I wanted to explore everything, but, as ever, Dmitri drew my gaze. I skipped over to him. "You are the best husband ever!" Oh, I could tell he liked that. "This is the nicest, most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me." I went up on my toes to kiss him. "How did you know what to buy?"
"I contacted the head designer at Chanel for advice."
I laughed, then realized he might be serious. "That wasn't a joke?"
"No, love. It wasn't."
"How did you get this set up so quickly?"
"Money expedited delivery." His standard answer. "I'll show you my favorite part." He said, "Touch screen." That blank wall lit up, resembling a thirty-foot-wide computer screen, with icons of various design programs!
With a tight wave of his hand, the image changed, becoming an enormous canvas. "Here." He pulled a stylus from his pocket and handed it to me. "You can draw ideas and save them. The lines can be all colors and different widths. There's shading as well."
I tentatively drew a couple of lines and then, getting bolder, the basic shape of a dress model. "Oh, fuck me. Now we are cooking with gas."
"I . . . are we?"
"Just a saying," I said absently, adding more contrast. I quickly figured out how to change colors, and started to outline an idea that had been tickling at my brain.
When I'd gotten the basics down, I stepped back to view my sketch, only then becoming aware how quiet the room was. I turned to Dmitri.
He was sitting on the couch near the door, elbows on his knees, watching me avidly. And he was hard.
He gave me his charming shrug, the one that said, Can't help it. "You're utterly irresistible when you design."
I set aside the stylus and sashayed over to him.
"I want to watch you whenever you're in this studio," he told me, his voice husky. "So I take back what I said earlier. This couch is my favorite part of the room."
My gaze drank in his proud face. Somehow over the last month, he'd grown even more handsome. His eyes were glimmering with satisfaction, his body ready to pleasure mine.
And yet a wave of sadness washed over me. Dmitri Sevastyan was too thoughtful, too attentive and intelligent and sexy and caring. He was too . . .
Perfect.
His gift overwhelmed me. This life overwhelmed me.
Earlier, I'd called Karin from the restroom of a seaside souvenir shop, in the middle of what must've been a panic attack. "I can barely breathe."
"Are you going to confess?"
"How can I risk it?" I would never tell her the tragic details of his past, so she couldn't understand how badly my betrayal would wound Dmitri. "What would happen if I lost him?"
Her tone grew distant. "You find ways to go on."
My poor sister.
"Maybe he cares about you enough to forgive you."
"To forgive all of us." I still didn't know who'd placed Brett in Dmitri's path, making Dmitri lose his ever-loving mind to jealousy.
"Hon, it's been a month. Something's got to give."
She was right. Talking on the phone to my pack of scoundrels a few times a week was like putting a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound. Hearing Cash's laughter . . .
As I waited for the answer to my dilemma, the days slipped by.
"Vika?" Dmitri rose and peered down at me, clearly struggling to read me.
I gazed up at him. I didn't want to love someone who would end up hurting me--or being hurt by me; yet I was on the brink of falling totally in love with Dmitri.
Again, I couldn't catch my breath. Freaked out and on edge, I could envision every scenario in the world except one: us living happily ever after.
You can't cheat fate.
My survival instinct kicked in--because if he left me, I'd be broken, a shell of myself, forever replaying this dream I'd once had.
I backed up a step--a grifter sensing the biggest snare of them all--and muttered, "I'll, uh, lemme go make a call."
"You're doing it again. The more I try to please you, the more you distance yourself. Tell--me--why."
I just needed to hit the pause button for a bit. I forced myself to turn and walk away.
Something's got to give.
I'd made it to the hall when he clamped my arm and pulled me around. I craned my head up to take in his fierce expression, his crazed eyes.
"You're not going anywhere."
"I need a minute--"
"I can't goddamned read you! Except for when I'm pleasuring you." He fisted the material of my dress. "Then you let me see everything." With a yell, he ripped my dress clean from my body.
I swallowed, shaken by the sudden ferocity of his emotions--of my emotions.
"Then you hold nothing back!"
"Dmitri, wait!"
My bra and thong joined the torn dress on the floor.
I cried out when he swung me up into his arms, cupping my ass in his hot palms. The intensity seething inside him should've frightened me; my legs locked around his waist, my arms around his neck, his shirt abrading my stiff nipples.
When he yanked his fly open and shoved his pants down his thighs, my pussy was already wet for him.
"You are maddening me, woman." He planted me on his shaft, shuddering with every inch he forced inside me. "Ah, God, Victoria!"
I moaned as my slickened sheath welcomed him home.
He pressed me against the wall, his lips crashing into mine, his tongue seeking. But he hadn't moved his hips.
Between kisses, he snatched off his shirt. With his bared chest rubbing against my breasts, he kissed me aggressively, tonguing me, as if his mouth fucked mine. But he still hadn't thrust.
How was he fighting that primal need? He'd given me his cock, yet held it back from me, leaving me aching for more.
The point wasn't lost on me.
He broke the kiss to run his lips up my neck. "You're pulling away from me." At my ear, he groaned, "Don't."
"I'm not--"
"Don't lie to me!" He leaned down to lick my tits, nipping them with his white teeth, sucking the delicate flesh between his merciless lips.
As he tormented my breasts in a frenzy, I could only clutch his shoulders and beg, "More."
He squeezed me, pinching my nipples hard.
I cried out, frantic for him to move inside me. "I need you! Please."
He stood fully. Sweat dotted his skin, beading his upper lip. His hips slicked my inner thighs. "Look at my marks all over your breasts."
I glanced down. Stark love bites covered them, circling my areolas. At the sight, I helplessly rocked on his cock.
"No!" He pulled me from the wall and slapped my ass. "Feel what it's like to need more."
"Ahhh!" The sting nearly brought me off.
He coiled his arms around me, tightening his ruthless embrace. "I am obsessed with you." He said this the way another man might say, I am in love with you. "Feel the same way toward me! Want me like you want your next fucking breath!" When I leaned in to kiss his neck and taste his sweat, his head tipped back and he groaned, "Think of nothing but me. . . ."
"Please, Dmitri!" I could feel him throbbing inside me! I drummed my heels into his ass.
"You belong to me alone." When he nipped my neck, my pussy quivered around his cock. "I want to belong to you as well!"
In spite of my emotions--or because of them--I was about to come, tension gathering inside me.
"Why haven't you given me a goddamned ring?"
Because this dream had to end.
"Why?"
I threaded my fingers through his hair, tugging him to meet my eyes. It was on the tip of my tongue to cry, "Any move I make is the wrong one--because I'm falling in love with you!" But I couldn't.
He could tell I was holding back. His fingertips bit into my ass, and his eyes went even wilder. "Fucking give me something!"
When I could only whimper, he abruptly pulled out of me, holding me poised over his cock.
I gasped. "Nooo! Come back--please!"
In a menacing tone, he said,
"Do you feel empty inside? Cold?" He looked insane. "It doesn't have to be this way, does it? What you need is so close you can feel it."
I mindlessly undulated for him. "Dmitri?" I couldn't think!
"You are so close to me, Vika, but just out of reach. When I would kill for this--" He rammed his cock home, impaling me.
"Ah, God!" My head lolled.
He bucked his hips, pounding upward. Then again. Deeper. And again. Deeper. He was punishing me, his muscles rippling as he fucked. "Give me something of yourself!"
My tits rubbed his unyielding chest. My pussy tightened around him, readying to come. Excruciating pleasure/pressure mounted. Between breaths, I cried, "Dmitri! It's too much . . . too strong."
What my body was about to do scared me.
What my heart was about to do scared me.