The Ruthless Magnate’s Virgin Mistress

surprise.

Abbey parted her lips to match his confession, but then fell silent at the recollection of Jeffrey, which threatened a comparison too tasteless and painful to be endured. Nikolai searched her smoky violet eyes and sensed her reticence and its cause and it annoyed the hell out of him at that moment. He was offended by the conviction that he was continually having to measure up to another man in her estimation.

Nikolai crushed her swollen lips beneath his again, darting and delving his tongue until she responded with matching fervour. He peeled off her last garment with alacrity, surveying the voluptuous violin curves of her lush body with intense pleasure. ‘You have the most glorious shape, milaya moya.’

The madness that had seized Abbey thinned like a cloud of fog and she marvelled that she could be lying naked for this man’s admiration. But, in truth, she found his unconcealed reverence and appreciation for her body absolutely thrilling. For the first time in her life she felt sexy and feminine and proud of her curvaceous figure. But shyness and insecurity still threatened to break through the ache of arousal that held her taut and imprisoned by his spell.

Nikolai trailed a skilful hand along a slender thigh to the tenderest place of all and the last fetters of control fell from her. He probed the tight, wet depths of her secret centre and she was lost beyond reclaim in sensation and response. He caressed the tiny bud beneath the auburn curls with the pad of his thumb and instant sensation exploded inside her, sending an earthquake of desire cascading through her in a liquid surge.

‘Please…’ she mumbled, barely knowing what she was saying or even asking for.

Nikolai dug contraception out of his wallet one-handed. He gazed down at her, stunned by the response she was giving him. She was so lovely with her coppery hair spread across the pillow, her delicate face flushed with soft colour, her blue eyes half closed with passion. For a split second he hesitated, for he suspected that afterwards she might have regrets, for it was a challenge for him to believe that she had changed her mind about him so totally. But rampant arousal and need powered Nikolai. He wanted her with a hunger stronger than anything he had ever felt before and self-denial of any kind was not in his genes.

‘Ti nuzhna mne-I need you,’ he asserted in a roughened undertone.

His lean, darkly handsome face was taut with desire and his stunning eyes were locked to her in a look that made her feel a million dollars. Jeffrey had never seemed to need her or look at her in such a way. Even as her brain recoiled from that treacherous thought her spine arched with the spellbinding excitement of Nikolai’s lovemaking. Her heart was thundering, her entire body quivering with the strain.

He spread her under him and paused only to don protection before tilting her up to him and driving into her with a single powerful thrust. She was incredibly tight and he came to a halt, moving with greater caution and concern. ‘But you were married,’ he exclaimed when she cried out.

For a moment she had recoiled in surprise from the sharp pain of his entrance. Only then did she appreciate why it had hurt and why he was bewildered. ‘It was never consummated,’ she told him grudgingly.

Nikolai studied her in frank wonderment. ‘Even before the wedding? You mean you never once had sex…? That’s crazy.’

In the heat of the passion that had brought her to bed with a man she barely knew it seemed crazy to Abbey as well. But she understood that she wasn’t thinking straight just then. Even as her mind was clearing her body was quickening with renewed excitement as Nikolai sank into her again and the delicious friction of his movements sent a wave of irresistible pleasure coursing through her.

‘Oh…’ she moaned, her body rising to meld with his in helpless response.

Nikolai was making a real effort to be gentle, which was a new departure for him. He was stunned by the awareness that he was her first lover and eager to match whatever expectations she might have of him.

‘Don’t stop,’ Abbey urged, frustrated by the feeling that she was reaching for some ultimate reaction that was still being denied her.

‘You feel like satin and velvet. I don’t ever want to stop,’ Nikolai growled, ravishing her with long, skilled strokes.

The exquisite pleasure rose to a delirious tormenting peak that made Abbey writhe beneath him. Her whole being was engulfed by the driving need to satisfy the ache he had evoked. Her heart pounding, she surrendered to the erotic pulsing heat of his driving body. When the unbearable tension and excitement gave way to an ecstatic shuddering convulsion of extreme pleasure, she screamed. Afterwards she fell into a cocoon of sweet drowning satiation, her limbs weighted to the bed by exhaustion.

But her mind was in no way able to practise the same inaction. Nikolai achieved the same pleasure with a shuddering growl and she snaked away from him in the same instant, rejection and distaste assailing her in a powerful wave. She could not believe what she had done. The horror of having slept with Nikolai Arlov held her fast even as the last tiny tremors of sexual satisfaction rippled through her. Not only had she betrayed everything she had ever believed in, she had betrayed the pure, precious love she had shared with Jeffrey. And she was genuinely appalled.

Thrust away from the embrace of her warm female body at the ultimate wrong moment, Nikolai attempted to urge her back to him. ‘Come here, lubimaya.’

Abbey viewed him with hostile smoky blue eyes. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she yelled at him in immediate rejection of his touch. Pushing him away, she scrambled off the bed at speed to snatch up the dressing gown lying on a nearby chair and envelop her slim body in its folds.

Nikolai sat up. Rage was roaring through him like a bushfire. The violence of her rejection stung like an acid bath stripping his skin from his bones. ‘I assume this is a case of remorse after the event.’

Abbey was trembling with distress. She flung him a furious glance. ‘What else? I’d like you to leave now.’

‘Isn’t it a little late for that? We have just made love,’ Nikolai reminded her drily.

‘And it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made!’ Abbey launched at him wrathfully.

‘No, it was a normal, natural event for a passionate woman,’ Nikolai contradicted levelly. ‘It’s not a sin to want or enjoy sex.’

Abbey was outraged that he had the nerve to stick around and argue with her and, worst of all, throw her enjoyment back in her teeth. She wanted him gone. She wanted to shower, change the bedding, eradicate every piece of evidence that he had ever been in her apartment, never mind her bed. She hated him, but she hated herself even more.

‘I was weak and you took advantage of that. Well, what else could I expect from a guy like you? A guy who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing!’

Nikolai sprang upright, six feet three inches of lean, bronzed, magnificent nudity and an arresting sight in her prettily decorated pastel bedroom. ‘How dare you speak to me like this? You invited me into your bed. You wanted me…’

Abbey could not bear that reminder. Her face burning with embarrassment and remorse, she stared at Jeffrey’s photo by the bed and her sense of shame almost choked her. ‘I’ll never forgive myself for wanting you and betraying everything I believe in.’

Nikolai had already had more than enough without having that assurance hurled at him. He pulled on his boxers and gathered up the rest of his clothes without ceremony before striding out of the room and across the hall to the bathroom. He had never been so offended. His anger was like a big black stone inside him, weighing him down. It had not occurred to him that she might be a drama queen with no manners. It had certainly not occurred to him that he might have the best sex of a lifetime with such a woman. A virgin as eager for him as he had been for her, who had decided to be ashamed of what they had shared rather than proud of it. It was not a female reaction that had ever come his way before. Worse still, he had only to summon her face into his mind to feel his body surge and harden with fierce hunger for her again.

Remorse attacked Abbey while he was gone. She had responded to his advances and slept with him. Her regrets were not his fault, but, although intellectually she accepted that, she also sensed that Nikolai was intelligent enough to have known how she would feel and yet he had still taken what was on offer. She was in the bedroom doorway when he reappeared.

‘I know you don’t understand how I feel,’ she breathed tautly. ‘But I once loved and was loved by someone very special and, tonight, I feel I betrayed that bond with an intimacy that was meaningless and empty.’

Although Nikolai had never sought meaning in sex, he was more insulted than ever by a declaration that once