Kholodov's Last Mistress by Kate Hewitt Page B

stared at him, the sheer masculine power and beauty of his hard, honed body, his skin glowing in the firelight, and then she gasped in surprise for even in the flickering firelight she could see scars. Too many scars.
    His body was a map of sorrows.
    Sergei stilled, averting his face from her, his body tensing. ‘You’re shocked,’ he said quietly. Flatly. As if he’d encountered such shock and perhaps even revulsion before.
    Hannah shook her head. She
was
shocked, but more than that. ‘Sad,’ she whispered. ‘For you.’ She did not ask what had happened, or how Sergei had received so many different scars on his body. The small round red marks that dotted one forearm looked, she feared, like cigarette burns. There had to be at least twenty of them. A long, livid line ran from his right shoulder to his hip, ragged and red. And there were other scars, of different lengths and depths, all of them livid reminders that this man had so many secrets, had seen too much pain. No wonder he was so cynical.
    Hannah opened her arms.
    Sergei’s face contorted, and Hannah couldn’t tell what emotion held him in its painful thrall. Anger, sadness, regret? Perhaps just acceptance. He slid into bed next to her and pulled her into his arms, burying his head in her shoulder.
    And Hannah knew this wasn’t going to be what she’d thought. It wasn’t going to be a night of passion, a simple satiation of the physical craving they’d both been feeling. At least, it wasn’t going to be that for her.
    Already it was more. Already it was incredibly intense, intimate, and scary in a whole new way.
    She let her hands drift down Sergei’s back, stroking hisskin, drawing him closer. He pulled away from her to look at her, his expression both fierce and gentle. A man of contradictions, of secrets, of sorrows. Hannah touched his cheek, and Sergei kissed her, deeply this time, obliterating thought, doubt, fear.
    She kissed him back, surrendering to the feel of his mouth and hands, to the pleasure and pressure building inside her. Closed her eyes as he bent his head to her body, making her feel more treasured than ever. Her hands fisted in her hair and she twisted on the sheets, longing for more, for the release and satisfaction she knew they were both craving.
    He kissed her everywhere, lips lingering, savouring as he moved his mouth over her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. She felt as if he was learning her body, memorising it and revering it at the same time. And when she could take no more she pushed him onto his back and started to learn his, letting her hands drift over the sleek skin, hard muscle. Even with the scars, he was a beautiful man, his body honed to perfection.
    She saw besides the scars he also had two tattoos: a small, ornate crucifix on his chest, three little spires like those of St Basil’s on the back of his shoulder. They intrigued her, made her realise how little she knew him. How much she wanted to. She laid her lips to his body, learning him the only way she could.
    Sergei resisted her touch, pushing her hand away when her fingertips brushed his scar. Hannah wouldn’t let him. Some deep, instinctive need made her want to touch him, not just a lover’s caress, but a healing balm. Gently she ran her fingertip along the ridge of the scar on his torso. He shuddered.
    ‘Don’t—’
    ‘Does it hurt?’
    He stared at her, his expression open, more open than she’d ever seen it. He looked at her with both hunger and hope. ‘No.’
    She laid her lips to his scar, kissed her way across his body, gently, reverently, as if her touch could heal him. Was that what she wanted? To heal this dark, wounded man?
    For this whole encounter had become so much more than she’d ever intended or even wanted it to be. She’d come upstairs with Sergei to satisfy a physical need, and prove to herself that that was all it was. And in doing so she was afraid she might have discovered the opposite.
    She stilled for a moment, her lips