His Diamond of Convenience Read online

  “Lovely,” she said, reaching for the small white mug.

  “Before we indulge,” he said, the word sounding far more wicked than she would like, “I say we go and see the happy partiers of Bourbon Street.”

  She was curious. Whether she should be or not.

  “All right. When in Rome...observe the Romans I suppose.”

  “But don’t step into the arena?”

  “As we are not citizens of Rome, I suppose that might be our fate.” She picked up her mug and raised it high. “Those who are about to die salute you.” She took a sip, then placed it back onto the table before standing and smoothing down her pants. “Now, let’s go gawk at some revelry.”

  She followed him around the curving balcony to the side of the hotel that provided a view of Bourbon Street, the hub of debauchery in New Orleans. At least, the hub of open debauchery. She imagined private debauchery took place any number of locations.

  The streets below were packed full of people, holding up traffic at cross streets. They were carrying open glasses of alcohol and weaving back and forth.

  Women in lingerie were standing in front of shops beckoning passersby to come in, and group of men lingered in front of a club wearing next to nothing, calling out to people, too. And then she saw them, a group of women in black, waving up to the balconies, and one lone woman in white, a tulle veil covering her hair.

  “That would be the hen do,” she said.

  “I imagine so.”

  She crept closer to the edge of the balcony, using the bride’s bright white ensemble as her focal point. “They are...”

  “Very drunk.”

  “To say the least.”

  She wondered what it would be like to be down there, soaking in the light from the neon and the gas lanterns, right in the middle of the party instead of hovering so far above it. She was always above it. And that was really how she liked it. But still...she wondered.

  She felt Dmitri move in closer to her, felt his heat as he closed the distance between them.

  Her breath caught in her throat, the sultry night air thick and somehow sensual now, where before, with the sunlight shining through, it had been a bit overbearing. Now somehow it seemed erotic.

  And she had no clue what she was doing applying that description to anything. She was not the sort of woman to think of things in those terms. But then, she wasn’t the sort of woman to get dry mouth at the sight of a tattoo and a little bit of forearm muscle. And yet, with Dmitri she seemed to be.

  Suddenly, she ached. Ached for all the things she hadn’t had. For the normal everyday desires that had been stolen from her when she was sixteen, ripped away from her along with her father’s company and her trust. In other people. In herself.

  Replaced instead with shame—shame about her feelings, her body, her judgment.

  If not for that, she might have been down there, too. Maybe had a group of girlfriends she could relate to, and she could drink with and trust that they would lead her back to the hotel unharmed. She might have had a man waiting to marry her the following weekend. One she might have loved. One who might have even loved her back.

  One who would take her to bed and give her pleasure. Hold her all night.

  Yes, for some reason the sight of all of that normalcy below made her very acutely aware of just how abnormal she was. Just how separate.

  But she wasn’t all alone, not as she usually was. Dmitri was here. So close she could feel the heat from his body. And a voice deep inside of her spoke clearly enough and loudly enough that she could understand. She wanted to touch the heat. She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to be cold. Here where everything was so warm, why shouldn’t she be?

  As though he had read her thoughts, he placed a hand on her waist, leaning in, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. “And what do you think of the party?”

  “I’ve never been a part of anything like that. I mean, at university I saw parties like that, but I never took part in them.”

  He moved his thumb up and down, smoothing it over the indent of her waist and leaving a trail of fire in its wake. “You never let yourself play, do you? Are you always so good?”

  “The way I see it,” she said, her voice, her breathing so obviously labored, “we get a certain amount of mistakes allotted to us in the beginning. If we overplay our hand we might lose everything. I overplayed my hand. My mistake amounted to a whole lot and I’ve never seen the point in taking a risk since. I feel I was lucky not being disowned entirely after putting my father’s livelihood and reputation at risk the way that I did. You know, Nathan was married.” The reason he had never touched her, which had become clear later. While Nathan had seen no issue with luring her into an emotional affair, he clearly hadn’t seen it as being unfaithful so long as he didn’t reciprocate and so long as he didn’t touch her.

  They had kissed but nothing more. Not for a lack of trying on her part. That last night together, before she’d found out the truth, she’d met him in her room, naked. And he’d...he’d covered her with a blanket. As though she were a child. Not a woman. As though there was nothing remotely arousing or sexual about her.

  Sometimes, after she had discovered the truth about him, she’d lain awake at night imagining him going over the game plan with his wife. Imagining him gaining permission to kiss her and touch her over her shirt. To tell her that he loved her, as long as he never entered her body, as long as he never really meant what he said.

  She imagined them laughing at how easy a conquest she would be. Imagined him telling his wife what a pale, gangly creature she’d been and how her naked body hadn’t even been an enticement.

  And that she hated almost more than anything else. That she had been so easily tricked by her emotions, by her passions. And that those passions had been so easily discarded.

  Though, in this moment what she hated more was that she had allowed Nathan to have them.

