Golden Paradise Part 6

"Stefan doesn't want you to go, does he?"

"No."

Aunt Militza's active brain saw fascinating possibilities all converging tomorrow-an angry frustrated Stefan would be a perfect ingredient at Nadejda's family party. "You're sensible to leave, I suppose." She spoke softly, as if thinking aloud, as if gauging the next step in her campaign against Nadejda.

"That's what I told him."

"And?"

"He said he wasn't interested in being sensible."

"He isn't...never has been. You'll be the first, you know." Stefan's aunt spoke abruptly, the cryptic words offering endless possibilities of meaning to Lisaveta.

"The first?" Lisaveta asked, curious how any woman could be first in anything with Stefan's libertine reputation.

"The first woman to walk away from him.''

Lisaveta was initially flabbergasted and then angered. Apparently Russia's favorite Prince had been extremely overindulged. "In that case, I'm sure the experience will do his character good."

"Perhaps." One thing was certain, Militza thought, he was going to be furious, and she'd seen him furious on more than one occasion. Prince Stefan Alexandrovitch Orbeliani-Bariatinsky had a vile temper. "Do you ever get to Saint Petersburg, my dear?" Militza asked in lieu of her more lurid reflections. "I would enjoy your company if you ever should."

"As a matter of fact, I'm invited next month to a special award ceremony commemorating my father's literary work for the Tsar. It'll be my first trip to the capital. And thanks to Stefan," Lisaveta graciously added, "I'm alive to attend it."

"Well, then, we may meet again. If all goes well tomorrow night," Militza briskly said, "I may be free to travel north. By all means call on me."

With genuine feeling, the two ladies promised to see each other should circ.u.mstances allow. On that warm note Lisaveta bid good-night, since she would have to rise early in order to be ready to depart in the morning.

When Lisaveta entered her, room a few moments later, she closed the door and stood with her back against it, her eyes shut, her head resting on Stefan's carved coat of arms embellishing the elaborate portal. She relaxed, visibly, a great sigh lifting her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in lush mounded splendor above the low neckline of her gown. Militza's pearls resting on the rise of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s caught the light with the movement and glistened in iridescent l.u.s.ter.

An appreciative audience of one lounging on a chair near the dressing alcove reminded himself to buy her pearls like Militza's. "Nadejda can be wearing, can't she," Stefan drawled, and delighted in Lisaveta's sharply drawn breath. Surely she had the most beautiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s he'd ever seen.

Her eyes were suddenly open. And glaring. "How did you get in?" she snapped, irritated by his casual drawl, offended by his satirical remark about his fiancee, particularly annoyed at his a.s.sumption he could enter her bedroom at will.

He looked at her from under half-lowered lashes, as if gauging the sincerity of her question. It must be rhetorical certainly, but he answered because she seemed to be waiting for a reply. "I own this palace, darling," he softly said.

"You do not, however, own me."

She said the words so heatedly it excited him, the thought that perhaps he could... Were she not a Russian n.o.blewoman, were she perhaps one of the native women in the various outlands of the Empire, he could very well own her.

"You jump to conclusions, sweetheart," he said with a wicked smile, "although the possibility interests me."

"A pity, then, you don't have enough money."

He was enjoying her anger. He was simply and unconditionally enjoying the sight and sound of her after waiting to touch her for all the tedious afternoon and evening. "Tell me your price, dushka," he said in a low, husky voice, baiting her for the pleasure of the game. "I think my credit is good with the Tsar."

She stood very straight, her palms pressed against the carved wood panels, her golden eyes brilliant and wrathful. "I'm sorry to disappoint your acquisitive nature, Prince Bariatinsky," she said, slowly, so each word fell into the silence between them like a tiny drop of rage, "but I'm priceless."

Amen to that, he thought, taking in the full impact of her beauty. Beyond the conventional attributes of her cla.s.sic features and opulent form, she was radiantly alive, as though a fire glowed inside her, a flame of pa.s.sion and wit and, more important yet, a warm capacity for giving. She was unique in his experience with women who invariably asked for things, however subtle the asking. And he wanted to feel that heated display very soon and mitigate his hunger for her; he wanted beyond reason to possess the indomitable Countess Lazaroff. not just for tonight but for as long as he desired.

"You must leave," Lisaveta said, interrupting his introspection. Prince Bariatinsky was not used to introspection. He preferred action, a principle any of his troopers would acknowledge. In fact his intrinsic impulse to action was probably his greatest a.s.set and the reason the Tsar's army had been so successful the past decade.

Rising from his chair, he decided it was time to close the distance between him and the fascinating Countess.

