Stripped (19 page)
“Right time, I’m the wrong guy.” He clamped his mouth closed, having not even realized that he’d reached that point in his life where he felt his mortality and the need to leave a piece of himself behind.
He supposed it was true enough—why else did he gravitate to Derek? The little boy filled that void. But he’d never given his attachment to Kate’s son consideration long enough to reach the obvious conclusion.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Natalya said with a laugh. “I’ve met worse prospects for repopulating the world.”
“Wrong guy, trust me.”
“Kate says you’re good with Derek.”
“One day a week.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
“Let’s change the subject.” He gave her a grin. “Tell me about Russia.”
Again, he caught her off guard, evidenced by her blinking and the quick way her face paled. Not a good subject, evidently. Well, he’d do his best to keep it comfortable. “Did you meet Sergei there or here?”
“Here. When I worked at the… law firm.” Her expression shifted, as if she grasped at memories. Or maybe stories. “In Los Angeles.” She chuckled and switched one crossed leg for the other. “You did background checks on us, I take it?”
“Any smart employer does. What happened to your folks?”
Jesus, Moretti, chill. This isn’t an interrogation.
He cleared his throat to soften the abrupt question. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out like I meant it to.”
Shaking her head, she lifted a palm to fend off his apology. “No, it’s okay. I don’t remember them. Not my real ones. I imagine they were wonderful people. They were killed in 1976 when their plane crashed. They were going to visit my dying grandmother. I’d have been on the plane, but at the last minute, they decided not to take me with them and hired a nanny.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, really. I don’t remember them at all.”
She combed her fingers through her hair, then smoothed her skirt again. He was making her uncomfortable, damn it.
“My adoptive parents were more interested in the allotment from the government and a free pair of hands to mind the store than in me. They call now and then, like last night, hands out and begging. Reminding me what I
owe
them for feeding and clothing me through childhood.”
At that, he flinched. No wonder she’d fled Moscow as soon as she turned seventeen. With no family to keep her there, America must have been tempting.
But why’d she go back?
He decided to wait for those answers. He’d come here to accomplish something more important.
Crossing the distance between them, he stopped at her chair and caught her hands in his. With a gentle tug, he pulled her to her feet. The close proximity of her body hit him full on, filling his blood with the heat that ebbed off her skin. Her sweet lilac perfume drifted to his nose. Her breasts brushed against his chest. At the light scrape of her erect nipples, his cock stirred against his thigh.
Holy God, he’d been crazy to think he could remain relatively immune. She was like a magnet, and he iron filings. Or maybe they were both slivers of metal standing too close to the same magnetic rod. Hell, he didn’t know. But, Christ, he wanted her, and the unnatural
hitch in her breathing told him she fought the same fierce desire that stormed through his body.
He slid one hand up the length of her arm to her hair and captured a thick shank of auburn. Rubbing the silken strands between his thumb and forefinger, he watched the golden highlights glint in the low light of her solitary lamp. Natural. Like every other fantastic inch of her body. He pushed the long length behind her shoulder and gently traced the delicate line of her jaw with his knuckles.
She closed her eyes. Drew in an unsteady breath.
“You asked me for something earlier,” he murmured, his own breathing becoming heavier.
Her hand moved against his thigh. He braced for the push that would distance her beyond reach. Waited for the brutal announcement she’d changed her mind.
Instead, her fingers settled on his waist. Tightened. Urged him a hairsbreadth closer.
Sirens screamed in his head. He wanted this too much. If he crossed this line, he was heading straight for catastrophe.
Screw it. He’d survived worse.
He lowered his mouth to hers.
B
The slide of his tongue across the seam of her mouth urged her to open to him. She parted her lips, caught his, suckled at his upper lip. His fingers moved from the side of her face to twine through the hair
at the nape of her neck. With an impatient grunt, he angled her head where he wanted it and deepened the kiss. Rich, masculine flavor assaulted her senses.