  She’d never looked at it quite the way Dmitri had presented it to her before. Certainly Nathan’s interaction with her hadn’t changed him one bit. It had changed his circumstances, but she was sure it hadn’t changed him emotionally.

  While she had contorted and rearranged everything she was because of him. In response to anger, in response to heartbreak and disgust, but nevertheless because of him.

  If not for him, where would she be? The answer to that question had terrified her before, but now she was torn. If he hadn’t made her feel ashamed of her bare skin and everything beneath it, who would she be now?

  There was something strange about this city that turned everything she thought and believed in on its head. There was something strange about this man who made her clothes feel too tight and made her heart feel too big for her chest.

  Who could shrink her entire world down to the sensation of his thumb moving over the slick fabric of her top, his heat seeping through to her skin.

  “You wish you were down there, don’t you, Victoria?” His breath was hot on her neck, sending a shiver down her spine.

  “No, I don’t.” And when she spoke the words she realized how true they were. She didn’t want to be down there with them; she wanted to be right up here, so long as she was with him.

  “What were you like before him?” The words were rough, sliding over her skin like a patch of velvet being rubbed the wrong way.

  “I barely remember.”

  “Try.” He tilted his head, and she felt the firm press of his mouth on the side of her neck. She stiffened, shock immobilizing her. Dimly, she thought that she should move away from him. That she should stop this madness before it progressed any further. But she didn’t. She stayed rooted to the spot, held captive by her curiosity, by the desire to find out what he might do next.

  “I was—” her voice was unsteady “—normal, I suppose. I wanted the same thing ever
y teenager wants. To experience love and desire, to be wanted. I thought I found it, so I didn’t examine it too closely. I was impetuous, and I led with my heart. And that I don’t wish I could have back.”

  “What is it you wish you could have back?”

  The word reverberated deep inside her, echoed in the empty chambers where it had once been. “Passion.”

  Somehow, just by saying it she felt as though she’d opened the door. As though she had broken locks that had been firmly closed for years.

  He shifted their position slightly, tightening his hold on her, sliding his hand around to rest firmly on her stomach as he moved them both into the shadows of the balcony, so that she could just barely see the revelers through the twisting, twining ivy on the wrought-iron railings.

  “I do not think you lost any of it. I think perhaps you might simply be sleeping.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I know how to wake you up.”

  All of the air rushed from her lungs. “How?”

  “The only way to wake an enchanted princesses is with a kiss.”

  She should say no. She should tell him that he had taken the ruse too far, that she would never go back to being the girl she was, because she had learned far too much since then, and that girl was stupid. That he should understand because he knew that sometimes it was necessary to leave behind the old things. To let the old foolish self stay dead.

  But she didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she stood motionless as he swept his hand around to cup her cheek, his fingertips tracing lightly along the line of her jaw as he gently angled her head to face to the side.

  As he bent down slowly—achingly so—his mouth now a whisper from hers.

  She had plenty of time to turn away, plenty of time to tell him to stop. But she didn’t.

  Because for the first time in twelve years Victoria Calder was lost in passion, and she didn’t want to be found.

  The image of Nathan as he turned away from what she offered was blotted out by her need for Dmitri.

  Instead of embracing her fear, her hard lessons learned, she tilted her chin upward and closed the distance between them, their mouths meeting abruptly. It was like touching a match to an oil slick, an inferno igniting between them that she never could’ve anticipated.

  She had not kissed a man since Nathan. The closest she had come was Stavros a few years back, but it had felt nothing like this. The prelude hadn’t held this much intensity, and she knew for a fact the kiss would never have been this explosive.

  Dmitri groaned, deep and rough, the sound so wild it should’ve been unsettling. It wasn’t. If anything, it added fuel to the flame, urging her on.

  She raised her arm, resting her hand on the back of his neck, curling her fingers around his skin and holding him fast, parting her lips and deepening the kiss, letting her tongue slide against his.

  Desire shot through her like an arrow, hitting its target straight and true between her thighs, sending an ache reverberating through her body.

  Need, want, passion. Her mind was blank of anything else. She wanted nothing more than to continue to exist in this moment, nothing more at all. In this moment there were no department stores, there was no sin to be atoned for. There was only new sin to find and explore.

  And she wanted to explore it all with him.

  His fingertips slid up her stomach, teasing the underside of her breast before cupping it in his palm, squeezing her gently as though he was testing the weight of her. She wrenched her mouth away from his, a harsh groan on her lips. He released his hold on her face, lowering his hand to grip her hip, to pull her body back hard against his.

  He was hot against her back, and she could feel his arousal hardening against her. She could not remember ever being so acutely aware of a man in this way, certainly not when she had kissed Nathan all those years ago. What she had done then had all been conducted with a girl’s desire. She had wanted, but it’d been nebulous and vague. But right now she was a twenty-eight-year-old woman and she knew very well what she wanted. There was no misty veil drawn over her idea of sensuality and sex. No, Victoria was well aware of what went on between men and women. She had just never imagined she might want it, not like this.

