A Virgin for His Prize, page 11
part #2 of Ruthless Russians Series
Despite the undeniable sensual games he played, she believed that. He wouldn’t want a safe word because to Maxwell Black, respecting the word no was as important as keeping his word.
“I will know you trust me when you pull them out.” And there was that hurt again, but he seemed no more aware of it.
She nodded, her throat suddenly gone too dry to answer.
He took the blue silk away and part of her regretted it, but not enough to stop him.
If her refusal bothered him on a conscious level, it didn’t show. His erection had not flagged, his expression as filled with primal desire as ever. He came back to her, but didn’t blanket her with his body as he’d done before.
Instead, he leaned over her to adjust her hands above her head, one clasping the other wrist. “Okay?” he asked.
She jerked her head in affirmative. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Keep them there.” It wasn’t a question.
She answered anyway. “All right.”
With a gentle, but inexorable touch, he separated her thighs, opening her in unambiguous familiarity. She was his. “You are so very lovely.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was husky. So strange. So not like her usual perky tones.
He brushed his fingers through the curls at the apex of her thighs and she jolted. Who knew her hair could be sensitive, but did that feel good? It felt amazing.
He leaned down and breathed in deeply. “I want the fragrance of your desire.”
“Um, okay,” she practically whispered. She felt like maybe she should be embarrassed, but there was no room for that kind of reaction between them.
There was too much honest need.
“There is a school of sexual thought that claims there are four different areas of the foot that are particularly sexually stimulating. Did you know that?” he asked as he gently pressed into one that sent a sensual frisson straight up her inner thigh and into her core.
“No, oh…ohhh…” Her answer tailed off into a moan as he found another.
“I’m an eclectic learner,” he said almost conversationally, but the forceful desire in his dark metallic-gray eyes removed any casual feel to the words.
“Ye-esss?”
“I studied the pressure points of the body with a master of Dim Mak who had made it his life’s work to also discover the unexpected areas of the body that could give the most pleasure.”
“Aren’t pressure points about pain?” she asked uncertainly.
“Knowing them is as important for avoidance as knowing those touches that can bring the greatest pleasure. I will never take you over that edge between pleasure and pain, though sometimes the ecstasy is going to be so great, you will wonder how close you are.”
“Oh.” She stared at him in shock, which she knew reflected her own innocence. “You studied how to have sex?”
“Not just sex, dorogaya, but amazing, mind-melting sex.”
“The kind that makes you feel like you’ve had an out-of-body experience.” She could remember that from a year ago and they hadn’t even had intercourse.
His smile was both pleased and predatory. “Yes.”
“But you’re a Corporate Tsar. When did you have time?”
“Everyone needs a hobby. Naturally, my teacher also trained me in traditional kung fu.”
No wonder his body was so buff. “It was part of your exercise regimen then.” Even so, it was a little mind-boggling that Max had made a study of sex.
“Yes.”
“That’s a lot of work for part-time lovers.” Her words rose and fell several octaves as his touch grew more intimate, moving up to her inner thighs.
He shrugged, but she saw something in his eyes.
And she had her answer. Or at least part of it. Just as she was excited by him taking control, Max got something out of it, too. “Your pleasure comes from controlling that of your partner.”
“Part of it, yes.”
Of course it would. A man like him, whose whole life was focused on control. Sex would be no different.
“Maybe you were just practicing for me?” She liked that thought more than that he’d given this part of himself to others before her.
It was hers. She wasn’t sure where that possessive thought came from, but she did nothing to squelch it. Evidence to the contrary, it wasn’t as if he could read her mind anyway.
His sexy chuckle didn’t sound even a little mocking. “I think perhaps you are right.”
When he bypassed her most intimate flesh to move up her body, she wasn’t surprised. He’d done this a year ago. Built her pleasure until she was aching for touches her innocent body had never known.
Even so, she couldn’t hold back a sound of protest.
“Shh…” His caress moved up her waist, his expression so hot it burned. “We will get there, but you only have one first time.”
He was going to tease her more than before?
She realized the words had come out in a plaintive wail when he shook his head decisively. “I am not teasing you, dorogaya. I am pleasuring you.”
“Tom-ay-to, to-mah-to,” she gasped out as his thumbs skimmed over her rigid nipples.
Her breasts were small, but they had discovered together that the peaks were extremely sensitive.
“No, no, no…it is not just a different way of saying the same thing,” he assured her. “To tease is to make your partner wonder if you will ever give the bliss craved and you know I will.”
“On your time frame,” she gasped out.
“That is my way.” He said it with that Russian pragmatism she found both appalling and ridiculously appealing by turns.
“Sometime, maybe you should let me use the blue scarves.” Oh, gosh…every word required effort as his caresses grew more and more tantalizing.
