Читать книгу The Royals Collection - Ким Лоренс, Rebecca Winters - Страница 45
Оглавление“NO. WE WILL GO.” He took a deep breath, like he was trying to rein in the passion she so desperately wanted him to let loose.
On her.
What would it be like to be the center of the storm she could see swirling in his intent gaze?
Shivering, she knew with absolute certainty that was one query she wanted answered.
“Do not look at me like that,” he ordered.
“Like what?”
“You want to be naked,” he gritted out as if it was an accusation.
Though how could it be? With the erection pushing so insistently against his dinner trousers, there could be no question his body was on board with hers in the desire department.
More to the point, she wanted him naked, but she didn’t have the moisture in her mouth to say so. She simply nodded a hazy agreement.
“No. We have the dinner. Sex...” He shook his head as if finding something difficult to comprehend. “Sex will come later.”
“Please tell me you aren’t into delayed gratification.” She’d found her voice and cringed at how blunt she’d been, not to mention needy sounding. “It’s just that I don’t get a lot of gratification at all. I don’t want to put it off.”
She snapped her mouth shut, biting her lips from the inside to stop any more untoward words from escaping.
Instead of reassuring her that it would be perfectly okay to miss the lecture, and dinner, and anything else that stood between them and making love, he seemed amused by her words. Darn it.
Demyan’s mouth curved slightly and the need in his eyes receded a little. “Rest assured when we make love, you will not feel in any way ungratified.”
Chanel usually objected to the euphemism of lovemaking for what was essentially a physical act between two people. An act she had heretofore refused to indulge in completely. They weren’t in love, so how could they make love?
Only, she found the words of objection stuck in her throat. In fact, she could do nothing but agree with his assertion. “I’m sure.”
He might be something of a corporate geek, but his confidence in his sexual prowess was too ingrained not to be well based.
* * *
Demyan helped Chanel into her seat, his head still reeling from how quickly he’d lost control with her back at the apartment.
He’d very nearly taken her right there in the living room. No finesse. No seduction. Just raw, consuming, needy passion.
Demyan did not do consuming. He did not do need.
Raw exposure of desire was for other men. He didn’t hold back, but he didn’t lose control either. He was known for showing maximum restraint in the sexual realms, bringing his partners to levels of pleasure they showed great appreciation for.
He did not lose it over a simple kiss.
His tongue had barely penetrated Chanel’s mouth. With two layers of clothing between them, their bodies had not been able to touch intimately. He’d still been so close to coming, he’d had to pull away before he shamed himself with a reaction he’d never even evinced in adolescence.
The plan had been to give her a small taste of passion before leaving the apartment, to flirt with Chanel in subtly sexual ways over dinner and then leave her after a make-out session that left her wanting more.
Gaining her acquiescence to a hasty marriage with the prenuptial agreement the royal family’s lawyers had already drawn up required strict adherence to his carefully thought out strategy.
The plan was to keep her reason clouded by emotion, unfulfilled lust built into consuming desire being the primary element.
He didn’t plan to consummate their relationship for another week, at least. He wanted her blinded by her own physical wants, ready to commit to him sexually and emotionally.
Instead, he felt like an untried boy gasping for the chance to feel up under her skirt.
“Are you okay?” Chanel asked, worry in her tone.
Shaking off the disturbing thoughts, he gave her his most winning smile. “Of course. I am here with you, aren’t I?”
“Don’t say things like that.” Her frown was far too serious for his liking.
“Why not, when they are true?”
“They don’t sound true.” There was too much knowing in her gray eyes for his comfort. “That smile you give me sometimes, it’s just like a plastic mannequin.”
How odd that she should claim to know the difference. No one doubted his sincerity.
A smile was a smile. Except when it wasn’t. As he well knew but had not expected his less-than-socially-adept companion to. Taken aback, he sat down, noting as he did so the interested looks of their neighbors.
He turned the smile on them. “What do you say? Am I sincere?” he asked an older woman wearing something he was sure fit a lecture hall better than a formal dinner hosted in the Hilton ballroom.
Her returning smile was the besotted one he was used to getting from women. Even academics. “Very. Perhaps your companion can’t help her insecurities. Women like us don’t usually snag such lovely escorts.”
Chanel made a small, almost wounded sound next to him.
Before he could respond to it, the short, rather round man beside the older woman puffed up like a rooster. “Is that meant to imply that I am not as imposing?”
