Seized by Love Read Online Free PDF

deliberate cruelty or coldness of a man (no one who had lived
with Valdemar Forseus for six years was unacquainted with evil), but unschooled
and innocent in receiving kindly overtures from a man playing the game of
seduction. An education from books, however exceptional, lacks the necessary
information that real-life experience teaches. In the gilded circles of
Petersburg society, amatory dalliance and flirtation had attained the status
and perfection of a fine art, and over the years Nikki had refined and polished
his practical and aesthetic skill to a virtuoso proficiency.
    So here we have the age-old
confrontation.
    The unsophisticated and
untutored young girl encountering the master technician with an artist's touch.
    Nikki's career in dalliance
had, in fact, begun in earnest when he was barely seventeen, and that first episode
had disastrously left its mark.
    One afternoon, sixteen long
years ago, while squiring
Maman
to one of her numerous visits in the
manner of a dutiful son, he'd caught the practiced eye of one of his mother's
friends; in fact, had almost heard the audible click in Countess Plentikov's
beautiful head when she had, for the first time, seriously noticed that the
moody, sulky, darkly romantic boy had turned into a man.
    Even at seventeen and not
grown to his full height, Nikki was formidable, inches over six feet, lean,
with raw-boned, powerful shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and slim hips.
The sulky coltishness, restless under the conflicting urges of his adolescence,
had suddenly intrigued the Countess. With the eye of a confirmed connoisseur of
male flesh, Soronina's glance had appraised the splendid young body as if he
were standing at stud.
    Countess Soronina had known
Nikki from the cradle, and at thirty-six she had two marriageable daughters of
her own. She was, however, still an exquisitely beautiful woman, slim, petite,
golden-haired; her figure was carefully maintained, the soft, pale complexion
still perfect, although its beauty took increasing time to care for.
    Like most patricians of
their class, the Count and Countess Plentikov had many years before acquired
the habit of being unfaithful to each other, but out of tacit agreement and
courtesy had overlooked each other's numerous infidelities. Count Plentikov
spent more time in the country or on the Continent than he did in Petersburg,
and this arrangement was mutually satisfying. Soronina's silver and white
boudoir had been the scene of many tumultuous encounters as a succession of men
had paid amorous homage to one of the reigning beauties of the day.
    Nikki absently listened to
the ridiculous flow of trivial remarks and pleasantries that fell from
Soronina's full red lips that first warm summer afternoon. He gave the
obligatory answers in a desultory fashion, but he preferred to let his eyes
play over her bounteous curves while visualizing that soft body under his.
    Nikki at seventeen was by
no means the consummate lover, but not altogether unskilled either, and
Soronina was definitely offering him more than sherry and made-leines as they
sat in one corner of the huge drawing room, conversing. His mother would
occasionally glance toward them during the course of the visit, knowing full
well what Soronina was up to, but resigning herself to the inevitable. For half
a lifetime Soronina had been aware of the seductive power of her beauty and had
never failed to exert its influence successfully. In this case Nikki was more
than willing to be agreeable.
    And so began a long summer
of sweet delirium for them both. The sweetness overtoppled mind and sense; they
had something unique, something to be cherished. She taught him much about
women and love and she drew from him bittersweet memories of what raw,
uncontrolled youthful passion could be. He was to her simultaneously both
anguish and ecstasy, anguish for her youth forever beyond recall, and the
ecstasy of blossoming under Nikki's ardent naked desire. There was no permanent
cure for