Читать книгу The Platinum Collection: A Convenient Proposal: His Diamond of Convenience / The Highest Price to Pay / His Ring Is Not Enough - Maisey Yates - Страница 16

CHAPTER NINE

THE HOUR DMITRI had to endure after Victoria made her shaky promise was interminable. In a fight, in the ring, time seemed to move both slower and faster. Minutes could stretch out into eternity and the final seconds end as though they had never existed. Nights spent in his family’s posh home when he’d been growing up had been unremarkable. The nights after his exile spent on the gritty streets had been another thing entirely.

Dmitri was accustomed to the relativity of time.

Still, he had never experienced it on quite this level before. Every moment of small talk would have been torture regardless of what had passed between Victoria and him, but this brought it to new heights. It was all but impossible to focus on what some celebrity in a monkey suit was saying, when in his mind he was already imagining what it would be like to take hold of the zipper on the red dress Victoria was wearing and draw it down, watch the rich fabric part to reveal lily-white skin beneath.

When he was already picturing what it would be like to slide into her tight wet heat, to be skin to skin with her, to feel her tremble beneath his touch. Yes, as torturous as small talk seemed on a good day, it was amplified in this moment.

He looked down at his watch, at the bare spot above it where the leather strap was usually tied. And he breathed a sigh of relief when the minute hand ticked over and the timer on this particular fight was up.

Now he had another one stretching before him. And this one, he had the feeling would go by much too quickly.

There was nothing he could offer Victoria beyond tonight, or perhaps beyond a physical relationship that would extend only until their business dealings were done.

Either way, the timer had started already.

He abruptly broke away from the man who was speaking to him, knowing that he appeared rude, and not giving a damn. He had one thing on his mind now, and that was Victoria. Victoria and her lovely body, Victoria and her lovely lips. Victoria and her crisp, crystal voice and the opportunity to shatter it yet again as he brought her to the peak of pleasure.

He made his way through the ballroom, over to where she stood. Her blond hair was captured in a low bun at the nape of her neck that had been left loose, some curls escaping and cascading down her back, which was revealed to perfection by the cut of the red gown she was wearing that exposed the elegant line of her spine. The high neck of the front provided the tease, which he was starting to believe Victoria was a master of. Revealing just enough, concealing even more.

In both her wardrobe and in her interactions.

An irresistible combination.

“Victoria,” he said, watching the color in her cheeks darken as he approached. “I believe, my love, it is time for us to go.” He looked at the group of people she was engaged in conversation with. “Unless, you find yourself more occupied here.”

“Of course not. What could I possibly find more engaging than spending an evening with you?” The way she spoke the words was flirtatious, calculated. Designed to add to the illusion of their relationship, designed to give them both an escape, and designed to leave the people she had been conversing with unoffended. “You understand, don’t you?” She asked the question with a hint of cheekiness that left no doubt in anyone’s mind as to why they were escaping.

Following her lead, he winked and said something in Russian, something bland that had more to do with the weather than with seduction, but the people in Victoria’s group had no clue. They smiled, and the women exchanged looks, the kind that let him know if he wanted to pursue them at some point, they would be open to it.

Too bad for them he only had eyes for Victoria.

He wrapped his arm around Victoria’s waist and pulled her close to him. “We can’t forget to make a stop at the cloakroom first.”

“No, indeed.” She offered a wave to those standing near them and then curled herself into his side, her body much more tense than it undoubtedly appeared to the onlookers.

“You are not having second thoughts, are you?” he asked.

“Why would you ask that?”

“Because right now you are holding yourself with all of the tension of a woman going to the gallows, not to bed with a lover.”

“You have to bear with me. I’m not very experienced.”

That made his stomach tighten, guilt gnawing in him. Of course she wouldn’t be very experienced. She had been badly burned by her first lover. She would have been very cautious in every situation since then. And he could hardly blame her. Likely, she was a woman who had relationships, and none of these no-strings sexual encounters. All of it cut a bit too close to the bone for him. Because he was jaded, he could admit. He was the sort of man who had encounters like this all the time. With women who were accustomed to having them.

