The Secret Beneath the Veil

by Dani Collins

  They shuffled their feet closer, sealing themselves one against the other, trying to press through clothing and skin so their cells would weave into a single being.

  The thrust of his aroused flesh pressed into her stomach and a wrench of conflict went through her. This moment was too perfect. It felt too good to be held like this, to ruin it with humiliating confessions about her defect and entreaties for special treatment. She felt too much toward him, not least gratitude and wonder and a regard that was tied to his compliments and his protection and his hand dragging her to the surface of the water before he’d even known her name.

  She ached to share something with him, had since almost the first moment she’d seen him. Be careful, she told herself. Sex was powerful. She was already very susceptible to him.

  But she couldn’t make herself stop touching him. Her hands strayed to feel his shape, tracing him through his pants. It was a bold move for her, but she was entranced. Curious and enthralled. There was a part of her that desperately wanted to know she could please a man, this man in particular.

  His breath hissed in and his whole body hardened. He gathered his muscles as if he was preparing to dip and lift her against his chest.

  She drew back.

  His arms twitched in protest, but he let her look at where his erection pressed against the front of his suit pants. He was really aroused. She licked her lips, not superconfident in what she wanted to do, but she wanted to do it.

  She unbuckled his belt.

  His hands searched under the fall of her hair. His touch ran down her spine, releasing the back of her dress.

  As the cool air swirled from her waist around to her belly, her stomach fluttered with nerves. She swallowed, aware of her breasts as her bodice loosened and shifted against her bare nipples. She shivered as his fingertips stroked her bare back. Her hands shook as she pulled his shirt free and clumsily opened his buttons, then spread the edges wide so she could admire his chest.

  Pressing her face to his taut skin, she rubbed back and forth and back again, absorbing the feel of him with her brow and lips, drawing in his scent, too moved to smile when he said something in a tight voice and slid his palm under her dress to brand her bottom with his hot palm.

  Her mouth opened of its own accord, painting a wet path to his nipple. She explored the shape with her tongue, earned another tight curse, then hit the other one with a draw of her mouth. Foreplay and foreshadowing, she thought with a private smile.

  “Bedroom,” he growled, bringing his hands out of her dress and setting them on her waist, thumbs against her hip bones as he pressed her back a step.

  Dazed at how her own arousal was climbing, Viveka smiled, pleased to see the glitter in his eyes and the flush on his cheeks. It increased her tentative confidence. She placed her hands on his chest and let her gaze stray past him to the armchair, silently urging him toward it.

  * * *

  Mikolas let her have her way out of sheer fascination. He refused to call it weakness, even though he was definitely under a spell of some kind. He had known there was a sensual woman inside Viveka screaming to get out. He hadn’t expected this, though.

  It wasn’t manipulation, either. There were no sly smiles or knowing looks as she slid to her knees between his, kissing his neck, stroking down his front so his abdominals contracted under her tickling fingertips. She was focused and enthralled, timid but genuinely excited. It was erotic to be wanted like this. Beyond exciting.

  As she finished opening his pants, his brain shorted out. He was vaguely aware of lifting his hips so she could better expose him. The sob of want that left her was the kind of siren call that had been the downfall of ancient seamen. He nearly exploded on the spot.

  He was thick and aching, so hot he wanted to rip his clothes from his body, but he was transfixed. He gripped the armrest in his aching hand and the back of the chair over his shoulder with the other, trying to hold on to his control.

  He shouldn’t let her do this, he thought distantly. His discipline was in shreds. But therein lay her power. He couldn’t make himself stop her. That was the naked truth.

  She took him in hand, her touch light, her pale hands pretty against the dark strain of his flesh. He was so hard he thought he’d break, so aroused he couldn’t breathe, and so captivated, he could only hold still and watch through slitted eyes as her head dipped.

  He groaned aloud as her hair slid against his exposed skin and her wet mouth took him in, narrowing his world to the tip of his sex. It was the most exquisite sensation, nearly undoing him between one breath and the next. She kept up the tender, lascivious act until he was panting, barely able to speak.

  “I can’t hold back,” he managed to grit out.

  Slowly her head lifted, pupils huge as pansies in the dim light, mouth swollen and shiny like he’d been kissing her for hours.

  “I don’t want you to.” Her hot breath teased his wet flesh, tightening all his nerve endings, pulling him to a point that ended where her tongue flicked out and stole what little remained of his willpower.

  He gave himself up to her. This was for both of them, he told himself. He would have staying power after this. He’d make it good for her, as good as this. Nothing could be better, but at least this good—

  The universe exploded and he shouted his release to the ceiling.

  CHAPTER NINE

  VIVEKA HUGGED THE front of her gaping dress to her breasts and could barely meet her own glassy eyes in the mirror. She was flushed and aroused and deeply self-conscious. She couldn’t believe what she’d just done, but she had no regrets. She had enjoyed giving Mikolas pleasure. It had been extraordinary.

  She had needed that for herself. She wasn’t a failure in the bedroom after all. Okay, the lounge, she allowed with a smirk.

