by Penny Jordan
Had he really realised before how much he wanted her? Vasilii wondered. Had he really recognised the intensity of the fierce pleasure there was in simply owning that need? Letting it surge through him? Giving in to it and all that it meant? Finally admitting that from the minute he had seen her it had been inevitable that he would finally give in to the desire she aroused within him?
Every breath she took, every tiny shudder she gave, every small movement she made added to the heat of his own need. Feeling, seeing, caressing the sweet rose-dark hardness of her nipples and hearing her cry out in wild pleasure filled him with an unfamiliar male satisfaction at his ability to conjure such a reckless need from her. He wanted her to lose her self-control, because he knew how close he was to losing his own, Vasilii recognised, and he slid her clothing from her body and clothed it instead with his own touch: shaping her breasts, tugging with his mouth in hot sensual pleasure on one nipple whilst he drew an equal measure of erotic sensation with his fingers and thumb on the other.
She couldn’t stand this. She would fragment into a hundred thousand tiny pieces if she had to bear any more of it, Laura thought frantically. Her body was simply not capable of holding so much sensual arousal. She felt as though the intensity of it was going to spill out of her—as though neither her senses nor her flesh could contain it. And yet still the need continued to build inside her.
Somehow, without the need for words, clothes were removed and discarded. On their way to the waiting bed, Laura felt her whole body shuddering with agonised emotion when Vasilii slowly and carefully removed her earrings and placed them safely to one side. For that tenderness alone she could have loved him. Loved him? Laura wanted to cling to the safety of denial but it was too late. She was being swept away in the tsunami of emotions and sensations that was rushing through her.
Vasilii kissed her throat and her collarbone, and then the aching longing of her breasts, where her nipples almost hurt with the violence of their need to feel the demanding heat of his mouth taking that need and replacing it with shudder-inducing waves of frantic pleasure that crashed down on her. The girl she had been had never dreamed of pleasure like this—a woman’s pleasure and a woman’s desire for the one man who could seize and satisfy that desire.
Vasilii’s hand slipped between her legs, his touch drawing a low cry of torment from her when he cupped her sex. The soft mound was swollen, proud with the desire she wanted him to know he had aroused in her. His hand stroked her more intimately, and the physical response that gripped her shafted through her, making her cry out in fierce need. She felt as though her whole body was convulsing around the place where he was caressing her—as though every sensation she could ever possess was focused on that one small place. She wanted him to stop. She wanted him never to stop. But he did stop, and her aching body pulsed with a fierce need that dominated all her senses.
Her sweet warmth and wetness were inciting him to finish what he had begun, but some deep-rooted instinct was overpowering his immediate hot need, telling him that this time—with this woman, with Laura—for the first time his overriding and most important need must be to put her pleasure and satisfaction before his own, and that doing so would be his pleasure and satisfaction.
Laura, for her part, could only look up at Vasilii as he shaped her naked body first with his hands and then with his lips, until she was writhing helplessly beneath the torment of this slow-building unstoppable tide of rising desire. Moans of helpless pleasure were drawn from her throat in response to the agony of desire Vasilii was drawing from her body. She tried to reach for him, wanting to caress him as intimately as he was her, wanting to stroke and hold and know the male fullness of him, but as her fingertips grazed his erection he pulled back from her on a harsh raw groan that shuddered through his body.
‘You don’t want me to touch you?’ The betraying words were said before she could stop them, but even more shockingly intimate than that betrayal was Vasilii’s savage admission.
‘I want it too much. If you touch me now …’
He was arching over her, bending his head to kiss her, the strain visible in the cording of his muscles. The temptation was too much for Laura. She ran her hands over his shoulders and then down his back, before stroking the flat hollow plane of his belly with her fingertips. His kiss became a hot, demanding meshing of lips and mouths and tongues, almost a battle that they were fighting for control of the wild sensuality they had both unleashed.
Laura’s hand closed round Vasilii’s erection, stroking the hot silken flesh. Her own body shuddered in the wild fire of female delight at his maleness. And then Vasilii was removing her hand, and that hot silken male flesh was sliding against her waiting wetness, thrusting powerfully into the trembling eagerness of her own sex. Frantically Laura rose up to meet him, her body opening to him, her muscles wrapping around him in a silent, mindless female paean of joy.
The barrier was there—its very existence challenging something primitively male within him that Vasilii had never imagined he possessed. His body clamoured for possession of Laura’s. One more thrust, careful but deep and slow, and he was there. The barrier was gone and the sound of Laura’s soft cry of arousal was reverberating inside his head as she clung to him, whispering to him not to hesitate or stop, not to deny her what she most wanted. What he most wanted, Vasilii recognised as he felt the sweet tightness of her muscles clinging to him as she moved urgently and rhythmically against him, inciting him to drive deeper, harder, showing her flesh his rhythm, compelling it to move in time to it.
Oh, but this was so much more than she had ever imagined. A pleasure drawn in every colour heaven could produce when she had previously imagined it in what she now recognised as colourless, insipid shades of grey.
