smooth skin of his hard chest, the edges and curves of his muscles. She stroked his flat nipples and the rough, bristly hair that stretched down his taut torso like an arrow. She heard his ragged intake of breath, and when she glanced up and saw his mesmerized expression, her confidence leaped. It was working! Growing bolder, she ran her fingertips beneath the edge of his waistband, swaying her splayed body against the thick hardness between his legs.
She’d meant it as an exploration. He took it as a taunt. With a growl, he pushed her back against the bed. Pulling off his pants and boxers, he kicked them to the floor.
She gasped when she saw him naked for the first time. He was huge. She couldn’t look away. But as he pulled her back into his arms, crushing her breasts against his chest as he took possession of her mouth with a hard, hungry kiss, she forgot that fear, too.
He kissed slowly down her body, moving from her neck to the valley between her breasts to the flat plain of her belly. His hot breath enflamed her skin. Pushing her legs apart with his hands, he nuzzled her tender, untouched thighs. He kissed the edges of her G-string panties, and she felt the brief flicker of his tongue through silk.
She gasped. Need pounded through her, making her body shake as she felt his mouth move between her legs, gently suckling secret places there. She felt the heat and dampness of his tongue, teasing her on the edge of the fabric, and her back arched against the mattress. With a little cry, she stretched out her arms to grip the sheets, feeling as if she might fly off the bed and into the sky.
His fingers stroked the smooth silk, and she heard the rasp of her own frantic breathing. With tantalizing slowness, he reached beneath the fabric, stroking her wet core with a featherlike touch. He pushed a single thick fingertip an inch inside her, bending his head to suckle the top of her mound through the silk panties, and her back arched higher, her body grew tighter, and her breathing quickened, so much she started to see stars.
She heard the ripping of fabric as he destroyed the wisp of silk and tossed it to the floor.
“Look at me.”
Against her will, she opened her eyes. Holding her gaze, he lowered his head between her naked thighs and fully tasted her with his wide tongue.
She cried out as she felt him tantalize, then lick, then lap her wet core. Her body twisted with the intensity of the pleasure even as her soul was torn by the intimacy of his gaze. Her heart hammered in her throat. Closing her eyes, she turned away so he could not see her tears.
His tongue changed rhythm; now he was using just the tip on her taut, sensitive nub. It was perfect. It was torture. His tongue swirled in light circles, barely touching her. She ached deep inside, wanting to be filled, wanting to have him inside her. Pleasure was building so hard and fast that her body could barely contain it. She felt an agony of need. With a whimper, she tried to pull away, but he held her firmly, not allowing her to escape from his hot, wet tongue.
Pleasure built higher and higher. “Please,” she panted, nearly crying with need. “Please.”
Holding her down, Vladimir thrust two thick fingertips inside her, then three. Still lapping her, he stretched her wide, his free hand pushing her back against the bed, while his tongue tormented her wet, slick core. And suddenly, she fell off a cliff. Her body exploded. She cried out as waves of ecstasy crashed around her, and she flew.
Quickly sheathing himself in a condom from the bedstand, he positioned himself between her legs. With a single rough thrust, he shoved himself all the way inside her. Gripping his shoulders, Bree cried out as sudden pain tore through her pleasure.
When Vladimir felt the barrier he hadn’t expected, he froze, looking down at her in shock.
“You were—a virgin?” he breathed.
Bree’s eyes squeezed shut, her beautiful face full of anguish as she turned it away, as if she didn’t want him to see. He didn’t move, unable to fathom the evidence he’d felt with his own body. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Trembling beneath him, she slowly opened her eyes again—limpid hazel eyes that glimmered like an autumn lake dark with rain. “I did,” she whispered. She took a ragged breath. “You didn’t believe me.”
Vladimir stared at her beautiful face. Around him, the whole world suddenly seemed to shake and rattle. But the earthquake was in his own heart. He felt something crack inside his soul.
Everything he’d thought about Bree was wrong.
Everything he’d believed her to be—wrong.
With a ragged intake of breath, he pulled away. Sitting back on the bed, he choked out, “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” She sat up against the headboard, and her eyes shimmered in the silver-gold moonlight dappling the high-ceilinged bedroom. She licked her lips. “When you didn’t believe me, I started hoping I could keep my virginity a secret. So you wouldn’t …”
She stopped.
“So I wouldn’t what?”
Her lips trembled as she tried to smile. “Well, it’s pathetic, isn’t it?” She didn’t try to cover her nakedness, as another woman might have done. She just looked straight into his eyes, without artifice, without defenses. “There was no other man for me. Not before you. And not after.”
Staring at her, Vladimir felt as if he’d just been sucker punched.
She’d told him the truth. All these years he’d thought of Bree Dalton as a liar, or worse. But even when she’d looked him in the eyes and told him she was a virgin, he hadn’t believed her.
Who was the one who didn’t recognize the truth when he saw it?
Who was the one who’d forgotten how?
Setting his jaw, he looked at her grimly. “And Alaska?”
She looked down, her eyelashes a dark sweep against her pale skin. “Everything your brother tried to tell you, that Christmas night he burst in on us, was true,” she said softly. “I never had the rights to sell Josie’s land. I was trying to distract you, so you’d put down earnest money in cash before you realized it, and my sister and I could disappear into a new life.”
“To con people somewhere else.”
“It was all I knew how to do.” Bree lifted her gaze. “It never occurred to me that I could change. Not until …”
Her voice trailed off.
Yes, Vladimir, I’ll marry you. He could almost hear her joyful, choked voice that Christmas night, see the tears in her beautiful eyes as she’d thrown her arms around him and whispered, “I’m not good enough for you, not by half. But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be.”
Now, his hands tightened into fists. “You had plenty of chances to tell me the truth. Instead, you let me find out about your con from Kasimir. You let me shout at him and throw him out of your cabin as a damned liar. You let me leave that night, still not knowing the truth. Until I started getting phone calls the next morning, and discovered from reporters that everything he’d told me about you was true.”
“I wanted to tell you. But I was afraid.”
“Afraid,”
