Destiny's Whisper (41 page)

Chloe’s body twitched with each touch, tension building as Sergei’s hands made her body hum at a fever pitch, her pleas for fulfillment falling on deaf ears, his deep chuckles filled with power and a hint of dangerous excitement. Her breathing became harsher; lights flickered behind her closed eyelids, as sparks of electricity shot through her and when the heat of his tongue speared into her body, she found the flames leaping higher, threatening to consume her.

On and on he tortured her body, his hands and mouth pushing her ever closer to the edge of oblivion, only to draw back at the last possible moment and leave her whimpering in frustration. Her hands clutched frantically at his shoulders, trying to stop the torment he was creating in her, while her hips pushed against the heat of his mouth, her words encouraging and filled with sexual abandon.

The smell of passion was heavy in the air, feeding their need and desire. Sergei’s body swelled painfully, his control teetering on the edge of no return as he felt Chloe flying swiftly toward her climax. Pulling away from her was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life and yet he had no choice. Pulling the small foil packet from his jeans pocket, he ripped it open with his teeth and quickly rolled the thin membrane over his pulsing erection.

Chloe whimpered in frustration, cursing him for abandoning her at such a moment and then watched him breathlessly; her eyes glazed midnight blue, her lips parted as she breathed erratically.

Pushing her knees apart, he settled him against her core, her heat beckoning to him even as he strove to control his entry, despite his desire to bury himself deeply within her.

Chloe’s hips lifted in supplication, her sharp nails digging into his forearms, “Sergei,” she pleaded.

He surged into her warmth, her muscles clenching around him, vibrating and pulsing with need, and he felt her climax rush toward her. Her eyes went black and unfocused, her breathing hitched and held as he continued to move in and out of her, and felt a second wave of energy begin to build within her. It was too much for him, he couldn’t push back the raging flood of feeling that captured him and he allowed himself to be swept away on the same rapturous wave that enveloped Chloe, their cries of bliss blending and carrying on the breeze. As oblivion swept them into the darkness, Sergei collapsed bonelessly against his love.

It was long moments before the two were able to even move, let alone think a coherent thought. Chloe’s soft kiss against Sergei’s stubble-rough cheek earned her a kiss in return. “That was amazing!” she whispered, her body still humming with the residual effects of their passion.

Sergei’s smug expression was his only answer.

Chloe’s knuckles grazed his chin, the rough texture sending tingles along her skin. Her eyes were the clear and a deep sky blue, her look filled with mischievous delight. “You said something about making love gently?” she asked quietly, her light touch tracing a path down the front of his body until she reached what she sought, and felt him swelling in response to her heated touch.

“You will have no legs tomorrow,” Sergei warned, his own hands moving over her body, one hand slipping between them, his fingers finding the source of her heat and fire, and smiling as he felt her breasts melt against his chest as she arched her back in wanton delight.

“Ask me if I care,” she gasped, pushing against the magic his hands were creating.

“Do you care?” he laughed wickedly, gladly accepting the crush of her lips against his, the heat of her tongue as it dueled hotly with his own.

Chloe dragged her mouth from his with an effort; her eyes glazed over in passion, her body on fire and demanding surcease. “I don’t give a flying fig if I have legs tomorrow or not. Now, quit talking and make love me, Sergei,” she demanded, her body squirming wantonly, her hands driving him mad.

Desire consumed him, a raging fire of need that left the two of them alone in a world where gluttony wasn’t a sin and fulfillment was the order of the day. “I thought you wanted it gentle?” he growled, biting the cord along her neck and then laving the slight pain with his tongue.

“We’ll do gentle next time,” Chloe suggested, her hands scorching his body with her touch, her sharp nails leaving tiny trails against the tan of his skin and pushing the distinction between pleasure and pain to an almost indistinguishable point. “Show me oblivion, Sergei,” Chloe demanded, gasping as Sergei’s hands captured her wrists and trapped them above her head.

He tormented and taunted her, teased her to a fevered pitch, the intensity so high she was pleading for release and then he’d pause and let the intensity recede, ignoring her words of ‘unfair’.

It drove her crazy that she could not touch him in return and she let it be known that she fully expected to exact revenge, and as she explained her plans, he found himself looking forward to it.

Her words incited him, making his body swell painfully and when he could no longer stand the torment, he surged into her welcoming body in one long, deep stroke, their souls blending as surely as their bodies. Eyes locked, they moved together, striving toward that pinnacle of feeling that lay just ahead and pulsed beckoningly.

It began as a small tingle in their fingertips and toes. The hair on the back of their necks tingled with tiny electrical shocks that traced fiery paths to their joined center. The tingles grew to a small fire, then a racing wall of flame before it exploded into a firestorm, consuming them in heat and fury and they shattered into a universe filled with sparkling stars and nothingness, each whispering
Ilove you
within their minds and hearing the other.

