Midnight Alpha (16 page)

“Did Mrs. Moore make you something nice for lunch?”

“She did, yes.”

Gregori frowned darkly. “Did something happen today to upset you?” This was definitely not the outspoken Gaia Miller he had left this morning. Or the lover that had taken him to new heights a few hours before that.

He hadn’t been able to get the memory of their lovemaking out of his mind for more than a few minutes at a time today. Nikolai had even had to regain his wandering attention several times, as the two of them discussed the extra security that needed to be put into place after last night’s shooting.

They were apparently going to have some help with that—whether they wanted it or not.
 

Gregori had spoken to Dair on the phone before leaving the house this morning, informing his brother-in-law of last night’s shooting, so that the other man could be even more alert than he usually was in regard to Katya’s and his own safety. Dair must have then discussed the situation with Katya, because the next thing Gregori knew several of Dair’s men arrived in his office. They were working in tandem with Nikolai and his men now, under the control of Dair’s second-in-command, Lijah Smith.

Arguing with a pregnant Katya was futile, and arguing with the husband of a pregnant Katya was even more futile, and ultimately if it resulted in extra security then Gregori wasn’t going to argue either.

None of Nikolai’s informants had been able to find a connection between Ivan Orlov and Angela Grant, or Gaia, and for the moment Gregori was more than willing to believe that was because there wasn’t one.

It had been a strange day for him. Busy running the Markovic business empire, as usual, sitting in on those security talks, and yet always, always at the back of his mind had been thoughts of Gaia and their lovemaking, and the fact that she would be waiting at the house when he arrived home.

He realized now, faced with this uncharacteristically subdued Gaia, he had actually been looking forward to coming home to her.

His life was necessarily a busy one, and until his father’s death he had also lived in this house, even if the two men had led separate lives. And since then Gregori had been too busy to notice the extra solitude. He’d also had Katya, and recently Dair too.

But today, Gregori learned what loneliness was: it was being in the middle of a crowded room and wanting to be somewhere else, with someone else.

And knowing that someone was Gaia.

Now that he was here with her, he couldn’t help but feel a certain disappointment that Gaia was being so quiet.

Because she had spent those same hours thinking about their lovemaking and now regretted it had ever happened?

If that was the case then she needn’t fear any coercion from him. He had never forced himself on any woman, had never needed to, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Seduction was a different matter, however.

“Are you sure you’ve had enough to eat?” he prompted gruffly. She had only picked at the first and second course of their meal, and had refused dessert altogether.

“Plenty, thank you,” she answered with the politeness that was really starting to grate on his nerves. Politeness not being something he easily associated with her.

“Would you care for a brandy?”

“Probably not a good idea when I’m taking painkillers.”

“No,” he acknowledged. “Then perhaps you would like to sit and talk for a while until it’s time for us to leave for Utopia?”

“Will you stop acting so damn polite?” Her eyes flashed a deep gold as she finally looked up at him. “I’m not a guest here. I don’t need you to ask me how my day was. Or if I’ve had enough to eat. Or if I want a brandy after my meal. I certainly don’t need you to feel you have to sit and talk to me!” She threw her napkin down on the table before standing up to glare down at him.

Better, Gregori acknowledged with inward satisfaction. Much better.

He placed his own napkin carefully down on the table before slowly standing up. “I’m not acting.”

“No?”

His eyes narrowed at her challenging expression. “No. And if you don’t want any of those things, what
do
you want?” he prompted softly.

“I don’t know!” Gaia’s mood had been swinging like a pendulum between anger and frustration all day. With herself, no one else.

Anger because she knew it was utterly stupid to allow herself to fall for a man like Gregori.

Frustration because she knew it was far too late for regrets.

A part of her also knew she should have been using her time here today to look for evidence that might connect Gregori to Angela. Or to the drugs that had killed her. Something. Anything. And yet she hadn’t been able to do it. It felt…wrong somehow. An intrusion, a line she simply couldn’t cross.

Instead she’d done nothing but sit and think about Gregori all day. How he’d looked when he made love to her in his office, and again when she had made love to him in the kitchen during the night.

One look at him this evening and she
ached,
she needed—God, how she
needed—

“Are you wearing panties tonight?”

Gaia froze, only her eyes moving as she slowly looked at Gregori, his expression only mildly enquiring. As if he hadn’t just asked her if—

“Take them off,” he instructed evenly.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I—what?

“The boots, tights, panties, take them all off,” he repeated hardly. “Now.”

Gaia swallowed the saliva that had suddenly flooded her mouth. “What if Mrs. Moore comes back for the dishes?”

“She won’t. Not until I ring for her.” Gregori looked at her with those dark, unfathomable eyes. “Don’t make me ask you again, Gaia.”

“We can’t keep doing this,” Gaia protested even as she bent at the waist to unfasten the zip down the side of one of her boots.

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you were so fucking unappreciative of my efforts at polite conversation,” he bit out hardly.

“So you’ve decided to be impolite instead?” Gaia removed one boot and now unzipped and took off the second one.

He shrugged. “We seem to bring out that trait in each other. I said take them all off, Gaia. Now!” he rasped harshly as she hesitated about removing her tights and panties.

“What are you going to do to me?” She looked at him nervously, even as she shimmied her skirt up high enough to be able to hook her fingers into her tights, before rolling them down her thighs, aware of Gregori watching her every move.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he answered her conversationally. “I think that first I need to put you over my knee and spank your bare bottom. For behaving like a petulant child throughout dinner,” he explained at her gasp.

