Chantelle Shaw: Ruthless Russian, Lost Innocence

‘Do you have medication for your headache?’

She forced her eyes open to find him standing close beside her, and for some inexplicable reason she wanted to rest her pounding head against the broad strength of his chest. ‘My prescription painkillers are at home. I usually carry some with me, but I forgot them tonight,’ she muttered ruefully.

‘Then I’d better get you home quickly.’ Vadim helped her into the car and strode round to the driver’s side, coiling his long frame behind the wheel. ‘Here, let me do that.’ He leaned across her and adjusted her seat belt, and despite the throbbing pain in her head Ella was acutely conscious of his closeness, her senses flaring as she breathed in the subtle scent of his cologne.

In the glow from the street-lamp his swarthy olive skin gleamed like silk, but the brilliance of his blue eyes was shielded by thick black lashes. His mouth was inches from hers, and she recalled the firm pressure of his lips easing hers apart, demanding a response she had been helpless to deny. She suddenly felt hot, when seconds ago she had been freezing cold, but she could not blame her erratic temperature swing on her migraine, she admitted dismally. For some reason this man affected her in a way no man had ever done-made her feel things she had confidently assumed would never trouble her.

When Vadim had told her that some of her male friends thought she was frigid, she hadn’t been surprised. It had occurred to her that the reason for her complete lack of interest in the opposite sex might not only be due to the hatred she had felt for her father, and that she must simply have a low sex-drive. But the erotic dreams that had plagued her since this Russian had first kissed her hand in Paris had turned that notion on its head. He had awoken her sensuality-but far from wanting to explore the feelings he aroused in her-her instinct was to run and keep on running.

Vadim stared at her, and said in a half-amused, half-impatient voice, ‘For pity’s sake, don’t look at me like that now, when you know damn well there’s nothing I can do about it.’

‘Like what?’ she mumbled, dazed with pain and overwhelmed by his potent masculinity.

‘Like you want me to kiss you again and keep on kissing you, until the slide of mouth on mouth is no longer enough for either of us and only the feel of hands caressing naked skin will satisfy the ache that consumes us both,’ he said, in a low tone that simmered with sexual promise.

Face burning at the images he evoked, Ella jerked upright-and drew a sharp breath when a burning poker pierced her skull. ‘I didn’t…I don’t…’

‘Liar.’

She was so pale she looked as though she might pass out. Vadim controlled his frustration and fired the ignition, wondering how he could ever have bought into the image Ella projected of cool, reserved, independent woman. Instead she was a seething mass of emotions, intense, hot-blooded and surprisingly vulnerable, and she intrigued him more than any other woman had ever done. Walking away from her was not an option right now, he conceded grimly. He wanted her, and he knew damn well that she wanted him; he simply had to convince her of that fact.

But now was not the time, he acknowledged when he shot another glance at her wan face. She looked achingly fragile, and he was surprised by the level of his concern. He drove along the main road until the satellite navigation system instructed him to take a right turn into a side street which he suddenly realised was familiar, and his frown deepened when he swung onto the driveway of a large, beautiful mansion house.

‘This is your house?’ he queried harshly.

‘I wish,’ Ella muttered, too overwhelmed by the pain in her head to wonder why Vadim sounded puzzled. ‘It belongs to my uncle. He owns an estate agency business, and when Kingfisher House came onto the market a few years ago he snapped it up as an investment. He rents the main part of the house out to tenants, and I live in the adjoining staff quarters and act as caretaker when the house is empty-as it has been for the past couple of months.’ She climbed out of the car and glanced wistfully at the gracious old house that she had fallen in love with the minute she’d first seen it. ‘Hopefully when Uncle Rex finds new tenants they’ll allow me to continue living here.’ The American businessman who had rented Kingfisher House the previous year had travelled extensively with his job, and had been happy for Ella to stay and keep an eye on the place, but new people might want to use the staff quarters, which would mean she would have to move out. The possibility of having to find somewhere else to live had been worrying her for weeks, but right now all she could think of was swallowing a couple of painkillers and crawling into bed, and so she started to walk carefully towards the front door on legs that felt decidedly wobbly.

Strong arms suddenly closed around her, and she gave a startled cry when Vadim swung her into his arms. ‘Stop fighting and let me help you,’ he said roughly. ‘You’re about to collapse.’ Her eyes were shadowed with pain, and the shimmer of tears evoked another tug of compassion that surprised him when usually he had little patience for weakness. His childhood had been tough, and devoid of kindness, and two years doing his national service in the Russian army had been brutally harsh. He had learned early in life that survival was dependent on physical and mental strength, and he acknowledged the truth in the accusation by some of his ex-lovers that he was hard and unemotional.

He’d spent so long suppressing his feelings that it came as a shock to realise he had the capacity to feel pity; Vadim brooded as he strode up to the house. But for some reason the woman in his arms elicited an emotion in him that might almost be described as tenderness. His mouth tightened. The idea that he was drawn to Ella by anything more than sexual attraction was disturbing, and he swiftly rejected it. All he asked from the women who briefly shared his life was physical satisfaction-the slaking of mutual lust until desire faded and he grew bored and moved on to someone new. Ella was no different, he told himself grimly. He wanted her, and soon he would have her. But the beginning would spell the end, as it always did.

‘YOU can put me down now,’ Ella insisted, the moment Vadim had pushed open the front door and carried her across the entrance hall towards the sweeping staircase which led to the upper floors. ‘My part of the house is on the ground floor, through that door. I’ll manage fine, thank you,’ she added tersely, when he did not set her down as she had hoped, but turned towards the door she had indicated.

He shouldered the door and strode into her sitting room, glancing around the spacious room which was dominated by an enormous grand piano. The room was at the back of the house, and through the French windows he could make out a sweeping lawn and beyond it the wide expanse of the River Thames, gleaming dully in the moonlight.

‘You must have a wonderful view of the river.’

‘Oh, yes, and of Hampton Court on the opposite bank. I love it here,’ Ella confessed. ‘I can’t bear the thought that I may have to move out. It was very good of Uncle Rex to persuade his previous tenant to allow me stay here, but I might not be so lucky next time. The trouble is, there aren’t many flats that I can afford with rooms big enough for the piano, or where I can practise my music for hours on end without disturbing the neighbours.’

‘Why don’t you sell the piano? My knowledge of musical instruments is limited, but I know Steinways are worth a fortune.’

‘I’ll never sell it,’ Ella said fiercely. ‘It was my mother’s. She loved it, and it was one of the few possessions of hers I fought to keep when I had to sell Stafford Hall. That was the family pile,’ she explained, when Vadim gave her a querying look. ‘Stafford Hall was a gift to one of my ancestors from Henry VIII, and the house, along with a sizeable fortune, was passed down through the family for generations-until it reached my father.’