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The prospect was more than a little daunting.
Nana had always said Gillian ignored what she did not want to deal with and she’d done a fair job of that while dating Maks, but his somber demeanor tonight forced her to evaluate what his proposal would mean to both of them.
Ultimately, however, it didn’t matter.
She would have given up the creature comforts of civilization and moved to Antarctica to be with him.
Taking on the role of princess and living at least half the year in the Baltic island country of Volyarus would not be allowed to frighten her.
She loved him, Maks the man.
She could and would live with Maksim of the House of Yurkovich, Crown Prince of Volyarus.
CHAPTER TWO
DINNER WAS WONDERFUL. Although the solemn air never left Maks, he charmed Gillian with his usual urbanity.
There were several times he seemed on the verge of discussing something important, but he never followed through.
This further proof of a nervousness she never would have expected beguiled Gillian. She found herself falling just that much more in love with the man of her dreams as The evening wore on.
After dinner, he took her to listen to live jazz, one of her favorite things. The band was made up of musicians who had been around long enough they understood the music and how to live it, not just play it.
Relaxing, she was even relieved that the music prevented discussion, and the odd pressure she’d felt Maks was under seemed to lighten.
Afterward, she asked him back to her apartment and as expected, he accepted.
He’d taken her coat and laid it over the back of one of her club chairs, but stood as if not knowing what came next. It was so unlike him that she took pity and suggested another drink.
“I’d better not.”
“You don’t have to drive. Not if you don’t want to.” She offered her bed for the night in a similar oblique fashion to how she’d done on numerous occasions before.
He usually took her up on it, only refusing when he had early morning meetings or travel plans that would require him leaving in the wee hours and disturbing her rest.
So, it surprised her when he hesitated now. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Did he think she wanted to spend less time with him with marriage in the offing? She wasn’t going to pretend sexual innocence for the tabloids once their relationship went public. Though she appreciated the fact he’d kept it under wraps thus far, at some point in the very near future, everyone would know about them.
And she did not mind, but she would not pretend, either.
“Yes,” she said firmly.
“We need to talk.”
“After.” Suddenly she knew she wanted words of love spoken between them, even if they only came from her before he proposed.
She would tell him while they made love. He could propose after.
Yearning she would not think of denying darkened his espresso gaze. “You are certain this is a good idea?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t sure where the need came from, but she could not bear the thought of agreeing to marry him without admitting her feelings for him.
If only with her body, then so be it, but she would express her love for him tonight and she had hope the words would make it past her lips as well.
Need did not make those three small words any easier to say. She could no more simply blurt them out than she could dance naked on a table at Chez Rennet.
While her grandparents had told Gillian they loved her and accepted the words in return, it wasn’t daily like her nana claimed her papa did with her. And Gillian had only ever said the words to her own parents when she was younger.
Neither had ever returned them and she could not remember the last time she’d had the courage to speak her love for the absentee adults in her life. She’d never spoken them to another man, but then she’d never been in love before, either. Her heart wasn’t so easy to reach.
With Maks, she had the option of showing him physically what she felt so strongly emotionally. He would know she loved him at the end of this night. One way or another.
He shook his head. “You are a very different sort of woman, aren’t you?”
She didn’t think so, but she liked the way he looked at her like she was something special, so she didn’t deny it. And really, wasn’t he supposed to think she was extraordinary? Their future would be rather grim if she was just like any other woman to him.
She certainly considered Maks a man above all others.
Maks took her hand and tugged her toward the hall that led to her bedroom. “Come. I have a mind to make love to you in comfort.”
They’d been intimate in the living room many times, but she didn’t mind him considering this time important and special. Maybe he found the words just as difficult to speak, but this was his way of showing how much he cared, too.
Regardless of his reasoning, her heart beat a rapid rhythm as she let him lead her into the darkened bedroom. Maks dropped her hand before crossing to the small table and turning on the lamp. Made of bronze and fashioned like a statue, the clump of three calla lilies had bulbs in each of the glass flowers that cast a soft golden glow over the room.
He’d given her the painting of a blonde woman standing with her head bowed in a field of the same blooms hanging on the wall above it. Maks had said it reminded him of her.
She thought the painting far too ethereal to have her likeness, but she loved it.
He turned to face her now, his chiseled features set in somber lines. “You give me a great gift.” He sighed, releasing some great burden. “I needed this.”
She smiled, her emotions choking her but still not rising to her lips to say aloud.
He seemed to understand because he came back to her and pulled her into a passionate kiss that let them both get lost for a little while. They were breathing heavily when their mouths separated and she was wrapped securely in his arms.
“You are a very good kisser.”
“Or you are,” he teased, more like his normal self.
“You’re the one with all the experience.” She hadn’t been a virgin when they met, but she might as well have been for all her experience.
Two different fumbling attempts during her university days at intimacy that ended in dismal failure and none of the pleasure she found in his arms had left her with no real practical experience at pleasing a partner.
Maks had never minded and had always been extremely patient and happy even to teach her the joys of two bodies coming together when real attraction existed on both sides.
“We are good together like this.” He sounded almost sad about that.
But he had nothing to be sad about, so she had to be misreading that tone in his voice. Or was he one of those men who believed that marriage meant sex went by the wayside?
She’d show him otherwise if he was.
She was a twenty-first-century woman who believed that not only were women supposed to enjoy sex, but that it belonged very firmly and frequently in the marriage bed.
