Ruthless Russian, Lost Innocence

by Chantelle Shaw

  A kinder man would not take his pursuit of her any further, Vadim knew. Beneath her ice-cool image he sensed an emotional fragility that warned him not to get involved. He liked his affairs to be uncomplicated, and he ensured that the women he bedded always knew the score: mutually satisfying sex with no strings attached. Ella seemed curiously innocent, although in reality that was unlikely for a modern and successful woman in her mid-twenties, he reminded himself. Seeing her like this, in jeans that moulded her slender hips like a second skin, her face bare of make-up and her hair falling loose to halfway down her back, only intensified his desire for her.

  The sexual chemistry between them was white-hot, and kindness was not an attribute he possessed—he had learned that of himself many years ago, Vadim acknowledged grimly. He was hard; undoubtedly he was selfish, and he took what he wanted without compunction or compassion. He would take Ella because he found her pale, elfin beauty irresistible, but he would accept no responsibility for her emotions once he had slaked his hunger to possess her body.

  ‘I had no idea you could play the piano with the same skill with which you play the violin.’

  Ella shrugged. ‘I don’t play to performance standard. My mother was an astounding pianist. She could have had a wonderful career; should have done, but—’ She broke off abruptly, feeling the familiar pain in her heart as she recalled her mother’s gentle smile and her unending patience when she had tutored her daughter to play. Instead of enjoying the glittering career as a pianist that she had deserved, Judith Stafford had fallen in love and sacrificed her ambitions for a husband who had expected her to devote her life to being his social hostess. In return the Earl had broken her heart with his brazen infidelity. She would not make the same mistake as her mother, Ella vowed. And she would certainly never fall in love after she’d witnessed the devastation it caused.

  Vadim flicked back the cuff of his jacket to glance at his watch, and Ella felt a peculiar sensation in the pit of her stomach when she glimpsed his olive-skinned wrist overlaid with dark hairs. He was so innately male, and so big, his broad shoulders sheathed in a black Armani jacket that he wore with the easy grace of a man who possessed supreme self-confidence.

  She was conscious of his brief appraisal of her jeans, and blushed at his faintly sardonic smile. ‘I assume you lost track of time. I’ll phone the restaurant and tell them to hold our table while you get changed.’

  She snatched a breath and said quietly, ‘If you had given me a contact number, I would have phoned to explain that I’m unable to have dinner with you tonight—’ she hesitated ‘—or any other night. This is a very busy time for me right now,’ she added quickly, her blush deepening beneath his cool stare.

  ‘But you do find time in your hectic schedule to eat, I take it?’ he drawled. ‘Although from what I saw of your body the other night, you clearly don’t eat enough.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry if you found me a disappointment,’ Ella snapped, infuriated by his reference to the embarrassing episode she would prefer to forget. If she hadn’t been in such acute agony that night she wouldn’t have allowed him to lay a finger on her, let alone undress her. As it was, Vadim had helped her out of her dress, but from the sound of it the sight of her bony figure and pathetically small breasts had not sent him wild with desire. A good thing too, she assured herself, suppressing a stupid wish that she possessed voluptuous curves like his glamorous ex-mistress Kelly Adams. She did not want Vadim to be interested in her, and perhaps now he’d discovered that she had the allure of a stick-insect he would leave her alone.

  ‘I didn’t say I found you disappointing,’ he murmured, the sudden gleam in his eyes causing her heart to miss a beat as he strolled towards her. He was impossibly handsome, she recognised numbly, unable to tear her gaze from his sculpted features. The razor-sharp edges of his cheekbones and the hard planes of his face were cruelly beautiful, softened only slightly by the sensual curve of his mouth. He was almost unreal—like a marble figurine by one of the Old Masters, or one of those male models from the glossy magazines, who had been airbrushed to perfection. But Vadim was very real, a flesh-and-blood man who was standing unnervingly close to her, so that she could see the tiny lines that fanned around his piercing blue eyes.

