‘No, there is somewhere I want to try...’
He gave her the name of a swanky place in Belgravia and, yes, it was lovely but a bit public, so clearly they’d be keeping their hands to themselves.
Which was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
‘That would be lovely,’ she said, and smiled as she, of course, seethed!
‘Tomorrow,’ Nikolai said, and walked off, and Nadia let out a loud wail, which was just what Rachel wanted to do.
‘I’m going to feed her and then put her down for a sleep,’ Libby said, and Rachel started to hand Nadia over to her but instead she carried her through.
Libby took Nadia out of her gown and changed her into a little sleep suit and, after such an exhausting day, and a very quick feed, she was soon asleep.
‘I want one,’ Rachel whispered, as she gazed at the baby.
‘I thought you said never...’
‘I know I did.’ Rachel nodded. ‘It’s your duty now to talk me out of it. How was it?’
‘How was what?’
‘We haven’t caught up since the wedding. Well, not properly. You haven’t told me a thing about the birth!’
They crept out of the nursery and it had turned dark, but instead of turning on the lights they sat and ate cupcakes and drank champagne to the spectacular backdrop of the storm, with Rachel laughing and squirming as Libby told her in painful detail about Nadia being born.
And then the conversation turned to Rachel.
‘So Anya came up with a ticket for you for closing night?’
Rachel nodded rather than correct Libby. Oh, tomorrow when he was gone, new baby or not, she would be round here with her friend passing the tissues, but right now she wasn’t ready to share.
Or maybe tomorrow, instead of crying on Libby, she would head down to the wharf and look at the space where his yacht had been, Rachel thought, and then dragged her mind back to the conversation. ‘She’s going to see about tickets for opening night in Paris!’ Rachel said.
‘Ooh, you might see Nikolai. He told Anya today that he’d see her in Paris. Do you think there’s something going on there?’
Rachel just shrugged. She knew there was nothing going on between Nikolai and Anya, it was just that Libby, in new-baby land, was completely out of the loop.
‘I guess they just want to keep in touch.’
So did she.
Already her mind was leaping ahead to Anya’s opening performance and the chance of a night spent in his arms.
She had that chance now.
It had taken just two weeks to change her life and he had been such a part of it that she wanted to say goodbye properly.
Maybe she could head down there now but she knew where that would lead and she’d given up casual sex.
She was reaching for her bag.
Her casual sex ban had lasted less than twenty-four hours.
How pathetic was that?
But it wasn’t.
She wanted one more night with him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LONDON LOOKED SHINY and clean after the storm and as Rachel got out of the taxi she saw his yacht and her heart felt as if it was in her mouth.
It was all lit up and it matched the beauty of the sunset.
Golden lights glinted on the water and Rachel remembered lying in bed and watching the reflections dance along the ceiling.
She’d been scared then.
Not now.
There was a little crowd gathered and Rachel joined them and did as they did—took a picture of Svoboda.
Freedom.
Nikolai had given her that—freedom to be herself and to let go of the past.
She didn’t blame him for moving on. That had been the plan from the start and given what had taken place yesterday between herself and André...
Rachel closed her eyes for a brief moment. She wished Nikolai hadn’t had to have seen that.
She sat down on a bench and heard someone complaining that the car hadn’t been taken out.
‘Is that what you’re waiting for?’
‘Yep,’ the man said. ‘The car was designed as an accessory to the yacht...’
Rachel’s eyes glazed over as he droned on and on about hydraulics and then blinked as he snapped her back to attention. ‘So what are you here to see?’
‘The captain,’ Rachel said, and went into her bag and offered her new friend a chocolate éclair sweet.
It was a very long wait. The four men had a lot of catching up to do, Rachel guessed. In fact, she was down to her last sweet and had passed the time learning maritime-speak on her phone when finally there was a bit of movement in the crowd. Rachel looked up and there was a sigh of disappointment when the car didn’t come out; instead, three, a little worse for wear, sexy Russians disembarked and one, none the worse for wear, remained.
He did not stay behind the tinted glass walls; instead, he came out to the bridge deck and watched his friends leave.
They had caught up, filled in the missing years, and it was then that Nikolai saw her—sitting on a bench and chatting to a man by her side.
For Nikolai she had the spotlight, always.
He sent her a text and watched as she went into her bag and then laughed as she read it.
Get here!
She stood up and he watched as she hitched her skirt down her thighs and then walked over, and he went down to greet her.
‘I know it looks a bit stalkerish...’ she said as she stepped on board. ‘I just didn’t want to interrupt you all. Was it nice to be together again?’
‘It was,’ Nikolai agreed. ‘Though I’m glad you came.’
‘We deserve a nice goodbye,’ she said, and he realised that she was here to say farewell to him with a smile.
That was brave.
‘So tell me,’ Rachel asked, ‘how were they?’
