Reading Online Novel

Not Just the Boss's Plaything(22)



"I'm fine from here. I don't need an escort."

He didn't respond. He plucked the keys from her hand when she pulled    them out, and then opened the door with no hesitation whatsoever, waving    her inside with a hint of edgy impatience.

It would not be wise to let him in. That was perfectly clear to her.

"Nikolai," she began, and his gaze slammed into her, making her gulp down whatever she might have said.

"I understand that you need to fight me on everything," he said, his    accent thicker than usual. "If I wanted to psychoanalyze you the way you    did me, I'd say I suspect it makes you feel powerful to poke at me.   But  I wouldn't get too comfortable with that if I were you."

"I wasn't psychoanalyzing you!" she cried, but he brushed it off as if she hadn't spoken.

"But you should ask yourself something." He put his hand on her arm and    hauled her into the building, sent the door slamming shut with the  back   of his shoulder and then held her there in the narrow hall.  "Exactly   what do you think might happen if you get what you seem to  want and I   lose control?"

"I don't want-"

"There are reasons men control themselves," he told her, his face in    hers, and she should have been intimidated. She should have been    terrified. And instead, all she felt was that greedy pulse of need roll    through her. That impossible kick of this jagged-edged joy he brought    out in her no matter what she thought she ought to feel. "Especially  men   like me, who stand like wolves in the dark corners of more than  just   London clubs. You should think about what those reasons are.  There are   far worse things than a list of demands."

"Like your attempts to intimidate me?" she countered, trying to find her    footing when she was so off balance she suspected she might have    toppled over without him there to hold her up.                       
       
           



       

"Why don't you laugh it off?" he asked softly, more a taunt than a    question, and she had the wild thought that this might be Nikolai at his    most dangerous. Soft and deadly and much too close. His gaze brushed    over her face, leaving ice and fire wherever it touched. "No? Is this    not funny anymore?"

"Nikolai." His name felt unwieldy against her tongue, or perhaps that    was the look in his eyes, spelling out her sure doom in all of that    ferocious blue. "I'm not trying to make you lose control."

"Oh, I think you are." He smiled, though it was almost feral and it    scraped over her, through her. "But you should make very, very sure that    you're prepared to handle the consequences if you succeed. Do you   think  you are? Right here in this hallway, with a draft under the door   and  the street a step away? Do you think you're ready for that?"

"Stop threatening me," she bit out at him, but it was a ragged whisper, and he could see into her too easily.

"I don't make threats, Alicia." He leaned in closer and nipped at her    neck, shocking her. Making her go up in flames. And flinch-or was that    simply an electric charge? "You should think of that, too."

And then he stepped away and jerked his head in an unspoken demand that    she lead him up the stairs. And Alicia was so unsteady, so chaotic    inside, so unable to process all the things that had happened    tonight-what he'd said, what she'd felt, that deep ache inside of her,    that fire that never did anything but burn hotter-that she simply    marched up the stairs to the flat she shared with Rosie on the top floor    without a word of protest.

He didn't ask if she wanted him inside when they reached her door, he    simply strode in behind her as if he owned the place, and the insanity    of it-of Nikolai Korovin standing there in her home-was so excruciating    it was like pain.

"I don't want you here," she told him as he shut her door behind him,    the sound of the latch engaging and locking him inside with her too loud    in her ears. "I didn't invite you in."

"I didn't ask."

He was still dressed in black, and that very darkness made him seem    bigger and more lethal as he walked inside, his cold gaze moving over    the cheerful clutter that was everywhere. Bright paperbacks shoved    haphazardly onto groaning shelves, photographs in colorful frames    littering every surface, walls painted happy colors and filled with    framed prints of famous art from around the world. Alicia tensed,    expecting Rosie to pad into view at any moment, but the continuing    stretch of silence suggested she was out. Thank God.

"It's messy," she said, aware she sounded defensive. "We never quite get    around to cleaning it as we should. Of course, we also don't have a    household staff."

"It looks like real people live here," he replied, frowning at one of    Rosie's abandoned knitting projects, and it took her a moment to    understand that this, too, was a terribly sad thing to say.

That ache in her deepened. Expanded. Hurt.

Alicia tossed her keys on the table in the hall, her coat over the    chair, and then followed Nikolai warily as he melted in and out of the    rooms of the flat like a shadow.

"What are you looking for?" she asked after a few minutes of this.

"There must be a reason you're suicidally incapable of recognizing your    own peril when you see it," he said, his eyes moving from place to    place, object to object, taking everything in. Cataloging it, she    thought. Examining every photograph the way he did every dish left in    the sink, every pair of shoes kicked aside in the hall, and the spine of    every book piled on the overstuffed bookshelves. "Perhaps there are    environmental factors at play."

He moved past the kitchen off to the right and stood at the far end of    the hall that cut down the middle of the flat, where the bedrooms were.

"And what would those be, do you think?" she asked, her voice tart-which    felt like a vast improvement. Or was perhaps a response to what had    sounded like the faintest hint of that dark humor of his. It was absurd    how much she craved more of it. "Fearlessness tucked away in the  walls   like asbestos?"                       
       
           



       

Nikolai didn't answer her, he only sent one of those simmering looks    arrowing her way down the hallway, as effective from a few feet away as    it was up close. And almost as devastating.

Alicia blew out a breath when he opened the door to her bedroom, the    aftershocks of that winter-blue look shifting into something else again.    A kind of nervous anticipation. He looked inside for a long moment,   and  her heart raced. She wished, suddenly, that she'd had the presence   of  mind to prevent this. She didn't like the fact that he knew, now,   that  she favored all those silly, self-indulgent throw pillows, piled   so high  on her bed, shouting out how soft and breakable she really was.   They  felt like proof, somehow-and when he looked back at her it was   hard to  stand still. To keep from offering some kind of explanation.

"A four-poster bed." It could have been an innocent comment. An    observation. But the way he looked at her made her knees feel weak.    "Intriguing."

Alicia thought she understood then, and somehow, that eased the relentless pulse of panic inside.

"Let me guess." She leaned her hip against the wall and watched him.    "The faster you puzzle me out, the less you think you'll have to worry    about losing this control of yours."

"I don't like mysteries."

"Will it make you feel safe to solve whatever mystery you think I am, Nikolai? Is that what this is?"

The look he gave her then did more than simply hurt. It ripped straight    down into the center of her, tearing everything she was in two, and    there was nothing she could do but stand there and take it.

"I'm not the one who believes in safety, Alicia," he said softly. "It's    nothing more than a fairy tale to me. I never had it. I wouldn't    recognize it." His expression was hard and bleak. Almost challenging.    "The next time you tally up my scars, keep a special count of those I    got when I was under the age of twelve. That knife was only one among    many that drew my blood. My uncle used the back of his hand if I was    lucky." His beautiful mouth twisted, and her heart dropped to her feet.    "But I was never very lucky."