They cost him nothing; it cost his lovers nothing. Not a moment’s worth of worry even. It made him feel guilty to know that she was worried now, but not enough that he would turn back. Because, while he still had a conscience left to burn, it was on life support. And it had very little say in the ultimate outcome of what he did.

He really was a bastard.

He did not deserve to put his hands on her. Rough, tattooed, fighter’s hands, stained with ink, stained with blood. The man he’d been...the boy he’d been before his world had changed forever could have been good enough for her. But he had not been allowed to remain that boy. He’d been forced to change, to adapt. And he had.

He’d been pushed into violence, and so he’d become violent.

In contrast, she was smooth, untouched by the world in many ways. And he knew it. There would be no pretending later. He knew what he was doing. And more importantly he knew what he would not be able to do for her after. He could offer her nothing. Nothing but this.

But, though it should, it was not going to stop him.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said, feeling as if he was telling her a lie. “I have no desire to hurt you.” That much was true, though it might be inevitable.

“I won’t turn back. I’ve made up my mind.” They paused in front of the door of the coat check, and Victoria handed the woman sitting at the front her numbered ticket. A black wrap and handbag appeared a moment later, and Victoria wasted no time in opening up the little clutch and producing the cuff he’d given her this morning.

She extended her hand and placed it into his with trembling fingers. “See? I’m committed. I’m making this decision while not under the influence of lust. Well, not mind-numbing lust anyway. You aren’t talking me into it while you have me in a fog. We had the hour. We had this long walk over here. We even had this little talk about my nerves. And the answer is still yes. This cuff is still yours. And I still want you.”

He had told her that the leather cuff he wore around his wrist meant nothing. He had lied. It was his father’s. And he had taken it off the man’s dead body in the moments after his life had exploded around him.

A reminder.

Of the fact that he was a changed man now, because his father had pushed him to decide between two impossible things: his life, or Dmitri’s and his mother’s.

Of the fact that truly, there had been only one choice. It was only a matter of being strong enough to make it.

And he was.

He began to tie the cuff back around his wrist, just above his watch. “You have no idea how much this pleases me, milaya moya.”

He realized his hands were shaking, too. There was something happening inside of him, a kind of shivering sensation taking him over. It was not like anything he’d felt before.

The closest it came was to the moment just before he had taken that gun in his hands in a beautiful home in Moscow and pointed it at the man that he had always called father. He had felt something like this then. As though the control was slipping away from his grasp, as though everything was about change. As though life and death hung in the balance and if he did not make a decision quickly he would fall on the wrong side of it. As though all of life’s options had reduced down to one, one that was terrible, great, powerful and unavoidable.

Yes, this strange trembling feeling was most comparable to that.

To fear.

But that was crazy. What man feared a naked woman? Certainly not him. He had seen countless naked women before, had put his hands on them. Had been inside of them. Why should she be different?

Because she is.

And he had known that from the beginning, which was why he had taken great pains to avoid this. To avoid touching her, kissing her, wanting her. Because he had known even then that she was different. That this was different.

Ridiculous. She might be different, but she was still just a woman.

He gritted his teeth and turned to face her. “Shall we go?”

“Yes, happily, we are already sharing a room so that takes away some of the awkwardness of the whole your-room-or-mine question.”

“We do not have the same bedroom in the suite.”

“Still, it eliminates the walk of shame risk.”

“Victoria,” he said.

“What?”

“Stop talking.”

She snapped her mouth shut, her crimson lips sealed tightly. He was tempted to make a dry comment about how rare this must be, but he refrained. This was not the time for jokes.

She had been making them to clear the tension, and he had decided he did not want any of it diminished. He wanted this moment. All of it. All of her.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and walked them both down the corridor that led to the elevators. He pressed the button and waited in silence before they stepped inside, finding themselves shrouded in the relative privacy.

