Red Heat Read Online Free

didn’t stand a chance against a naval officer in the best shape of his life.
    He caught her at the first landing.
    Bracketing his arms to either side of her body, he pushed her back against the wall and stepped in close.
    “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”
    She didn’t scream. Didn’t struggle against him. Much .
    Her storm green eyes met his. Wide, with a shade of fear. But more of . . . defiance. She was breathing hard, her breasts rapidly rising and falling, her pebbled nipples grazing his chest with each ragged breath. The two rapid shots hit his bloodstream, and for a second he was dizzy with desire.
    He stood there for a long moment, drinking in the excitement of her, savoring the predatory urges twisting in his groin and the blatant sexual tension arcing between them.
    Then her tongue peeked out and wetted her lower lip.
    And he lost it.
    He wrapped his fingers around her waist, pulled her to him, and leaned down to capture her mouth with his.
    He took ruthless advantage of her gasp of surprise. As he invaded the hot, wet depths of her, a soft moan worked through her throat. And turned into a moan of surrender.
    Of their own accord, his fingers sought the two long pins holding her bun in place and yanked them out. Her hair tumbled down around her face and he drilled his fingers into the soft waves.
    “Open,” he ordered.
    With a shiver, she did. Fully. He plunged his tongue deep. The kiss was bruisingly hard and ferociously intense. Her arms came around his neck and her body pressed into him, center to center. She moaned again. Or he did. Or both. He couldn’t tell.
    This was not what he’d expected .
    Suddenly a loud mechanical clank ratcheted through the stairwell. She yelped in fright and jumped back from him, hitting the wall again. He grabbed her shoulders and steadied her as the metallic clink morphed into the familiar screech of a cable pulley.
    “It’s okay,” he reassured her. “Just a noisy elevator.”
    She struggled to quell her physical reaction to her fear, looking acutely embarrassed. “Sorry. It startled me. I’m not used to . . .” She let the sentence hang.
    To what? Loud noises? Poor Russian machinery? Kissing strangers in dark stairwells . . . ?
    It was probably a good thing they’d been interrupted. The way he was feeling, without a doubt she’d have ended up plastered against the dingy wall, her skirt around her waist, with him inside her.
    But he wanted more privacy for this. And a lot more time.
    He tugged her back against his chest. “Why don’t we go to your room, where we won’t be interrupted?”
    She licked her lips, and her gaze dropped to his mouth for a brief second. She started to shake her head. “I don’t—”
    Чёрт возьми. Really?
    He grasped her jaw and kissed her again, preempting her refusal. She stiffened at first, but he kept at it, making the kiss hot and long and very persuasive, until once again she was moaning and melting into him.
    “Come,” he urged, backing her toward the stairs. “What is your room number?”
    “This is crazy,” she protested halfheartedly between the amazing kisses. “I don’t even know your name.”
    “Nikolai,” he murmured. “And yours?”
    “Julie,” she said after a short hesitation.
    He smiled. “Good. Now we’ve been introduced.” He lifted her off her feet and started up the stairs, still engrossed in kissing her. Thankfully, she was as into it as he was. He could see the rapid beat of her pulse in the vein above her collarbone and felt it in the mad pounding of her heart against his chest. It matched the hammer of his own heartbeat. “Room number?”
    “Two fifty-seven. But Nikolai, this really isn’t—,” she started to object.
    “You want me. I want you,” he whispered into her mouth as he kissed her. “What else matters?”
    She let him kiss her to the door of her room on the second floor, but when he set her down and put his hand out for her key card, she took a few