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open to the invasion of his tongue in an intimate dance that made her knees weaken so that she swayed against him, her body melting soft and yielding against the hardness of his.
    She heard him mutter something dark and deep in his throat and the next moment she was swung round and up into his arms. Half-walked, half-carried across the room, his mouth never leaving hers, until she was hard up against the wall, its support cold and hard against her back. Both thrilled and shocked by his unexpected response, she shivered under the impact of his powerful form on her, the heat and hardness of him crushed against the cradle of her pelvis. If she had needed any further evidence of the fact that his blood was burning as hot as hers, then it was there in the swollen, powerful erection that was crushed between them.
    His mouth was plundering hers, his tongue sweeping into the innermost corners, tasting her, tormenting her. The heated pressure of his hands matched the intimate invasion of his mouth, hot, hard palms skimming over her body, burning through the flowered cotton of her dress, curving over the swell of her hips, cupping her buttocks to pull her closer to him. Ria’s blood pounded at her temples, along every nerve. Her breasts prickled and tightened in stinging response, nipples pressing against the soft lace of her bra, hungry for the feel of those wickedly enticing fingers against her flesh.
    Unable to stop herself, she nipped sharply at his lower lip, catching it between her teeth and taking his gasp of response into her mouth with the taste of him clear and wild against her lips. Pushed into penitence by his reaction, she let her tongue slide over the damaged skin, soothing the small pressure wounds her teeth had inflicted and sucking the fullness of it to ease away any soreness. But the low growl she heard deep in his throat told her that his reaction had not been one of discomfort. Instead he was encouraging her to take further liberties, crushing her hard against him and letting his hands wander freely over her yearning body.
    ‘Hell, but you’re beautiful...’
    He muttered the words against her arching throat, his breath warm against her flesh, and she could hardly believe that she was hearing them. Had he truly said beautiful?Was it possible that the man the gossip columns labelled the playboy prince, who had his pick of the sexiest women in the world—socialites, models, actresses—could think her so attractive? Memories of the adolescent dreams she had once indulged in, the yearning crush she had felt for this man surfaced all over again, reminding her of how much she would have given to hear those words back then, years ago. Then all he had ever shown her was a kind, but rather offhand friendship that was light-years away from this carnal hunger that seemed to grip them now.
    ‘Who would have thought that you would grow up like this?’
    ‘It—it’s been a long time,’ Ria managed to choke out, her throat dry with tension and need. ‘I missed...’
    But a sudden rush of self-preservation had her catching up the words in shock, clamping her mouth tight shut against what she had almost revealed. The heady rush of sensuality had driven common sense so far from her mind but she needed to grab it back now—and quickly. Alexei was no longer even her friend. He was the man who held her future and that of her country in his hands, even if he didn’t know it yet.
    In the strong, sensual hands that had been creating such electric pulses of pleasure in her body only a moment before. Pulses she wanted to feel more of. That made her whole body ache with need. But she must deny herself such caresses even though her whole body screamed in protest at the thought of stopping now, here, like this, when every nerve had suddenly come alive and awake in a whole new way. She had to remember why she was here.
    ‘You—you’ve been missed,’ she managed, though her voice shook on the words, betraying the effort she was