Hidden Motives

A frequency she thought would rule her body’s responses for the rest of her life.

And if she could believe his words, it would.

The kiss pulled her out of time, suspending them in an intimacy that had no limits, not in hours and minutes, or in emotional connection.

It was beyond anything she thought two people could feel together.

His hands were everywhere, bringing pleasure, teaching her body his touch, making that indescribable pleasure spiral tighter and tighter inside her again.

She touched him, too, letting her fingertips learn his body, and just doing that gave her a level of delight she’d never known. She could caress this man, touch his naked skin and he wanted it, wanted her touch. Not just any woman’s. Hers.

An empty ache started, making her body restless for what it had never known.

As if he knew exactly what she needed, he nudged her thighs apart and adjusted his body so the head of his erection pressed against the opening to her body. However, he made no move to enter her.

The moment felt so momentous that tears washed into her eyes and trickled down her temples. He broke the kiss, lifting his head, his expression knowing.

He touched the wetness, wiping at the tears with one finger. “It is not just about tonight.”

“It’s not supposed to be this big.”

“You have waited twenty-nine years, krýxitka.”

She wasn’t a baby, not by any stretch, but having him call her one didn’t feel wrong. “But women don’t, anymore.”

“You had your reasons.”

“I want this.”

“I know.”

“You do, too.”

“Yes.”

“With me,” she confirmed, maybe needing a little more reassurance than she’d realized.

“Only you from this point forward.”

“You do not believe in infidelity?” A lot of businessmen thought it was their right when they flew out of town to leave their wedding ring in the bedside drawer of their hotel rooms.

Or so she’d read. Honestly, as awful as Perry might be toward Chanel, she couldn’t imagine him cheating on her mother. It was one of the reasons she respected him, even if she didn’t like the business shark.

She could never respect a man who didn’t understand and adhere to the true meaning of loyalty and faithfulness.

“It is too damaging to everyone involved.” There was something about Demyan’s tone that said he knew exactly what he was talking about.

She would have asked about it, but right now all she could really focus on was how much she needed him inside her. “It’s time.”

“Not yet.”

Unexpected anger welled up. “You’re not going to get bossy about this. I’m not begging.”

“I don’t want you begging. Tonight.”

“But—”

He smiled down at her, indulgence and tenderness she wasn’t even sure he was aware of glowing in his dark gaze. “You are a virgin. A certain amount of preparation will make the difference between a beautiful experience and one you never want to have to remember.”

“You make it sound so dire.”

“It can be.”

“Much experience deflowering virgins?” she asked with sarcasm and maybe just a hint of jealousy.

“Tonight is not the time for discussing past sexual encounters.”

“That isn’t what you said earlier.”

His jaw hardened but he said, “Fine. She was young. I was young. It was a disaster.”

“Did you love her?”

“Not even a little.”

“Did she love you?”

“No.” No doubt there.

“You decided to figure out how to fix the problem.” She could so see him doing that.

She might not know everything there was to about this man, but some of his basic characteristics she understood very well.

He nodded even as he shifted again so there was room for his hand to get between them. A single finger gently rubbed along her wet folds.

“That feels good,” she whispered.

“It is supposed to.”

The touch moved up, circling her clitoris. It felt so delicious she gasped with the pleasure of it.

He kissed her and then lifted his head. “Touching you is such a pleasure. You hide none of your responses from me.”

“Am I supposed to?”

“No.” Very definite. Unquestionably vehement.

“You’re kind of a control freak in bed, aren’t you?”

“Giving you pleasure takes a lot of concentration. Why would you try to hinder my efforts by lying to me?”

“I never…” She gasped as his fingers moved a certain way. “Didn’t say I would.”

“Never?” he asked.

She could have accused him of taking unfair advantage, but really? It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d asked her in the middle of the street standing ten feet away.

Her answer to that question would always be the same. “Never.”

“Thank you.” Demyan continued to touch her until she was moving restlessly beneath him.

