Page 18

“You know exactly what I mean.”

He chuckled. The deep bass rumble went straight to my bones, making heat pool in my core. “Only someone like you would understand,” he said.

“Now you have to tell me what you mean by that,” I demanded.

His eyes moved down my body and back up again, warming every inch in the cool room. “Gorgeous,” he said. “Surprising. Fierce. Fucking perfect.”

Well, I wasn’t expecting that, and was lost for words. We stared at each other for a long time in silence. Was he also wondering if my lips would taste like sugary espresso or like the champagne we were soaking up like sponges?

I had to get out of there before I did something stupid. Something there was no returning from. I had to get somewhere I could remember who Arkadi was, not this charming figment of my imagination that I had conjured. Or who the champagne had brought to life.

Breaking away from his gaze, I stood up, wobbling on legs that had been turned to jelly from his heated looks and all that bubbly.

Before I could stumble into the glass coffee table, he was up and catching me.

His steadying hands burned through my clothes, which had fit perfectly but not felt too tight until now.

He was going to kiss me again. Good. No, not good. Not without me having any say in the matter. “There’s not going to be any honeymoon,” I reminded him, shoving away.

He let me go, eyes narrowing and pinning me in place despite no longer being in his grasp. “Yes, yes, you’d rather die.”

“That’s right, that’s exactly what I said,” I told him defiantly while remaining where I was.

Once again, he moved forward, closing the tiny gap between us. “And I still don’t believe you.”

His mouth crashed down on mine. All thoughts flew like birds after a gunshot.

At the same moment, his hand tangled in my hair to tug my head back, I gripped his shoulders, pulling myself even closer.

We fell onto the couch, and he rolled so that I was on top of him, his hands roaming over the curve of my backside.

The snug straight skirt had me trapped until he yanked it up around my hips, his fingers delving beneath the edge of my panties.

I gasped and straddled him, pushing against the thick bulge that pulsed beneath me, hard and huge.

Shoving myself away from his fevered kiss, I planted my hands on his chest and just looked down at him for a second.

He took me in, his eyes dropping to the neckline of my blouse.

Moving his hands from my thighs, he slid his palms up my sides and slowly began undoing the buttons.

Arkadi was undressing me, his eyes intent on what lay beneath my clothes, and my reaction was to writhe against that thick shaft that pressed between my legs.

I ground against him until he groaned. Giving up on patience, he tore my blouse open, sending buttons pinging onto the coffee table and over the edge of the couch.

“Arkadi,” I said, trying to infuse some wrath. It came out like a whimper, a plea. Within seconds, I was kissing him again, holding onto the sides of his face like he was my lifeline.

His hands slid up my back and into my hair, then back down to grip my hips. “You’re killing me,” he groaned, trying to stop my frantic movements.

“Good,” I whispered, barely taking my mouth from his long enough to say the word.

He laughed against my lips, tugging my blouse down my arms and tossing it aside. “Let me look at you,” he said, nudging me back up.

I sat on him, my legs trembling, as he traced the edge of my lacy bra with his fingertips.

A moment later, it was unclasped and went flying after my blouse.

His hands cupped my breasts, his thumbs running across my nipples.

I moaned and let my head drop back as he tweaked my nipples to tight peaks.

Goosebumps broke out across my skin in the cool air of the wine cellar, and Arkadi pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me as he kissed me until I was too hot again.

To answer my earlier question, he tasted like both espresso and the sweet, sparkling champagne.

The heady scent of his soap filled my nostrils as I breathed him in, then nipped at his earlobe.

I was lost in sensation, not thinking at all, but biting Arkadi Mikhailov seemed over the limit of what was sane, and I pulled back.

He growled, shaking his head. In a blink, I was on my back on the overstuffed couch, pressed into the cushions as he spread my legs wide and wrapped them around his hips. His fingers delved into my panties, and more feral noises rose from his throat.

“I need to be inside you,” he told me, pushing his fingers inside my wet heat. “Damn it, Mila, you make me wild.”

He was already wild. He didn’t need me to make him that way. Lifting my hips, I gasped as he found my swollen nub and circled with his fingers until I cried out.

“Stop or keep going?” he teased.

I grabbed his hair, and as he lowered his head to take my mouth, he tore my panties off and sent them somewhere over my head.

