Dealing Her Final Card (8 page)

His lips curled. “Good.”

“I wish to God we’d never met. That any man but you had won me.” Her eyes flashed fire. “I’d rather be right now in the bed of any man at the table—”

Her voice ended with a choke as he yanked her against his body. “So you admit, then, that you are exactly as I’ve said. A liar, a cheat and a whore.”

Her beautiful hazel eyes widened beneath the dark fringe of lashes. Then she swallowed and looked down. “I was a liar, yes, and a cheat, too, but never—never the other,” she said in a small voice. She shook her head. “I haven’t tried to con anyone for ten years. You changed me.” Her dark lashes rose. “You made me a better person,” she whispered. The pain and bewilderment in her eyes made her seem suddenly young and fragile and sad. “And you left.”

And he felt it again—the tight twist in the place where his heart should have been. As if he were an ogre standing over a poor peasant girl with a whip.

No! Damn it! He wouldn’t feel sorry for her!

He’d show her that her overt display of a wobbly lower lip and big hazel eyes had no effect on him whatsoever!

Bree Dalton didn’t have feelings, he told himself fiercely. Just masks. He glared at her. “Stop it.”

“What?”

“Your ridiculous attempt to gain my sympathy. It—”

It won’t work,
he meant to say, but his throat closed as he was distracted by the rise and fall of her breasts in the tiny slip of blush-colored silk when she breathed. He could see the shape of her nipples and the way they trembled with every hard breath.

And he was rock hard. Their mutual dislike somehow only made him desire her more, to almost unsustainable need. What magnetic control did she have over his body? Why did he want her like this? She was a confessed liar, a con artist. She wished she’d lost her body to any man but him. How could he want her still? It was almost as if she wasn’t his slave at all, but he was hers.

And that enraged him most of all.

A low growl came from the back of his throat. He was in control. Not her.

His hands tightened into fists, his jaw clenching. He wanted to push Bree against the bed, to kiss her hard, to plunge himself inside her and make her scream with pleasure. He wanted to make her explode with pure ecstasy, even while she hated him. A grim smile curved his lips. She would despise herself for that, which would be sweet indeed.

But when he took her, it would be in his own time. At his free choice. Not because she’d driven him to madness by her taunts and the seductive sway of her nubile body.

He wouldn’t let her conquer him.

His shoulders ached with tension as he turned away, fighting for self-control. He looked around the master bedroom with a derisive curl on his lip. “I can see you did not finish scrubbing this floor before you took your long lazy nap. You will finish it now. While I watch.”

Her expression changed. Snatching up the frayed sponge, she grabbed the bucket of cold wash water from the floor and, in a posture of clear fury, knelt down. He watched her slender, delectable body, wearing only the tiny slip of pink silk, moving back and forth on all fours as she scrubbed the floor. His mouth went dry.

Bree looked up.

“Enjoying the show?” she said coldly.

Without a word, Vladimir turned and left the bedroom. He returned a moment later with his own dinner tray and red wine. Still not speaking, he sat down in a cushioned chair near the marble fireplace. Calmly he unfolded his fine linen napkin across his lap.

“Now I am,” he replied.

Sitting back comfortably in his chair, he took a sip of merlot. He had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen, of seeing her scowl. Then she turned back to her work, and he had the even greater satisfaction of watching Bree on all fours, her body frosted with silvery moonlight, scrubbing his floor with a sponge and a pail of water.

Outside the veranda window, the full moon lit up the shimmering dark Pacific. The large master bedroom was full of shadows, lit only by a single lamp near his massive four-poster bed. With the flick of a remote, Vladimir turned on the gas fireplace, adding soft flickering firelight to better see his dinner—and the floor show. His solid silver knife and fork slid noisily against the pure bone china, edged with 24 karat gold, as he cut the Provençal goat cheese and Gruyère soufflé. Watching her, he took a bite.

It was exquisite. He sighed in true, deep pleasure.

“Tasty?” Bree muttered, not looking at him.

