The Only Woman to Defy Him

CHAPTER ELEVEN


DEMYAN HAD NEVER taken advice on parenting.

He did it at gut level.

It was the reason he had never consulted lawyers during his divorce. Amazingly, neither had Nadia—she had known she was getting an incredibly good deal.

He had never paid much attention to the magazine articles written about him either, for Demyan had known, despite their suggestions otherwise, that he would be home for Christmas and all the things that mattered.

That he listened to Alina was more of a compliment than she could possibly know.

Even though he refuted the words that came from her lips, the fact that a discussion was taking place was a miracle in itself.

They sent out for food, they drank wine, they argued and paced rooms and split hairs about the most precious detail.

His son.

And she found out that when Demyan loved, he loved for ever.

‘He leaves tomorrow, I can’t just walk up and say to him that he might not even be mine.’

‘I get that!’ Alina said. ‘I get that it’s going to hurt him...’ They’d come from Roman’s shrine of a bedroom and were upstairs in the master bedroom, Demyan staring out of the window, trying to wrestle his mind from resistance, and then he flinched as Alina told him her shame.

He flinched for her, although he already knew.

‘It was my dad that I was trying to contact when I was on your computer. I sent him a friend request,’ Alina said. ‘He should have jumped to respond to me, he should have spent the last twenty-one years trying to be a part, even a small part of my life. You’re blocking Roman.’

‘I’m not.’

‘That’s how he sees it. To him, you simply don’t care enough to fight.’

Perhaps, Demyan conceded, but only in his mind.

He needed to think, or rather not think for a while and let the thought simmer. The very idea that he might tell Roman the truth had felt like annihilation. Now, though...

‘Can you talk to Nadia?’ Alina asked.

‘We are so past talking.’ he said. ‘She’s counting on it, though. She will have something up her sleeve, you can be sure of it.’

Alina had nothing up her sleeve—in fact, it was Demyan’s last card that she brought to the table now. ‘There’s been an offer on the penthouse, a good one. After you left this morning, Libby rang.’

‘I assume, given the buyers, it’s not subject to finance?’

It was a very thin joke and they chose not to smile. It was a mere matter of signatures now.

‘I have no choice but to let him go. Maybe some time in the future we can talk...’

Alina took a deep breath. ‘Will you make Russia your base rather than Sydney?’

Demyan didn’t answer. He could feel the clock ticking down on Alina and him and there was so much he still had to find out, so much she still held back.

He felt her hands on his shoulders and on instinct he shrugged her off and then relented, but only, she realised, because he had a question.

‘Why were you crying?’ He felt her hands pause. ‘Alina?’ He wanted now to get to them, he wanted to know more about the woman who might just be capable of changing his mind.

‘I think we both know.’

‘Say it.’

‘Because we’ll be over soon,’ she said simply.

Say it isn’t necessarily so, her eyes begged, give me one shred of hope. But he kissed her instead, a deep, deep kiss that tasted urgent, a hungry kiss that stripped them in moments, and as he pushed her to the bed, Demyan chose not to think about anything that might possibly hurt.

Alina defied him. Slow were the kisses that met his mouth, far from urgent the body beneath him, for she wanted more than the urgent sex that displaced her and so she fought to explore every inch of him. Instead of succumbing, she etched him to memory with her mouth.

‘Alina...’ Her lips brushed over his eyes and it was the most intimate kiss Demyan had ever allowed, and they were unfamiliar waters he was sailing on as he rolled to his back and she kissed down his cheek and chin and he tried to claim her mouth but she resisted.

She kissed his eyes again and he could not stand the bliss, could not bear to succumb, to give in to her mouth, so he chose words to halt her.

‘I know about your art...’ Her mouth paused, but she would not let him distract her. ‘That you don’t have the guts to display it.’

She would not give in to his taunts, she would not stop, she would explore every inch of him in her own time. Her tears fell on his lips and he tasted her salty warning and stayed silent as she worked her way down.

Alina shaded the dark of his nipples with feather-light strokes and added a dash of desire and cardinal red to her palette and resumed, sucking on the flat nub, hearing his ragged breathing, his hand trying to guide her head down.

No. Still, she did not relent.

