by Dani Collins
Lifting, she tried to show him, crushing her swollen, aching mouth against his, clinging with her lips and delicately invading with the tip of her tongue.
He stiffened.
She was doing it wrong. Failure and rejection instantly loomed, even more horrifying than the swamp of sexual excitement. She instinctively tried to pull away, but his arm tightened and she felt the answering lick of his tongue against hers. A bolt of sweet lightning flashed through her, a fierce relief followed by a warning of a storm.
She stilled, tried to pull herself together, but he boldly took possession of her the way she yearned for, sealing their damp lips in a tight fit and thrusting his tongue against hers, spiraling her into the exciting world he seemed determined to pull her into.
Of their own volition, her hands crept up his shoulders, linking behind his neck to draw him down, encouraging him by diving her fingers into his short hair.
His arm stayed locked across her back, but he wasn’t pressing her into him. She did that, not even realizing she was doing it until she felt herself plastered against him. Her dress was open, she realized, but she didn’t care. Her body badly needed the pressure of his chest against breasts that seemed to swell and reach toward him, aching. A moan of longing escaped her.
“What do you want? This?” He drew one of her arms down and slid her hand beneath the soft knit, guiding her touch up his hot chest.
Startled by this new realm, she explored with rapt intrigue. His skin was like sunbaked satin, his chest hair flat and softly abrasive, his nipple small and pebble sharp against her curious fingertips. She splayed her hand, petting, fascinated, and learned quickly when he taught her the pressure he liked. She circled and flicked, feeling him jerk. Wrong again?
His arm at her back pinched her closer. “Do you want me to do that to you?” His head dipped and he caught her earlobe between his lips, sucking and sending a shocking streak of pure excitement flashing into her loins. “This too?”
She groaned at the thought of his mouth on her breast and curled her fingers against his chest, raking his nipple lightly with her fingernail. “Yes.”
His breath hissed in. “Take off your dress, then,” he ground out, loosening his hold on her and backing away.
Shaking, she dragged her hand free, grazing his abdomen on the way, feeling his stomach contract beneath her touch. He was remarkable. This state was remarkable, feeling all hot and fascinated. Alive.
It struck her that he would forever hold a place in her memory for this. The indelible connection was already bittersweet enough to make the backs of her eyes sting. Part of her screamed, Run away. The bond was temporary and would hurt to break, but she craved it all the same. Desperately. So much so that she found herself nudging the straps of her dress off her shoulders. They fell down her arms and warm silk dropped into a dark puddle over her shoes.
She was naked but for her bra, underpants and hose, all black but built for function. Her palms shyly covered the clasp between her breasts, forearms shielding the small, pale swells that peeped over the cups.
“Ask me for help with it,” he said.
“I—” It wasn’t that she couldn’t open it. It was how real this was becoming. What if she wasn’t enough for him, even for a night?
He commanded her with a look, wanting to gaze on her nude body, do things to it. The unknown scared her, but the thought of stopping was equally frightening. She couldn’t move, caught in a trembling paralysis.
He stepped close and sure fingers brushed past nerveless ones. The cups released and her neck went weak. She dropped her forehead onto his chest, aware of her bra skimming lightly over her shoulders and down her back. Her breasts were exposed to cool air while her back was branded by his hot palms. She covered herself with her crossed arms, lacking the confidence to step back and reveal herself.
“Sit on the bed.” He curled a steadying hand under her elbow.
She complied because she would fall down if she didn’t, but sitting put her eye level with his fly and she wasn’t ready to go that far even with a glance. She looked up at him, but he was no gentleman intending to kneel at her feet. He held a look of detached intensity. A roaring sound filled her ears, the kind that warned of danger. She had inadvertently entered into a power struggle with a man who could overwhelm her without effort, but he wasn’t doing it like that. He was turning her against herself. Stoking a hunger that was stronger than her natural reserve.
She clung hard to her shields but sensed he would disarm her without even trying. As easily as he caught a hand behind her knee and stroked tantalizing fingers under her calf, carrying her foot up to his stomach, tipping her onto her back.
Her heart dipped in consternation, and then she squeaked in alarm as the position parted her knees. She shot a hand between her thighs, hypersensitive to where his gaze was traveling, so tangible it was like a physical caress.
Her shoes hit the floor, thump, thump, barely heard over the beat of her racing heart. He reached to stroke her knuckles where she protected her most intimate flesh, his touch so personal she almost jerked her hand away in surprise.
“Let me take off these at least.” He moved his hand down her thigh, stroking the translucent hose. “You want to feel my hands on you, don’t you?”
“Yes, but— You’re not going to undress?”
“Eventually. When you’re ready.” He ran his hand up to the waistband, eyes glittering with challenge while his expression was one of merciless control.
Over her or himself?
Both.
Warring thoughts crashed inside her like storm waves. Apprehension at the reality of being stripped. A moral compulsion to keep her word and go through with this. An underlying weakness of pure want. Terror at the way self-control was slipping away.
