She smiled, made joyous by the confession.
His fingers moved into her hair, gently pulling pins and dropping them. The quiet attentiveness, the tenderness of his touch, the graze of his clothing against her bare skin made it the most romantic moment of her life. She felt like a bride. Cherished. Loved.
Tonight she would let herself believe that she was. Somehow she was more than all the other women he’d been with combined.
Her own movements slowed as she grew determined to savor. Remember each touch. Each breath.
When he turned her, he grazed the backs of his fingers along the side of her breast. Leaned in to kiss her sweetly. “You’re so beautiful, Natalie.”
She believed him and undressed him between kisses, pushing his jacket off his shoulders, pulling away his bow tie, opening the buttons hidden in the ruffles of his shirt. When she got to his fly, he reached into his pocket to remove a strip of three condoms.
“Always prepared,” she teased, pushing his pants down his hips.
“Wishful thinking that came true,” he said, caressing her jaw and rueful smile. “I thought you’d be sleeping with Zoey tonight.”
Kicking free of the last of his clothes, he set his feet apart and drew her into his nude body, making them both release shattered breaths at the contact of skin on skin. His fingers tangled in her panties and slid them down, urging her to leave them on the floor as he drew her to the bedroom.
The unhurried purity of the moment encased her in a glow, walking like the only two humans on earth to the bed. Her heart was wide-open to him, taking in his reverent study of her form as though it was a vow. She would never love anyone the way she loved him, she realized. Tears stung the backs of her eyes. Her feelings went beyond his primitive sexuality and masculine beauty. The fighter in her rested when he was near. Surrendered and trusted.
As he pressed her to her back on the soft mattress, parted her legs and entered her with his strength, she clenched her eyes against brimming wetness.
“Look at me, Natalie.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “It’s too much.”
“I’ve got you. I’m going to take care of you.”
He would, she saw, when she dared to open her eyes. His dark eyes were deeply colored with sincerity. His muscles quivered as he held back. Always so generous, especially in bed.
She twisted, agonized by the acute intimacy and pleasure-pain of holding him within her, with the difficulty of stifling the words in her throat.
“You’re holding back,” he accused, thrusting with care to draw out each sensation. “Why? Give me all of you. Everything,” he commanded.
She couldn’t keep it in. She let go, moaning, “I love you. I love you.” She shuddered as she released all her defenses, poured her love over him and prayed she’d get a piece of him in return.
CHAPTER TEN
DEMITRI HAD KNOWN tonight would be good. Sex with Natalie was easily the best he’d ever had. In those first days after their split in France, he’d told himself their lovemaking had merely benefited from the build of knowledge between them, as it typically could when affairs were drawn out. They’d learned how to tantalize the other to the limits of their sanity and enjoyed every second of it.
But here he was, missionary, barely having kissed her before he’d been inside her, and rather than emptying him, she had filled him. He was better than satisfied. He was moved—by words that she’d told him didn’t mean anything.
He had little trust in the phrase himself. He’d heard it dozens of times from women in the throes of passion. He would have dismissed her saying it, but he couldn’t. He wanted it to be true. He wanted to believe they really had been making love every time he’d touched her, building toward this moment, this emotion.
Because he was in it. In love.
It was the only explanation for his utter transformation. She wasn’t changing him. He was changing himself for her, because she deserved better than he’d been.
He loved her.
Gently drawing away, he adjusted them, then gathered her against where his heart was only now easing to a resting pace. He’d never felt so fragile in his life. It was terrifying. Completely unfamiliar.
He wasn’t an emotionally dependent man. He was connected to his siblings, their opinion mattered to him, and when he’d finally pushed them away to the point that they’d ostracized him, he’d quietly agonized.
But this, with Natalie, was so much more. From the moment he’d decided to find her—before that, even—he had been looking for ways not just to maintain their connection, but intertwine them. Knot her to him indelibly.
He wanted to tell her how much she meant to him, but he remembered so clearly her disparagement of her ex. It would gut him right now if she brushed off his saying something he’d never felt, let alone expressed aloud. If he wound up pushing her away with those words, he’d be devastated. But he still needed her to realize how far she’d brought him from what he’d been.
“Thank you for coming with me tonight, Natalie. I couldn’t have made peace with my family without you.”
She drew her arm off him and reached for the sheet. He pulled it around her and snugged her into his front more firmly, running a hand up and down her back, absently encouraging her to melt into him again, thoughts still drifting in a thousand directions as he tried to take in all the ways she’d enriched his life.
He tried to work up how to propose without risking his soul.
“All those times Adara nagged me about these little reunion s, I couldn’t see myself being a part of it. Now the pieces are falling into place.” He should have stopped there, he would think later, but the next words came out of his mouth. “Should we get married? So it’s not so confusing for Zoey? I’d like to be in your bed every night, you know.”
* * *
Natalie shimmied away from the heavy weight of his arms, heart pared like an apple. For a moment all her brain could conjure was panicked expletives. He wasn’t acknowledging her expression of love. He was saying thank-you, as though she’d brought him a fresh cup of coffee.
And starting to enlighten her as to why he’d brought her here: so he fit in with the siblings who had spouses and children. While she’d been falling in love, he’d been repackaging himself as a family man to find acceptance with his siblings. She didn’t blame him. She was totally sincere in wanting him to strengthen his relationship with them on every level.
She just didn’t understand why, why she had to be an instrument. A means to a prize rather than the prize itself. He’d told her last night that he was fixing his relationship with his family, but that had been a lie. Maybe just a fabrication. Maybe he didn’t even see it, but she did. She always saw where her responsibility began and ended.
She wouldn’t have been so hurt right now if he’d been honest with her about it up front. She probably wouldn’t even have said no, because as he’d rightly pointed out, she was a soft touch, especially about things like family. If he’d told her this was why he’d needed her here, she would have found a way without letting her daughter attach to him and without giving up her heart to him.
But she couldn’t do this for the rest of her life. She couldn’t love him with all her heart and know he’d only married her for what she represented, not who she really was. She took on a lot for other people, but that was more responsibility than she was willing to carry. It wasn’t fair to her and it would never be fair to Zoey.
“Demitri...” She swung legs that wouldn’t hold her to the edge of the bed, then sat there, face covered. Stupid, stupid Natalie. Had she actually started to believe all the sparkle and glitter, laughter and lovemaking, added up to more than a nice chemical match with a very rich man?
“I know you don’t want to get married,” he said, coming up on an elbow behind her. “But for Zoey’s sake—”
“For Zoey’s sake I have to say no,” she said, voice coarse. She stood, forcing her weak knees to lock, then searched out a hotel robe from the closet.
“Why?” The question was cold and hard.
“Because we’ll end up divorced.” She flung an exasperated hand into the air. “Listen, this is my fault. I started believing in the fantasy again. I know better than to imagine I’m ever going to get something real—”
“The fantasy,” he interrupted, fairly spitting the word. “The one where you pretend you’re one of those barfly tarts I used to pick up because acting like that is so much better than living your real life.”
“Hey!” she cried, not liking how nasty this was getting.
“You don’t like the way it sounds? Neither do I. You might have warned me that you were just enjoying the ride, Nat. Was saying you loved me part of the fantasy, too?”