You're So Vein
Page 24
“It doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“I love your mouth.” He pressed a kiss to her lips to prove it, and found himself sinking unintentionally deeper, savoring the sweet, sleepy flavor of her, still warm from sleep and soft from dreams. It was several minutes before he could pull himself away. “Wow, I really love your mouth. But it does have a tendency to … how can I put this? … slice a man’s balls off when he least expects it.”
“Now be fair. I have no problem slicing off a woman’s balls when necessary,” she said, dropping her haughty mask into place. The teaming of it with the disheveled hair and breasts barely covered by a wrinkled sheet made him want to tumble her backward and love her senseless. But first things first.
“That’s right. So really it’s for the sake of all humanity—no, all living beings in general—that you have to marry me. A sacrifice to the greater good. You can just lie back and think of England. I promise to do all the work.”
She stared down at him, her mouth softening and curving. She looked like she couldn’t quite believe what he was saying, but that she wanted to with all her heart. “You do realize that you’re saying you’ve just proposed to me because I’m such a horrible person that no one else will ever want me, and even if they do, I’ll be so mean to them that in order to preserve the future happiness of everyone everywhere, you’ll make the ultimate sacrifice and marry me.”
He nodded. “In a nutshell.”
“Wow. You’re quite the romantic.”
She shook her head, and he could read in her expression that she was baffled by this new, more light-hearted side of him. Frankly, he was a little surprised himself, but then again, he couldn’t remember the last time his heart had felt so light. He wasn’t sure if it was from the completion of his mission, the capture of his family’s old enemy, or the realization that he had found the woman he would love for the rest of eternity, but he was betting on the last one.
“Come on,” he urged, pulling her down for another kiss, this one longer, deeper, but just as sweet. “Marry me. You have to marry me.”
She drew back and pursed her lips as if debating the possibilities. “If I do, will you promise to teach me to speak Russian?”
He blinked in surprise. “Of course, if you would like. S udovol’stviem.”
“Which means?”
“ ‘With pleasure.’ ”
This time, she leaned down to kiss him, and her lips lingered, making his heart and his sex tighten. When she drew back, he opened his eyes and saw his own love reflected there, and he began to smile.
Ava sighed. “Oh, all right.” She accepted his proposal just as graciously as he had given it, and it made him want to laugh. “I suppose I’ll have to marry you. After all, if no one else will want me, there can hardly be any hope for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sweetheart.” She smiled at him, wicked, and ran her hand over his bare chest, her fingers light and teasing. “You must have realized by now that after me, every other woman on earth is going to seem completely bland and colorless. I can’t possibly let you suffer like that.”
Dima laughed, a deep, bed-shaking belly laugh that nearly sent her tumbling down onto his chest. She braced her arms and locked her elbows to keep herself from falling forward.
“I didn’t think it was quite that funny,” she told him coolly.
“I know.” He grinned. “That is because you are the most arrogant, vain, high-opinioned woman in the entire world.” When she began to look truly offended, Dima reached up and pressed his thumb to her lips to keep her from speaking. “But the most frightening thing about that, nenaglyadnaya, is that you have every right to be so, because you are the most amazing woman I have ever met in seven hundred and ninety-four years on this earth.”
Ava softened, visibly, and melted down over him. “That, my dear, was a very good save.” She snuggled closer and let herself begin to relax. “You know, you never did tell me what that means.”
“What what means?”
“Nenaglyadnaya.”
“Ah.”
He cradled her against his chest and smiled into the darkness of the quiet room, feeling for the first time in a very long while that everything was right with his world, because of the prickly, arrogant, stubborn, breathtaking woman who had entered it.
“It has two meanings,” he told her softly, stroking his hand over her hair and savoring the feeling of a perfect future stretching out before him.
“What’s the first one?”
“Literally translated, it means ‘the woman at whom I could never grow tired of looking.’ ”
She was silent for a minute, and he could feel the wonder and hope radiating from her, two emotions he knew she had not let herself feel in a long time. Not when it came to things like love.
“That’s beautiful,” she finally said, pressing a kiss to his chest. “What’s the second meaning?”
“Well, that one is the simple truth.” He waited until she tilted her head up and met his gaze, brown eyes melting into blue. “That is what I will call you in my heart for every day of my life,” he promised.
“What is it?” she demanded, love and laughter shining in her eyes.
“Beloved.”
You’re So Vein
© 2009 Christine Warren
ISBN: 0-312-94792-5
ST. MARTIN’S
Ed♥n