  ‘You know I am attracted to you. I have made no secret that I desire you,’ he said, in such a bland tone that he might have been discussing the weather. But the expression in his eyes wasn’t cool, it was scorching hot, and Ella caught her breath when he slipped his hand beneath her chin and lowered his head.

  ‘But I’m not…I don’t want…’ She trailed off helplessly, transfixed by his mouth hovering tantalisingly close to hers.

  ‘You don’t want to date? Perhaps not other men,’ he conceded arrogantly, ‘but I’m different. I unsettle you,’ he reminded her when she opened her mouth to argue, and then took advantage of her parted lips by covering them with his own and kissing her with a ruthless efficiency that blew her mind.

  An instinct for self-protection warned Ella to resist, to freeze in Vadim’s arms and jerk her head away so that he was denied access to her mouth. But another instinct, as old as womankind, caused molten heat to flood through her veins and evoked a shocking hunger inside her that was new and terrifying and yet utterly consuming. She wanted him to kiss her, taunted a voice in her head. For the past week she had been unable to forget the demanding pressure of his mouth on hers when he had kissed her at Amesbury House, and her dreams had been full of erotic images of what might have happened if they had not been disturbed. Now those dreams were reality, and his lips were once again working their sensual magic, coaxing her response until she opened her mouth for him and he thrust his tongue deep into her moist warmth.

  No man had ever kissed her the way Vadim was doing. In the past she had dated a couple of musicians from the RLO, but her innate wariness made her seem cold and uninterested, and the relationships had quickly petered out. With Vadim it was different. He seemed to view her diffidence as a challenge, and had bulldozed through her defences to awaken her sensuality. For the first time in her life Ella felt the piercing intensity of sexual desire, and any idea of resisting its lure flew out of her mind as she sagged against the solid wall of his chest and felt his arms tighten around her.

  He slid one hand into her hair and tugged, angling her head and deepening the kiss so that it became a sensual feast, hot, hungry and fiercely possessive, escalating her excitement so that the pressure of his lips and the bold thrusts of his tongue were not enough and she wanted more. His other hand roamed up and down her body and cupped her bottom, hauling her close so that she was made shockingly aware of his powerful arousal pressing against her pelvis. She should not be allowing him to do this, a warning voice whispered in her head. But he dominated her senses, and a little shiver of need ran through her when he slid his hand beneath the hem of her tee shirt and skimmed his palm over her flat stomach, the sensation of his fingertips stroking her bare flesh intensifying the hot, throbbing ache between her legs.

  His hand continued its determined journey upwards. Any second now he would discover that she wasn’t wearing a bra. His questing fingers brushed the underside of her breast and Ella snatched a sharp breath, lost to everything but her longing for him to touch her where she had never permitted any man to touch her before, to curve his hand around the small, firm mound and caress the swollen nipple at its centre.

  But, to her shock and scalding disappointment, he abruptly ended the kiss. ‘We need to leave soon, or we’ll lose the restaurant booking,’ he murmured coolly as he dropped his hand and stepped away from her. ‘You’ve got five minutes to get changed.’

  Ella stared at him dazedly, her heart-rate gradually slowing as shame at her wanton response to him replaced the frantic drumbeat of desire. How could she have been so weak-willed and so stupid? she wondered bitterly. She had given Vadim completely the wrong idea about her, and now he no doubt believed he could buy her dinner in exchange for sex. For a wild moment she debated
locking herself in her bedroom until he went away—but what if he refused to leave? He had already demonstrated his determination to get his own way, and she had a strong suspicion that in a battle of wills he would emerge the victor. Besides, she would be safer with him in a busy restaurant, she reasoned as she marched, stiff-backed, into her room and flung open her wardrobe. She thought it unlikely that he would make a public spectacle by kissing her in front of the other diners, and hopefully over a meal she would be able to convince him that she was serious about not wanting to have an affair with him. But as she stared at her face in the mirror, saw her swollen, reddened lips and her glazed eyes with their enlarged pupils, she acknowledged that the difficulty was going to be convincing herself.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  UP UNTIL eighteen months ago, Ella’s working wardrobe had consisted of elegant but unexciting black dresses which she wore for performances. But when Marcus Benning had become her publicist and taken over the marketing side of her career he had insisted that she should go for a sexier image, and had persuaded her to buy daring designer outfits in a variety of coloured silks and satins. Naturally shy, she had struggled with her new look, especially when she’d found herself the focus of male attention, but now she was grateful for the make-over that had included lessons on how to apply make-up for her publicity photo-shoots. A light foundation, grey eyeshadow to highlight the colour of her eyes and black mascara to emphasise her lashes created a mask to hide behind, and the addition of bright red gloss on her lips completed the illusion of an elegant, coolly self-confident woman who was more than capable of rejecting unwanted advances from any man.

