Читать книгу Rich Man's Revenge: Dealing Her Final Card / Seducing His Opposition / A Reputation For Revenge - Jennie Lucas, Katherine Garbera - Страница 10

BREE had to push him away. She should. She must.

She couldn’t.

His kiss was hard, even angry—passionate, yes, but nothing like the tender way he’d once embraced her. His chin was rough with five-o’clock shadow, and his powerful arms held her tightly against him as they knelt facing each other, bodies pressed together. Even through his black trousers, she could feel how much he wanted her. And she wanted him.

You are my serf, he’d informed her coldly. Your only reason for living, until you die, is to serve me and give me pleasure. She’d been enraged. She was no man’s slave.

But he wasn’t taking her by force, as her lord and master. No—she couldn’t kid herself about that. Because no matter how badly he treated her, she still wanted him. She’d never stopped wanting him….

Vladimir’s body moved as he took full, hard possession of her lips, stretching her mouth wide with his own, teasing her with his tongue. His hands moved against her back, sliding the thin, blush-colored silk teddy like a whisper against her naked skin. Her breasts felt heavy and taut, her nipples sizzling with awareness.

As he slowly kissed down her neck, her head fell backward. Breathless with need, she closed her eyes. His tongue flicked her collarbone, his hands cupping her breasts through the silk.

“Breanna,” he whispered. “You feel so good. Just like I dreamed you would …”

His breath was warm against her skin as he lowered his head to suckle her through the silk.

She gasped. The sensation of his hot wet mouth against her hard, aching nipple flooded her nerve endings with pleasure. Her fingertips dug into his shoulders as her toes curled beneath her. She pulled him closer.

He sucked gently through the silk, and she felt the fabric move softly, caressing her skin. With agonizing slowness, he pulled the bodice down, and cupped her naked breasts. She felt the roughness of his palm as he rubbed her, then pinched her taut nipples, presenting first one, then the other, to the wet, welcoming warmth of his mouth. Lost in sweet pleasure, she held her breath….

She almost wept in frustration when he suddenly pulled away from her, leaving her bereft. Rising to his feet, he picked her up off the floor as if she weighed nothing at all. He carried her three steps to the bed, then tossed her on the white bedspread.

Eyes wide, Bree leaned back against the pillows and watched as Vladimir stood beside the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. His gaze locked with hers as he undid the cuffs and tossed the shirt to the floor. She had a brief vision of his tanned, muscled chest laced with dark hair before he fell on top of her, pulling her to him for a hard, hungry kiss.

It wasn’t gentle or kind. It was primal, filled with fury at his unwilling need. She felt the heavy weight of his muscular body as he pushed her against the mattress. And as he kissed her, the world seemed to spin in a blinding flash of light. She kissed him back fiercely, desperately, forgetting pride and past pain beneath the overwhelming demand of desire.

Without a word, he ripped the pale pink silk teddy off her unresisting body. He looked down at her, now dressed only in the silk G-string panties he’d given her.

“I wanted you to learn your place.” His voice was low, almost choked. Reaching out, he stroked her bare breasts in wonder, even as his other hand stroked up and down the length of her nearly naked body. “Instead you teach me mine.” His dark blue eyes lifted to hers. “Why do you not touch me? Why do you hold back?”

She remembered her bravado at the poker table, the way she’d bragged about her skills in bed. Her cheeks flooded with heat. “I want to,” she whispered. “I don’t know how.”

“You—don’t know how?” he said in disbelief.

“I …” She swallowed. “I might have implied more than my skills actually deserve. At the poker table …”

“I don’t give a damn about the game.” He gripped her hand. “Just touch me. If you want to please me, touch me. If you want to punish me,” he groaned, guiding her palm to stroke slowly down his chest to his belly, “touch me.”

Vladimir truly had no idea that she was a virgin. Her fingers shook as she let him guide her, stroking his hard muscles, his hot, bare skin. She’d told him, but he hadn’t believed her.

Suddenly, she didn’t want him to know. Because how would he react if he learned the pathetic truth—that even after he’d abandoned her, she’d never wanted another man to touch her? Would his eyes fill with scorn—or pity?

She shuddered. He must never realize how much of a fool she’d been, or how thoroughly he’d destroyed her ten years ago.

She had to fake it.

Pretend to be the experienced woman he believed her to be.

So how would a sexually adventurous woman behave?

Trembling, Bree reached for his shoulders. Tossing her head with bravado, she rolled him beneath her on the bed. He did not resist, just looked up at her with smoldering eyes dark with lust. Trying to seem as if she was comfortable straddling him, with her breasts naked for a man for the first time, and wearing nothing but the tiny silk G-string, she gazed down at him. He did have an incredible body … and as long as she didn’t look directly into his deep blue eyes, those eyes that always saw straight through her …

With an intake of breath, she slowly stroked down his bare chest to the waistband of his black trousers. Shaking with nerves, trying to act confident, she lowered her head.

