He turned to look at her, so slowly she wondered if she’d said something really wrong. With casual ease he hooked his thumb in the belt loop of his jeans and fixed her with a deep and penetrating gaze, and the unmistakable stamp of suspicion was on his handsome face.
‘Would that be a problem?’
It should be but Emma realised with shock that it wouldn’t be, not if she could stay cocooned here with Nikolai and lose herself in a moment she hadn’t expected at all. A moment which had unlocked a passionate woman within her she’d never known existed, a woman she wanted to be again before the coldness of daybreak brought reality back.
‘No,’ she whispered softly. ‘Let’s not think of anything else until daylight.’
Her words lifted the tension which had folded around them, but as he stepped towards her, every muscle highlighted for her pleasure by the growing light from outside, that tension was replaced with something far more powerful.
‘Looking at you right now, that is exactly what I want to do.’
Emma pulled aside the tousled sheets, inviting him back into bed, and as he pulled off his jeans and slipped in beside her she was in no doubt what he wanted to do. Heat uncoiled deep within her, lighting the flame of desire once more. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected to find this when she’d boarded the plane for Moscow and she knew that it would change her life for ever.
‘I want to be yours til morning breaks,’ she said as she moved against the heat of his body, relishing the strength of his arms around her as he pressed her into the bed, covering her body with his, passion exploding like fireworks around them.
‘Until daylight,’ he said as he kissed her lips, then made a blazing trail down her throat. ‘You will be mine, Emma.’
* * *
Nikolai felt his control slip away as he pushed the reality of the world aside and kissed Emma. How could she make him feel like this—so lost unless he was holding her, kissing her, as if she truly was his? Her hands moved over his body and her warm skin pressed close against his and all he could think was that she was his, totally his.
The fire of desire ripped through him as her lips claimed his, demanding so much and giving even more. It was so wild, so intense, all he could think about was making her his. Nothing else mattered but that. All he wanted was to be deep inside her.
‘Nikolai!’ She gasped his name and arched herself up to meet him as he claimed her once more, a powerful urge almost totally consuming him. ‘Don’t forget...’
A curse flew from him as he pulled back from her and the release which threatened to come far too quickly. How could one woman obliterate his control? Undo him so completely? Feeling like a fumbling teenager, he dealt with the contraception as she looked up at him, desire-darkened eyes holding his.
‘This time there is nothing to stop us.’ His words were smothered as her lips claimed his and her body welcomed him, taking him deep within her.
An explosion of heated emotions erupted, making him shudder as his release came hard and fast. He kissed Emma, binding them ever closer as the same wave he was riding crashed over her. The sea of desire left him swirling in exhaustion and, as her hold on him turned to a soft caress of his back, he allowed himself to slip under, to give in to the pleasure of sleeping in a woman’s arms in a way he’d never done before.
When he woke several hours later, Emma’s body warm against his, he didn’t want to move, didn’t want to give up the moment. Never before had he allowed emotion into the bedroom. For him it had always been about lust and acting upon an attraction. He’d thought it would be the same with Emma when he’d taken her to his room, but the moment he’d taken her virginity, had become her only lover, something had changed.
Gently he kissed her hair as she lay against his chest. Immediately she lifted her head and looked at him, a shy smile on her face. ‘You could always just tell me about your family and then we can stay here all day instead of going to see your grandmother.’
His mood was lighter than it had ever been and he stroked his hands through the softness of her hair. ‘If I tell you too much, I will have to keep you here for ever.’
‘Promises, promises.’ She laughed, a soft, sexy laugh which pushed him further from reality.
‘You know the basics,’ he said as she kissed his chest, forcing him to close his eyes. ‘I grew up in Russia and when my father died my mother and I left for New York.’
‘That must have been tough.’ Her slender fingers traced across his chest, easing the pain of the memories, the pain of telling them.
‘My mother had help from a business acquaintance of my father’s and, several years later, she married him.’ The surprised rise of her brows made him think more deeply and the hum of passion dimmed.
‘Did you mind? That she married again, I mean, replaced your father?’ If there was one question sure to kill the desire which had rampaged through him, it was that one.
‘I didn’t mourn my father.’ The pain from his childhood made his voice a harsh growl and Emma pulled away from him to look up into his face. Could she sense the tension in him just thinking about how he’d been conceived, that he had been the product of a violent rape?
‘What happened?’ There wasn’t any disgust in her voice for his open admission, no judgement in those two words at all. Had she too known childhood heartache? Did she recognise it within him?
‘It was not a happy marriage and one my grandmother, Marya Petrushov, very much wanted to continue. She made things difficult for my mother, prolonged the unhappiness.’ He skirted around the truth, trying to explain without giving her any more of the sorry secret than she needed to know. She could even be storing away the information right now to put it in her damned article. He pulled away from her, broke the contact. It was the only way to be able to think straight.
‘Is that why you have been distracting me from meeting her?’ The bold question didn’t match the soft innocence of the image she created naked in his bed and he fought hard against the urge to abandon this conversation and use the language of desire and passion. Her next words killed that thought, so instantly his body froze. ‘I need the story, Nikolai, all of it. I have a job to do.’
How could she look so deliciously sexy when her words were like hail thrashing his naked body? Had he fallen for the oldest trick in the book? Had she acted innocent to ensure he took her to his bed and he was now spoiling her plans? Worse than that, had she bargained her virginity just to get the story she needed? He shouldn’t be telling her the intimate secrets of his family, not when she could portray a family ripped apart by greed and power as it had risen to new heights of wealth.
It was precisely what had happened. His mother must have been an easy target for a power-hungry man whose own family had come from nothing. Bile rose in his throat at the thought of his father’s mother selling the story. Did she expect it to keep her comfortable in her final years? Was she planning even now to blackmail him? It damn well wouldn’t happen if he had anything to do with it.
‘You’ll get your story,’ he growled as he stood up and stepped away from her, away from the temptation of her silky, soft skin. She was as devious as his grandmother. She’d only slept with him to get what she wanted. She’d crossed the barriers he’d long ago erected and had exposed his emotions to the light of a new day and, with it, the pain of who he was. ‘But not now. Not until I know if there are consequences from your underhanded way of interviewing me.’
‘Nikolai!’ she gasped and reached out, the sheet slipping, giving a tantalising view of her breasts. The fact that it turned him on, sending lust hurtling through him faster than anything he’d known, disgusted him.
He