Ruthless Magnate, Convenient Wife

by Lynne Graham

  Unaware of the mental moral tussle his bride was engaged in, Sergei was now in an excellent mood while he mentally ticked off boxes with a great deal of satisfaction. Most importantly of all, Alissa had hit it off with Yelena. Strangely, he acknowledged, Alissa seemed to bear no resemblance to the woman described in the psychological profile he had had done on her. How was that possible? Did it mean that such profiles could be so inaccurate that they were not worth the paper they were written on? Or was it simply that Alissa was an excellent actress, well up to the challenge of concealing her less engaging traits of character?

  But why on earth was he splitting hairs when she was putting on a wonderful performance? Evidently he had picked the right woman for the role and now all he had to do was get her pregnant. Not a challenge he was likely to shrink from, he conceded with dark sexual amusement. The arousal that always assailed him to some degree in Alissa’s presence was already charging his lean powerful body with erotic expectancy.

  Outside the hotel doors being spread wide for their entrance, Sergei scooped Alissa up into his arms and carried her over the threshold to the accompaniment of the shouts, cheers and comments freely offered by the guests grouped in the foyer. Perhaps that was the first hint that Alissa received that Russian weddings were often a good deal less sedate than English ones. Everything seemed rather more colourful and informal.

  As soon as they were seated a man stood up to toast the newlyweds and moments later there was an outcry of, ‘Gorko! Gorko!’

  ‘Now we kiss for as long as we can,’ Sergei told her, brilliant dark eyes frowning at her bewildered expression. ‘Didn’t you bother to read the information you were sent?’

  Alexa had struck again, Alissa recognised in frustration, and annoyance filled her. That was the moment that Sergei chose to pry her lips apart with the tender pressure of his slow, sensual mouth. That more subtle approach wasn’t what she expected from him and ironically she initially tensed in surprise. But when he dipped his tongue between her lips, her knees developed a responsive wobble and her hands crept up round his neck to steady herself. The guests were chanting but she didn’t know what they were saying. Indeed the presence of an audience could only be a source of discomfort when Sergei was making love to her mouth with a sweet shattering eroticism that made mincemeat of her resistance. It seemed a very long time later when he finally freed her and she dropped back down into her seat dizzily, still drunk on the hot hungry taste of him and the thrumming of her awakened body.

  Only a moment later when she was studying the assembled guests she was astonished to realise that she actually knew one of them. Her brightening eyes dimmed, however, when she failed to pick out the man’s wife at the same table. Without a word she got up and went over to speak to him.

  Crown Prince Jasim was already rising to greet her approach with a wide smile of welcome. ‘Alissa, what a great pleasure it is to be at your wedding. When the invitation arrived, I’m afraid I paid no attention to the bride’s identity, for it never occurred to me that I might already know her.’

  ‘Elinor isn’t here with you?’ Alissa queried just as Sergei drew level and curved an arm to her slender spine.

  ‘Sergei…’ The handsome heir to the hereditary desert throne of Quaram delivered his congratulations before turning back to Alissa to answer her question about her friend and former flatmate. ‘Sami has a bad dose of chickenpox and Elinor could not bring herself to leave him.’

  Alissa fully understood that maternal decision on her friend’s part. ‘Of course, she couldn’t. If Sami’s miserable he’ll need his mother for comfort.’ She asked after Jasim and Elinor’s little daughter, Mariyah. When Alissa had last seen the royal children, Mariyah had been a newborn baby.

  ‘How did you get to know Jasim’s wife?’ Sergei asked, amazed that such an association had escaped his knowledge.

  ‘I met her when she was pregnant with Sami and living in London. I was a student then and Elinor and I, along with another girl, shared a flat for a while,’ she explained. ‘But it’s been months since I last heard from Elinor. We always meet up when she visits London. She’s still one of my closest friends but since she married Jasim she’s become incredibly busy. I must phone her and catch up. What’s your connection with Jasim?’

  ‘We see each other regularly at OPEC meetings. I’ve never met his wife but I’ve heard that she’s a beauty.’