Chapter Five.

I'll scream," she said as he began to move toward her.

"Perhaps you didn't know," he replied, continuing his forward progress, his mouth curved in a warm smile, "my wing is separate from-" he paused, deliberating briefly on his choice of words "-the others." He was very close now so she had to look up to see his face. "I arranged to have you in...my wing." His dark eyes held hers. "Scream if you like," he softly said, "but I've no intention of hurting you." His hand came up to touch her and she moved away from the door. Stefan took a moment before following her to turn the key in the lock and slide it into his pocket.

"If I were you, I should think it humiliating to find restraint necessary." From the relative safety of the center of the room, Lisaveta sharply upbraided him.

"I'm a lazy man," Stefan murmured, immune to her provocation, testing the door latch to see it was locked, "and not inclined to chase you... anywhere." Teasing mockery underlay the moderation of his tone.

"What do you call this?" Lisaveta heatedly retorted as he advanced on her again and she retreated.

He grinned. "Foreplay?"

"I thought you were more subtle," she hissed.

"And I thought you more attuned to your feelings."

"I told you how I felt this afternoon."

"You told me only that you won't continue our friendship because of my fiancee."

"That's precisely how I feel."

"No, you feel the way I do... you feel the Angelglow," he murmured. "You feel deprived after a week of indulging your senses. You feel your skin against the silk of your chemise and petticoats. And," he finished in a husky whisper, "I can help you."

Stefan's words triggered the floodgates of sensation. He was advancing closer and she found her will to retreat diminishing. "How can it matter," he softly asked, "if we make love again?"

"It matters to me," Lisaveta said, low and breathless, but he was very near now, and all she could think of beyond her declaration of principle was how excruciatingly fine he had felt deep inside her, how perfectly he knew the chronology of her arousal, how hard and strong his powerful body felt beneath her hands, how his mouth felt touching hers... the way it would... now- "No!" She found the will somewhere to resist.

For a flashing moment she saw his anger before she slid away under his arm.

He silently watched her run to the door and try the latch, watched her bang her fists loudly against the solid mahogany door and swiftly turn to face him a moment later, her cheeks flushed with her effort. "You can't force me," she said, her voice intense with emotion.

"I'd never force you, sweetheart." He dropped into a chair, held his hands out, palms open in surrender, and with genuine sincerity said, "I told you I wouldn't hurt you."

"Open the door then."

"I didn't say I'd open the door."

"Are we splitting hairs?" she angrily retorted.

"Are we?" he calmly responded. "To deny yourself what you want purely on principle seems like Jesuit dialectics. We shouldn't be engaging in polemics when we both agree we want each other."

"We don't agree on that."

"Do you remember Deva, when the night air was so sultry on the balcony your skin slipped against mine when I slid you down my body? Tell me you don't want to enjoy that pleasure again. Tell me you don't want to experience the sensations you felt that morning when I fed you strawberries for breakfast, first." His voice was hushed because she hadn't wanted to wait but he'd insisted.

Lisaveta knew she'd never be able to eat strawberries again without remembering the heated crying need she'd felt that morning. Nor forget how beautiful Stefan had looked, his dark hair wet from the bath, his bronzed skin damply sleek in the brilliant morning sunlight, his enormous power and strength overwhelming the small cottage room, enhancing his potent virility, and she'd wanted him se badly she'd ached. As she did now.

He hadn't moved in his casual sprawl, his arms resting on the chair exactly where they'd dropped after his yielding gesture. "Tell me," he said very softly, looking darkly handsome and splendid, his silk shirt open at the neck, the fine linen of his trousers accentuating the slimness of his hips and the corded muscles in his legs, "tell me you don't want me and I'll leave."

Lisaveta's cheeks were still flushed, but no longer from her exertions banging on the door. The color pinking her cheeks came from within, from the heat pulsing deep inside her, the heat of desire she'd tried valiantly to deny or suppress or pretend didn't matter as much as principle and pride.

"Tell me," he said again, his low voice like a velvet caress in the stark silence of the room.

She should say, "Go," she thought, gazing at him, but a fresh rush of desire inundated her senses at the sight of him. He was aroused, it was obvious, and a melting heat responded at that knowledge. Lisaveta shivered as she stood in the balmy night air of Tiflis in July.

"Are you cold?" he inquired, knowing she was not. He rose to his feet in a slow graceful movement.

"No," she whispered, as if her answer would hold him at bay.

"I didn't think so," he murmured. His gaze traveled to her bed and then back again in leisure invitation. "I know everything you like," he said with a soft emphasis on "everything," as though he were offering her carte blanche in pleasure.