He began to draw the hose down and she lifted her hips to help him, eyes closing in denial of what she was doing, but she couldn’t ignore that only her panties remained. She hid them behind her palm, knees bent to the side and locked together, breath held as she tried to imagine what would come next. And then after that.
He stood over her assessing her, proud and commanding, all the power in his court. “Do you want me to join you?”
She blew out a breath of wild laughter at his taunt. He must know how badly she wanted him and was only making her ask for it to prove a point. If she could have revealed that she wasn’t ready, she would have, but it was mortifying how much she wanted to feel him on top of her. “I do.” Her voice broke in surrender.
“Make room, then. When you’re ready,” he added, raking her body with hot, hungry eyes.
She writhed in protest, wanting mastery over herself and wanting him. Rolling onto her back, she straightened her legs, forcing her hand to fall away from her mound, the other to lift off her chest. She’d never felt so vulnerable in her life.
He set heavy hands on either side of her waist and leaned over her, taking his time studying her breasts, making her breath hitch as she felt a need to shield herself again, but resisted it. She couldn’t help watching his face with a timid need for approval. She wasn’t voluptuous. Would she be enough to gratify him?
His expression grew tight as he looked her over. A shudder quaked across his shoulders and it was a long time before he finally met her searching gaze.
She couldn’t hide how defenseless she felt, splayed before him.
“Nice,” he said in guttural English.
Nice? Her stomach plummeted at the bland word. She wasn’t even sure he meant it, but was distracted from questioning him when he grasped her wrists and slid her fists above her head. At the same time, he pressed a knee between hers and opened her legs, lowering himself onto her in a blanket of soft, crushing weight.
Clair moaned in startled delight under him, twisting against his grip, but Aleksy kept her firmly clasped.
&nb
sp; If he allowed her to touch him right now, Aleksy thought, if he didn’t have a barrier between his tight hide and her downy skin, he’d lose it. It had been all he could do to find an English word to describe how exquisite she was.
He forced himself to remember that she was toying with him, trying to win a power struggle he hadn’t started, but was determined to win. Stroking his free hand down her arm, past her breast, over her hip and along her thigh, he curled her calf over his lower back, resenting the wool that kept him from feeling the caress of her skin against his own. He shifted and pressed his groin tight to hers, thin layers of cotton and denim between. She was utterly at his mercy and he took full advantage, rocking himself against her, wanting her to lose control before he did.
Acute arousal hued her cheeks and glazed her eyes. Her hips lifted to increase the pressure, almost sending him over the edge, but the helpless noise she made was worth the torture she was inflicting on him by drawing this out. He was winning, but barely.
Scorching excitement seared Clair’s breath from her lungs as Aleksy teased her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could only whimper in ecstatic sufferance. She’d kept men at a distance all her life, feeling superior to other women because she hadn’t believed men really offered this kind of pleasure. She’d never felt this susceptible, but she was caving now. Completely and utterly. Breathing in his aggressive male scent like a drug.
He cupped her bare breast, his palm hot and possessive. Once a month her breasts felt swollen like this, overfull and incredibly sensitive, but never this sweet. His heavy touch assuaged the ache and incited it. Her nipple grew painfully engorged, ripening under his hot stare like a cherry in the sun. He drew circles with his thumb, massaged and shaped the swell, traced the aureole and refused to give her what she wanted. What she instinctively needed.
“Aleksy, please,” she begged.
He swooped like a hawk, his masculine groan muffling as he covered the tingling tip with his hot mouth. The erotic pull almost lifted her off the bed. Moist heat flooded into her sex, completely beyond her ability to rule it. All of her became a throbbing pulse of hot need. The power of the feelings daunted her, but she reveled in them at the same time, exalted by the sense of being purely woman. When he moved to her other breast, she arched to offer herself, unable to contain her ragged moan.
His hand caressed the back of her thigh, followed the sensitive inner skin to the leg of her underpants. A sure finger slinked beneath, stroking into folds that were slick and incredibly sensitive. She had thought she knew what her body was capable of, but his touch made her jerk her hips under the intensity of pleasure. The tremendous intimacy, his confidence, the way he pressed to sustain the tantalizing peak—
“Oh, Aleksy…” she moaned.
He skimmed his touch away. “You didn’t ask for that, did you?” His eyes had gone black and inscrutable. The cruel curl at the edges of his mouth told her he wasn’t as innocent as he was playing. “Do you want me to touch you? Or—” He hooked his elbow behind her knee, hitching her ankle onto his shoulder. “—kiss you?”
A fresh flood of craving poured into her loins. She instinctively tried to close her legs against the betraying reaction, but she met the resistance of his muscled back.
“Yes?” he murmured, touching a kiss to her breastbone, then lower. His hot mouth opened against her trembling belly, lightly biting before he applied suction in a delicate sting of healing. “Shall I remove your panties with my teeth?”
She couldn’t be completely naked under him while he was fully clothed. She couldn’t. “Take off your clothes first,” she gasped.
He slowly pulled away, the retreat of his body a caress that drew out the pleasure and gave her plenty of time to appreciate the cooling pain of losing him. It also brought a moment of clarity. She realized her knee lay crooked open and her panties were wet. Her stomach quivered with tension, her nipples stood taut with arousal on breasts that rose and fell with her ragged breaths.
