Lying and Kissing(24)

I kept my eyes forward because I thought that, somehow, if I did that, I might not lose control. I felt his hand on my back—so warm!—and then sweeping up through my hair, letting the strands spill and play over his fingers as his thumb ascended my spine. I arched my back in response, trembling.

Suddenly, he lifted his knee, taking his foot off the ground and raising me into the air as if I weighed nothing. I slid backward, my thighs opening, my heels skittering for purchase on the floor. My ass pressed against his groin. His mouth was at my ear, his accent wrapping each syllable in ice before it slipped into my brain. “What are you really doing in Moscow, Arianna?”

My whole body went tense. My feet were still off the ground—I had no traction, no way of struggling up from his lap. I tried to lurch forward but that only made my ass grind more firmly against the hardness I could feel at his groin. Cold fear erupted inside me, freezing my brain, numbing my response. I opened my lips but nothing came out. I’m blown. I’m blown!

But then his mouth was at my ear again. “You come on vacation by yourself, but I don’t think it’s to meet people. You are too…” he fumbled for the phrase in English. “In own head.”

Introvert. A language geek, I thought. I’m just a language geek. I nodded, still rigid with fear.

His hands were on my thighs, steadying me as I balanced precariously on his leg. He still hadn’t lowered his knee. I glanced up for a second and spied the blonde again. She looked even angrier than before, and her gaze was locked on my open legs, and on Luka’s leg between them.

His hands started to slide upward, tugging the dress with them. I gulped. We were in the shadows, but still in open view of everyone. I watched as the hem rose up my stockinged thighs. “I think,” Luka said, “You came here to find something you couldn’t find at home. Something you needed.”#p#分页标题#e#

I shook my head. My cover wasn’t blown but I didn’t like the way this was going.

His lips were even closer, now, stroking the super-sensitive edges of my ear as he spoke. “I think you lie awake in America thinking of bad men.”

I felt myself flush with embarrassment, remembering the way I’d played his phone calls over and over. I had fantasized about him, but I hadn’t come out here to chase after him….

Had I?

One hand settled on my shoulder and then slid down my collar bone to my throat. I swallowed slowly. The feel of it resting there, massive and powerful, was frightening. Intoxicating. Dammit, how does he do this to me?!

The hand slowly rose, stroking up my throat to the underside of my chin and tipping my head back. My hair cushioned my head against his shoulder. Now I was nestled in his lap, my eyes looking up at him. My legs were either side of his, the hard bulge of his cock between the cheeks of my ass. Why wasn’t I running? Why was I just sitting there, staring up at him? I could feel the heat starting to build inside me, spiraling up in urgent waves.

He was looking at me with hooded eyes and his voice had gone deeper than I’d ever known it, almost a growl. The music was loud, but he could have whispered to me from twenty feet away and that voice would have carried. “I think you came looking for me,” he said.

I stiffened. The heat was rolling through me, leaving me throbbing and drunk with desire. My arms reached up and grabbed for him, seeking anything solid to cling onto and finding his shoulders. His fingers lightly touched my wrist and then traced all the way along my arm until it reached my upturned face. He brushed my cheek. “And I think that maybe...I’ve been looking for someone like you.”

I swallowed. “What am I?” But I already knew, because I’d already heard him say it.

He smiled a lazy, cat-like smile. “An innocent,”

I thought of all those sophisticated, beautiful Russian women. “Why do you want an innocent?” I croaked.

His lips twisted, the smile growing cruel. “To corrupt her.”

A deep, liquid heat pooled at my core and then rippled out to fill me, leaving me breathless. My own reaction scared me. But there was something else. When he’d said it, there’d been another flicker in those burning, frozen eyes. A glimpse of something behind the mask, a need that went beyond just lust. I felt my heart lift and open a little, tentatively unfurling for the first time in many years.

And then I saw him lean down, his eyes closing, and—

Oh God, he was going to—

I had time for a single, overwhelmed breath before his lips came down on mine. My hands came up off his shoulders in shock and I grabbed for his head—I’m not sure what I had in mind. Push him away? Pull him in harder?