Too Proud to be Bought. Sharon Kendrick

been tantalising me all night—ever since you started running away from me at the party. And I can’t remember the last time I had to chase a woman, quite literally in your case.’

      If only he knew why she had been running! Suddenly Zara felt stricken with guilt. ‘But—’

      ‘Shut up,’ he said, almost gently as he bent his mouth to hers.

      Afterwards, she blamed the champagne—and his experience—because she did nothing to stop him. But it was more than cold wine on an empty stomach. It was hunger and it was curiosity. It had been a long time since Zara had been kissed. And no man had ever kissed her the way Nikolai Komarov proceeded to do in the back seat of his chauffeur-driven limousine.

      All it took was one careless graze of his mouth and she began to tremble in response, causing him to make a small sound of assertion underneath his breath as he pulled her closer. And perhaps it was the comfort of being held like that which made Zara want to melt against him. The warm human contact which made her feel normal again, instead of the person who had become invisible and isolated from the rest of the world by sickness. How long since she had been cuddled—or felt any kind of security? With a hungry little cry, she lifted her fingers and tangled them in the thick, beaten gold of his hair and lost herself in the sweetness of his kiss.

      Nikolai gave an unsteady laugh as his hand slid across her back, the rawness of her response startling him a little. He had expected sophistication—an erotic routine which she had gone through many times before. And yet the helpless trembling of her body did not go with her smooth, sleek image. Not at all. And wasn’t there more than a little tenderness about the way she held him? He swallowed as he drew his mouth away and smoothed a fallen strand of hair away from her cheek—because tenderness wasn’t something he encountered very often and it was curiously persuasive.

      ‘You have great passion, I think,’ he murmured.

      ‘Do I?’ she breathed.

      ‘Da. Beautiful passion.’

      His mouth sought hers once more and it was then that the kiss began to change. Zara gasped as his lips suddenly became more seeking and she found her own opening beneath them. She could sense the tension in his body as his hands splayed over her back, where her flimsy evening dress was cut away to reveal a large keyhole in the material. She could feel his fingers kneading against her bare skin as time slowed and she felt as if she had entered an intimate little world. One where Nikolai’s tongue inside the warm cavern of her mouth made her feel as if she were being dragged down into some dark and erotic vortex.

      ‘Nikolai—’

      ‘What?’ he growled.

      ‘This is—’

      ‘Amazing,’ he purred, briefly lifting his head so that his eyes glittered out their unashamed desire, before tracing his finger over the fleshy trembling of her bottom lip. ‘Da. Da. I know it is.’

      She had been about to say that it was wrong—and yet her body was telling her otherwise. Could something be wrong when it felt so right? she pondered distractedly. When his fingers were now tiptoeing down her neck towards her breasts, before skating with practised ease to alight on the aching swell of one silk-covered nipple.

      Zara swallowed down the dryness in her throat. ‘This is cr-crazy,’ she gasped as his mouth bent to one aching breast.

      Nikolai flicked his tongue over the thin silk, which was the only barrier between him and her bare nipple, as he heard her whispered little gasp. Did it make her feel better if she let herself protest about what they were doing, he wondered cynically, even though she clearly wanted him just as much as he wanted her?

      But women were contrary creatures—he knew that. Often they liked to disguise their own earthy desire for fear that a man was judging them for being too ‘easy'. Should he reassure her now that he didn’t give a curse about convention and that she could be as ‘easy’ as she liked.

      He drifted his hand down over one slender hip, his mouth briefly leaving the now-moist material of her gown and noting that he had left a darkened ring over her breast. ‘You do realise that you have the most fantastic body?’ he questioned. ‘And that your dress shows it off quite beautifully.’

      She shook her head, only dimly aware that she was blowing the opportunity to talk about the dress. ‘St-stop it,’ she whispered.

      ‘Stop complimenting you? I thought all women liked to be complimented.’

      ‘That’s not what I meant,’ she breathed. ‘I meant, that you shouldn’t be doing…that.’

      ‘But you like me doing that.’ He felt her little squirm of acquiescence. ‘And you don’t want me to stop it, do you?’

      ‘I…do.’

      ‘No, you don’t. You want me to move my hand down to your ankle, don’t you? Like this.’

      ‘Nikolai!’ Zara swallowed as his index finger made a provocative little circling movement there.

      ‘And then I think you want me slowly to slide it up underneath your dress. Like this, da?’

      ‘Nikolai,’ she breathed as she felt the brush of his hand resting on the curve of her calf.

      ‘Why, you’re not even wearing any stockings,’ he observed unevenly. ‘Just bare legs. What a very wicked young lady you are. No wonder that dress was clinging so provocatively to you as you walked into the ballroom.’

      ‘Oh!’ She could feel the sudden spring of her body in response to his feather-light touch—as if it had been woken from a deep, deep sleep and all her senses had suddenly come to urgent life.

      ‘Listen, we’re really very close to my house,’ he said unevenly as the car slid to a halt at some traffic lights. He was so aroused by their encounter that he could barely get the words out and only supreme self-control stopped him from continuing what they were doing. But he really couldn’t make love to her in the middle of a busy London street, could he? Not with his chauffeur sitting behind the darkened screen and the possibility of some damned traffic warden rapping on the window. ‘Why don’t you change your mind and come up for a drink?’

      Zara stilled. Perhaps it was the blatant falsehood about having a drink when they both knew what was really on his mind—and on hers—which made common sense crash into her mind like a dark spectre. That and the fact that she was making out in the back of a car with a man she barely knew—and she was risking ruining her friend’s precious dress along with her own reputation!

      Her heart thudding, she pushed his hand away and slithered to the far end of the seat, her trembling fingers groping for her feathered handbag, which lay beside her like a wounded bird. ‘No!’

      His eyes narrowed but he felt the unmistakeable flicker of irritation. ‘Isn’t it a little late in the day for game-playing?’

      ‘I’m not playing …’ But the words died on her lips because she was. She was playing games. Dangerous games.

      Pretending to be something she wasn’t. Masquerading as his wealthy equal. Maybe that kind of women did make easy love to men they’d just met at a party—but she wasn’t one of them. She amended her choice of words to allow her to extricate herself with a modicum of dignity. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s very late—and I’m tired.’

      Nikolai felt the sharp spear of disappointment. Saw from the look on her face that she meant it—and he bit back his frustration. Of course she was playing games, probably in the mistaken belief that her refusal would make him think more highly of her. His mouth hardened. Did he have the time or the inclination to go through the necessary number of dates which she decreed obligatory before she let him take her to bed? Was she, he asked himself brutally, worth it?

      His eyes drank in the wide green eyes, the flushed cheeks and the kiss-bruised lips and he felt a pulse begin to flicker at his temple. Yes, she was worth it—for novelty value as well as her curiously