, Petroff. I’d much rather sleep next to any other body than yours, but since yours happens to be the only one here—”
“Get in the damn bed and go to sleep,” he growled. “Morning can’t come soon enough for me.”
24
Vasili felt her eyes on him as he stood near the oven, about to disrobe. He knew it wasn’t so, that his imagination was running amok, because Alexandra had no interest whatsoever in his body. And she should be asleep. He’d waited long enough to ensure that she would be. Yet he imagined her watching him and he became so hard he ached.
It was pure self-torture, getting in that bed to lie beside her. She was tightly wrapped in her blanket, had piled every other one she’d been able to find on top of the bed, and the second he lay down, he could feel the heat radiating from her body.
As chilled as he still was, he was drawn to that heat as strongly as he’d ever been drawn to a female body, and it wasn’t sexual attraction. The sexual need was there, too, pulling just as strongly, but this was another need, just as basic, a simple need for warmth.
And yet he didn’t dare gratify that need. She’d said they must share body heat,she’dsaid it, not he. But because of the state of his arousal, if he gave in to the one need, he’d lose control of the other. So he lay there, beginning to shiver, gritting his teeth to keep them from chattering, being torn apart by both needs.
Logically, Vasili knew that he would eventually warm up just as Alexandra had. Eventually his arousal would quiet down, too. And eventually he might even fall asleep. In the meantime, he was going to suffer through the worst night of his life; what he wanted was within his reach, yet it might as well be miles away because he was unable to take it.
But he could at least get as close to her as possible without actually touching her. The bed was narrow. Lying on his side, facing her, he was already close. Just a few inches more…
Alexandra sucked in a breath and sat bolt upright when his foot accidentally brushed against hers. “God, your feet arefreezing!”
In the next moment, she reached beneath the covers, pulled his nearest foot onto her lap, and began to rub it briskly with her warm hands. Her blanket opened in the front, held only by her shoulders, but he was in the wrong position to see what it revealed.
“Didn’t you have sense enough to stick them in front of the fire?” she continued, her tone abrasive. “Don’t you know that if your feet are cold, the rest of you doesn’t stand a chance of warming up?”
There was a part of him that was burninghot, completely disputing that remark. He didn’t mention it to her. He also didn’t mention that he had sat before the fire, still in his damp clothes, and that the warmth had failed to penetrate them, reaching only a few parts of him.
But the cold hadn’t been on his mind then; she had. He had been thinking of her lying naked in that bed, thinking about joining her there, just as naked, imagining her turning to him—and what would naturally occur after that. He hadn’t thought of her scolding him, and sitting there warming his foot with her hands, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be doing.
It was a bit of a shock, being treated like a child. But the mere fact that she was touching him, albeit in a nonsexual way, gave him anything but childlike thoughts. And it was even more of a shock that she was touching him at all.
He couldn’t figure out why she was doing it. For that matter, why had she practically insisted that they share the same bed? Had she merely suspended their differences for the duration of this misadventure, or…
The other reason that occurred to him started his heart pumping to a nearly audible tempo. Could Alexandra want him, yet be too bashful to say so after all that had passed between them?
The numbness was rapidly receding from his foot. After a few moments more, she saidin that impatient tone of hers, “Give me the other one.”
He was quick to comply, and it wasn’t long before he felt warm all over, from either her ministrations or his own thoughts.
“Thank you,” he said when she finally stopped.
All she did was give him a curt nod of acknowledgment before she lay down again, turning away from him as she’d been before.
Vasili threw caution to the wind and lied. “I’m still chilled, Alex. I believe you said something about sharing body heat—”
She turned onto her belly and pounded her pillow. She was also groaning. Ironically, Vasili found that to be quite an encouraging sign.
“You’ve changed your mind?” he queried, trying for a blend of indifference and disappointment, no easy feat.
She sighed. “No, go ahead.” And then she added sternly, “As long as you keep your hands to yourself.”
Now,thatwasn’t encouraging. But she turned onto her side again and moved slightly backward, while he moved forward. They connected, back to chest. She would have given no more, but he wanted it all, buttocks to loins, thigh to thigh. He edged closer until they were a perfect fit. She protested by scooting away. He followed until she could move no farther and gave up. She sighed again.
He had to fight down his own sighs of pleasure. He also had to keep his hands tightly fisted, or he’d be touching her all over. But if he couldn’t use his hands as he wanted to, he could and did use his body, though he wasn’t obvious about it, was in fact quite devious.
It was a subtle seduction. A caress here, a rub there, a shift, a stretch, warm breath on her neck, nothing overt, nothing threatening. And it was working. He could feel her relaxing into him—until that part of him that had a mind of its own pressed against her buttocks.
She stiffened. “It occurs to me that your body has warmed up sufficiently, Petroff.”