And she kissed him.

Her lips were tentative, scared. Until she felt his mouth, hot and hard against hers, sliding like liquid silk as he kissed her back. He deepened the embrace, entwining her tongue with his. He tasted like sweet wine and spice and everything forbidden, everything she’d ever denied herself. His lips were soft and hard at once, like satin with steel. He let her set the rhythm and pace, let her lead.

And she forgot her fear. Her hands explored the warm, smooth skin of his hard chest, the edges and curves of his muscles. She stroked his flat nipples and the rough, bristly hair that stretched down his taut torso like an arrow. She heard his ragged intake of breath, and when she glanced up and saw his mesmerized expression, her confidence leaped. It was working! Growing bolder, she ran her fingertips beneath the edge of his waistband, swaying her splayed body against the thick hardness between his legs.

She’d meant it as an exploration. He took it as a taunt. With a growl, he pushed her back against the bed. Pulling off his pants and boxers, he kicked them to the floor.

She gasped when she saw him naked for the first time. He was huge. She couldn’t look away. But as he pulled her back into his arms, crushing her breasts against his chest as he took possession of her mouth with a hard, hungry kiss, she forgot that fear, too.

He kissed slowly down her body, moving from her neck to the valley between her breasts to the flat plain of her belly. His hot breath enflamed her skin. Pushing her legs apart with his hands, he nuzzled her tender, untouched thighs. He kissed the edges of her G-string panties, and she felt the brief flicker of his tongue through silk.

She gasped. Need pounded through her, making her body shake as she felt his mouth move between her legs, gently suckling secret places there. She felt the heat and dampness of his tongue, teasing her on the edge of the fabric, and her back arched against the mattress. With a little cry, she stretched out her arms to grip the sheets, feeling as if she might fly off the bed and into the sky.

His fingers stroked the smooth silk, and she heard the rasp of her own frantic breathing. With tantalizing slowness, he reached beneath the fabric, stroking her wet core with a featherlike touch. He pushed a single thick fingertip an inch inside her, bending his head to suckle the top of her mound through the silk panties, and her back arched higher, her body grew tighter, and her breathing quickened, so much she started to see stars.

She heard the ripping of fabric as he destroyed the wisp of silk and tossed it to the floor.

“Look at me.”

Against her will, she opened her eyes. Holding her gaze, he lowered his head between her naked thighs and fully tasted her with his wide tongue.

She cried out as she felt him tantalize, then lick, then lap her wet core. Her body twisted with the intensity of the pleasure even as her soul was torn by the intimacy of his gaze. Her heart hammered in her throat. Closing her eyes, she turned away so he could not see her tears.

His tongue changed rhythm; now he was using just the tip on her taut, sensitive nub. It was perfect. It was torture. His tongue swirled in light circles, barely touching her. She ached deep inside, wanting to be filled, wanting to have him inside her. Pleasure was building so hard and fast that her body could barely contain it. She felt an agony of need. With a whimper, she tried to pull away, but he held her firmly, not allowing her to escape from his hot, wet tongue.

Pleasure built higher and higher. “Please,” she panted, nearly crying with need. “Please.”

Holding her down, Vladimir thrust two thick fingertips inside her, then three. Still lapping her, he stretched her wide, his free hand pushing her back against the bed, while his tongue tormented her wet, slick core. And suddenly, she fell off a cliff. Her body exploded. She cried out as waves of ecstasy crashed around her, and she flew.

Quickly sheathing himself in a condom from the bedstand, he positioned himself between her legs. With a single rough thrust, he shoved himself all the way inside her. Gripping his shoulders, Bree cried out as sudden pain tore through her pleasure.

When Vladimir felt the barrier he hadn’t expected, he froze, looking down at her in shock.

“You were—a virgin?” he breathed.

Bree’s eyes squeezed shut, her beautiful face full of anguish as she turned it away, as if she didn’t want him to see. He didn’t move, unable to fathom the evidence he’d felt with his own body. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Trembling beneath him, she slowly opened her eyes again—limpid hazel eyes that glimmered like an autumn lake dark with rain. “I did,” she whispered. She took a ragged breath. “You didn’t believe me.”

Vladimir stared at her beautiful face. Around him, the whole world suddenly seemed to shake and rattle. But the earthquake was in his own heart. He felt something crack inside his soul.

Everything he’d thought about Bree was wrong.

Everything he’d believed her to be—wrong.