  A warm smile lit up Alissa’s heart-shaped face. ‘She is. And I learned to knit purely for Sami’s benefit. He was the most gorgeous baby,’ she told him softly.

  Someone else was toasting them and the same chant of ‘Gorko! Gorko!’ started up again. Dark eyes locked appreciatively to her smiling face, Sergei took her into his arms to kiss and she was more than ready for the experience the second time around. It was like falling from an exhilarating height and burning up in the process. In the aftermath, her pulses were racing. When the wedding breakfast was served, she drank champagne and picked without much appetite at the first course she was served while an internationally famous singer took to the floor to entertain them.

  In a party atmosphere that ensured that there was a good deal more drinking than eating going on, Alissa enjoyed several drinks and felt a little dizzy when she got up to dance with Sergei. She was wondering how a man she barely knew could have such a massive impact on her. Around him her body had a life of its own. She was short of breath without running and when he drew her close and the evocative scent of his skin and the cologne he used assailed her, butterflies went mad in her tummy. Inwardly she was already regretting that, with vodka flowing like literal water, she might have accepted too many of the drinks pressed on her.

  ‘Tell me,’ Alissa asked as she ditched her usual caution while they danced, ‘was a wish to please your grandmother the reason you wanted a wife?’

  Sergei tensed and glanced down at her with cool dark eyes.

  Alissa tilted her chin. ‘There’s no need to look at me as if I’m about to run off and tell the newspapers!’

  His aggressive jaw line clenched. ‘You had better not,’ he murmured with chilling bite. ‘I will not have Yelena hurt.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hurt her. She’s so happy you’ve got married,’ Alissa whispered, noting the old lady’s animation as she chatted to her companions at the table. After a bad first marriage, Sergei had been understandably reluctant to take the plunge a second time. That made perfect sense to her. His caring so much for an elderly relative, however, touched her heart and showed her another side to his tough character. But her smooth brow furrowed because she could only consider his solution to Yelena’s desire for him to remarry downright quixotic and blind in the short term. Surely his grandmother would only be more upset when his second marriage broke down as well?

  ‘To ensure that you don’t cause a scene, milaya moya,’ Sergei murmured lazily, ‘I will warn you that you are about to be snatched away from me. It’s a tradition. I ransom you back.’

  So, Alissa made no protest at being hustled out of the function room by a noisy crowd of well-refreshed guests and thrust into what she at first took for a cupboard but which, on lengthier scrutiny, she realised was a housekeeper’s storage room. She leant back against the shelves and wondered how long it would take for him to pay the ransom.

  Only minutes later she had her answer when the door flew open framing Sergei’s tall, powerful frame. He snatched her into his arms again and kissed her, all the raw energy and white hot sexuality of his temperament poured into that potent sensual assault. As he whirled her away to a chorus of approval someone trod on her dress and she heard a worrying ripping sound.

  ‘My dress is torn!’ she exclaimed, her hands clutching the sparkling fabric over her thighs in dismay.

  Sergei crouched down to examine the frayed remnant of fabric now trailing. He leapt up again and signalled someone. Ten minutes later she was standing in the bedroom of a fabulous hotel suite, clad only in her lingerie while her dress was carefully repaired in the reception roo
m next door. She flinched and spun round in dismay when the door opened without even the hint of a warning knock.

  Sergei focused on her small slender figure and the laughing comment he had meant to make fell from his memory there and then. She whipped her arms protectively round her scantily clad body but not before he had had the opportunity to enjoy an enchanting glimpse of her pale rounded curves. He leant back against the door and snapped home the lock, his dark eyes flashing hot gold at the sight of the pouting breasts encased in white gossamer-fine lace that revealed her delicate pink nipples. Her tiny waist, the feminine swell of her hips and the elegant sweep of her slender thighs only heightened his interest.

  ‘Why are you hiding yourself? Let me see you properly, milaya moya,’ Sergei urged, discovering to his amazement that he was as eager as a boy to see her naked. The pulse at his groin, which had kept him simmering on the edge of full arousal for hours, accelerated.