  Unfortunately it was just an illusion, Ella acknowledged as she stepped into a red silk cocktail dress with spaghetti straps and a skirt that was shorter than she remembered it being when she’d tried it on in the shop. She felt brittle with nerves, and the pulse beating erratically at the base of her throat was a giveaway sign of her tension, but after sweeping her hair up into a chignon and spraying perfume on her wrists she could not put off returning to the sitting room and Vadim any longer.

  He was standing by the fireplace, studying the many photographs of her mother, but turned as she entered the room. The flare of heat in his eyes as he subjected her to a leisurely inspection rattled her shaky composure. ‘You look stunning, but I get the feeling you’re making some sort of statement,’ he murmured sardonically.

  His perception was uncomfortably close to the mark, and Ella flushed. ‘You’d prefer me to wear a sack?’ she demanded tightly.

  ‘You would look beautiful whatever you wore.’ He paused for a heartbeat before adding outrageously, ‘And exquisite wearing nothing at all.’ He had closed the gap between them and was standing too close for comfort, the scent of his after-shave—a subtle blend of citrus and sandalwood—teasing her senses. ‘However, I’d like to make one improvement.’ He moved before she could guess his intention, placed his thumbpad over her lips and wiped off her lipstick. ‘That’s better. Your lips are infinitely more kissable when they’re not covered in gunk.’

  ‘You’ve got a damn nerve,’ Ella breathed, trembling with anger. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to go to dinner alone. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.’

  ‘That is a pity, because I’m ravenous.’ His eyes glinted wickedly as he trailed them down from her elegant hairstyle to her red stiletto shoes. ‘And I hate to eat on my own; it makes me irritable, which is bad for my digestion. Anyway, you have to have something for dinner, and there’s nothing in your fridge apart from a yoghurt that’s past its sell-by date—I noticed when I helped myself to a glass of water and pinched a couple of ice-cubes.’ He took advantage of Ella’s fulminating silence to drop a stinging kiss on her lips before he spun her round and, to her utter fury, tapped her lightly on her derriere. ‘A word of warning, angel face: I can’t abide women who sulk,’ he murmured dulcetly. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘You are the most arrogant, overbearing…’ Cheeks the same shade of scarlet as her dress, Ella snatched up her stole and purse and swept through the door he’d opened for her, her steps faltering as she passed the vase of roses on the dresser. The last rays of evening sunshine slanting through the windows turned the petals blood-red, and their sensuous fragrance seemed to mock her, but good manners forced her to turn to him. ‘Thank you for the roses,’ she muttered stiltedly. ‘They’re beautiful.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  How could he infuse two simple words with such a wealth of meaning? she wondered. Or was she badly overreacting? She guessed that most of the women he dated were skilled in the art of flirting, and happy to indulge in verbal foreplay. But she felt on edge, unsure of her ability to handle a man as self-assured as Vadim, and it didn’t help that her lips were still tingling from that last unsatisfactorily brief kiss.

  On the way to the restaurant she was relieved that he did not seem to want to talk, although his brooding silence did nothing to ease her tension, and she darted him a surprised glance when he activated the CD player and her latest recording of Mendelssohn violin concertos filled the car.

  ‘I first heard you play a year ago,’ he said quietly, ‘and I was blown away by your incredible talent. Undoubtedly your career will go from strength to strength.’