It was time for his stomach and she painted seashell white with a dash of linen as she deep-kissed his pale skin. Demyan’s hands pushed at her head but she denied him. Instead, she shaded in the snake of hairs, and each slow brush of her lips had his fists clench tighter.

‘Alina!’

She ignored his protest, though, and down her mouth slid till she painted his intimate length, holding it, exploring it at her leisure, denying him as he tried to thrust it in her mouth and just soft-kissing the swollen head.

His hand pushed her down. ‘I show you how,’ he said, yet she refused to be one of Demyan’s perpetual puppets.


‘I don’t need to be shown,’ Alina said. ‘I’ve never tasted you there before and I want to take my time...’ He was the best thing she had ever tasted and she relished him with her mouth. Lost to his intimate scent, she curled her tongue around his length but Demyan did not want her to take time, he did not want the mouth that moved slowly back up his stomach and left him aching. Demyan did not want more colour added to his chest.

‘Why can’t you relax?’ Alina asked.

‘Because the second I do, the ground cracks, the sky...’

‘No.’ She kissed his mouth but he turned his head away.

‘I’d prefer your mouth somewhere else.’

‘Tough,’ Alina said, because no longer did he offend her. ‘I want to kiss.’

‘I want to come.’

‘Why the rush?’ she said, though her mouth did move back down to meet his aching length.

He wanted to give in, to just lie there and let her; he wanted, he wanted so much so that even as his hand pushed her head down he almost regretted it, for her kisses were so teasing and sweet.

She was swirling his head with her tongue, soft, gentle sucks, rising instead of lowering when he thrust his hips. It was driving him insane. If she would just obey his hands he would bury himself in her and force her to a more rapid conclusion, yet she would not move.

Demyan went to her hair, tried to guide her with his hand.

He had to come.

‘If you push my head down one more time,’ Alina said, ‘I’ll tie your hands to the bed...’ She faltered. She hadn’t meant it like that but as their eyes met for a long moment, perhaps, Alina realised, she had.

‘Other way round,’ Demyan said.

‘Not always.’ She smiled and got back to teasing his length but as she gave him head she was struggling to keep hers, to be strong, to be herself, to not submit to a man who refused to submit. Alina adored the taste of him, loved the feel of him almost writhing as he tried to stay still. There was a building tension in him and it was flaring also in her. Slowly she relished him, took him just a little deeper, teased him some more, but as she pulled back and blew on him, then, just as she was about to give in, to take him deeper, to succumb to his will, Demyan got there first.

He rolled her, a wedge of muscle hauled her up the bed and onto her back. A shocked, excited laugh came from Alina, as he held her wrists over her head.

She was laughing as he parted her thighs, ruing that her game had gone on just a little too long, but next time...

He felt her writhing, fighting the constraint, burning beneath him but laughing too, and then he felt her start to come.

‘Always,’ Demyan said, as he pulsed inside the malleable mystery woman beneath him and, hell, who could resist exploring that side of her?

Not he.

‘Nearly always.’ His mouth smothered hers and he brought her back to the world with a kiss he had so often refused as his last two words played repeated in his head. Demyan was, for the first time, factoring a known woman into his future, bringing her into his world. ‘Maybe there is something to stay for,’ he said.

‘Don’t.’ Alina shook her head. ‘Don’t say things that later you might not mean.’

‘I might mean it, though.’

‘Now,’ Alina pointed out, ‘and then you might not.’

‘What are you scared of?’

‘The truth?’ Alina asked, and he nodded. ‘I’m scared of spending the rest of my life looking out for a man and wondering if he’d even recognise me if we saw each other again.’ She was trying not to cry. ‘I still look for my dad. That first day we met, when you were having lunch, I was eating my sandwich...’

‘Hotdog,’ Demyan corrected.

‘You were watching me?’

‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you,’ he said. ‘I still can’t.’

That post-orgasm high was fading, but Demyan’s feelings were still there. He was actually relieved by the alert on the intercom because he was precariously close to telling her he loved her again, but in English this time.

‘Roman?’ Demyan called out, because only Roman could let himself in like that and he could hear him punching in the code. He pulled some clothes on as Alina scrambled out of bed and pulled on her skirt and searched desperately for her bra as quickly as she could, hearing the footsteps on the stairs and the door opening.

‘Just me, Demyan,’ Nadia said, and, completely naked, she walked into the bedroom.