“Please…” She wasn’t even sure what she was asking for.

Intercourse? Maybe, but what she really wanted was resolution to the storm building inside her and Chanel didn’t really care how she got it.

Even so, she was shocked when he shifted down her body, his intention clear. She’d read about this. Of course she had. Her ex-boyfriend had even wanted to do it to her, but he’d told her she’d have to shave her hair off first.

She’d refused.

Demyan didn’t seem in the least put off by the damp curls between her legs, his tongue going with unerring accuracy right to where his finger had been.

She cried out, her hips coming off the bed. His mouth followed, his ministrations with lips and tongue never pausing.

This was oral sex? This intimate kiss that led to feeling so close to someone else that there was nothing embarrassing about it?

She always thought it would bother her to have a man’s mouth there. She hadn’t refused to shave her nether region just because she was a prude back then.

Only it didn’t bother her. Not at all.

It felt so good, so perfect.

Demyan’s fingers came back to play, this time with one of them sliding just inside her as his tongue swirled over her most sensitive spot. He moved the finger in and out, going a little deeper each time until he pressed gently against her body’s barrier.

It didn’t hurt; it was not too much pressure, but it would be different when he was inside her. Wouldn’t it?

He would have to break through the barrier then. With his longer-than-average erection. That’s what had to happen next.

Only, he didn’t seem to have the script, because he kept licking, sucking and nibbling at her clitoris until she was on the verge of climax. His finger inside her continued sliding in and out of her channel, pressing just a little bit harder against the thin barrier every few times.

His other hand came up to play with her breasts and tease at her nipples, increasing the sensations below by a factor of ten. It was incredible. Amazing.

And she felt that precipice draw closer and closer. She didn’t think she was supposed to climax again before they were joined, but she didn’t worry about it. He knew what he was doing and wouldn’t let her.

Only, he didn’t seem concerned when she warned him it was getting to be too much. He only renewed his efforts, sucking harder on her clitoris and nipping it ever so gently with his teeth.

Without warning, her body splintered apart in glorious pleasure again, this time so intense she couldn’t even get enough air to scream. He didn’t stop the intimate kiss, but he gentled it, bringing her prolonged ecstasy that went on and on even as his finger pressed more insistently against that thin membrane of flesh inside.

Until, as she floated on a cloud of sensual bliss, she felt the sharp sting of pain and realized he’d broken through the barrier of her body. With his finger.

“What? Why?” she asked, the hazy peace cracking a little.

“It hurts less.” He gently withdrew his finger before placing a single soft kiss against her nether lips.

It felt like a benediction.

He moved off her and she saw him grab a corner of the sheet from the floor to wipe his face and hand before he rejoined her on the bed.

Demyan pulled her body into his still-very-aroused one, his expression very satisfied. “You are beautiful in your passion, Chanel.”

“We…Aren’t you going to…”

“Oh, yes. But only when you are ready to begin building toward climax again.”

She didn’t know what he meant, but he showed her, after cuddling her and telling her how amazing and lovely she was. After his touch and nearness once again began to draw forth need to be joined with him.

When he finally pressed inside her, she cried for the second time that night. He didn’t look in the least worried he’d hurt her, though. In fact, his expression was one of understanding overlaying utter male satisfaction.

She didn’t begrudge him one iota of it, either.

He might have had a debacle with his first virgin, but he’d made this one’s initiation into intimacy unbelievably good.

Once she started to move against him, his control slipped its leash and his passion turned harsh and exciting. She screamed her pleasure this time even as his body pounded into hers, and his shout was loud enough to make her ears ring.

Afterward he was quiet, his expression impossible to read. “You’ll want a shower.”

“Couldn’t we shower together?” she asked.

“Your bathroom isn’t meant for shared intimacies.”

She hadn’t been propositioning him, couldn’t believe he thought she had any energy left for that, but she didn’t say so.

While she was in the shower she tried to go over what had happened, but couldn’t figure out why he’d withdrawn and wondered if he’d even still be there when she came out.