Entwined in each other’s arms, the lovers spoke of everything and nothing, things important and ridiculous, of yesterday, tomorrow and forever. They shared their hopes, their dreams, their desires; they shared strawberries, sparkling cider and kisses. Gentle touches became loving caresses and then evolved into heated embraces as their bodies strained toward one another, lost in the swirling ecstasy that bewitched them and sent them scurrying toward sensual delight and fulfillment.

Sergei’s low growl of frustration, as he struggled with anxious hands to open the silvery condom packet, had Chloe’s lilting laugh floating on the gentle night breeze.

“Here, let me help you,” she offered huskily, a wicked glow turning her eyes a gleaming midnight blue as she took the small packet, ripped it open. And promptly stuck her fingernail through the condom. “Well, hell!” she pouted, holding her finger up for his perusal. “I don’t think this one will work anymore,” she offered with a disgruntled grumble.

Sergei didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, his gorgeous shoulders lifted in a shrug and he heaved a great sigh. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“It was only one,” Chloe whispered, her hands creating magic as they stroked his turgid length, and causing havoc as he tried to keep his wits about him.

“It was the last one,” he clarified on a deep growl, capturing her hands and holding them still, unable to stand the torture they caused as she caressed his heated body.

“Don’t even suggest such a thing,” Chloe demanded

“That’s not a suggestion, ma’am, it’s a flat out fact!” He stated, showing her the empty box in confirmation.

“Noooo!” Chloe moaned; her expression befallen, her lower lip pouted sexily. Sergei’s body was a study of shadow and light as the moonlight cast faint rays across his body, highlighting his muscular physique and making her long to run her hands over his beautiful body, feel his strength against her, inside her. With a wistful sigh, and a little shrug that drew his attention to her breasts, she asked softly, “Know any good OB-GYNs?”

The following morning, Aleksei sat sipping a cup of coffee and perusing the morning paper as Jordan rummaged through the refrigerator, muffled sounds of frustration coming from the interior of the refrigerator.

“Aleksei, you didn’t raid the fridge last night and eat the strawberries did you?” Jordan asked in frustration.

“After the way you ravished me last night, I’m lucky to be moving today. But to answer your question, no, I didn’t eat the strawberries,” Aleksei answered.

With a look of confusion, she continued her search through the refrigerator, her softly mumbled, “I swear, I’m losing my mind,” muffled by the low hum of the refrigerator’s motor.

CHAPTER 23 

T
he next three weeks were a marathon of long hours of practice, final choreographic fine-tuning, costume fittings, flaring tempers and tense silences. Everyone was on edge, filled with equal parts of anticipation and anxiety.

“Okay, folks, this is it, our final practice on this ice before the debut of Spenser and Rocmanov day after tomorrow. I would suggest you pretend this is the real thing and put forth some effort because if I don’t see something I like, I swear I’ll pull the plug on you two and not even flinch doing it!” Whittaker bellowed across the ice, watching as Sergei and Chloe warmed up together on the newly Zambonied surface.

“He wouldn’t really do it, would he?” Hunter’s words drifted over Dani’s shoulder from where he sat a row above and behind her on the padded stadium seats. “After all the time they’ve put in; all the work they’ve done, all the shit with Manning and Chloe’s injury, he wouldn’t actually yank them?”

Dani continued to put her skates on, casting apprehensive glances toward the ice, trying to gauge Whittaker’s mood despite his harsh words. “Whittaker is one of the best coaches in the world, he knows what he’s doing. He won’t risk his athletes by making them skate injured, or sick, and if he says he’ll ‘yank’ them, believe me, he will. He’s seen too many skaters pushed into skating when they’re not prepared, mentally or physically. If he thinks they’re not ready to perform to their maximum capability, he won’t allow them to step foot on the ice, something he’s been criticized for several times in the past. He doesn’t like his skaters being embarrassed, or demeaned, and he believes that pushing them into competing before they’re fully ready can set them back months. There’s more to skating than just the physical side of it, your mind and soul are just as important. If you haven’t fully committed yourself to skating, to competing, you’re not only wasting a coaches time, you’re wasting your own.”

“How do you know a skaters ‘maximum capability’? Who’s to say this skater is better than that one?” Hunter asked.

“It’s a learned skill, like anything else. You can learn all the basic skills of figure skating, and as a judge, you have to know the difference between all the jumps and what an inside edge, or outside edge, is all about. But at the same time, you have to understand, that while a skater can be technically perfect in all his or her skills, if they have no passion, evoke no emotion, display no feeling when they skate, you might as well be watching a robot. And I can tell you, robots don’t win competitions!”

