Not Just the Boss's Plaything

He blinked, and again looked at her in that strange way of his, as if she was an apparition he couldn’t quite believe was standing there before him.

Then he moved with the same decisiveness he’d used when he’d taken control of that kiss, tucking her into his side as he navigated his way through the dense crowd. She tried not to think about how well she fitted there, under his heavy arm, tight against the powerful length of his torso as he cut through the crowd. She tried not to drift away in the scent of him, the heat and the power, all of it surrounding her and pouring into that ache already inside of her, making it bloom and stretch and grow.

Until it took over everything.

Maybe she was under some kind of spell, Alicia thought with the small part of her that wasn’t consumed with the feel of his tall, lean frame as he guided her so protectively through the crowd. It should have been impossible to move through the club so quickly, so confidently. Not in a place like this at the height of a Saturday night. But he did it.

And then they were outside, in the cold and the damp November night, and he was still moving in that same breathtaking way, like quicksilver. Like he knew exactly where they were headed—away from the club and the people still milling about in front of it. He led her down the dark street, deeper into the shadows, and it was then Alicia’s sense of self-preservation finally kicked itself into gear.

Better late than never, she thought, annoyed with herself, but it actually hurt her to pull away from the magnificent shelter of his body, from all of that intense heat and strength. It felt like she’d ripped her skin off when she stepped away from him, as if they’d been fused together.

He regarded her calmly, making her want to trust him when she knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, but...” She wrapped her arms around her own waist in an attempt to make up for the heat she’d lost when she’d stepped away from him. “I don’t know a single thing about you.”

“You know several things, I think.”

He sounded even more delicious now that they were alone and she could hear him properly. Russian, she thought, as pleased as if she’d learned his deepest, darkest secrets.

“Yes,” she agreed, thinking of the things she knew. Most of them to do with that insistent ache in her belly, and lower. His mouth. His clever hands. “All lovely things. But none of them worth risking my personal safety for, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

Something like a smile moved in his eyes, but didn’t make it to his hard mouth. Still, it echoed in her, sweet and light, making her feel far more buoyant than she should have on a dark East London street with a strange man even she could see was dangerous, no matter how much she wanted him.

Had she ever wanted anything this much? Had anyone?

“A wolf is never without risk,” he told her, that voice of his like whiskey, smooth and scratchy at once, heating her up from the inside out. “That’s the point of wolves. Or you’d simply get a dog, pat it on the head.” His eyes gleamed. “Teach it tricks.”

Alicia wasn’t sure she wanted to know the tricks this man had up his sleeve. Or, more to the point, she wasn’t sure she’d survive them. She wasn’t certain she’d survive this as it was.

“You could be very bad in bed,” she said, conversationally, as if she picked up strange men all the time. She hardly recognized her own light, easy, flirtatious tone. She hadn’t heard it since before that night in her parents’ back garden. “That’s a terrible risk to take with any stranger, and awkward besides.”

That smile in his eyes intensified, got even bluer. “I’m not.”

She believed him.

“You could be the sort who gets very, very drunk and weeps loudly about his broken heart until dawn.” She gave a mock shudder. “So tedious, especially if poetry is involved. Or worse, singing.”

“I don’t drink,” he countered at once. His dark brows arched over those eyes of his, challenging her. Daring her. “I never sing, I don’t write poems and I certainly do not weep.” He paused. “More to the point, I don’t have a heart.”

“Handy, that,” she replied easily. She eyed him. “You could be a killer, of course. That would be unfortunate.”

She smiled at that. He didn’t.

“And if I am?”

“There you go,” she said, and nodded sagely. Light, airy. Enchanted, despite herself. “I can’t possibly go off into the night with you now, can I?”

But it was terrifying how much she wanted to go off with him, wherever he’d take her, and instead of reacting to that as she should, she couldn’t stop smiling at him. As if she already knew him, this strange man dressed all in black, his blue eyes the only spot of color on the cold pavement as he stared at her as if she’d stunned him somehow.

“My name is Nikolai,” he said, and she had the oddest impression he hadn’t meant to speak at all. He shifted, then reached over and traced her lips with his thumb, his expression so fierce, so intent, it made her feel hollowed out inside, everything scraped away except that wild, wondrous heat he stirred in her. “Text someone my name and address. Have them ring every fifteen minutes if you like. Send the police. Whatever you want.”

“All those safeguards are very thoughtful,” she pointed out, but her eyes felt too wide and her voice sounded insubstantial. Wispy. “Though not exactly wolfish, it has to be said.”

His mouth moved into his understated version of a smile

“I want you.” His eyes were on fire. Every inch of him that wolf. “What will it take?”

She swayed back into him as if they were magnets and she’d simply succumbed to the pull. And then she had no choice but to put her hand to his abdomen, to feel all that blasting heat right there beneath her palm.

Even that didn’t scare her the way it should.

“What big teeth you have,” she whispered, too on edge to laugh, too filled with that pulsing ache inside of her to smile.

“The biting part comes later.” His eyes gleamed again, with the kind of sheer male confidence that made it difficult to breathe. Alicia stopped trying. “If you ask nicely.”

He picked up her hand and lifted it to his mouth, tracing a dark heat over the back of it. He didn’t look away.

“If you’re sure,” she said piously, trying desperately to pretend she wasn’t shaking, and that he couldn’t feel it. That he didn’t know exactly what he was doing to her when she could see full well that he did. “I was promised a wolf, not a dog.”

“I eat dogs for breakfast.”

She laughed then. “That’s not particularly comforting.”

“I can’t be what I’m not, solnyshka.” He turned her hand over, then kissed her palm in a way that made her hiss in a sharp breath. His eyes were smiling again, so bright and blue. “But I’m very good at what I am.”

And she’d been lost since she’d set eyes on him, hadn’t she? What use was there in pretending otherwise? She wasn’t drunk. It wasn’t like that terrible night, because she knew what she was doing. Didn’t she?

“Note to self,” Alicia managed to say, breathless and dizzy and unable to remember why she’d tried to stop this in the first place, when surrendering to it—to him—felt so much like triumph. Like fate. “Never eat breakfast with a wolf. The sausages are likely the family dog.”

He shrugged. “Not your family dog,” he said with that fierce mouth of his, though she was sure his blue eyes laughed. “If that helps.”

And this time, when she smiled at him, the negotiation was over.

The address he gave her in his clipped, direct way was in an extraordinarily posh part of town Alicia could hardly afford to visit, much less live in. She dutifully texted it to Rosie, hoping that her friend was far too busy to check it until morning. And then she tucked her phone away and forgot about Rosie altogether.

Because he still moved like magic, tucking her against him again as if there was a crowd he needed to part when there was only the late-night street and what surged between them like heat lightning. As if he liked the way she fitted there as much as she did. And her heart began to pound all over again, excitement and anticipation and a certain astonishment at her own behavior pouring through her with every hard thump.

At the corner, he lifted his free hand almost languidly toward the empty street, and for a second Alicia truly believed that he was so powerful that taxis simply materialized before him at his whim—until a nearby engine turned over and a powerful black SUV slid out of the shadows and pulled to a stop right there before them.

More magic, when she was enchanted already.

Nikolai, she whispered to herself as she climbed inside the SUV, as if the name was a song. Or a spell. His name is Nikolai.

He swung in behind her on the soft leather backseat, exchanged a few words in curt Russian with the driver and then pressed a button that raised a privacy shield, secluding them. Then he settled back against the seat, near her but not touching her, stretching out his long, lean body and making the spacious vehicle seem tight. Close.

And then he simply looked at her.

As if he was trying to puzzle her out. Or giving her one last chance to bolt.