Chapter 4
Grabbing the smoked crystal glass, I lift my Cranberry Velvet to my lips. It’s sweet and smooth, but stronger than the first drink I had. I keep myself from clearing my throat as the subtle burn of the vodka warms my insides.
His half smile spreads wide, and he chuckles.
“You like to play the bad girl.”
“Or, maybe I’m just not into being told what to do.” I’m lying, and it’s ridiculous.
In the day to day, when control is ripped from me, it makes my blood boil. But in little intimate moments like this, something about it sets my insides on fire in an entirely different way.
Kara’s right, too many romance novels.
But he’s obviously into being the dominant force, so why not play into what we both seem to enjoy?
I’m hell bent on sabotaging myself. Maybe a part of me feels guilt. I’m engaged. I mean, not really, but technically yes?
I’m getting married tomorrow; I shouldn’t be sharing a dark booth with a dangerously handsome man playing power games.
Yet, I can’t stop myself from enjoying his vibe.
He picks up his drink, his eyes shifting away from me as he sips it. When he puts the glass back down, he runs his tongue over his top lip, licking away a droplet of whiskey.
“Why did you need a minute away from your friends?” He changes the conversation away from my mild disobedience.
Another bite of disappointment.
“You’re going to think it’s silly.”
“Try me,” he presses.
“They were talking about men, particularly one of their boyfriends. Debating if having to work late was good enough reason to cancel a date.” I take another sip, this time of the water.
His left eyebrow lifts, just a tiny fraction, but with it his mouth does, as well. I think he’s pleased I drank the water.
Such a small thing, but it fills me with warmth.
I think I like him being pleased with me.
“And what was your opinion? Does work come before pleasure?”
“Sometimes it has to. Sometimes we do things because it’s necessary. Sometimes what we want just doesn’t get to play a role in the decision of what we do.”
He studies me a long moment. “How often do you make decisions based on what you want?”
“I wasn’t talking about me.”
“Of course you were, but you don’t want to admit it.”
I take another sip of my cranberry drink, a long one. Enjoying the bite of the vodka against my throat this time.
“You’re right. I don’t really want to talk about it. Not tonight. Tonight is mine, all mine.”
After tomorrow my life will belong to a stranger. I’ll be doing what I have to in order to keep Tommy cared for.
After I take my vows, I’ll keep them. My life will be my husband’s. But tonight, until I say those words, is all for me.
“I like that. And you’re right. There are more times in our lives we do things out of obligation than desire. But tonight doesn’t have to be that.” He drinks the rest of his whiskey. “Tonight can be just fun. Just about us.”
“Just two people having a good time.”
“Making each other feel good.” He adds with a dip in his voice.
I can only imagine what he means by that statement, but I’d much rather know firsthand. What does it feel like to have his tongue paint across my skin? His fingers dig into my flesh? His cock—
“Yes.” I press my knees together, needing something to take a little bit of the edge off.
My clit throbs with the images flashing through my mind.
“No ties, no expectations,” he says.
“No phone numbers exchanged, no names.” I stop myself after the last bit. “Nothing but one night and then we walk away.”
The thrill of the idea is exhilarating. I’ve never had a one-night stand before. But with him, it’s all I can hope for. It’s all I can give.
Why not end my bachelorette days with a man like him. Powerful, dominant, sexy.
“No real names.” He leans forward again, his forearms pressing into the edge of the table. “But I need to call you something. ‘Hey, you’ doesn’t really roll off the tongue, you know?”
I laugh. “Right. Good point. Okay, fake names.”
“Good.” He nods. “What’s yours?”
“Christiana,” I say without hesitation. It’s my middle name, easy for me to remember. “You?”
“Bob.”
I laugh again, this time loud enough a couple sitting in a booth beside us turn to look our way.
“Bob?”
“What’s so funny about Bob?” He feigns hurt.
“You don’t look anything remotely like a Bob.”
“No? What do I look like then?”
I tilt my head, squint my eyes and study him. “Hmmm. You look like something out of a mobster movie, but not the Italian mob. You’re not Italian.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “God, no.”
“Right.” I try not to take offense. “Okay, not Italian, but I’d say definitely eastern European. It’s the jaw, you have a square jaw.”
“You have an issue with my jaw?” He huffs a laugh.
“No. No issue.” I put up both hands. “I like your jaw. It tenses when you don’t like something.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.” I nod. “Like when I didn’t drink the water, you had a little tick right here.” I tap the same spot on my jaw where I’d seen it in his.
“Well, you were being a little brat about that. But don’t worry, I have a way to fix that.”
“Oh?” My brow raises now. “How?”
“You’ll see. But back to my name. You don’t like Bob.”
“You look more like a Dmitri.” I nod. “Yes, something like that.”
He laughs. “All right, Christiana, Dmitri it is.”
“Okay. Dmitri.” I take a long gulp of my cranberry drink, shifting my eyes toward Kara and Rosa.
They’re still embattled in their conversation, armed now with the chicken egg rolls I’d asked for.
“What do you do, Dmitri?” I ask casually. “I mean, if we can ask that sort of thing?”
“I think it’s safe. I work in business acquisitions.”
“Business acquisitions?” I scrunch up my nose. “That sounds boring. I can’t picture you in a suit and tie sitting behind a desk all day.”
“The way I do business, it’s not boring in the least.” He winks. “What about you? What do you do?”
“Much more adventurous.” I grin. “I’m a preschool teacher.”
He deadpans. “Seriously?”
I laugh. “Yep. I teach three- to five-year-olds their colors, the ABCs, and one-two-threes.”
He runs his thumb along the bottom of his lower lip then chuckles.
“Something against teachers?” I prod when he remains silent.