“How do you think Chloe and Sergei will fare?” he asked quietly, watching the two on the ice as they completed their warm up, listening to Whittaker’s loudly bellowed instructions.

“I think Mom and Dad should think about adding a wing onto the house to display all the medals and trophies they’re going to win,” she answered casually, a note of pride in her voice.

Her matter-of-fact statement surprised Hunter. He detected no jealousy in her voice, just the simple acknowledgment that in all likelihood her brother and her best friend were destined for greatness. “Does that bother you?”

“Bother me?” she asked, a bit amused, a small frown appearing between her arched brows. “Why on earth should it? I’ve got my own medals and trophies to win. I don’t have time to be wondering or worrying over how they’re doing,” she stated firmly, nodding toward

the two on the ice.

“Wouldn’t you like to be doing what they’re doing?”

“What are you talking about? I am doing what they’re doing.”

“Not quite. You’re out there all alone.”

“True enough. But I, alone, am also solely responsible for my performance. If I mess up, it’s no ones fault but my own. I can’t point my finger at my partner and say ‘you did this or you should have done that’. Besides, I also don’t have to worry about some moron dropping me on my head or throwing me into the boards. Falling hurts enough without having the added strength of some goon slamming you into the ice.”

“Your mother and Chloe don’t seem to mind having partners,” Hunter stated.

“They started out with partners, they don’t know any different,” Chloe countered.

“Didn’t Sergei start out as a single?”

“Yes, just like my father.”

“What made them change their minds?”

Dani chuckled softly as she remembered the different stories she’d heard from both her father and Whittaker. “Depends on who you ask. Daddy said it was a combination of Whittaker threatening to leave him in the dust after he broke his leg mountain climbing offseason during his ‘wild youth’. Although daddy’s doctors did say they couldn’t guarantee his leg would ever be able to withstand the pounding singles skaters take.”

“Sounds like it was a nasty injury,” Hunter offered quietly, remembering his own fall off mountain that had broken his shoulder and left his arm in a sling for several weeks.

“That’s Daddy. Like everything in life, he does it to the best of his ability, even the not-so-fun stuff.” Chloe’s statement ended with a soft chuckle.

“What’s Whittaker’s rendition?” Hunter asked curiously.

“His story goes he was trying to figure out a way to curb Daddy’s rather ‘risky tendencies’ and thought that pairing him with Mom, who at the time was affectionately referred to as the ‘Ice Queen’, would make him realize the error of his ways and calm him down.”

“Did it work?”

“Before of after Mom and Dad nearly killed each other?”

“Didn’t get along too well, huh?” Hunter asked, resisting an urge to run his fingers through her short, tussled hair. The fragrant floral shampoo she had used that morning drifted about her head, teasing his sensibilities and he closed his eyes as he tried to steady the building desire he felt to simply touch her.

“Whittaker would have been happy if that’s all it had been. But, apparently, they spent several weeks doing their best to torture each other and anyone else within firing distance. Everyone came away from that firestorm a little singed.”

The doors opened and Jordan preceded Aleksei through the opening, each looking to the ice and then to Dani and Hunter where they sat rinkside. “It looks as if they came to an understanding,” Hunter stated softly over her shoulder, his warm breath making the short curls at her temples dance against her skin and send tingles racing through her body.

“Yup–and here we are,” she answered simply, casting her parents a welcoming smile as they joined them, shared a kiss and hug with their daughter, and sat down.

“We’re not late are we?” Jordan asked, casting a nervous glance toward the ice where Chloe and Sergei stood before Whittaker, receiving final instructions.

“No, they’re just finishing their warm up,” Chloe explained, taking in her mother’s anxious look. “What’s wrong? You look worried.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Jordan stated abruptly, tapping her nails together nervously.

“Mom, it doesn’t take a brain scientist to figure out you’re totally freaked at the moment. You might as well tell me what’s wrong because I’m going to pester you until you do and you won’t get to enjoy this run-through if I’m busy jabbering at you the whole time.” Chloe rambled.

Jordan looked at Aleksei, accepted his barely perceptible nod and slipped her hand into his, their fingers automatically lacing. With a glance over Dani’s shoulder toward Hunter who sat in patient silence, she returned her gaze to Dani and stated softly, “We just got word the restraining order against Andrew has been temporarily suspended so he can compete. You are all going to be on the same ice together.”

“Where’s Dee? She’s got the music,” Whittaker bellowed from center ice, directing his question to the four sets of eyes all bearing varying degrees of concern. Whittaker walked toward the small group of people casting apprehensive glances at Sergei and Chloe. When he reached the short wall that separated them, he cut to the chase. “What the hell’s going on and where’s Dee?”

“She grabbed the wrong CD and went back to get the right one,” Jordan offered haltingly.

