Instinctive Male. Cait London

deep within her; it was difficult to think of Mikhail as a man with ordinary needs.

      “Finished?” he asked softly.

      “Yes, it was delicious. Did I thank you?” She struggled against sleep; she needed to be alert to ask Mikhail’s help.

      “Of course.” There was the old-world arrogance, as if he had momentarily relaxed his shields with her. “Now tell me why you have been sleeping with the child, singing to her and holding her tight against you?”

      Ellie’s drowsy senses snapped to alert. “How do you know that?”

      Mikhail turned to her and said slowly, “Because it was me you held in your arms, Ellie. Me you rocked and petted and reassured in your sleep. The experience was unique, to say the least.”

      While Ellie stared at him, wide-eyed, her lips parted, Mikhail dealt with his unsteady emotions. The big, chunky chair only served to make her more feminine, more vulnerable. He resented the woman in front of him, all curves and soft lips, the shawl tied around her waist opening to reveal long smooth legs. His hand flexed, remembering the jut of her hip, the curve of her waist beneath the thick comforter.

      Ellie Lathrop was a disaster, his personal Kamakani curse. His instinctive need to have her wear his shirt, to claim her as his, nettled.

      He was not an emotional man, yet what man would not be affected by a woman’s bare breasts pressed against his arm, those little affectionate hugs, and those soft lips kissing his shoulder and whispering in the night, “Go to sleep, baby. I’m right here and I’ll never leave you.”

      “Rock-A-Bye Baby” had never been so erotic, the husky, sleepy sound of Ellie’s voice making him hard—and weak. Despite himself, he could not move when she curled so close to him, her hands stroking his skin, cuddling him, her body scent reaching inside his senses, tormenting him. Yet, as much as he knew the danger of staying, he could not leave her. Instead, he resented the fine sheen of perspiration on his skin, the sensual tension humming through him.

      Mikhail scoffed at himself and was surprised at the hard, derisive snort that could only have come from himself. Him. Hard. Aching to take her. Aroused by Ellie, the spoiled, willful heiress.

      What could have happened to a child that she would need such reassurance in the night?

      “You will tell me now about the child and why you have come.” That his accent had slipped beyond his control also nettled. The fact that the shawl had shifted slightly, revealing an enticing thigh, golden and gleaning in the firelight, hit him like a physical blow.

      He wanted to press his lips to that soft flesh. He wanted to toss her on that bed and fight out the storm brewing between them for years.

      What would that solve? his logical, nonaroused side demanded. They would still be the same people, each disliking the other.

      He’d battled another woman, and that experience with his ex-wife had been enough to turn his sexual needs cold.

      There was no reason for Ellie to excite him, none at all, and yet she did.

      He watched Ellie pull into herself, the sleepy vulnerability gone. She ran her fingers through her hair and sipped the milk, a ploy he knew that gave herself time to organize what she would say to him.

      “I’m having a bit of a rough patch, Mikhail,” she said almost briskly in a get-it-over with tone. She reached gracefully to claim a black mussel shell from those in the earth-colored pottery bowl. “I think you can help me—and Tanya. Most of all, Tanya.”

      “The girl you hold in the night? Your daughter?”

      “My daughter,” Ellie repeated softly. She looked into the flames and then down to the empty mussel shell; her fingers traced the smooth pearl and pink-colored interior as if feeling for answers that escaped her. “She has nightmares. Are you certain your parents know where to find me?”

      “Of course. I am a thorough man and she will be well treated. My parents dote on children.”

      “Yes, I know.” This time she spoke more thoughtfully, running her finger over the edge of the shell, testing its sharpness. “You’re going to want everything, aren’t you? Every detail.”

      There was no reason to soften his words with Ellie; she’d seen him in tough business deals, cutting right to the bottom line. “Of course.”

      Still watching the fire, Ellie drew her legs up on the chair, circling them with her arms. “Tanya isn’t my natural child, but I love her as if she were. Hillary is her biological mother.”

      Now everything made sense—Paul’s reluctance to talk about his daughters, the telephone calls inquiring about Ellie, and Tanya’s birth date, which ruled out Ellie as her biological mother.

      Mikhail waited, sensing that Ellie was moving very carefully through her thoughts and words, as if she had replayed them many times before. Her voice sounded as if it came from an exhausted woman dragged through hell.

      “Tanya is the family secret, Mikhail. Paul didn’t want the scandal of Hillary’s illegitimate child, or the possibility of social workers taking Tanya away from lack of care. You see, my half sister, whom I practically raised, lacks maternal instincts. Tanya was so adorable—she still is. Sweet, you know? I never could—” Ellie’s voice hitched as though holding back a sob. Then she swallowed, brushed her hand roughly across her eyes, and Mikhail waited for her to go on.

      The flames crackled, firelight flickering on her face, catching her hair. “When Hillary couldn’t be bothered with an infant, Paul hired a nurse to take care of Tanya…. My sister was off and running with her crowd as soon as she recovered her figure. And I was there, checking on this beautiful little unwanted baby left with a hired nurse who didn’t care. Tanya was born just after the Amoteh’s opening. I was there, too. There is something special about seeing a baby born—”

      She smiled softly and now her eyes were dove gray. “She gurgled, you know. Happy little baby sounds…”

      A slight sad frown slid over her expression. Ellie brush back her hair as though trying to focus on what she must do. “I fought with Hillary over her behavior, if you can call it that. Paul didn’t bother to check what Hillary told him—and he didn’t want to hear realities from me. He was fine with the situation as long as there was no bad publicity. Hillary’s pregnancy was kept secret. She wasn’t married and didn’t know exactly who Tanya’s father was. Paul still had plans to marry her off for business reasons. That’s what his daughters are to him, you know—business assets.”

      Ellie smiled slightly. “Tanya was amazing, beautiful and I wanted her more than anything I’d wanted in my life. I wanted to adopt her. I chose to marry Mark, because I had this plan that two parents were better than one. He came from a good family. He wanted me—or rather he wanted a Lathrop heiress bred for the life he wanted—and I wanted Tanya. I was used to business deals, teethed on them, and marriage to Mark seemed sensible. I liked him. We were very compatible. We—we filled each other’s needs. I wanted marriage, a home and the idea of a real family. I’m used to making trade-offs, Mikhail. I’ve made them all my life. I knew that I was exactly what Mark wanted, more of a business partner to make him look good. That was the master plan, to give Tanya a good home and a good father.”

      She looked so weary and pale, and Mikhail’s instincts were to tell her to rest. But he recognized that she had fought hard and now defeated, baring herself and her pride to him, that she needed to take these last steps by herself.

      Ellie was quiet and then another blast of rain against the windows seemed to rouse her from her thoughts. “Tanya was just six months old when I married Mark. We had talked about adoption prior to the wedding. He had agreed…and then he changed his mind. Someone had mentioned genetic defects to him, and he was afraid she’d—I spent the next six months trying to convince him that we needed to adopt Tanya. One of his ridiculous reasons not to adopt was that with Hillary’s frequent changes in lovers, Tanya could have inherited any disease, he said. Basically, he wouldn’t even bring up the subject to Paul. I