But she was saying something. She was sitting up, and managed to pull the sheet around her as he watched her. ‘What don’t you usually do?’ He didn’t want to move, but he wished she would drape herself back across him.
‘This. Have casual sex.’
The words sounded a bit harsh. He was thinking incredible sex. Surely he’d covered all the bases? She’d definitely come apart in his arms. She should be purring like a kitten, but instead she was sitting there, huddling in a sheet, talking about casual sex.
Then the other shoe dropped. Of course. She wanted to hear that he respected her, that they would be repeating this regularly—for a while—and then she’d drop the sheet and crawl back into his space.
He could do all that. He would, once his brain clicked into gear. But some other part of him said, with a sincerity he didn’t recognise, ‘Nothing about this is casual, Maisy.’
She had the softest eyes in the world, he thought, arrested for a moment by the expression on Maisy’s face. And somehow he had said exactly the right thing, because some of the tension had run out of her and she looked both shy and hopeful.
How in the hell was she shy after what they’d just done? What they were going to do? With her face flushed, her round hazel eyes dilated, she looked like a woman who had enjoyed very satisfactory sex. She also looked a little embarrassed.
It was sweet. He reached for her and she came to him, soft and warm and accommodating. Exactly what he wanted from her. He laid his hand between her legs, easing them apart as his fingers found her sensitive part and slid in and out of the hot wet core of her. His eyes never left the expression on her face as he built her orgasm out of the remains of what had gone before.
CHAPTER SIX
‘I HAD wild uninhibited sex in broad daylight. I had lots of wild, uninhibited sex in broad daylight,’ Maisy confided to the pillow, as if this were a secret, and Alexei laughed. The sound was so reassuring Maisy subsided into the vibrations of his chest, wanting to stay curled against him for as long as possible. His large, tight-muscled frame took up more than half the bed, but she didn’t mind.
Alexei ran a possessive hand over her hip, now covered by a single sheet. He had so thoroughly explored her body in the last two hours he couldn’t imagine a freckle or dimple he wasn’t familiar with, but she insisted on covering herself, revealing a modesty that oddly touched him.
He pulled her tighter into the shelter of his body.
He never did cuddling.
He performed, he took his pleasure, and then he showered and dressed and left.
Maisy curled against him, as if heat-seeking, her closing lashes soft on her round cheeks. He’d exhausted her, and the thought satisfied an entirely primitive, unreconstructed part of himself.
The more sophisticated part of him was planning ahead. How to fit her into his schedule; how to set the parameters of their relationship …
She has no idea who I am or what I require of her, he thought, and it was an oddly charged feeling—one he didn’t want to relinquish yet. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but for a time he had felt a barrier come down. He’d felt free to just luxuriate in this closeness. Soon enough they would have to get out of bed and harsh reality would intrude. He didn’t want clingy, didn’t want emotions, didn’t want a relationship. He wanted sex. In return he would give her anything she desired.
Foremost, he didn’t want her to nurture any illusions about him.
Then why did it feel as if he was shutting her out and in the process shutting down a part of himself?
He bedded glamorous women for a reason. It had nothing to do with their allure. Hell, he doubted they were even his type. But they came with a pack drill. They knew what they were about, they knew what they wanted, and they knew what he was offering. There were limits to these liaisons. Tara had been a perfect example.
But just the thought of her this morning ran a chill through him, and he tightened his arms around Maisy. Tara was a reminder of why Maisy had snuck in under his radar. This uncomplicated sweetness was what he wanted—probably needed. Maisy had come to him with nothing but her wonderful, warm, accommodating body.
Peace was what he was feeling, and in answer to it he rolled her onto her back and settled himself across her, cradling his head on her belly.
It would be good for them both. She clearly hadn’t had much of a life, from what she’d told him with her mum and the gig with Anais’s baby. He could offer her luxury, travel and a speed dial for her sexual repertoire. He in turn would get this much joy and sweetness in his bed.
And he would not let himself be weak and mistake it for anything else.
He shoved that thought aside and luxuriated in the feeling of her. After everything that had gone before it was like being reborn. He needed six months of Maisy. In fact if he was a doctor he’d recommend it.