“I felt…protective.” His lips touched hers, moved over her as if they had all the time in the world. Her arms wrapped around him and his lips pressed against hers, slowly compelling her to kiss him back. He trailed kisses along her jaw and under her ear whispering, “I felt possessive of that innocence.” Hand under her chin, he turned her face and kissed her deeply.
Outside, people walked down the passage, their voices a distant sound. Someone rattled the door while he held her, kissed her, felt the curve of her breasts, the small of her waist, the flat of her stomach, squeezed her thighs, and set her on fire. All the while he muttered all kinds of nonsense in Russian, making her heart sing.
Copenhagen was a whirlwind of confirming their tickets on the ferry to Stockholm in the morning and then a ferry to St. Petersburg the following day. A visit to the museum was followed by dinner and fireworks in the Tivoli Gardens. Fireworks viewed from a secluded section of the park where the man who was steadily decimating her for any other man, showed her the secrets of the next postcard, showed her that a man can do many unlikely things with his fingers, lips, and tongue. And how the sound of fireworks can, in fact, drown out a woman’s cries of pleasure.
Chapter 18
Strangely, after their days in Paris and Copenhagen, ‘London’ Demetri was back. On the ferry trip to Stockholm and on their arrival at the small well-appointed hotel in the center of town, he was stony faced, reserved, and impossible for Georgie to read. After their closeness, after he had been so affectionate, it hurt.
Instead of making time to be with her, he apologized, said that he had business in Stockholm and would be unable to join them for dinner.
The second man she needed to talk to was her father, yet he was out the door just as fast as Demetri, waiving off her urgent need to discuss the betrothal, muttering about caviar and vodka as if that served as am explanation.
She and Maria went for a stroll down the famous Gamla Stan shopping street and enjoyed the window displays with their Christmas goods and decorations. The snow was white and crisp under her feet as they walked through a small snow flurry back to the hotel. Although it was only three in the afternoon the night sky was already settling above them.
In the hotel lobby stood one of the largest Christmas trees she had ever seen and a grand piano with a man dressed as St. Nicholas, playing carols. Good to their word, neither her father nor Demetri joined her for dinner in the dining room with its luminous chandeliers, so she went to bed early.
Invariably, she was wide awake by eleven that night. How fast would everything unravel and fall apart if she told Demetri that she would not go ahead with the betrothal, had long planned on not going ahead with the wedding? Tell him now, rather than later as her father insisted. Nor wait to see her betrothed and close the matter together.
Georgie slipped into her embroidered oriental dressing gown and belted it. Poured a glass of water, savoring the coolness against her tongue and down her throat.
She had no doubt her father was working hard to find a solution to their financial problems but in the meantime she worried Demetri was taking her reluctance to break the betrothal as a lack of strength in her feelings for him. Her brow creased, everything felt awkwardly tangled.
The betrothal was well and truly over, all that remained was the formalization of that reality.
Once that was done, she was not naive enough to think that there would be anything left between herself and Demetri. She was beginning to think that maybe that was why Demetri was acting the way he was. He was a man of the world, his family rejected her, he knew there was no future for them.
Perhaps he thought he was being noble, stepping back and stopping things before they went too far.
But what of her?
What did she want in these last days before they parted ways?
Not this distance.
Georgie sat down at the small writing desk and penned a note. Wrote it, screwed it up and wrote it again. The tension in her shoulders increased as the impossibility of finding the right words became more and more evident. If there were witty words people were supposed to use in this kind of situation, she didn’t know them. Finally, she settled for simplicity.
Our last night. Georgie
Nerves jangled under her skin as she reached for her reticule, face heating, she withdrew the postcard of a man and woman in union, chest tight, mortified with herself and yet determined…excited.
Georgie gazed at the postcard, at the entwined bodies. Her breasts warmed; the skin sensitive against the satin of her night gown. She traced the surface of the image, imagined the deep press of the man inside the woman and her sex clenched at the idea of being that woman, of Demetri being that man. His weight on her, his tongue in her mouth, their hips moving.
Her sex clenched again.
That.
That was what she wanted.
Wanted to taste, just once, what that felt like with the man she loved.
In the future they would both find other loves; would both have children and families with another; live a life full of joys and sorrows with another. If that was their fate, then she wanted him for one night as if he were wholly hers.
A small tremor came from her hands as she slipped the postcard into an envelope with her note. Her chest tightened and her body buzzed with need; need and hope he would feel the same despite the distance he was creating.
Georgie opened her bedroom door and did a quick check up and down the hallway, heart thumping she stepped out of her room and walked quietly down to Demetri’s rooms. Light slipped from under his door and immediately her heart raced. She raised her hand to knock. Anxiety twisted in her belly and she stilled. Should she talk with him instead?
No.
No…better to let him read her note, think through whatever was upsetting him and whether he wanted what she did. Their situation wasn’t ideal for him either. His family were clearly against her and her family, and yet he had wanted her. It was reasonable that he needed some time. And if he chose to keep his distance from her, she should honor that.
She took a shuddering breath. Georgie lowered her hand and slipped the note under his door then turned and started to walk down the hall back to her room.
His door opened.
