The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

in Ukrainian, Portuguese and German.”

      “So you could read scientific texts.”

      “Among other things.” She blushed intriguingly.

      “What things?” he asked, his mouth temptingly close to hers.

      He wanted to kiss her. She wanted the kiss, too—there could be no doubt.

      “Erotic romance.”

      “In Ukrainian?” he asked, utterly surprised for the third time that night.

      This woman would never be a boring companion.

      “Yes.”

      “I am amazed.”

      “Why?”

      “If you like reading about sex so much, how are you still a virgin?”

      “I like reading murder mysteries, too, but I haven’t gone out and killed anybody.”

      He laughed, unable to remember the last time he’d been so entertained by a female companion.

      This marriage he had to bring about would not be a hardship. Chanel Tanner would make a very amiable wife.

      With that thought in mind, he took the first step in convincing her that they belonged together.

      He kissed her, taking command of her mouth more gently than he might have before her revelation.

      She couldn’t know it, but her virginity was a gift to him in more ways than one.

      First, that he was the only man who would ever share her body in this way was not something to take lightly. Not even in this modern age.

      But second, and more important to his efforts on behalf of Volyarus, once Demyan had awakened her passions for the first time, Chanel would be more likely to accept his proposal of marriage.

      It meant adjusting his schedule up for her seduction, but he wasn’t leaving her tonight. Doing so might cause irreparable harm to the building of trust between them. She needed to know he wanted her, and he did.

      Unlikely as he would have considered it, he desired this shy, bookish scientist above all other women.

      She didn’t want to believe in forever with him, but she would learn. He had spoken the truth earlier. Prince Demyan of Volyarus did not break his promises.

      And he had promised King Fedir that Demyan would marry Chanel Tanner.

      She whimpered against his lips, her sexual desire so close to the surface he thought she needed her first climax to come early so she could enjoy the lead-up to the next one.

      With careful precision, he built the kiss until the small sounds of need were falling from her lips to his in a steady cascade. Control starting to slip, he deepened the kiss, wanting more of her taste, more of her response...more of everything Chanel had to give.

      A small voice in the back of his mind prompted that the time had come to pull back and lead her into the bedroom.

      Only, his lips didn’t want to obey, and for the first time in memory Demyan found himself lost in a kiss, his plans for a suave seduction cracking under the weight of his more primitive need.

      He had just the presence of mind to move her backward toward the sofa. Unbelievably, neither of them was going to be able to stay vertical much longer.

      Demyan maneuvered them both so Chanel sat sprawled across his lap, her dress hiked up, her naked thighs pressing against his cloth-covered ones.

      He never let her lips slide so much as a centimeter away from his.

      Demyan liked sex. According to Maks, he’d had more than his fair share of partners. Some of them were very experienced in the art of seduction, women who knew exactly how to use their bodies for maximum effect. None of them had turned him on as much as the uncalculated and wholly honest way Chanel responded to his kiss.

      She moved with innocent need against him, her body undulating in unconscious sensuality that drove him insane with the need to show her what those types of movements led to.

      He brought his hand down and cupped her backside, guiding those untutored rolls of her hips into something that would give them both more pleasure and fan the flames of desire between them into an all-out inferno.

      She jolted and moaned as her panty-clad apex rubbed over his trapped hard-on. He couldn’t hold back his own sounds of raw sexual desire and keep from arching his hips to increase the friction.

      The kiss went nuclear and he did nothing to stop it, demanding entrance into her mouth with his tongue and getting it without even a token resistance.

      This woman did not play the coquette. Her honest passion was more exciting than any practiced seduction could be. She couldn’t know, though; she was too unused to physical intimacy. For that ignorance, at least, he could be glad.

      She could not take advantage of a weakness she did not recognize in him, and damned if he would point it out. He might not be able to control himself completely this first time with her, but no doubt that was a big part of the reason why.

      It was her first time and he found that highly erotic.

      The one benefit was that it was clear Chanel was completely out of control and definitely imprinting on him sexually.

      Equally important, after what she’d revealed, was for her to realize he wanted her.

      As she’d demanded, he would show her.

      She would never again doubt her feminine appeal to him, not after tonight. And perhaps that, even more than her virginity, would lead her to accept his speed-record-breaking proposal when it came.

      That it might no longer be completely about his duty to country was a thought he dismissed as unimportant.

      He would have her. She would have him and whether she knew it or not, she needed him. He was good for her.

      It started with now, giving her what she hadn’t realized she was missing.

      After insuring she kept the rhythm that made her body shake, he mapped her body with his hands through the soft green silk of her dress, caressing her in ways reserved for a lover.

      He enjoyed this part of sex, touching a woman in ways no one else was allowed and, in Chanel’s case, never had been.

      Knowing a woman had put her body in his very-capable-to-dole-out-pleasure hands turned him on. Demyan liked that control, too. For reasons he didn’t feel the need to dwell on, that knowledge was even more satisfying with Chanel than it had been with other women.

      She might not realize it, but the kind of response she gave meant she would let him do anything. That acknowledgment came with a heady kind of enjoyment destined to undermine his self-control further if he wasn’t very careful.

      It was important for her pleasure, particularly this first time, that he not let that happen. He had to maintain some level of premeditation, or he could hurt her.

      That reminder sobered him enough to think—at least a little—again.

      Touching her was good, though. Too damn good.

      He cupped her breasts, reveling in the catch of her breath as his thumbs brushed over turgid nipples. He wanted to feel them naked, but even this was incredible.

      His sex pressed against the placket of his trousers in response to the feel of her in his hands.

      He pinched, knowing the layers of silk and her bra would be no true barrier between those buds and the sensation he gave her.

      She tore her mouth from his, her eyes opening, pupils blown with bliss almost swallowing the stormy irises. “I... That...”

      “Is good.” He did it again, increasing the pressure just enough to give maximum pleasure that might border on pain but would never go over. “Say it.”