  Her aquamarine eyes widened, her body quickening with a desire she couldn’t stifle. His heated look of masculine appreciation flattered her, making her unexpectedly proud of her body. But innate common sense told her that such a thought was brazen and likely to get her into trouble. Furthermore she could not credit that her rather ordinary shape could compare to that of the international selection of well-known beauties he was accustomed to being with. Embarrassment and discomfiture attacked her then in a blinding wave. She sat down at the foot of the bed and crossed her arms, concealing her lightly clad body as best she could.

  Sergei had had more than enough of waiting. Ever since the first night with her at his club, he had been ablaze with fierce sexual need and impatience. For a man with no concept of female reluctance or of pleasure deferred, that wait had proved a tough and thankless challenge. Now, with his lean muscular body honed to a raw edge of desire by the kissing, the dancing and the lack of privacy that had enforced rigorous restraint on his strong libido, he was intensely hungry for her and in no mood to hide it. In a sudden movement, he pitched off his jacket and yanked loose his tie.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Alissa asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘You’re not very good at following through on orders, are you?’ Sergei murmured in his deep, dark, accented drawl. ‘That wilful independent streak is something we can work on together—’

  ‘We can’t…er…get involved,’ Alissa protested, her voice taking on a slightly shrill note that carried a hint of panic.

  ‘There’s no point in saying that we can’t do what we’ve already done,’ Sergei countered with fierce conviction and he reached for her hands to tug her up off the bed without further ado. ‘I’ve been involved from the first moment I saw you. It’s not what I planned; it’s definitely not what I wanted. I never mix business with pleasure—’

  ‘This is business,’ she reminded him shakily, having discovered that those scorching golden eyes of his had sufficient impact to hold her as securely still as handcuffs and leg irons. She wanted to pull back and stay connected to him at one and the same time.

  ‘But it’s also an exception because it embraces you and I want you more than I’ve wanted any woman in a very long time,’ Sergei imparted with charged urgency.

  ‘You’re only trying to justify yourself,’ Alissa reasoned in growing desperation.

  ‘Of course I am, dorogaya moya,’ he responded with immense assurance. ‘I’ve made my fortune from being a very adaptable man. We are together for the foreseeable future and will be living in the most intimate of connections—what is logical and reasonable should guide our behaviour.’

  As his masculine gaze flamed over her Alissa snatched in a sharp breath, for his keen appraisal was making her feel as self-conscious as if she were already naked. And she saw no logic whatsoever in being wildly attracted to a guy so far removed from her in terms of wealth and status. Indeed, she saw only disaster. ‘It would just complicate things,’ she muttered in feverish rebuttal.

  Sergei knew women. She couldn’t stop staring at him, Her pupils were dilated, her lips moistly parted, her breathing audible. He could sense how close he was to victory. ‘I don’t do complicated. Trust me I’ll keep it straightforward.’

  Confident as ever, he lowered his handsome dark head, his luxuriant black hair gleaming in the light of the lamp she had lit to chase the wintry darkness of late afternoon. He pressed a teasing kiss to the corner of her tremulous lips. Instantly, revealingly, she turned her head straight into the kiss, lips parting in readiness for the exhilarating plunge of his tongue. Low in her throat she moaned when he gave her what she longed for in that first kiss and a knot of gathering sexual tension clenched tight in her pelvis, leaving her awesomely aware of her body.

  How could she possibly trust him? He was notorious with women. If a supermodel or a famous actress couldn’t hold him for longer than five minutes, what hope had she? But his unashamed single-minded desire for her excited Alissa and ensured that she felt truly feminine and attractive for the first time in her life. Even so she was uneasily conscious of her inexperience and suspected that it might shock him, possibly even repulse him. He shifted against her, one hand cupping her hips to tilt her to him so that she could feel the urgent vigour of the erection tenting the fine fabric of his trousers. A quiver of pure hunger, as sharp as it was painful in its intensity, slivered through her.