The movement of Vasilii’s body within her own was driving her, taking her onwards and upwards, each quickening thrust flooding her with fresh pleasure and increased urgency—until suddenly she was there, and her body was convulsing around Vasilii’s in wave after wave of a pleasure so intense that she cried out at the enormity of it. She clung desperately to Vasilii for strength and safety as it filled her and possessed her, her sobbed cry of release mingling with the harsh sound of triumph made by Vasilii just before she felt the hot male pulse of his own release within her.
In a stillness that was racked by the exhausted sound of their breathing, Laura felt Vasilii withdraw from her. The most intense and painful feeling of grief and loss filled her. She was going to cry, she knew. She mustn’t let Vasilii see her tears. She knew that rationally he had not wanted to make love to her, and that he would find some way of rejecting her and telling her that it had meant nothing. She knew that. But right now she simply wasn’t strong enough to cope with it. All she wanted to do was hide herself away from him—to protect herself and her pain from him. Because that pain meant that she …
That she what? That she loved him? No. It simply meant that right now she was very vulnerable, she assured herself, and she moved away from Vasilii, turning on her side with her back to him as she crept as close to the edge of the bed as she could.
Vasilii frowned as he looked at Laura’s back. She should be in his arms. She should be telling him in a soft voice shaken with pleasure and delight how well he had pleasured her, not lying silently as far away from him as she could.
Was she regretting what had happened? Did she wish that it had been her precious John to whom she had given herself?
The feeling that ripped through him was so unfamiliar that it took Vasilii several seconds to recognise it for what it was. Jealousy. He was filled with jealousy at the thought that Laura might have preferred someone else to be her first lover—and he was gripped by a mixture of anger and something that he was forced to recognise as actual pain because she hadn’t shown him the postsex tenderness he had anticipated. Because she hadn’t curled up against him and whispered emotionally that their lovemaking had been wonderful, that he had been wonderful and that she …
That she what?
That she loved him?
He wanted Laura to love him?
No. He didn’t want anyone to love him. Someone who loved him—especially someone like Laura—would want him to love her back, and he could not do that. Not ever. Loving someone meant worrying about losing them, about them disappearing from his life just as his mother had done.
No, he did not want Laura to love him.
So why did his arms feel so empty? Why did he have this compulsion to reach out to her and draw her close to him and keep her there? Why did the prospect of his life seem so empty if she wasn’t in it with him?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THEY had spent the morning being shown round the very impressive winery, and then after lunch Wu Ying’s cousin and Vasilii had sat down together to go through the paper form of the contract before signing it. Now they had just completed a tour of one of the trading ports originally set up by the British, and they were on their way back to their transport to take them back to the château. By rights his only feeling should be one of triumph, Vasilii acknowledged, returning Wu Ying’s smile as she left her cousin’s side to walk closer to him.
‘You and Laura have had a fall-out? Only I have noticed how distant you have been with one another today.’
What Wu Ying meant was that Laura was being distant with him. Apart from performing her translation duties she had barely looked at him, never mind spoken to him, and now—although she was at his side—there was at least a metre between them. It was his pride that didn’t like Wu Ying’s question, and pride, too, that made him close that gap and put his arm round Laura’s shoulders, drawing her immediately tense body closer to his own as he answered Wu Ying.
‘No, we haven’t had a fall-out. Laura always insists on behaving very professionally when we are working together.’
At Vasilii’s side, Laura took the hint she knew Vasilii was giving her, reminding her that in Wu Ying’s eyes they were supposed to be lovers and a couple. The tension gripping her body just because Vasilii was holding her made her feel as though she might crack apart with the unbearable pain of being so close to him whilst knowing that she meant nothing to him. After the intimacy they had shared, knowing it was a hundred times harder to bear than it had been before. Now she also had to bear the knowledge that the act of possession which had meant so much to her had meant nothing to him. Silent tears she hadn’t been able to control had soaked her pillow last night, but thankfully she had managed to protect herself from the humiliation she would have felt had Vasilii known about them.
She couldn’t wait to get back to London. They were leaving this evening, so thankfully she would be spared another night in that bed where she had given her body and her love to Vasilii. In return he had given her the greatest physical pleasure she would ever know and the most intense emotional pain she would ever have.
Love. There—finally she had admitted it. Against all reason and logic, against everything she had thought she knew about herself, somehow—ridiculously, foolishly, damagingly—she had fallen in love with the real Vasilii. With a complex, proud, demanding, arrogant alpha male. In short with everything that Vasilii was. Why? She had no idea—no explanation for a folly that she knew could only hurt her. She just had. And now she wanted to get back to London, so that she could put some proper physical distance between them ahead of the time when his real PA returned to work. Then she could put a permanent and complete distance between them.
It had occurred to her whilst they had been in China that there might be an opening for her skills here, and she had decided to try to keep in touch with Wu Ying in the hope of enlisting her support should she decide to relocate here.
Vasilii was still holding her. She could feel him looking at her, his gaze demanding that she look back at him. She didn’t want to. She was afraid of what he might see in her eyes. But she couldn’t stop herself.
