Not Just the Boss's Plaything(18)

       
           



       

That sat there between them, telling him things she should have kept to    herself, and the expression on his face made her think of that moment   in  his bed, suddenly. When he'd talked of kitchen knives and sins and    she'd kissed his tattoo, as if she could kiss it all away. As if he  was   wounded.

"I thought you liked the fact that I don't want you," she said after a    moment, when all he did was stare at her, in a manner she might have    called haunted if it was someone other than Nikolai. "Why are you so    determined to prove otherwise?"

"You mistake me." His voice was silky then, but there was a dark kick    beneath it, and it shivered over her skin like a caress. "I know you    want me. I still want you. I told you this was a distraction." He stuck    his hands in his pockets, shifting back on his heels, and his   expression  grew cooler. More distant. Assessing her. "It's your   disinterest in  having any kind of connection to me, your horror at the   very idea, that  makes the rest of this possible."

"And by that do you mean keeping my job?" she asked, ignoring his talk    of who wanted who, because she didn't dare let herself think about it.    She couldn't go there, or who knew what would become of her? "Or the    twisted game you feel you need to play with your ex-wife?"

Nikolai only stared back at her, his face a study in ice. Impassive and cool.

"Let me guess," she said tightly. "You only want what you can't have."

"But you don't qualify, Alicia," he said, in that dangerously soft way    of his that was like a seismic event inside of her, and she had to  fight   to hide the aftershocks. "I've already had you."

"That was a mistake," she retorted, and she wanted to play it down.    Laugh, smile. But his eyes flashed and she knew she'd sounded too dark.    Too close to hurt. "There won't be a repeat."

"You don't want to challenge me to prove you wrong." His winter eyes    probed hers, moved over her face, saw things she didn't want to share.    "Or perhaps you do."

That last was a low growl. Wolf again, not man, and she wasn't sure she    could survive it without imploding. Without betraying herself all over    again, and there was no wild night to lose herself in, not here in  this   chilly stairwell. No pounding music, no shouting crowd. She felt  the   danger in him, the profound sensual threat, like heat all around  her,   seducing her without a single word or touch. She could smell that  scent   that was only his, the faint smoke and crisp slap of winter.  She felt   the strength of him, that lethal power, and her fingers ached  to explore   it again, every last lean muscle, until he groaned beneath  her hands.

And she wanted.

Suddenly, and with every last cell in her body, Alicia wanted to be    someone else. Someone free of her past, free to throw herself heedlessly    into all of this wondrous fire and not care if it swallowed her  whole.   Someone who could do what she liked with this man without  bringing her   whole world down around her all over again.

Someone very much like the person she'd seemed to think she was the night she'd met him.

But she couldn't. And Nikolai still didn't touch her, which almost made it worse.

"It's time to move into the public phase of this arrangement," he told    her in that distant way again, as if this was a planned meeting in the    stairwell to calmly discuss the calendar of events that would lead to    her downfall. "We'll start with dinner tomorrow night. There are  things   we need to discuss."

"What a lovely invitation-"

"It's not a request."

She studied him for a moment, all that ice and steel. "I'm otherwise engaged."

"Cancel."

"And if I refuse?"

Nikolai's smile turned dangerous. Her stomach contracted hard at the    sight, and the ache of it sank low, turning molten and making her    despair of herself anew.

It was that easy. She was that easy.

"You can try to run from me if you like." He looked intrigued at the    prospect, and something dark and sensual twisted through her, leaving    marks. "But I should give you fair warning-I'll find you. And you might    not like the mood I'm in when I do."                       
       
           



       

"Fine," she made herself say, because she couldn't think of an alternate    plan, certainly not while he stood there in front of her with a look   on  his face that told her he'd love to spend more time convincing her.   She  couldn't have that. And she certainly didn't want him to pursue  her   through the streets of London, to run her to ground like some  mutinous   fox, which she had no doubt he would do.... Did she?  "Tomorrow night   we'll suffer through the date from hell. That sounds  delightful. Where   do you want me to meet you?"

He reached out then and she braced herself, but he only wrapped a sprig    of her curls around his finger, gave them a tug that was very nearly    gentle, then let his hand drop, an odd cast to his fierce, proud mouth    as he did it.

There was no reason at all that should pierce her heart.

"Don't try to top from the bottom, Alicia," he said, laughter in his    brilliant gaze for a moment before it chilled into something much    harder. More ruthless. "I'll let you know what I want tomorrow. And    you'll do it. Because I really will have you fired if you don't, and    despite this entertaining display of bravado, I think you know it."

And there it was.

She didn't want to lose her job-which meant she'd have to figure out how    to survive losing her father all over again, once there were pictures    to prove once more that she was nothing but a whore. And if there was  a   tiny spark inside of her, because some foolish part of her wished  this   wasn't all a game, that it wasn't all for show, that she was the  kind  of  person men didn't use, she did her best to ignore it.

"I don't want to do this." Her voice was small, but still firm, and she    thought she'd be proud, later, that she kept her head high. Even in    defeat. "Any of it."

"I know you don't," Nikolai said, whole winters in his voice, in his    beautiful eyes, so blue she wanted to cry. And there was a flash of    something there, bright for a moment and then gone, as if this was more    of a struggle for him than it seemed. It scared her, how much she   wanted  to believe that. "But you will."

* * *

Alicia sat where Nikolai had put her, at the corner of the dark wood    table that stretched across a significant length of the great two-story    room that was the center of his apartment, all low-slung modern  couches   and soaring windows. Nikolai could read her stiff tension in  the way  she  sat, the way she held her lips too tight, the precise,  angry  movements  of her hands.

His staff had served a five-star dinner that she'd barely touched.    Nikolai hadn't spoken a word, and she hadn't broken the silence. Now she    was pushing her dessert around on her plate, and he was well aware   that  her agitation level had skyrocketed even higher than before.

Bastard that he was, that amused him. He lounged in his seat, at the    head of the table with her at his right, and studied her. He would    figure her out. He would solve the mystery of this woman and when he    did, lose interest in her. It was inevitable.

But he hadn't anticipated he would enjoy the process quite this much.

"You're a terrible date," he told her, and her dark eyes flashed when    they met his. Then, after a moment, she rolled them. At him.

No one else would dare.

"Thank you," she said in that dry way that made him want her beneath    him, right there on the table. He had to yank himself back under    control, and it was significantly harder than it should have been.    Focus, he ordered himself. "I can see why you're considered such a    catch."

"This is an excellent opportunity to discuss my expectations," Nikolai    said, as if her fearless defiance didn't make him want to lick his way    into the heat of her, to make her writhe and sob in his hands. And he    would, he promised himself, as soon as they came to an understanding.    "Dating me comes with a number of requirements, Alicia. Making    appropriate dinner conversation is only one of them."