Seized by Love Read Online Free PDF

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’ssilver 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 madeleines 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 the dreaded fears of approaching middle age that plagued Soronina, only temporary relief in the arms of the young Nikki, who made her forget for the moment the threat of the future without her beauty.
    Nikki’s parents returned to Le Repose after a month, but he stayed behind. He had come into an inheritance fromhis grandfather on his sixteenth birthday which allowed him to further indulge his propensity for independence. Nikki’s mother attempted to persuade her son to return with them. She felt he was being drawn in too deeply, after having seen Soronina’s overt, frankly loving gaze envelop her boy one evening at a ball. It was so unlike the frivolous, shallow Soronina and terrifying in its possible consequences. Much as Princess Kaisa-leena adored Soronina as a friend, one did not care to contemplate her as a daughter-in-law. Prince Mikhail kept his peace and forbore issuing any unwanted words of fatherly advice, hoping that his reckless son would tire of the affair in due course. If not, time enough then to intercede.
    That summer the affair swiftly reached notoriety as Nikki, with blazing indiscretion, escorted Countess Plentikov everywhere. He arranged his life to please her because it pleased him also. When they went out he was at her side, masterful, proprietary.
    However, on the rare occasion when he would decide to leave town for a few days, no amount of coaxing, either amorous or petulant, would change his mind. Regardless of their easy intimacy, Soronina lacked her usual control. Nikki simply went when he wanted to go. He never stayed long, and when he returned, she would look into those tawny, brooding eyes and a shiver of pleasure would run through her.
    By the end of August Prince Mikhail stepped in. The gossip and rumors were becoming serious. Never one to pander to discretion, Nikki had practically installed himself in Count Plentikov’s town palace during that nobleman’s absence. Dangerous rumors were making the rounds of the clubs to the effect that the cuckolded husband was about to ask for satisfaction from the young pup warming his wife’s bed. Because Count Plentikov’s reputation as a