Under normal circumstances he would immediately close the distance between himself and his prospective lover. Would pull her into his arms and began what would be finished in the bedroom right here on the way.

But not here. Not now, not with Victoria.

He only wanted to look at her for a while. To watch the pulse beat at the base of her throat, to watch the faint blush in her cheeks spread over the rest of her skin, flesh that spoke of arousal. To see the blue of her eyes all but disappear as her pupils expanded, as her eyes darkened.

To appreciate the fact that he still didn’t know what she looked like naked. To savor this time of not knowing, because soon every question would be answered.

There was something perversely pleasurable about this moment of in between. This last bit of torture. Of not having, of wanting. Of being so near to satisfaction he could taste it, but far enough that he was in near physical pain from the weight of resisting.

Victoria took a deep breath, her shoulders lifting slightly, her fingers tightening on the little clutch bag she was still holding. She was nervous. But she was also excited. He had never fully appreciated how enjoyable it could be to watch for these small signals in his partners. Or perhaps it would not have been enjoyable with any other partner. Perhaps it was only Victoria and that indefinable quality that had reached out and grabbed him by the throat from the first moment he’d seen her.

He let the silence expand between them, let it settle over them like a cloak. Until he became exceedingly aware of the sound of her shallow breathing, of the sound of the elevator’s gears grinding, moving them closer to their floor. To their destination.

It stopped, the door sliding open. Victoria’s breath caught in her throat, her lips parted slightly, her eyes wide.

He reached out and touched the back of her neck, sliding his fingers around slowly, reveling in the velvet softness of her skin. He tightened his hold, guiding both of them from the elevator and out into the hall. She turned slightly, her eyes meeting his. There were questions there, but none that she spoke. And so he answered none of them. Instead, he kept his hold on her firm and continued down the corridor toward their suite.

He used the key card to unlock the door and held it open for her, waiting for her to enter. Another sign of her desire to be with him. And he needed another one. Because he had the feeling that once he touched her he would be at a point of no return, then he would find it almost impossible to stop were she to change her mind. So he had to be certain now.

He stood in the doorway and watched her walk to the center of the room, crimson against the white marble floor and the cream-colored furniture.

She dropped the wrap and the bag onto the sofa and looked up at him, biting her lower lip. It occurred to him then that he had not kissed her today. He had not kissed her since last night on the balcony, and he had not kissed her before that. Such a strange thing to want a woman as fiercely as he did when he had touched her so few times.

And suddenly he was desperate for more. Desperate to taste her deeper than he had before, longer.

He gripped the knot of his tie, loosening it as he crossed the room, closing the distance between them. And he watched as her tension began to dissolve, as she released a long slow breath, her shoulders lowering, her arms going to her sides. He could feel it reverberate inside of him, the release of her nerves, the embracing of desire. To be so in tune with a lover’s body was an added dimension that he had not anticipated, nor one he had ever thought possible.

“Turn around, Victoria.” He had an image in his mind of what it would look like to unzip the dress, and he was determined to see it brought to life.

She obeyed him, turning to face the back wall, her hands clasped in front of her.

He approached her slowly, placing his hand on her shoulder before trailing it down the center of her back to where to dress began, dipping his fingertip beneath the fabric. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to her shoulder blade, feeling her intake of breath as his lips made contact with her skin. He closed his eyes, kissed her again, lower this time. And lower still, until his mouth was at the line where fabric met flesh. He was on his knees before her, inhaling her scent, relishing her softness. He opened his eyes, looked at the contrast between the rich dark red of the gown and the pale white of her skin.

He took the tab of the zipper between his thumb and forefinger and began to draw it downward, exposing more of her body. He tugged it down past the border of her underwear, the same red as the dress, exposing her perfectly rounded ass for his inspection.