Could she really be aroused by what Gregori was saying, suggesting? She certainly couldn’t deny the sudden heat, the swelling, moistening of her labia. Just as it was impossible to mistake the tenting at the front of Gregori’s trousers for anything other than—

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Yes
, she really could be aroused by the image Gregori’s words had conjured up in her mind. Just as she was now filled with disappointment, because he no longer wanted to—

“I want you to leave your panties on.” He turned one of the chairs away from the table before sitting down on it. “Now come here.”

Gaia moved towards him as if in a dream until she was standing just in front of him.

“Face down over my knees,” he bit out abruptly.

Was she really going to do this?

Subjugate herself to this man’s will, and trust that he didn’t intend to hurt her?

In the same way she had subjugated him to her will earlier this morning?

Was she going to do that?

Chapter 11

Gregori had absolutely no idea what he would have done next if Gaia had refused him rather than slowly, warily, lowering herself down and forward until she was lying face down across his thighs.

Would he have forced her to his will, or simply let her go?

Maybe it was better that wasn’t put to the test when this woman—so rebellious, so defiant, and so fucking sexy—had the power to drive him to behavior he hadn’t known himself capable of.

Now he had to follow through on that promised behavior.

Which, considering he had never felt driven to spank any woman before tonight, he found himself looking forward to perhaps more than he should.

“Do you admit that you’ve behaved very badly this evening when I’ve been nothing but polite?”

“You—”

“Do you, Gaia?” He placed a hand in the middle of her back to hold her in place.

“You’re behaving like a barbarian—”

“Because you’ve displeased me,” he grated softly, his hand continuing to hold her down as his other hand moved to stroke the silky length of the backs of her thighs. He heard her breath hitch as he moved his hand steadily higher with each caress, until he pushed her skirt high enough to reveal the cheeks of her ass.

Which was when his own breath caught in his throat and his heart stuttered as he discovered Gaia wasn’t wearing panties at all but a thong, the cheeks of her ass completely bare, with just a thin strip of lace intersecting the middle of them.

Nikolai, the bastard!

Gregori had absolutely no doubts who was responsible for Gaia’s choice of underwear. He could even imagine Nikolai’s delight as he went through Gaia’s underwear drawer and picked out this scrap of lace to pack and bring to her.

Gregori felt a surge of anger thinking of Nikolai touching Gaia’s panties and bras.

He would think about that reaction later; for now he had Gaia spread out before him like a delectable feast. He had never felt the urge to bite a woman’s bottom, but he felt it now, as he looked at those pink and perfectly rounded globes. It took every effort of will on his part to instead cup and squeeze them before his fingers began to explore beneath that one inch strip of lace between the cheeks of her ass.

Gaia’s head went completely blank the moment Gregori bared the cheeks of her bottom and began to stroke and then squeeze them.

“Do you want me to spank you?”

“I—no,” she groaned, unsure how she would feel, react, if he actually brought his hand down on her bared flesh.

“Not even a little?” he taunted as he obviously heard the hitch of uncertainty in her voice.

She knew she should feel humiliated in this position, bottom bared as she lay across Gregori’s trouser-covered thighs, leaving her completely vulnerable to anything he might choose to do to her. And instead she felt more sexually liberated than she ever had before.

“Maybe later,” his voice was dark with promise. “If you ask me nicely,” he murmured with satisfaction as his fingers slipped beneath the lace of her thong, exploring at his leisure, before those fingers slipped lower still. “God, you’re wet!”

Gregori’s growl caused another rush of Gaia’s juices, slicking his fingers as he pushed her legs apart so that he could stroke her, her movements becoming restless as those fingers continued that teasing caress but didn’t enter her. She began to arch and rub against him, wanting more, needing
more
—

“You’ll wait, damn it!” he rasped throatily as his fingers moved higher. “So swollen,” his fingers stroked her clit.

Over and over again, those caresses always stopping just as she was about to explode with pleasure, until Gaia began to groan with the need she felt for release.

“Come for me now, Gaia,” he finally instructed evenly. “Now, damn it!” His fingers captured and squeezed her throbbing clit at the same time as his thumb plunged into her greedily grasping channel.

Gaia came.

She heard herself screaming as the fierce, uncontrollable and seemingly endless orgasm rolled over and through her, so much more intense for the wait.

“Again,” Gregori instructed fiercely, plunging two fingers inside her now as he located and then stroked against the tight knot of muscle inside her.

It was as if Gregori completely controlled her body as he ripped away the thin barrier of lace and brought her to peak after peak of release, every part of Gaia now centered on the force and speed of those continuous orgasms.

She felt as limp as a rag-doll when he finally lifted and turned her at the same time, so that she was now facing him, her legs straddling his thighs.

His lids were heavy as he looked down to where she was totally exposed to him, and he could see the slick, rosy lips of her labia and her erect clit. “I have to take you this time, Gaia,” he grated as he unfastened his trousers. “Or you can take me,” he encouraged gruffly as it was Gaia’s hands that moved eagerly to pull down his boxers and release the thick length of his cock.

Because Gaia was aching to have him inside her, to have him fill her. She had never wanted anything more—

“I’m clean, Gaia,” he added huskily. “How about you?”

“The same.” There had been no one for her for over a year now.

Gregori drew his breath in sharply. “Can I…”

“God, yes, I just want you inside me!” she groaned achingly, wanting no barriers between them, eager to feel every inch of this deliciously bare and silken cock inside her.