Slow possessive strokes of his tongue threatened to draw her straight out of her skin. Every nerve ending in her body rose on end, charged by some unfamiliar electric current in desperate need of grounding. She fanned her hands over his hard pectorals, soaking up the heat of his body. His heart drummed hard beneath her palm, a mirror of the pounding behind her ribs. The fabric of his shirt scraped against her fingertips as her senses sharpened to a fine point, and she began to feel him in a way she’d never felt any other man.
He dominated her body as he dominated her mouth. Thick arms imprisoned her in a delightful paradise. Even thicker thighs framed her unsteady legs. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to, and dear God, she
didn’t
want to. Desire stirred in the depths of her womb, spreading a slow-burning ache through her lower body and moistening the flesh between her legs. She wanted to be closer, though she was already as close as their clothing would allow. She wanted more. Whatever he would give.
A mewl bubbled to the back of her throat, part protest, part plea.
Brandon swallowed the sound, and if it were possible, his arm around her tightened more. His own husky sound of satisfaction vibrated against her lips. The hard evidence of his shared arousal pressed against the tops of her thighs, taunting her with the pleasure his hands had granted earlier in the day. Visions of how he would slide into her body, in the same slow, thorough way his tongue slid against hers, rose behind her closed eyelids.
The combined effect of heat beneath her hands, restless agitation in her veins, and the languid caress of his tongue pushed her into sensory overload. Too much at once.
Not enough.
Oh, Lord, she needed to breathe.
Natalya tore her mouth away and turned her face aside, gasping for air. His equally hard breath stirred her hair. He brought his hand
to the crown of her head and guided her cheek to his shoulder. For several moments they stood unmoving, the only sound, their jagged breathing.
Brandon broke the silence first. “You know where we’re going, Natalya.” His hand skimmed around her ribs to fit between their bodies and cover her breast. Her lips parted on a silent gasp as he flicked his thumb over her aroused nipple. “You know how this ends, and you want it too.”
Yes, she did, and she couldn’t remember a time when she’d wanted a man the way she wanted Brandon Moretti. But the easy way he reduced her to warmed honey unnerved her more than the fierce desire that clamped her womb into a knot. She didn’t know how to just surrender to pleasure, to yield the control, and Brandon wrested that control out of her hands effortlessly.
Naturally.
She couldn’t allow that to happen. Couldn’t lose herself that far.
She stepped back, intending to extract herself from the magic of his fingers and escape. When she could discipline her body and mind, she could entertain Brandon’s suggestion. “Yes, but—”
He followed her retreat, forbidding her to flee as he cupped her other breast in his free hand. His fingers gently worked the soft flesh, his gaze never breaking from hers. The burn in that tawny stare sent rivulets of excitement thrumming through her blood. He knew what he wanted, and damned if she was going to stop him.
Brandon took a puckered nipple between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed. Natalya felt the pinch all the way through her womb, and her pussy contracted with need. Her thong was damp, the ache between her legs crying out for the stroke of his hands, the intrusion of his cock.
“But?” His voice was husky against the backdrop of reverberating bass. “But what?” He released her breasts to slide one large palm down her side, over the curve of her hip, and along her thigh. Gathering her skirt in his fingers, he exposed her bare leg at the same time he
popped the solitary button of her dark green suit jacket. His gaze seared through the red lace that covered her breasts, warming her skin.
“I don’t—I mean, I’m—”
“Wet,” he murmured as his fingers crept beneath the curve of her bottom and slipped between her legs. He ran a solitary knuckle over the damp scrap of cloth that covered her pussy. “So very wet.”
A gasp sliced through her as Brandon nudged the worthless shield aside and stroked one thick finger through her slickened folds. At the sound, his eyes snapped back to hers. “You would be heaven on my tongue.”
Images flashed through her mind—her ankles hooked at his shoulders, his tongue spearing through her folds, swirling over her clit, edging into her opening. The vivid snapshots combined with the riot of sensation his fingers produced and arced sensation through her from head to toe. She had never given one man complete freedom with her body, but she wanted to now. With Brandon. Here. Tonight.
