everything you read in your Ukrainian erotica.”
“Of course not.”
His brow rose, the mockery there.
“I read that particular fact in a scientific journal.”
His dark gaze pinned her to the bed, though he had yet to join her with his incredibly gorgeous naked body. “We have better things to do than discuss frivolous scientific research.”
“It isn’t frivolous to the tens of thousands of men who have been feeling inadequate because of the supposed average lengths gleaned from self-measurement.”
“What you are telling me is that men measure themselves as larger than they are?” He definitely sounded amused now.
“I don’t think you would.”
“I would not measure myself at all.” From his tone, he found the idea of doing so absolutely ridiculous.
“I think I’d like to measure you.”
“No.”
“With my hand.”
The erection in question jumped at her words and it was her turn to smile.
“Do not tease,” he warned.
“I’m not teasing.”
“You are smiling.”
“I’m just really happy that you react to me so strongly.” So strongly in fact that despite the fact she’d led them down one of the conversational byways that always annoyed others, his visible response to her had not dimmed in the least.
“You are a very sexy woman.”
She couldn’t help laughing at that assertion, but she didn’t accuse him of lying. Honest desire burned in the brown depths of his eyes.
“It is time I did something about your lack of focus.” He didn’t sound mad about it, though.
She just nodded, wanting more of what they’d done in the living room, more kisses, more touching, more of that amazingly intimate connection.
“First we need to get you naked, too.”
She’d already kicked her heels off in the living room and she wasn’t wearing panty hose. That didn’t leave much to get rid of.
She started tugging her skirt up, only to have his hands join her in the effort. Only somehow he made the slide of silk up her body into a series of sensual caresses, so she was shivering with renewed passion by the time he pulled the green fabric over her head.
He tossed it away.
“My mother would be very annoyed if she saw you treating clothes the way you do.” Especially high-end designer ones.
“Your mother has no place in our bedroom.”
“It’s not our bedroom.”
“You belong to me. This room belongs to you. Therefore, it is ours.”
She couldn’t push a denial of his claim through her lips. There was too much truth to it.
It was almost scary, but she wasn’t afraid.
In fact, that part of her that had felt alone in the world since her mother’s marriage to Perry Saltzman warmed with an inexplicable sense of belonging.
“She’s still my mother,” was all Chanel could think to say.
“And she always will be, but her views and opinions about you are skewed by grief and a lack of understanding. Therefore, they have no place in our life together.”
“We don’t have a life together,” she said with more vehemence than she felt.
But it was insane, this instant connection, his claim he planned a future with her. It just wasn’t real. Couldn’t be.
“We do. It starts with this.” His hands reached behind her to unhook her bra clasp, sight unseen.
Her nipples, already tightened into hard points from his earlier manipulations, contracted further from the cooled air brushing across them.
There was no stifling the shiver that went through her in response to the extra stimulation.
His smile was predatory. “You have very sensitive breasts.”
“Nipples,” she couldn’t help correcting. It wasn’t her entire boob responding, was it?
He brushed his fingertips along the side of her breast, sliding forward, but not touching the nipple.
Desire coiled low in her belly, her body arching toward his.
He did it again. “Very responsive.”
“You don’t like to be wrong, do you?” she asked in a voice that hitched every other syllable with her gasping breaths.
“It is a rare occurrence.”
“Arrogant.”
“Certain.”
“Same thing.”
“It is not.” Then he kissed her, preventing any more words.
It was a sneaky way to end an argument, but she couldn’t make herself mind. Not when it felt so wonderful. It might be only their lips that were connected, but she felt as if he was touching her to the very depths of her soul.
He pulled back, their breath coming in harsh gasps between them. “One thing left.”
“What?” she asked, nothing but his lips making any sense in that moment.
“Your panties.”
Were surplus to requirements. She got the picture but found she was hopeless in the face of doing something about it.
It was okay, though. His long masculine fingers were sliding between her hips and the silk and then it was being tugged down, baring the last bit of her to him.
“There will be nothing between us,” he growled, as if he could read her mind.
She looked up at him, their gazes locking, and what she saw in his left her in no doubt he wasn’t just talking about clothing.
He’d pushed her in the living room, demanding she acknowledge her own pleasure, her own desires, this crazy thing happening between them.
He was going to push her further now.
“It’s just sex,” she claimed with a desperate attempt to believe her own words.
“We are making love, locking our lives together.”
“This isn’t real.”
“It is very real.”
“Please...”
He cupped her face, the move one she was becoming quite familiar with and incidentally learning to love. “Please, what?”
“Just tonight? Can it just be about tonight?”
He lowered his head until their lips almost brushed. “No.”
This time, she kissed him. Couldn’t help herself and was glad she hadn’t when he took control and drew forth a response from her body that shouldn’t have been possible. Not after she’d just climaxed.
Only it was.
It was as if they were connected by live electric current, energizing, transforming every synapse in its wake, so that her body was uniquely tuned to him. The way that big body blanketed hers, his hardness rubbing against the sensitive curls at the apex of her thighs indicated he was being tuned to the same frequency.
A frequency she thought would rule her body’s responses for the rest of her life.
And if she could believe his words, it would.
The kiss pulled her