LITMIR.BIZ

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her handbag her mobile trilled impatiently, warning her of an incoming text. It dragged her unceremoniously back into the world of reality. She turned towards the sound.

      ‘Leave it,’ Kiryl commanded her.

      ‘I can’t—it might be Vasilii.’

      The grim look that darkened Kiryl’s eyes warned her that he wasn’t pleased, but Alena knew that Vasilii would worry if she didn’t answer his message.

      Just the mere act of hurrying over to her handbag brought home to her the changes that Kiryl had already wrought within her body. Each movement reinforced the agonised ache of sensuality that now flooded it. Although he wasn’t even touching her Kiryl still possessed her senses, and through them her body. Her breast ached in torment where he had drawn her desire for his touch there to its now frantic throbbing peak. The hot swelling of her sex was something she felt with every step she took. Her whole body shook with the knowledge of how he had transformed her and how much she wanted him. So very much. Now and for always. Part of her was glad.

      Her hand trembled as she removed her mobile from her handbag and checked the text, telling Kiryl, ‘It is from Vasilii.’

      As he watched her read her half-brother’s message Kiryl saw a small frown pleat her forehead.

      ‘Something’s wrong?’ he guessed, going over to her.

      ‘Not really. Vasilii says that his business negotiations are taking longer than he expected and he will not now be returning to London for another five days. I was looking forward to telling him in person about your wonderful donation to the charity, but now I’ll have to text him instead.’

      Kiryl tensed inwardly. The last thing he wanted was Vasilii Demidov getting wind of his presence in his half-sister’s life until he himself chose to make him aware of that fact.

      ‘Why not wait to tell him until he returns? Then you can do so and show him the cheque at the same time,’ he suggested with a smile.

      ‘Yes. Yes, I will,’ Alena agreed. Suddenly she felt acutely self-conscious. Vasilii’s text had disrupted the feeling of connection to Kiryl she had had, leaving her feeling uncertain and physically unnerved by the intensity of her sexual response to him. Without the warmth of his arms around her that intensity now felt more than she was able to handle. ‘I think I should leave now,’ she told Kiryl.

      ‘Running away from me?’ he taunted.

      It was unfortunate that her brother had texted when he had. It was a very necessary part of Kiryl’s plan that he had Alena completely under his spell sexually, and that meant not just arousing her but possessing her as well, winning her total confidence, her total subjugation to him, so that his will mattered more to her than that of anyone else—including her half-brother. It meant giving her the very best sex she could imagine having—or ever would have.

      He could take her back in his arms now and make that happen, he knew, but he wanted her to be the one begging for his touch, aching for his possession—demanding it, in fact. And right now he could see that she was too on edge for that to happen.

      It wasn’t just the disruption and delay to his plan that was affecting him right now, though, he was forced to admit. The immediacy and intensity of his own arousal was causing his body to ache for satisfaction in a way that it hadn’t ached in a very, very long time. That desire was the result of his need to succeed in his plan, not any specific desire for her, he reassured himself. After all, when had he ever desired any woman to the extent that she made him ache for her against his will? He hadn’t, and he never would. It was Alena’s own foolish giving, her openly helpless sensual response to him and the fact that she had shown him she had never experienced it that was responsible for the unwontedly fierce surge.

      If her brother was responsible for spiking his plans with his text message, then she herself was to blame for the raw ache of need within him that was also disrupting those plans. It was certainly not part of the plan that he should physically want her. A cold, clear mind and a totally controlled body were what he needed. He had invested too much of himself—too much of what he had been and where he had come from, too much of where he wanted to go and what he had done to get there—in the goal he was so close to reaching to risk failure now. Especially not because his body was howling for the possession of one single woman. One single woman who somehow or other had managed to touch the emotional darkness of the vampire within him—that part of himself that somehow remained beyond his control.

      Alena was looking tense and clutching her handbag, her manner making it plain to him that she wanted to leave—thanks to her brother reaching out across the ether to claim her allegiance.

      ‘I’ll walk you back to your suite,’ Kiryl told her, holding up his hand when she started to object. ‘Please. It isn’t perhaps the correct thing to do to refer to such things, but I believe in plain speaking and I think our afternoon took a turn neither of us was fully expecting. A turn that led a flirtatious kiss to a place that has certainly left me feeling … Well, let’s just say that what happened between us touched something within me, and that means that right now I don’t want any other man looking at you and guessing what we have just shared. So for that reason you must allow me to be protective and a little possessive and see you safely back to your own door.’

      Since he put it like that, how could she possibly refuse?

      Five minutes later, escorting Alena along the corridor that led to her half-brother’s apartment, after sharing the journey up to it with a uniformed member of the hotel staff whose presence had made any kind of intimate conversation impossible and Alena herself self-conscious, Kiryl recognised that if he was going to be able to seduce her so completely that she gave him her absolute trust, as well as her body, he needed to do so somewhere he could have her completely to himself, where the realities of life and her loyalty to her brother could be banished.

      They had reached the double doors to the apartment. If he suggested that she asked him in she would balk at his request, Kiryl sensed, once again mentally cursing the interruption which had meant their intimacy had been brought to an end sooner than he would have liked.

      Outside the door, Alena turned towards Kiryl. She had felt acutely self conscious standing in the lift with him under the gaze of the uniformed porter, her body still on fire from the intimacy they had shared. ‘Thank you for your donation,’ she told him, her voice softening as she added, ‘And thank you for telling me about your mother and for letting me talk about mine and St Petersburg.’

      St Petersburg. Of course! She had already told him how romantic she thought the city, and it would certainly be private at this time of the year, with its elite wealthy citizens having decamped for warmer climates to escape the icy grip of its winter.

      Kiryl smiled at her—a slow, warm smile that had Alena’s toes curling helplessly into her shoes and the blood beating up under her skin.

      ‘You weren’t disappointed, then, in our time together?’

      Alena tried to look nonchalant and relaxed, but her heart was thudding so heavily and unsteadily she suspected that he must be able to hear it.

      ‘I …’ She shook her head.

      ‘Will it help if I go first and say that I enjoyed every minute of it and I hope we can repeat that pleasure?’ Kiryl asked her in a tender voice, and continued without giving her the chance to reply, ‘I don’t want to rush you or pressure you, Alena, but I don’t think either of us was prepared for … for the chemistry between us. It was very special. You are very special. See—you’ve got me talking and feeling like a raw boy who has never desired a woman before. But then no woman has ever made me feel the way you do.’

      That, of course, was true. Because of her connection with Vasilii she aroused in him feelings that no other woman was capable of arousing.

      ‘I want to see you again—tomorrow, if you will let me?’

      ‘Yes.’ The single word was exhaled on the pent-up breath Alena had been holding. She truly felt as though she was entering

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