AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The cold wind snatched at her long A-line skirt. Rose was wearing a high-necked wool sweater and a jacket but the wind knifed through it. Wrapping her arms around herself, she turned towards Plato and said helplessly, ‘You could have given me fair warning.’
‘I was occupied,’ he imparted with a flashing smile. ‘It’s just Security, detka. I apologise. I forget you are shy.’
Was she? Rose didn’t think she was particularly shy. Just private about…private things.
He shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around her. She was instantly enclosed in the lovely musky male scent of him, faintly tinted with an expensive aftershave. He slung an arm around her and, casually as you like, steered her across the tarmac.
It was like something out of a movie. Rose kept expecting a director to yell Cut! or Print! and her big, gorgeous-as-all-get-out Russian to transform into a sexy stranger and lope away. Because she hardly knew him, did she? All she knew was that the backs of her knees gave a little every time he smiled at her, and right now she was enjoying being the centre of his attention so much it was seriously going to hurt when he took it away. Because people always did, and with a guy like Plato that moment was probably coming sooner rather than later.
If she truly was the modern girl she liked to pretend to be she’d just enjoy it for what it was: a good time, not destined to last. But she wasn’t a modern girl, was she? She was from a little town in Texas where you married your high school sweetheart and went to church and had babies.
Except she wasn’t doing any of those things. She’d failed spectacularly at the lot, and so she had decided two years ago to make a life out of getting those things for other people.
It was such a depressing thought that for a moment she had to fight the urge to pull herself free of his arms and hightail it back to the airport, jump in a taxi and speed home to the safety of her own four walls, where she had built a life to replace the one she’d fled from in Houston. And it was a good life. It just wasn’t particularly exciting.
The last thought brought her back to her senses. Ahead of them the jet loomed, larger than life—kind of like the guy who had his arm around her. This was real, and if it was different that was a good thing. Except she needed to settle this on her terms. She’d learned her lesson with Bill Hilliger. She might be taking a long-needed risk with this man but she wasn’t his plaything.
Her eyes narrowed on that jet. Here was a good place to start. This was exactly like last night. The only difference was this time he was using a bigger toy to bring her to him.
Time to rope this bull down, Rosy.
At the foot of the mobile stairs she ground to a halt.
‘I can’t get on this plane with you if this is just some sex thing.’
Plato was suddenly standing right up in front of her, blocking out the wind, his face close to her own. ‘Sex thing?’
He was giving her that you’re-speaking-in-a-foreign-language reaction but she wasn’t buying it.
Rose put her hands on her hips.
‘You know what I mean, cowboy.’
Yes, he knew. She could see the speculation in the look he gave her, as if summing her up, reaching for the words that would seal the deal. ‘I will treat you like a queen, my Rose,’ he said, in that deep, sexy voice. ‘You have my word.’
‘A queen, huh? Just see that you do.’
A genuine smile creased his face, drawing fine lines at the corners of those Slavic eyes of his, and Rose had a glimpse of the boy he must once have been. Her heart gave an unexpected lurch.
Oh, my, that wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all. She wasn’t to go all soft about this guy. He was definitely not the man to let her guard down around so soon.
‘All right then,’ she said a little breathlessly, the wind taken out of her sails. ‘Just as long as we’re clear.’
Plato couldn’t credit the satisfaction that streaked through him. He had her. The street-smart boy from Udilsk had scored himself a real live princess.
Da, with a fake line he’d delivered before to women who couldn’t care less as long as he showed them a good time. He hadn’t missed the vulnerable light in her eyes. The odd little speech she’d made when she’d called to refuse his dinner date last night flashed through his mind. Not his kind of girl. He wondered how much she knew about his reputation from the tabloids. She must know something. Was that the root of this sex thing?
He wanted to tell her he wasn’t that man. He wasn’t the guy who’d wanted to send the limo to pick her up when he’d known the first night they were together, when he’d barely scratched her surface, that she was the kind of girl you drove home.
Da, and what would you know about that, Kuragin? Peasant boy from a hick town. You’ll amount to nothing. Everything good you touch turns black, cheap…
‘Rose,’ he said in a rough voice.
Her expression was pure caution, and it flashed through his mind what she’d said about how her romantic notions had been trashed.
‘I will look after you, malenki,’ he promised.
He had no idea where the words came from, but he sure as hell didn’t expect what happened next. She moved so quickly he didn’t have time to do much more than stand there. Rose wrapped her arms around his middle and held him tightly, communicating a whole lot of the feeling he’d been sensing all along was just below her surface.
