Hidden Motives

“I wanted to wait until I got married. I didn’t want to trap someone into a lifetime they would only resent.”

“There are such things as birth control.”

“My mom was on the Pill when she got pregnant with me. I was not part of her future plans. Neither was my father.”

“She didn’t have to marry him.”

“She loved him. At first.” Chanel didn’t know when that had changed.

She’d been only eight when her dad died, but she’d believed her parents loved each other deeply and forever. It was her mother’s constant criticism and unfavorable comparisons later that made Chanel realize Beatrice had not approved of her husband any more than she did their daughter.

“They were not compatible.” Demyan said it like he really knew—not that he could.

“I thought they were, when I was little. I was wrong,” she admitted.

“We aren’t them. We are compatible.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know more than you think I do. We belong together.” There was a message in his words she couldn’t quite decipher, but his dark gaze wasn’t giving any hints.

“I told you I was a sure thing.” Though she wasn’t sure that was true. Part of her was still fighting the idea of total intimacy, especially at the cost of opening herself up like this. “You don’t have to say these things.”

“I am not a man who makes a habit of saying things I do not mean.”

“You never lie.” He’d as good as said so earlier.

Something passed across his handsome features. “I have not lied to you.”

His implication was unbelievable. “You really plan to marry me. After three dates?”

“Yes.” There was so much certainty, such deep conviction in that single word.

She could not doubt him, but it didn’t make sense. Her scientific brain could not identify the components of the formula of their interaction that had led to this reaction.

In her lab she knew mixing one substance with another and adding heat, or cold, or simply agitation resulted in identifiable and documented results.

Love wasn’t like that. There was nothing predictable about the male-female interaction, especially for her.

But one thing she knew—a man could not hide his true reaction to a woman in bed. It was why she’d refused her ex back at university. He hadn’t been completely into it.

Oh, he’d wanted to get off, but she could tell that it didn’t matter it was her he was getting off with.

“Show me,” she challenged Demyan now. “Make me believe.”

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t pretend not to understand what she wanted.

Demyan could not let Chanel’s challenge go unmet.

Whatever the cretin who had turned her off sex had done to her, at least part of her thought Demyan would do the same thing. He could see it in the wary depths of her gray eyes.

“You will see, sérdeńko. I am not that guy.”

“You keep calling me little.” She didn’t sound as if she was complaining, just observing.

He noticed she did that when the emotions got too intense. She retreated behind the barrier of her analytical mind.

When this night was over there would be no barriers between them.

“You speak Ukrainian.” Her dossier had mentioned she studied the language, but not how proficient she was.

To translate the endearment, which was a diminutive form of heart, implied a far deeper knowledge of his native tongue than the investigative report had revealed.

“I studied it so I could read scientific texts by notable scientists in their native tongue.”

“And sérdeńko came up in a scientific text?” he asked with disbelief.

“No.” She sighed as if admitting a dark secret. “I like languages. I’m fluent in Ukrainian, Portuguese and German.”

“So you could read scientific texts.”

“Among other things.” She blushed intriguingly.

“What things?” he asked, his mouth temptingly close to hers.

He wanted to kiss her. She wanted the kiss, too—there could be no doubt.

“Erotic romance.”

“In Ukrainian?” he asked, utterly surprised for the third time that night.

This woman would never be a boring companion.

“Yes.”

“I am amazed.”

“Why?”

“If you like reading about sex so much, how are you still a virgin?”

“I like reading murder mysteries, too, but I haven’t gone out and killed anybody.”

He laughed, unable to remember the last time he’d been so entertained by a female companion.

This marriage he had to bring about would not be a hardship. Chanel Tanner would make a very amiable wife.

With that thought in mind, he took the first step in convincing her that they belonged together.

He kissed her, taking command of her mouth more gently than he might have before her revelation.

She couldn’t know it, but her virginity was a gift to him in more ways than one.

First, that he was the only man who would ever share her body in this way was not something to take lightly. Not even in this modern age.

But second, and more important to his efforts on behalf of Volyarus, once Demyan had awakened her passions for the first time, Chanel would be more likely to accept his proposal of marriage.

It meant adjusting his schedule up for her seduction, but he wasn’t leaving her tonight. Doing so might cause irreparable harm to the building of trust between them. She needed to know he wanted her, and he did.

Unlikely as he would have considered it, he desired this shy, bookish scientist above all other women.

She didn’t want to believe in forever with him, but she would learn. He had spoken the truth earlier. Prince Demyan of Volyarus did not break his promises.

And he had promised King Fedir that Demyan would marry Chanel Tanner.

She whimpered against his lips, her sexual desire so close to the surface he thought she needed her first climax to come early so she could enjoy the lead-up to the next one.

With careful precision, he built the kiss until the small sounds of need were falling from her lips to his in a steady cascade. Control starting to slip, he deepened the kiss, wanting more of her taste, more of her response…more of everything Chanel had to give.

