Lying and Kissing(70)

The room he took me to had no windows, just a drinks cabinet, some chairs and a table with a chessboard. Vasiliy closed the door, sealing us in. And in that moment, the mood started to change, the beginning of a subtle but important shift. I frowned, because I couldn’t put my finger on it. It felt familiar and yet wrong.

“Do you play?” asked Vasiliy, waving at the chessboard as he poured me a drink. Vodka, of course. I hadn’t asked for one, but I didn’t feel as if I could refuse. He was a difficult man to say no to. I hadn’t had the full force of his personality turned on me until now, but I could feel the power radiating off of him. Maybe it was breeding or maybe it was something he’d acquired through his rise to power, but the effect was the same: I practically wanted to curtsey.

“A little.” I’d played with my dad, when I was young, because he’d enjoyed it. And then never since the crash, for the same reason. What the hell was going on? I’d been expecting him to try to push me away from Luka. Not this.

He handed me a glass filled with ice and vodka. “We used to be champions, before your computers beat us. It would amuse me if we played, while we talked.”

Amuse him? I couldn’t tell whether he was mocking himself as an old-fashioned Russian, or mocking me. I nodded.

He knocked back his drink—some sort of expensive whiskey, I noticed, not vodka. And then he looked at me as if expecting me to do the same, so I did. The vodka seemed to expand in my mouth, sending burning fumes straight up my nose and down into my lungs. But when it hit my belly, its heat melted a little of the fear.

He sat down across from me. He was black and I was white. He moved a pawn and said, “You are very beautiful.”

I sort of coughed on the tail-end of the vodka fumes and looked up at him in amazement. Did he really—”Th—Thank you.” I groped for one of my pawns and moved it.

Vasiliy moved another pawn, quick and precise. “I can see why he likes you. You are everything he’s not.”

I reddened and stared at the board, playing for time. I moved a knight, not even thinking about strategy. The mood was completing its shift, now, slotting into a place that was definitely familiar and definitely wrong. Very wrong.

“His other girlfriends have been…”—he shook his head dismissively—“vacuous whores. But you. You are intelligent. You know your own mind.” He reached behind him and, as he twisted, I saw how broad his shoulders were, how his chest still had the same powerful swell as Luka’s. His hair was shot through with silver, but most of it was still black.

He picked up the bottle of whiskey and poured himself another glass, as if to reassure me that he was drinking, too. And then he grabbed the vodka bottle and went to pour me some more.

I instinctively put my hand over my glass.

He grinned at me, took my hand and lifted it off and down onto the tabletop. Then he poured me another vodka. He kept smiling at me the whole time and I found myself shyly smiling, too, even though alarm bells were ringing in my head. What the hell is going on?!

“And you are American,” he said. “Most American women do not like Russian men. They find us too…” He paused. “What is the word? Too chill?”

“Too cold,” I said quietly. I had an awful suspicion that he’d known the right word damn well. He was just trying to appear klutzy to put me at ease.

“Cold. And, if the men are like Luka and me, from the Brotherhood, then we are cold and dark, yes?” He indicated me. “And you, you are warmth and light.” He wagged his finger. “You should not be attracted to this.”#p#分页标题#e#

His eyes. His eyes were gleaming just like Luka’s.

And, suddenly, I knew what the mood had shifted to. Seduction. He was seducing me.

No! That’s crazy!

I knocked back my second vodka, feeling the pleasant warmth throughout my body, now. When I was brave enough to meet Vasiliy’s eyes again, there was no mistaking the look there. He wanted me. I could see it as clearly as if his thoughts were projected onto the wall behind him. He wanted to pull me up out of my chair and hurl me down on the table, chess pieces scattering across the floor. Pull up my dress, rip off my panties and—

I drew in a labored breath and stood up, staring at him. The mood shattered in an instant.

He smiled. “Interesting. For a moment there, I thought I was going to get to fuck you.”

And the truth washed over me, scarcely less disturbing than what I’d been imagining. It had been a test. One I’d passed.

He looked at me and then at my chair, indicating that I should sit back down for whatever round two would bring. I stood there indecisively for a moment...and then sat down. Whatever happened, I needed to get on Vasiliy’s good side. If he had a good side.