“You have no idea.” His homemade soufflé was indeed delicious, but he wasn’t referring to the food.

“I hope you choke and die,” she said sweetly.

“Don’t forget the area by the bed.” He watched Bree’s nearly naked body shimmy as she scrubbed. His eyes ran along her slender, toned legs, the sweet curve of her backside, her plump breasts hanging down as they swayed, barely covered by the whisper-thin silk hanging from her shoulders.

Hmm. He didn’t want to enjoy it
this
much. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, moving his plate closer to his knees.

“Of course,
Your Highness.
” Giving him an
I-wish-you-were-dead
glare, Bree stomped—if a woman could be said to stomp while she was crawling—over to the foot of the bed, dragging the bucket behind her. It changed her body’s position, giving Vladimir an entirely different view.

He was now sitting directly behind her. All he needed to do was get down on his knees, grab her hips in his hands and pull her sweet bottom back against his groin. It was suddenly all he could think about.

You’re in control,
he ordered himself.
Not her.

But his body wasn’t listening. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. His hands clenched on the silver tray in his lap. Well, why not just take her? Bree was his property. His serf. His slave. She’d sold herself to him freely, taunting him with her sexual skill.
You have no idea what I can do to you.
An untouched virgin—Bree? Impossible. She was an experienced seductress. He’d wanted her. Waited for her. For ten years. So what was stopping him?

Vladimir watched the bounce of her breasts and slow up-and-down motion of her hips as she scrubbed the floor angrily.

Not a damned thing.

He heard a loud crash of breaking china. He’d risen to his feet without even knowing it. The tray had fallen from his lap, and his dinner was now a mess of broken crockery.

At the noise, Bree leaned back on her haunches, brushing a tendril of hair out of her face with her shoulder. Turning her luscious body in the tiny, clinging silk teddy, she glared at him. “I’m not cleaning that.”

Then she saw the look in his eyes. Twisting away with an intake of breath, she started to scrub the floor again. This time with enough panicked force to dig right through the marble to the house’s foundation and straight through the earth to Russia.

He stepped over the broken china. He stopped behind her. He fell to his knees.

“I’m not done,” she choked out.

Wrapping his body around her back, he reached in front of her. He put his larger hand over hers, forcing the sponge to be still. His hand tightened as she tried, without success, to keep scrubbing. Caught between two opposing forces, the sponge ripped apart.

Bewildered, she leaned back with half a sponge in her hand. “Look what you did,” she said, blinking fast. “You destroyed it. After everything it tried to do for you...”

“Bree,” he said in a low voice.

Dropping the sponge, she closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around her shivering body. “Don’t...”

But he was ruthless. Grabbing her hips with both hands, he pulled her body back against his own. He felt the rapid, panicked rise and fall of her ribs beneath the chain of his arms. Felt the sweet softness of her backside pressing into his hard, aching groin.

Slowly she opened her eyes and twisted her head to glance at him. Her skin was flushed, her cheeks pink. Her lips parted. He saw the nervous flicker of her tongue against the corner of her mouth.

And he could bear it no longer.

Roughly turning her in his arms, he pulled her to face him, body to body. Twining his hands in her tangled hair, he savagely lowered his mouth to hers.

For an instant, she stiffened. Then, with a little anguished cry, her lips melted against his own. She wrapped her arms around him, and in a rush, their grip tightened as they embraced in the devouring passion of a decade’s hunger.

CHAPTER FIVE

B
REE
had to push him away. She should. She
must.

She couldn’t.

His kiss was hard, even angry—passionate, yes, but nothing like the tender way he’d once embraced her. His chin was rough with five-o’clock shadow, and his powerful arms held her tightly against him as they knelt facing each other, bodies pressed together. Even through his black trousers, she could feel how much he wanted her. And she wanted him.

You are my serf,
he’d informed her coldly.
Your only reason for living, until you die, is to serve me and give me pleasure.
She’d been enraged. She was no man’s slave.

