Untouched by His Diamonds

Untouched by His Diamonds
Lucy Ellis

The only thing this Russian’s money can’t buy… To merciless Russian Serge Marinov, Clementine Chevalier’s Mona Lisa smile and siren’s body could incite a male riot! She’s so bewitching that ground rules are required: he’ll give her nights of endless pleasure – but in the stark light of St Petersburg’s dawn he’ll be gone!Serge is Clementine’s secret fantasy come to life, but she has no interest in money – his diamonds leave her skin cold! So she sets some terms of her own: she won’t be warming his bed until he shows her she’s more than just this magnate’s plaything!

‘Wow,’ she said inadequately as she stepped into sheer luxury. ‘This is—incredible.’

The extravagance of the hotel suite was another reminder of exactly who Serge was. A rich man. Who could buy a great deal to keep himself happy. No doubt including women.

But not this woman. She needed to make that very clear to him. Somehow.

‘I’m not that impressed, you know. Money doesn’t do it for me.’

‘What does do it for you, Clementine?’ He was smiling at her, that big lazy Russian male smile, as if he knew something she didn’t.

‘Honesty,’ she replied. ‘Sincerity.’

The smile darkened to something else.

She’d surprised him.

About the Author

LUCY ELLIS has four loves in life: books, expensive lingerie, vintage films and big, gorgeous men who have to duck going through doorways. Weaving aspects of them into her fiction is the best part of being a romance writer. Lucy lives in a small cottage in the foothills outside Melbourne.

Recent titles by the same author:

INNOCENT IN THE IVORY TOWER

Did you know this title is also available as an ebook? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Untouched by His Diamonds

Lucy Ellis

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

CLEMENTINE did a double-take in front of the ornate windows, almost pressing her nose up to the glass.

Lust—that was what she was feeling. Unadulterated desire.

In the window sat her Anna Karenina fantasy. Thigh-high, fur-lined, suede Russian boots.

She told herself she was only in St Petersburg for one more day after today. She deserved something to remember it by.

Five minutes later she was standing on the worn raspberry-coloured carpet inside, sliding one stockinged foot and then the other into her dream. She felt like Cinderella trying on her glass slippers. The real test was zipping them up above her knees. She was six feet tall and her legs held much of her height. She had shape to them. She had shape to all of her.

She almost gave a whoop of delight when the boots zipped up a treat.

The girl kneeling before her lifted the flaps. ‘They can go higher. Shall we try?’

She spoke English, but in these luxury stores everybody did.

Without hesitation Clementine hitched up her burgundy leather skirt, feeling slightly naughty as she flashed her suspenders. She reached down and pulled the fur-lined suede up and up, to kiss the fleshy curve of her inner thigh.

Her legs looked impossibly long with the leather skirt clinging to her hips. Absorbed in her own reflection, she slung out a leg and stroked the fur meditatively. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of movement behind her in the mirror, and looked up to collide with the gaze of a man standing by the door.

He wasn’t idling in the doorway, lurking. He was purposefully filling the space. Announcing his presence up front. Owning it.

And he was looking right at her.

He had to have a head of height on her, and he was built to go with it, and Clementine would bet her last pair of designer knickers on that size being one hundred per cent lean muscle.

He was quite a sight. They didn’t make men like that any more.

Maybe they had in earlier centuries, when Russian men went into battle with muskets, or even earlier when they needed to club things and skin animals to feed their families. Oh, yes, she could imagine him half naked and marked by claw-marks across his back and chest, bestriding the steppes. In fact—she nibbled her bottom lip—she could imagine that quite vividly.

But nowadays, in an age of technology and convenience and the liberation of women, you just didn’t need men like this any more.

Except in bed. An unexpected flush of warmth moved through her body.

Imagine if he laid his hands on you.

Imagine if it was him adjusting the tops of your boots.