He stopped, his entire being arrested by her comment. He looked down at her, an unreadable expression on his face. “I have never been open to another lover doing so.”
“But me?” she asked, knowing his answer mattered very much, though not at all sure why.
After all, she didn’t really want to use the scarves on him; she much preferred it the other way around.
“Yes.” Their gazes locked, as intimate as any caress. “Sometime, yes.”
Elation filled her, but she just knew if he saw it, he would mistake it for triumph. Which isn’t how she felt at all, so she did her best to simply nod and say, “I think I might like that.”
“We will see, won’t we?”
Yes, they would. But not today. Today, they would make love his way and she would give him the gift of her innocence. She didn’t care if that was an old-fashioned way to look at it, she suspected he saw it the same way.
He kissed her then, whether it was to stop the conversation, or simply because that was the next step in her very willing seduction, she didn’t know. What she did know was that it short-circuited her brain, which was already overloaded with pleasure.
His mouth possessed hers with the power of any tsar laying claim to his territory. Thrillingly. Absolutely. And with unmistakable intent.
Max’s caresses became more zealous, taking on a feverish edge and increasing the delight to her senses when she would have said the latter was impossible. But something deep inside her basked in the tangible proof of the knowledge he wanted to make her his own.
She wasn’t sure when her hands moved from above her head so she could wrap her arms around him, doing a little claiming of her own. Instead of stopping, as he might have done a year ago, Max’s touches turned even more passionate and less controlled.
Part of her reveled in that, but the rest of her just enjoyed the next level of sexual delight it inspired.
Romi’s hands lost purchase on Max as he moved to follow the touch of his hands with that of his mouth. Masculine lips, talented tongue and careful teeth teased already sensitive flesh until she was whimpering with need.
And not in the least embarrassed by that fact.
He nuzzled into the apex of her thighs, making a fully masculine sound of satisfaction. Then he parted her with his fingers before flicking his tongue against her clitoris and she tried to come up off the bed.
Her cry echoed around them as he continued to kiss her in the most intimate way possible. His fingers slipped inside her, the only flesh besides her doctor’s that had ever been inside Romi’s body.
There was no impediment to his deep finger thrusting. There wouldn’t be after years in gymnastics.
The only area she and Maddie had diverged. Maddie had played soccer and softball. Romi had competed in gymnastics until her height decreed she would be able to take those aspirations no further.
Along the way, her inner barrier had stretched and finally broken, she was sure.
All thoughts of the whys and wherefores exploded in a cataclysm of bliss that had her shaking and screaming.
He gentled her through the climax and took her beyond to another layer of pleasure on the cusp of orgasm. Again.
Only then did he move to settle between her thighs, his swollen member pressing against the entrance to her body.
His expression was every bit as possessive as his position. “This is mine, dorogaya. Your innocence will never belong to another.”
She wouldn’t, either, in any way, she was sure of it. But there was no point in telling him. He was still laboring under the mistaken impression that if they married, it would be a temporary if years-long condition.
She knew better. Right then, she knew to the very depths of her soul and heart that this man would always be hers and vice versa. He might never let himself love her and that would inevitably bring pain with it.
But their souls were already entwined.
He didn’t ask if she was ready. He didn’t say anything at all. He just looked down at her with eyes that claimed, demanded and pleaded all at the same time.
The demand excited her in a way others might not understand, but the pleading she was sure he had no knowledge of. That decided her beyond a shadow of any possible doubt that the time had come to join their bodies.
“Please,” she said to and for Max.
He nodded and began pushing inside, the wide girth of his shaft stretching her as she had never been stretched before. It felt so right, the link between their souls causing her body to accommodate his, his big frame surrounding her to make that connection even more intimate and perfect.
Romi didn’t realize how long it had been since she felt truly safe until the moment when any sense of being alone and having to protect herself and those around her was gone completely.
Maxwell wasn’t a tsar. He was her own personal Cossack. Bloodthirsty in his face to the world, but a wall between her and anything that might hurt her.
Even his own threats.
Where that certainty came from, she again did not know, but her inner conviction was absolute.
He made love to her with care, but also with a passion that grew increasingly unbridled until they strained together in an act millions of others engaged in every day, but still felt unique to them.
Special.
No one else would ever affect her as he did.
And no other woman would draw this lack of control, this unplanned, unmeasured movement and reaction from Maxwell Black.
Her pleasure built in proportion to the emotional intimacy she felt despite the lack of love words between them. She wasn’t ready to acknowledge that feeling if it did reside in her heart. However, the invisible threads this intimate act was building between them went deeper than romance.
They were stronger than any words, even I love you. She would never live another day of her life without feeling a bond with this man.
Even if they didn’t live in the same house and never again shared their bodies.
