Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“On the bed,” Alexei instructed as he backed her across the stateroom
Maintaining eye contact as he pushed the robe from her shoulders, she challenged, “Are you sure you can make time for this?”
“Oh, I can make time,” Alexei assured her. Freeing the buttons down the front of her top, he trailed one rough-edged fingertip very lightly between her breasts. “Do you have any idea how hungry you’ve made me?”
“Enough to distract you?” she suggested.
“For now,” he agreed.
“Then, I guess I’ll take now,” she said, trying to sound equally offhand.
Amber fired him up like no other woman before her. He’d never met a woman so dismissive, so provocative, or so challenging. His natural male desire to master, tame, and pleasure was eating him alive. And every inch of the way, she threw up a challenge. He liked that.
“You just want the act and satisfaction,” she accused him.
“Don’t analyze. Just feel,” he advised, running his hands very lightly over her for the pleasure of feeling her tremble beneath his touch.
“Are you determined to tease me?” she demanded huskily.
“What do you think?” he murmured, kissing his way down her neck.
“I think you’re stone here…” She touched his chest over his heart.
‘And what’s the cure for that?” he demanded softly.
‘Turn up the heat?” she suggested.
He laughed. “If I’m stone, you’re all yielding curves and needy places. But not in here,” he added, brushing her silky hair back from her face. “In here...” He tapped her head. “You’re as knowing as you are beautiful.”
“Oh, am I?” she whispered.
“Yes, you are, which is why I know you need this as much as I do.”
Her lips pressed down in rueful disapproval. “This is just sex to you, isn’t it?”
“What else would it be?” he demanded softly.
Amber shook her head. “How can you be so cold?”
“How can you allow yourself to reach this level of frustration without wanting to move on?” he reasoned coolly.
“Because satisfaction is never a given—not even with the most sophisticated toy,” she retorted, which made him smile.
“Is that all I am to you? A sex toy?”
And when she shrugged, he said, “You’re no better than me.”
“Accepted,” she gasped out when he lightly cupped her breasts.
Drowning in her wildflower scent, he rasped his stubble lightly against her neck until she exhaled on a soft cry. He pushed her pajamas pants down and helped her step out of them, and then he backed her up until her legs were pressed hard against the bed.
“Don’t you think you’re overdressed, Alexei?”
“My clothes can wait. Open your legs,” he commanded softly.
“And just stand in front of you, while you…?”
“Why not?” he said.
She opened her mouth and said nothing, but she did as he asked. Slipping a hand between her thighs, he explained, “Let me do this.”
She stood still, listening as he worked her, her breathing speeding up as the pressure began to build. “I can’t—”
“You can’t what?” he said quietly.
“I can’t stand here and let you do this.”
She was clinging to his arms. “Stand up straight,” he insisted. “Let go of me. Don’t touch me. Just concentrate on what I’m doing to you.”
“I can’t, I’ll fall over,” she admitted with an edge of hysteria in her voice. “I can’t do this—I can’t hold on—”
“Yes, you can,” he said sternly. “And you will. You will take everything I have to give you, and you will not release until I give you permission to do so.”
Her body was out of her control. Alexei was in complete charge of her pleasure.
That thought alone would have been enough to tip her over the edge, if his steely stare hadn’t been so commanding.
She wanted to obey him in this alone. She wanted to feel the pleasure that only he could bring.
His skillful touches, rapid little brushes growing firmer all the time, were setting up the sweetest, strongest clenches she’d ever known.
Her entire body was awash with sensation.
“I’ve got no idea how long I can take this,” she admitted with a healthy dose of pleading in her voice.
“You will take it,” he told her evenly, staring into her eyes as he worked her with more intent than ever. “And you will not let go until I tell you to.”
She was on the edge, hovering. Alexei kept her there for the longest time. And then, quite suddenly, he pulled his hand away and stopped. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
Placing his hands on her shoulders, he dipped his head to stare into her eyes. “Now,” he murmured.
“Oh—fuck!” She let go. She had no option with a seismic event beating down on her.
She was vaguely aware that she was making a lot of noise as she bucked repeatedly toward Alexei.
Her hips were working as if his hands were still on her, and he had to save her from collapsing to the ground.
Holding her steady, he kept her in front of him as the wild dance of pleasure continued.
“Better now?” he murmured when she was quieter.