And after endless hours making love in the week past, she knew he was capable of tumult and tenderness, playful savagery and the most delicate enchantment. Was he addictive, as well?

Lisaveta was so naively new to all the sensuous sensations that she wondered briefly if indeed it were possible. How else did one explain this hot, ungovernable, incautious urge, this unfathomable insistent pulsing through her blood and brain and sensitized nerves-that she must have him again or die?

"Are you addictive?" Her query was hushed, a question not only of reason but of feeling.

He was startled for a transient pulse beat as he quietly waited for her, because curiously the same speculation had come to his mind. Unlike this naive child, he wasn't a tyro in amorous games. He wanted her with an unfamiliar and disquieting urgency. Heedless of protocol, of his fiancee, of Nadejda's conservative parents, he intended keeping Countess Lazaroff until the very last minute of his leave. If that wasn't addiction, it was something very similar. So he smiled and said, "Yes," and in the next breath added, "Does that help?"

Stefan's smile was relaxed now, his thoughts on less taxing issues than the possibility of falling under a woman's spell. He'd shaken away his disquietude with his facetious reply and he was charming predator once again. His most practiced role.

"I'm serious, Stefan. It unnerves me."

"Don't be serious, darling. Please." He moved swiftly toward her, recognizing the most potent of her resistance was past. "War is serious, dying is serious. Making love is unmitigated pleasure... and joy." His voice was perhaps more intense than he wished, but Kars was too recent in his thoughts, the stench and horror not removed yet from his memory.

"When do you go back?" She'd seen the flicker of distress in his eyes.

"Twenty-one days, six hours, give or take a few minutes. Haci will come for me." His words were carefully devoid of emotion... too carefully controlled.

"Up against that," Lisaveta quietly said, putting out her hand, "I am being foolish."

How trivial her selfish motives of jealousy and resentment seemed when Stefan had only a short leave before going back to the brutality of war. How childish it seemed to say, "I won't love you," when she wanted to, with all her heart. How unimportant the issue of Nadejda's presence when he was here and wanting her with the same pa.s.sion flaring through her senses.

He could die, she realized suddenly, when he returned to the war. What would she have then? The warmth of this memory tonight or the empty virtue of having refused him? Her fingers lightly touched his in affirmation and welcome.

As his hand closed over hers, he gazed down at her, thinking how fresh and young and untouched by the wretchedness of the world she looked. He wondered for the briefest moment whether she might be some apparition of his imagination.

But she smiled up at him, reminding him of her luscious corporeality.

"No, not foolish," he said in a quiet tone, then shrugged, because he knew she was only responding as any young woman of sensibility would. Nadejda's presence was a d.a.m.nable obstacle. Taking both her hands in his, he pulled her close. "I'm just being selfish. Forgive me, dushka, but I am. And if it's any sop to your conscience or morality, I won't let you go tonight."

"In all honesty, I doubt I could have left you, Stefan," Lisaveta whispered. "But in the morning I must."

"I'll change your mind." He laughed then, buoyant as a young boy, plans already racing through his mind. "I'll show you my mountain retreat. You'll love it. It's secluded and high above the sultry heat. The pines reach clear to the sky. There's a stream running through the courtyard and-"

She kissed him then with tears in her eyes, because she couldn't stay and be drawn closer each day to a man she already was too much in love with. But she would love him tonight and stay with him one last time, as though she wouldn't relinquish paradise without that final lingering look back.

He intended to woo her with all the skill he'd acquired since first making love to his governess at thirteen. In the intervening years since Mademoiselle Dovrieu had come to instruct him in French art and literature and quickly lured him into her bed, he'd become accomplished at pleasing women. Perhaps Ursulina had much to do with his admirable competence. She'd taught him very young the valuable lesson of generosity. s.e.xual pleasure wasn't taking but giving, she'd benevolently declared. She'd proceeded in the ensuing two years, while he learned France's contributions to painting, architecture, drama and literature, to show him in a variety of ways the inescapable truth to that statement.

So he intended to give his darling Countess whatever she wished, however she wished, as often as she wished, and by the time morning came she'd have changed her mind about leaving.

He kissed her tears away first, with light brushing kisses, holding her gently in his arms and sighing in soft restraint when she reached up again to claim his mouth with hers. He was intensely aroused and had been from the moment she'd walked into the bedroom, but he only held her close, tasting the sweetness of her lips, gently stroking her back, waiting until she made the first tentative overture for more than kisses. He wouldn't rush her or force the pace; he wanted only to answer her need. Although, he thought with a confidence schooled by hundreds of satisfied women in his past, there were moments ahead when a sensuous form of aggression would be satisfying. But not yet.

