Free No More Sweet Surrender by Caitlin Crews

to the line of her neck, so close that he could inhale her delicate scent. It worked through him, making him crazy. Making that razor’s edge of need sharper. Making him entertain the possibility that he, too, could be seduced.
    And he could see it all in the mirror. He could see that dizzy, unfocused gleam in her dark eyes, see the way his lips hovered so close to her soft skin. So close. He could see the immensity of his battered champion’s body, the way he stood behind and all around her, the hulking brute to all her fragile, supple femininity.
    The sight of it should not have made him that much hotter. But he had never been politically correct, had he? Especially not in bed.
    He made himself go slowly, carefully, as if he was as in control of this, of himself, as he should have been. He held her wrist in one hand, the other moving from the small of her back to grip her hip as if he owned her. He held her the way he’d kissed her across the world in Georgetown, as if they’d been lovers a thousand times before. As if his smallest touch was a preview to a show they both knew by heart. As if he had spent hours already today thrusting hard and deep inside of her, shattering her into millions of pieces, the way he assured himself he would. And soon.
    Very soon, Professor ,he promised her silently.
    In another life, where they were already lovers and there were none of these games, this scene would be very different. He would simply take. What he wanted. What he felt was his. Her. He would brace her against the mirrors, or have her kneel across his lap on that settee, and he wouldn’t care who might be watching them. And in that life, neither would she. She would welcome it—him—with none of her suspicious frowns or patrician pearl-clutching. She would meet his every touch, his every thrust. Ivan felt that work through him, as if it was real. As if it had happened—was happening. That hard fist of desire in his belly clenched ever tighter.
    “Milaya moya,” he murmured, as he had before. But this time it came out like some kind of incantation. “What if I am shifting after all?”
    She jerked against him, and he could see her pulse go wild at her throat. Her gaze was black, and he had no doubt at all that she would call what she felt then any number of names, but he knew what it was. He knew what her body was begging for, even if she denied it.
    And it was harder than it should have been, far harder than he’d anticipated, to keep himself from claiming her right here and right now, and to hell with any security cameras.
    This is an act , he reminded himself coldly. You are supposed to be acting.
    He raised his head, slowly and deliberately, because he did not want to move at all. He did not want to let go of her. But this was meant to be a seduction wrapped inside a masquerade, and this was only the beginning. Why was that so hard to remember?
    But he knew why. And he couldn’t let his suicidal fascination jeopardize all he and Nikolai had worked for. Not even if she was the first woman to get beneath his skin, to make him forget himself, in as long as he could remember. Something he had no intention of letting this haughty little aristocrat know. He could imagine all too well how she’d enjoy using it against him.
    He let go of her wrist and plucked at the fabric draped all around her, still holding her gaze, his other hand hard and possessive on her hip, because, he assured himself, it was part of the act. And because he was only a man.
    “This one is perfect, I think,” he said after a moment, when he was certain he would sound nothing but calm. Casual. He pretended he didn’t see the shock in her gaze, the fiery passion mixed with something like betrayal. He pretended he didn’t care that she thought he’d played her, because he shouldn’t. Because, in the end, he was. “I like the color.”
    * * *
    Horrible man.
    “I’ve hired a team of stylists to attend to you,” Ivan said offhandedly when they