His hand rose, interrupting her. “And you had every right to. You have no reason to trust me, Anastasia, with the way I left you in the past. What I do now doesn’t erase it, doesn’t exonerate me. I just never want you to be upset, never again, and certainly never on my account.”
“Trust doesn’t even factor into this, and it wasn’t why I was upset. You had a life before you came saving mine, and it would have been only natural if you had—”
“I didn’t, Anastasia. I had no mistresses.”
“Please, just let this go, Ivan.”
“No, Anastasia, I need you to know this. I had no mistresses, in the plural or in the singular, not even one-night-stands.” His gaze lowered for a moment before he raised it back to hers, showing her inside him, the endlessness of his dark, tormented loneliness. “I’ve had no one since you.”
Anastasia felt her heart, the whole world, grind to a halt. What Ivan had just said...
I’ve had no one since you.
The words sank in her mind, each one making no sense individually. Together they made even less sense.
She replayed them again and again, examining them for something she’d missed, or misunderstood. But there was nothing hidden or vague. He’d just said these words as clearly as could be.
He hadn’t had sex with any other woman since her.
Then everything started to spin in a vortex of questions and confusions, a dozen hows and whys flying about around an epicenter of incredulity.
She felt as if everything inside her had been scattered in disarray, her whole belief system and rationalizations in shambles.
If he’d left her, but had never sought another... If he’d kept an eye on her, but had never come back... If he’d come back only in her extreme need, remained with her, but still wouldn’t be with her fully...
What did it all mean?
She stared up at him, lost in his solemn eyes. This was too much, too unbelievable. She had to say something to do it all justice.
Then she opened her mouth and all that came out was a blurted “No way!”
His eyes widened in astonishment. Then the seriousness of his expression melted on the widest smile she’d ever seen on his face, which was exactly what her graceless exclamation deserved. To top it all off, he treated her to another first. He threw his head back and laughed.
It seemed laughing was such an alien activity to him that it brought tears to his gorgeous eyes.
As his fit of mirth eased, he brought up both hands to wipe his face. Then he looked at them, examining the wetness in amazement. That only reinforced her opinion that this had never happened to him before. Or at least he’d thought it could never happen to him again, for surely he’d laughed when he was younger. A time she knew absolutely nothing about.
Her thoughts scattered when she suddenly found him looking down at her as if he’d like to sink his teeth into her and gobble her up whole.
Then he only said, “Yes way.”
Her every inch started to burn again at the wickedly sensuous way he’d said that. And though it made her want to launch herself at him, tear at his clothes and beg him nonstop until he took her, she still had a million questions.
He continued to take her, do everything imaginable to her, with his eyes. But since she knew he wouldn’t deliver on what those eyes promised, she quelled the pounding between her legs, tilted her head up. “And are you going to explain that?”
Scooping her effortlessly by her buttocks against his great body, he nuzzled her neck. “There’s nothing to explain.”
He felt so good she had to struggle to resist wrapping herself around him and begging him to take her right there on the stairs. She barely managed to pull herself away enough so she could look up into his eyes. “Oh, yeah? You drop a bomb of this magnitude on me—something that should be totally unbelievable—and you expect me to just take it in stride?”
Another of these frowns that always made her feel the sun had died gripped his face. “You don’t believe me?”
“I said it should be unbelievable. Just the idea that a man like you would remain...celibate...” The word sounded so weird, so absurd. “For seven years! There has to be a big explanation for that. One you’re not volunteering.”
He eased her back on her feet, dropping his hands at his sides. “Again with this ‘a man like me’ thing. So let’s have it. What kind of man do you think I am?”
Her cheeks blazed under his chilly gaze. “I don’t think there are others like you for you to be a ‘kind.’ I only have theories from experience, backed up by the few facts you make available to the world. But really, when it comes to sex, any man wouldn’t go seven years without it. And a man of your wealth and power, not to mention your looks and your...appetite, it’s implausible you would.”
“So you don’t believe me.” This time it was a statement.
“Of course I do.” Her protest was vehement. It hadn’t crossed her mind to question the truth of his statement. “I just don’t understand how you didn’t...why you didn’t...”
He cut off her stammering, capturing her and raising her off the ground again and into his power, wrapping her thighs around his hips. “You didn’t.”
His surveillance of her had been that thorough?
But of course it had been. She doubted anything could be kept a secret from Ivan if he decided to uncover it. But it was still hard for her to accept that he’d found out what had gone on behind the closed doors of her life.
Suddenly, she wanted to call him out on it. At least, to challenge him. She’d made it too easy for him so far.
Arching backward, she let her long hair fall over his arms crossed over her back. “How can you be sure of that?”
The heat in his eyes rose, the hardness pressed between her legs becoming that of steel. “I’m sure. I’ve been watching you.”
Another stab of arousal pierced her core, even as a chuckle burst on her lips. “And now I’ll hear that song scoring your every move and glance.”
The hands squeezed her buttocks harder, sending delicious electricity coursing through her. “What song?”
She locked her ankles more securely around him, her eyes getting heavy under the onslaught of hunger. “Y’know, The Police? ‘Every Breath You Take’?” She sang the lyrics, somehow keeping in tune despite what he was doing to her. “Stalker much, Ivan?”
The flare of voracity in his eyes made her think that he would give in to desire this time, lower her right there and mount her. And oh, how she wanted him to. But then he let out a ragged breath and started walking up the stairs with her still in his arms.
“It would have been stalking only if I made you realize I was watching you.” He paused a beat. “And I was watching Alex, too.”
“Neither of us had a clue.” Unable to let Alex’s memory derail her current concern, she forced a smile. “But you’ve been watching me since you came back and no longer try to hide it.”
“That’s different.” He grimaced as he shouldered open her bedroom door. “Or maybe it isn’t that different.” At the foot of her king-size bed, he bent and laid her with extreme gentleness on the turquoise satin quilt, what he’d said he’d picked to reflect her eyes, hovering over her with arms planted