The Russian's Acquistion(46)
He might as well have kicked a puppy. He wished he could take it back, but the damage was done. She was pulling herself inward, composing herself into the untouchable woman he had seen several times now. Her skin was incredibly thin, he realized. He’d bruised her without even knowing he could do so. The way she mentally distanced herself caused an unexpected gap of agitation to open beneath his feet.
He moved forward, taking her arms in a light grip, as if he could prevent her retreat into herself.
She stiffened and her hands came up to his chest. He read the same conflicting signals of resistance and subtle, sensual melting that he’d felt in her earlier in his apartment. She liked his touch but was trying to shield herself at the same time, something he understood all too well, but she didn’t have to fear him on this.
“You’re right, of course,” he murmured, experimenting with a light massage up and down her arms. “I shouldn’t have said that. Where did you live, then? An orphanage?”
“Yes.” He felt a quiver go through her, one she suppressed as she said with quiet dignity, “The home was the only real one I had. It was stable and I needed that after being in foster situations for the first few years. That’s why I’m trying to ensure that it has enough funding to stay open, but I don’t need the donation from Grigori. The amount you’ve promised is so much more than Victor offered that I can keep them going and actually support expansion. Tell Grigori whatever you like. I won’t bring it up again. I’ll just tell people we met in London and leave it at that.” She turned her face away, lips tight.
He had dismissed her charity as a ruse when she first mentioned it, imagining that at best it was the illusion of a bleeding-heart idealist incapable of solving real problems, but the full impact of it being genuine continued to jar through him. She wasn’t a gold digger; she was a mother bear fighting to protect children.
The knowledge sliced a fresh cut of ignominy through him, but he ignored it, too caught up in trying to understand her.
“You might have given me some indication,” he admonished. “Why let me believe your motivations were shallow?”
“What do you care what motivates me? This isn’t the sort of relationship where we talk about our scars, visible or otherwise, is it?” she challenged, pupils contracted with wounded pride.
A knot of complex emotions pulled his gut tight.
“No,” he agreed. His hands unconsciously tightened on her arms.
“Good. Because I don’t want you in my h-head,” she said shakily, but he heard the underlying hurt.
The constant rejection in her life had made her understandably wary of intimacy, Aleksy guessed, but he couldn’t stand that chilly shell she was trying to recover. She wasn’t just in his head; she was under his skin so deep he could barely breathe without feeling her. Physical intimacy was the salvation for both of them, he told himself.
“How about your body?” he murmured, pulling her hips into a delicate crash against the erection that had rarely subsided since he’d met her. Sex seemed the only way to get past her shields, and he would use it, now, before she’d locked her barriers into place. “Do you want me inside you?”
She started with surprise and drew a sharp breath, face flooding with a sexual blush. “I— Well, y-yes. I mean, that’s what we’ve agreed, isn’t it? Um.” Her words caught and faded into a husky tone of arousal. “Un—um, uncomplicated and…” She licked her lips nervously and the play of her tongue was almost a visceral stroke up his spine.