Brides For Billionaires. LYNNE GRAHAM
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And why was Kat encouraging him like that? That was certainly not the way she behaved in Mikhail’s company when she had never yet deigned to laugh or smile. Kat still treated Mikhail like a queen trying to repel an over-familiar commoner and it galled him. The only time he was happy with her response to him was when she was in his arms and her reserve was shattered, ripped away by the passion she could not suppress.
‘Ty v poryadka … are you OK?’ Stas murmured to one side of him.
Eyes bright as golden stars in his lean strong face, Mikhail was pale with dark fury and he didn’t trust himself to speak. Kat was engaged in animated conversation with Lorne: her expressive hands were sketching vivid word pictures while she studied the painting with the other man. Lorne now had an arm clasped round her waist and the sight of that familiarity was so offensive to Mikhail that he could happily have wrenched the couple apart and tossed his business partner off the side of the yacht. Kat was his. She’s mine screamed every fibre of Mikhail’s tautly muscled body and he was ready to break Lorne’s arms for daring to touch her. Damn art, Mikhail thought bitterly, thrusting his passage through the crush around him. That had to be the common denominator that had brought down the barriers between Kat and Lorne because Lorne was involved with the Arts Council and she had a degree in Fine Arts. Mikhail’s vast and much-admired art collection was solely investment-based and he couldn’t have talked about any of it, for his interest had never gone much beyond that level. And for the first time in his life he was in no mood to admit to being a total philistine.
An arm locked round Kat’s waist from behind, anchoring her back into the powerful strength and heat of a large male body. Disconcerted at being touched without warning even though she knew immediately who it was who held her, Kat jerked and froze even as Mikhail murmured her name above her head and addressed Lorne Arnold. Hot pink swept her cheeks as the other man tensed, unable to hide his surprise at Mikhail’s revealing embrace. Long lean fingers brushed her torrent of russet curls back off one slim shoulder and male lips slowly grazed the slender column of her throat, pressing in at one point in a fleeting kiss that sent a lightning bolt of sizzling sexual awareness shooting through her unprepared body. Her breasts peaked and sliding heat clenched every muscle in her pelvis. Even as angry resentment roared through Kat she found herself leaning back into Mikhail for support to compensate for the sudden paralysing weakness of her legs.
‘Excuse us,’ Mikhail purred like the predator he was, holding Kat below one arm like a piece of booty he had reclaimed and urging her across the room while at the same time refusing to allow any of his attentive guests to intercept him.
Stas yanked open the door in readiness and Kat recognised the glimmer of amusement in the older man’s eyes even though his expression was politely impassive. That glimpse stoked her own temper even more and that was the only reason she did not protest Mikhail’s domineering behaviour. She did not want to have a row with Mikhail in front of an interested audience.
Thrust into another room across the corridor furnished like an office, Kat barely paused to draw breath before she whirled round to confront him. ‘How dare you touch me like that in public?’ she raked at him in an uncompromising attack.
Mikhail was utterly taken aback by that defiant demand, and his darkly handsome features hardened even more. ‘You shouldn’t have been flirting with him and encouraging him to take liberties—’
‘I wasn’t flirting with him!’ Kat flung back at him hotly. ‘We were just chatting—’
‘Nyet … no, you were flirting like mad, batting your eyelashes … smiling … giggling!’ Mikhail condemned in a raw undertone of accusation, eyes full of derision at her plea of innocence.
Belatedly recognising that he was entirely serious in his misapprehension, Kat compressed her lips. ‘We were in a room surrounded by people—’
‘And I saw in his face that until I touched you he didn’t even realise who you were!’ Mikhail grated. ‘He would never have laid a finger on you had he known you were here with me. You should have been by my side—’
Kat tilted her bright head to one side, green eyes sharp as lasers with offence. ‘Sticking to you like glue, so that you didn’t feel the need to mark your territory like a wolf? I have never been so embarrassed in my life.’
Black eyes blazing at her accusation, Mikhail bit out ferociously, ‘Don’t exaggerate! I only kissed your neck—I didn’t touch you anywhere intimate!’
Still all too aware of the fast-beating pulse at the precise spot he had only kissed, Kat went rigid with resentment at the memory of the practised manner in which he had demolished any possible resistance she might have raised to protect herself. That place on her throat was clearly an erogenous zone she had not even known she possessed and he was a man capable of demonstrating many more such tricks. Well, he wouldn’t be doing that to her again—not if she had anything to do with it!
‘I wasn’t flirting,’ she said again in a cutting tone and she watched him pick up on that tone as if she had thrown a flaming torch at him: his black eyes suddenly burning jewel-bright, his exotic cheekbones slashing taut. ‘Why would I have flirted with him? Lorne has a girlfriend and I was expecting her to appear at any moment—’
‘When he arrived, he told me they’d broken up a few weeks ago. He’s looking for a replacement and he had his eye on you,’ Mikhail delivered grimly.
Refusing to be intimidated, Kat tossed her russet curls back and sighed. ‘So? I smiled at the man. I was only being friendly. I don’t giggle … I never ever giggle,’ she told him drily. ‘And you didn’t like it? Why do you think that is? Because I don’t smile and laugh with you? Ask yourself if you have ever done or said anything likely to encourage such a relaxed response from me.’
Infuriated by the charge that laid fault at his door when it was her unacceptable behaviour that had provoked him into warning off Lorne, Mikhail gritted his perfect white teeth and almost snarled. He reached out for her with determined hands.
Kat backed off so fast that she would have fallen over, had she not had the support of the desk behind her. ‘You’re such a caveman,’ she muttered helplessly. ‘And you’re not touching me in that mood.’
Mikhail stayed where he was mere inches from her but he dropped his hands, disconcerted by her words and equally disturbed by the level of his own anger. ‘I would never ever hurt you.’
And reading the look of reproach in his stunning eyes, Kat believed him, but he was never going to be a pussycat of the domestic variety either. He was one-hundred-per-cent primal male laced with aggression. ‘I know but unfortunately for both of us that legal agreement didn’t go far enough—’
‘Kat …?’ Mikhail began darkly, exasperated by the change of subject.
‘No, please let me have my say for once,’ Kat cut in in a resolute plea that ignored the taut silence smouldering around her. ‘You want something from me that I’m not prepared to give and now you’re judging me unfairly. I wouldn’t flirt with one of your guests. I’m not that sort of woman, I’m not even sure that after so long I even know how to flirt any more—’
‘You know,’ Mikhail contradicted without hesitation. ‘Lorne couldn’t take his eyes off you.’
‘But I was only trying to make him feel welcome. There was no subtext and nothing else intended,’ Kat told him quietly. ‘I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass you either but you do need to be aware of the boundaries of that agreement.’
‘In what way?’ Mikhail prompted, marvelling that against all odds she had managed to talk him down from his rage, somehow cutting through all the aggro to make him think clearly again. Even so, he didn’t like the explosive, unpredictable effect she had on his mood; he didn’t like it at all. Lorne was a business partner and a friend, but, if the other man had gone even one step further with Kat, Mikhail knew he would have struck him. The sight of Lorne’s hand on Kat had enraged him and that disturbed him as well. In all fairness, what could have happened between Lorne and Kat in a