There is only her.
There is only us.
She takes a deep breath and advances one more step toward me. It’s spellbinding. Utterly captivating. I couldn’t tear my eyes off her if I tried.
Until her ankle twists in the unfamiliar high heels and her finger accidentally catches the stem of a wine glass.
All the concentrated sexiness dissipates at once. In the blink of an eye, she’s Awkward Liv again, fumbling to catch a spilled drink, just like the very first time I ever laid eyes on her.
She nearly busts her ass as she lunges forward just in time to cradle the wine glass against smashing into the ground. I shoot my hand out to save her from tumbling head over heels.
“God-fucking-shit-dammit!” she hisses as purple wine drips from her fingers.
“At least it’s not hot coffee.”
“Very funny, asshole. Now, can you hand me a napkin so I can clean myself off?”
“No.”
I look her dead in the eye. She starts to retort, but then she sees something in my gaze that silences her.
Slowly, I rise, never breaking eye contact. I tower over her. She is so small, so fragile. So utterly at my mercy.
Olivia fidgets the whole time. She doesn’t know what to do in the white-hot glare of my full attention. It’s too much for her. Like she’s staring into the sun.
Only this time, the sun is staring back at her.
I still have her elbow in my grasp from where I caught her. Moving with aching slowness, I let my hand glide down her forearm until I encircle her wrist in my fingers.
I raise it to my lips and take one wine-soaked finger in my mouth. I still don’t look away. I stay locked on her, like something as little as a blink will ruin this forever.
I suck the wine off one finger. Then the next. Then the next.
Then I place her hand gently back by her side.
“If you’re going to try to seduce me to get what you want, Olivia, you should take your heels off first.”
She shudders like a cold wind only she can feel just blasted through the garden. “I should’ve stayed far away from a man like you,” she murmurs.
“Scared of living, Olivia?”
“If this is living,” she says, gesturing to me and our surroundings, “then I don’t want it.”
“On the contrary, kiska, I think you want it more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your whole fucking life. You just don’t know how to ask for it.”
16
OLIVIA
I have no idea what I’m doing.
Aleks just sucked wine off my fingers in the strangest, hottest display of tenderness and ownership I’ve ever seen. I’m still trembling head to toe from the after-effects of the intimate gesture.
But he’s looking at me like we’re not quite finished here.
My mistake since the moment we met has always been looking directly into his eyes. That’s my weakness, my undoing, every single time. It’s what landed me in this mess.
So I try to avoid it now. I stop myself from doing more than glancing, although I still catch a glimpse of blue with slices of green around the iris before I change course.
Danger. That’s what those eyes tell me.
They aren’t lying.
“I don’t want to be part of your world,” I snap defensively. “Don’t want to be part of your life.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you care? Don’t you have other women waiting eagerly at your beck and call?”
“More than you could possibly imagine.”
“Great. Then go beck-and-call one of them. I’ll happily slip away and you’ll never see me again.”
He just smirks, that same arrogant, infuriating smirk that draws and repels me at the same time. God, he’s a frustrating enigma.
I take a deep breath and try to remind myself of Yulia’s advice. I need to earn his respect. But the task is daunting. Impossible.
I push aside my reservations and focus on him. I don’t look at his face because I know that will only inhibit the process, so I concentrate on his shoulders.
His broad, muscular, infinite shoulders. I can’t help looking at him and feeling weak in comparison. Fragile, whereas he is so solid and undeniable.
The top three buttons of his shirt have been left open. I can see his collarbones, smoothing out into the tattooed planes of his chest.
He gives me a knowing smile. “Something wrong, Olivia?” he asks. “You look a little lost.”
“I… I…”
That’s when I do it—I make the mistake of looking at him.
And just like that, I’m lost.
His eyes are indisputably beautiful, but the fire that burns there gives them a feral kind of quality. It takes the beauty and twists it into something more. Something different. A severity that exudes power.
And so I find myself saying words I shouldn’t even be thinking.
“I don’t know what to do now. You’ve ruined me.”
He nods, unsurprised. “My advice? Stop thinking about my opinion of you. Just concentrate on yourself. Your desires. Feel it authentically, truly, from deep in your soul. Convince yourself that what you want will want you in return—all you have to do is send that desire radiating outward. So answer one question for me, kiska… what do you want to do now?”
My lips feel numb. “I want…”
My hand curls around the opening of his shirt. I lean in and press my lips against his. Aleks wraps his arms around me, holding me against him.
But he isn’t kissing me back. Not really.
He’s waiting to see how far I’ll take this on my own.
I run my tongue over his lips and then slide it into his mouth, deepening the kiss. Even with him barely moving, I feel the connection all the way down to my toes.
This. This is what I want.
But he’s right—I don’t know how to say that out loud.
When I pull back, he looks at me with one raised eyebrow. “Is that all you’ve got?”
I’ve never been a very competitive person, but Aleks knows how to press all of my buttons, apparently. Those five little words light a fire in me. Or rather, they throw gasoline onto a fire that’s been raging in me since the moment a hot man at the airport watched me spill coffee on myself.
I take the final step forward and stand between his legs. We’re both extremely aware of how insistently his cock is bulging against his zipper.
I turn around. “Unzip me.”
His warm fingers slide my zipper down to my lower back. I let it slip down my body, pooling at my feet. My bra and panties are conservative enough that I don’t feel completely exposed when the dress hits the ground.
At least, not yet. Not until I feel his hand on my ass. “Turn around and remove your bra,” he growls.
I take a deep breath and turn in place. His hand drags around my hip, settling high on my thigh. Aleks is relaxed, legs spread, forehead unlined. His gaze flits across my face before dipping down to my breasts.
He grabs the band of my panties and pulls me forward so that my thighs are at his crotch, rubbing against his erection.
I lean forward, ready to free him from his pants, but he grabs my wrists and shoves me backward.
“No,” he says firmly. “You first.”
I frown, wondering how the hell he’s managed to take control when I’m the one who’s supposed to be driving this interaction. But I really don’t mind one bit. In fact, I’m so wet that it’s getting uncomfortable.