‘What does it mean?’

‘You are so beautiful. I don’t want to tear myself away to go home.’

For an insane moment she considered telling him that he could stay if he promised not to touch her. She didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to be alone either. The idea of lying in a man’s arms was hugely appealing. The idea of waking up with company for a change was even more seductive. She was dismayed by her own naïvety, flinching from the raw amusement she would rouse with such a silly proposition. He wanted sex. He wanted to treat her like her many predecessors in his bed-women he had enjoyed for a few weeks without love or strings of any kind before moving on to the next. Could she really want to join that nameless herd? Someone whom he used to satisfy his lust for a night or two before he became bored and sought the fresh stimulation of a new face and body?

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I LOVE your hair,’ Nikolai continued softly, combing long, lean fingers gently through the heavy fall of curls that were the colour of maple leaves in autumn, ‘and the softness of your skin.’ Having exposed the smooth silky flesh where Abbey’s slender neck met her shoulder, he buried his lips there.

The erotic touch of his mouth in that precise spot was like an electric charge to Abbey’s senses. It made her unbearably aware of the tight, pulsing sensitivity of her nipples and the hollow ache between her thighs. Both sensations urged her closer to the masculine promise of his hard physique, her breathing audible, her body on fire with a frustration that she was only just beginning to recognise. It was an ungovernable hunger that was flooding through her like an unleashed dam and threatening to wash away her every inhibition. She would never have believed until that moment how powerful such promptings could be. She would never have credited that the fierce sensual pressure of a man’s mouth and the probing invasion of his tongue could make her shake as if she were an accident victim.

‘Nikolai…’ Abbey whispered, shocked by the force of what she was feeling and frightened by it.

His lean strong face tightened at the recognisable plea in her voice. Though she was eager to deny it, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Fierce satisfaction gripped him until he noticed the photo of the bridal couple on the wall behind her. It was Abbey in full bridal regalia and her late husband-a handsome, smirking blond guy. Inexplicably Nikolai’s level of satisfaction sank. He reminded himself that he didn’t go for demanding women. As far as possible he kept his sex life straightforward and simple. There was nothing either straightforward or simple about the beautiful out-spoken redhead in front of him. There was nothing either simple or straightforward about what he was thinking either: had she once wanted the blond guy as much as she now wanted him? That struck Nikolai as a deeply freaky thought and he could not imagine why his mind had come up with such a strange reflection, for why should he want to compete with a dead man?

Abbey was way beyond thinking, she could only feel, and when Nikolai drew back from her she felt fiercely deprived and lonely. She wrapped her arms round his shoulders to bring him back to her, her mouth as hungry for his as for an invigorating elixir. Her fingertips flirted with the luxuriant black strands at the back of his well-shaped head. Touching him, she discovered, was an addictive pleasure. Her breasts swelled in connection with the hard muscular wall of his chest and the sting of her nipples eased beneath that welcome pressure. Her body sang at every point of contact with his. A lean hand closed over a full pouting breast and it felt as if her whole body lit up in eager response. A dulled moan escaped her as he moulded her tender flesh, the pads of his thumbs finding the erect points of sensitivity with devastating accuracy. Each kiss filled her with desperate craving for the next. Passion had erupted in her like an oil gusher and it was too new and too seductive to be capped and denied. Every dart of his tongue released another intoxicating surge of sensation.

The exact moment when he pushed her skirt higher was known to her, not because panic or denial assailed her, but because her impatience was greater than his and she was already desperate for him to touch her with greater intimacy. An exploring masculine fingertip skated over the fabric of her boxer-cut knickers and discovered the moist heat at the heart of her. Her breath caught in her throat and she gasped as he skated that caress up over her prominent mound where every nerve-ending leapt in an agony of sweet sensation. He kept his attention there and her legs shook with the stress of having to stay upright. She clung to his broad shoulders and pushed against him. With a groan he hauled her bodily up into his arms.

‘Where’s your bed?’ he growled against her satin-smooth cheek and paused for an instant to investigate the delicate expanse below her small ear, the intrinsic scent of her skin acting like an aphrodisiac on him.