He was smiling down at her, looking at her with a gaze that she knew that Wu Ying would interpret as one of tenderness mixed with desire. Her own body was interpreting it as such. Right now her body wanted to lean even more closely into him and wrap its arms around him, whilst she lifted her face to his for his kiss. Her body was even more of a fool than her heart. Vasilii was simply role-playing—being the tender lover Wu Ying wanted to believe he was to back up her own judgement. It was a relief to Laura that they were now so close to their transport that she could pull away from him and get into the car via the door the driver was holding open for her.
The long stretch limousine was more than large enough for four. It was a very definite sign of how highly Wu Ying’s cousin rated Vasilii that he travelled with them, leaving his officials to travel in the other cars behind theirs. Laura was, of course, delighted that Vasilii had secured his contract. She needed the bonus he had promised her, after all. And she needed her time with him to be brought to a speedy end. Better the short, sharp pain of a single blow to separate her from him than the agony of suffering a thousand cuts that came from being in his presence and being ignored by him.
Back at the château, Laura went up to their room to prepare for their onward journey, whilst Vasilii was borne off by Wu Ying and her cousin for a final discussion about the contract. In the tower room Laura showered quickly, with one eye on the locked door to the bathroom, telling herself that her heart was pumping so fast because she was dreading the thought of Vasilii returning before she was out of the shower, dried off and back in her clothes.
So why was she now lingering under its pulsing spray? Why was she soaping herself so dreamily? Why was she tempted to go and unlock that door in the hope that Vasilii would return and find her here, naked, eager, wanting him?
A sound that was somewhere between an aching moan of need and a stifled sob of self-contempt left her throat raw with the torment of her own emotions. To punish herself she stepped out of the shower, rubbing her body dry quickly and briskly before wrapping a fresh towel around herself and then going into the dressing room. She also locked the door there as she changed into the fresh clothes she had put to one side for their journey back to Heathrow.
Their cases had already been packed for them and removed, and once dressed she waited for Vasilii, taking the opportunity to double-check the wardrobe and the cupboards to ensure that nothing had been left behind.
She had just finished doing so when Vasilii walked into the room.
He was frowning heavily, avoiding looking at her as he strode over to the tall narrow window. Now that they were on their own and there was no need for him to put on a show for Wu Ying he did not want to look at her, she knew. He did not want to have anything whatsoever to do with her. He no doubt wanted to forget that last night had ever happened. In fact from his point of view Laura did not know why it had happened. Maybe the unpleasant reality was quite simply that he had just wanted a woman, and the relief of sex, and she had happened to be there.
Vasilii swung round and looked at Laura at last. She was standing with her back to him—so that she didn’t have to look at him, of course. She hadn’t said a word about last night. No doubt because she was still harbouring a wish that he had been John.
Well, he hadn’t. They had made love. She had been a virgin. He had acquired her most valuable bargaining asset—at least in her eyes—and, perhaps most importantly of all, for the first time in his life he had omitted to take any precautions. Healthwise he had no concerns. How could he have? He knew the state of his own sexual health, and he knew that he had been Laura’s first lover. But there was something else that could result from unprotected sex.
A child.
A child that would be his child.
He knew immediately and without any kind of doubt that such a child must be brought up under his roof and with his name, and that he of all men could never and would never deprive it of its mother. A child who, like its mother, it was his duty to protect. The traditional values of his mother’s people were important to Vasilii because they were a part of her. And those values meant that a man had certain respo
nsibilities to a woman’s virtue, to any child he fathered. The fact that he could not and would not turn his back on them came as no real surprise to Vasilii.
And his willingness? Indeed his eagerness to perform his duty? Was that also no real surprise to him? Had he already known deep within himself that, no matter what logic told him, where Laura was concerned there was a deeper, stronger power at work inside him whose needs could not be denied? After all, he had known that she was a virgin, and he had known that by taking her virginity he was giving himself no alternative but to do what he must do, hadn’t he?
He looked at Laura’s stiff back and began to speak in what he hoped was a calm voice that did not betray the intensity of the emotion and the desperation he was really feeling. ‘In view of what happened last night I’ve decided that it would be as well if we got married—and the sooner the better.’
Laura couldn’t believe her ears. She turned round slowly.
Just for a handful of seconds she allowed herself to believe. She could almost taste and feel what would be joyful happiness. Vasilii her husband … the children they would have … the family life they would create together, filled with love and laughter and security.
And then Vasilii continued. ‘We don’t have any alternative. You were a virgin. You could have conceived my child. The ways of my mother’s people insist that a man who takes a woman’s virginity must marry her to protect her virtue and the child they might have together. I am enough my mother’s son to know that even in this modern day and age I cannot go against the traditions of her tribe.’
There was a terrible pain inside Laura’s chest where her heart was—an aching agony of despair. So this was what it felt like to be offered something that looked exactly like what your heart most wanted, but which was in reality a cruel fake, a hollow emptiness. No—worse than that—a terribly destructive proposition that, if accepted, would destroy her self-respect and her sense of self, leaving her with nothing but self-hatred and self-loathing.