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.’
Strong hands skimmed down her spine to curve down over her hips. ‘Whatever turns you on—’
‘That doesn’t,’ she told him succinctly.
Long fingers inched up her skirt and glided up the silken length of her thigh and she froze. ‘What the heck are you doing?’ she exclaimed in consternation.
Masculine fingertips flirted with the lacy edge of the knickers interrupting his exploration. ‘Take them off,’ he said.
‘Of course I’m not taking them off!’ Kat protested in disbelief. ‘Have you gone insane?’
‘Just the thought of you naked below that dress excites me,’ Mikhail purred, pressing his lips to a delicate spot just below her ear in a caress that left her hot and breathlessly eager for more. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘I wouldn’t feel right without them on,’ Kat muttered tautly while shamelessly angling her head back to provide easier access for his wide sensual mouth.
In answer, Mikhail hauled her up against him and kissed her with a hungry fervour that thoroughly unsettled her. With her cradled in his arms he sank down into his seat with her again, long caressing fingers stroking her slim thighs below the skirt of her dress. Recognising that he really didn’t know how to take no for an answer but simply pursued another path when he met with opposition, Kat slapped a hand down on the hem of her dress to prevent it from rising any further and to restrict his clever hands. ‘No,’ she told him flatly. ‘I’m keeping my underwear on!’
‘You’re so stubborn,’ Mikhail growled in complaint against her lush mouth.
‘You’re even worse,’ Kat complained, idle fingers brushing through his luxuriant black hair while her languorous gaze admired the exotic slash of his cheekbones, the arrogant jut of his nose and the strength of his jaw line. ‘But luckily for you, you’re also incredibly sexy …’
Mikhail tilted his imperious dark head back and laughed out loud. ‘Am I?’
Barely able to credit that she could already be so relaxed in his company that she could tease him, Kat grinned. ‘I think so … but shouldn’t we be joining your guests for a farewell breakfast?’
‘Stop being so sensible,’ Mikhail urged with a frown.
‘I’m always sensible,’ Kat told him ruefully.
‘If you were that sensible you would have avoided me like the plague,’ Mikhail asserted with conviction.
And that he could coolly issue that warning sent a cold shiver down Kat’s vulnerable spine. It was sex, only sex, that had brought them together, she reminded herself urgently, nothing more involved or dangerous. He was fantastic in bed and that was that: she didn’t have any other feelings for him. No, not one single tender feeling or stab of womanly curiosity, she reflected, and on that soothing thought she dragged her fingers out of his hair and shifted off his lap as though someone had harpooned her with a flaming arrow. After all, she didn’t want to give him the impression that he was sleeping with a clinging vine.
‘My mother died when I was six years old,’ Mikhail admitted grudgingly.
‘What