Only the bunched-up skirt remained around my waist, and as he looked down at me with a feral, proprietary air, it didn’t stand a chance.

Gripping both sides of the fabric in his big hands, he tore it apart at the seams until I was completely naked.

“That’s not fair,” I said, tugging at his shirt.

He silenced me with another kiss that had me dizzy, while his fingers made me cry out against his mouth.

A sudden, shockingly good sensation had me whisked off on a wave.

So good I lost all sense of place and time, just completely lost to what he was doing to me.

I heard my own voice as if it were coming from far away, and I never wanted it to end.

Slowly, I returned to the wine cellar, with Arkadi looking at me with something like smug wonder.

Holy crap, what did he just do to me, and how could I get him to do it again?

I grabbed his pants and ripped off the button, then fumbled with the zipper. He helped me ease it down, and his huge cock burst free. I froze with my hand about to wrap around the smooth shaft.

He stroked my hair, easing down between my legs as he kissed me. Turning my head to the side, I slapped my hands against his chest.

“I’m a virgin,” I blurted, squeezing my eyes shut.

“I know that,” he murmured close to my ear, trailing kisses down the side of my neck.

I didn’t bother asking him how he knew. It was probably obvious. He kept kissing me, and within a moment, my embarrassment shifted back to the hunger I thought he had satisfied just a few minutes before. What he’d done with his fingers had been amazing, but now I wanted even more. So much more.

“You don’t care?” I asked.

Guiding my hand back down between us, he folded my fingers around his hot, hard shaft. “Does this feel like I’m bothered? Little girl, I can’t wait to fuck you senseless.”

His rough words and ragged voice pushed me over the edge, and I squeezed, running my thumb back and forth across his velvety tip. I was panting, ready to beg.

“Better do it, then,” I said.

With a pained groan, he moved my hand, bringing it above my head and holding it there as he nibbled at my lower lip.

Rubbing his cock along my slippery opening, he looked deep into my eyes.

“I want to savor you,” he said. “My sweet, virgin bride. As much as I want to ram deep inside your tight little hole, I think I want to hear you scream again first.”

As he held my arms above my head, he kept teasing me, holding me steady until I bucked against his onslaught, shuddering with need, and finally giving him what he wanted.

How did he make me feel so damn good? Before my screams subsided, he was inside me, pushing his big cock hard and deep and stealing my breath away.

“I don’t know how long I can hold out,” he said, staying as still as one of the statues at the factory as he let go of my hands.

“Don’t,” I commanded. “Don’t hold out.”

I clamped my lips together, unable to tell him what I wanted. He understood anyway and began to move. Slow and steady, until I was digging my nails into his back, then fast and hard and so, so perfect, until I bit down on his shoulder.

“I’m going to come inside you,” he told me, eyes closed tight as he pounded away. “You’re mine now, Mila. Tell me you know it.”

There was a split second, barely a blink, where something floated around the periphery of my mind.

Something that said I should be mad at Arkadi instead of clinging onto him like he was a bit of driftwood and I was lost at sea.

But then he found my clit with his fingers, and his lips pressed against mine.

His tongue invaded my mouth, swallowing my shouts of ecstasy.

If his hair were much longer, I would have ripped out handfuls, but instead, I tore into his shoulders, my head thrown back as he thrust a final time, hard and deep. His roar echoed around the cellar, and the couch thudded against the stone wall with the force of his movements.

All I could do was hold on. It was all I wanted to do, lost in that frantic whirlwind. He finally collapsed against me, his breath hot against my neck as he groaned, something I didn’t catch. His heart thundered against my chest, and mine echoed it.

I had never felt so raw, so exposed, and so utterly complete as I lay there beneath Arkadi, the cracked ceiling slowly coming into focus as my breathing subsided.

I ran my hands down his sides, realizing he still had his pants on; they were just pushed down around his knees.

His shirt was in tatters. Had I done that?

Gone so wild, I tore through the fine cotton fabric. My own clothes were a lost cause.

“What did we just do?” I asked, really not quite sure.

Arkadi kissed me, rolling to the side but keeping me close. “The same thing we’re going to do again in a few minutes,” he told me.

For once, I didn’t have any arguments.