The Man She Shouldn't Crave

He hauled her up into his arms until she was dangling. He carried her over to the bed, still kissing her, and pulled down her skirt and tights and panties in one swift movement before setting her on the bed.

Rose knelt there in her slip, eyes dazed, ruby lips parted, everything left to the imagination but the peaking of her nipples. It was a sight so incredibly erotic he almost came. Seemingly ignorant of her effect on him, she reached for the buttons on his trousers. But he replaced her hands with his own because right now the only thing that mattered was to shed his trousers and briefs, deal with the condom before he disgraced himself.

She gave a little gasp as he tumbled her backwards onto the bed, eyes wide, and for a moment he could have sworn she was a little nervous. Wordlessly he rucked up her slip, knowing he should say som

ething, but he found the incredibly soft flesh of her inner thighs and words failed him. He tangled his fingers through the little soft dark curls at the heart of her and touched her heat. Rose moaned.

He muttered appreciatively under his breath in Russian, sliding his fingers into the hot slippery centre of her body, teasing her clitoris with his thumb, watching her eyes close, her back arch, listening to her whimper. He couldn’t wait.

Rose lifted her hips instinctively and his expression grew heavier, his eyes half closing as he slid between those gorgeous milky-white thighs, nudged her heat with his erection. He sheathed himself inside her, wide and deep. He didn’t pause, didn’t give her any time to adjust, he just wanted to claim her.

Rose sucked in air. For a few seconds the pressure was too much. It felt almost too much to take. She moved to push at his hips, but in that instant everything changed. A streak of pleasure in the wake of the unrelenting pressure caught her off guard and her little cry of protest tapered off into a full-throated moan.

He caught her mouth with his as he began to move, slowly but mercilessly, deliciously inside her.

Oh, my Lord…

More pleasure rippled through her nerve-endings as she began to move against him, teaching him what she needed, discovering it for herself. More—definitely more was what she needed. She told him so, in desperate little gasps of instruction.

Plato thrust in answer, deep and hard, the muscles in his back rippling under her desperately clutching hands. He yanked her legs up around his hips, her ankles pressing to the hair-roughened backs of his thighs, rubbing against the muscle as he thrust into her again and again. The pressure built, and all Rose could do was sob as her body sang around his. He shifted harder and higher and sensations ripped through her—until the inevitable happened. He threw back his head, the corded muscle visible in his neck and shoulders, his biceps pumped up. These visuals swooped through Rose’s mind as he grunted her name, buried his head against her neck with a harsh male groan and pulsed inside of her.

Rose wrapped him up tight in her arms as he came down on top of her, breathing hard. The weight of him…the scent of male skin and clean sweat and sex mingling with fresh linen sheets… All she could do was absorb his vulnerability in that moment and hold onto him. They were quiet together for a long time, their laboured breathing giving way to softer sounds and then a counterpoint.

‘Is it always like this?’ Rose murmured, shifting her head against his sweat-damp shoulder.

‘Moscow?’ His voice was a dark note she felt deep down in her sensitised body. ‘No, that was not ordinary.’

‘No, I mean this. Us.’

His fingertips played lightly over the little bumps on her spine and his eyes sought hers, that strange wild light still flickering there.

‘No.’ He gave a dry, involuntary laugh that sounded more like a groan. ‘This was definitely not ordinary.’

No, not ordinary. Sort of magical and…

‘Because I thought I’d lost you,’ she admitted softly, when before she had been too afraid to form the words.

‘No.’ He turned to her, his expression almost fierce, his mouth hot and dry against her temple. ‘No.’

‘I thought you were trying to control me,’ she confessed.

‘Nyet, I want to protect you,’ he said roughly.

For any other woman those would have been magic words, thought Rose.

‘Like my dad and my four brothers,’ she said aloud, realising as she spoke that he had been trying to protect her from outside forces as her brothers would—not to manipulate her as Bill had tried to do, trying to control her because he was weak and she was strong. Plato welcomed her strength.

‘Not like them.’

He nudged her chin up so he could look into her eyes. Rose’s heart gave a kick. He understood her.

‘You are my woman. There is a difference.’

Well, there was that, thought Rose faintly, and found she’d run out of words.

She’d never been anyone’s woman before. She was a daughter, a sister, and she had been a girlfriend, a fiancée, a friend… But never someone’s woman, and there was a difference.

‘I have learned today you are capable of looking after yourself.’ This admission was accompanied by a smile that took her mind off their conversation and back to the warm thud of his heart against her spread hand.