The woman looked at her date, and the smile she gave him shone with the kind of emotion Demyan found incomprehensible. “No, you are not, and that’s exactly the way I love you. I would not have married you nearly forty years ago and stayed this long otherwise.”
Feathers suitably smoothed, the man relaxed again in his chair, even deigning to give a somewhat superior smile to Demyan before turning to his wife. “Love you, too, m’dear.”
The older couple became obviously lost in a moment Demyan felt uncomfortable witnessing. He turned his attention to Chanel, only to find her frowning, her expression sad and troubled.
“What is it?”
“She’s right. You don’t belong with me.”
“That is not what she said, Chanel.” He put his hand on the green-silk-clad thigh closest to him. “I would say there is great evidence to the contrary.”
“What do you mean?”
He did not answer, but his expression was as meaningful as he could make it.
He could tell the exact moment all the tumblers clicked into place in Chanel’s scientific brain.
Her eyes widened, color surging up her neck into her face. “That’s just chemistry. A kiss hardly constitutes a claim.”
On that, he could not agree. Loss of control or not, their kiss had been a definite claim-staking on his part. “I’m surprised a woman of your education would declare there was anything mere about chemistry.”
“We’re here.”
“And?”
“And if the chemistry was so amazing, we wouldn’t be.”
He couldn’t believe she’d said that. He’d damn near ruined a pair of Armani trousers because of the heat between them.
They were not back at her apartment making love for two important reasons only, and neither had a thing to do with how much he’d wanted what she offered so innocently.
Making love tonight wasn’t according to plan. Even if it had been, Demyan would have changed the plan because he’d needed the distance from his passion.
He couldn’t tell her that, though. Not even close. “I thought you wanted to hear this lecture.”
“I did.”
He let one brow quirk.
“I do,” she admitted with the truculence of a child, made all the more charming because he was fairly certain she had not been a truculent child.
Just a very different one than her mother had expected her to be.
From everything he’d learned about her, both from the investigative dossier and herself, Chanel Tanner took after her father, not her mother. Not even a little. Mrs. Saltzman had clearly found that very trying when raising her daughter.
An hour later, Chanel looked up from the furious notes she’d been taking for the past twenty minutes on her smartphone. “I’m enjoying myself. Thank you.”
A genuine smile creased his lips. “You’re welcome.”
He liked seeing her like this, enthusiastic, clearly in her element.
“Dr. Beers has made at least two points I hadn’t considered before. They’re definitely worth additional consideration and research.” Chanel glowed with satisfaction Demyan found oddly enticing.
He liked this confident side of her.
Afterward, Demyan made sure she got the opportunity to talk to not only the visiting lecturer but also the head of the university department overseeing her lab’s research.
Her boss, who had attended the dinner as well, kept shooting her accusing glances from across the ballroom.
Demyan observed, “The head of your research is not happy to see you here.”
“He doesn’t like any of his assistants to make connections outside the department.” Chanel didn’t sound particularly bothered by that fact.
“That is very shortsighted.”
“He’s a brilliant scientist, but petty as a human being.” She shrugged. “I have no aspirations to run my own lab.”
“Why not?”
“Too much politics involved.” She looked almost guilty. “I like the science.”
That sounded like what Demyan knew of her father. “Why the frown?”
“My mother and stepfather would be a lot happier if I had more ambition, or any at all, really.”
“Yes?”
“When Yurkovich Tanner offered my schooling scholarship, they made it clear I could attend any school I wanted to.”
This was not news to Demyan, but perhaps she would explain why she’d opted for a local state school when she’d had the brains, the grades and the SAT scores to attend MIT, or the like.
“You graduated from Washington State University.”
“It was close to home. I didn’t want to move away.”
Pity. It might have done both Chanel and her mother a world of good. “You were still looking for a relationship with your mother.”
He understood that, though he’d never told another soul. His parents had given him up in everything but name, but he’d never cut ties completely with them.
He’d spent his angst-ridden teen years waiting for them to wake up and realize he was still their son. It hadn’t happened and by the time he left to attend university in the States, he’d come to accept it never would.
“I think I still am,” Chanel answered with a melancholy he did not like.
“You are very different people.”
“I’m the odd one.”
“You are not odd.” Unique, but not in a bad way.
“I wasn’t the daughter she wanted. My younger sister is the much-improved model.”
“That’s ridiculous. You are exactly as you should be.”
“Sometimes even I think you’re being sincere.”
