He was a man like her father, warned a voice in her head, a heartless playboy who used women and discarded them when he had tired of them. But she could no longer deny the sexual chemistry that had simmered between them since the night they had met in Paris and was now at combustion point.
There was no danger she would fall in love with him, she assured herself, desire shivering through her when he pushed her hair aside and trailed his lips up her neck to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. She would never repeat the mistake her mother had made. The hard ridge of his arousal nudging insistently between the cleft of her buttocks was irrefutable proof of his hunger for her, and at this moment, as the storm crashed and trembled around them, her whole being quivered with the need for him to assuage the longing inside her that was as old and insistent as mankind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE NEEDED a woman tonight. Correction-he needed this woman, Vadim acknowledged as he turned Ella to face him and stared at the tremulous softness of her lips. He did not want to dwell on the past, and he had learned that the future was never assured. For him, the here and now was all that mattered, and at this moment the urge to make love to Ella burned like a fever in his blood. He slid his hand beneath her hair, the feel of the soft silky strands against his skin causing a sharp stab of desire in his gut, and with a muttered oath he cupped her nape and brought his mouth down on hers.
A lightning flare lit up the room and threw the sharp angles and planes of Vadim’s face into stark relief. He seemed so remote and forbidding that for a second Ella felt a surge of fear, but the first brush of his mouth and the bold thrust of his tongue between her lips obliterated any lingering doubts that this was where she wanted to be. Desire licked through her veins like wildfire, heating her blood and making every nerve-ending so exquisitely sensitive that she moaned when he cupped her breast in his palm and stroked his thumbpad over the taut nipple straining beneath her silk dress.#p#分页标题#e#
He deepened the kiss, taking it to another level that was flagrantly erotic, and she melted against him and wound her arms around his neck, her eyes flying open when she felt the floor suddenly disappear from beneath her feet.
‘Guide me,’ he commanded roughly as he scooped her into his arms, collected the torch from the table and handed it to her.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked shakily.
‘Bed.’
His desire for Ella had spiralled out of control, Vadim acknowledged grimly. Last night he had listened to the voice of his conscience, but tonight he could not resist her. Perhaps it was the pagan power of the storm, or perhaps it was her revelations about how her father had terrified her as a child that had induced this primal feeling to protect her and claim her as his woman. All he knew was that tonight he was driven by an instinct as old as mankind to make love to her.
The hungry gleam in Vadim’s eyes caused Ella’s heart to skitter in her chest. ‘If you object, now is the time to say so,’ he warned her as he strode out of the room and across the hall to the stairs.
Her brain told her she should demand that he set her on her feet, bid him goodnight and return to her part of the house-but her body ached with a need that decimated her thought processes and robbed her of words. Talking about her childhood had reminded her of how much she had hated her father, but she was no longer a child, and she was shocked to realise how much she had allowed her feelings about Earl Stafford to affect her adult life. He was the reason she was terrified of falling in love, the reason she had always frozen off any man who had shown an interest in her, and why she was still a virgin. But she was damned if she would allow her hatred of her father to dictate her actions any more, she thought fiercely. She was an independent woman who was capable of making her own choices, and tonight she chose to have her first sexual experience with Vadim.
But despite her brave avowal her heart thudded unevenly as he climbed the stairs. The torchlight flickered over the pale walls of the upper landing and the artwork she had chosen. She knew every inch of Kingfisher House and had decorated every room-including the master bedroom, with its huge bed covered in a navy satin bedspread that matched the colour of the carpet and complemented the ivory silk wallpaper.
The doors leading to the balcony were open, the sounds of the storm outside clearly audible, but Ella was conscious of nothing but Vadim when he lowered her onto the bed and immediately stretched out next to her. The only source of light in the room was the glow from the torch, casting shadows on the ceiling, but he found her mouth with unerring precision and covered it with his own, moving his lips on hers with feverish need and demanding a response she was powerless to deny.