Inhibition was gone. She didn’t care how she looked or behaved, only that he continue making love to her.
Aleksy strained under his self-imposed leash. His blazing arousal burned him alive and every male instinct in him screamed to possess her. Begged to.
She twisted her slim body, so graceful and beguiling he had to catch back a groan of pure need. Logical thoughts disappeared from his mind. All he knew was that she tasted like summer, smelled like nectarines and ran like warm honey under his touch. Hands and mouth weren’t enough to sate him. His body needed to be inside hers. His erection throbbed harder and thicker than ever in his life, desperate to spear into her.
Her taunt about going too fast was the only thing that kept him standing over her, hiding his ravenous desire behind a stoic mask while her beautiful image slithered on the spread before him. She wanted to make him crazy and it was working, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing it. He wouldn’t show her any more mercy than she was showing him. She could play games, but he would drive her to a screaming pitch, erasing anything from her mind except the same imperative eating him alive.
“Aleksy?” Her languid eyes darkened with a moment of doubt.
He let a slow grin steer across his face, liking that she wasn’t assured of her lead over him. “I was waiting for your command,” he mocked, peeling his pullover up and off, tossing it to the floor. There was no relief from the sweat of arousal sheening his back and chest. A conflagration of desire continued to scorch from the pit of his gut to the back of his throat, prickling his skin. Demanding action.
“Oh…” Her weak sigh might have made his lips twist in cynical amusement. It was, after all, a sound he’d heard before when he stripped, but the way she licked her lips sent a rod of need through his hard flesh, swiping other women from his mind.
“What does that mean?” he growled, barely able to find his English. “Do this slower?” He peeled open his jeans, then forced his hands to stop. One fell away to his side; the other dipped two fingers into his pocket, bringing out the condom.
Something flickered in her gaze. Confusion. Recognition. Consternation?
“You don’t want me completely naked, do you?” The thought of being uncovered for the first time in his life, in her was enough to make him need a moment to regroup. With thumbs hooked in his waistband, he fought a complete loss of control, eyes pinned to the wink and tremor of her navel.
How he wanted her.
“Naked but protected,” she eventually said, as if she thought he’d been waiting for her answer. It sounded innocent, almost as if she wasn’t confident he’d get there unless she requested it. Her voice made him shudder with hunger.
He would get there. Oh, yes. Definitely.
Carefully he eased his jeans and shorts off his hips, dropping them and kicking them away, forcing his hands to hang loose, revealing none of his excruciating tension as he straightened.
She studied him in a long, taut silence, something he allowed because he was going to look at her the same way very soon. Still, he grew unbearably hard and thick under her gaze. His skin would split if she didn’t let him have her soon.
“You’re—” she began faintly.
He clenched the packet between his teeth and tore it open, then rolled on the latex, aware of the fine trembling that betrayed him.
“Ready,” he said, finishing her sentence. “Are you?”
She didn’t say anything, only looked at him with wide eyes, the reflections in them a swirl of emotions he couldn’t interpret. Was she trying to tease him into insanity? He reached out to hook a finger in her panties at her hip, giving her plenty of time to slow him down.
She didn’t and as he peeled them off, he had one satisfaction at least. Her nest was spun gold, darker blond than her hair, but only a little. In his periphery, he saw her hand move convulsively, but he prevented her from covering hersel
f.
“You’re too beautiful to hide, my golden one,” he murmured, distantly aware he’d spoken in Russian but what did words matter when the need to touch consumed him? He drew a soft line through her curls, finding slippery silk and—
She arched as though electrified, breath hissing in.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Now.” He hiked her up the bed as he covered her, spreading her thighs with his own.
She reacted to the touch of his body as if he’d burned her, shrinking into the mattress before squirming to stroke herself against him, a whimper of surrender trembling from her lips. Her hands slid over him, meeting at his spine. Her legs bent to bracket his hips, and her skin was hot and soft. Delicate and feminine and enthralling.
“I didn’t know anyone could make me feel like this,” she whispered with an ache in her voice.
He didn’t want to hear about other men. The mere suggestion shook him out of his blind, ferocious need and brought him back to reality. Was she trying to incite him with jealousy? Well, he would be the only man on her mind right now.
“Do you want me?” he growled.
“So much.” She pushed her breasts and stomach against him, cheek rubbing his shaved one like a cat begging to be stroked.
“This?” He guided the tip of his erection to part and find the center of her.
She caught her breath and stilled.
He ground his teeth, waiting in agony.
Slowly she slid herself against him, rocking her hips, nearly exploding his mind as she teased them both with a hesitant, barely there caress. “Oh, yes,” she breathed.
He thrust.
CHAPTER SIX
HER STARTLED SCREAM was quickly choked off, but it was a cry of pain.
Through his shock, Aleksy recognized that his shoulders burned under the cut of her fingernails. Engorged and rampant, his erection ached at the tight pressure stopping him from finishing his entry. Beneath him, Clair had gone stiff and taut.