CHAPTER FIVE

HE WAS, THOUGH, and he’d remade the bed with fresh sheets.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling unsure.

“We will be more comfortable sleeping on clean bedding.”

That one small word washed through her like life-giving oxygen. We. He’d said we.

Before she could remark on it, or say anything at all, he started toward the bathroom. “I’ll have my shower now. Get in bed.”

“You said you were only bossy in the bedroom.”

He stopped at the doorway to the bath and looked at her over his shoulder. “We are in the bedroom.”

“Why don’t you just admit you have oldest-child syndrome?”

His expression turned somber, though she didn’t understand why. “Noted.”

She would have teased that wasn’t an admission, but Demyan disappeared into the bathroom.

Chanel didn’t understand what was going on with him, but he wasn’t leaving. She’d take that as a good sign.

Did he regret the implications toward the future he’d made before they had sex? Was he realizing now that he’d gotten his rocks off how ludicrous they’d been?

Maybe he thought she’d try to hold him to his words as if he’d made promises. She wouldn’t.

Perhaps she needed to tell him that.

She crossed the room, but when she tried the door to the bath, it was locked.

She let her hand drop away. Okay, then.

Maybe she just needed to go to bed. Any talking could happen in the morning.

After only a few moments’ deliberation, she opted to wear pajamas to bed. The mint-green jersey knit wasn’t exactly sexy, but it was comfortable.

She was still awake when he joined her some indeterminate time later.

He didn’t pause before pulling her into his arms, though he made a sound of surprise when his hands encountered fabric. “Why are you wearing this?”

Because she’d needed a barrier between them, a level of armor, even if it was just her favorite pair of pj’s. “Why not?” she answered rather than admit that, though.

“Because I prefer naked skin and I think you do, too.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never slept with another person,” she replied a tad acerbically.

“Perhaps it is for the best tonight. You will be too sore tomorrow if we make love again in the night.”

“Oh.” He still wanted her?

That was good, right?

“Do not sound so disappointed. We will make love again. Many times.”

As promises for the future went, that was one she could live with. “I’m glad.”

They were silent for several seconds before she offered, “Thank you for making my first time so special.”

“I lost control.” And there it was.

What was bothering him. She knew it.

“I liked it.”

“I could have hurt you.”

“But you didn’t and I think it would have hurt me if you hadn’t lost yourself just as badly as I did.”

“Yes?” he asked, as if the concept was foreign to him.

“Absolutely.”

“I am very glad to hear it.” He’d turned out the light, but she could still hear the smile in his voice.

“Go to sleep.”

“Your wish is my command.”

She would have said something sarcastic about that blatant fabrication, but her mouth didn’t want to work and she slipped into sleep, comforted by their banter.

Chanel was astonished by how easily she grew used to sleeping with someone else.

Not to the sex, though. She wasn’t sure she’d ever grow used to the level of pleasure she and Demyan found in one another’s bodies.

He was bossy in bed, just like he’d told her, but it was all targeted toward her enjoyment. Every directive, every withholding of one instant gratification for something more was so that her final satisfaction was so incredibly overwhelming, she lost her mind with it.

But the sleeping together, that was different. That was all-night-long intimacy of another sort.

She, who had never even cuddled a bear in bed, found it difficult to sleep now when Demyan’s arms weren’t wrapped around her, his heartbeat a steady, comforting sound against her ear.

Hence her yawning this morning as she crunched the new data, despite three cups of coffee made in the new Keurig machine Demyan had gotten her.

He liked to buy her things, she’d noticed. Things she would like.

Her entire life, gifts had come with a subtle message to her to become something different. Designer clothes in a style unlike the one she favored, athletic shoes that were supposed to encourage her to take up running when she was perfectly happy with her tae kwon do training. Golfing gear, though she hated the game, a tennis racket despite the fact she’d never played.

