Love Storm (9 page)

Zena was left standing susceptible and bewildered, having wanted Alex to kiss her while simultaneously feeling it wasn't really right for her to feel that way. Alex reached his door and opened it; a yellow beam of light spread into the hallway, and Zena winced as she heard a breathy, inviting feminine voice cry out, "Sasha, my love!"

"Tamara,
mon ange"
Alex intoned warmly, "what a pleasant surprise."

The door closed with a tiny click, and Zena stood alone in the dimly lit hall, burning with an unspeakably black rage. Flouncing into her room, she tossed off her clothes and tumbled into the huge feather bed, but sleep eluded her; for quite some time she lay there wakeful, staring into the dark as the muted sounds from the adjacent room bombarded her reluctant ears.
Mon ange
was decidedly vocal in her passion, and the moans of pleasure and cries of delight assailed the senses of the furious woman lying next door. Damn slut, Zena cursed rancorously, couldn't she shut up, and, as if on cue, no sound could be heard but the rhythmic creaking of the bed. The persistent cadence hammered at her eardrums. Would it never end! she disgruntedly raged. Moans of ecstasy from female lips rose above the sound. Silence. All was quiet fractionally, then all too soon the feminine cries of rapture began again.

Zena indignantly covered her head with two pillows, burrowing into the soft mattress, cried quiet tears of frustration, and presently worn out from the long day and manifold extremes of emotion, fell into a restless sleep.

Bobby woke her up at a respectable nine o'clock after Mariana could restrain him no longer. Zena dressed quickly in her only dress, smoothing out the wrinkles on the skirt as best she could. Then she and Bobby proceeded downstairs for breakfast.

The morning meal was being served in a sunny little parlor at the back of the
dacha.
It was a gloriously beautiful January day with a brilliant sun sparkling on the snow.

About an hour later Zena and Bobby were finishing breakfast, when a wan, slow-moving Prince Alex, dressed in buckskins and a muzhik shirt, entered the room and dropped wearily into a chair, disposing his long legs and bare feet into an extended sprawl. Trevor hovered over the prince solicitously, offering the great variety of dishes available, but Alex waved them all away and gruffly ordered hot coffee with lots of cream and a small tot of brandy. Bobby had crawled down from his chair when the prince appeared and now stood in front of Alex solemnly surveying the half-slumped form. Zena eyed the prince balefully. He was an unutterable picture of exhaustion this morning; his long, raven hair was disarranged, his face was pale though shaved, and the dark circles under his eyes were painfully obvious.

"Papa play with Bobby!" the little boy demanded and began pulling on Alex's hand, which draped limply over one arm of the chair.

"Leave the prince alone, Bobby," Zena snapped irritably. "He's obviously tired," she peevishly continued, unable to hide the resentment in her voice.

Alex lifted one eyebrow quizzically in response to the patent ill humor of his guest but let the cutting remark pass, too fatigued before his coffee and brandy to enter into any verbal sparring. Little bitch, he thought with a mild testiness, if you would have tumbled for me, I would have gladly sent
Tamara
on her way.

"Papa, Papa, play!" Bobby persisted, heedless of Zena's remonstrances.

Alex pulled the little boy up into his lap and whispered in his ear. Bobby's eyes widened in excitement. Immediately the young child tumbled off Alex's lap and scurried out of the room as fast as his sturdy little legs permitted, calling for Mariana at the top of his lungs.

"What was that all about?" Zena inquired coolly.

"Come, sit in my lap, and I'll whisper in your ear," Alex teased provocatively, relishing the sparkling flash of anger spilling from Zena's vivid eyes.

"I most certainly will not!" Zena tartly replied. "Don't think we're all like
mon ange"
she finished acerbically.

Alex narrowed his eyes consideringly and softly murmured, "No, my pet, not like
mon ange
at all—you're much, much better," and his mouth lifted into a mocking smile.

"Oh!" Zena exhaled indignantly, speechlessly infuriated at the bold crudeness, but seconds later she dropped her lashes sheepishly before the knowing leer Alex bestowed on her. The memory of her ready responses on the train from St. Petersburg made argument awkward.

Trevor interrupted with the brandy, which he poured into coffee
au lait
and handed to his master. Zena bit her tongue on the angry retort she would have liked to make, while Alex seemed oblivious to her as he sipped the warm drink, eyes closed, his head resting heavily against the chair cushion.

Within minutes of drinking the hot liquid, he knew his heart had begun pumping again, and Alex conceded optimistically that perhaps he wouldn't collapse this morning. Mrs. Askov was too damn demanding. He'd have to either see her more often so that she wouldn't be so ravenously insatiable, or he'd have to give up seeing her at all. In the ambivalent position she now occupied in his life, Mrs. Askov would exhaust a regiment of rapacious recruits. Lord, he was tired!

A beaming Bobby preceded Mariana and two footmen into the room. The men carried an enormous wooden rocking horse accoutered with a diminutive saddle and silver-embellished bridle. Real horsehair flowed from the mane and tail, while the
trompe l'oeil
painting of the hide was meticulously accurate to the smallest vein.

The hubbub of the small cavalcade served to lever the prince's eyelids open a scant quarter inch, but the squeals of elation from Bobby as he was lifted into place induced the eyes to open fully. A smile of unalloyed delight appeared on Alex's face as he viewed the toddler riding the horse with utterly reckless abandon. It enhances the melancholy of the world, Alex thought, smiling, to see it occasionally through the enchanted eyes of a child; he wondered whimsically whether old Pasha enjoyed being brought out of retirement.