She turned; throat tight.
And now there was a new reason she couldn’t breathe, Demetri stood in the doorway in black dress pants, his white shirt open at the neck and his hair mussed. He stepped back, leaving the doorway to his room free. Everything tightened as she walked back to him, brushed past the tall muscular heat of him and into his room.
The door shut and his hands clasped her upper arms, her body humming at his touch, at his pointed determination as he backed her up against the wall. Lips pressed fast against hers, she opened, and he surged deep into her mouth, her core clenching. In a heady rush as she sucked the taste of brandy off his tongue. Demetri pressed against her, hands roving over her body as he kissed, nipped and thrust into her as if he were parched. Hunger for hunger, she clung to him, body a riot of sensations. Need. Aching want burning between her legs. Fervently she kissed him back, her hands feeling the shape of him, the heat of his flesh through his shirt, all virile muscle under linen setting her alight. She pressed against him, soaked him in, wanting the feel of him, the press of him. A blind fever as her hands trailed lower, her heart lurching as she pressed her palm against the hard length of him sending the ach between her legs, deeper and deeper into her core. She rolled the root of her need under her palm, the hardness of him making her sex weep, fingers feeling the shape of him as she purred against his lips.
“Bushka.” He growled. “Siren.”
The maddening emptiness between her legs wanting that thickness pressing into her, wanting desperately to feel him move firm and deep in her until he was as close as he could get.
Demetri pulled her hair free of its braid curled his fist into it and tugged her head back sucked at her neck, nibbled her ear as she undulated under his touch, c
lutched at him lips wet, skin ablaze.
He nipped her jaw letting her hair go. “Temptress.”
She hummed her approval, nipped back at his lips, wanting each bite to sting, wanting to undo him. He traced her shape, hot palm cupping her breasts, skilled fingers found her nipple under the silk only to squeeze, a hot liquid jolt as he tugged and pulled them into stiff sensitive peaks. She panted as his mouth traced her chin, kissed her neck, her collar bone, pulled open her robe and, finally, sucked her nipple into the punishing heat of his mouth sending the sensation down to her sex.
“You are angry with me…” The words came out in a moan. Yet, she didn’t care anymore, as long as this is how he punished her.
He kissed her, deep and long until her head spun, then returned to her breasts.
“Demetri.” She groaned his name.
“A man can’t spend all his days dreaming of what he wants to do in his nights,” he murmured, his lips pressed against her nipple, “tormented, wondering if the other feels the same.”
“I do, I do,” Georgie chanted her fingers curling into his hair, tugging him back up to her lips. “I feel the same way. I do.”
He growled, pressed her against the wall, his thick thigh separating hers, tight muscle putting pressure exactly where she needed it, at her core. Demetri lifted her chin with one finger as his thigh rubbed between her legs, the tension inside her curling tighter and tighter, the anticipation, the knowledge of what he would make her body feel rippling through her with need.
“Yet when I ask you to stop the betrothal you say no.” He kissed her deep, pressing his tongue in, tasting, taking, punishing. He lifted off, considered her. There was no satisfaction in his face, just hunger, hunger and tension. “What am I to think, Georgie? You kiss me, yet you want the Prince.” His lips came back down on hers.
“No,” she gasped between assaults. “No. It’s not like that.” Yet he continued to punish her. His tightly reined-in anger began to flow free, feeding into his demanding touch, his dueling tongue. He pressed his hips against her, bucked them against her, mimicking what she wanted.
She pressed at his chest. He leaned back. “Please…trust me.”
He hovered over her lips, his face conflicted, a scowl forming.
The air pulled tight between them. Seconds ticked by.
“You don’t trust me,” she whispered. “I know it’s hard to understand, yet I thought perhaps…”
He looked annoyed, stepped back, rubbed his face then ran his hand through his hair. “What am I to think?”
Cold rushed in, she reached for him as he stepped back again.
“I don’t know what you are doing here Georgie.”
“This is our last night.” She stepped closer to him, a dull pain radiating through her chest.
He glowered and turned away, pushing his hands in his pockets.
The door clicked and Demetri knew she’d left his room.
“Yebat’,“ he swore.
His hands clenched and unclenched, tightness clamping every muscle, he wanted to punch a hole in the wall in damn frustration. Wanted to drag her back, shake her…kiss her…ruin her. Why didn’t she just break the damn betrothal?
Demetri poured a scotch and downed it, looked back at the door and swore again. The envelope she’d passed underneath it was still on the floor. He went over and picked it up, opened it.
His eyes sunk closed and his cock thickened. He shook his head. She was going to be the death of him. The postcard made him burn, the ghost of her under his hands, on his tongue flaring back to life.
He had gone out of his way to create distance, his blood too hot to make a rational decision.
What did she do in response?
She invites him to fuck her senseless.
He wanted her. If it were just physical, and it was very physical, he could manage it but it was more. Much more.
He liked her.
Admired her.
Looked forward to spending time together.
Wanted to know what she thought.
Wanted to simply be with her.
She spoke Russian! And spoke it well! She knew their history. And their time together had unveiled her involvement with the small expat community of Russians in London, joining their fundraising and causes; all the while carrying his likeness in her skirt pocket. How could he not be bewitched, not burn for her?