“Bullshit! Stop screwing with me and tell me what the hell has got the four of you looking like you’re about to be executed,” Whittaker growled dangerously, sending scathing glances at each of them.

“Andrew’s been given the okay to compete. They’ve temporarily suspended the restraining order against him,” Aleksei answered numbly.

Whittaker’s heated gaze landed squarely on Hunter. “How the hell did this happen? I thought you were here to see that the Manning’s were under control?”

“I’m doing all I can to see the proper paperwork is in order and that we’re following the letter of the law,” Hunter argued quietly.

“It sure as shit doesn’t look that way to me,” Whittaker fired back.

“There are a lot of gray areas in the law, a lot of cracks things can disappear into. Manning Senior carries a lot of weight around here, he has a lot of
friends
; a lot of professional clout and can obviously get things done just barely within the lines of legality.”

“What about all this
clout
you’re supposed to have, Mr. Hot-Shot Attorney? I thought part of the reason you appeared was to see that the necessary steps were taken to insure Chloe’s safety and that Andrew was made to pay for the things he did to Chloe?”

“I’m doing what I can. I’m following the law and doing things in the correct order so the Manning’s don’t walk away because of a missed step, or a loophole in the legal system that lets them off the hook. I’m making sure every ‘T’ is crossed and every ‘I’ is dotted.”

“Well it looks like you missed a few because the asshole is being allowed open access to do more damage!” Whittaker growled, barely managing to keep from bellowing.

“He wouldn’t dare do something in the public’s view; he’s not that stupid,” Hunter countered.

“He’s a friggin’ loon! The camera’s at the mall didn’t deter him from trashing Chloe’s car or from terrorizing her at the food court,” Whittaker argued.

“There’s no solid proof he was in the food court,” Hunter stated quietly.

“Don’t pull that attorney shit with me. There was proof–witnesses–and they’re both in this building. Then there’s the small question of the security guard that suddenly ‘can’t recall’ seeing Andrew there that still sticks in my craw. Obviously, the legal system only works for those with money and pull, and, from where I sit, you don’t seem to have a hell of a lot of either!”

“That’s enough Frank,” Aleksei demanded quietly, his tone filled with authority.

“You’re not being fair. Hunter’s doing everything he can to make sure the Manning’s are made to pay for what they’ve done to Chloe and Sergei! Everyone knows the legal system moves at a snail’s pace!”

Dani stated in Hunter’s defense, drawing four sets of eyes, all filled with various questions, her way.

“Well, I’d suggest the snail get up off his ass and move a little faster. The competition’s the day after tomorrow and if I can’t guarantee Chloe’s safety, they won’t skate!” Whittaker warned, his eyes flashing with fire and anger and determination.

“Like hell we won’t skate!” Sergei growled darkly from ten feet behind Whittaker where he and Chloe had silently skated to join the tense group. “If we pull out, it’ll just give Andrew that much more power and satisfaction to know he can still call the rules of his sick game.”

“It may not be safe for either one of you,” Jordan stated quietly, her fingers nervously flexing. “Maybe we should skip this competition? It would give you another few weeks of practice,” she added hopefully

“I’m tired of being afraid, Mrs. Rocmanov. I want to prove to myself that I’m the skater you all keep saying I am. I want to show Andrew that he may have knocked me down, but he didn’t knock me out. I want to be standing on the podium in first place and be able to look him straight in the eye and tell him to go fuck himself!” Chloe stated firmly, her blue eyes flashing with a dark fire.

“You go girl!” Dani called encouragingly, giving her a thumbs-up gesture and a broad smile.

“That’s my girl!” Sergei answered softly, giving her a hug and kissing her temple gently. “That decides it. We skate!”

“You skate only under certain stipulations,” Aleksei countered. “No one is to be alone. When Dani or Chloe are in the dressing rooms, I want both Hunter and Sergei outside the door and, Sergei, when you’re in your dressing room, I want Hunter inside with you,” Aleksei commanded.

“I feel like I’m five years old again and going into a public restroom by myself for the first time,” Sergei complained, catching the look in his father’s dark eyes as he remembered that early memory himself.

“If you want to skate, those are the rules,” Aleksei stated unbendingly.

“Then I guess we’re going to get good and friendly Hunter. Welcome to the world of figure skating and, a word of warning, don’t pay any attention to the guys you may see ogling your ass!” Sergei laughed.

“Sergei!” Jordan reprimanded, rolling her eyes at her son’s comment.

“What? Is that a false statement? Am I lying?” Sergei asked, his arms spread wide in innocence.

“Leave Hunter’s nice ass alone,” Dani laughed softly. “He’s so blatantly heterosexual, he won’t be bothered.”

“Dani!” Jordan choked in amazement, shaking her head in disbelief at the outrageousness of her children.