Once again, she’d startled him. Because she was right. In that moment, he’d been speaking nothing but the truth with no thought of his final agenda.
* * *
Chanel wasn’t sure of the proper way to go about inviting a man up to her apartment for sex.
Demyan wasn’t making it easy, either. She wasn’t entirely sure, despite the kiss earlier, that he would accept. He’d been attentive over dinner, made sure she enjoyed herself to the fullest. She’d even caught him giving her that look, the one that said he wanted her.
Only, she got this strange sense that he was holding back.
And not for the same reason she was so uncertain about this whole sex thing. No way was Demyan a virgin.
She couldn’t help it—no matter how much her body was clamoring for sexual congress with this man, there was still a part of her that insisted that act was supposed to be a special one. Not very scientific of her, she knew.
Everyone from her mother, who had given up on Chanel’s nonexistent love life, to friends who could not comprehend her “romanticized view of sex,” agreed on one thing. Chanel’s virginity was just another sign of how she did not fit into the world around her.
But making love was supposed to be something more than two bodies finding physical release, she was sure of it.
Chanel had never wanted just sex. Wasn’t sure what effect it would have on her sense of self if she indulged in it now.
Things looked different at twenty-nine than they had at nineteen, though.
She should be more relaxed about the prospect of casually sharing her body with another person. She wasn’t.
If anything, the older she got the more important she realized each human connection she made was. Sex was supposed to be the ultimate act of intimacy.
She had to admit she’d never felt the bone-deep connection with the few men in her past that she’d felt in that single kiss with Demyan.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew losing the two people in her life who had loved her unconditionally at the tender age of eight had made her reticent about opening up to others, particularly men.
Her father and grandfather.
Chanel’s stepfather hadn’t loved her at all, never mind without limits. As for her mother, Chanel was twenty-nine and the jury was still out on that one.
Which, as an adult woman, had nothing to do with the question of if and how Chanel should offer her invitation to Demyan.
His car slid to a halt by the curb outside her apartment building. He cut the engine, reaching to unclip his belt in one smooth move.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to figure it out, after all.
“You’re coming up?”
“I will see you to your door.”
“It’s not necessary.” She could have smacked herself. “I mean, only if you want to.”
Oh, that was so much better.
One dark brow lifted as he pushed his door open. “Have I ever left you to see yourself inside?”
“It’s only our third date.” Hardly enough time to set a precedent in stone.
Her own words hit her with the force of a solid particle mass traveling beyond the speed of light. What was she thinking? Sex with him when they’d barely spent more than a minute in each other’s company?
Still remembering the pleasure of his kiss earlier, her body screamed yes while her mind sounded a warning Klaxon of nos.
No closer to a verdict about how to handle the rest of the night, she stalled in frozen indecision.
Her door was opened and Demyan bent toward her in his too-darn-sexy dinner suit, his hand reaching toward her. “Are you coming?”
She fumbled with her seat belt, getting it unbuckled after the second try.
The knowing look in his dark eyes said he knew why she was so uncoordinated.
“Don’t,” she ordered.
The knowing glance turned into a smirk. “Don’t?”
“You’re smug,” Chanel accused as she climbed from the car, eschewing the help of his hand.
Ignoring her attempt to keep her distance, he put his hand around her waist, tucking her body close to his as they approached her building. “I am delighted by your company.”
Heat arced between them and, that quickly, she remembered why after only three dates she was ready to break a lifetime habit of virginity.
“I’m still not sure why we’re here.”
“You live here?” Amusement laced his voice as he led her into the unsecured building.
The lack of a doorman was a bone of contention between Chanel and her mother. If the older woman had been concerned for her safety, Chanel might have considered moving, but the issue was in how it looked for her to live in an unpretentious, entirely suburbanite apartment complex.
“I do not like the fact that the entrance to your home is so accessible. This dark cove outside your door is not entirely secure, either,” Demyan complained as he took her keys and unlocked the door.
She hadn’t quite decided if the action was some throwback to old-world charm or simply indicative of his dominating nature when he ushered her inside.
They moved into the living room and he shut the door behind them. There was meaning in that, right? The shut door. If he’d wanted only to see her inside, he could have left her on the landing.
“Would you like a drink or something?” Like her?
Was she really going to do this? Chanel thought maybe she was.
“Not tonight.” The words implied he planned to leave, but the way he stepped closer to her gave an entirely different meaning.