A small voice in the back of his mind prompted that the time had come to pull back and lead her into the bedroom.

Only, his lips didn’t want to obey, and for the first time in memory Demyan found himself lost in a kiss, his plans for a suave seduction cracking under the weight of his more primitive need.

He had just the presence of mind to move her backward toward the sofa. Unbelievably, neither of them was going to be able to stay vertical much longer.

Demyan maneuvered them both so Chanel sat sprawled across his lap, her dress hiked up, her naked thighs pressing against his cloth-covered ones.

He never let her lips slide so much as a centimeter away from his.

Demyan liked sex. According to Maks, he’d had more than his fair share of partners. Some of them were very experienced in the art of seduction, women who knew exactly how to use their bodies for maximum effect. None of them had turned him on as much as the uncalculated and wholly honest way Chanel responded to his kiss.

She moved with innocent need against him, her body undulating in unconscious sensuality that drove him insane with the need to show her what those types of movements led to.

He brought his hand down and cupped her backside, guiding those untutored rolls of her hips into something that would give them both more pleasure and fan the flames of desire between them into an all-out inferno.

She jolted and moaned as her panty-clad apex rubbed over his trapped hard-on. He couldn’t hold back his own sounds of raw sexual desire and keep from arching his hips to increase the friction.

The kiss went nuclear and he did nothing to stop it, demanding entrance into her mouth with his tongue and getting it without even a token resistance.

This woman did not play the coquette. Her honest passion was more exciting than any practiced seduction could be. She couldn’t know, though; she was too unused to physical intimacy. For that ignorance, at least, he could be glad.

She could not take advantage of a weakness she did not recognize in him, and damned if he would point it out. He might not be able to control himself completely this first time with her, but no doubt that was a big part of the reason why.

It was her first time and he found that highly erotic.

The one benefit was that it was clear Chanel was completely out of control and definitely imprinting on him sexually.

Equally important, after what she’d revealed, was for her to realize he wanted her.

As she’d demanded, he would show her.

She would never again doubt her feminine appeal to him, not after tonight. And perhaps that, even more than her virginity, would lead her to accept his speed-record-breaking proposal when it came.

That it might no longer be completely about his duty to country was a thought he dismissed as unimportant.

He would have her. She would have him and whether she knew it or not, she needed him. He was good for her.

It started with now, giving her what she hadn’t realized she was missing.

After insuring she kept the rhythm that made her body shake, he mapped her body with his hands through the soft green silk of her dress, caressing her in ways reserved for a lover.

He enjoyed this part of sex, touching a woman in ways no one else was allowed and, in Chanel’s case, never had been.

Knowing a woman had put her body in his very-capable-to-dole-out-pleasure hands turned him on. Demyan liked that control, too. For reasons he didn’t feel the need to dwell on, that knowledge was even more satisfying with Chanel than it had been with other women.

She might not realize it, but the kind of response she gave meant she would let him do anything. That acknowledgment came with a heady kind of enjoyment destined to undermine his self-control further if he wasn’t very careful.

It was important for her pleasure, particularly this first time, that he not let that happen. He had to maintain some level of premeditation, or he could hurt her.

That reminder sobered him enough to think—at least a little—again.

Touching her was good, though. Too damn good.

He cupped her breasts, reveling in the catch of her breath as his thumbs brushed over turgid nipples. He wanted to feel them naked, but even this was incredible.

His sex pressed against the placket of his trousers in response to the feel of her in his hands.

He pinched, knowing the layers of silk and her bra would be no true barrier between those buds and the sensation he gave her.

She tore her mouth from his, her eyes opening, pupils blown with bliss almost swallowing the stormy irises. “I…That…”

“Is good.” He did it again, increasing the pressure just enough to give maximum pleasure that might border on pain but would never go over. “Say it.”

CHAPTER FOUR

CONFUSION FLITTED ACROSS the sweet oval of Chanel’s face. “What?”

“Say it feels good.”

She didn’t have to speak her refusal—it was there in the way her body stiffened and she averted her gaze.

“Look at me,” he demanded, his fingers poised to give more pleasure but not offering it. “Look at me and say it.”

Her storm-cloud gaze came back to his, her mouth working, no words coming out.

“You are a woman. You can acknowledge your own pleasure, Chanel. I believe in you.”

“It’s not that.” The word cut off as if her air had run out. She took a deep breath and let it out, her tongue coming out to wet her lips. “I know sex is supposed to feel good.”

“Do you?”

“I’ve read books.”

“Erotic books.”

“Yes.”

“So, say it.”

“You want to strip me bare,” she accused.

He saw no point in denying it. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“You have to let go.”

“You never let go.”

“I am the experienced one here. If I let go of my control, we’d both be in trouble.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Only because you haven’t done this before.”

