Page 194 of Snowbound Surrender

The moment their eyes met, her breathing started to slow. “You saved me.”

Maxim chuckled as he pushed a lock of hair which had escaped her pins behind her ear. “Only from a dog.”

But that did not seem to matter to Anne, who whispered, “Kiss me.”

He needed no further invitation. He crushed her against the wall, his lips ravishing her own, and he almost cried out with the pleasure of it. The sensation of her under his body, pressed up against him, her fingers pulling him closer, her breasts pushed into his chest – there was no one like Annika, no one like her at all.

“Oh, Maxim,” she moaned as his lips moved to her neck, kissing a trail down to her ears.

“Annika,” he whispered, before reaching for her hands and pinning them to the wall, trying not to cry out with pleasure as she arched against him.

“Oi, who goes there?”

They broke apart in an instant as a gentleman forced a lamp into their faces. Annika turned away, desperate not to be identified.

Maxim laughed gruffly. “I should have known we would be caught,” he said ruefully, pulling out his pocketbook. “You seem like a very conscientious man, sir. Here, a pound for your trouble.”

He placed the paper note in the man’s hand, and within a moment, he and his lamp were gone.

Annika was still leaning against the wall, but she was smiling now. “We have got to stop being caught…kissing.”

Maxim saw the flush of pleasure still on her cheeks, and nodded. “Of course – but first…”

He moved forward and she moved to meet him, desperate for his touch once more. A little more kissing would not do any harm.

CHAPTER 7

Anne watchedthe flickering light on the ceiling, as someone with a candle or lamp walked past her room. The curtains were not fully pulled together, and the light danced across the white paint as thoughts danced across her mind.

Well, not exactly thoughts. Images of herself and Maxim, dancing across the ballroom at St. James Court, flashed across her mind. His hand on her arm. Her hand in his. His fingers brushing her cheeks before he kissed her…

Anne swallowed and turned over. When was the last time she had felt this way? She could barely remember – it had been years ago.

And it had not been like this. That had been a childish crush, an obsession which she had not really understood nor interrogated.

These feelings were those of a woman.

Maxim smiled in her memory and Anne shivered. Just the thought of him made her feel more alive than ever had done. He made her feel powerful, more certain of herself. More certain than she had ever felt.

“We have got to stop being caught…kissing.”

“Of course – but first…”

The pressure to continuously apologise for her thoughts and actions disappeared whenever she was with him. Was it his smile, his charm, or just his gentle acceptance of her?

She smiled in the darkness. It certainly was not his Czardom, a palace and crown. Whatever it was, she was drawn into him and could not, would not fight the desire to be with him.

A clock chimed somewhere. It was one o’clock in the morning.

Anne sighed, pulling her feet over the side of the bed and striking a tinder box, the flame almost blinding her. She lit the solitary candle by her bed, picking up a book. She turned more than five pages before throwing it down. Not a single word had sunk in.

Marriage was an estate she had entirely given up, long before she had met Maxim – but his presence here, this engagement of convenience that they had contrived…was it the final chance she would ever have to be a wife? Or at least, to experience a little of that intimacy and closeness that a wife would feel?

Dark and wild thoughts rolled around her imagination and she licked her lips. Genteel ladies do not have such thoughts, she knew that. But she was not ignorant of the way a gentleman and a lady…enjoyed each other.

The conflict warred inside her for another ten minutes, and then she stood up resolutely. The fur coat Maxim had brought her was lying on a chair by the door. Pulling it around her shoulders, it took her only another few minutes before she was standing outside Maxim’s bed chamber.

Anne took a deep breath. There was still time to return to her own room. But would she be able to live with the regret?