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“From who?”
Something in my chest shudders. I do my best to shake it off. “My ex,” I whisper hoarsely.
It’s so still, so silent. One breath passes. Then two.
And then, suddenly, I’m swept off my feet and being carried back into the suite by this almost-naked, air-drying specimen of human perfection.
“What are you doing?” I half-gasp, half-shriek in shock and panic.
“You need to stay off your ankle.” He says it like I asked him for a diagnosis. “Keep it elevated. The swelling will linger if you don’t.”
I glance at my throbbing ankle and wince. He’s right—it’s swollen, and painfully so. I can’t believe I spent so much time in heels without even noticing until now.
He lays me down on the bed, making sure that I’m sufficiently propped up by the decorative pillows before he walks over to the coffee nook. When he returns, he’s got a bag of ice in one hand. He uses his other to pick my feet up, sit down on the edge of the bed, and lower them back down on his lap.
I can’t help the low moan of gratitude that rolls through me when he wraps the ice bag around my swollen ankle.
He clears his throat. “My name is Demyen.”
“Clara.”
Demyen grunts softly in acknowledgement, his head tilting in a slight nod. He’s doing his best to focus on my ankle, but I catch his eyes skimming along my bare legs to where the dress is now bunched high around my thighs. I’m not sure if he notices his thumb tracing a slow, languid circle just above my ankle bone, butIsure as hell do.
“So… running from your ex?” His voice is calm on the surface, but there’s definitely a faintly angry growl to the not-quite-a-question.
I don’t know how to answer. I don’t know if he’s going to sell me out to the cops—to Martin, even if accidentally—so I hesitate.
But when his gaze meets mine, I’m suddenly captivated by the glinting intensity in his eyes. Like he’s hypnotizing me. So I muster a small nod. “Yeah.”
“He does shit like this often?”
I’m ashamed of the answer. Only because, now that I’m out of Martin’s reach, I can’t believe I actually stayed in that hellhole for as long as I did.
But I still manage another nod. “Often enough.”
“Look.” Demyen shifts my feet on his lap so he can press the ice to the other side of the swelling. “I’m not going to call the police. Unless you ask me to. But I?—”
“No!” I blush under his hard stare. I didn’t mean to shout so loud, but the panic took over my vocal cords.
“I prefer to keep things in-house,” he slowly finishes. There’s an amused smile tugging at the corner of his full mouth.
“Oh.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. On one hand, I’m glad he’s not going to run to the police with my domestic drama like some well-intentioned knight in shining armor.
On the other hand, my mind is racing to figure out what he means by “keep things in-house.”
Until his fingers start massaging my foot, then my calf, sending a flood of relief through my body and straight to my brain. He’s careful around the tender joint, and through my fluttering lashes, I can see that the swelling has gone down quite a bit.
No one has ever massaged my feet. Not like this.
“How does that feel?” Demyen’s voice is a low murmur. It caresses my senses almost more than his fingers on my skin.
“So good…” I realize how I sound—desperate and desperately horny—but I don’t mind.
Given what my other foot is feeling through the towel wrapped around his waist, it seems like he doesn’t mind, either.
I loll my head back on the pillows and gaze up at the ornate ceiling. I’m about seventy percent certain this is all some lucid dream that I’m going to wake up from at any moment. There’s no way in any universe that I, Clara Everett, have thousands of dollars in cash inside my bag which is sitting on a plush lounge chair inside a deluxe casino hotel suite while a gorgeous man wearing nothing but a white towel is massaging my feet.
