‘When was a woman ever fair?’ Sergei drawled between clenched teeth of outrage.
‘Giving me another opening like that is just asking for trouble,’ Alissa warned him ruefully, gazing at him and silently marvelling at the lush black luxuriance of the lashes that accentuated his beautiful dark eyes. ‘Okay, I’m at fault for not just giving you a straight answer.’
Sergei had never met a woman capable of giving him a straight answer and he was grudgingly amused by that statement.
‘But obviously my dad is my dad and I couldn’t credit that anyone would think we might be a couple,’ she protested in her own defence. ‘And since my parents broke up, my relationship with him has really suffered, so it was a very emotional meeting.’ Her throat thickened and her voice wobbled a little on that admission.
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Alissa wailed, bewildered by the question. ‘You’re an adult. What your parents do is their business.’
‘Maybe you’re not from a close family but we were really close and loving,’ Alissa countered thickly, appalled to hear tears clogging her diction again and wondering when she had turned into such a watering pot. ‘And then it all just went within twenty-four hours. It was such a shock. Dad announced that he’d fallen in love with another woman and, a few hellish weeks later, he moved in with her…’
With a sense of wonderment, Sergei stared down at the twin tracks of tears glistening on her cheeks. She was so emotional and that contradicted her psychological profile. She also seemed to sympathise with everyone but him. She’d gone from shouting at him to threatening him with a vase. His hard mouth curved ever so lightly at that comical recollection and he bent down suddenly and scooped her up easily into his arms.
‘What are you doing?’ Alissa yelped, fingers clutching wildly at a broad shoulder for balance.
‘I think it’s called being supportive. I’m not sure. It’s not a field I’m experienced in,’ Sergei confided, settling down on the bed with her slight frame cradled on his lap and deciding that, after all, there was something to be said for this supportive stuff.
‘Mum’s so unhappy and I can’t fix it,’ Alissa mumbled tearfully, wiping angrily at her wet eyes, finally acknowledging that she was exhausted by the day she had endured.
‘She’ll meet someone else and be happy again,’ Sergei forecast, lowering his handsome dark head, nostrils flaring as he breathed in the soapy, peachy aroma of her hair and skin. The neckline of the robe had dropped lower and wider to reveal the smooth, tantalising upper slope of her firm breasts. That view stoked his hunger for her by a factor of ten.
‘She loves Dad. Life’s not that simple…’
‘Only because you want to make it complicated,’ Sergei cut in, tilting her head back and nuzzling his darkly shadowed jaw rhythmically against the tender skin of her throat. She quivered in his grasp, every sense leaping into sudden awareness. ‘Ti takaya nezhnaya… you are so soft, milaya moya.’
Alissa knew she had to pull away and respect the boundaries that she knew she needed to impose with him, but the physical ability to resist Sergei’s dark allure was terrifyingly absent. He was being so gentle and she sensed that that didn’t come naturally to him. Her nipples were tingling into straining prominence, sending an electrifying message to the swelling dampening tissue between her thighs. That sensual awakening was an exquisite pain.
His mouth closed over hers in a wildly intoxicating kiss. Fireworks of response blazed inside her, sending her temperature rocketing while her hunger climbed. She let her fingers sink into his cropped black hair with a muffled moan of satisfaction. She couldn’t get close enough to him. He felt as necessary to her as air to breathe. The fierce intensity of his hard mouth on hers was devastatingly erotic. He slid his hand through the gaping neckline of her robe and captured a pouting rose-tipped breast, skilled fingers stroking the velvety tip into throbbing rigidity. A gasp of response erupted from her as sensation piled on sensation. He kissed her breathless and her heart was hammering so hard she felt dizzy and clung to him.
The buzz of a mobile phone proved to be the wakeup call she needed. She pushed him away with both hands and
tugged the edges of the robe back together. Trembling, she slid back to the floor, shunning the bed and him and the deceptive intimacy that had almost betrayed her. He answered his phone, his dark drawl rough-edged with huskiness.
When the dialogue finished, she breathed, ‘What happened to the meeting you said you had this evening?’
‘A London tabloid newspaper editor sent me those photos, obviously in the hope that I would dump you and call off the wedding and so give them an even bigger scoop,’ he explained with rich cynicism. ‘I skipped the meeting.’
Her body was a riot of nerve-endings sizzling with a sense of loss and disappointment. He was making her want things she had never wanted before and he was teaching her to want him with a depth of longing that physically hurt. The atmosphere was explosive, undertones swirling beneath the uneasy silence that intimidated her.
Sergei always played it cool, but he was fighting a very powerful urge to just yank her back into his arms. He hated the idea that she had any kind of a hold on him, for that was not his style. ‘You want me to leave,’ he murmured.
Alissa stared back at him, knowing that that was not what she wanted at all, but also that it was what she should want. His lean, darkly beautiful features dazzled her, commanded her attention, and locked her gaze to him. His very interest thrilled her and made her feel special. He was the sort of guy she had never expected to meet and she knew she would never meet his like again. To be an object of desire to a male who had been with some of the world’s most beautiful women just blew her away.
‘Alissa..?’ he prompted.
‘Yes.’ The word of rejection was forced from her by fear, for she felt insanely out of her depth.
As self-assured as ever, Sergei strolled over to her and rested a lean bronzed forefinger against the pulse flickering below the pale purplish hollow of her collarbone, betraying her tension. ‘Tomorrow, you will be mine. Twenty—four-seven, milaya moya,’ he reminded her silkily. ‘I can hardly wait.’
Even after the door thudded shut on his departure, Alissa stayed where she was, frozen between consternation and anticipation. Some minutes later she got into bed in a daze and tried to find sleep rather than relive the forbidden delight of his hands on her body…
Chapter Five
ALISSA WAS WAKENED early the following morning and treated to breakfast in bed. Her mother phoned her to wish her well. In the background she could hear a hubbub of bridal activity and she was hurt when Alexa professed to be too busy to come to the phone and speak to her sister personally.
After she’d had a shower, Alissa found a beautician and a hairdresser awaiting her. Clearly, a strict schedule was being observed. The professionals took charge and her hair was styled, her nails painted and her face made up. She could not escape the surreal sense that none of what was happening really had anything to do with her. It was not until the wedding gown was reverently brought in by one of the designer’s assistants that she began to feel involved and intimidated at one and the same time.