But he wasn’t taking her by force, as her lord and master. No—she couldn’t kid herself about that. Because no matter how badly he treated her, she still wanted him. She’d never stopped wanting him....

Vladimir’s body moved as he took full, hard possession of her lips, stretching her mouth wide with his own, teasing her with his tongue. His hands moved against her back, sliding the thin, blush-colored silk teddy like a whisper against her naked skin. Her breasts felt heavy and taut, her nipples sizzling with awareness.

As he slowly kissed down her neck, her head fell backward. Breathless with need, she closed her eyes. His tongue flicked her collarbone, his hands cupping her breasts through the silk.

“Breanna,” he whispered. “You feel so good. Just like I dreamed you would...”

His breath was warm against her skin as he lowered his head to suckle her through the silk.

She gasped. The sensation of his hot wet mouth against her hard, aching nipple flooded her nerve endings with pleasure. Her fingertips dug into his shoulders as her toes curled beneath her. She pulled him closer.

He sucked gently through the silk, and she felt the fabric move softly, caressing her skin. With agonizing slowness, he pulled the bodice down, and cupped her naked breasts. She felt the roughness of his palm as he rubbed her, then pinched her taut nipples, presenting first one, then the other, to the wet, welcoming warmth of his mouth. Lost in sweet pleasure, she held her breath....

She almost wept in frustration when he suddenly pulled away from her, leaving her bereft. Rising to his feet, he picked her up off the floor as if she weighed nothing at all. He carried her three steps to the bed, then tossed her on the white bedspread.

Eyes wide, Bree leaned back against the pillows and watched as Vladimir stood beside the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. His gaze locked with hers as he undid the cuffs and tossed the shirt to the floor. She had a brief vision of his tanned, muscled chest laced with dark hair before he fell on top of her, pulling her to him for a hard, hungry kiss.

It wasn’t gentle or kind. It was primal, filled with fury at his unwilling need. She felt the heavy weight of his muscular body as he pushed her against the mattress. And as he kissed her, the world seemed to spin in a blinding flash of light. She kissed him back fiercely, desperately, forgetting pride and past pain beneath the overwhelming demand of desire.

Without a word, he ripped the pale pink silk teddy off her unresisting body. He looked down at her, now dressed only in the silk G-string panties he’d given her.

“I wanted you to learn your place.” His voice was low, almost choked. Reaching out, he stroked her bare breasts in wonder, even as his other hand stroked up and down the length of her nearly naked body. “Instead you teach me mine.” His dark blue eyes lifted to hers. “Why do you not touch me? Why do you hold back?”

She remembered her bravado at the poker table, the way she’d bragged about her skills in bed. Her cheeks flooded with heat. “I want to,” she whispered. “I don’t know how.”

“You—don’t know how?” he said in disbelief.

“I...” She swallowed. “I might have implied more than my skills actually deserve. At the poker table...”

“I don’t give a damn about the game.” He gripped her hand. “Just touch me. If you want to please me, touch me. If you want to punish me,” he groaned, guiding her palm to stroke slowly down his chest to his belly, “touch me.”

Vladimir truly had no idea that she was a virgin. Her fingers shook as she let him guide her, stroking his hard muscles, his hot, bare skin. She’d told him, but he hadn’t believed her.

Suddenly, she didn’t want him to know. Because how would he react if he learned the pathetic truth—that even after he’d abandoned her, she’d never wanted another man to touch her? Would his eyes fill with scorn—or pity?

She shuddered. He must never realize how much of a fool she’d been, or how thoroughly he’d destroyed her ten years ago.

She had to fake it.

Pretend to be the experienced woman he believed her to be.

So how would a sexually adventurous woman behave?

Trembling, Bree reached for his shoulders. Tossing her head with bravado, she rolled him beneath her on the bed. He did not resist, just looked up at her with smoldering eyes dark with lust. Trying to seem as if she was comfortable straddling him, with her breasts naked for a man for the first time, and wearing nothing but the tiny silk G-string, she gazed down at him. He did have an incredible body...and as long as she didn’t look directly into his deep blue eyes, those eyes that always saw straight through her...

