The Platinum Collection. Maisey Yates

out of her receptive body and then plunging back into her hot slick depths again with a rough growl of satisfaction.

      He taught her that rhythm very quickly and the constant physical stimulation fed into the overwhelming excitement he had unleashed. Her slim body rose below his again, her eyes like stars as the ripples of her second orgasm pulsed through them both, so that he drove even harder into her and shuddered over her with a shout of satisfaction he could not restrain.

      Her heart was thumping so fast that even lying down she felt dizzy and breathless and utterly unlike her usual sane and sensible self. Her arms closed round him. ‘Is it always that exciting?’ she whispered shyly.

      Mikhail pinned her to his hot damp body. ‘Rarely. It’s the best sex I’ve ever had, milaya moya.’

      And for a split second she was pleased by the compliment and the overpowering sense of intimacy that she was enjoying while she lay in his arms. But the feeling of peace and relaxation didn’t last once she thought about the label of having given him the best sex he’d ever had. Somehow instead of making her feel complimented that made her feel cheap, as if she had supplied just another novelty experience to a male who had already enjoyed a wide variety of experiences in the field of sex.

      ‘Time for a shower,’ he breathed, rolling her to the side of the bed with him and urging her in the direction of the bathroom.

      Her legs felt as collapsible as a deckchair’s and she clung to a muscular male arm, wincing when she felt the dulled ache at the heart of her.

      ‘You’re sore …’ Mikhail husked, studying her expressive face, laughing when she blushed crimson. ‘Well, what did you expect?’

      ‘I should go back to my room,’ Kat muttered, pulling back from the big tiled wall he was about to step around.

      ‘No, I want you to stay,’ Mikhail confided, hauling her up against his big powerful body as he switched on the water.

      ‘Thought you liked your privacy,’ Kat reminded him tautly, disconcerted by the amount of intimacy being forced on her all at once, uneasy with her nakedness below the strong overhead lights.

      ‘But I like the thought of you in my bed first thing in the morning even more,’ Mikhail growled against her throat as he pinned her to the tiled wall, dropped his hands to her hips to hold her there and crushed her lush mouth with hungry urgency beneath his.

      Imprisoned by his big powerful body, Kat couldn’t breathe for excitement and she discovered that even the tenderness between her thighs couldn’t stop her wanting him again with a level of hunger that shook her. ‘Now my hair’s wet,’ she complained prosaically.

      ‘You’ll survive,’ Mikhail breathed, letting his tongue delve between her lips in an urgent rhythmic foray that mimicked the act of intercourse so closely that she quivered with spellbound yearning, the distended tips of her breasts grazing his hard pectoral muscles. Against her stomach she could feel him rigid and urgent again and she marvelled at his speedy recovery.

      And Kat, who never would have dreamt of going to bed with wet hair forgot about her hair, and forgot to worry about what it would look like the next morning. In the grip of passion, Mikhail was too determined to withstand. He strode from the shower with her wrapped round him and seated her on the granite vanity counter. It was the work of a moment for him to snatch a contraceptive from a drawer, tear the packet open and don a condom. He stepped between her spread legs to ease into her honeyed softness again with a sigh of profound relief.

      ‘Thought you were going to wait until tomorrow,’ Kat reminded him, her teeth gritting on a spasm of erotic pleasure so devouring it resembled pain because he was being extraordinarily cautious and gentle and slow. Little tremors of exquisite excitement made her clench tight around him.

      ‘Never was any good at waiting,’ Mikhail growled, fighting to stay in control as he rocked against her, fearful of hurting her but wanting her so desperately it was like a mounting fever in his blood.

      The ball of his thumb circled the little nub of nerve-endings at the swollen heart of her and she moaned wildly under his mouth, her arms tightening round him, her nails digging into his shoulders as he quickened the pace of his possession.

      In the morning he took her again, his mouth tracing the corded delicacy of her throat to awaken her before he sank his thickness into her receptive body over and over again until she screamed her explosive release into the pillow beneath her head.

      ‘Shower with me,’ he urged afterwards.

      Kat knew he wasn’t to be trusted in the shower and reluctantly laughed. ‘I’ll use my own.’

      ‘Breakfast in ten minutes,’ he told her firmly.

      Kat didn’t move until he had vanished safely into his bathroom. The ache of overindulgence was so strong that she gritted her teeth when she got out of bed and returned to her own room to freshen up. A cry of horror was wrenched from her when she looked in a mirror and saw her curls all standing on end in a wall of frizz. She looked like a rag doll who had been tortured. With no time to do anything with her recalcitrant curls, she scraped the messy russet torrent back and secured her tumbled hair with a clip. Showered, she dabbed on a little light make-up, trying to conceal the swollen contours of her mouth and the evidence of his stubble marking her with a beard rash across her cheeks and throat. She pulled on underwear and yanked a sundress from the dressing room, hurrying because she knew he was so impatient that he would come looking for her if she didn’t appear on time.

      So that was sex, she reflected in a daze, so much more than she had expected: more exciting, more intimate, more everything really. And she had loved everything he had done to her, had swiftly got over her shyness and uncertainty to appreciate that he was a good lover and that she was lucky to have had so considerate and skilled an introduction to intimacy. But now she was wondering if she had lived up to his expectations or whether at the end of the day he could be wondering what all the fuss had been about.

      Breakfast was served on the extensive private deck beyond Mikhail’s suite. Sunlight glancing off the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean sea, Kat sipped her coffee and tried to stop smiling, indeed to cram a lid down on the bubbling happiness welling up inside her. Happiness wasn’t fitting. They didn’t have a relationship for her to celebrate or pin hopes on. All they had was an affair and now that they were actually having an affair that agreement they had made had to become history, Kat thought ruefully.

      ‘You can’t give me the farmhouse back now,’ Kat told Mikhail squarely.

      An ebony brow quirked. ‘Why not?’

      ‘It would be inappropriate now that we’re sleeping together,’ Kat pointed out flatly as she took a seat.

      ‘According to whose book of sexual etiquette?’ Mikhail queried very drily.

      ‘If I accepted the house back now, it would be like accepting payment for sex—’

      ‘Don’t look for trouble where none exists. I don’t offer payment for sex, never have, never will.’

      ‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable now letting you return the house to me,’ Kat explained stubbornly.

      ‘Tough,’ Mikhail remarked, unimpressed. ‘We made that agreement and I see no reason to deviate from it. That house is your home.’

      ‘That house belongs to you now,’ Kat retorted in crisp disagreement.

      Mikhail vented a sound of exasperation. ‘Zatk’nis! Shut up!’ he told her impatiently. ‘You’re talking nonsense.’

      Her green eyes flared. ‘Think about what I’m saying … You know it makes sense!’

      ‘But I’m not listening,’ Mikhail responded with an imperious shift of a lean brown hand that dismissed the discussion in its entirety.

      Her teeth gnashed together.

      ‘I tell you what to do … you do it,’ Mikhail drawled softly. ‘That was also in