She didn’t reply, his proximity stealing her breath just that fast. For the first time in her life, she began to understand how her mother, Beatrice, had ended up pregnant by a man so very different from herself.
Sex was a powerful force. “Body chemistry is so much more potent than I ever believed.” She sounded every bit as bewildered as she felt.
“Because you have never felt it so strongly with someone else.” There was no question mark at the end of that sentence.
Chanel would take umbrage at the certainty in his tone if Demyan didn’t speak the absolute truth.
“I’m sure you have.”
Something strange moved across his features. Surprise? Maybe confusion. “No.”
“You stopped earlier, not me.”
“It was not easy.”
Was that supposed to make her feel better about the fact he’d been more determined to go to the lecture than she’d been? Sarcasm infused her voice as she said, “I’m glad to hear that.”
His eyes narrowed, a spark of irritation showing before it disappeared. She wasn’t surprised. Demyan might not be the corporate shark her stepfather was, but he was not a man who liked to lose control, either.
Not that he had. Now, or earlier.
He had stopped after all, and right now, as much as she could read desire in his dark gaze, he wasn’t acting on it.
She, on the other hand, was seconds away from kissing him silly. She, who had never initiated a kiss in her life.
“Do you want to stay?” she asked baldly.
Subtlety was all well and good for a woman who found the role of flirt comfortable, but that woman wasn’t Chanel.
He smiled down at her. “Do you want me to?”
“I don’t know.”
Shock held his face immobile for the count of three seconds. “You don’t know?”
She shook her head.
“You didn’t seem unsure about what you wanted earlier tonight.” Disbelief laced his voice.
She nodded, making no attempt to deny it. Subterfuge was not her thing. “I barely know you.”
“Is that how it feels to you?”
She experienced that strange sense of disparity she’d had with him before. The words were right, the expression concurrent and yet, she felt the lack of sincerity.
Only, unlike at the dinner, there was a vein of honesty in his words that confused her.
“You already know you could take me to bed with very little effort.”
“I assure you, the effort will not be minimal.” Sensual promise vibrated in every word.
Chanel felt his promise to her very core and her thighs squeezed together in involuntary response, not because she feared what he wanted but because it made her ache with a need she’d never known.
“That’s not what I meant.” Her voice cracked on the last word, but she pretended not to notice.
The slight flaring of his nostrils and the way his eyes went just that much darker said he had, though. “What did you mean then, little one?”
“I’m hardly little.” At five foot seven, she was above average in height for a woman.
“Do not avoid the question.”
“I wasn’t trying to.” She’d just been trying to clarify, because that was familiar territory.
The rest of this? Was not.
Only he knew how tall she was, so if he wanted to call her little one, maybe that was okay. “I suppose I do seem kind of short to you. You’re not exactly average height for a man in North America, though maybe I should be comparing you to Ukrainians, as that’s your country’s formative gene pool.”
In fact, he was well above average height, certainly taller than most of the men in her life, and that gave her a peculiar kind of pleasure. Which, like many things she’d discovered since meeting him, surprised her about herself.
She’d never thought she would enjoy feeling protected when she was with a man, or that the difference in their height would even succeed in making her feel that way. Maybe it wasn’t just that difference but something else about Demyan entirely.
Something intangible that didn’t quite match his casual designer sweaters and dark-rimmed glasses.
“You do not seem short.” He tugged at one of her red curls, a soft smile playing about his lips as if he could read her thoughts and was amused by them. “You are just right.”
This time there was no conflict between the words and sincerity in his manner.
But it put the times there was in stark relief in her mind. “I can’t make you out.”
“What do you mean?” He looked surprised again and she got the definite impression that didn’t happen a lot with him.
“Sometimes I think you mean everything you say, but then there are times, like at dinner tonight, when it seems like you’re saying what you think I want to hear.”
“I have not lied to you.” Affront echoed through his tone.
“Haven’t you?”
“No.” Dead certainty, and then almost as if it was drawn from him without his permission, “I have not told you everything about myself.”
“I didn’t expect you to bring along an information dossier on our first date.” Of course she didn’t know everything about him; that was part of the dating process, wasn’t it? “You don’t know everything about me, either.”
His gaze turned cold, almost ruthless. Then he adjusted his glasses and the look disappeared. “I know what I need to.”
Sometimes there was a glimmer of another man there—a man that even a shark like Perry would swim from in a frantic effort to escape. Then Demyan would smile and the impression of that other man would dissipate.
