He slipped a finger inside her again and she closed her eyes, tangled her fingers in his hair and held on for dear life. She didn’t want to lose this moment to worry and fear. She wanted to stay. Here.
In this bed.
With this man.
So she did it. She let go. And the instant she stopped fighting it and let the blissful tide sweep her away, she shattered.
Stars exploded behind her eyes and she went completely and utterly liquid. She felt like she was blossoming from the very center of her being, and for the first time, the concept of petite mort made sense. Little death. Because it was like she’d died and gone someplace else. Somewhere dreamlike and enchanted. She could feel herself throbbing against Artem’s hand, and it seemed as though he held her entire life force, every heartbeat she’d ever had, in the tips of his fingers.
And still he lapped and stroked, prolonging her pleasure, until it began to build again. Which seemed wholly unbelievable. She wouldn’t survive it again. So soon? Was that even possible?
“Artem,” she protested, even as she arched beneath him, seeking it again, that place of impossible light. Wanting him to take her there.
“Yes, kitten?” He pressed a butterfly-soft kiss to her belly and stood.
Ophelia had come completely apart, and there he was. Still fully dressed in a tuxedo, with his bow tie crooked just a fraction of an inch. He looked like he could have just walked out of a black-tie board of directors meeting...aside from the impressive erection straining the confines of his fly.
Ophelia swallowed. Hard. She needed to see him, to feel him.
Now.
She rose up on her knees and ran her hands over the expanse of his muscular chest. He cupped her breasts and pressed a kiss to her hair as she slid her palms under his lapels and pushed his jacket down his arms. It landed on the floor with a soft thud.
“Are you undressing me, Miss Rose?” he growled, and bent to take a nipple in his mouth. That crimson ribbon of need unwound inside her again, and she arched into him.
“I am.” She sighed, dispensing with his shirt as quickly as she could manage. One of his cuff links flew off and bounced across the floor. Neither of them batted an eye.
She had no idea what she was doing. She’d never undressed a man in her life, but she was no longer nervous, hesitant or the slightest bit bashful. He’d unlocked something in her. Something no man had ever come close to discovering. Something wild and free.
She unzipped his fly and slid her hand inside, freeing him. He was hard—harder than she’d imagined he could possibly be—and big. Intimidatingly big. But the weight of his erection in her hands sent a thrill skittering up her spine.
She linked her gaze with Artem’s and stroked him. He moaned, and his eyes went dark. Dreamy. Bedroom eyes, she thought. Watching him watch her as she pleasured him made her head spin. As if she’d done too many pirouettes. Ophelia’s pulse pounded in the hollow of her throat, right where Princess Grace’s diamonds nestled.
When she bent to take him in her mouth, Artem’s hands found her hair. He wound her curls around his fingers and she could feel a shudder pass through him as surely as if it had passed through her own body. After this, after tonight, they would be tied to one another. Forever. Years from now, when her condition grew worse and she could no longer dance or even walk, she would remember this night. She would remember that she had once been cherished and adored. And when she closed her eyes and came back to this bed in her dreams, the face she would see in those stolen moments would be Artem’s.
He might forget her someday. He probably would. There would be other women in his life, other mistresses. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that making love to her would change anything for him.
But it would change everything for her. It already had. He already had.
“Oh, kitten...” He hissed, and his fists tightened their grip on her hair.
She looked at up him. She wanted to etch this moment in memory. To somehow make it permanent.
He pulled her back up to her knees on the bed and rested his forehead against hers. “I need to be inside you,” he whispered.
A knot lodged in her throat. Unable to speak, barely able to breathe, she nodded. Yes, yes please.
Then he was on top of her, covering her with the heat of his perfectly hard, perfectly male body. He stroked her face and kissed her closed eyelids as his arousal nudged at her center.
Ophelia had expected passion. She’d expected frenzy. And Artem had given her those things in spades. But this unexpected tenderness was more than she could bear. Then he groaned as he pushed inside, and she realized exactly how unprepared she’d been for the dangers of making love to Artem Drake.
Her pulse roared in her ears.
Remember.
Remember.
Remember.
Then with a mighty thrust, he pushed the rest of the way inside and Ophelia knew there would be no forgetting.
How could she ever forget the way the muscular planes of his beautiful body felt beneath her fingertips, or the glimmer of pleasured pain in his dark eyes, or the catch in her throat when at last he entered her? And the fullness, the exquisite fullness. She felt complete. Whole. Healed.
She knew it didn’t make sense, and yet somehow it did. With Artem moving inside her, everything made sense. Because in that moment of sweet euphoria, nothing else mattered. Not her past, not her future, not even her disease. Nothing and no one else existed. Just she and Artem.
Which was the sort of thing someone in love would think.
But she wasn’t in love with him. She couldn’t be in love. With anyone. Least of all Artem Drake.
This was lust. This was desire. It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. Could it?
No. Please no. No, no, no.
“Yes,” Artem groaned, gazing down at her with an intensity that made her heart feel like it was ripping in half. Two pieces. Before and after.
“Yes,” she whispered in return, and she felt herself nodding as she undulated beneath him, even as she told herself it wasn’t true.
You don’t love him. You can’t.
She could feel Artem’s heartbeat crashing against hers. She was free-falling again, lost in sensation and liquid pleasure. Her breath grew quicker and quicker still. She looked into his eyes, yearning, searching, and found they held the answers to all the questions she’d ever had. Somewhere behind him, snow whirled in dreamlike motion as he reached between their joined bodies to stroke her.
“Die with me, Ophelia,” he whispered.
La petite mort.
Die with me.
With those final words, she perished once again and fell alongside Artem Drake into beautiful oblivion.
Artem slept like the dead.
Hours later, he woke to find Ophelia’s shapely legs entwined with his and the pink ballet shoes still on her feet. Moonlight streamed through the windows, casting her porcelain skin in a luminescent glow. He felt as though he had a South Sea pearl resting in his arms.
What in the world had happened? He’d done the one thing he’d vowed he wouldn’t do.
He wound a lock of Ophelia’s hair around his fingers and watched the snow cast dancing shadows over her bare body. God, she was beautiful. Artem had seen a lot of beauty in his life—dazzling diamonds, precious gemstones from every corner of