The Most Coveted Prize(15)

He reached out to push her away, but a sudden movement of the plane  caught them both unaware, jolting Alena so that she lost her balance and  fell against him, leaving Kiryl with no alternative other than give in  to his instinctive male response to protect by taking hold of her. And  once she was in his arms his body reacted to her presence there as  though it was something it had hungered desperately for.

Need surged against the barriers of his self-control, its urgent arousal  hardening, its ache for so much more than the feel of her mouth beneath  his as he took it in a kiss that was far more intense than he had  wanted it to be.

As their jet descended from the clouds to what for Alena was the most  beautiful winter city in the world, it wasn't St Petersburg that  captured and held her attention but Kiryl himself. The hot, passionate  swiftness with which he had taken her mouth thrilled and delighted her,  and answering arousal rose up inside her to make her strain eagerly and  urgently against Kiryl's openly hardened body. His tongue caressed her  own in moves as fiercely sensual and urgent as the most explicit of  intimate tangos.

It wouldn't have mattered where he had chosen to bring her, Alena  acknowledged. What mattered- all that mattered for her-was being with  him. The landscape of her dreams and the city of her heart was now Kiryl  himself.





CHAPTER SIX


"THIS is your room, so I'll leave you to make yourself at home here  before we have dinner, which I've arranged to be served in an hour's  time.'

"My room?'

Alena was conscious of the fact that she had barely spoken since the  helicopter waiting for them at the airport had dropped them off here, on  one of the many small islands in the delta of the Neva, and Kiryl had  shown her into a house so perfect that she had only been able to stand  and gaze in delight at its fairytale interior.

Obviously dating back to the time of the early eighteen-hundreds, from  its exterior architecture, the house was a perfect jewel of its era. All  she had been able to say, after taking in its soft  sugared-almond-blue-painted exterior and the elegance of the interior,  had been, "This house is so beautiful! Is it yours?'                       
       
           



       

Kiryl had shaken his head. "No, I've rented it,' he'd answered her.

Now, though, Kiryl had shown her up to a beautifully decorated guest  suite with overtones of French Empire style. His reference to the room  being her room had caused her to turn and look at him in confused  uncertainty. She had assumed that they would be sharing a room-that the  bed she would sleep in would be Kiryl's bed. She had no past experience  to guide her, to tell her what to say or do. No protection against the  cold slamming weight of the disappointment and sense of loss that struck  her.

Kiryl saw the uncertain and disappointed look Alena gave him, and then  the bed. It was an important part of his plan that she should be the one  to want him, to commit to him willingly and through her own choice.  Now, easily able to read her mind, he asked softly, "You expected that  we'd be sharing a room?'

"Yes,' Alena answered him honestly, marvelling yet again at the ease  with which he seemed able to read her mind, and the way that created a  very special bond between them.

"That must be your wish and your choice,' Kiryl said. "I have  practically kidnapped you and brought you here, but the choice, the  decision to continue the journey I began, must rest with you. It will be  for you to decide whether or not you wish to invite me to your bed or  exclude me from it. That is why I have given you your own room. This is  my gift to you. Should you choose to give yourself to me that will be  your gift to me, given freely.'

The emotional chord struck deep within her by Kiryl's words brought  Alena close to tears. He was so special, so wonderful, so perfect-and so  everything she wanted. "Tonight we will have dinner here, and I warn  you that over dinner I intend to do my utmost to make you want what I  already know I want so very desperately,' Kiryl continued. "But if at  the end of the evening I have not succeeded, then  … '

The look he was giving her would surely have caused ice to burst into flames, Alena thought dizzily.

"Then there is always tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after it, until you decide that you are ready for me.'

She wanted him. She wanted him so badly. His tenderness towards her and  the way he had expressed that tenderness made the whole of her ache with  love for him. She had always secretly dreamed of a man who would arouse  her sensuality until her need for him was beyond her own control and  yet at the same time be so noble that she would know she could trust him  even when she could no longer trust herself. But she had never expected  to find one.

"You are the missing piece that will complete my life, Alena. I believe that more strongly than I have ever believed anything.'

He was only speaking the truth-even if that completion referred to a  goal that had nothing to do with loving her, Kiryl acknowledged  inwardly. He had no place for love in his life. Love made men  vulnerable, and the vulnerability he had experienced as a child had left  him determined never to be vulnerable again-to anything or anyone.

"You are my destiny, Kiryl,' Alena responded, her voice choking with emotion.

"And I want control of that destiny to lie in your own hands,' Kiryl  told her, holding her gently as he bent his head to kiss her on the  forehead.

She was alone in her suite. Alone and yet not alone. She would never be  alone again because of Kiryl. She could smell the scent of his skin,  hear the sound of his voice inside her head, feel her body kick into  excited, aching longing at the thought of his touch.

Her mobile phone chirruped-an incoming text.

Reaching for it, she felt a small pang of guilt when she saw that it was  from Vasilii. Vasilii, who thought she was in London-in his apartment.

But there was no need for her to feel guilty, she assured herself. After  all Vasilii would not dream of telling her if he was spending time with  a woman. She was an adult, with every right to keep her private life  private. When Vasilii did get to know about Kiryl he would like and  admire him, of course. How could he not do so? He would be relieved,  too, that she had given her love to someone he could respect-someone who  shared his business values and his hard-working mindset.

Vasilii had no time for playboys and the like-young men with wealthy  fathers who had no need to earn their own living. If anything, he  despised them. But even they didn't merit the degree of contempt her  brother felt for the kind of fortune-hunting young men several of the  girls she had been at school with had become involved with-Z-list  celebrities in the main, who had attached themselves to the girls at one  or other of London's hot nightspots. Such liaisons damaged the  reputations of the girls concerned and that of their families, Vasilii  had told her. Her half-brother held certain somewhat old fashioned views  about family reputations. Their father had often teased him that those  views came from Vasilii's mother's family and its nomadic warrior  traditions, where family pride and good name was so very important.                       
       
           



       

Her text back to her brother assured him that she was all right, and  then she looked at her watch. In forty-five minutes she would be dining  with Kiryl-which meant that she had better hurry up and have a shower  …   although of course she had nothing to change into. Tomorrow she would be  able to buy herself something from the expensive and exclusive designer  shops on Nevsky Prospect, but for now she would have to continue to  wear her cashmere jumper and taffeta skirt.



Guessing that the double door in the wall next to the room's huge  king-size bed must lead into the bathroom, Alena opened them-to discover  that a dressing room lay beyond them, with another pair of double doors  on the far wall, which were standing open to reveal the bathroom. As  she walked towards it a note stuck to one of the doors of the dressing  room's wardrobes caught her eye. Pausing to look at it, she read,  "Alena-open me.'

Hesitantly she did so-only to stare at the contents of the wardrobe in  delighted amazement. Hanging from the rails were the clothes she had  bought at the beginning of the winter season from her favourite London  shops. Or rather brand-new versions of what she had bought, Alena  recognised as she looked at them more closely. Brand-new and in her  size.

Kiryl had organised this, she marvelled. But how? How had he known  exactly what she had bought for herself? Bemused, and torn between  laughter and disbelief, Alena checked through the clothes hanging there,  clutching the skirt of the silk dress she had only minutes before been  wishing she had with her to wear this evening. Releasing the dress, she  pulled open one of the drawers-her favourite underwear, all discreetly  tissue-wrapped, and in another drawer her favourite toiletries.