was that basic. If only she could be as cool-headed and practical as he was, she ruminated worriedly as he tucked her on board the tender that would whisk them out of the harbour and back to the yacht. He had fallen in lust but she was falling in love …
As he pushed open the door of her suite Kat was scarcely breathing from nervous tension and anticipation, but once again he surprised her by stepping back to head for his own accommodation next door.
‘Decision time, milaya moya,’ he quipped, glancing back at her from heavily lidded dark sensual eyes. ‘If you want me, you know where to find me.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
KAT LEANT BACK against her door, her heart hammering inside her chest … You know where to find me.
On the other side of the door she had locked. Could she really blame him for telling her to take the initiative for a change? She had made such a deal over not sleeping with Mikhail and, without ever meaning to be unfair, she had allowed him to touch her and then had withdrawn that licence at the last possible moment. But then right from the first minute she had laid eyes on Mikhail Kusnirovich, she had wanted him, wanted him more than she had ever thought she could want any man, and, unhappily for both of them, desire had decimated her common sense and control.
And common sense and control, Kat recognised, had absolutely nothing to do with the way she felt about Mikhail. Desire was a much more primitive feeling it was an unquenchable craving that it literally hurt to deny. With impatient hands she shed the green dress and her underwear and left her clothing lying in a heap, defying her instinctive urge to put every item tidily away. For too long she had lived by a rigid set of rules and she had questioned nothing. Instead she had blindly obeyed those rules like an obedient little girl.
Now all of a sudden she was looking back at the last conservative decade of her life and she was finally done with playing safe and even more sick of always trying to do the right thing to set a good example! What gains had her good example achieved? It hadn’t stopped Emmie from getting pregnant outside marriage any more than it had stopped Emmie’s twin, Saffy, from getting married and divorced too young.
But it was still that conviction that she had to set a good example that had ensured that Kat hadn’t had a man in her life for more years than she cared to recall. How dared Mikhail call her a coward? Cowardice had had nothing to do with it! There had been no arbitrary decision to remain a virgin. Instead she had consciously chosen to put her sisters’ need for stability ahead of her own needs as a woman.
But would it really have damaged her siblings so much had she enjoyed intimacy with a lover? Now her sisters were moving on, making their own lives and leaving her behind, still ridiculously ignorant for a woman of her age. Continuing such self-denial was pointless. It really didn’t matter if she only slept with Mikhail to satisfy her curiosity about sex, she thought painfully. It didn’t even matter if she loved him and hoped for more than she would ever receive from him. A mistake was a mistake and not a disaster, and she was strong enough to survive making mistakes. Never again would she run away from the unknown like a frightened child or use her mother’s errors of judgement as her safety valve.
Clad in a gossamer-thin silk nightgown, Kat unlocked the door between her suite and the master suite to push it wide with an unsteady hand. Mikhail appeared in the bathroom doorway, only a towel linked round his lean bronzed hips. His black diamond eyes settled on her and a smile of satisfaction instantly curved his wide sensual mouth. Half naked he was an imposing sight, his black hair spiky and damp from the shower, water droplets scattered across his powerful hair-roughened pecs and rock-hard abdominal muscles. He had a fabulous body, she acknowledged helplessly, and her face coloured as she tried very hard not to stare at his potent male perfection.
‘I feel as though I’ve been waiting for you for ever,’ Mikhail husked, moving forward to scoop her up in his arms and settle her down on the wide divan bed.
‘And I can’t believe I’m here,’ Kat confided