  Her hand trembled as she removed the pins from her hair, pride quickly giving way to sexual frustration and embarrassment. Even a hint of desolation. If she wasn’t such a freak, if she wasn’t afraid she’d lose herself completely, they could have found release together.

  Being selfless was satisfying in other ways, though. He might be thanking her for breaking up the wedding and saving him a few bucks, but she was deeply grateful for the way he had acknowledged her as worth saving, worth protecting.

  The bathroom door that she’d swung almost closed pushed open, making her heart catch.

  Mikolas took up a lazy pose that made carnal hunger clench mercilessly in her middle. The flesh that was hot with yearning squeezed and ached.

  His open shirt hung off his shoulders, framing the light pattern of hair that ran down from his breastbone. His unfastened pants gaped low across his hips, revealing the narrow line of hair from his navel. His eyelids were heavy, disguising his thoughts, but his voice was gritty enough to make her shiver.

  “You’re taking too long.”

  The words were a sensual punch, flushing her with eager heat. At the same time, alarm bells—anxious clangs of performance anxiety—went off within her, cooling her ardor.

  “For?” She knew what he meant, but she’d taken care of his need. They were done. Weren’t they? If she’d ever had sex before, she wouldn’t be so unsure.

  “Finishing what you started.”

  “You did finish. You can’t—” Was he growing hard again? It looked like his boxers were straining against the open fly of his pants.

  She read. She knew basic biology. She knew he’d climaxed, so how was that happening? Was she really so incapable of gratifying a man that even oral sex failed to do the job?

  “You can’t... Men don’t...again. Can they?” She trailed off, blushing and hating that his first real smile came at the expense of her inexperience.

  “I’ll last longer this time,” he promised drily. “But I don’t want to wait. Get your butt in that bed, or I’ll have you here, ben
t over the sink.”

  Oh, she was never going to be that spontaneous. Ever. And for a first time? While he talked about lasting a long time?

  “No.” She hitched the shoulder of her dress and reached behind herself to close it. “You finished. We’re done.” Her face was on fire, but inside she was growing cold.

  He straightened off the doorjamb. “What?”

  “I don’t want to have sex.” Not entirely true. She longed to understand the mystique behind the act, but his talk of sink-bending only told her how far apart they were in experience. The more she thought about it, the more she went into a state of panic. Not him. Not tonight when she was already an emotional mess.

  She struggled to close her zip, then crossed her arms, taking a step backward even though he hadn’t moved toward her.

  He frowned. “You don’t want sex?”

  Was he deaf?

  “No,” she assured him. Her back came up against the towel rail, which was horribly uncomfortable. She waved toward the door he was blocking. “You can go.”

  He didn’t move, only folded his own arms and rocked back on his heels. “Explain this to me. And use small words, because I don’t understand what happened between the lounge and here.”

  “Nothing happened.” She couldn’t stand that he was making her wallow in her inadequacy. “You... I mean, I thought I gave you what you wanted. If you thought—”

  He didn’t even want her. Not really. He would decide if and when, she recalled.

  Good luck with that, champ. Her body made that decision for everyone involved, no matter what her head said.

  Do not cry. Oh, she hated her body right now. Her stupid, dumb body that had made her life go so far sideways she didn’t even understand how she was standing here having this awful conversation.

  “Can you just go?” She glared at him for making this so hard for her, but her eyes stung. She bet they were red and pathetic looking. If he made her tell him, and he laughed— “Please?”

  He stayed there one more long moment, searching her gaze, before slowly moving back, taking the door with him, closing it as he left. The click sounded horribly final.

  Viveka stepped forward and turned the lock, not because she was afraid he’d come in looking for sex, but afraid he’d come in and catch her crying.

  With a wrench of her hand, she started the shower.

  * * *

  Mikolas was sitting in the dark, nursing an ouzo, when he heard Viveka’s door open.

  He’d closed it himself an hour ago, when he’d gone in to check on her and found her on the guest bed, hair wrapped in a towel, one of his monogramed robes swallowing her in black silk. She’d been fast asleep, her very excellent legs bare to midthigh, a crumpled tissue in her lax grip. Several more had been balled up around her.

  Rather than easing his mind, rather than answering any of the million questions crowding his thoughts, the sight had caused the turmoil inside him to expand, spinning in fresh and awful directions. Was he such a bad judge of a woman’s needs? Why did he feel as though he’d taken advantage of her? She had pressed him into this very chair. She had opened his pants. She had gone down and told him to let go.

  He’d been high as a kite when he had tracked her into her bathroom, certain he’d find her naked and waiting for him. Every red blood cell he possessed had been keening with anticipation.

  It hadn’t gone that way at all.

  She’d felt threatened.

  He was a strong, dominant man. He knew that and tried to take his aggressive nature down a notch in the bedroom. He knew what it was like to be brutalized by someone bigger and more powerful. He would never do that to the smaller and weaker.

  He kept having flashes of slender, delicate Viveka looking anxious as she noticed he was still hard. He thought about her fear of Grigor. A libido-killing dread had been tying his stomach in knots ever since.

