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His appearance was distracting as hell. I could barely think straight while staring into that dazzling face. “I don’t think so,” I managed. Ok, again that was the wrong answer, but I’d already decided I wasn’t going through with this assignment. I was totally thrown off, both by his disarming attractiveness and by the unshakable feeling that my department was pimping me out.
“Funny. You don’t strike me as the coy type,” he said, and then unleashed a thousand megawatt smile at me. Oh Christ, he actually had dimples. Dimples! What the hell kind of mafia boss had dimples, I ask you?
“I’m not being coy. I sincerely don’t want to have a drink with you,” I told him, trying to bring up a veneer of indifference and drag my eyes away from that smile.
He laughed at that, a surprisingly genuine, uninhibited laugh. “So you wanted me to ask you to have a drink in person, just so you could shoot me down?” The dimples were still out in full force. He looked really young and innocent when he smiled. What an illusion.
“I wanted you to ask me in person,” I said, “because it’s annoying and degrading to be fetched by your lackey. I didn’t say anything about agreeing once you asked.”
That cornflower blue gaze slid to my mouth, and despite myself, I licked my lips. In response, his full, sensuous lips parted in a silent gasp. God, that was some mouth. A spark of desire slid down my spine, coming to rest in my groin, and I mentally slapped myself for being so easily distracted by a pretty face. He leaned in closer and said softly, his voice a bit husky, “Please? Just one drink.” My cock leapt to attention at his proximity, as much as it could in the confines of those incredibly tight jeans.
He was so close to me now that if I tilted my head just a few inches, I’d be resting my forehead against his. He had serious personal space issues. And apparently so did I, because I compulsively reached up and ran the tip of my index finger along the sensuous curve of his full lower lip. His eyes slid shut and he leaned into my touch, his hands coming up to encircle my waist.
Holy shit, what was I doing? I pulled my hand back quickly and mumbled, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“No?” he whispered. “What did you mean to do?”
I slid off my barstool and took a step back from him, thoroughly rattled, and said, “I really should go.”
He caught my wrist and said softly, his eyes locked (pleadingly?) with mine, “You really should stay.” And my heart actually fluttered. What the hell!
I could not think clearly around this man. The sight of him, the smell of him, the fact that sex oozed from every one of his molecules – it was too much. Another minute of this and I’d forget who and what he was and jam my tongue down his throat. I turned and bolted from the bar.
I left the VIP room and pushed my way through the crowded dance club. The cool night air was wonderfully bracing as I emerged outside, helping to clear my head as I jogged down the sidewalk and around to the quiet side street where I’d lucked into a parking space.
When I reached the generic loaner car, I patted my pockets for my keys, and then swore vividly. Damn Jess and these manslut clothes! The keys were in my hoodie back in the VIP lounge, because these jeans were too tight to hold anything more than my i.d. and a couple bills. I sighed with frustration and splayed my arms over the green Hyundai, and lightly whacked my forehead against the roof of the car.
“You did that wrong, Cinderella,” a now familiar voice behind me said. “You’re supposed to leave a shoe behind, not the keys to the carriage.”
I turned to look at Dmitri Teplov. Christ, he’d actually followed me! My jacket was draped over his arm, my key ring looped around his long, graceful index finger. He smiled, but –was I imagining this? – seemed slightly unsure of himself. I stepped forward and took hold of my keys, and he closed his hand gently around my fingers and said softly, “What exactly is it about me that you find so repulsive?”
The answer to that question should be, the fact that you’re a lowlife criminal, or at the very least, the fact that you treat men like pieces of meat. I stared at him for a long moment, my heart trying to jackhammer its way out of my chest just from his proximity. We were close to the same height and stood eye to eye as he held my gaze steadily. And I answered honestly, my voice a bit rough, “Nothing.”
