of interest here should be the pay-off,’ Nikolai reminded her drily. ‘And learning to do as you are told.’
In the rushing silence, Ella wrinkled her nose. ‘If I don’t agree with something, I’m hopeless at doing what I’m told.’
‘But you can learn,’ Nikolai sliced in, his tone as glacial as ice water. ‘Don’t sign up for this if you can’t respect the rules.’
‘Perhaps you could tell me how I’m supposed to respect a man who wants me even though I don’t want him?’ Ella shot back at him in scornful challenge.
‘Do you always lie in preference to telling the truth about yourself?’ Nikolai enquired dangerously softly as he strode closer.
Ella found herself backed up against the door before she could grab the opportunity to make the swift exit she had originally planned. ‘I’m not lying—’
Nikolai rested the palm of one hand against the door and gazed down at her with hard dark eyes. ‘The worst of it is that you know you’re lying...but I don’t play that game.’
‘I want to leave.’
‘Not until I say you can,’ Nikolai fenced, so big he was like a wall blocking the rest of the room from her view and cutting out most of the light, so that for the first time she wished she were wearing heels to cut the ridiculous height differential between them to a more reasonable level.
Ella turned up her face, chin tilted at an obstinate angle, green eyes sparkling. ‘I could use my knee to persuade you.’
‘Why would you damage a part of me you hope to enjoy?’ Nikolai countered.
‘It would take an avalanche to crush your ego, wouldn’t it?’
‘If I was modest you would walk all over me with pleasure.’ Nikolai was entranced by the glorious green of her eyes against the smooth, fine grain of her porcelain skin. ‘But that’s not what you want from me, is it? You’d much prefer me to take your choices away and give you the excuse to be with me.’
‘That’s rubbish!’ Ella gasped, barely able to credit that he had made such an allegation. ‘I don’t want or need an excuse to be with you!’
‘Ne...yes, you do,’ Nikolai insisted, pinning her up against the door in blatant entrapment. ‘You want excuses and persuasion and, sadly, you’re not going to get them from me. That’s not how I am with a woman.’
‘Fascinating as this dialogue no doubt is to a man who likes to listen to the sound of his own voice, I’m not interested.’
‘Every time you lie to me I’ll punish you.’
‘Punish me?’ Ella parroted, blinking in bewilderment.
Nikolai bent down and scooped her up, disconcerted by how very light she was. Yes, she was small and slight in build but he was convinced she weighed too little to be healthy. Nikolai walked through the room into the bedroom with her in his arms. ‘You’ll like the way I punish you.’
‘What are you doing?’ Ella exclaimed as he swept her off her feet.
‘Sealing our agreement.’
‘What agreement?’ she demanded rawly as he dropped her down on a bed so well sprung that she bounced.
‘Your agreement to be my mistress.’ He savoured the word.
As Ella made a sudden sidewise motion intended to remove her from the bed Nikolai came down and imprisoned her with the vastly superior weight and strength of his big, powerful body. ‘Get off me. Let go of me...right now!’ she raked at him.
‘I really hate being shouted at,’ Nikolai confided a split second before his hard, sensual mouth claimed hers.
And for that same split second it was as though Ella’s world stopped turning and she was jolted off course, sent breathless and spinning into the unknown. Heat surged up through her like an invasive weapon. He eased her out from under him but kept her trapped in his arms. Irritation flamed through her because inexplicably she had liked his crushing weight on hers. Her fists struck at shirt-clad shoulders as unyielding as rock. The tip of his tongue flicked inside her mouth and she shivered violently, the clenching at her secret core almost painful in its intensity. He nipped at her lower lip, sucked and soothed it with his tongue. She wanted more, she wanted more so badly it hurt to be denied and the rushing tide of that hunger shocked her back into her mind again.
His kisses were like nothing she’d ever experienced before. A lean hand tunnelled below her tee and closed round a small, high breast, long fingers stroking the throbbing tip and lingering to rub and tug until her spine arched in response and her hips jerked up and a helpless sound of craving was released from low in her throat.
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