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  Maybe more words would convince her. She was a writer, eloquent words probably mattered to her. But he didn’t have eloquence in him. He was a straightforward kind of guy. He’d said what he needed to say. He’d told her he wanted her. If he elaborated on that, said that he was burning up with desire, that he wanted her like he wanted his next breath, he might scare her away.

  Also, he’d made it clear that she could trust him. And she could, even if it killed him.

  He waited to see what she would say. He couldn’t remember wanting anything more than he wanted her. Like the song said, every move she made fascinated him. His entire body was tense, waiting for her response. He was tense between his legs, too. He had to will the hard-on down by thinking of Afghanistan, thinking of the men who died or were maimed there.

  It was hard though. Afghanistan was now seven thousand miles and years away but Harper was right here, right now. She was a stunner with light brown hair that turned silver in the light, matching her silvery-gray eyes with a dark blue rim. They nearly glowed in the dark. She had a heart-shaped face with silky-smooth pale skin and a mouth that was made for kissing. All this paired with small, perfect breasts, a tiny waist and long legs.

  But more than that she was smart, with a dry sense of humor and a bottomless fund of knowledge of the world. He’d never met anyone quite like her, and he wanted her so much it made his hands itch and his dick twitch.

  He wanted to make love to her, but it had to be mutual. She had to want it too. He’d rather tear out his own throat than hurt her or force her.

  She still didn’t say anything, but he could see her rolling the idea around in that beautiful head of hers. That was okay. He was a patient man. He could wait. And for her? For her, he’d wait a long, long time.

  Now that she was in his head, he couldn’t even imagine desiring someone else. She was everything he could possibly want in a woman. Smart, classy, gorgeous.

  She waited for a beat. Two.

  Then she twisted her hand under his.

  For a horrific moment, Mark thought she was going to pull her hand away, get up and walk out.

  But no.

  Her palm came to rest against his palm and her fingers clasped his.

  His heart gave a sharp thump in his chest.

  It was a yes.

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  Boston, ten years ago

  Calvin Burns stroked the beautiful back of the woman he loved, Anya Voronova. It was snowing outside his miserable, shabby dump of a studio apartment, the white mantle covering the overfilled dumpsters, filling in the cracks in the sidewalk, softening the smell of rot and mold.

  But inside his room was magic. He didn’t see the sagging bed, plyboard desk, scratched appliances. With Anya in the room, it was like being in a palace housing the rarest of treasures. Her naked body on his cheap rumpled bed glowed like the finest ivory. Her long blonde hair rippled down her back, gleaming gold.

  Fuck, listen to him.

  Cal was an engineer. Engineers were bound by facts and equations and hard cold math. If his profs or students in the post grad engineering classes he taught could read his mind right now, they’d freak. Cal Burns did math. Cal Burns didn’t do poetic.

  But then, nobody else had Anya Voronova as a lover. She’d inspire a gorilla to poetry. She was like winning the lottery and discovering the cure for cancer and inventing computers all wrapped up in one winning package.

  He tapped out We are the Champions on her satiny back, right above the dimple over her perfect ass.

  “Mmm.” She made a throaty sound of pleasure.

  “Like that, do you?” Cal asked. He didn’t have to ask. Anya always made her pleasure — and displeasure — known. She didn’t play games. He loved that about her.

  But then, he loved everything about her.

  She smiled at him over her shoulder, light blue eyes gleaming. “Do you know who used to do that?”

  Cal froze. “Do what?” Was she going to talk about some lover she’d had before him who’d touched that perfect back? Jealousy shot through him in a spurt of bile.

  “Tapping something rhythmic on the back of a woman. Goethe did that, tapping out the hexameters of one of his poems on his lover’s back. In his palazzo in Rome.”

  Goethe. Cal had only discovered who Goethe was since he’d started dating Anya and the first time he saw the name written he would have pronounced it Go-thee. Luckily she pronounced it out loud first. Ghew-tay.

  And fuck if he knew what a hexameter was.

  Another thing about this beautiful woman. She was cultivated as hell, knew everything there was to know about non-scientific, non-engineering things. Cal more or less had the scientific, engineering side of things down pat, so together they were going to rule the world.

  “Well.” Cal sighed, smoothing the palm of his hand over the satiny skin of Anya’s lower back. “Not a poet. Couldn’t write a poem to save my life.”

  She chuckled and slowly turned over. Every time Cal met those bright summer-sky blue eyes, it was like a punch to the stomach. She was so beautiful she took his breath away.

  He hadn’t moved his hand but her turning over placed his hand on her stomach. It wasn’t a hardship. That very soft skin covered sleek firm muscles all over. She smiled right into his eyes, placing her hand over his, pushing it down.

  “I don’t know, darling,” she whispered. “In some things you’re an artist.”

  And she moved her long slim legs apart and the hard punch of lust nearly brought him to his knees. She smiled. She knew exactly what she did to him.

  One leg bent, one long leg open to the side and there she was — open to him. They’d made love not long ago and she was still pink and swollen there. Glistening from her juices. Cal remembered vividly shaking as he came and jetted what felt like half his bodily fluids into the condom and feeling how wet she was when he pulled out.

