Page 33 of You Belong to Me
His tone sounded too ominous by half. “Are you actually assuming it matters to me one way or the other?”
“It should.” His tone became even softer. “You see, I’ve just discovered I’m rather perverse and selfish in that respect. If my needsaren’t seen to, why, then, I ask myself, should yours be?”
Alexandra hated to say it, but had to. “Are we talking about sleep?”
“Are we?” As he said it, he reached for a lock of her hair that rested on her shoulder, and rubbed it between his fingers. “So this is what it looks like,” he added to himself. Spun moonbeams came to mind.
Vasili wasn’t sure what he was doing. Anger had brought him here and it was still with him, but now it was more self-directed, and not the only emotion he had to deal with. That damn dinner. He’d never forget it, and how he’d gone from fury to satisfaction and back to fury again, ending up furious with himself rather thanher.
He shouldn’t have continued to watch Alexandra and her appalling eating habits. He should have taken his satisfaction and relief to bed with him, and the serving wench, too, despite the fact that he no longer found her appealing. But he hadn’t left the common room soon enough. And so he’d witnessed the very sensual way Alexandra had licked her fingers, which had instantly stirred his senses to vibrant life.
He’d groaned then. He groaned again now, though silently, because he still didn’t have his desire under control. It was intolerable that he could want her again when he despised everything about her: her manners, her morals, her apparent vicious tendencies.
He recalled those vicious tendencies andthat embarrassing scene he had suffered through, and remarked none too pleasantly, “What a little savage you are, sweetheart.”
Alexandra should have been pleased, delighted, even laughing over his derision, so she had no business blushing, yet that was what she was doing. And it got worse when he added with a deliberate sneer, “Tell me, do you bring that kind of passion to your bed?”
Stiffly, she replied, “You don’t expect me to answer that, do you?”
“Maybe I expect to find out firsthand.”
Had she been blushing before? She could swear she was giving off steam now.
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be in such a hurry to seal our fate.”
He cocked a brow at her in a look that was designed to provoke by its very arrogance. “Is that remark supposed to be pertinent to anything?”
“You’d be forcing this marriage, which would put an end to any mind-changing for either of us.”
He actually laughed before he told her, “Don’t be absurd, Alex. What’s one more lover to you when you’ve already had so many?”
By his expression, she realized he wasn’t merely trying to offend her this time. He really believed what he’d just said—which gave her a horribly contradictory feeling. She was glad, she truly was, that he could think such a thing about her, because it could aid her own plan. So why did she feel insulted?
She tried, desperately, to change the subject by picking one word out of what he’d just said. “Only my friends get to call me that,” she stated, in reference to the “Alex” he’d used.
His smile was condescending, as if he were about to explain something to a simpleton. “But I’m more than a friend. I’m soon to be your husband, with all the rights that entails. Shall we have a demonstration of some of those rights?”
“The only demonstration you’ll be giving is how to leave a room in a hurry. You can begin now.”
His answer was to grab her shoulders and slowly pull her toward him. The unexpected move brought her hands away from her throat to brace flat against his chest so she could push. Her effort was useless. He didn’t budge.
Only he noticed that her robe fell open. With her excessively modest nightgown it shouldn’t have mattered, and it wouldn’t have if she didn’t have such large breasts that were no longer hidden beneath her arms. His eyes were drawn to the unbound pair instantly.
He drew her closer to him. Her braced arms were actually bending…
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Petroff?” she demanded, grateful not to hear the panic she was feeling in her voice.
He heard it, and ignored it. “I’m thinking I’m going to find out what you taste like.”
“No!”
Her refusal wasn’t too late, it was merely ignored. His strong arms were drawing her so close now that she was flush with his body, feeling more of it than she’d ever hoped to feel. And warm lips took care of any more protests she’d been about to make, at least temporarily. Shock took care of the rest.
Not once had she considered that this might be one of the dangers of this trip. How could she have, when she knew exactly how Vasili felt about marrying her, and he knew she felt exactly the same? Yet here she stood, wrapped in his arms, being kissed by him. The shock came from discovering immediately that Christopher hadn’t taught her all there was to know about kissing, as she’d naively thought.
She’d been thrilled with Christopher’s kisses because she loved him, but the truth was, he knew next to nothing about kissing compared with this man. This man consumed her senses and controlled every one of them, and not just with his mouth, but with his body. The hand he placed on her back kept her from retreating from the slow rub and press of his chest, which gave her the oddest feeling, as if her breasts were being caressed and kneaded by turns. The position of his other hand on the soft curve of her behind was even worse, lifting her as it did until the hard bulge of him was settled directly at the juncture of her legs. She was assailed on every sensual front, overwhelmed by sensations newly discovered, andall the while his tongue made a deep, erotic foray into her mouth to complete the destruction of her will.
Vasili was no less caught in the storm of his own creation. What had started as a means to coerce her into backing down from her threat of public scenes became something else entirely. The second he felt the weight of those luscious breasts against him, she became simply a very desirable woman. And Vasili never denied himself desirable women, especially when a bed was near at hand and the door firmly closed…