With a ragged intake of breath, he pulled away. Sitting back on the bed, he choked out, “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” She sat up against the headboard, and her eyes shimmered in the silver-gold moonlight dappling the high-ceilinged bedroom. She licked her lips. “When you didn’t believe me, I started hoping I could keep my virginity a secret. So you wouldn’t …”

She stopped.

“So I wouldn’t what?”

Her lips trembled as she tried to smile. “Well, it’s pathetic, isn’t it?” She didn’t try to cover her nakedness, as another woman might have done. She just looked straight into his eyes, without artifice, without defenses. “There was no other man for me. Not before you. And not after.”

Staring at her, Vladimir felt as if he’d just been sucker punched.

She’d told him the truth. All these years he’d thought of Bree Dalton as a liar, or worse. But even when she’d looked him in the eyes and told him she was a virgin, he hadn’t believed her.

Who was the one who didn’t recognize the truth when he saw it?

Who was the one who’d forgotten how?

Setting his jaw, he looked at her grimly. “And Alaska?”

She looked down, her eyelashes a dark sweep against her pale skin. “Everything your brother tried to tell you, that Christmas night he burst in on us, was true,” she said softly. “I never had the rights to sell Josie’s land. I was trying to distract you, so you’d put down earnest money in cash before you realized it, and my sister and I could disappear into a new life.”

“To con people somewhere else.”

“It was all I knew how to do.” Bree lifted her gaze. “It never occurred to me that I could change. Not until …”

Her voice trailed off.

Yes, Vladimir, I’ll marry you. He could almost hear her joyful, choked voice that Christmas night, see the tears in her beautiful eyes as she’d thrown her arms around him and whispered, “I’m not good enough for you, not by half. But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be.”

Now, his hands tightened into fists. “You had plenty of chances to tell me the truth. Instead, you let me find out about your con from Kasimir. You let me shout at him and throw him out of your cabin as a damned liar. You let me leave that night, still not knowing the truth. Until I started getting phone calls the next morning, and discovered from reporters that everything he’d told me about you was true.”

“I wanted to tell you. But I was afraid.”

“Afraid,” he sneered.

“Yes,” she cried. “Afraid you wouldn’t listen to my side. That you’d abandon me, and I’d be left with no money and no defenses against the wolves circling us. I was afraid,” she whispered, “you’d stop loving me.”

That was exactly what had happened.

“If that is true, and you were truly intending to change purely because of this love for me,” he said, his voice dripping scorn, “why didn’t you go back to your old life of cheating and lying the instant I left?”

Her eyes widened, then fell. “It wasn’t just for you,” she muttered. “It was for me, too.” She looked up. “And Josie. I wanted to be a good example. I wanted us to live a safe, boring, respectable life.” Hugging her knees to her chest, she blinked fast, her eyes suspiciously wet. “But we couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t be respectable?”

“We never felt safe.” She licked her lips. “Back in Alaska, some men had threatened to hurt us if I didn’t replace money we’d stolen. But my father had already spent it all and more. It was a million dollars, impossible to repay. So for the last ten years, I made sure we stayed off the radar. No job promotions. No college for Josie. Never staying too long anywhere.” Bree’s lips twisted. “Not much of a life, but at least no legs got broken.”

His hands clenched as he remembered the angry looks of the players at the poker game, when she’d told them how she’d cheated them. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“I did,” she said, bewildered at his reaction. “A few times.”

“You told me you had debts,” he said tightly. “Everyone has debts. You didn’t tell me some men were threatening to break your legs.”

She took a deep breath, her face filled with pain.

“Not mine,” she whispered. “Josie’s.”

Vladimir rose to his feet. Still naked, he paced three steps, clenching his hands. His shoulders felt so tense they burned. He was having a physical reaction.

If he’d been wrong about Bree, what else had he been wrong about?

He stopped as he remembered his brother’s face, contorted beneath the lights of the Christmas tree. You’re taking her word over mine? You just met this girl two months ago. I’ve looked up to you my whole life. Why can’t you believe I might know more than you—just once?

But Vladimir, two years older, had always been the leader, the protector. He could still remember six-year-old Kasimir panting as he struggled through the snowy two miles to school. Wait for me, Volodya! Wait for me!

But he’d never waited. If you want to follow me, keep up, Kasimir. Stop being slow.

Now, as Vladimir remembered that long-lost adoration in his brother’s eyes, his heart gave a strange, sickening jump in his chest. Tightening his jaw, he pushed the memory away. He looked at Bree.

“No one will ever threaten you or yours again.”

Her lips parted. “What will you do?”

He narrowed his eyes. “They threatened to break a child’s legs,” he said roughly. “So I’ll break every bone in their bodies. First their legs. Then their arms. Then—”

“Who are you?” she cried.