The reasons which had driven him, his family’s honor, the blackmail, they were melting in his heat for her. Yet despite her warm smiles and soft moans, she seemed to hold on to her focus, the betrothal was not yet called off.
Unlike when he was in London, he now had more than enough to force her father’s hand. However, that was no longer the point.
No.
He wanted her to call it off because she wanted to, because she chose him, because he was the one she wanted, not someone to whom her family betrothed her, some prince she had never met.
And her resolve wasn’t crumbling as his was.
It was a terrible vulnerability to want her more than she wanted him. This naked unease he bore despite his breeding’s discomfort. He was prepared to rethink the whole situation for her, but he needed her to do that for him. To throw everything to the wind and face whatever came as a result of that act. She would have everything when she did and so would he. He would have a woman who wanted him, not because of some arrangement, not for status, for financial benefit, just for the love of him.
Demetri dropped the postcard on the table. Her note read:- Our last night.
Jaw tight, he ripped it in half.
This damn note was again a reflection of her choosing the betrothal over him. He wanted all her nights whereas she saw this as their last night.
His chest squeezed as he looked at the fragments of paper feeling equally torn.
Going to her, doing what she wanted, might very well be the end of him should she reject him afterward. Yet, if he didn’t go…if he didn’t go, he would have forfeited the battle before the fight began. He ran his hand through his hair, swore again, He’d known what he was going to do the moment he saw the postcard.
Demetri opened the door and walked down the hall to her room, cock thick, chest tight. There was light under the door. He ran his hand through his hair. Slowed his breathing, let the tightness in his chest, in his shoulders go.
He scratched at the wood, strained to hear sounds of movement from the other side. Seconds passed. His chest tightened. He lifted his hand to knock.
The door opened and immediately the tension left, and his heart softened…there had been tears.
He tilted his head to the side, gave her a half smile, reached and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. She couldn’t possibly have thought he could stay away from her. How could’ve he?
She pressed into his touch and he melted a little more.
The door closed behind him. He locked it. The tension coiling as he tugged her close, holding her tight, all breasts and warm feminine curves as her arms wrapped around him, her face pressed to his chest above the slow steady beat of his heart.
Tears were good. More than good.
Tears were exactly what he needed.
“Bushka, Bushka,” his harms tightened their hold and his hands stroked and soothed. It pleased him no end, she was not so in control, not as free of struggles as her determination to stay with the betrothal indicated. His chest bloomed. He murmured to her in Russian, small endearments, “my precious, my heart, my everything.” He was going to show her, going to make it impossible for her to walk away from him…the man, not the prince….the man.
“You hurt me,” came a muffled voice.
He kissed her hair all tumbled and loose. It featured in many a fantasy.
“And you me.” He murmured against her skull.
Georgie lifted her head, hair falling everywhere, eyes so full of hope and, just maybe...love. “I did?”
He brought a hand to his heart and put on a pained face. “All those roses….”
She laughed and he became lightheaded.
“You really should tell me to leave...” He stroked her lip. He should leave.
The temptress shook her head, “I can’t.” Drew him down with hands that burned his skin, kissed him with eager hunger kisses making him throb. Hands touched his face, his lower abdomen tightened as lips brushed against his skin, soft warmth trailing over his neck his jaw, his ear. Delicious, but after the photograph she’d sent him, not near enough. He drew off the belt to her robe and it escalated in seconds, clothes tugged off, breath panting between kisses and touches, the flush on her cheeks like crushed berries.
They made it to the bed and collapsed on it. Every touch making him harder, driving him further into the foggy lust already obscuring clear thought. Hands, mouths, tugging of clothes, and suddenly she was naked, her pale skin like cream, hair fanned out round her.
The air stilled…he swallowed. “You’re beautiful.”
His gaze lingered over her beauty. Her waist was so small. It made her hips flare out into heart shaped buttocks and long lean legs. She was the shape women coveted in their corsets and men coveted in their fantasies. And then there were her breasts, full, rounded and topped with tight rose nipples. But they would have to wait. He had a need for more intimate things.
Demetri trailed his hands over the satin texture of her, traced her ribs as her breath shuddered in and out. Traced over her stomach and cupped her. A possessive touch, his thumb stroking her mound as she rocked against his palm, her desire seeping onto his fingers. It took all his restraint to not bring that same hand up to his nose to inhale her, to not lick his skin and lap up the taste of her.
A ragged sound escaped the both of them.
He moved himself down the bed, hips pressing into the cool sheets as he lay between her legs and nuzzled into the soft damp triangle of her curls. Honey and musk, her scent filled his lungs Pulling him closer, he pressed his face into her folds and drew his tongue through them. Pressed closer and lapped at her, muscles flexing as his cock twitched under him. His fingers pulled her lips apart and he drew even closer wanting nothing, not even air between them. Mercilessly he licked, sucked, tasted, spreading creamy thighs wider on either side of him. He was going to break her open, remove whatever kept her connected to the betrothal, anything that stopped her from abandoning everything and choosing him.
Once Upon a Christmas Wedding Page 178