Reaching for him, she moved to her toes in search of his mouth. He gave it to her briefly, tugging her lower lip between his teeth and then easing the sting of his bite with a slow sweep of his tongue. Then his mouth dusted over the corner of hers, inched across her cheek, and dipped to the super-sensitive spot beneath the hollow of her ear. The gentle scrape of his teeth pulled another gasp from her constricted lungs.
She hadn’t realized they were moving until her thighs touched the edge of her desk and she came to an abrupt stop. When she did, Brandon eased his hand from between her legs and used both to push her jacket off her shoulders. He drew the sleeves down her arms slowly, his lips following the path of revealed skin and dusting warm kisses over her goose-pimpled flesh. He teased the inside of her elbow with the tip of his tongue, nipped at the delicate bones of her wrist.
When he had removed the garment completely, he dropped it behind her back on the desk, then picked up her hands one by one and
planted a lingering kiss inside each palm. His lips still hovering over the base of her wrist, he looked up at her through thick, dark eyelashes. “Tell me what you want, Natalya,” he whispered.
What she wanted—the rehearsed answer rose instinctively. “Fu—”
No.
She wasn’t going to say it. Those words were reserved for Dmitri. She swallowed to gain control over her throat. “You,” she murmured. “I want you, deep inside me.”
A slow, wicked smile spread over his mouth as satisfaction glinted in Brandon’s eyes. But with that self-satisfied smirk, something darker, something more potent, glinted in those tawny depths. Natalya didn’t know what it was, but the gleam awakened a soul-deep hunger. She wanted far more than Brandon’s cock inside her. What, exactly, she couldn’t define. But the promised orgasm didn’t seem like nearly enough.
She laced her fingertips in his hair and tugged his mouth to hers. His kiss was feral and wild, and it stoked the fire in her veins until she thought she might burn in his arms. Her body melted into his, her pussy aligning with the hard ridge of his erection, and she rubbed herself against that hot, confined length.
As if he shared the same wild need, his hands gripped her bottom and ground her against his cock. Like he needed her every bit as immediately as she needed him. Like he too fought to hold on to some semblance of control.
He dragged his mouth away from hers, panting. “Fuck.” Loosening his grip on her buttocks, he closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “Slow down, sweetheart, or it’s going to be over before we get started.”
“No.” She shook her head as she tugged at his belt. Not slow. Slow would let her think, and right now she didn’t want one bit of logic interfering with the incredible pleasure building in her veins.
Brandon batted at her hands and let out a light chuckle. “Natalya. We have—”
The rest of whatever he’d intended to say died off on a hiss as she dodged his swatting hands, freed his jutting cock from his pants, and
took him into her hand. His hips thrust forward, sliding himself deeper into her firm grip. She ran her thumb over the smooth, engorged head, thrilling when a drop of moisture beaded on the tip. Not slow—not slow at all.
“Christ,” he muttered as he jerked out of her hand. “You’ve got me on the edge.”
Just where she wanted him. But if he wasn’t going to let her take the lead, she’d give him the illusion of control. Flashing him a soft smile, she whispered, “What do
you
want, Brandon?”
His eyes flashed dangerously. His jaw morphed into a tight line. Annoyance? No… not annoyance, she realized as he tucked his fingers into the waistband of her skirt and hauled her closer. Unraveled.
He set his hands on her shoulders and guided her around in a half circle. “Turn around. I’ve wanted you on the desk since you walked into my office.”
Excitement bubbled through her, even as uncertainty flickered at the base of her skull. She’d held on to the power by giving him the choice, but what he chose exposed her beyond simple nakedness.
Brandon didn’t give her mind time to form objections. In a heartbeat’s passing he’d stripped her of her skirt and released the clasp of her bra. His big, warm hands wound around her body to lift her breasts, gathering them together. As he ran his thumbs over her distended nipples, his body pressed against her back, strong, firm, and bare. The panels of his shirt brushed against her sides, but his muscular chest was warm and smooth against her spine. His heart drummed into her shoulder blade. His thick cock nestled between her buttocks.