‘Don’t stop…don’t stop!’ she gasped wildly.
Holding her tightly to him, he pounded into her tender core with spellbinding passion. And when she went into orgasm, it was like a massive firework display going off inside her, her entire body burning and soaring with the all-encompassing high of ecstasy. The languor and peace of satiation finally followed.
‘I can never get enough of you, angil moy,’ he breathed raggedly into her hair, turning up her face to steal a scorchingly possessive kiss from her lips while smoothing her tumbled hair back from her damp brow and studying her with smouldering dark eyes. ‘One minute after I come I want you again.’
Little tremors and aftershocks of pleasure were still quaking through Alissa’s slight body. She was shattered by the force of need he had awakened in her and the mind-blowing pleasure he had given her. As the intense sensation faded she was aghast at the reality that he had enjoyed her on top of a table while still fully dressed. She watched him as he impatiently shed his clothes in an untidy heap.
‘Aren’t you ever tidy?’ she sighed.
‘I have more important things to do. But you’re talking like a wife,’ he commented in surprise and he laughed, dark golden eyes suddenly glinting with amusement.
‘Isn’t that what you want?’ Alissa traded, lifting her chin.
‘Da…yes. I want the full package. But right now we need a shower,’ he told her, peeling the robe she wore off before he gathered her up into his arms.
‘I can’t give you the full package,’ Alissa reminded him in an anxious warning. ‘Don’t you dare try to get me pregnant.’
Sergei frowned. ‘Not without your consent. I’ve used a condom every time I’ve been with you…except the first time,’ he mused, startling her with that admission. ‘That was before I knew who you were and there seemed no point in taking precautions when the ultimate goal was a child.’
As Sergei lowered her down to stand on her own feet in the spacious shower Alissa was pale and tense. She had assumed that he had protected her the first time as well. She had been so out of control that she hadn’t noticed and she was furious that she had failed to look out for herself. ‘Let’s hope we get away with it,’ she remarked in a brittle voice.
‘I was expecting it to take at least a year for you to conceive and the last thing I would want is for that to happen now, when we no longer have either an understanding or an agreement in place. Of course, as you get to know me better, you may well change your mind on that issue—’
‘No way!’ Alissa asserted fiercely. ‘I won’t change my mind. A child needs a mother and my child will need me—’
‘You’re so sexist, angil moy,’ Sergei censured, pulling her into the path of the multi sprays of water, laughing without reserve when she yelped as a needlesharp spray hit a sensitive spot. He hoisted her up against him, her arms coiling round his neck as he braced her hips against the marble wall and wrapped her legs round his waist. ‘What would you do with my baby? Use it as a weapon against me? Would you keep us fighting never-ending custody battles and constantly up the stakes to feather your own nest while hitting out at me?’
‘Is that what you think women do?’
‘I’ve watched a lot of my friends go through hell over access to their children by former partners. Even marriage is no protection. It’s not a situation I will put myself or my child in with any woman. Women often want revenge when a relationship breaks down.’
Shocked by the strength of his opinions on the subject, Alissa just shook her head slowly. ‘I would just love my baby and no matter what happened I would try to base all my decisions on what was best for my child.’
His lean dark features clenched hard. ‘You say all the right things, milaya moya. You said them to your sister on the phone as well but unfortunately you don’t always seem to live up to them.’ He released her and strode out of the shower.
Alissa took a moment or two to get her thoughts straight and then raced after him to yell, ‘How the heck do you know what I said to my sister on the phone?’
‘I had your calls monitored. I wanted to know if you were telling me the truth.’
Alissa gave him an appalled appraisal. ‘You had them monitored—you snooped on me? That’s a dreadful thing to do!’
‘Unlike you I didn’t lie, cheat or set out to defraud anyone,’ Sergei responded drily. ‘You can always trust me to give you the truth, but I will not be kept in the dark about anything that concerns my interests.’
Belatedly becoming aware of the chilly evening air striking her wet, dripping body, Alissa coloured and dived back into the bathroom for a towel. While she dried off her damp hair she struggled to recall what she had said to Alexa during that phone call and cringed at the awareness that Sergei must have heard every word. He was watching the business news when she reappeared. Ignoring him, she wriggled into silk pyjamas and got into bed.
‘Are we actually going to share the same bed all night?’ Alissa demanded abruptly. ‘I thought you didn’t do couple-type stuff.’
Sergei ran an appreciative hand down over the curve of her hip as she lay there with her back turned to him. ‘You’ve taught me to see advantages I never saw before. For the next few weeks we are going to share everything like normal newly marrieds.’
But Alissa could not understand the reasoning behind that decision. If she was not about to give him a child what was the point of greater familiarity? And surely so much intimacy was not required to make their marriage look real from the outside? From what she could work out they were unlikely to see enough of his grandmother for there to b
e any need to put on such a show of being close.
‘Stop agonising over everything. So, you’re not perfect, but then I never expected you to be and my desire for you makes me more tolerant,’ Sergei murmured with unnerving intuition. ‘Relax, close your eyes, go to sleep.’
And somehow she did, waking at some stage of the night to find that she was closely entwined with Sergei’s lean muscular body and far too close to him for comfort. Her squirming efforts to ease free without waking him roused him very thoroughly in a way she had not intended and her pyjamas did not last long as a barrier. Exhaustion kept her asleep until dawn when once again the touch of his expert hands on her sinfully sensitised body set ripples of tormenting need loose inside her and tightened every nerve ending to screaming point. When he finally entered her, slow and deep and sure, the breath left her body in a hiss of reaction and the flood of sweet, painfully intense sensation engulfed her. The yearning was more than she could bear and all control fell away as he sent her hurtling headlong into the burning, melting waves of irresistible satisfaction.
Afterwards, she twisted round in his arms and buried her face in a broad bronzed shoulder, breathing in the scent of his sweat-dampened skin as if it were the elixir of life while she hugged him close. Her body wasn’t her own any more; when he touched her she could not resist him. That scared her. Too much exposure to Sergei was bad for her. She felt clingy, which appalled her, and she had no intention of letting that urge out to cause havoc with her self-discipline. She only hoped she wasn’t pregnant, for she did not share his apparent conviction that one act of lovemaking without protection was insufficient for conception. And that was one complication they could certainly do without…