Prince of Dreams (Stokehurst #2)(39)

“Yes, I saw.” Nikolas pulled Emma across his lap, bracing her shoulders. He smoothed back the curls that had fallen over her face. He was quiet, listening intently as her breathing evened out. With one fingertip he stroked the surface of his wife's cheek, which had gone from snowy white to vivid pink. He lingered on a few golden freckles, brushing them with a gossamer-light touch. It crossed his mind that others might be watching the spectacle on the lawn, but he couldn't seem to make himself let go of her. “Do you feel like sitting up?” he heard himself ask.

“Please.”

Gently he helped her to sit, his arm locked around her back. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Emma whispered. Her blue eyes were soft and confused. Their faces were very close, their breaths mingling.

Nikolas meant to admonish her, to demand that she be more careful, but all he could do was stare at her parted lips…so soft, so tenderly curved…

“Nikki?” she murmured, her hand fluttering to his chest, where his violent heartbeat resounded.

With a low sound he kissed her, fastening his mouth over hers, yielding to the dark passion that drove him. Emma was pliant and weak in his arms, submitting without a sound, her fingers inching to the back of his neck and sliding delicately into his thick hair.

Nikolas's response was sure and swift, his flesh rising hard against the tight restraint of his trousers. He wanted to pin her to the ground and thrust into her, here, now, grinding her h*ps into the fragrant earth beneath them. He wanted to make her shudder in cl**ax, until she tore the clothes on his back in an effort to touch his skin. Just as he reached the point of exploding with lust and emotion, he jerked back and pushed her off his lap.

Emma sat on her heels, staring at him in bewilderment.

Nikolas made his voice as crisp as possible. “Spare the household any more of your antics today. I have work to do. In case you intend to spend your afternoon with that flea-bitten mongrel, I advise you to take a bath afterward. At the moment, the two of you share the same remarkable smell.”

Emma stiffened with offended pride. “Samson may smell a little strong at times, but he doesn't have fleas!”

Nikolas glanced at the dog, who was scratching industriously with his hind foot. With a sardonic snort, Nikolas stood and left.

Emma leaned over to pat Samson's rough head, and glared at her husband's departing form. “He's an impossible man,” she informed the wriggling dog. “Don't pay any attention to him. We don't care about his opinion.”

She shook her head as she wondered what had come over Nikolas. One minute he had kissed her passionately, and the next he had pulled away as if burned. After three months of marriage, Nikolas was still very much a stranger to her. It was seldom that he explained his actions or decisions, and rarer still for him to reveal his feelings. But in spite of Emma's exasperation, she was fascinated by her husband.

Nikolas could be devilishly entertaining, provoking laughter, astonishment, and sometimes horror at the stories he told her of his life and the people he had known. He listened patiently when she read aloud her occasional correspondence to and from Tasia, and he was even comforting when she was depressed about her strained relationship with her family. But he could also be callous and unbearably cold, for no apparent reason. She attributed many of Nikolas's nasty moods to the fact that he drank too much. It was his nightly ritual to consume several glasses of wine with supper, and half a bottle of vodka after. Yet she had never seen him drunk. Alcohol made him soft-voiced and guarded, and cuttingly perceptive.

Most of society regarded Nikolas as one of their own, an aristocrat who devoted himself to leisurely amusement and played at business merely to amuse himself. Emma had quickly learned that nothing was farther from the truth. Nikolas was busier than any man she had ever known, even her father. He managed his fortune with assiduous attention, making investments and launching financial enterprises so complex that it almost frightened Emma to see them written out on paper.

The interminable business of entertaining wasn't bad at all, since Emma had to do very little of the planning. The routine had been established years before, and the servants were amazingly efficient as they maintained the house, prepared and served meals, and saw to the needs of every guest. As Nikolas had promised, Emma was able to spend most of her time caring for her animals and working for her causes.

There was an endless parade of visitors at the Angelovsky estate, which seemed more like a hotel than a home. Their dinner table was constantly filled with foreign guests, many from Europe and America and even a few from principalities in Russia. The after-dinner conversation of the men was devoted exclusively to the subject of business, percentages and profit, shares and investment and taxes. Sometimes Emma took a seat at the fringe of the complicated discussions and listened quietly. She was amused by the awe with which others regarded her husband, the way they desired to be his friend and feared him at the same time…and she had a touch of sympathy for their dilemma.

Nikolas could be beguiling one moment and incredibly scathing the next. He was cruelest to those who tried to flatter him, and told them with a lethal smile that he cared about no one but himself, and that anyone who believed differently was a fool. He didn't seem to want anyone's friendship, and ironically that seemed to make people even more eager to be close to him.

For her part, Emma had learned to curb her impulses to be affectionate to Nikolas. It seemed to annoy him when she kissed him casually. He was a gentle and skillful lover, but he was never inclined to hold her in the aftermath of their lovemaking. On one of the nights he had visited her, when she had dared to rest her hand on his arm for a minute, he had left the bed with a muffled exclamation of annoyance. Touching, caressing, was acceptable only when he initiated it, and even then it never lasted for long. Emma had come to accept the distance he imposed between them, and had even convinced herself that it was for the best. She was much better off without love, and without all the heartache and longing it brought.