Lisaveta was standing on tiptoe in order to reach Stefan's mouth, her arms raised high to twine around his neck. Stretched taut against the solid strength of his body, his arousal hard and explicit against her stomach, she felt like a human offering to some pagan G.o.d. He could have her, they both knew; she was clinging to him as though a worshiper at the altar of his s.e.xuality, not indifferent or detached but alive with yearning. Stefan was right when he'd pressed her short moments ago to admit her need. She wanted him, she realized without pride. Her blood was pulsing through her veins in her readiness, her senses urgent in their submission. With a twinge of illogic and female conditioning, she wondered why he was content with kisses alone.

She moved her hips then with the merest of teasing pressure, and was pleased to feel Stefan's arousal swell in response. He was not, perhaps, content only with kisses. "You missed me today," she murmured, her smile the tempting one of Eve.

Looking down at her flushed and beautiful face, Stefan answered with his own captivating smile, "You noticed."

Beneath the casual restraint of his remark ran his habitual arrogance. "Mmm," Lisaveta replied, her soft voice coyly thoughtful and teasing, "I think so..."

"And reversed your decision on celibacy."

He was arrogant, she realized, about his physical attributes and prowess, although justifiably so. "I don't necessarily believe in celibacy," she sweetly said, intent on moderating his arrogance, "but I do believe in a variety of experiences." She was baiting him, her soft emphasis intentional.

"Really," Stefan quietly replied, compelling himself to suppress his sudden flare of anger. "In that case," he murmured, his eyes darkly seductive in a way Lisaveta didn't recognize because she'd never seen him celibate for an entire day, "I'll contrive not to bore you with redundance."

"Thank you," she said, her own surge of resentment impelled by his obviously nonredundant expertise. "This will be different tonight, then, won't it," Lisaveta breathed, "like a farewell performance." It angered her that she still meltingly wanted him, it angered her that she could no more walk away from him than she could stop breathing.

"Let's just call it mutual... intoxication," Stefan whispered. And not a farewell at all, he thought, but rather the beginning of-no caution was necessary in his silent contemplation; he could frankly call it what it was-a carnal adventure.

They were both, despite their anger and resentment, profoundly aroused, and as Stefan was deciding he wouldn't wait after all for Lisaveta's overtures, she reached her arms up and snaked them around his shoulders. Then, so quickly he didn't have time to protect himself, she stretched upward and sank her teeth into his bottom lip.

"So you don't forget me," she said as he stood rigidly silent, his lip b.l.o.o.d.y, his impulse to strike out curbed with only the most forceful restraint. Her arms were still on his shoulders, his loose at his sides, until suddenly, in an offensive response intrinsic to his nature and profession, his hands slid around her to the base of her spine, splayed out and crushed her to him so tightly she could feel the blood pulsing in his erection.

"You won't forget, either, darling," he said with a lazy drawl, "I promise." Lifting her into his arms in a flurry of silken skirts, he carried her over to the bed and dropped her onto the green brocade coverlet. "Do you want music?" he asked, not looking at her, pulling his shirt over his head, treating undressing and atmosphere as equally commonplace.

When Lisaveta gazed at him in astonishment from the crush of azure silk in which she lay, he added, glancing at her briefly as he tossed his shirt aside, "I could have the musicians come up." He paused a moment unfastening the first of his trouser b.u.t.tons and grinned. "For the farewell performance."

"No!" she quickly retorted, realizing he was serious, realizing he probably wouldn't be embarra.s.sed making love before an entire ma.s.sed orchestra, aware his musicians were likely more familiar with this room than she was. "No music, please," she appended, wanting to make herself perfectly clear, suddenly struck with the awareness that-with or without music-Stefan Bariatinsky made her heart and quivering senses sing, made life a sweet melody of pleasure.

He shrugged, as though lack of music might be a stumbling block to his enjoyment but he'd defer to her wishes. His deepening smile was redolent with courtesy and charm. "Whatever you wish," he softly said, kicking off his boots while she watched, fascinated by his extraordinary beauty and its effect on her. And when he stripped off his trousers and underclothes with an ease that spoke of repet.i.tion, her breath caught for a moment in her throat.

He was ma.s.sive-muscled, powerful, spectacularly aroused. Lisaveta shivered in antic.i.p.ation. Despite all logical arguments to the contrary, he was a temptation she couldn't resist, a prize she coveted, a pleasure she must have... and she found herself reaching to undo the jeweled b.u.t.tons on her gown.