Was that because she was a virgin? She didn’t know and didn’t care.
It simply was.
Rapture built between them, their breathing growing more erratic, a sheen of sweat washing over their bodies, the physical heat between them growing by degrees. Her own heart was beating so fast and hard, she could feel it in her ears. She knew his tempo would mirror hers if she laid her hand against his heart, but holding onto his shoulders as they mated was taking all her coordination.
Suddenly that feeling, that ecstasy only he had brought forth, was right there, ready to burst inside her.
“Maxwell,” she cried as she thrust up to meet him.
“Give it to me, dorogaya. Now.” His voice was fractured and harsh with need.
She had no thought to deny him, bliss shattering through her, destroying the last defense she may have had between them.
And then his big body went rigid, his throat corded, his jaw clenched, before he gave a loud shout and came, too.
It was the most profound moment of her life. She had never felt this close to anyone. Not to her family, not to her SBC, not to anyone.
“Dorogaya.” Max collapsed on top of her, whispering Russian into Romi’s hair.
She welcomed the weight, not really caring how hard it was to breathe in that moment. She didn’t know what he was saying, but she recognized the endearments he’d used with her and wallowed in the emotional warmth that poured through her with each utterance.
Sometime later, Max lifted away only enough to come down beside her, wrapping his body possessively around hers.
“That was amazing,” she said, though it was probably pretty obvious to him that he’d melted her brain along with her nerve endings.
“It was.” He sounded a little surprised by his own admission.
She didn’t say anything, just snuggled in, feeling like she couldn’t get close enough.
“We did not use a condom,” he said, no regret in his tone, just stating a fact.
“No, we didn’t.”
“We will in future, but for your first time there should be no barriers between us.”
And he said he had no romance in his soul. “I could still get pregnant,” she pointed out, but with no heat.
“If you do, you do. We are getting married regardless. If you do not, we will wait some time for our first child.”
“You think that’s your decision to make alone?” she asked, not upset, because she didn’t and he’d figure that out, but wondering.
“No. Do you disagree?”
“No.”
“I thought not.”
Hmmm…maybe he just knew some things, too.
“Which is not to be taken as an agreement from me on your highly irregular marriage proposal,” she reminded him.
“Duly noted.” He flipped her onto her back and looked down at her, his eyes dark with an unexpected renewed passion. “But for now, let’s keep on testing our physical compatibility.”
Oh, man, as if that was in any kind of question. She didn’t say anything like that, though. Romi just returned kiss for kiss and this time around he seemed content for her to return caress for caress, too.
Later, she was grateful for his height and strength as they showered together. Her legs were as rubberized as if she’d run a full-length marathon.
Other muscles felt just as used, too.
She sure wasn’t going to feel bad about missing her evening workout for the day.
He made dinner and it wasn’t just soup out of a tin, either. He grilled chicken on the balcony to his penthouse, while rice finished in the cooker, and then sautéed asparagus in olive oil and garlic.
She smiled at him as they ate. “I’m impressed.”
“That I can cook?”
“Yes. I’m pretty sure it’s not your typical skill set for a Corporate Tsar.”
He shrugged. “I don’t like keeping staff on site. Besides, cooking relaxes me.”
“I’ve heard that.” She wasn’t sure she saw the appeal.
“Don’t you cook?”
“Nope. We always had a housekeeper.” Mrs. K had come to work for them when Romi was in primary school, but there had never been a time when her father didn’t employ someone in the position.
Romi was definitely no one’s idea of a domestic goddess.
“We didn’t.”
She sidled up to him, enjoying the way his arm came out to automatically pull her into his side. “You don’t sound like that bothers you.”
“It doesn’t, but since I wasn’t raised with them, I’m more apt to find household help intrusive than not.”
“You don’t do your own cleaning.” No way.
His smile was sardonic. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Is it going to bother you?” Max asked her.
“What?”
“Not having live-in domestic help?”
“Is it going to bother you to do the cooking when we haven’t arranged for a meal?” She didn’t mind cleaning, or making her own bed, though admittedly she didn’t very often, but that sort of thing was in her skill set.
Cooking wasn’t.
“No.”
“Then, no.”
Later, Romi savored a bite of asparagus perfectly prepared. “I might have to take a cooking class someday. This is really delicious.” Maybe Maddie would take the class with her.
“I am glad you like it.” He ate his own food with little attention, his focus entirely on her. “I don’t expect you to learn to cook. My housekeeper comes in daily and prepares most evening meals ahead of time.”
“Good to know. If I decide to marry you.”
He didn’t get angry. In fact, humor played at the corners of his mouth. “Marriage will bring sufficient changes to your life without cooking.”
“You don’t say.” She flicked him a flirtatious glance.
“Besides having a hell of a lot of sex, smart aleck.”