  He couldn’t bear the idea of her being abused that way. He’d punched Grigor tonight, but he wished he had killed him. There was still time, he kept thinking. He wasn’t so far removed from his bloodline that he didn’t know how to make a man disappear.

  He listened to Viveka’s bare feet approach, thinking he couldn’t blame her for trying to sneak out on him.

  She paused as she arrived at the end of the hall, obviously noticing his shadowed figure. She had changed into pajamas and clipped up her hair. She tucked a stray wisp behind her ear.

  “I’m hungry. Do you want toast?” She didn’t wait for his response, charging past him through to the kitchen.

  He unbent and slowly made his way into the kitchen behind her.

  She had turned on the light over the stove and kept her back to him as she filled the kettle at the sink. After she set the switch to Boil, she went to the freezer and found a frozen loaf of sliced bread.

  Still keeping her back to him, she broke off four slices and set them in the toaster.

  “Viveka.”

  Her slender back flinched at the sound of his voice.

  So did he. The things he was thinking were piercing his heart. He’d been bleeding internally since the likeliest explanation had struck him hours ago. When someone reacted that defensively against sexual contact, the explanation seemed really obvious.

  “When you said Grigor abused you...” He wasn’t a coward, but he didn’t want to speak it. Didn’t want to hear it. “Did he...?” His voice failed him.

  * * *

  Viveka really wished he hadn’t still been up. In her perfect world, she never would have had to face him again, but as the significance of his broken question struck her, she realized she couldn’t avoid telling him.

  She buried her face in her hands. “No. That’s not it. Not at all.”

  She really didn’t want to face him.

  But she had to.

  Shoulders sagging, she turned and wilted against the cupboards behind her. Her hands stayed against her stinging cheeks.

  “Please don’t laugh.” That’s what the one other man she’d told had done. She’d felt so raw it was no wonder she hadn’t been able to go all the way with him, either.

  She dared a peek at Mikolas. He’d closed a couple of buttons, but his shirt hung loose over his pants. His hair was ruffled, as though his fingers had gone through it a few times. His jaw was shadowed with stubble and he looked tired. Troubled.

  “I won’t laugh.” He hadn’t slept, even though it was past two in the morning. For some reason that flipped her heart.

  “I wasn’t a very happy teenager, obviously,” she began. “I did what a lot of disheartened young girls do. I looked for a boy to save me. There was a nice one who didn’t have much, but he had a kind heart. I can’t say I loved him, not even puppy love, but I liked him. We started seeing each other on the sly, behind Grigor’s back. After a while it seemed like the time to, you know, have sex.”

  The toaster made a few pinging, crackling noises and the kettle was beginning to hiss. She chewed her lip, fully grown and many years past it, but still chagrined.

  “I mean, fourteen is criminally young, I realize that. And not having any really passionate feelings for him... It’s not a wonder it didn’t work.”

  “Didn’t work,” he repeated, like he was testing words he didn’t know.

  She clenched her eyes shut. “He didn’t fit. It hurt too much and I made him stop. Please don’t laugh,” she rushed to add.

  “I’m not laughing.” His voice was low and grave. “You’re telling me you’re a virgin? You never tried again?”

  “Oh, I did,” she said to the ceiling, insides scraped hollow.

  She moved around looking for the tea and butter, trying to escape how acutely humiliating this was.

  “My life was a mess for quite a while, though. Grigor found out I’d been seeing the boy and tha
t I’d gone to the police about Mum. He kicked me out and I moved to London. That was a culture shock. The weather, the city. Aunt Hildy had all these rules. It wasn’t until I finished my A levels and was working that I started dating again. There was a guy from work. He was very smooth. I realize now he was a player, but I was quite taken in.”

  The toast popped and she buttered it, taking her time, spreading right to the edges.

  “He laughed when I told him why I was nervous.” She scraped the knife in careful licks across the surface of the toast. “He was so determined to be The One. We fooled around a little, but he was always putting this pressure on me to go all the way. I wanted to have sex. It’s supposed to be great, right?”

  Pressure arrived behind her eyes again. She couldn’t look at him, but she listened, waiting for his confirmation that yes, all the sex he’d had with his multitude of lovers had been fantastic.

  Silence.

  “Finally I said we could try, but it really hurt. He said it was supposed to and didn’t want to stop. I lost my temper and threw him out. We haven’t spoken since.”

  “Do you still work with him?”

  “No. Old job. Long gone.” The toast was buttered before her on two plates, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn and see his reaction.

  She was all cried out, but familiar, hopeless angst cloaked her. She just wanted to be like most people and have sex and like it.

  “Are you laughing?” Her voice was thready and filled with the embarrassed anguish she couldn’t disguise.

  “Not at all.” His voice sounded like he was talking from very far away. “I’m thinking that not in a thousand years would I have guessed that. Nothing you do fits with the way other people behave. It didn’t make sense that you would give me pleasure and not want anything for yourself. You respond to me. I couldn’t imagine why you didn’t want sex.”