Ruthless Russian, Lost Innocence - Shaw Chantelle - Страница 20

‘It must be a power cut. Wait there while I find a torch.’

He was back within seconds, shining the torchlight in front of him as he took Ella’s hand and guided her over the broken glass. ‘I’ll clear it up later, when the power’s restored.’

The storm was directly overhead now, and thunder boomed like pagan drums while the darkness was rent apart periodically by flashes of lightning. Vadim could feel the tremors running through Ella as he led her over to the French doors and turned her so that she was looking out over the garden. ‘The power of the elements is awesome, but you are safe from the storm here with me,’ he murmured, sliding his arms around her waist and drawing her close, so that her back was pressed up against his chest.

From the storm outside, perhaps, Ella thought shakily. But her instincts screamed that she was not safe from Vadim-or herself. The storm raging inside her was equally violent as the tumult in the skies above, and the pressure of Vadim’s hard thighs pushing against her bottom evoked a burning heat in her pelvis. She could feel the erratic beat of his heart, and it seemed to pulse through her own veins as the drumbeat of desire thudding through her built to a crescendo.

He was a man like her father, warned a voice in her head, a heartless playboy who used women and discarded them when he had tired of them. But she could no longer deny the sexual chemistry that had simmered between them since the night they had met in Paris and was now at combustion point.

There was no danger she would fall in love with him, she assured herself, desire shivering through her when he pushed her hair aside and trailed his lips up her neck to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. She would never repeat the mistake her mother had made. The hard ridge of his arousal nudging insistently between the cleft of her buttocks was irrefutable proof of his hunger for her, and at this moment, as the storm crashed and trembled around them, her whole being quivered with the need for him to assuage the longing inside her that was as old and insistent as mankind.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HE NEEDED a woman tonight. Correction-he needed this woman, Vadim acknowledged as he turned Ella to face him and stared at the tremulous softness of her lips. He did not want to dwell on the past, and he had learned that the future was never assured. For him, the here and now was all that mattered, and at this moment the urge to make love to Ella burned like a fever in his blood. He slid his hand beneath her hair, the feel of the soft silky strands against his skin causing a sharp stab of desire in his gut, and with a muttered oath he cupped her nape and brought his mouth down on hers.

A lightning flare lit up the room and threw the sharp angles and planes of Vadim’s face into stark relief. He seemed so remote and forbidding that for a second Ella felt a surge of fear, but the first brush of his mouth and the bold thrust of his tongue between her lips obliterated any lingering doubts that this was where she wanted to be. Desire licked through her veins like wildfire, heating her blood and making every nerve-ending so exquisitely sensitive that she moaned when he cupped her breast in his palm and stroked his thumbpad over the taut nipple straining beneath her silk dress.

He deepened the kiss, taking it to another level that was flagrantly erotic, and she melted against him and wound her arms around his neck, her eyes flying open when she felt the floor suddenly disappear from beneath her feet.

‘Guide me,’ he commanded roughly as he scooped her into his arms, collected the torch from the table and handed it to her.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked shakily.

‘Bed.’

His desire for Ella had spiralled out of control, Vadim acknowledged grimly. Last night he had listened to the voice of his conscience, but tonight he could not resist her. Perhaps it was the pagan power of the storm, or perhaps it was her revelations about how her father had terrified her as a child that had induced this primal feeling to protect her and claim her as his woman. All he knew was that tonight he was driven by an instinct as old as mankind to make love to her.

The hungry gleam in Vadim’s eyes caused Ella’s heart to skitter in her chest. ‘If you object, now is the time to say so,’ he warned her as he strode out of the room and across the hall to the stairs.

Her brain told her she should demand that he set her on her feet, bid him goodnight and return to her part of the house-but her body ached with a need that decimated her thought processes and robbed her of words. Talking about her childhood had reminded her of how much she had hated her father, but she was no longer a child, and she was shocked to realise how much she had allowed her feelings about Earl Stafford to affect her adult life. He was the reason she was terrified of falling in love, the reason she had always frozen off any man who had shown an interest in her, and why she was still a virgin. But she was damned if she would allow her hatred of her father to dictate her actions any more, she thought fiercely. She was an independent woman who was capable of making her own choices, and tonight she chose to have her first sexual experience with Vadim.

But despite her brave avowal her heart thudded unevenly as he climbed the stairs. The torchlight flickered over the pale walls of the upper landing and the artwork she had chosen. She knew every inch of Kingfisher House and had decorated every room-including the master bedroom, with its huge bed covered in a navy satin bedspread that matched the colour of the carpet and complemented the ivory silk wallpaper.

The doors leading to the balcony were open, the sounds of the storm outside clearly audible, but Ella was conscious of nothing but Vadim when he lowered her onto the bed and immediately stretched out next to her. The only source of light in the room was the glow from the torch, casting shadows on the ceiling, but he found her mouth with unerring precision and covered it with his own, moving his lips on hers with feverish need and demanding a response she was powerless to deny.

Above the angry growls of thunder she could hear the ragged sound of her breathing. Her heart was pounding as her whole body was gripped with a need she could barely comprehend. The ache deep in her pelvis had become a relentless throbbing that caused her to arch her hips in a desperate invitation for Vadim to touch her and caress her…

When he finally broke the kiss and lifted his head to stare down at her she traced her tongue over her swollen lips. One kiss was not enough, she wanted more, and she slid her fingers into his thick black hair to urge him down on her. But instead of claiming her mouth he trailed his lips down her throat, to the pulse beating frenetically at its base.

‘Your skin feels like satin,’ he growled, his voice rough with desire. He began to unfasten the buttons that ran down the front of her dress, and Ella caught her breath when he pushed the silvery-grey silk aside to expose her high, firm breasts. ‘Beautiful,’ he muttered rawly. He cupped the twin mounds in his palms and revelled in their softness before he lowered his head and flicked his tongue across one nipple, so that it instantly swelled and hardened. The sensation was so exquisite that Ella could not restrain her startled cry of pleasure. No man had ever touched her as Vadim was doing, and when he transferred his attention to her other breast and drew the sensitive peak fully into his mouth she trembled with reaction.

He gave a ragged laugh when she gripped his hair and held his head against her breast, desperate for him to continue the erotic caress. ‘Do you like that? I knew that beneath the ice-maiden act I’d find a sensual sex kitten,’ he murmured, unable to disguise his satisfaction. Her open enjoyment of his mouth on her breasts was a massive turn-on, but it put paid to his plan for a leisurely seduction, Vadim acknowledged self-derisively. His arousal was rock-hard, and throbbing with impatience for him to spread her beneath him and plunge between her pale thighs. He had wanted her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, but she had made him wait. It wasn’t surprising that his body was taut with desire-a desire that grew more urgent when he dragged her dress over her hips to reveal her pale, slender body; naked but for the pair of grey lace knickers that hid her femininity from his gaze.