She didn’t deny his words. “I like it.”

“I know.” He pressed just slightly, giving her a taste of what was to come.

She moaned, her head falling back, her eyelids sliding down to cover the vulnerability in her gaze. “So, why do I have to say it?”

“For me. Say it for me.”

“It feels good.” The words came out in a low, throaty whisper infused with sincerity.

Oh, yes, this woman would learn to hold nothing back.

He rewarded her with more pleasure until she was rocking against him with gasping breaths. “Demyan!”

“What, sérdeńko?”

“You know! You have to know.”

“This?” he asked as he pushed up to rub his hardness against her, pinching her nipples at the same time.

“Yes.”

He did it again, making sure to continue the friction against that bundle of nerves through the damp silk of her panties. “Let go, Chanel.”

“I…”

He didn’t want arguments. He wanted her surrender. “Come for me, Chanel. You are mine.”

And unused to this level of pleasure, she came apart, her body arching into a stiff contortion of delight while a keening wail sounded from her throat.

Oh, yes, this woman belonged to him. Her body knew it, even if her mind was still in some doubt.

He let the shivers of aftershock finish, concentrating on gaining his own breath and a measure of mental fortitude. When he was sure he could do it without his own limbs giving way, he tucked one arm under her bottom and the other against her back and stood with her secure in his hold.

Her head rose from where it had come to rest against his shoulder, her face still flushed with pleasure, her gray gaze meeting his. “What…Where?”

“Your first time will not happen on a sofa, no matter how comfortable.”

“It already did.”

He shook his head. “That was not sex.”

“But it was my first orgasm with another person.”

Perhaps that small fact helped to explain why she was still a virgin, too.

He didn’t repeat his shock at her age, or his disgust with her previous partners. “It will be the first of many, I promise you.”

She swallowed audibly, but nodded with appreciative enthusiasm.

He felt his mouth curve into a very rare and equally genuine smile.

How had she remained untouched so long?

This woman was sweetly sensual and engagingly honest. Far from socially inept. Demyan found her fascinating.

It did not bother him at all, though, that she would be giving her body to him and only him. He would honor the gift and she would find no reason to regret it.

He made the vow to himself, and Demyan never broke his word. Chanel was still trying to catch her breath when Demyan laid her oh so carefully on the bed after yanking back the covers.

Sexual demand radiated off him like heat from a nuclear reactor. Yet there was no impatience in the way he handled her.

The bedding? Yes. It lay in disarray on the floor, his powerful jerks pulling the sheet and blanket that had been tucked between the mattress and box spring completely away.

But her?

He settled with a gentle touch that belied his obvious masculine need.

“I was going to wait.” He shrugged out of his suit jacket, letting the designer garment drop to the floor without any outward concern about what that might do to it.

“Why?”

“It seemed the thing to do.”

“Because things are moving so fast between us,” she said rather than asked.

He only loosened his tie and undid the top buttons on his shirt before pulling the whole thing over his head in one swift movement. “We will not be waiting.”

His torso was chiseled in that way really fit men with natural strength were. Dark curls covered his chest, narrowing into a V that disappeared into the waistband of his trousers. She wanted to see where that trail of sexy hair led.

She might be a virgin, but she was pretty sure she wasn’t a shy one.

“You are beautiful,” she breathed.

“Men are not beautiful.” But his eyes smiled at the compliment.

“The statue of David is beautiful.”

“That is art.”

“So are you.”

He shook his head, his hands going to his trouser button. “I am a flesh-and-blood man, never doubt it.”

How could she, with all that flesh staring her in the face?

His trousers slid down his legs, revealing CK black knit boxers that conformed to every ridge of muscle and the biggest ridge of all. His erection.

Her mouth went dry, the moisture going straight to her palms. “You’re big, aren’t you?”

“I’ve never compared myself to other men.” With that he shucked out of his boxers, leaving his very swollen, very rigid length on display.

“According to scientific studies, the average penile length is five to five-point-seven inches in length when erect.” And Demyan was definitely longer, unless her eyes were deceiving her.

But Chanel was a scientist who had conducted enough measurements she could usually guess within a centimeter’s accuracy.

He frowned and stopped at the side of the bed, his erection bobbing with the movement even as it curved upward toward his belly. That wasn’t usual, either, she’d read. Most men erected perpendicularly with a slight leaning toward one side. Some even had a small downward angle.

For Demyan’s hardness to be curving upward, it had to be extremely ready for intercourse.

“How do you know that?” he demanded with amusement in his voice.

“I read. A lot.”

“You cannot believe everything you read in your Ukrainian erotica.”

“Of course not.”

His brow rose, the mockery there.

“I read that particular fact in a scientific journal.”

His dark gaze pinned her to the bed, though he had yet to join her with his incredibly gorgeous naked body. “We have better things to do than discuss frivolous scientific research.”