Zena's heart warmed to the prince for his thoughtfulness and attention to her young brother, and she forgave him marginally for having kept her awake half the night with his paramour's squeals. Sh experienced a desire to reach out and brush back the soft dark curls from Alex's forehead or to touch her fingers lightly to his ashen, fatigued face. She felt peculiarly undone by his pale vulnerability. It was really very kind of him to even appear downstairs this early after the long night he had endured. Immediately the direction of her thoughts created a strange yearning in her fledgling emotions that flustered and confounded.

Alex played "tired Papa" with Bobby after the novelty of the rocking horse had paled. The game very simply consisted of Bobby crawling all over Alex while he lay on the floor recuperating his strength. More toys were brought downstairs, and each new addition was consideringly discussed and demonstrated by the lounging prince.

By lunchtime Alex's youthful reserves of energy were rejuvenating his powerful body. Zena's sensual beauty, so close he could almost touch her as she participated in the games with Bobby, necessitated a change of position, as his buckskins became extremely uncomfortable. Alex rolled on his stomach to hide the erection. In deference to modesty he passed the greater part of the afternoon in this prone position, although he wondered vaguely why he was restraining himself when he would have much preferred tossing up Zena's skirts and plunging into her right there on the floor. Alex was astonished, libertine that he was, to discover he apparently was harboring some dubious scruples. He was surprised at his generosity of spirit.

The enigmatic incredulity of uncovering previously unknown reserves of principle was too much to contemplate with the God-awful hangover he had, so the remainder of the afternoon passed restfully and uncomplicated by additional reflection.

Alex would frequently offer advice to Zena and Bobby in assembling some of the toys, sometimes reaching out a long arm to help find a difficult puzzle piece, sometimes resting his head on his arms and dozing occasionally. He also quite regularly studied Zena through dark downcast lashes, which affected his erection even more urgently as he took in the details of her fair, porcelain face, the charming intonations of her soft, mellifluous voice, and the innocent impudence of her bounteous, saucy breasts, which fit into her aquamarine dress no better today than yesterday. He'd have to buy her some clothes, he thought, deeming it perfectly permissible for his gaze to admire those fine breasts, but with an uncustomary male possessiveness unique to his former unreserved habits.

Zena, too, in guarded glances viewed the incredibly attractive man sprawled so near her. Every nerve in her body was conscious of his presence, and if she had dared, she would have reached out and touched him. When he dozed fitfully, she drank in the lithe lines of the lean form encased in buckskin straining against leg muscles. She admired the rippling power beneath the fine linen shirt stretched across brawny shoulders, and she was enchanted by the soft black waves of hair that fell over his fine cheekbones. And those heavy black lashes—my lord, they were indecently long for a man!

As the day wore on, the prince, being driven to a torturous state of affairs by the casual proximity of a gorgeous female he had promised not to touch, was racking his mind for an escape from this dilemma. His erection was under him, pressed between the floor and his stomach, engorged, strained, crazy for relief. Your cock is throbbing and hard, and you're doing nothing about it, you fool, he thought.

He had given his word on the train in a casual but not altogether benevolent fashion, and honor demanded that as a gentleman he was obliged to keep his word, but damn it all, he couldn't walk around with a constant erection. Much as he would be enchanted to regard the
mademoiselle
with benign friendship and observe his word, he was only human. This was the first time in his life he had ever denied himself a woman. And he was denying himself now because manners decried the necessity, honor must be served. Damn! He wasn't capable of this brotherly coexistence.

Fortunately the indelible streak of ruthlessness that had served the reprobate Kuzans so faithfully for more than a thousand years obligingly reminded him that he was an aristocrat and a prince. When one had the good fortune to possess power in the world, reasonableness, decorum, and propriety were as expendable and irrelevant as yesterday's brioche. He was a nobleman, for Christ's sake, one thousand years of arrogant breeding insisted. He didn't need manners!

His dilemma mercilessly disposed of, all scruples be damned, the prince smiled faintly as he dozed on the floor and set his mind on contriving exactly when and where he would empty this insistent throbbing erection into the delicate young miss seated opposite him. No guilt. The world, like a fine wine or a fine woman, was meant for his pleasure. It was his for the taking. Regardless of the mixed blood and diverse passions evident in the lineage of Kuzan males through the centuries, in one characteristic, in one particular attribute of their ancestry, all were in firm accord—their moral scruples were rudimentary.

Glancing up quickly, a small, pleased smile playing across his handsome features, Alex startled Zena, who was scrutinizing him in a most ill-bred fashion. A gleam appeared in his eyes, and his smile broadened into a warm, appealing grin as color surged into the young lady's cheeks before she hastily looked away. Eminently experienced in the pursuit of females, the prince swiftly and correctly assessed the maiden's state of mind. It appeared, he was disposed to think pleasantly, that the attraction was mutual.

Zena felt a frisson of alarm and pleasure and, with a determined effort, attempted to resist looking at the prince for the remainder of the afternoon, but occasionally her eyes would slip in his direction and be captured by his distracting, tawny gaze. When Alex suggested a sleigh ride to entertain Bobby, Zena grasped eagerly at the invitation, hoping to divert the very uncomfortable, disquieting focus of her thoughts.

It was impossible to ignore the sensuous masculinity of Prince Alex, and Zena's agitated reason leaped at the opportunity to cast off the spell of his vital sensuality. The cold, brisk winter air and a variety of interesting sights to show Bobby would shatter this awesome enchantment Alex's powerful presence was spinning around her.

"A sleigh ride sounds marvelous!" Zena exclaimed, somewhat too brittlely, as she jumped up in a restless flurry.

The little filly was jibbing at the sight of the bridle, Alex ruminated metaphorically. It had been easier to mount her the first time, he thought drolly. She was damnably frightened now of where her feelings would take her, it appeared. Never rush a temperamental filly, he cautioned himself. He preferred a willing partner, but his aching testicles reminded him—willing or unwilling—it better be damned soon.