  She had intended to marry; she certainly had never intended to remain a virgin all these years, much less the rest of her life. But that was just one reason Stavros had been such a perfect pick. Not only because he was a prince, but because she felt nothing for him. Because her attraction to him had been almost nonexistent and therefore unchallenging. This had nothing to do with logic; this had nothing to do with bettering her position. This was all about feeling, all about need. All about every little thing she had spent years shunning and reducing in importance.

  But she couldn’t stop, not now. Even though the back of her mind was screaming that this was wrong, that she couldn’t give in, her body was screaming louder. Her entire body demanded more.

  He squeezed her breast again, dragging his thumb across one sensitized nipple before pinching her lightly between his thumb and forefinger. She flexed her hips, pressing her body more firmly against his hardening erection. She knew what she was asking for. And all she could do was pray that he would give it to her.

  “Dmitri,” she said, her voice husky, almost unrecognizable.

  He responded, his words harsh, broken and in a foreign language. And though she couldn’t understand what he was saying, she could understand exactly what he was doing. His hands sliding over her curves, ramping up her arousal, pushing her to the brink without even touching her beneath her clothes.

  “Look at them down there,” he said, pressing a kiss to her neck. “They think they are in the throes of ecstasy, that they are in the midst of the party. But they have no idea.” He shifted, his hand moving between her thighs, the heel of his palm pressing against the center of her need. “If they looked up here they might. Do you think they could see?” The idea should have shocked her, but it didn’t. Instead she found herself morbidly fascinated. Intrigued by the idea that the partiers could be watching her as she had watched them. That they might envy her, as she had once envied them. She did not now. Because Dmitri was holding her in his arms, so how could she wish to be anywhere else?

  He applied gentle pressure between her thighs, sending a shot of pleasure straight to her core.

  “If they could see you now,” he continued, “they would see the most passionate creature in existence.”

  His words made her feel as if it might be true, that she wasn’t hollowed out, that her passion hadn’t been stolen from her. How could it have been? How could it have been when she was letting him hold her like this? When her entire body was crying out with need for him, with need for completion. Here on the balcony, out in the open, shrouded only by a few vines.

  “But I’m glad they cannot see,” he said, kissing her neck again. “I’m glad you’re all mine. I’m glad this is only for me.” His words should anger her, because she wasn’t his. Instead, the roughly spoken claim in combination with the gentle rocking of his palm against the sensitized bundle of nerves was all it took to push her completely over the edge she hadn’t even realized she’d been on.

  She felt as if she was falling, over the balcony and down to the street below. Lights, sounds, swirled in her head, her mind empty of anything but the searing pleasure burning through her.

  And when it passed, she was being held steady, still in Dmitri’s arms. She hadn’t fallen at all, because he had held her fast.

  Then suddenly, it was as if her vision cleared. And she saw herself clearly. Saw this clearly. She was standing in the open on a balcony, and she had just let Dmitri bring her to orgasm. Dmitri, whom she had a business deal with. Dmitri, whom her entire future rode on. This was the one thing she could not afford to throw into jeopardy, and she had done just that by bringing somet
hing so volatile and personal into it.

  She hadn’t changed. She hadn’t changed at all. When things became important, essential, she failed in the end.

  All of the sweet, fuzzy pleasure that had been buzzing through her turned to ash, curling at the edges, folding in tightly on itself and wrapping her up tightly with it.

  She pulled away from him, needing to put as much distance between the two of them as possible. She looked back down at Bourbon Street, at the people below. The hen party was gone. And she felt as if she could suddenly see everything down there for what it was. Nothing more than drunken excess. Sad people trying very hard to trick themselves into believing they were having fun.

  It was nothing to aspire to. It was nothing to covet.

  And she was a fool.

  “I think I’ll skip dessert.” She ran her hands over her hair, desperately trying to straighten it, desperately trying to erase the evidence of what had just occurred. She started to walk away, her entire body beginning to shake.

  “I think you already had dessert, Victoria.”

  She stopped, her body going stiff. “You bastard.” She didn’t turn around. She just kept walking.

  And she vowed then and there that this wouldn’t happen again. He was right—she had changed because of Nathan. But it was a change that had been for the better.

  One thing she would not be doing was changing herself for Dmitri Markin.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DMITRI HAD SPENT the entire rest of the night lying awake, fighting a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.

  It was an interesting experience going to bed unsatisfied. And not only unsatisfied, but with a deep feeling of shame and failure that wrapped itself around the arousal, making it feel more potent, making it feel both worse and better at the same time.

  Dmitri was very rarely rejected, if ever. When he wanted sex he was able to get it. Moreover, when he did not want sex he was able to resist it.

  Somehow, neither of those things had happened last night.