But Demyan’s pressies were different. They were all targeted to the woman she was now, with no eye to making her into someone else. He showed an uncanny ability to tap in to her preferences, even when she’d never shared certain things with him.

Like her addiction to flavored coffees in direct opposition to her frustration over the complicated business of making a good cup of the beverage. So Demyan had found a way to feed the one while minimizing the other.

And the coffee? Delicious. And so darn easy.

She couldn’t mess it up even when she got sidetracked by a new algorithm she wanted to try.

Even when she was sleepy from waking every couple of hours, reaching for him in the bed only to find empty space.

Demyan had left Seattle in the wee hours of the previous morning for what Chanel assumed was a business trip. She hadn’t asked what it was about and he hadn’t offered the information.

What she did know was that he wouldn’t be back for two more days and an equal number of nights. Forty-eight more hours without him.

In the time line of life, it was hardly a blip.

So why did it feel longer than a particularly depraved man’s purgatory to her?

Chanel already missed him with an ache that made absolutely no sense to her scientific brain. Okay, so they’d been dating a month now, not just three days. Making love and sleeping together every single night of the past three weeks of that month.

Still. How could she have become more addicted to his company than caffeine?

Because Chanel knew without any doubts she could go without coffee a heck of a lot more easily than she was finding it to be without her daily dose of Demyan.

She didn’t know if she’d fallen in love at first sight like he’d hinted at three weeks ago, but she was in love with him now.

And that scared her more than a weekend at the spa with her mother.

“How close are you to closing the deal?” Fedir asked without preamble once he and Demyan were alone in the king’s study.

Demyan’s cousin and Gillian had returned from their honeymoon, and Queen Oxana wanted family time. That meant everyone in their small inner circle had come to the palace for a few days of “bonding.”

Since his own parents would cheerfully go the rest of their lives without seeing Demyan, he never took Oxana’s desire to spend time as a family for granted.

Though on this particular occasion, his mother and father and siblings were also staying at the palace in order to get to know their future queen, Gillian, better.

His father wouldn’t make any effort to spend one-on-one time with Demyan, though. For all intents and purposes, Demyan’s younger brother was his acknowledged oldest son.

Pushing aside old wounds Demyan no longer gave the power to hurt him, he answered his uncle’s question. “She’s emotionally engaged.”

“When will you propose?”

“When I return.”

Fedir nodded. “Smart. The time apart will leave her feeling vulnerable. She’ll want to cement your bond. Women are like that.”

Demyan didn’t reply. His uncle was the last man, bar none, he would ask for advice on women.

“She’ll sign the prenuptial agreement?”

“Yes.” The more Demyan had gotten to know Chanel, the more apparent it had become that money was not a motivating factor for her.

She’d sign even the all-contingency prenuptial agreement Fedir’s lawyers had drawn up simply because the financial terms would not matter to her.

“Good, good.”

“I’ll want changes made to some of the provisions before I present her with it, though.”

Fedir frowned. “What? I thought the lawyers did a good job of covering all the bases.”

“I want more generous monetary allowances for Chanel in the event our marriage ends in divorce or my death.”

“What? Why?” Fedir’s shock was almost comical. “Has a woman finally gotten under the skin of my untouchable nephew?”

Of course his uncle would immediately assume an emotional reason behind Demyan’s actions. His sense of justice was a little warped by his all-consuming dedication to the welfare of Volyarus.

“I will do whatever I need to in order to protect this country, but I will do it with honor,” Demyan replied.

“Of course, but your integrity is in no way compromised by your actions to insure the healthy future of our country.”

Demyan wasn’t sure he believed that. Regardless, he would minimize how much tarnish it took. “The terms will be changed to my requirements, or I won’t offer the document to Chanel to sign.”

As threats went, it wasn’t very powerful. Baron Tanner’s will had been clear and airtight. Chanel lost all claim to the baron’s shares in Yurkovich Tanner upon marriage to any direct relation to the king.

“And without a prenup, there will be no wedding,” Demyan added after several seconds of silence by his uncle.