  Sales of the CD had been high—hundreds, if not thousands of people must have listened to her play—but as the haunting notes of Mendelssohn’s exquisite composition trembled between them in the close confines of the car Ella once again felt as though she had revealed her deepest emotions to Vadim, and it made her feel acutely vulnerable.

  She was glad when they arrived in Mayfair. Simpson-Brown was reputed to be one of the best restaurants in the capital, and bookings were taken months in advance, but when they walked into the elegant front bar Vadim was greeted by the maître-d’ like a long-lost brother and they were immediately escorted to a table.

  ‘Do you come here often?’ Ella queried when they finally took their seats, after Vadim had paused several times on their journey across the restaurant to greet other diners who had eagerly sought to gain his attention. The clichéd line sounded horribly gauche, and she coloured and quickly stared down at her menu, irritated with herself for acting like a teenager on her first date. It didn’t help that Vadim was so impossibly gorgeous. She had been aware of the speculative glances directed his way by several beautiful women as he had crossed the restaurant. But his magnetism was due to more than the perfection of his sculpted features and the inherent strength of his lean, hard body. He possessed a raw, primitive quality which, laced with unquestionable power and more than a hint of danger, made him utterly irresistible to just about every female between the ages of sixteen and sixty.

  He shrugged. ‘I dine here maybe two or three times a month. I don’t yet have a permanent base in London, so I’ve been living at a hotel in Bloomsbury for the past six months.’ He paused fractionally and gave her an enigmatic glance across the table. ‘But that situation is about to change.’

  ‘Will you be going back to Paris? I read somewhere that you have a home there.’ Even better, maybe he was planning to return to his native Russia, she mused, wondering with a sharp stab of impatience why her stomach dipped at the thought.

  ‘It’s true I have an apartment on the Champs-Elysées, but I intend to settle in London for the foreseeable future to pursue various…’ again he paused for a heartbeat ‘…interests.’

  Undoubtedly he meant business interests, Ella assured herself frantically. But she could not control the quickening of her heart rate at the blatant sexual hunger in his gaze, nor drag her eyes from his sensual mouth that had wreaked havoc on her composure earlier. Get a grip, she ordered herself angrily. She was twenty-four years old, she had a successful career, and this was not the first time she’d been invited to dinner with a good-looking man—although it was the first time in her life she had been so intensely aware of a member of the opposite sex, she acknowledged ruefully.

  The arrival of a waiter at their table to enquire
whether they would like cocktails before they ate broke the tangible tension. ‘I’ll have a vodka martini.’ Vadim glanced at Ella. ‘We’ll decide on red or white wine when we order dinner, but would you like an aperitif? Anton, here, can recommend several non-alcoholic cocktails if you prefer.’

  Did he think she was so unsophisticated that she couldn’t handle alcohol? Ella thought irritably. She gave him a cool smile and racked her brains for the name of a cocktail—any cocktail—that she’d heard of. ‘I’d like a Singapore Sling, please.’

  His dark brows lifted. ‘Are you sure? The combination of gin and cherry brandy can be lethal on an empty stomach.’

  In a minute he’d be ordering her a milkshake! ‘I’ll be fine, thank you,’ she assured him coldly. The waiter left them, and she glanced around the packed restaurant, conscious that for the next hour or so she faced the unsettling prospect of talking exclusively to Vadim. Her nerves felt as taut as an over-stretched elastic band as she cast around for something to say, and she was relieved when the waiter reappeared almost instantly with their drinks.

  Vadim lifted his glass. ‘To new friendships…and new experiences,’ he drawled, amusement glinting in his eyes when Ella took a cautious sip of her drink and made a choking sound which she hastily turned into a cough. Once again he was struck by her air of innocence, but in his experience all women were game-players, and no doubt Ella had her own agenda for acting the ingénue. He relaxed back in his seat and studied the menu, but to his irritation he could not prevent his gaze from straying across the table to absorb the delicate beauty of her face, the fragile line of her collarbone and the gentle curve of her pale breasts above her red dress. She was very lovely, and she had invaded his thoughts far too often recently, he mused as the dull ache in his groin intensified to a hot, throbbing sensation that caused him to shift uncomfortably in his chair.