CHAPTER SEVEN
MINASTAREDUPinto Alexei’s set face—the haughty winged eyebrows, the set jaw, the calculation in those gem-bright eyes—and knew she’d blundered terribly.
How had she imagined leaving would be easy?
It would have been if you hadn’t kissed him back. If you hadn’t tried to climb onto him like some sex-starved nymphomaniac.
Her naivety was truly remarkable, she realised belatedly.
Not only was the attraction between them real, but Alexei was a man used to getting his way. Right now he wanted a bride. And since Mina had demonstrated how sexually compatible they were, he also wanted her, physically.
Excitement eddied deep inside at his possessiveness. It should annoy her. Itdid. And yet...
Heat flushed her throat and breasts as she recalled the weight of his erection. The way she’d ground herself against his thigh, trying to ease the desperate ache between her legs. The way one kiss had made her cast aside a lifetime’s caution.
Maybe she was sex-starved after all. In twenty-two years she’d never felt anything like this compulsion. No man had come close to breaking her absorption in her art and arousing such fire.
‘Don’t call me Princess. I don’t like it.’
Those expressive eyebrows lifted higher as if he were surprised she’d choose that to complain about. But the way Alexei said it in that deep, roughened voice cut too close to the real Mina.
In her youth she’d chafed at the title ‘Princess,’ for it encompassed all the restrictions placed on her life by her father and her birth. Yet it was indelibly, undeniably hers, something she could never erase, though she didn’t use it.
Hearing it now, from this big bear of a man who smashed through all the layers of civilisation and control she’d built up over a lifetime, evoked an atavistic fear that heknewher as no one else did. That he recognised the real Mina. More, that the wild, reckless woman who’d lost her mind and her self-respect when he kissed her,wasthe real Mina.
Her jumbled thoughts were crazy, surely, yet she had to put at least an illusion of distance between them. Hearing him use her title, even if he didn’t know how apt it was, made her feel he saw past her attempts to be indomitable.
Besides, the cynical way he said it made her shiver thinking of his retribution once he learned the truth.
‘Then of course I won’t call you that. Carissa.’
The name was a deliberate caress, the soft sibilant curling around her vital organs like a silken cord.
The terrible knowledge hit that Mina wanted to hear him say her real name like that. Not that it was nearly as musical. It was plain and ordinary, but the longing to hear it on his tongue was almost overpowering.
She folded her arms across her chest and stumbled back a step. He’d see that as proof of weakness but that wasn’t as important as retaining her sanity.
What had he done to her?
How had a kiss tumbled her defences and addled her brain?
But it had been more than a kiss.
It had been momentous. Life-changing. Mina felt as if she’d woken from a dream to a new world where everything took on a sharp clarity. Where every sense was heightened and alert. Where light and shadow were more defined, colour brighter, feelings more vivid.
She hefted a deep breath, saw his eyes flicker on the movement and angled her chin.
Weakened she might be, but she was no pushover.
‘I’m sorry if my response just now misled you, Alexei.’ She faced his stare head-on, telling herself this was nothing compared to challenges she’d faced as a royal. Except then she’d been confident in her own abilities. Now, suddenly, she realised she wasn’t as strong as she’d believed. This man made her feel unexpectedly weak. ‘But I’m serious. I don’t want marriage.’
He folded his arms over his chest, the movement mirroring her posture. Yet on him the gesture was challenging rather than self-protective. She watched his biceps bulge and tried not to remember the iron-hard strength of his embrace. His virile power had been part of the magic she’d felt in his arms.
‘So what do you want? An affair?’
‘No!’ Mina heard the shock in her voice and gave up any hope of pretending to be insouciant. ‘My response was...a mistake.’
‘A mistake?’