Christine Rimmer - Married By Christmas - His Pregnant Christmas Bride / Carter Bravo's Christmas Bride

Her thoughts scattered when she suddenly found him looking down at her as if he’d like to sink his teeth into her and gobble her up whole.

Then he only said, “Yes way.”

Her every inch started to burn again at the wickedly sensuous way he’d said that. And though it made her want to launch herself at him, tear at his clothes and beg him nonstop until he took her, she still had a million questions.

He continued to take her, do everything imaginable to her, with his eyes. But since she knew he wouldn’t deliver on what those eyes promised, she quelled the pounding between her legs, tilted her head up. “And are you going to explain that?”

Scooping her effortlessly by her buttocks against his great body, he nuzzled her neck. “There’s nothing to explain.”

He felt so good she had to struggle to resist wrapping herself around him and begging him to take her right there on the stairs. She barely managed to pull herself away enough so she could look up into his eyes. “Oh, yeah? You drop a bomb of this magnitude on me—something that should be totally unbelievable—and you expect me to just take it in stride?”

Another of these frowns that always made her feel the sun had died gripped his face. “You don’t believe me?”

“I said it should be unbelievable. Just the idea that a man like you would remain...celibate...” The word sounded so weird, so absurd. “For seven years! There has to be a big explanation for that. One you’re not volunteering.”

He eased her back on her feet, dropping his hands at his sides. “Again with this ‘a man like me’ thing. So let’s have it. What kind of man do you think I am?”

Her cheeks blazed under his chilly gaze. “I don’t think there are others like you for you to be a ‘kind.’ I only have theories from experience, backed up by the few facts you make available to the world. But really, when it comes to sex, any man wouldn’t go seven years without it. And a man of your wealth and power, not to mention your looks and your...appetite, it’s implausible you would.”

“So you don’t believe me.” This time it was a statement.

“Of course I do.” Her protest was vehement. It hadn’t crossed her mind to question the truth of his statement. “I just don’t understand how you didn’t...why you didn’t...”

He cut off her stammering, capturing her and raising her off the ground again and into his power, wrapping her thighs around his hips. “You didn’t.”

His surveillance of her had been that thorough?

But of course it had been. She doubted anything could be kept a secret from Ivan if he decided to uncover it. But it was still hard for her to accept that he’d found out what had gone on behind the closed doors of her life.

Suddenly, she wanted to call him out on it. At least, to challenge him. She’d made it too easy for him so far.

Arching backward, she let her long hair fall over his arms crossed over her back. “How can you be sure of that?”

The heat in his eyes rose, the hardness pressed between her legs becoming that of steel. “I’m sure. I’ve been watching you.”

Another stab of arousal pierced her core, even as a chuckle burst on her lips. “And now I’ll hear that song scoring your every move and glance.”

The hands squeezed her buttocks harder, sending delicious electricity coursing through her. “What song?”

She locked her ankles more securely around him, her eyes getting heavy under the onslaught of hunger. “Y’know, The Police? ‘Every Breath You Take’?” She sang the lyrics, somehow keeping in tune despite what he was doing to her. “Stalker much, Ivan?”

The flare of voracity in his eyes made her think that he would give in to desire this time, lower her right there and mount her. And oh, how she wanted him to. But then he let out a ragged breath and started walking up the stairs with her still in his arms.

“It would have been stalking only if I made you realize I was watching you.” He paused a beat. “And I was watching Alex, too.”

“Neither of us had a clue.” Unable to let Alex’s memory derail her current concern, she forced a smile. “But you’ve been watching me since you came back and no longer try to hide it.”

“That’s different.” He grimaced as he shouldered open her bedroom door. “Or maybe it isn’t that different.” At the foot of her king-size bed, he bent and laid her with extreme gentleness on the turquoise satin quilt, what he’d said he’d picked to reflect her eyes, hovering over her with arms planted on both sides of her head. “If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”

She had two options. Surge up, clamp him with her arms and legs, bring him on top of her and risk a repeat of most nights since they’d come here, ending with her sated yet more frustrated than ever, and with this conversation aborted. Or resist the compulsion of his lure and her lust, and insist on getting answers. Once and for all.

She rose to her elbows, making him unfold to his full height. She almost swooned back again at the sight of him looming over her, oh so visibly aroused and crackling with hunger.

It was experience saying it would go nowhere that made her sit up. He kneeled in front of her, opening her legs and pressing between them. She knew that position by heart by now. According to him he’d become addicted to her taste. And at the first sign of weakening, he’d have her naked and in the throes of one orgasm after another. Like most nights he’d tire her out with too much pleasure. And then she’d wake up to find herself alone.

Not tonight. She pushed back against him when he tried to prostrate her in front of him. “Can you? Stop? I was just thinking that it has developed into some sort of obsession.”

“No, it hasn’t.” He leaned back, so tall that even on his knees his eyes were level with hers, combed the luxurious ebony silk that had fallen over his forehead back in a self-deprecating move. “Developed, I mean. It has always been one.”

“Why? Why did you do it? Why did you watch us all these years?”

Solemnity came into his eyes again, making them even more compelling. “Because I needed to make sure you were okay.”

“And when you realized I wasn’t, as evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t move on, why didn’t you do something about it? Wasn’t that the whole point of watching me?”

His lips twisted on what looked like self-contempt. “I should have done something about it.”

She fought the urge to catch those lips that had owned her every inch and pleasured her beyond coherence. “But you didn’t. Want to tell me what stopped you?”

He lowered his eyes, escaping her beseeching ones. “Whatever it was, I should have found another way to be with you. It’s yet another thing I will never forgive myself for.”

Knowing she’d get no answer from him on this point, she tried another tack. “You only came back when our lives were at stake, so it’s clear you wouldn’t have come for anything less. So why didn’t you move on?”

With each question he looked as if he would have preferred if she tore off his nails instead. But there was something else with this one. It was as if he’d never actually put the reason into words, even to himself.

Then he finally raised his eyes, and what she saw there almost knocked her flat on her back. “Because as long as you didn’t find someone else, I considered that you were still with me.”

A tremor started in her deepest recesses, one of searing, incredulous hope. “So if I’d moved on, you would have, too?”

“I very much doubt I would have. I had no way of finding out before I was with you, but I’ve since discovered that I’m monogamous.”

He was monogamous. There’d be only one woman for him. Her.