Lying and Kissing(23)

And that same aura was doing something to me. Something about the way he looked at me, like a king looking at a favored maid. Wondering if he should take her off to his bedchambers or just ravish her right there.

His eyes sparkled and then he smiled. If it had been a test, I’d passed.

“We’ll take the bottle,” said Luka in Russian and the bartender nodded and thrust it at him. No money changed hands, so I took it that he had a tab. Given how expensive the whole place seemed and what bottles went for in clubs, I didn’t even want to guess at how much money he’d just spent—and we’d only been here a few minutes.

On the way through the crowd this time, he saw me looking at the other women. Every movement made some part of them flash as it caught the light: rings topped with diamonds, bracelets encrusted with crystals.

“Bling,” said Luka, his accent giving the word a whole new, disapproving tone. “Less of it now, than a few years ago. But here, people still like to show off.”

It wasn’t just the fancy clothes, though. The short skirts and strappy tops were showing off long lengths of gym-toned thigh and perfect, slender arms. They were all graceful as swans. “I feel a little...drab,” I muttered.

Luka suddenly gripped my arm and spun me to face him, pulling me closer at the same time. I think I let out a little gasp of surprise—he did it so abruptly, with no thought for paltry American concerns like personal space. When I met his eyes, I saw the anger there at what I’d said. “There’s nothing wrong with the way you look,” he said in a voice that wouldn’t be argued with.

I blinked up at him, amazed. But, at the same time, I felt my heart unfold from the tight little knot it had become. We stared at each other. For an instant, I saw that arrogant, iron-hard exterior fracture and I glimpsed the man underneath.

It was gone in a heartbeat. But what shocked me to the core was that, no matter how many times I played it back in my mind in the days to come, he always looked the same.

For a second, he’d looked like I felt: helpless.

He turned away from me as if embarrassed and I looked away, too, trying to get control of myself. Pull yourself together! You can’t go gooey just because he says one nice thing! Remember what he is! I tried to imagine what Nancy would do. Probably karate kick him out of a window. He probably says that line to all the women he meets—all of those Russian blondes.

And, even as I thought it, I saw one of them right in front of me. A little taller than me, with a tiny waist and pert, thrusting breasts under her sparkling blue top. She had arrow-straight, gleaming blonde hair down to her shoulders.

And she was glaring at me with total, unreserved hatred. Maybe it was because Luka wasn’t looking in her direction, or maybe she was simply too angry to be afraid, but she looked as if she wanted to jump on me and tear my throat out.

To my relief, Luka pulled me in the other direction, towards the edge of the club. He showed me to a table surrounded by low, black leather armchairs. Every seat was taken.#p#分页标题#e#

When we were still ten feet away, the people sitting there nudged each other, stood up and scattered. One of them even wiped the tabletop with his sleeve.

I shook my head in disbelief as we sat down. Luka sat back in his seat. “What?” he asked.

“Everyone’s afraid of you.”

He glanced around and then shrugged, as if that was their fault.

I remembered that I wasn’t meant to know what he did. “Why?

He gave a wry little grin. “Some people are scared of how I do business.”

He lifted the bottle of vodka. He hadn’t brought any glasses, I realized. I watched as he took a long pull. “How do you do business?” I asked.

He locked eyes with me and slowly lowered the bottle. “Without limits.” He passed me the bottle. “Have you ever tried living without limits, Arianna?”





I took the bottle with shaking hands. I’d already had the equivalent of a couple of shots. But I put the glass neck to my mouth and tipped it back until the liquor ran like silver fire over my tongue and down my throat. I lowered it and took a long breath, the club’s warm air suddenly freezing next to the burn of the alcohol. “Limits are good,” I rasped. “Limits keep things safe.”

He smirked at that and patted his leg. It took me a second to realize that he wanted me to sit there. I stood up and walked over to him, my legs trembling.

I went to sit sideways on his leg, like a princess riding side-saddle on a unicorn. He admonished me with a little shake of his head and an amused crush of those sensuous lips.

I swallowed, stood slightly, and sat again. This time, I sat back on his leg so that I was astride it. I managed to keep my knees together, though.