He stopped, surprised at the horror on her face. “What?”

“You’re so ruthless.” She swallowed. “There is no mercy in you. It’s true what they say.”

“You expect me to, what—give them a cookie and tuck them into bed?”

“No, but—” she spread her arms helplessly “—break every single bone? You don’t just want to win, you want to crush them. Torture them. You’ve become the kind of man who …” Her eyes seared his. “Who’d destroy his own brother.”

For a moment, Vladimir was speechless. Then he glared at her. “Kasimir made his own choice. When I wouldn’t listen to his words about you, he told the story to a reporter. He betrayed me, and when I suggested we split up our partnership, it was his choice to agree—”

“You deliberately cheated your own brother,” she interrupted, “out of millions of dollars. And you’ve spent ten years trying to destroy him. You don’t just get revenge, Vladimir. You deal a double dose of pain—breaking not just their legs, but their arms!”

Pacing two steps, he clawed back his dark hair angrily. “What would you have me do, Breanna? Let them threaten you? Pay them off? Let them win? Let my brother take over my company? Not defend myself?”

“But you don’t just defend yourself,” she said. “You’re ruthless. And you revel in it.” Her eyes lifted to his. “Has it made you happy, Vladimir? Has destroying other people’s lives made yours better?”

He flashed hot, then cold. As they faced each other, naked without touching, in a bedroom deep with shadows and frosted with moonlight, a mixture of emotions raced through his bloodstream that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time—emotions he could barely recognize.

Bree took a deep, ragged breath.

“I loved you. I loved the honest, openhearted man you were.” Tears glistened like icicles against her pale skin. “The truth is, I love him still.”

Vladimir sucked in his breath. What was she saying?

“But the man you are now …” She looked at him. “I hate the man you’ve become, Vladimir,” she whispered. “I hate you now. With all my heart.”

He took a single staggering step. He held out his hand and heard his own hoarse, shaking voice. “Bree …”

“No!” She nearly fell off the bed to avoid his touch. Snatching the crumpled, pink silk robe off the floor, she covered her naked body. “I should never have let you touch me. Ever!”

She fled from the bedroom, racing down the hall.

For an instant, Vladimir stood frozen, paralyzed with shock.

Then, narrowing his eyes, he yanked on a pair of jeans and followed her grimly. Downstairs, he heard the door that led to the pool bang. He followed the sound outside. From the corner of his eye, beneath dark silhouettes of palm trees against the sapphire sky, he saw a pale flash going down the cliff toward the beach.

He followed. Striding around the pool, he pushed through the gate and went down steps chiseled into the rock, leading to the private, white-sand beach. At the bottom, surrounded by the noisy roar of the surf lapping the sand at his feet, he looked right and left.

Where was she?

The large Hawaiian moon glowed like an opalescent pearl across the dark blue velvet ocean, its light sparkling like diamonds.

I loved the honest, openhearted man you were. Her poignant words echoed in his mind. I hate the man you’ve become.

Closing his eyes, he thought of how he’d spent the past ten years, constantly proving to himself how hard and heartless he could be. Betraying others before they could even think of turning on him.

Half the world called him ruthless; the other half called him corrupt. Vladimir had worn their hatred like a badge of honor. He’d told himself that it was the fate of every powerful man to be despised. It only proved he’d succeeded. He’d conquered the world. He’d just never thought it would be so …

Meaningless. Bleakly, he looked out toward the dark waves of the Pacific.

Has it made you happy? Has destroying other people’s lives made yours better?

The warm breeze felt cool against his bare skin. He’d loved her so recklessly. The night he’d proposed to her, in front of the crackling fire that dark, cold Christmas, had been the happiest of his life.

Until Kasimir had burst into her cabin and called Vladimir a fool for falling into a con woman’s trap. The fighting had woken up her kid sister upstairs, so after tossing his brother out, he’d gone back to his hotel alone. He’d been woken by the ringing of his cell phone—and questions from a Wall Street Journal reporter.

Vladimir put a hand to his forehead.

For the past ten years, this woman he’d called a liar and a whore had been quietly working minimum-wage jobs, in a desperate attempt to provide an honest life for her young sister. While he …

Vladimir exhaled. He’d done exactly what she said. He’d cut all mercy from his heart, to make damn sure no one ever made a fool of him again. He’d closed himself off completely from every human feeling, and he’d tried to eradicate the memory of the woman who’d once broken him.

The moon retreated behind a cloud, and he saw a shadow move. He stumbled down the beach, and as the moon burst out of the darkness, he saw her.

Silvery light frosted the dark silhouette of her body as she rose like Venus from the waves. His heart twisted in his chest.

Breanna.