Maybe that was what had shocked her so much in the dressing room today. That he had admitted to the cold showers and his dreaming about her, it spoke of need and was so unlike Dmitri. Then she remembered his words in the dressing room and went hot all over at the thought of him naked and wet in the shower, hard for her and fighting it. Her imagination got away from her as she wondered what his body looked like. In the past week, she had never seen him in anything less than a long sleeved shirt and slacks. Once he had rolled up his sleeves to his forearms, but that was it. She knew all his clothes were tailored to fit him, not a single shirt was store bought. There had been times though, when she watched him move or stretch and even through the undershirt could see the ripple of muscle. He worked out for an hour a day and made it clear he was off limits in that time, usually leaving the suite in a suit with a bag and returning in the suit, with the bag full of dirty clothes. At the thought of him sweating and shirtless in a gym, her whole body shuddered with desire.
Blindly, she reached for the phone and placed an order. Her cell phone rang, and not recognizing the number she answered, “This is Elise.”
“Elise? My, my, gone a week and already you’ve changed on me. Little Ellie all grown up and going by Elise. What a sophisticate you are.”
Greg’s voice was taunting and she closed her eyes, it felt vicious. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t thought of herself as Elise until Dmitri groaned her name in the dressing room today. Greg mocking her for using the name stung.
“Ellie, are you still there? I thought you would be happy to hear from me.” She could hear his pout through the phone, and forced her mind back to Greg. Of course, she was happy to hear from him, she was ecstatic, Greg was finally calling her.
“Of course, I’m happy to hear from you, Greg.” A door clicked closed and Dmitri entered the room wearing jeans that outlined the hard muscles of his thighs and a plain white tee shirt that clung to every inch of his broad chest. She could see every line of his broad muscled chest. Her mouth went dry and her eyes began to burn as she realized she hadn’t blinked.
A harsh laugh sounded in her ear, pulling her out of her daze. Turning away from Dmitri, she made her way to the window, and forced her attention back to Greg. “I’m glad you enjoyed London, it sounds like you had fun.”
“Oh, Ellie you should have been there, it was a riot. Here’s the thing though, hun, with all this drama over the takeover I’m having problems with the bank. I’m going to need you to come back to Alexandria and help me out with mortgaging the old homestead. I can’t get hold of Jasper in Africa, and I got my credit card companies bugging me. Since you’re Jasper’s power of attorney, I need you to sign off on this. The paperwork is all ready for you. I have an appointment with the bank tomorrow afternoon at two. It will only take about an hour while they lay out all the small print.”
A knock at the door confused Elise and she watched Dmitri sort out the room service. Shaking her head Elise turned her attention back to Greg. “You want me to sign off on a mortgage on Jasper’s home? Greg, I can’t do something like that. Not without Jasper’s okay. That house has been in your family for four generations and has never once held a mortgage, Jasper was proud of that fact. I don’t understand, what’s going on? I thought you had a large trust fund that paid out monthly.”
“Jesus, Ellie that trust fund got burned through two years ago. The stock market losses wiped out just about everything. Jasper promised me he’d add to it, but never did. Stingy old buzzard, made a whole lot of promises he never came through on. Come on, Ellie, he’s gonna need the money just as much as I will. This will help him, too.”
“Let me call Jasper, I know they aren’t always at the guest house but they do check in there. If he says yes, then I’ll do it.”
“Ellie, I need you. I need your help. Don’t you want to help me? I thought you cared about me. I always thought that maybe one day, you know, you and I might have something special. I was just waiting for you to grow up. I guess I was wrong about you, I always thought you would be there for me. The sharks are circling me, Ellie. I managed to save my Porsche with the sale of some stock, but it wasn’t enough. Please, Ellie.”
Elise leaned her forehead against the cool glass window and closed her eyes as her world exploded around her. Without Greg in front of her to flash his sparkling blue eyes and bright white smile, she could hear him clearly now. She heard him attempt to manipulate her, trying to twist her to his need, his wants. He knew her feelings for him and he was trying to trade on those feelings. He was holding out the promise of her dreams for over seven years, but it was an empty promise, his promises always were.