‘I don’t want to talk about them.’ He wanted to talk about them, but Rachel’s eyes had lit on a rather odd-looking object for such sumptuous surroundings.
There was an ugly little varnished ship on a coffee table.
‘Is that the ship you built?’ Rachel asked.
‘It is.’ Nikolai nodded. ‘Sev kept it all these years and had it couriered to London while he was away. He just gave it to me.’
She walked over and picked it up and looked at the hundreds of matches. She thought of him as a child with a dream, but instead of telling him it was amazing she pulled a face.
‘Bloody Sev,’ she grumbled.
‘Why is that?’ he asked the woman who never said the words he expected yet always made him smile.
‘Well, it was very thoughtful of him but it kind of messes up my present.’ She went into her bag and handed him a box, which he opened and stared at the little crystal ship that lay inside it on dark velvet.
He looked at the beauty and fought with instinct to say that it was too much, or that she shouldn’t have.
She should have and she had.
What they had found had nothing to do with money.
He put the little crystal ship beside his matchstick one and tried to find the words to thank her.
All those years ago he might have dreamt of a better future but he could never have imagined this.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Nikolai said, and he looked up at her. ‘It’s the nicest gift I have ever had.’
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely.’
And impulse purchases had their rewards because she got the heaven of hearing this: ‘If everything went down, this would be the one thing I’d save...’
‘You’re the captain,’ Rachel said. ‘Aren’t you supposed to go down with the ship?’
‘I have to see everyone off first, then I can
get off.’
‘Well, you’d be told off for stopping to retrieve your possessions.’
She made light of it, though her heart swelled at his words, and in that moment Nikolai knew just how precious the gift was that he had just received.
She really was here to say goodbye—it was a gift with no strings, it came from the heart. He wanted to correct her, to say that this could not be goodbye, but for now he listened as Rachel spoke on. ‘I’m just sorry for what happened yesterday...’
‘Why are you sorry? I’m glad that you told me what happened to you.’
‘No.’ Rachel shook her head. That wasn’t what she had meant. She was glad she had told him too. It was what had happened before that. ‘I’m sorry you had to see André and me. I just...’ She let out a breath. ‘I’m very glad you came when you did...’
‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t have slept with him.’
‘I don’t think so. In fact, I’m very sure of it, but I understand that you might doubt that.’
‘No.’
He had more faith in her than she had in herself.
‘I know for a fact you wouldn’t have,’ he said. ‘You were just shocked...’
‘I know I was,’ she agreed. ‘I didn’t know what was happening.’
‘He did,’ Nikolai said. ‘But, Rachel, you’re past all that now. It might have taken you a couple of moments to re-group but you would have slapped his face and seen him off.’
‘I would have.’
‘You would have,’ he confirmed. ‘After all, you had said no to me.’
Indeed she had!
‘And you fancy me a lot more than him.’
‘You know that, do you?’ she teased.
‘I do.’ Nikolai nodded. ‘Yet you still said no...’
‘Well, I just thought it was a bit insensitive given all I’d told you and...’ She halted and then her eyes narrowed as she started to see yesterday in a different light. ‘You set me up to say no.’
‘I did!’
‘So all that time I thought you were an insensitive bastard you were...’ She put her arms around his neck as he spoke for her.
‘You know how to say no.’
‘I do,’ she said. ‘Can a lady change her mind?’
‘It’s her prerogative.’
There was so much he had to tell her yet there was no chance of that now because Rachel was claiming her kiss.
One more night with this man and she would not waste it.
Tomorrow it would kill her.
The morning would see her back on the bench, watching the little tugboats sail him away, but tonight she would let herself love him.
It was a different kiss from any they had shared for she did not kiss from the groin.
Instead, she tasted his lips as if they were the rarest and most precious of wines, or vodka infused with ginger, or just Nikolai and a man who kissed her in a way no one ever had.
He held her cheeks and kissed her back, no tongue, just soft, velvet kisses, so soft that she had to close her eyes to keep the tears in. His hands moved into her hair and he kissed her harder now, and she parted her lips as his tongue came in, yet it was still a tender caress.
They undressed each other slowly. Rachel refused to rush because she wanted it to never end. And so, when they stood naked and pressed into each other, when deeper, sexier, more wanton kisses came, when she did not want it over, when she lay on the bed, instead of trying to bring them both to conclusion, she let him linger.
It hurt to be kissed so gently, to be made love to by a tender mouth. Gentleness was something she had never allowed herself to experience, but as his mouth worked her breast, as his fingers intimately stroked her, he banished dark memories and replaced them with bliss. Her breasts he explored with his mouth and Rachel’s hands were on his head, pressing him into her flesh as her hips lifted to his hand.
His mouth moved lower and so did he, so that he knelt on the floor, and she looked up at the ceiling with her mouth open wide, stunned not just at the utter delight he gave but the access to herself she permitted.
