A Rich Man's Whim(41)

‘Thought you were going to wait until tomorrow,’ Kat reminded him, her teeth gritting on a spasm of erotic pleasure so devouring it resembled pain because he was being extraordinarily cautious and gentle and slow. Little tremors of exquisite excitement made her clench tight around him.

‘Never was any good at waiting,’ Mikhail growled, fighting to stay in control as he rocked against her, fearful of hurting her but wanting her so desperately it was like a mounting fever in his blood.

The ball of his thumb circled the little nub of nerve-endings at the swollen heart of her and she moaned wildly under his mouth, her arms tightening round him, her nails digging into his shoulders as he quickened the pace of his possession.

In the morning he took her again, his mouth tracing the corded delicacy of her throat to awaken her before he sank his thickness into her receptive body over and over again until she screamed her explosive release into the pillow beneath her head.

‘Shower with me,’ he urged afterwards.

Kat knew he wasn’t to be trusted in the shower and reluctantly laughed. ‘I’ll use my own.’

‘Breakfast in ten minutes,’ he told her firmly.

Kat didn’t move until he had vanished safely into his bathroom. The ache of overindulgence was so strong that she gritted her teeth when she got out of bed and returned to her own room to freshen up. A cry of horror was wrenched from her when she looked in a mirror and saw her curls all standing on end in a wall of frizz. She looked like a rag doll who had been tortured. With no time to do anything with her recalcitrant curls, she scraped the messy russet torrent back and secured her tumbled hair with a clip. Showered, she dabbed on a little light make-up, trying to conceal the swollen contours of her mouth and the evidence of his stubble marking her with a beard rash across her cheeks and throat. She pulled on underwear and yanked a sundress from the dressing room, hurrying because she knew he was so impatient that he would come looking for her if she didn’t appear on time.

So that was sex, she reflected in a daze, so much more than she had expected: more exciting, more intimate, more everything really. And she had loved everything he had done to her, had swiftly got over her shyness and uncertainty to appreciate that he was a good lover and that she was lucky to have had so considerate and skilled an introduction to intimacy. But now she was wondering if she had lived up to his expectations or whether at the end of the day he could be wondering what all the fuss had been about.

Breakfast was served on the extensive private deck beyond Mikhail’s suite. Sunlight glancing off the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean sea, Kat sipped her coffee and tried to stop smiling, indeed to cram a lid down on the bubbling happiness welling up inside her. Happiness wasn’t fitting. They didn’t have a relationship for her to celebrate or pin hopes on. All they had was an affair and now that they were actually having an affair that agreement they had made had to become history, Kat thought ruefully.

‘You can’t give me the farmhouse back now,’ Kat told Mikhail squarely.

An ebony brow quirked. ‘Why not?’

‘It would be inappropriate now that we’re sleeping together,’ Kat pointed out flatly as she took a seat.

‘According to whose book of sexual etiquette?’ Mikhail queried very drily.

‘If I accepted the house back now, it would be like accepting payment for sex—’

‘Don’t look for trouble where none exists. I don’t offer payment for sex, never have, never will.’

‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable now letting you return the house to me,’ Kat explained stubbornly.

‘Tough,’ Mikhail remarked, unimpressed. ‘We made that agreement and I see no reason to deviate from it. That house is your home.’

‘That house belongs to you now,’ Kat retorted in crisp disagreement.

Mikhail vented a sound of exasperation. ‘Zatk’nis! Shut up!’ he told her impatiently. ‘You’re talking nonsense.’

Her green eyes flared. ‘Think about what I’m saying … You know it makes sense!’

‘But I’m not listening,’ Mikhail responded with an imperious shift of a lean brown hand that dismissed the discussion in its entirety.

Her teeth gnashed together.

‘I tell you what to do … you do it,’ Mikhail drawled softly. ‘That was also in the agreement and I wouldn’t like you to lose that talent now.’

Sheer frustration sent Kat up out of her seat again and she rested her slender forearms on the rail to stare out to sea. ‘You sound like a Neanderthal again.’