Page 78 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

Vaslav growled a frustrated sound. “Vera, I am still looking at the picture. Of course, red looks the way it does on you, you’ve got porcelain for skin.”

His compliment tugged at her weak self-control. “Where exactly are you while you’re looking at it, huh?”

“In my den.”

Alone, then.

Shocker.

“You didn’t answer me, though,” she pointed out. “How is this the very least I could do for you?”

“You’re teasing me, kitten,” Vaslav said, his gravely accent twisting the English equivalent of his pet name for her into something that knotted heavily in her gut. Like the lust settling there, too. “And I promise the next time we sit down together, I’ll make you regret it.”

“But are you going to answer me?”

His chuckle rumbled on the phone.

Dark.

So deep.

Vera had little doubts about whether or not she’d enjoy how he made her regret this. Talk about making something worth her damned while ...

“This is the very least you could do for me,” Vaslav replied, every word confident and clipped as she imagined them slipping past his smirking lips, “because I think I’ve been very patient with you while your friend visits. I’ve repeatedly considered dragging you out to Dubna just to keep you locked upstairs with me for a few days, because we both know how much you value the concept of time when you’re in bed with me, but I was trying not to be selfish. That could change. Today, even. I bet I could get the Rolls to the city in less than an hour. How opposed are you to being on top in the backseat?”

“Jesus Christ,” Vera swore in a laugh. “Igor takes at least an hour and a half, and he drives like a madman.”

“Like one. Except he isn’t.”

Vera’s teeth cut into her upper lip with a pleasing sting. The same way Vaslav liked to bite her on that very spot, too just to take a gasp or hiss from her.

“Just tell me if you’re wet,” he urged.

Demanded, was more like it.

“I’m honestly trying to ignore it,” Vera replied, mindful of her voice level.

She also hadn’t lied.

The squirm of her crossed legs made the dampness of the soft lace between her thighs more apparent. She had yet to take her hand off the armrest, though, and she still needed the one holding the phone. Or that’s what she kept telling herself.

Vaslav released relief in an exhale, muttering, “Then, here’s what you’re going to do for me, sweetest thing, I want the red set sent straight to me. After you get your hand in those panties and rub one, or wait—”

“Wait for what?”

She hadn’t even bothered to let him finish. If only she cared about the desperation that snuck into her tone.

Vaslav laughed. “Is your hand down there now?”

“No.”

Vera couldn’t take her eyes off her own reflection in the mirror. Those nerves fluttering in her belly were practically invisible to the woman wrapped in sin sitting across from her. She seemed more womanly than Vera thought herself to be, sexiness smothered her every movement and blink. Except that woman absolutely was her.

“I only said wait because I wanted to ask how fast could you get yourself to three?” he asked.

Vera’s tongue smacked the roof of her mouth. “Orgasms?”

“Mmm.”