She came to, to find him holding her safe in his arms. Alexei’s eyes were calm and assessing, with just the faintest suggestion of amusement in them when she groaned. “You fucking brute…”
“On the contrary, I am a skilled technician who takes great pride in his work.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “Like I said before, you’re stone cold.”
Alexei enjoyed bringing pleasure, but he prided himself on remaining detached.
Why was he like that? While he had been pleasuring her so expertly, she had lost touch with reality, but he hadn’t lost touch with anything.
Sex was a necessary pastime for Alexei, an essential part of life, like eating and drinking and breathing, but no more than that.
Keep emotion out of it? Wasn’t that what she told herself to do? So why was she lifting up her face for his kiss? Tasting him, kissing him, inhaling his scent, and feeling his arms tighten around her was something she knew couldn’t last forever, so why not claim it now?
The intensity of Amber’s response had surprised him. Pressing her down on the bed, he stretched out his length against her. She was so tiny, so passionate, so tender, so vulnerable, and so utterly different from any other woman he’d ever known.
“Slowly,” he cautioned when she reached for him. “Pleasure is supposed to be savored.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed with disappointment. “Can’t we just glut ourselves instead?”
Trying not to laugh was his biggest challenge.
He had never associated sex with fun, which made it hard to keep his usual detachment from a woman who refused to acknowledge that sex was a fact of life and simply a function like any other, and who insisted on behaving instead as if it were something so much more.
Winding her limbs around his, she snuggled close. “You’re very forward,” he observed.
“Must be making up for lost time,” she purred contentedly.
“And you’re certainly no lady,” he added, making her laugh as she mapped his erection enthusiastically through the painful constriction of his jeans.
“You should take them off,’ she told him, adopting a concerned expression. “You could cut off your blood circulation and do yourself a really serious injury.”
“You’re something else,” he said, reaching for his belt buckle.
“No. Let me do that,” she insisted, shaking her head. Putting her tiny hand over his, she took her time, turning the tables on him and leaving him in agony.
He raised his hips so she could snap his belt from its loops, and then he settled back on the pillows so she could work on his zipper. No woman had ever taken the initiative like this before. It was an experience that both intrigued and frustrated him.
“Now, take them off,” she instructed, having eased his zipper down. “You’ll feel so much better when you do.”
“Thank you, Nurse,” he murmured dryly. Swinging off the bed, he dumped his jeans.
“And built to scale,” she said.
“Changed your mind?” He shot her a look.
Her lips curved in a smile, and her green eyes danced with laughter. “If anything, I’m only more determined,” she told him.
Dragging her close, he brought her beneath him. Driving his mouth down on hers, he kissed her, and kept on kissing her until she was completely in tune with him and completely ready for whatever came next.
“What was it you said?” she asked him, mischief glinting in her eyes. “You’re going to make me come so hard, I won’t be able to stand?”
“Well, could you?” he asked.
“Earlier? That was cheating. You didn’t even touch me—and I was standing up.”
“Until you fell down,” he reminded her.
“Thanks to you,” she murmured, eyes shining.
By now, he was frustrated to the point of pain, but his pleasure would have to wait. He removed what remained of Amber’s clothing: a small thong and her pajama jacket, but then he lost patience. The urge to be skin to hot skin consumed him.
“I had thought about binding them,” she said, as he stared at her breasts with frank approval. “Especially when I was working at Hard News, where the men were like excitable puppies.”
“And I’m not?”
“You’re more of a wolf,” she said.
“Which makes it okay?” he queried.
“Which makes everything okay,” she told him with a sexy smile.
She cried out with pleasure when he chafed her breasts by rubbing his chest against them. He could feel her nipples tightening beneath him and loved that feeling. Wanting more, he increased her arousal with teasing, brushing kisses and the rasp of his stubble against her neck.
“I can’t stand this,” she complained in a voice that shook with tension when he paused.
“And what are you going to do about it?” He laughed as he stroked her some more.
“Try this…”
Amber had the satisfaction of hearing Alexei groan when she took him in a firm grip with one hand and clutched his buttocks with the other.
“Not yet,” he whispered when she moved her hand steadily up and down. His erection was magnificent. She marveled at its length and girth and at the deliciously smooth domed head that sprang so hungrily against her palm.
“It’s perfect, and I need you in my mouth.”