at him, clutching at the towel, her eyes growing wider, and then she actually stepped towards him.
He crossed the space between them, caught her around that surprisingly small waist and pulled her into his body, half dragging the towel off in the process. He was conscious of her making a noise as he hungrily took her mouth with his own, his tongue invading the sweetness inside. She was stiff in his arms, and he could feel her hands pushing at his biceps, but the rest of her was soft and pliant. Everything about her was everything he wanted in that moment; she was all feminine roundness and softness and warmth. He could bury himself in her and forget everything that had happened, everything that was going to happen. Sweet oblivion inside sweet Maisy.
Maisy could hardly form a coherent thought. Shock had turned to humiliation as she felt her towel shift and drop, and she was aware that at any moment she would be completely naked in a strange man’s arms. This man was kissing her with a passion that went beyond expertise, as if his mouth and his tongue and his touch were desperately searching for something from her. And Maisy found something in herself was tentatively responding. The resistance melted out of her hands as she nestled closer to the source of this warmth that was spreading through her, seeking the shelter his arms offered, leaning into the strength that seemed so much a part of him. His hunger softened into something else as she began to respond.
It was almost too much. Her heartbeat was speeding out of control and his arms around her were almost too powerful, too possessive. She struggled a little, but only to drag his head back down to hers as he shifted in response, and she felt him laugh uninhibitedly against her mouth. He half lifted her and swept her up against the back of the door. It slammed with a thud, his forearm taking the brunt for her back, and Maisy felt his other big, callused hand smooth up her inner thigh. She grabbed it, muttered, ‘No,’ against his hair, and his mouth dropped to the pulse-point throbbing at the base of her throat. He licked her like a big cat, right there, his tongue rough and wet and hot.
Oh, Lord, thought Maisy, her body on fire. I can’t do this. I’m not ready to do this.
‘Lose the towel, Maisy,’ he murmured hotly against her ear, his hands at her hips, moving around to cup her bare bottom.
‘I can’t,’ she winced, embarrassment crawling through her.
And then it was over. It all happened in a moment. His mouth was gone, his hands were gone and she was leaning up against her bedroom door, clutching a towel to her near nakedness and staring into the eyes of a man who looked shell-shocked.
He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth, as if removing the taste of her, and said in a low, fractured voice, ‘That was inexcusable. I’m tired. I made a mistake. Forget it ever happened.’
Maisy’s hazel eyes prickled. A mistake? Forget it ever happened?
Alexei knew he wasn’t thinking straight. The girl in front of him was staring at him as if he was mad, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d started something he couldn’t finish. He’d left her high and dry, and the ache in his body wasn’t going to go away any time soon.
What in the hell was he doing here? He had twelve security personnel scoping the property, a car waiting and a jet on the tarmac at Heathrow. And he, Alexei Ranaevsky, was tupping the nanny in an upstairs bedroom.
The goddamned nanny!
And doing a spectacularly lousy job of it.
Shoving aside the useless introspection, Alexei sized up the woman huddling against the door.
‘You need to move so I can get out of here,’ he directed. ‘And for God’s sake put some clothes on.’
Maisy flinched, but she still didn’t move. She wanted desperately to be away from him, to be behind the bathroom door, to sink to the ground and wish away all her humiliation, but she knew the moment she stepped aside she might lose her chance.
She probably already had. He seemed so angry with her it was more than likely he had changed his mind. She should have shoved him off her to begin with. She should never have responded. She should have remembered Kostya came first.
Anais would be horrified if she knew what was going on, what had just happened—in her own home, just days after … Maisy felt so sick she actually thought she might throw up.
‘Maisy.’ He spoke her name abruptly.
‘You haven’t changed your mind?’ she challenged, with what nerve she had left, strengthening her voice with the knowledge that Kostya came first. ‘About me coming? With Kostya?’
For a moment he actually looked confused, as if she had said something completely out of left field when this was the only thing that mattered, wasn’t it? Then he sighed and ran a hand over his unshaven face.
‘No, I haven’t changed my mind,’ he muttered. ‘God help me, I haven’t changed my mind.’
She looked so lost for a moment something twisted inside him. He remembered her driven, ‘No,’ when he had asked her to drop the towel, her hand like a trap on his when he’d sought to find the sweet wet place between her thighs.
But then why would she have left her door ajar if she hadn’t wanted him to walk in?
Cynicism firmly in place, he took one last frustrated look at what he wasn’t going to have and informed her, ‘Get dressed. You’ve got five.’
It was the hardest walk Maisy had ever had to make. She hated him seeing her after what had happened—so much bare skin, as if offering herself up to him on a plate. He must have been watching her because she didn’t hear her bedroom door close until after she’d shut herself in the bathroom and sunk onto the floor. Waves of humiliation rolled over her, and then she snatched her towel off and grabbed at the big fluffy bath sheet she should have been wearing. It wrapped around her like a hug, and she buried her face in its folds.
She’d been so uninhibited, so out of control. She’d felt his raw need, his naked desire, and she’d matched it with her own. Shame burned through her. This was not part of her bargain with herself and Anais. The last gift she could give her friend was a secure future for her son, and instead she had been wrapped around his godfather, seeking the comfort she needed, Kostya far from her mind.
It was the shock, she told herself. The grief. She would never have responded to him like that if she wasn’t half out of her mind with misery and lack of sleep. But even as she formed the excuses she knew they were a lie, and it shamed her.
She had no choice. She must get up, wash her face, get dressed and go down there and face him. This volatile, unpredictable man was going to be Kostya’s father to all intents and purposes. She must learn to deal with him.
Yet her fingers strayed to her swollen lips and she allowed herself a small shudder. That kiss. That mistake. It must never happen again.
CHAPTER THREE
THE boy, the plane … and the nanny.
No, cancel that last appellation. The red-haired sex kitten, curled up in her chair and pretending to sleep whilst he endeavoured to make sense of the figures being pumped into his email from New York. No sleep, the altitude, and now the unexpected introduction of his libido into the equation meant he was in danger of making a mistake that could cost a great many people their jobs.
He