She wanted to cry for all the years she had lost loving the man she believed him to be. Greg had sold out the company his father had worked to build, to save his car. The gossip around the office was it had been employees in the factory who’d sold the stock, but she knew now it was Greg. He wanted to mortgage his father’s, and his own, home to keep himself in silk suits and champagne, without working for the means to keep up his lifestyle.
“No, I won’t do it, unless Jasper tells me to. I have to go.” The words fell like stones from her mouth. She disconnected the phone before he could respond. But she wasn’t surprised when her phone began to ring again. Turning it off, she pushed away from the window, her mind focused on making it to the safety of her room. Three steps were as far as she got before Dmitri grabbed her around her arm, swinging her to him.
Dmitri unclenched his hands from the tight fists they had become the moment he heard Elise speak Greg’s name. Everything within him had screamed to cross the room and toss the phone out the window. Elise was his, Greg had his chance and he wouldn’t get another. Waves of confusion and sadness poured from her as she hung up. When the phone rang again, he took a step forward intent on smashing it until it never rang again, but the trembling of her hands as she turned off the phone stopped him. Unshed tears glistened in her unseeing eyes and for the second time that day, his c
ontrol slipped.
“You will not cry over that bastard. I won’t allow it.”
Elise was stunned by the venom in his voice and the iron grip he had on her arm. “Won’t allow it? How dare you say something like that to me?”
“I dare because you want me. You might have thought you were in love with that worthless, sniveling boy, but you’ve wanted me since the moment we laid eyes on each other. I have felt it in the way you tremble at my slightest touch, the way you get breathless when you meet my eyes. After this afternoon, I have all the confirmation I needed in your swollen breasts begging for my mouth and the intoxicating scent of your sweet pussy preparing for my entry into your body. I have been as patient with you as I can be, but not at this. I won’t have my woman crying over another man.”
Hot with embarrassment, she couldn’t look at him, couldn’t deny what he said. Desperate to hide, she tried to pull away, “I’m not your woman!”
He dropped her arm and his hands were on her hips. His grip was punishing as he hauled her against him and his mouth was on hers. In all her dreams of her first kiss, none of them compared to the reality of Dmitri’s mouth on hers. There was no prevarication, no gentle tasting, her gasp of surprise had her lips already open for him and he swept inside without hesitation.
His lips were so very soft and his tongue, as it roamed inside her mouth, weakened her knees. Her hands went up behind his head, anchoring her to something solid as the room spun around her. His kiss was enticing, fire burning raw with need. Her kiss echoed the same need, the same fire, and his grip on her became painful. Her moan of pain reached him, he instantly lessened his hold, and then she felt something solid behind her.
She was on the bed in her room and just as she became aware of that, his body was on hers and she felt his lower body press into her. Liquid heat shot through her yet when she felt him thick and heavy against her, fear of the unknown hit her. It froze her in place and she pushed him away. “Dmitri, please stop, I’m not ready for this.”
He stilled and looked down at her, his face was hard and unreadable as he rolled away from her. His chest was the only thing that moved. Elise sat up at the end of the bed, her hands tight around her legs, afraid she would touch him again. His hair was disheveled from her touch, his shirt was gone, and she realized then that the blouse she wore was open. Trembling hands worked to do up the buttons. He was so quiet. She longed for him to say something, and finally couldn’t take the quiet anymore. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never done this before.” She whispered the words with a blush.
Dmitri looked at her then, it had taken what felt like forever to get his body under control, but those whispered words completed it. It was her need to say them in a whisper. Somewhere deep inside his chest he felt something clench, she was so very young and without experience. He really should walk away. Send her to New York, as he originally planned, safely away from him. He had done many things in his life he wasn’t proud of, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to add her to that list.
Then he looked at her and he saw the way her eyes roamed greedily over him, taking in everything. He remembered her tongue as bold as his, tasting and stroking his own. She felt his eyes on her and met his gaze and her face took on a pretty, pink color. No, she was his and he wasn’t going to let her go. She was right, she wasn’t ready but she would be, soon.
“Do you want me?” He felt he had to ask the words, he needed her to say it.
No pretty blush this time, she went bright red and very still. She studied her clenched hands for so long he wondered if he had pushed too far, too soon. Then she sighed and looked at him, “Yes.”
That one word and the way her eyes met his without wavering made him hard for her all over again. “Are you on birth control?”