Page 45 of Dangerous Passion

He rarely felt wiped out after sex. If anything, it energized him. But right now, lifting his head to give her a quick kiss seemed to be the most he could hope for. God help him when they could finally make love. It would probably kill him.

Ah, well. You had to go some time.

They lay like that, not asleep, not awake as the room slowly filled with late morning light. If was the first time Drake could ever remember when he hadn’t started the day early, with specific business plans. His big plan right now was to keep Grace in bed with him, making sure she got used to being naked with him, until her skin smelled of his.

He’d try again to fuck her, just as soon as he could move.

See if she loosened up a little, so he wouldn’t panic at the thought of hurting her when he entered her. It would happen, he just didn’t know when.

His head had come to rest against hers on the pillow, his lips close to the skin of her neck. Much too beautiful to resist. He moved the inch forward necessary to kiss her, breathing in deeply. He could smell her skin and his. The scent of their sex was unlike any other he’d smelled.

Grace’s hand fell from his shoulder, making a faint plop sound as it fell to the mattress. “Drake, I think real sex is going to be too much for me. I’m not too sure I could handle it.”

He breathed in and out, slowly. Every single muscle felt lax, likewater. His mind was completely empty, no thoughts at all. Only sensations, all connected with her. The feel of her silky skin under his fingertips. The scent of her skin, the sound of her breathing.

He’d travelled the world, racking up more air miles than any pilot ever possibly could. He’d lived in eight countries, was intimately familiar with fifteen more.

This was an entirely new country for him, a new, completely unfamiliar landscape.

He didn’t know if he could handle sex with her, either, but he was willing to try. His penis, ten minutes after an explosive orgasm, twitched at the thought. His fingers knew how she felt inside and now his dick was jealous.

You’ll get your turn, Drake wanted to tell it. And then thought that he was going crazy, talking to his own penis.

He wanted to lift his head, reassure her, but he didn’t have the energy. It was the oddest lassitude. Not the frightening weakness of being wounded. He’d been weak from blood loss only a few times and it was terrifying. When he was weak, he was instant prey.

No, this was different. His muscles weren’t weak, they were … relaxed.

How odd a feeling.

Grace’s stomach growled, loudly. Drake laughed into her neck. “I guess I know what you want. And right now, it appears that sex isn’t it.”

He could feel the slight shift in the air as she smiled. “To tell you the truth, breakfast sounds good right about now.”

He’d already ordered it. Trays would be waiting on a trolley outside the bedroom door.

Drake lifted his head. “Something tells me it’s ready. Stay right where you are.”

The weakness disappeared instantly. Grace needed food. Just the thought of her being uncomfortable, God, hungry, in his home, was enough to energize him. He rolled out of bed, naked, making for the door, then heard a soft noise behind him.

Drake turned. She was up on one elbow, staring, mouth slightly open. Her hair was tousled, falling in soft locks over her shoulders. One lock, delightfully, had fallen to encircle one nipple, now not cherry red and diamond-hard but soft and pale.

An enchantress that had been tumbled and would be tumbled again.

Her eyes widened and he didn’t have to look down to see what was shocking her. He could feel it. His penis rising, lengthening, thickening. Color rose in her cheeks and her nipples turned a deeper pink. His dick rose higher on a thick pulse of blood at the sight. A vein pounded in her neck, bringing the blood that now flushed brightly down to her breasts. Breasts he’d touched, kissed. At the memory, his balls tightened, drew up while his dick burned.

They were seducing each other across ten feet of space.

Her stomach growled again. “Food,” she said weakly.

“Food,” he agreed, turning back around.

Chapter Ten

Two hundred fifty thousand dollars. So much, for so little. Andrew Peters, born Andrei Petrov, continued peeling potatoes while thinking it through.

Peeling potatoes as the kitchencommiswas not where he wanted to be, in his tenth year out of cooking school. By rights, he should have been the chef or at least the sous-chef in a decent restaurant, socking money aside for his own place.

And he knew exactly what he wanted. He’d had his eye on the place for a while. A small place, a thousand square feet, in Chelsea. It would be decorated like the dining room in Tolstoy’s town mansion, serving pre-Revolutionary Franco-Russian haute cuisine, what the czars and barons ate before the Soviet monsters came and ransacked Mother Russia.

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