With an intake of breath, she slowly stroked down his bare chest to the waistband of his black trousers. Shaking with nerves, trying to act confident, she lowered her head.

And she kissed him.

Her lips were tentative, scared. Until she felt his mouth, hot and hard against hers, sliding like liquid silk as he kissed her back. He deepened the embrace, entwining her tongue with his. He tasted like sweet wine and spice and everything forbidden, everything she’d ever denied herself. His lips were soft and hard at once, like satin with steel. He let her set the rhythm and pace, let her lead.

And she forgot her fear. Her hands explored the warm, smooth skin of his hard chest, the edges and curves of his muscles. She stroked his flat nipples and the rough, bristly hair that stretched down his taut torso like an arrow. She heard his ragged intake of breath, and when she glanced up and saw his mesmerized expression, her confidence leaped. It was working! Growing bolder, she ran her fingertips beneath the edge of his waistband, swaying her splayed body against the thick hardness between his legs.

She’d meant it as an exploration. He took it as a taunt. With a growl, he pushed her back against the bed. Pulling off his pants and boxers, he kicked them to the floor.

She gasped when she saw him naked for the first time. He was huge. She couldn’t look away. But as he pulled her back into his arms, crushing her breasts against his chest as he took possession of her mouth with a hard, hungry kiss, she forgot that fear, too.

He kissed slowly down her body, moving from her neck to the valley between her breasts to the flat plain of her belly. His hot breath enflamed her skin. Pushing her legs apart with his hands, he nuzzled her tender, untouched thighs. He kissed the edges of her G-string panties, and she felt the brief flicker of his tongue through silk.

She gasped. Need pounded through her, making her body shake as she felt his mouth move between her legs, gently suckling secret places there. She felt the heat and dampness of his tongue, teasing her on the edge of the fabric, and her back arched against the mattress. With a little cry, she stretched out her arms to grip the sheets, feeling as if she might fly off the bed and into the sky.

His fingers stroked the smooth silk, and she heard the rasp of her own frantic breathing. With tantalizing slowness, he reached beneath the fabric, stroking her wet core with a featherlike touch. He pushed a single thick fingertip an inch inside her, bending his head to suckle the top of her mound through the silk panties, and her back arched higher, her body grew tighter, and her breathing quickened, so much she started to see stars.

She heard the ripping of fabric as he destroyed the wisp of silk and tossed it to the floor.

“Look at me.”

Against her will, she opened her eyes. Holding her gaze, he lowered his head between her naked thighs and fully tasted her with his wide tongue.

She cried out as she felt him tantalize, then lick, then lap her wet core. Her body twisted with the intensity of the pleasure even as her soul was torn by the intimacy of his gaze. Her heart hammered in her throat. Closing her eyes, she turned away so he could not see her tears.

His tongue changed rhythm; now he was using just the tip on her taut, sensitive nub. It was perfect. It was torture. His tongue swirled in light circles, barely touching her. She ached deep inside, wanting to be filled, wanting to have him inside her. Pleasure was building so hard and fast that her body could barely contain it. She felt an agony of need. With a whimper, she tried to pull away, but he held her firmly, not allowing her to escape from his hot, wet tongue.

Pleasure built higher and higher. “Please,” she panted, nearly crying with need. “Please.”

Holding her down, Vladimir thrust two thick fingertips inside her, then three. Still lapping her, he stretched her wide, his free hand pushing her back against the bed, while his tongue tormented her wet, slick core. And suddenly, she fell off a cliff. Her body exploded. She cried out as waves of ecstasy crashed around her, and she flew.

Quickly sheathing himself in a condom from the bedstand, he positioned himself between her legs. With a single rough thrust, he shoved himself all the way inside her. Gripping his shoulders, Bree cried out as sudden pain tore through her pleasure.

* * *

When Vladimir felt the barrier he hadn’t expected, he froze, looking down at her in shock.

