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It seemed to Clementine they lay there for a very long time afterwards, just catching their breath. Her own was coming in rapid pants as she felt the throbbing in her body subside.
What had that been about?
Serge climbed off the bed and disposed of the condom in the en suite bathroom. Clementine watched him as he padded slowly back to the bed. He lay down beside her and pulled her body into the shelter of his. He laid a kiss on her shoulder, saying nothing. It was then Clementine realised he hadn’t kissed her mouth—not once.
Yet this had felt more intimate than anything that had come before. Wasn’t he supposed to be angry? Wasn’t she supposed to be too? Instead she felt closer to him than ever.
Serge pulled her in tighter. What in the hell was he doing? When he’d seen her on that monitor his only thought had been to reach her. Everything else had been blotted out but the need to keep her safe. And he hadn’t. He’d shoved her up ringside and everything had come undone. It was still coming undone. She made him act rashly. He’d taken her home and acted rashly again. And he suddenly had no doubt given any provocation this rashness was going to continue. Unless he made a conscious effort to stop it.
‘Is that how you felt?’ she whispered, turning her head to look at him, her eyes half closed, her expression so sultry he knew they were about to repeat it all over again.
‘I don’t know how I felt,’ he admitted in a deep voice, his accent pronounced, and something in his tone snagged all Clementine’s attention away from her body, still sensitised from his touch. ‘But I do know now you’re safe.’ His arms tightened around her.
‘Yes, I’m safe, Slugger,’ she and answered, and reached up and patted the big arm slung around her, sounding more confident than she felt. Inside everything was knocked off kilter. As if she didn’t quite belong to herself any more.
But what did that mean? That she belonged to Serge?
CHAPTER NINE
SERGE took a coffee and his cellphone out onto the deck and stood in the cool morning light as it dappled down through the leaves above. This was his sanctuary in the city—a green garden, an oasis kept in exquisite shape by people he paid.
Having the people in his life on a payroll made everything so much easier, cleaner. Nobody’s emotions got involved.
Last night his behaviour in bed with Clementine had been the opposite. Hard, messy, and very emotional. The sex as a result had been incredible. The only thing that could have improved on it was not using a condom, and the fact that he’d actually considered that thought put the brakes on any future plans he had with this girl.
He’d never once not used a condom. Ever. He didn’t have the sort of relationships where that was possible.
Yet he hadn’t been thinking last night—not with his head and not with his body. It was how she made him feel that had been driving him, and it had translated into the best sex of his life. He’d shown little finesse, just a need to dominate her, leave his mark. He’d taken her again, with no more consideration than the first time, and she had met him with her own scaling need, and then again, with a slower, more soothing cadence, whispering things to her in Russian he could never get away with in English before sleep claimed them.
But that first time had rocked them both, and everything that had followed held its echoes. And he would have been blind not to see how dreamy she was this morning. He’d heard her singing to herself in the shower. Hell, he’d been humming to himself until he’d realised what he was doing.
This was all without precedent.
Something about seeing her at the show last night—her fragility coupled with her independence, the sheer chutzpah she paraded around, going after what she wanted, and his inability to stop her doing exactly as she pleased—had loosed something primitive in him.
He’d known it was there. His grandmother had told him stories about his father’s legendary passion for his mother, his jealous rages, the theatrics of their marriage. He didn’t remember all of it—only a father whose moods had moved from highs to lows at frightening speed. He remembered that—and a mother who had been frail and ethereal, appearing to be caught up in a drama in which she didn’t quite know her lines. She had only been eighteen when she gave birth to him, and not much older than he was now when she died.
He didn’t want that kind of passion in his life. He didn’t want to be out of control. He needed to take a big step back. Put some air between them.
Clementine came down the stairs in her runners and cargo pants. She hadn’t even fiddled with her hair this morning, just left it to its natural wave. Lipstick and mascara were her only concessions to making an effort. For the first time since she was fifteen she didn’t feel she had to. She felt beautiful. Serge had made her feel beautiful. She could still feel his body stunning hers, the impact of their coming together, the tension winding tighter and tighter in him until it had given way and he had been heavy and peaceful in her arms. She’d felt so powerful—like a sex goddess. A thought which put a little smile on her lips.
