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Wild:. Noelle Mack
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Vivienne favored him with a look that she hoped was stern. The gossip that she had tried to ignore in the last months was not wrong. Kyril Taruskin had a legendary talent for seduction and making love. His conquests were many. Now she understood why.
Of course, no one had ever mentioned him loving anyone. Yet it did not matter, not to Vivienne. Certainly it would be foolish of her to think that she was or would be different, somehow, from the others. Still…she wanted him.
He cleared his throat with a slight cough. “Where were we?”
She cast a meaningful glance at the door.
“Now I remember. You want me to go.”
“Yes.”
He gave her a wry look. “But you are not sure.”
“I am quite sure of what I want, Kyril.”
“Are you?” He grinned at her. Deep-carved dimples appeared, framing his sensual mouth.
Annoyed by his amusement, she tipped her head to one side. “You need not grin like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like a damned wolf.”
Kyril laughed. “Perhaps I am one. I do follow my instincts and I can sense your mixed emotions.”
“How?”
“By what I see.” He gestured at her glass on the low table near the fireplace. “Champagne left unfinished. The ashes of a fire that has burned too low.”
She almost smiled. “As good a way as any to describe the end of an evening.”
“Is it?”
His gaze locked with hers. Damn him—the mixture of intelligent amusement and sexual desire in his expression made her feel hot all over again.
“Vivienne…” His voice was deep and yearning.
She shook her head and Kyril let go of her at last. Vivienne was almost disappointed.
Until he pounced. His full lips captured hers for a kiss that made her tremble. Encircled once more by his arms, lifted slightly, she barely felt the floor beneath her thin-soled evening shoes. Her stockinged toes curled and wiggled under the embroidered flowers on her silk shoes as freely as if she were barefoot.
Kyril’s lips were soft, his technique sensual in the extreme. Opening her lips, his tongue tasted her mouth as if he found her utterly delicious. His kiss was tender but not in the least tentative. His self-assurance and his skill compelled her to respond fully, pressing her body to his at last, arching with the pleasure of allowing so powerful a man to claim her, however briefly…
But the kiss went on and on.
Vivienne was the one who ended it. When he stopped to draw breath, she placed her hands on his chest once more and pushed him away with firm resolve. He stood his ground. She was the one who moved.
Kyril studied her. A few candles sputtered and went out, their hollow stubs filled with molten wax. A thin thread of smoke rose from one extinguished wick and hung in the air. He neither moved nor spoke.
He seemed taller and more masterful, growing in apparent size as the light diminished. Another illusion. Vivienne reached up a hand to rub her eyes and he caught her by the wrist. Her fingers curled into a loose fist, as if to defend herself, but his long thumb gently forced her fingers open.
That done, he pressed a tender kiss into her palm. Then he released her and she let her arm fall to her side, feeling suddenly bereft. How had he ensnared her with such ease?
“Kyril…when will I see you again?” She bit her lip. That had sounded far too eager. Almost girlish.
Kyril only shrugged. “Soon.” He looked at her and murmured a few words in Russian under his breath.
“What are you saying?”
“That you are utterly alluring. And dangerous.”
The first part of his reply was flattering, but the last puzzled her. It was he who was dangerous. To her peace of mind. And to her heart, if she was not careful.
Still, she was feeling reckless. It had been too long since she had let a man get close to her and Kyril was no ordinary man.
“Will you not—” She hesitated, looking at him warily.
“Stay?” He shook his head, looking down at her parted lips. “No. Forgive me, Vivienne. As it happens, it is for the best that you asked me to go. I have just remembered that I was supposed to meet someone.”
Highly unlikely. But she supposed it served her right for putting him off.
“After midnight?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I cannot be late.”
He could not possibly be telling the truth. No, they were playing the same game with each other. Advance and Retreat.
“Then it is a good thing you remembered it.”
He only nodded.
She would not ask one word more. Vivienne silently reproved herself for her pique. She hoped he did not see the tinge of angry scarlet in her cheeks.
They got through the adieus politely enough. He turned to go without touching her again.
The sound of his boot heels on the stairs died away and the front door closed behind him. Vivienne went to the window. She pulled the heavy drape aside and looked out in time to see him stride to his black coach. Its windows were shielded on the inside of the glass with rich material she could just see under the streetlamps. Their light revealed the falling rain, turning it into sparks of gold that pattered down upon the black-lacquered top of the coach.
The sight was beautiful but it filled her with melancholy. Rain often did. There were times when she could not stand the sound of it against the windowpanes.
How long had it been falling? The night had been clear when her other guests departed one by one. Of course, that was hours ago. In Kyril’s arms, kissed so well, she had not heard the storm blow in.
The horses shook their heavy heads, jingling the bits in their velvet mouths as their master approached. They were stamping their hooves on the wet cobblestones, eager to be off. As he passed a dark doorway, Vivienne saw something move. She narrowed her eyes when a man stepped forth from it.
His long, matted beard and ugly coat gave him the look of a beggar or a lunatic. The sleeves were so long his hands were covered and the hat he wore was strangely shaped.
Vivienne studied him. He might be only a poor foreigner. London was full of them.
Kyril did not seem to see the man. She put a hand upon the window, ready to open it and warn him…no, it was no longer necessary. The rain drove the bearded man back into the doorway. Vivienne retreated behind the drapery.
The coachman turned around and tipped his hat to Kyril, spilling the rain accumulated in its rolled-up brim upon his own greatcoat. She imagined the fellow’s curse—she could not hear it. The heavy rain obliterated the sounds outside.
Kyril spoke to him before he got into the carriage, swinging up one long leg and entering without a backward glance at her house. Damn the man. Where could he be going after midnight? She regretted her decision to make him wait. She ought to have let him have his way with her, permitted herself the physical pleasure he was so determined to give her, however fleeting it might be. Men’s hearts were fickle.
As was her own, she reflected. Not that she had always been cynical. But London was a sophisticated city that did not hold love in high regard. After some years of dwelling here, she no longer hoped to find it again. She had loved once and loved well—but not wisely.
Her gaze fell upon a