“You don’t mean that.”

“When have you ever known me to bluff?” Demyan asked.

Fedir frowned. “She really does mean something to you.”

“My integrity certainly does.”

He was a ruthless man. Demyan knew that about himself. He could make the hard choices, but he was an honest man, too. And he didn’t make those choices without counting the cost.

“A man has to make sacrifices, even in that area for the greater good.”

Demyan shrugged. “I’ll contact the lawyers with the changes I want made to the agreement.”

He wasn’t going to debate his uncle’s choices. The other man had to live with them and their consequences. It might be argued that everyone in the palace did, too, but Demyan wasn’t a whiny child, moaning how his uncle’s decisions had cost him his family.

The truth was, his own parents and their ambition were every bit as culpable.

“I’ll trust you to be reasonable in your demands.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Demyan, you will never be king, but you are no less a son to me than Maksim.” Fedir laid one hand on Demyan’s shoulder and squeezed.

The words rocked through Demyan. His uncle was not an emotionally demonstrative man, in word or deed. Nor was he known for saying things he did not mean, at least not to family.

However, Demyan’s cynicism in the face of life’s lessons drove his speech. “A son you call nephew.”

“A son I and all of Volyarus call prince.”

“You never adopted me.” According to Volyarussian law, which the king could change should he so desire, doing so would have made Demyan heir to the throne, not the spare.

He understood that, but it was also a fact that if he were truly every bit as much a son to Fedir, his place in the right of succession wouldn’t have been a deterrent.

“Your parents refused.”

Was Fedir trying to imply he’d asked? “I find that difficult to believe. They gave me up completely.”

“But so long as you were legally their son, your father had leverage for his interests. He and your mother categorically refused to give that up.”

His uncle’s words rang true, particularly when weighed against how few of Demyan’s father’s efforts had met with support of the king since he’d become an adult. “I get my ruthlessness from him.”

“But your honor is all your own. You are a better man than either of your fathers, the one by birth and the one by choice.”

Fedir was not a man who gave empty compliments. So, Demyan couldn’t help that the older man’s words sparked emotion deep inside, but he wasn’t about to admit that out loud.

“Oxana feels the same. She is very proud of both of her sons.”

He thought of the excitement the queen had shown when Demyan had warned her that he’d found the one. “She wouldn’t be proud of me if she knew why I’m pursuing Chanel.”

“You’re wrong. I am very proud of you.” Oxana came into the room from the secret passageway entrance. “You have put the welfare of our people and your family ahead of your own happiness. How can I be anything but proud of that?”

Fedir started, clearly shocked his wife had been listening in.

“She’s a special woman. She deserves a real marriage.” It wasn’t a sentiment Demyan would have expressed to Fedir without prompting, but this was Oxana.

She’d sacrificed her entire life for their country and her family. Yet she was not a bitter woman. She loved them all deeply, if not overtly. She deserved to know that Demyan wasn’t going to play Chanel for the sake of her inheritance.

“So, give her one.” Oxana smiled with the same guarded approval she’d given him since he was a boy, though as he’d grown older he’d learned to look deeper for the true emotion. It was there. “She is a very lucky woman to have you.”

Since he wasn’t about to comment on the latter and the former was Demyan’s plan, he merely nodded.

“That’s not a reasonable request,” Fedir said forcefully.

“For you, we all know that is true. But Demyan is a different man. A better man, by your own admission.”

Fedir scowled at his wife of more than three decades. “He is our son. How can you demand he sacrifice the rest of his life for the sake of this girl’s feelings?”

“How can you ask him to sacrifice his personal integrity to save our country?” Oxana countered, deigning to look at Fedir.

“He is not being dishonest.”

“Oh, so you’ve told Chanel about her inheritance?” Oxana asked Demyan.

But he knew she wasn’t talking to him, not really, so he didn’t answer with so much as a shake of his head.

“How do you know about it?” Fedir asked Oxana, with shock lacing his usually forceful tones.