“You were—a virgin?” he breathed.

Bree’s eyes squeezed shut, her beautiful face full of anguish as she turned it away, as if she didn’t want him to see. He didn’t move, unable to fathom the evidence he’d felt with his own body. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Trembling beneath him, she slowly opened her eyes again—limpid hazel eyes that glimmered like an autumn lake dark with rain. “I did,” she whispered. She took a ragged breath. “You didn’t believe me.”

Vladimir stared at her beautiful face. Around him, the whole world suddenly seemed to shake and rattle. But the earthquake was in his own heart. He felt something crack inside his soul.

Everything he’d thought about Bree was wrong.

Everything he’d believed her to be—
wrong.

With a ragged intake of breath, he pulled away. Sitting back on the bed, he choked out, “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” She sat up against the headboard, and her eyes shimmered in the silver-gold moonlight dappling the high-ceilinged bedroom. She licked her lips. “When you didn’t believe me, I started hoping I could keep my virginity a secret. So you wouldn’t...”

She stopped.

“So I wouldn’t what?”

Her lips trembled as she tried to smile. “Well, it’s pathetic, isn’t it?” She didn’t try to cover her nakedness, as another woman might have done. She just looked straight into his eyes, without artifice, without defenses. “There was no other man for me. Not before you. And not after.”

Staring at her, Vladimir felt as if he’d just been sucker punched.

She’d told him the truth.
All these years he’d thought of Bree Dalton as a liar, or worse. But even when she’d looked him in the eyes and told him she was a virgin, he hadn’t believed her.

Who was the one who didn’t recognize the truth when he saw it?

Who was the one who’d forgotten how?

Setting his jaw, he looked at her grimly. “And Alaska?”

She looked down, her eyelashes a dark sweep against her pale skin. “Everything your brother tried to tell you, that Christmas night he burst in on us, was true,” she said softly. “I never had the rights to sell Josie’s land. I was trying to distract you, so you’d put down earnest money in cash before you realized it, and my sister and I could disappear into a new life.”

“To con people somewhere else.”

“It was all I knew how to do.” Bree lifted her gaze. “It never occurred to me that I could change. Not until...”

Her voice trailed off.

Yes, Vladimir, I’ll marry you.
He could almost hear her joyful, choked voice that Christmas night, see the tears in her beautiful eyes as she’d thrown her arms around him and whispered, “I’m not good enough for you, not by half. But I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be.”

Now, his hands tightened into fists. “You had plenty of chances to tell me the truth. Instead, you let me find out about your con from Kasimir. You let me shout at him and throw him out of your cabin as a damned liar. You let me leave that night, still not knowing the truth. Until I started getting phone calls the next morning, and discovered from reporters that everything he’d told me about you was true.”

“I wanted to tell you. But I was afraid.”

“Afraid,” he sneered.

“Yes,” she cried. “Afraid you wouldn’t listen to my side. That you’d abandon me, and I’d be left with no money and no defenses against the wolves circling us. I was afraid,” she whispered, “you’d stop loving me.”

That was exactly what had happened.

“If that is true, and you were truly intending to change purely because of this
love
for me,” he said, his voice dripping scorn, “why didn’t you go back to your old life of cheating and lying the instant I left?”

Her eyes widened, then fell. “It wasn’t just for you,” she muttered. “It was for me, too.” She looked up. “And Josie. I wanted to be a good example. I wanted us to live a safe, boring, respectable life.” Hugging her knees to her chest, she blinked fast, her eyes suspiciously wet. “But we couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t be respectable?”

“We never felt safe.” She licked her lips. “Back in Alaska, some men had threatened to hurt us if I didn’t replace money we’d stolen. But my father had already spent it all and more. It was a million dollars, impossible to repay. So for the last ten years, I made sure we stayed off the radar. No job promotions. No college for Josie. Never staying too long anywhere.” Bree’s lips twisted. “Not much of a life, but at least no legs got broken.”