  Her sex was a living embodiment of their love-making, like she’d been branded. He liked that, liked the thought of her being branded by him. Her sex, her breasts … the nipples were still hard and deep pink from his mouth. There was a little whisker burn on the ivory skin of her breasts which he’d feel sorry for if he hadn’t loved sucking on her nipples so much. She hadn’t complained.

  In a deeper way, he was branded, too. Highly sexed by nature, Cal now thought of sex exclusively in terms of Anya. No one else turned him on at all. He couldn’t even consider having another woman, not when he had the most beautiful woman in the world in his bed, who was also whip smart and understood him.

  And loved him.

  That was the real kicker. She loved him.

  “Cal,” she breathed, and all the hairs on his body stood up. He was already hard as a rock. He was always semi-aroused when around her. But when they were naked together, his dick simply wouldn’t go down.

  “Honey.” There was a slight question in the word. What did she want? Whatever she wanted, he’d give to her. He’d give her the moon if he could.

  Her huge, bright blue eyes locked onto his face. “Touch me.”

  Cal shuddered. God, yes. He reached out and gently pushed her legs further apart. The skin of her inner thighs felt warm and incredibly soft against the skin of his palm. His hands were big and rough. He’d been into martial arts since he was a kid and had had a karate period. He had tough, calloused hands. But he knew from experience that no matter how rough his hands were, they didn’t scratch her skin. He knew exactly how to touch her, where and how hard.

  “That’s it,” Anya whispered as his hand rose along her thigh, higher and higher.

  Cal sat on the side of the bed and just looked at her, stretched out before him like a feast, legs apart, eyes heavy.

  There was some painter from some time in the past who’d painted this painting … he didn’t remember the name of the artist, or the style or the name of the painting. That wasn’t in his wheelhouse, though it was in hers. She was the one who’d showed him the image in a
book.

  All he remembered was skin that glowed like pearls on the canvas, the woman looking straight at the viewer, long blonde hair covering part of her body, one hand on her belly. It was a famous painting and if his mind hadn’t been blasted by lust maybe he’d remember what it was called, but he did remember the beauty of the model that seared the eyes.

  That was what Anya looked like, only she was more slender and her hair was honey blonde not red. But other than that, she was eternal woman.

  Cal shifted his eyes to her belly, where his hand lay next to hers. Just the sight of their hands together was erotic, let alone how she was posed. His hands were big and callused from years at the dojo. He could shatter four bricks with the edge of his hand but here it looked out of place against her delicate skin. Her hand was slender and pale, the hand of an artist. Male and female.

  He slid his hand further down and covered her mound, like a flesh-colored bikini bottom. She had a cloud of ash-brown hair covering her sex, it was so soft to the touch it felt like a cloud too. Small dots of her juices were threaded through her pubic hair like tiny pearls.

  She smiled at him, meeting his eyes, then hers travelled over his body down to his groin, where he was as hard as a club. He felt more blood rush to his dick. It was almost painful.

  She smiled up into his eyes. “Just from looking at you?”

  “Just you breathing does the trick, princess.”

  She rolled her eyes, as she always did when he called her princess. But the fact was, she was a princess, sort of. Her asshole father, who was insanely rich, never failed to mention in interviews that he was descended from Russian royalty. His great-great- a billion times great-grandfather had been a cousin of the czar a million years ago when Russia had czars. It was in every interview with the man. Anya never mentioned it but her father did. Often.

  He was a dickhead. Cal hated him and he hated Cal right back.

  Not that Cal cared. Not when he had his princess looking at him with heat in her glowing blue eyes.

  She lifted her leg and placed her foot right over his dick. Cal closed his eyes because it was just too much stimulation. Her foot was beautiful too, slender, pretty, with blue toenail polish. She rubbed it up and down him and his breathing went ragged.

  He had to do something to even this up.

  Cal turned his hand, started stroking her. He heard a sharp intake of breath and opened his eyes to see her closing hers. Fuck yeah. He wasn’t alone here. She was wet and pink and slightly swollen, from the last time they’d made love and from her body preparing for the next time.

  He watched as his hand stroked her, the wet skin like satin. A finger traced her opening, around and around, lingering at the clitoris. He knew her so well. Her excitement was so fascinating he almost forgot his own.

  Around and around … her thighs trembled.

  Yeah, baby.

  He slipped his finger inside her, relishing the small cry. She convulsed around his finger sharply and he could see her stomach muscles pull. When his princess came, she came with her whole body.

  She wasn’t quite there yet, though. Close, but not there.

  “Cal …” Anya whispered.

  He leaned down, one hand planted on the bed right next to her pale firm breast. “Sweetheart.” He pulled his finger out, slid it back in. She convulsed again, a sharp pull of her sex. Her hands were trembling.

  His were, too.

  “Come to me,” she pleaded and it wasn’t in him to deny her. Of course he would come to her. He was born to come to her.

  He slid a second finger into her silky warmth, holding her open, placed a knee on the bed and mounted her, sliding into her in the exact moment she started coming.

