It wasn’t love, but it wasn’t merely lust, either. Not when her love was so consuming and his sense of possessive connection so overdeveloped.
He lightly pinched her nipple and she cried out against his marauding mouth.
He broke the kiss to laugh in triumph. “You are mine.”
“You are even more arrogant than I knew.”
Espresso eyes glittered down at her. “Admit it. This baby in your womb and the woman who carries it, you are both mine.”
“Yes, we’re yours, but you’d better remember that comes with a lot of responsibility for our welfare and I’m not talking about providing materially for us.” She had a job and could support herself just fine.
“I know.” His handsome face set in serious lines. “You believe I will hurt you as my father has my mother all these years, but it will not happen.”
“Your father could never have hurt your mother like you can hurt me.” Not even if his mother had felt some type of love for King Fedir when she demanded marriage in exchange for a child.
Maks’s eyes flared in surprise and then narrowed in understanding. “Because you love me.”
“Yes.”
If Queen Oxana had loved King Fedir as much as Gillian loved Maks, she would not have forced him into the sordid life of a married man carrying on an affair with his one true love.
His happiness would have been paramount. Just as Maks’s happiness was for Gillian.
If she thought marrying him would hurt him, she would refuse to do it. Of that she was absolutely certain. She knew her own heart and what it was capable of. She had a lifetime of testing and stretching it.
“You won’t stop saying it because I do not return the sentiment?” Maks asked as his hands and hard thigh continued pushing so much pleasure into her body she thought she might explode with it.
“Do you care if I do?” she gasped out.
For a split second in time he went still, unmistakable vulnerability flashing before it disappeared. “I find that I do.”
“I won’t stop saying it.” Who knew? One day, he might even truly understand what she meant when she did.
She could only hope he’d learn through feelings for her and not someone else.
“Stop it,” he ordered, his voice harsh.
“What?”
“You are doing that thing again, that pessimistic thinking.”
“How can you possibly know?”
“You get this look on your face, like all joy is in danger of being sucked from your life.”
She dropped her gaze, not wanting the level of insight this man was capable of at that moment. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He let out a frustrated sound and then his head lowered again, not to kiss her but to launch a sensual onslaught onto her vulnerable neck.
Delight spiraled through her as he reminded her he knew exactly how to bring her, Gillian Harris, the maximum sexual reaction.
And just like that, she was on the verge of climaxing again. This time, he didn’t allow for conversation, or interruption, taking her up and over that pinnacle of pleasure without ever directly stimulating her clitoris.
She screamed out her pleasure, no hope of holding the sound in as her body shook in convulsions so powerful they should have been able to shatter bone.
Afterward, he stripped her naked, right there in the kitchen, and tore off his own clothes, before pushing her up against the wall. He lifted her legs, using the power of his muscular six-foot-four-inch frame to hold her in place as he spread her legs wide.
His erection pressed against her entrance, the bulbous tip spreading tender tissues for his invasion.
He paused there, the muscles of his neck corded with the strain of holding back. “You are the only woman I have ever had sex with without a condom between us.”
“Even when you were young and stupid?” she gasped out as his erection pushed inside a single slow inch.
“I was young once, never that stupid.”
“You never worried about diseases with me.”
“I saw your medical records.”
“Not stupid.”
“Do you want honesty?”
“Always.”
“It never entered my mind.”
He hadn’t even considered the possibility. That made her warm deep inside.
She smiled. “Good.”
“Impractical.”
“I won’t tell.”
He laughed, the sound strained. “I know. You would die of embarrassment.”
“I’m not sure I can face Demyan as it is.”
“You can.” Then whatever restraint Maks had been under seemed to break and he pushed all the way inside with a single powerful thrust.
The sound of satisfaction that came from deep in his chest sent another wave of desire crashing over the first one caused by finally having the connection of full intercourse.
Whatever veneer of civility still intact over Maks’s features and actions disintegrated in that moment and he began to make love to her with animalistic intensity. His powerful body pistoned in and out of hers, bringing intense pleasure with every potent thrust.
His breath came in harsh gasps, hers no better.
“Never again,” he ground out between clenched teeth as he swiveled his hips on the next thrust, causing her clitoris to pulse with pleasure.
She agreed, not sure what she was agreeing to, but hearing the need for her accord in thought in the two words. “Never again.”
“Ten weeks is too long.”
Without sex. She understood and though she wished he needed her emotionally with the same intensity, his sexual need was its own type of relationship guarantee.
“Come for me again,” he demanded as his body possessed hers so completely she would never again doubt who she belonged to.
Not that she had ever really been in doubt.
She said nothing, though, too intent on how her body seemed perfectly able to accede to his demand. The wonderful tension built inside, tightening, tightening, tightening…until it released with another life altering culmination.
This time, he came with her, his sex first swelling inside her, pushing her own pleasure toward the edge of unbearable before she felt the heat of his orgasm inside her.
He buried his face in the join of her neck and shoulder, his muscular chest rising and falling with harsh breaths as he repeated a single word over and over. “Moja.”
Mine.
And though there’d been nothing gentle about this coupling, the profundity she’d felt that night ten weeks ago washed over Gillian again, bringing tears to sting her eyes.
She did not know how he knew, but suddenly Maks’s head came up and he searched her face, his own expression unreadable. “Too much?”
“No,” she denied.
“Why the tears?”
“I can’t explain.”
“Pregnancy hormones.”
“Maybe,” she hedged.
His eyes narrowed. “I wonder.”
He lifted her left hand to his lips, kissing right above the ring he’d placed there, the message of possession in his dark gaze unmistakable and undeniable.
Then the gentleness came. He withdrew from her body, carefully lowering her legs to the floor. But he did not leave her to stand on her own; he simply changed his hold and lifted her again.
This time he cradled her against his chest and carried her through to the bathroom. Nothing like the master bath in his penthouse, her bathtub was barely big enough for one. There was no hope of them bathing together unless they showered.
And somehow she knew that was not his plan.
But she didn’t want to let go of the connection. She’d learned her lesson about clinging early in life, though, so she said nothing as he lowered her to the side of the tub.
He turned on the tap, adding her favorite bath salts. She watched the level rise, glad for his unconscious hand on her thigh as he swirled the salts so they melted into the hot water.
?
??The smell of rosemary reminds me of you.”
“Isn’t that the way it works? Rosemary for remembrance?”
“It’s the scent of your bath salts. Rosemary and mint. I like it.”
He’d said so before and she’d stopped buying other fragrances for her bath. She didn’t admit that now, though. “I like it, too,” was all she said.
He nodded before gently lifting her and placing her with what could be mistaken for tender care into the tub.
“I don’t need this kind of help,” she protested. “I’m pregnant, not helpless.”
“We have just made the most passionate of love. I will see to your comfort if I like.”
“You’re kind of bossy.”
“You’re very independent.”
“If you were looking for a leech, you shouldn’t have dated me.”
“I do not want a leech. A little clinging wouldn’t hurt, though,” he grumbled under his breath.
She couldn’t believe her ears. “Men like you hate women who cling.”
“I do not know where you come by your vast knowledge of men like me.” He frowned down at her, even as he began to wash her body with a bar of glycerin soap and gentle caresses. “But I would enjoy you clinging.”