“I imagine,” he said, his voice rough even to his own ears, “that you wear this style of underwear for practical reasons.” He hooked his finger in the waistband of her panties, tracing the line where the fabric had just rested. “But I would like to think you wore them for me. I only wish I would’ve known that you had something so provocative on beneath the gown. There’s no way I could’ve waited through that last hour.”

Victoria said nothing in response, but no response was needed.

He pulled lightly on the dress and it fell, revealing her gorgeous body for his inspection. She was not wearing a bra; the style of dress she was wearing would never have allowed it. And now she was wearing nothing more than the extremely brief red panties. And a pair of black stilettos. It did things to him. Made him crave things. Everything.

He gripped her hips, turning her so that she was facing him, with him still on his knees. Leaving him at eye level with the most feminine part of her, barely concealed by the red lace of the G-string.

“And the shoes...you wore those for me, didn’t you?”

She laughed, the sound shaky. “Not everything is all about you.”

“Of course not.” He kissed the tender skin of her stomach, just above the red lace, and felt her shiver beneath his touch. “Right now it’s about you. I feel as though I might be working backward, seeing as I have not yet kissed your beautiful lips today.”

And any moment now he would. But he was momentarily stunned by her beauty, and this position seemed the only one she was worthy of. One of reverence, one befitting the perfection that was before him now.

A fitting show of reverence before he took what he wanted.

Before he took what he needed.

He was still holding her hips, and he looked at the places where his skin covered hers. Tanned, callused hands concealing her smoothness. Cheap tattoos he’d acquired on the streets a sharp contrast to the fine fabric that she normally kept pressed against her body. Unworthy was the only word that filled his mind now. He was not equal to the gift being offered.

But he would take it.

He would take it now.

He got to his feet, cupping her face and bringing her forward, bringing his mouth down hard on hers. She made a muffled sound, wrapping her arms around his neck and angling her head, parting her lips for him. He shifted, pulling her tightly to his body so that she was pressed against him completely, every inch of her touching every inch of him. He was still wearing the suit, layers of fabric between him and her beautiful near-naked body. It wasn’t enough. It was nothing more than a tease. And he needed all of it, everything.

He suddenly felt desperate, as if he was drowning and she was air. As if he was sinking in quicksand and she was his lifeline.

The quaking feeling that had begun in the pit of his stomach in the ballroom intensified now. He closed his eyes tight, deepened the kiss, trying to get closer to her, in spite of the fact that there was no air at all between their bodies.

A jolt rocked him as her back came into contact with the wall. He had not realized that in his desperation for closeness he had moved them across the room. He had not realized because he wasn’t aware of anything around them, wasn’t aware of anything that expanded beyond the two of them. He wrenched his mouth away from hers and kissed her neck, down lower to her collarbone. She laced her fingers through his hair, holding him tightly to her. He kissed the valley between her breasts, tracing a line to her nipple with his tongue, relishing her flavor, her softness, her sweetness. He drew her deeply into his mouth, letting her hoarse cry wash over him, bathe him in satisfaction.

He straightened, kissing her lips again as he moved his hands over her curves, down to her hips, down lower until he got a grip on her thighs and tugged her legs up, hooking them around his waist so that he could carry her from the sitting area into his bedroom. She clung tightly to him, not releasing her hold until they arrived at the bed and he deposited her in the center of it.

He stepped back, looking at the picture she made, pale blond hair, pale skin over the white bedspread. The only color coming from the crimson thong that she still wore. It would have to go soon.

He shrugged his jacket off, letting it fall to the floor. Then he began to work the buttons on his shirt, wrenching the tie off completely and letting it go the way of the jacket. He made quick work of the shirt, then his belt, shoving his pants and underwear down to his ankles and kicking them to the side. And all the while he kept his eyes on Victoria, on her almost-dazed expression. There was a strange innocence in the way she looked at him, an innocence combined with a hunger that amped up his own.

“Your turn, Victoria.” He wrapped his hand around his shaft, squeezing tightly as she lifted her hips and took hold of the side of her panties, drawing them down her legs, exposing the pale curls at the apex of her thighs.