“It isn’t frivolous to the tens of thousands of men who have been feeling inadequate because of the supposed average lengths gleaned from self-measurement.”

“What you are telling me is that men measure themselves as larger than they are?” He definitely sounded amused now.

“I don’t think you would.”

“I would not measure myself at all.” From his tone, he found the idea of doing so absolutely ridiculous.

“I think I’d like to measure you.”

“No.”

“With my hand.”

The erection in question jumped at her words and it was her turn to smile.

“Do not tease,” he warned.

“I’m not teasing.”

“You are smiling.”

“I’m just really happy that you react to me so strongly.” So strongly in fact that despite the fact she’d led them down one of the conversational byways that always annoyed others, his visible response to her had not dimmed in the least.

“You are a very sexy woman.”

She couldn’t help laughing at that assertion, but she didn’t accuse him of lying. Honest desire burned in the brown depths of his eyes.

“It is time I did something about your lack of focus.” He didn’t sound mad about it, though.

She just nodded, wanting more of what they’d done in the living room, more kisses, more touching, more of that amazingly intimate connection.

“First we need to get you naked, too.”

She’d already kicked her heels off in the living room and she wasn’t wearing panty hose. That didn’t leave much to get rid of.

She started tugging her skirt up, only to have his hands join her in the effort. Only somehow he made the slide of silk up her body into a series of sensual caresses, so she was shivering with renewed passion by the time he pulled the green fabric over her head.

He tossed it away.

“My mother would be very annoyed if she saw you treating clothes the way you do.” Especially high-end designer ones.

“Your mother has no place in our bedroom.”

“It’s not our bedroom.”

“You belong to me. This room belongs to you. Therefore, it is ours.”

She couldn’t push a denial of his claim through her lips. There was too much truth to it.

It was almost scary, but she wasn’t afraid.

In fact, that part of her that had felt alone in the world since her mother’s marriage to Perry Saltzman warmed with an inexplicable sense of belonging.

“She’s still my mother,” was all Chanel could think to say.

“And she always will be, but her views and opinions about you are skewed by grief and a lack of understanding. Therefore, they have no place in our life together.”

“We don’t have a life together,” she said with more vehemence than she felt.

But it was insane, this instant connection, his claim he planned a future with her. It just wasn’t real. Couldn’t be.

“We do. It starts with this.” His hands reached behind her to unhook her bra clasp, sight unseen.

Her nipples, already tightened into hard points from his earlier manipulations, contracted further from the cooled air brushing across them.

There was no stifling the shiver that went through her in response to the extra stimulation.

His smile was predatory. “You have very sensitive breasts.”

“Nipples,” she couldn’t help correcting. It wasn’t her entire boob responding, was it?

He brushed his fingertips along the side of her breast, sliding forward, but not touching the nipple.

Desire coiled low in her belly, her body arching toward his.

He did it again. “Very responsive.”

“You don’t like to be wrong, do you?” she asked in a voice that hitched every other syllable with her gasping breaths.

“It is a rare occurrence.”

“Arrogant.”

“Certain.”

“Same thing.”

“It is not.” Then he kissed her, preventing any more words.

It was a sneaky way to end an argument, but she couldn’t make herself mind. Not when it felt so wonderful. It might be only their lips that were connected, but she felt as if he was touching her to the very depths of her soul.

He pulled back, their breath coming in harsh gasps between them. “One thing left.”

“What?” she asked, nothing but his lips making any sense in that moment.

“Your panties.”

Were surplus to requirements. She got the picture but found she was hopeless in the face of doing something about it.

It was okay, though. His long masculine fingers were sliding between her hips and the silk and then it was being tugged down, baring the last bit of her to him.

“There will be nothing between us,” he growled, as if he could read her mind.

She looked up at him, their gazes locking, and what she saw in his left her in no doubt he wasn’t just talking about clothing.

He’d pushed her in the living room, demanding she acknowledge her own pleasure, her own desires, this crazy thing happening between them.

He was going to push her further now.

“It’s just sex,” she claimed with a desperate attempt to believe her own words.

“We are making love, locking our lives together.”

“This isn’t real.”

“It is very real.”

“Please…”

He cupped her face, the move one she was becoming quite familiar with and incidentally learning to love. “Please, what?”

“Just tonight? Can it just be about tonight?”

He lowered his head until their lips almost brushed. “No.”

This time, she kissed him. Couldn’t help herself and was glad she hadn’t when he took control and drew forth a response from her body that shouldn’t have been possible. Not after she’d just climaxed.

Only it was.

It was as if they were connected by live electric current, energizing, transforming every synapse in its wake, so that her body was uniquely tuned to him. The way that big body blanketed hers, his hardness rubbing against the sensitive curls at the apex of her thighs indicated he was being tuned to the same frequency.