Sex had never been guilt-free and as she came to his mouth it wasn’t quite guilt-free now. There was the rush of pleasure and the sink of oblivion and then she closed her eyes.
And she waited.
For the voice that told her she was wrong, that the pleasure she sought was forbidden, but Nikolai came over her and it was his voice she heard in her ear.
‘You mean the world to me.’
And his world was a complex one, Rachel thought as she looked into his eyes. His world was a vast one that he travelled, but he was here tonight. He kissed her and she tasted herself and then him. His weight on top of her did not make her want to roll away, it felt right.
He was on his elbows and looking down at her, and what a difference that made. To look into his eyes as he took her and not to deny what was taking place but to want it.
She remembered him slapping her hand away as she’d gone to stroke him but then he’d banished the memory and let her hold him. And she let him love her now.
‘Oh!’
That was what she said as he slid inside and filled her.
And her eyes stayed open and looked right into his. She tried to reach for his mouth to kiss him but failed. Her body just caved in to the delicious sensations and then rose to match his.
Nikolai took her slowly but deeply, every thrust measured, and she started to moan from the pleasure. Her hands came up to his shoulders and she felt the hard muscles and the tension he held as he tried to keep things slow, yet Rachel was ready now to be taken thoroughly. Her legs wrapped around him and her arms pulled him down, accepting the collapse of his weight onto her.
And when he consumed her, when it was now just the two of them in their minds, he thrust harder and faster and she begged for the same.
‘Nikolai.’ She said his name as she started to come but she held on to the three words no playboy wanted to hear.
That she loved him.
She came so hard that it felt as if she was attached to an electricity grid as her body went rigid. The most intense pleasure was magnified as he moaned his release and shot into her and she came again. She just tipped straight back into orgasm and forgot how to breathe. And then, as it faded, as he emptied the last, she opened her eyes to him and smiled.
No guilt, no shame, nothing other than a smile for the beauty they made.
‘Double,’ Rachel said, as if he didn’t know.
‘Extra shot.’ He smiled back and they laughed at a joke in their private language and he kissed her.
How would she stand it when he’d gone?
It was hard to lie next to the love of your life and not tell him that he was, in fact, that.
They lay there, all lights blazing, and Rachel was deep in thought. Her limbs felt heavy, her mind, though, was whirring and wondering how the hell she would get over him.
She wouldn’t.
She knew it.
Oh, she’d smile and pretend that she had but there would never be another him.
‘What?’ Nikolai asked, as if he knew she had something to tell him.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
Everything.
She blew out a breath and wondered if she dared tell him a little of what she was feeling.
But how?
Maybe it would be easier in the dark but she hated it so.
Nikolai turned and went to the bedside table, but instead of plunging them into the darkness he rolled back and held out a slim pouch.
‘What’s this?’
‘I got you a present too.’
‘What is it?’ Rachel asked as she sat up and pulled out a slim piece of black velvet. ‘An eye mask.’ She gave a slightly mo
cking laugh. ‘I think I’m the worst person to give an eye mask to. I can think of nothing worse than being blindfolded...’ She shot him an incredulous look. ‘That is the most thoughtless gift ever. I hate the dark, I—’
‘It’s for me,’ he said, and took it from her hands and put it on. ‘You can keep the lights on.’
‘Oh.’ She looked down where he lay beside her, clearly settling into sleep.
‘Not so thoughtless, after all,’ he said with a smirk.
‘I guess.’
She lay back down beside him and he held her in his arms and she looked up at him. As lovely and thoughtful as his gift was, she wanted to see his eyes. Even closed they were such a beautiful part of him so she did the bravest thing. She turned off the lights and lay there, watching the flickering shadows on the ceiling, not scared of the dark with him by her side.
She took the mask from his eyes and then lay in the darkness.
‘I won’t touch you while you sleep,’ he promised.
‘Thank you.’
He just held her instead and then, as she was drifting off, he remembered all that he hadn’t told her, and all the plans he had made. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost midnight.
Oh, well!
He sat up and then came her sleepy voice. ‘It’s fine,’ she said. Assuming that the sudden startle from him was because he had just realised that they hadn’t used a condom. ‘I’m on the Pill.’
He didn’t respond and Rachel sat up blinking as the lights plunged on and he made a call and then spoke on the intercom to his butler.
‘Why is he preparing the car?’
‘Because there is something I want to show you.’ Nikolai said. ‘Get dressed.’
‘It’s nearly midnight,’ she pointed out, but got out of bed and did as he asked. After all, she didn’t want to sleep their last night away. ‘Do you know they’re all waiting on the dock for you to take the car out for a spin?’
‘I know,’ he said.
Billionaire Without a Past (Irresistible Russian Tycoons) Page 14