  Oh my god, she was so beautiful when she came. He never got tired of it. He wanted to spend the rest of his life watching her. There was a ring in his pants pocket with a tiny diamond in it. So tiny you could hardly see it, but the promise behind the ring was big. He was hers, forever.

  She was arched back, long neck exposed. He lowered his mouth to her neck and as his lips touched her skin, she came even harder, pulsing against his dick. There was an electrical connection that nearly stopped his heart.

  He pressed inside her, mouth on her neck, feeling the fluttering of her heart. His own heart was thundering inside his chest, with excitement, with love.

  Man, he loved her. He didn’t think it was possible to love any human being as much as he loved Anya Voronova, his princess. He felt her skin against his, but it was like her skin had been removed and he could feel her insides, too. Her heart beating, her muscles pulling, her lungs expanding. He was inside her and she was inside him.

  It was exhilarating and a little scary too.

  But, hell, worth it.

  Cal held himself still while she worked her way through her orgasm, hyperaware of everything going on with her. Her sex clenching around his, her arms and legs holding him tightly, the way she arched her back and stopped breathing for a long moment, as she went inside herself, completely in the moment.

  Then she crested, a sharp moan coming from her, her hips rotating, almost dancing around his dick while coming. He let her because it was a way for her body to be prepared.

  Cal could be rough. He didn’t want to be, particularly not with his princess, but it was the way he was wired. The only way it could work was if she came and came hard and was soft and wet afterward. So he gritted his teeth as she climaxed, then came down gently, her entire body lax and mellow. Arms and legs falling back onto the mattress, wet and soft inside.

  Now he could let loose.

  Cal lowered his entire body onto her and buried his face in the pillow next to hers. In his excitement he didn’t want to mark her, even – God forbid! – bite her. In the early days he’d been so worked up he marked that perfect ivory skin a couple of times and it had appalled him.

  He slid his hands up her slim legs and lifted them and opened them a little, so that — ah — he reached deep inside her. If he could, he’d have touched her heart with his dick. As it was, he did his best.

  And then all thoughts fled his head as he became a male animal with his mate.

  He retained just enough control not to pound her, but it was hard. Every single cell in his body registered acute mind-numbing pleasure as he moved in and out of her, fast then faster. She was soft and warm and all his. Skin to skin, heart to heart, on her and in her, he moved, heart pounding, barely registering pleasure when she convulsed and came again. Her arms held him so tightly, but not as tightly as he held her. He wanted to stay inside her forever but when her hands moved to his butt and her fingers curled in and she nipped his earlobe — he lost it.

  Cal moved as fast and as hard as he could, feeling her pleasure, feeling that he wasn’t hurting her but pleasing her, but it was way too much. Too much stimulation — that soft, creamy skin, that luscious mouth kissing his ear, her soft, wet sex like a glove around him …

  He erupted with a great groan, lungs bellowing because there wasn’t enough air in the world to contrast the enormous heat inside him, like a volcano exploding, hips making short fast jabs inside her until it was over and he collapsed on top of her, completely spent.

  His breathing gradually slowed down and he gained the use of his body back. Every time it was as if he entered some secret kingdom where he gave her so much power over him he had to work his way back into himself.

  He did it this time, too. But this time, there was a reason for him to get back in control of himself. He had big news. Big big news. The biggest.

  His face was still buried in the pillow next to hers and a huge grin broke out, one he couldn’t control. He let it bloom because … hot damn. His life — their lives — were about to change.

  It was supposed to be a surprise because it was so big he’d been afraid to blow the possibility of it out of proportion with her. They’d barely talked about it because he didn’t want to jinx it and he didn’t want to see disappointment in her eyes if he didn’t get it
.

  Already the difference in status between them was huge, an almost unbridgeable gap. But he was an engineer and his love for her had built the bridge between them, which existed only when they were in their little world of two. And here, in his slum of a flat. He’d been to her palatial mansion only once and the memory was so painful he winced every time he thought of it.

  She was the daughter of an immensely rich aristocrat and he was the son of a runaway mom and a drunk truck driver of a father, who’d cut off relations when Cal wanted to go to college instead of driving a truck like his dad.

  But all of that was going to change. Something big was coming up and he had a ring with a microscopic diamond in his pocket for when he’d given his news and he could officially ask her to marry him. He’d have asked the day after meeting her but he’d had nothing to offer.

  He did now.

  Like in a fairy tale, he and his princess would move and begin their lives together in a beautiful sunny kingdom far far away.

  California.

  She was working on a double major — Chinese studies and International Relations. She could do that just as well at Berkley as here. Better.

  She’d come with him.

  But first — he had to tell her his news.

  Cal lifted his head then his torso up on his forearms. He kissed her forehead, pulled gently out of her. His dick complained, just like it always did because inside Anya was the best place to be. His dick hated pulling out.

  But his dick could take a hike because there was serious stuff to talk about now.

  “I have some news,” he said softly, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. Time for excitement later.

  Anya pushed gently at his chest, their sign for him to get off her. When they were having sex, she said his weight on her was exciting. But he weighed almost double what she did and she always said that breathing was overrated when they were having sex, but became once again a priority post-sex.

  Obediently, Cal rolled off her and she scooted up to sit against the plywood headboard, bunching pillows around her.