“Nyet.” He pushed his pants and briefs past his hips and kicked them aside. “Everything is exactly as it should be.”

Her gaze locked onto his straining sex, and her lips parted. “Well, it’s definitely better now.” She lifted her attention to his face. “Though, I could appreciate the moment a whole lot more if my hands could get involved.”

“Only your hands?” He planted one knee in the bed, guided her to her back, then stretched out on his side beside her. The warmth of her body and light, sexy perfume enveloped him. Tempted him to close the scant inches between them and add the sweet press of her silky skin into the mix.

He teased the sensitive stretch just beneath her belly button with the backs of his knuckles, but stopped just short of the pale trimmed curls atop her sex. “The way you were staring at my cock, I thought perhaps you were planning something more treacherous.”

She whimpered and flexed her hips into his touch. Her eyes slipped closed and her voice dropped to a husky rasp. “If you keep teasing me and taking forever, I might find a way or two to torture you, and it won’t be the pleasurable kind.”

He chuckled at that and continued his unhurried exploration. Up the line of her sternum. Along the lower swell of each breast. Circling each nipple until both drew to a taut peak. “There is no reason for you to be impatient, milaya. I have every intention of seeing to your needs.” More than she probably yet comprehended.

But he’d get her there.

One day—one touch at a time.

She rolled to her side, facing him. “What if my need is to feel you?” She coasted her fingers from his forearm to his shoulder, a featherlight touch that sent shockwaves out in all directions. “To feel your skin against mine and your weight pressing me into the bed.” Her hand dipped inward, her palm smoothing against his pecs then between them to his abdomen. “What if I don’t want you to go slow?” Lower so her thumb drew a path just parallel to his sex and made it jerk with anticipation. “What if I want you to take me hard and fast now so we can take our time later?”

Fuck.

Moving fast, he caught her hand, rolled her to her back and pinned her hands on either side of her head. Her startled gasp and subsequent grin was every bit as exhilarating as the electrifying press of her body against his.

He couldn’t rush this. Wouldn’t. Tonight was too important. “You think you can draw me off point, vozlyublennaya?”

Her grin deepened to an unrepentant smile. “I can sure try.”

The minx.

Part of him wanted to give her what she wanted just to encourage more of her assertive playfulness. But the other part of him—the man bristling for control and aching to make his mark—refused to give way. Needed to set the pace and claim his place.