without lifting her head, tilting it back just a little. And that movement brought her eyes up to clash with his. Suddenly even breathing naturally was impossible as their gazes locked, the darkness and intensity of his stare closing her throat in the space of a single uneven heartbeat.
In that moment everything that had happened in the past months rushed up to swamp her mind, taking with it any hope of rational thought. Except that right now she needed him. Needed the friend he had once been. So much about him might have changed: that hard-boned face had thinned, toughened into that of a stunningly mature male in his sexual prime; those eyes might now be five inches above hers where once they had been so much closer to her own … But they were still the eyes of the friend she had known. Still the eyes of the one person she had felt she could confide in and get a sympathetic hearing.
They were the eyes she had once let herself dream of seeing warm with more than just the easy light of friendship. And the memory of how in the past she had fallen asleep and into dreams of them being so much more than friends twisted in her heart with the bitterness of loss.
‘Tell me everything.’
‘You don’t really want that,’ she flung at him, gulping in air so that she could loosen her throat.
‘No? Try me.’
Challenge blended with something else in his tone. And it was that something else that made her heart jerk, her breath catch.
Was it possible that he really did want to know? That he might help her? Memories of their past friendship surfaced once again, tugging at her feelings. She was so lonely, so dragged down by it all, so tired of coping with everything on her own. So wretched at the thought of what the future might bring. And here was this man who had once been the boy she adored, the friend who had let her offload her troubles on to his shoulders—shoulders that even then had seemed broad enough to take on the world. They were so much broader, so much stronger now.
Tell me everything, he’d said, and as he spoke the hand that rested against her face moved slightly, the pressure of his fingers softening, his palm curving so that it lay over her cheek, warm and hard and yet gentle all at the same time.
‘The truth, Ria,’ he said and the sound of her name on his lips was her weakness, her undoing.
Unable to stop herself, she turned her face into his hold, inhaling the scent of his skin, pursing her lips to press a small, soft kiss against the warmth of his palm.
Instantly everything changed. Her heart seemed to stop, her breathing stilled. The clean, musky aroma of his body was all around her, the taste of his flesh tangy on her tongue. It was like taking a sip of a fine, smoky brandy, one that intoxicated in a moment, sending fizzing bubbles of electricity along every nerve.
She wanted more. Needed to deepen the contact. Needed it like never before.
The boy who had been her friend had never made her feel like this; never made her pulse race so fast and heavy, her head spin so wildly. In all her adolescent dreams she had never known this feeling of awareness, of hunger. A pulsing, heated adult hunger that grew and sharpened as he moved his hold on her, taking her chin and lifting it so that their eyes clashed and scorched. Something blazed in these black depths, creating a golden glow that had more heat than an inferno and yet was almost—almost—under control.
‘Ria …’ he said again, his tone very different this time, his voice roughening at the edges. He had moved closer somehow, without her noticing, and the warmth of his breath on her skin as he spoke her name sent heated shivers running down her spine, making her toes curl inside her neat, polished shoes.
‘Alex …’
But speaking had been a mistake. It made her mouth move against his skin, brought that powerfully sensual taste onto her tongue once again, so that she swallowed convulsively, taking the essence of him into herself in an echo of a much more intimate blending. Immediately it was as if a lighted match had been set to desert-dry brushwood. As if the tiny flicker that had been smouldering deep inside from the moment that she had come face to face with him again in his office had suddenly burst into wild and uncontrollable flame, the force of it moving her forward sharply, close up against him.
She heard his breath hiss in between his teeth in an uncontrolled response that both shocked and thrilled her. The thought that he felt as she did, so much that he was unable to hide his response from her, made her head spin. She could hardly believe that it could be possible, but there was no denying the evidence of the way that his grip tightened on her chin, hard fingers digging into her skin as he lifted her face towards his with a roughness that betrayed the urgency of his feelings.
‘Alex …’ she tried again, trying to follow the safe, the sensible path and persuade him to stop, but realising as she heard her own voice that she was doing exactly the opposite. The quaver on his name sounded so much more like shaken encouragement.
But a moment later it didn’t matter what she said or how she said it. The truth was that she was incapable of any further speech as Alexei’s dark head swooped down, his mouth capturing hers in a savage kiss. Hard lips crushed hers, bringing them open to the invasion of his tongue in an intimate dance that made her knees weaken so that she swayed against him, her body melting soft and yielding against the hardness of his.
She heard him mutter something dark and deep in his throat and the next moment she was swung round and up into his arms. Half-walked, half-carried across the room, his mouth never leaving hers, until she was hard up against the wall, its support cold and hard against her back. Both thrilled and shocked by his unexpected response, she shivered under the impact of his powerful form on her, the heat and hardness of him crushed against the cradle of her pelvis. If she had needed any further evidence of the fact that his blood was burning as hot as hers, then it was there in the swollen, powerful erection that was crushed between them.
His mouth was plundering hers, his tongue sweeping into the innermost corners, tasting her, tormenting her. The heated pressure of his hands matched the intimate invasion of his mouth, hot, hard palms skimming over her body, burning through the flowered cotton of her dress, curving over the swell of her hips, cupping her buttocks to pull her closer to him. Ria’s blood pounded at her temples, along every nerve. Her breasts prickled and tightened in stinging response, nipples pressing against the soft lace of her bra, hungry for the feel of those wickedly enticing fingers against her flesh.
Unable to stop herself, she nipped sharply at his lower lip, catching it between her teeth and taking his gasp of response into her mouth with the taste of him clear and wild against her lips. Pushed into penitence by his reaction, she let her tongue slide over the damaged skin, soothing the small pressure wounds her teeth had inflicted and sucking the fullness of it to ease away any soreness. But the low growl she heard deep in his throat told her that his reaction had not been one of discomfort. Instead he was encouraging her to take further liberties, crushing her hard against him and letting his hands wander freely over her yearning body.
‘Hell, but you’re beautiful …’
He muttered the words against her arching throat, his breath warm against her flesh, and she could hardly believe that she was hearing them. Had he truly said beautiful? Was it possible that the man the gossip columns labelled the playboy prince, who had his pick of the sexiest women in the world—socialites, models, actresses—could think her so attractive? Memories of the adolescent dreams she had once indulged in, the yearning crush she had felt for this man surfaced all over again, reminding her of how much she would have given to hear those words back then, years ago. Then all he had ever shown her was a kind, but rather offhand friendship that was light-years away from this carnal hunger that seemed to grip them now.