Her eyes flicked to the mirror and registered that the Cossack hadn’t shifted an inch, but instinctively she just knew he’d moved some muscles because the look on his face mirrored her own: unadulterated fascination. With her. Male, down-and-dirty fascination. As if she was his own personal little sex show.

Clementine felt his eyes on her like a slow burn, sliding straight up the inside of her bare, exposed leg. It was that good, and almost as tantalising as being touched.

She should cover herself up, but after a year of keeping herself nice she was enjoying the attention. It was harmless. If this guy wanted to look, let him look. It wasn’t as if he could put his hands on her. They were strangers. It was a public place. She was safe.

She was enjoying it.

She bent down, nice and slow, folding over one fur flap to reveal the length of her bare upper thigh and then the other. Then she ever so slowly tugged down the leather bunched at her hips and lengthened her skirt, inch by inch, as she had seen so many models do for the camera, until she was decently covered.

There. Show over.

Time to pay for the beauties, head back to the rats’ nest where she was staying and catch up on some sleep. Except when she looked back at the mirror the Cossack was still there, holding up the world on those big shoulders. He’d folded his arms and Clementine registered powerful muscle under the strain of his jacket.

Her pulse leapt. He was every woman’s fantasy, and also a little bit scary—not only because of his size. With his clear intent she got the absolute impression he was waiting for her.

A shivering awareness ran through her body like an electrical shock, but she got herself moving, fumbling with her handbag as she dug out the equivalent cost of her meals for the rest of the week to pay for the boots.

‘You have an admirer,’ said the girl, boxing up her old shoes with a discreet glance in the direction of the door.

‘Probably a shoe fetishist,’ murmured Clementine, but there was a smile on her lips as she said it.

Inhaling a deep breath, she swung round and headed for the exit—only to discover he wasn’t there. She actually dropped a step, idling for a moment in the doorway, disappointed.

She emerged into the street and swung her designer bag as she headed south—and that was when she spotted him. Leaning against a limo, thumbs in designer pockets, running a gaze over her that sped up and slowed down depending on which part of her body he got hooked on. Clementine lost a breath and then her heartbeat raced.

Okay, Clementine, walk on, she lectured herself. There’s no way you’re going over there and introducing yourself. Guys dressed like that with limos on tap were not territory she wished to stray into. She’d already had her brush with his type. Never again. The industry she worked in was rife with women who cashed in on their desirability for a certain lifestyle. She wasn’t one of them, and she wasn’t starting now.

Serge fastened on the sway of her hips as she walked away, flashing those sensational thighs showcased by fur and sheer stockings. He knew what was holding those stockings up: delicate midnight-blue suspenders.

He had been leaving the jeweller Krassinsky’s, where he’d left his father’s wedding cufflinks to be repaired, and crossing the art nouveau atrium that linked several high-end stores in this building when he had spotted her through the shop’s entrance.

A young woman bent at the waist, a leather skirt hiked up around her hips, as comfortable in the middle of the shop as if it had been her boudoir, her shapely bottom encased in burgundy leather, swaying provocatively. He’d seen two strips of pale flesh before the lacy tops of her stockings took over, attached to delicate suspenders.

It had ground him to a standstill.

When she’d started tugging up those boots lust had flashed through him like a lightning strike.

If she’d stopped there he might have dragged himself away, but all of a sudden she’d hooked out a leg and he’d got an eyeful of her inner thigh—that soft, fleshy curve at the very top of a woman’s leg, pressed into prominence by the clasp of the stockings clinging to her legs. Serge had swallowed hard as she’d begun smoothing the fur right up to that spot.

That’s the girl—a bit higher…very nice.

As if hearing his thoughts she’d lifted her head and met his gaze in the freestanding mirror. She’d frozen. Her face was heart-shaped, her mouth wide, her chin pointed. Despite the clothes, despite the pose, despite the lashings of make-up, she looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. He had waited for her reaction and been rewarded by a small private smile, and then she’d bent and slowly peeled the fur down to expose the tops of her thighs. To him.