A Rich Man's Whim(34)
‘I want so much more from you,’ Mikhail confessed huskily, both arms banded round her so firmly that she would’ve had to fight to escape.
Kat couldn’t look at him, knew the power of those eyes of his to sway her into stupidity and recklessness. ‘Please let go of me,’ she whispered unevenly, desperate to find the right words to explain herself but meeting only a mortifying emptiness in her brain. Confusion assailed her. Only the awareness that it had been a very one-sided episode restrained the anger she usually used to keep him at a safer distance.
Mikhail expelled his breath in a thwarted hiss and released her with exaggerated immediacy. Dragging the hem of her dress down over her thighs, Kat scooped up the undergarment on the floor with crimson cheeks. ‘I don’t know what to say to you—’
‘Say nothing at all,’ Mikhail advised in a dry tone that made her wince. ‘You’re not very tactful. Go and change for dinner. I’ll see you later.’
Later … as in her bedroom? Kat wondered wildly. Well, she could hardly blame the guy for expecting something in return for such encouragement as she had given him! Nor could she imagine managing to tell him that lust wasn’t enough, for her, would never be enough for that, she was convinced, was what was wrong with her. She lusted after him like a shameless hussy, lost all control the minute he looked at her in a certain way or made physical contact!
Mikhail swore long and low in Russian. She was nuts, way too mixed-up for him. How had he avoided seeing that for so long? What was he doing with her? He should have her flown home, allow Lara to take over … That would be the rational thing to do. And Mikhail was nothing if he was not rational.
CHAPTER SEVEN
FIVE DAYS LATER, Mikhail stood on the terrace outside his office on The Hawk sharing a drink with Lorne Arnold.
His other guests were swimming and sunbathing down below on the main deck. He was so accustomed to half-naked women that he spared the exposed bodies barely a glance, awarding his attention only to a slender redhead moving in the shadows. As willowy and graceful in her leggy delicacy as a gazelle, Kat burned in the sun, but her smooth light skin made her stand out all the more from his fake-tanned and sun-bronzed guests.
‘Kat’s a real find,’ Lorne remarked carefully, watching Kat sit down with a book to read.
Mikhail gritted his even white teeth. If only you knew, he thought in frustration. He had backed off from Kat and that hadn’t worked either. She was like a jigsaw puzzle with several missing pieces: incomprehensible and infuriating.
‘Very natural, warm, unspoiled …’ Lorne could not hide his appreciation
‘Very unspoiled,’ Mikhail fielded tongue-in-cheek.
‘You don’t seem to pay her much attention …’
‘Kat thrives on neglect,’ Mikhail told him grittily, wondering why he had had the misfortune to land the only woman in the world who didn’t react to such an approach. Mikhail, more used to women who crowded him and clung, eager to please and entertain him, was at a rare loss with one who chose to keep her distance.
Lara settled down beside Kat in the shade. ‘I’m too hot,’ the svelte blonde complained.
Kat knew better than to suggest that the topless blonde in her minuscule bikini briefs take a dip in the inviting pool. Most of the female guests, including Lara, avoided the water to conserve their hair styling and make-up while Kat continued to swim several times a day, frustrated by the laziness of sitting around doing very little. It had made her hair a little frizzy but with a fully staffed beauty salon on board that was hardly a problem.
‘Tonight is the guests’ last night,’ Lara reminded her. ‘What are you wearing to the club in Ayia Napa?’
‘I’ll find something,’ Kat responded lightly, watching Mikhail stand with a drink on his office terrace with Lorne. Very tall, very dark and very handsome and infuriatingly inscrutable and unpredictable. He had virtually ignored her since that fatal encounter in his office. While he was polite and gracious in company just as though they were a couple, he had not tried to touch her again and she didn’t blame him for that, having looked back repeatedly to what she had done and cringed. She had said one thing to him but had done another. If he had had enough of that, so had she. It was as if she were a split personality, one half recalling her turbulent childhood with her man-hungry mother and the other half recalling the strict moral limits she had tried to instil in her sisters while always setting her siblings a good example. Sex to scratch an uncomfortable itch of lust didn’t figure anywhere between those parameters and she was not ashamed of resisting the urge and standing by her principles.