His father had been this way with his mother. Scenes on scenes. Crashing doors, shouting, dramatic gestures. As a child it had been terrifying. As an adult man he had been fleeing his father’s legacy—a great passion destroyed in the blink of an eye.
And right now he just didn’t know what it all meant any more.
He needed the sweet hot centre of her body, how it felt driving inside her, the oblivion of reaching release, of knowing nothing but pleasure with this woman who was driving him to such extremes.
Yet as he settled on top of her and began to kiss her the kissing grew slower, deeper, prolonging this time they had together. It wasn’t out of control, it wasn’t frenzied, and he knew then what he had been fighting.
Not Clementine. Not his past.
Himself.
What he was capable of and the fear he wouldn’t be capable of it at all.
True love—deep and abiding. As if a grand passion in all its wrenching glory was all he could have and he might mistake that for the other kind. The real stuff. But the other side of that coin held by a fearful boy was a yearning for both—to love exaltedly and to love simply and truly.
Clementine’s lashes fluttered down, all the resistance going out of her. The pink colour spread across her chest, up into her face, mounting her cheeks. He tugged her hair gently free of its tie and then he had his fingers spread in the silky weight, and her hands were softly caressing his neck, down over his shoulders, his back, as tantalising as a feather. She kissed him as if it nourished her. She clung and she said his name.
He slid down her body and pleasured her with his mouth until she was trembling, and he kept going until she peaked. Then he positioned himself and stretched her, filled her, rocking into her with gentle, slow strokes until she was murmuring incoherently and locking her thighs around him. The feel of her breasts rising and falling between them, the sweet tickle of her breath on his neck, was almost too good.
‘So beautiful, Clementine,’ he whispered, unable not to gaze his fill of her. ‘The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’
Her eyes spilled over with tears. He gently pressed his mouth to each eyelid, catching them with his tongue.
‘Sweet Clementine,’ his mouth murmured against her skin, his movements increasing in tempo.
She lifted her hips, took him deeply into her, threw her head back and made a sobbing sound as her internal muscles tightened around him. He gave way with a deeply satisfied groan, the pleasure hurtling through his body at force. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted more from her. Twice more he took her as the evening wore on, absorbing the heat of her body, the scent of her skin, the clash of his body giving way to the sweet clutch of hers. Until he had her limp and quiet, breathing softly beside him.
Clementine released a ragged breath and wondered why, after the most intense sexual experience of her life, she couldn’t get enough breath in her lungs. She sucked in as much air as she could and turned her head, ate up the sight of him, eyes shut, chest labouring as he caught his breath, the sheen of sweat lightly glossing his skin. He had been so generous, so passionate, so much everything she wanted. Except he didn’t love her, and he wasn’t going to love her.
She had been wrong all along. He had never seen her as anything different from the women who had preceded her and would probably come after her. She wasn’t going to mistake his tenderness, his gentleness in the act of sex, for feelings he didn’t have for her.
He rolled over, and suddenly those dragon-green eyes were enmeshed with hers. Despair gripped her. In a moment she would lose herself again in wanting this to be real. But it wasn’t. Tears she couldn’t repress filled her eyes, spilled over, made a mess of her face.
Serge cursed and drew her in against him. His arms were tight around her, but instead of comfort it only reminded her of what she had lost.
‘Don’t cry, sweet Clementine, don’t cry,’ he murmured.
Except those words didn’t mean anything, did they? Nothing was going to change, and one day—sooner rather than later—it would all be over and her heart would be smashed to smithereens.
‘Tell me what’s wrong?’
‘I don’t want it to end,’ she wept, unable to hide her true feelings any more.
His Tartar blood turned his expression wild and fierce as he caught her face between his hands. ‘It’s not ending. Listen to me, Clementine, nothing is over.’
For an endless moment Clementine held herself in the bright circle of his assurance, the words But you don’t love me dying on her lips, because her next words, And I love you—so very much, would tear this moment apart.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell him how much she felt when there was nothing in him to answer it. Instead she let him draw her close into his arms and listened as he began to croon to her in Russian, his hand moving in circles on her bare back. Gradually her crying fit subsided and she lay still and broken.