She didn’t say any of that, but concentrated on divesting him of his suit. He helped by toeing off his shoes and socks and yanking his dress shirt over his head once his tie had been loosened and the top few buttons undone.
“Eager, aren’t you?” she teased.
“You have no idea.” He nearly ripped her dress getting it off, her bra and panties disappearing with none of his usual finesse or time spent on visual appreciation for her preference for matching lace.
They were naked moments later. He looked at her then, his brown eyes eating her up with hot hunger.
She could feel her body’s response to that look, her nipples tightening even more than they already were, her inner walls contracting with the need to be filled by his hard sex.
Heat suffused her from her toes all the way up her limbs, sending a blush of desire over her cheeks and shivers of emotionally laced physical need quaking through her.
They’d barely touched and she wanted sex with this man in this moment more than she’d ever wanted anything or another man, Maks included. Knowing this intimacy was the prelude of a lifetime together increased her passion in ways she would never have expected.
The expression in his eyes said he was similarly affected. Maks looked desperate with his need to be with her.
Without thought, she stepped into his arms and it felt so right when he lifted her like a bride and carried her to the bed. He managed to yank back the covers and top sheet without dropping her.
She helped by wrapping her arms around his neck. Not so helpful were the small, exploratory kisses she placed along his jaw and down his neck. She stopped to inhale where his neck met his shoulder.
The subtle fragrance of his Armani cologne mixed with his own masculine scent triggering a reflexive response in Gillian’s core that she could not stop, even if she had wanted to. And she didn’t.
She loved the feel of her body preparing itself for his possession, reveled in the reaction that was primal and visceral to things like his smell and as simple a touch as his hand brushing down her hip as he laid her on the mattress.
“You are all that I want,” he whispered in her ear. “If only…”
She didn’t know if only what. In that moment, could not begin to care. His hands were moving over her, bringing her pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known.
Even at his touch.
There was such profundity in that moment, she did not see how their wedding night could possibly be any better or more special.
She touched him, too, mapping his body with her hands, loving the feel of his muscles, the tickle of his chest hair against her fingertips.
This amazing man, who was literally a prince and business tycoon rolled into one, belonged to her and as difficult as she might find that to believe, the proof was in her position. Naked, in bed with him, free to caress his masculine body as she liked.
“You and Demyan keep yourselves in amazing shape,” she opined happily.
Maks’s face twisted at the mention of his cousin’s name. Another time she would have asked about that, but not tonight.
What they were doing was too important. What she was doing was life-altering, especially if she could force those three all-important words out of her voice box.
“Our sparring was rough today,” Maks said, as if he realized she might wonder at his reaction.
She brushed her fingertip over a bruise she’d just noticed. “It looks like it.”
“That is nothing,” Maks said with his typical arrogance and pride that would never admit Demyan may have gotten the better of him in the sparring ring.
His cousin was hard to get to know, but the older man and Maks were close. She liked knowing he had a friend he could trust. Maks didn’t live in a world where trust or even trustworthiness came in great supply. Gillian understood that world; she’d been on the edges of it because of her father for her whole life.
She leaned forward and kissed the discolored skin, then the area all around it.
Maks groaned. “I like.”
She knew he did. He loved being pampered, even in bed. He gave as good as he got, though, so she never minded giving either.
He rolled her onto her back and came over her, his big body covering hers both sensually and protectively. Maks looked down into her eyes, his own dark with emotion. “You are so perfect for me. Too perfect.”
She just shook her head. Didn’t he know there could be no too much about it?
He kissed her like he didn’t want to discuss it. Like he couldn’t bear not kissing her one more second. Like she belonged to him wholly and completely.
She kissed him back with her heart on her lips, because she did.
He pressed her into the mattress, the kiss going on and on and on, increasing intensity with every passing minute until the fire blazing between them was plasma hot.
All thought and feeling outside the pleasure their bodies brought to one another disintegrated in its path.
Wanting him inside her, now, Gillian spread her legs in invitation.
Instead of accepting, Maks moved back, breaking the kiss. “Not yet.”
“Yes,” she demanded.
But he shook his head, the expression in his eyes both feral and intense. He began to touch her again, this time with the clear and express purpose of driving her insane with delight.
He found the spot on her foot that made her shiver with need and the area of her inner thigh that made her ache to be filled. He caressed the curve of her waist and moved up to give careful attention to her breasts, licking and laving, kneading and playing until her nipples hurt with the need to be touched, too.
Only then did he put his mouth over one engorged tip and bite lightly.
She cried out, a mini orgasm going off inside her.
He let out a dark chuckle and sucked her nipple while her body writhed under him of its own volition. He pinched her other nipple between his thumb and forefinger before brushing it featherlightly with his thumb. He did this over and over again as she moaned for more.
She was begging with her body and a few inarticulate “Pleases” by the time he pressed her thighs wide and surged inside her without a condom for the first time.
The thought they could be making a child increased her ecstasy to the point that her entire body convulsed with climax on his first initial thrust.
He didn’t slow down and she didn’t ask him to. He kept surging in and out of her, building pleasure that never actually slipped into lassitude until she came for the second time, her contractions so harsh, the rigidity of her body thrust him upward.
He never lost his position inside her, though, and shouted with pure male triumph when he came.
He looked down at her, his expression so intent, it sent aftershocks quivering through her. “Thank you.”
She shook her head, no words coming out. Not even the three she wanted so badly to say, but then maybe they weren’t necessary. After that, he had to know how she felt. She had no doubts about his feelings for her. A man could not make love to a woman with that level of passion and feel none of the finer emotions.