  Sergei unclipped the bra with one hand and drew it down her arms before succumbing to the temptation of looking at her beautifully formed breasts. He cupped the pert mounds in reverent fingers. ‘You are a work of art.’

  His fingers brushed the lush pouting buds that crowned the full swells. He was already as hard as steel and he vented an earthy groan of appreciation and backed her down on the bed, his mouth swooping down to capture a quivering nipple to tease it with the slick of his tongue and the edge of his teeth.

  That sweet torment of sensation arrowed straight down to the hot damp place between her thighs and raised her temperature to a tingling height. Her hips squirmed in a rhythm as old as time. She dragged him up to kiss her again, rejoicing in his passion but desperately hungry for more. Her untried body was soaking up every new sensation like a sponge and responding with increasing demands.

  The level of her response astounded Sergei. He reeled back from her to haul at his shirt and she leant over him, tugging frantically at buttons with an eager lack of sophistication and dexterity that he found tremendously attractive.

  The shirt finally conquered with the loss of only one button, Alissa studied his golden-toned torso and the pelt of curling black hair accentuating his pectoral muscles and felt weak with longing. She let her hands run unsteadily down over his stomach, felt his taut muscles contract in reaction and pressed her lips to a masculine nipple, headily drinking in the familiar smell of his skin.

  ‘Yizihkom,’ he breathed thickly.

  ‘In English?’ Alissa gasped.

  Sergei tipped up her chin, dark golden eyes smouldering with sexual heat. ‘Use your tongue,’ he translated thickly, wondering at her tentative caresses and the way in which his advice caused immediate hot colour to rise in her cheeks.

  Knowing she needed all the help she could get, Alissa obliged, keen to please him as much as he had pleased her and driven on by the fire of craving at the heart of her. He tasted every bit as good as he looked and had he not pushed her back onto the mattress to torment the hard buds of her sensitised nipples, she would certainly have become more daring. Her downfall was complete when he employed a seeking hand below the lace panties and found the precise spot to tease, destroying what remained of her self control. With a helpless cry she arched up to him and he crushed her mouth below his, his tongue meshing with hers in an erotic dance.

  ‘Please…oh, please!’ Alissa moaned, burning with all-encompassing need and beyond thought.

  With a roughened curse half under his breath, Sergei ripped off her panties and discovered the warm wet welcome awaiting him with a savage sound of overpoweringly male satisfaction. Springing upright, he dis
pensed with his own clothing while she looked up at him with dazed eyes of need.

  He was so beautiful—a pagan vision of bronzed muscular power and energy. He was also very aroused and her first sight of a fully erect male was daunting.

  ‘We’ll never fit!’ she told him before she could think better of it.

  Sergei laughed out loud, for it struck him as such a naïve and irrational comment from a woman who had stated in an interview that she considered herself very much a woman of the world and comfortable with men. ‘I am so hot for you, I am in pain,’ he confessed, coming down to her again.

  He entered her hard and fast and she yelped and flinched with pain.

  An incredulous look in his hot golden gaze, as he had felt the resistance of her flesh to his invasion, he growled, ‘You cannot be a virgin…’

  ‘Why? Is there a law against it?’ Alissa countered, her low voice raw with embarrassment and the lingering shards of discomfort still throbbing through her tender flesh.

  ‘Do you want me to stop?’ Sergei was frozen with frustration and a hunger that made him tremble because the lush, tight fit of her tiny body round him was extraordinarily pleasurable.

  He was already trying and failing to replace the image of the woman he had thought she was with the woman she now appeared to be. He had picked a wife he’d believed would spring no surprises on him. Better the devil you know, he had decided, and who had more experience than he of shallow, unemotional and mercenary women? Instead he had found himself a virgin and suddenly he understood the blushes and the awkwardness and the confusing signals she gave him. He studied her from below the screen of his ink-black lashes and the rarity of the gift she had given him finally struck him. She was his wife and no one but him had ever got this intimate with her. It was a thought that had strong appeal for a male as discerning as he was. The disturbing surprise suddenly became a cause for celebration.