Abbey was weightless with desire and longing. She couldn’t find her voice: she indicated the door at the other end of the hall and he took her there to what had once been Jeffrey’s bed, which she had never shared with her late husband or any other man. And she remembered that and inwardly cringed and hated herself; yet she could no more have pushed Nikolai away and denied herself than she could have wilfully stopped breathing. Nikolai shed his shoes, his socks and his jacket and came down on the bed with her. Abbey yanked him free of his tie and began to unbutton his shirt. In some corner of her mind she could not credit that it was she who was doing such things. But as she tugged his shirt free of the waistband of his trousers and the edges parted to display a hair-roughened bronzed slice of powerful chest her pleasure in the sight wiped out her self-doubt. His brilliant eyes were bright in his lean dark face and she was utterly entrapped by the impact of them, her heart banging as if she were running a marathon race.

Nikolai undid the ties on the halter-neck dress and bra and released a masculine groan of satisfaction when the lush abundance of her creamy curves spilled free of the constraining fabric once again. He lowered his head to the rigid pink peaks that crowned them and whisked her nipples with his tongue while his hands shaped the soft, silken swell of the pouting mounds.

Besieged by tormenting sensation, Abbey moaned out loud, her fingers sinking into his tousled black hair to pull him back to her. They shared a passionate kiss before the allure of her breasts tempted him back there, while at the same time he extracted her from the dress caught round her hips.

‘I’ve never felt like this before,’ Nikolai breathed in an unguarded admission that took even him by surprise.

Abbey parted her lips to match his confession, but then fell silent at the recollection of Jeffrey, which threatened a comparison too tasteless and painful to be endured. Nikolai searched her smoky violet eyes and sensed her reticence and its cause and it annoyed the hell out of him at that moment. He was offended by the conviction that he was continually having to measure up to another man in her estimation.

Nikolai crushed her swollen lips beneath his again, darting and delving his tongue until she responded with matching fervour. He peeled off her last garment with alacrity, surveying the voluptuous violin curves of her lush body with intense pleasure. ‘You have the most glorious shape, milaya moya.’

The madness that had seized Abbey thinned like a cloud of fog and she marvelled that she could be lying naked for this man’s admiration. But, in truth, she found his unconcealed reverence and appreciation for her body absolutely thrilling. For the first time in her life she felt sexy and feminine and proud of her curvaceous figure. But shyness and insecurity still threatened to break through the ache of arousal that held her taut and imprisoned by his spell.

Nikolai trailed a skilful hand along a slender thigh to the tenderest place of all and the last fetters of control fell from her. He probed the tight, wet depths of her secret centre and she was lost beyond reclaim in sensation and response. He caressed the tiny bud beneath the auburn curls with the pad of his thumb and instant sensation exploded inside her, sending an earthquake of desire cascading through her in a liquid surge.

‘Please…’ she mumbled, barely knowing what she was saying or even asking for.

Nikolai dug contraception out of his wallet one-handed. He gazed down at her, stunned by the response she was giving him. She was so lovely with her coppery hair spread across the pillow, her delicate face flushed with soft colour, her blue eyes half closed with passion. For a split second he hesitated, for he suspected that afterwards she might have regrets, for it was a challenge for him to believe that she had changed her mind about him so totally. But rampant arousal and need powered Nikolai. He wanted her with a hunger stronger than anything he had ever felt before and self-denial of any kind was not in his genes.

‘Ti nuzhna mne-I need you,’ he asserted in a roughened undertone.

His lean, darkly handsome face was taut with desire and his stunning eyes were locked to her in a look that made her feel a million dollars. Jeffrey had never seemed to need her or look at her in such a way. Even as her brain recoiled from that treacherous thought her spine arched with the spellbinding excitement of Nikolai’s lovemaking. Her heart was thundering, her entire body quivering with the strain.

He spread her under him and paused only to don protection before tilting her up to him and driving into her with a single powerful thrust. She was incredibly tight and he came to a halt, moving with greater caution and concern. ‘But you were married,’ he exclaimed when she cried out.