“Not at all, it’s just that it sounds so innocent.”
“You don’t think I’m innocent?” Pressing my fingers to my chest, I feign insult.
His eyes narrow on me. “Take another sip of your water, Christiana.”
My breath catches momentarily while heat treks up my neck. It’s another test.
One I’m more interested in passing this time.
Slowly, I bring the glass to my mouth. My gaze catches his while I dip my tongue into the water, then swallow a small sip. His eyes remain fixed on me as I run my tongue over my lip, catching the last bead of water before it drips onto my chin.
He clears his throat.
“So my next question. How does a teacher get access to Lush?” He moves my Cranberry drink to his side of the table. A clear indication he thinks I’m done with it for the night.
“My friend over there. Here father is a big deal at a Leviticus Media.”
While it’s completely true, it’s not exactly how I have access. But we’re trying to keep things light and telling him about my brothers, my family, isn’t going to keep things as aloof as we’ve agreed to keep them.
“So sorry to interrupt.” The waiter is back, this time with a folded piece of paper on his server’s tray. “A message for you.”
He presents the tray to Dmitri, who arches a brow as he snaps it up. The waiter sticks around, waiting to see if there’s a response, but all Dmitri does is toss the paper back onto the tray.
“I’m sorry, sir, but she insisted there would be a reply?” The waiter looks as though the collar of his shirt is choking him, the way he moves his head to the side.
Dmitri sighs. “You can tell her my answer is no answer.”
The waiter dips his head. “Of course. I will relay the message.”
“And if she has anything else she wants you to deliver, don’t bother,” Dmitri says.
Sweeping my gaze over the lounge area, I find a woman sitting at the bar staring in our direction. She has shoulder-length red hair, one half of which is swept up and held in place by a diamond barrette. Her dress has a slit on the side exposing her entire right leg, which is crossed over her left.
“I think you have an admirer,” I say into my glass while drinking my water.
He readjusts his position, snubbing her of any attention by giving her his back.
“How often do you play this game, Dmitri?” I place the heavy crystal glass down, loosely gripping it with my fingertips. “With women?”
“There is no game. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.”
I glance back at the woman. The waiter has given her Dmitri’s response and her body tightens.
“Maybe I should go back to my friends.” I scoot from the booth, and he catches my hand.
“I don’t want you to.” He pulls me closer to him, almost into his lap. “I want you to stay.”
“I won’t be the reason someone goes to bed with a broken heart tonight.”
His thumb runs over my knuckles. “No one’s heart has broken over me. I can promise that.”
I don’t think he’s being honest about that, but if I were a betting woman I’d bet everything he believes it.
“No names. Nothing too personal. One night. Just us, remember? One night just for us.”
I glance back at the bar. She’s turned her back to us and is talking to the man sitting to her left.
“And if I see you here next weekend, you’ll give me the cold shoulder as well.” It’s a non-issue, but still, I’ve spent nights comforting Rosa after men have loved her and left her.
I can’t be the source of that sort of pain.
“No. If I see you next weekend and you give a polite hello, I’ll acknowledge you.” He turns to glance toward the bar. “But if you send me a note telling me to ditch the woman I’m having a conversation with so you can blow me in the bathroom, I’ll give you the same response I gave her.”
I freeze. “Is that what the note said?”
“It was more explicit than that.” He squeezes my hand. “I can have the waiter bring it back if you want to read it.”
I shake my head. “No, that’s all right.”
“You believe me?” He tilts his head. “Even though we’ve just met?”
I let him pull me into him until my legs are pressed against his.
“Sometimes you have to choose to believe something even if you aren’t presented with an overwhelming amount of evidence,” I say.
“I think that’s called faith,” he responds.
“I suppose it is.” I pause to lift my gaze to the woman in question. “Besides, I think she’s gotten over her broken heart.”
Discreetly, he follows my line of sight and chuckles. “It would seem so.”
“Does it bruise your ego to be easily cast aside?”
He scoots over in the booth, making room for me before pulling me into the bench with him. Letting go of my hand, he moves to rest his elbow on the back of the bench. His fingertips lightly push my hair away from my face and he tucks it behind my ear.
“You think my ego is so fragile?”
I grin.
“It’s been my experience, although I will admit I don’t have all that much, that men with as much confidence as you seem to often have easily bruised egos when they don’t get what they want.”
Many of the deranged things my brothers did happened in reaction to being denied some superficial desire. A wrong look, a denied contract, being told no had dire consequences for those daring to utter the word.
When I was ten, Marco wanted my dessert. When I said no, he cut the hair off of every one of my dolls.
Dmitri traces the shell of my ear, which sends electricity coursing through my body. My skin seems to come alive beneath his touch.
“I think you’re confusing confidence with arrogance. A confident man can accept a rejection. He might not like it, but he accepts it and doesn’t resort to silly games. A man full of arrogance will puff up his chest and pretend it’s her loss completely. Insult her. Or worse.”
“So if I got up and walked away now, you wouldn’t pursue me.”
“No.” He drops his touch from my face but leaves his hand close enough that the warmth of him remains.
“And if we were in the middle of…things…and I cried off. You wouldn’t be angry or throw a tantrum?” I’m not even sure where the question comes from; it just pops out before I can stop it or rephrase it.
We’re just having drinks. No one said anything about anything more.
But I won’t pretend my body isn’t hoping that’s where things are headed.
His eyes narrow. “Has a man done that to you?”
“Thrown a temper tantrum? You forget, I deal with five-year-olds for a living. I can handle a tantrum.” I try to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach truth.
He drops his gaze to my mouth.
“Even if I was balls deep in your pussy, two pumps away from coming I would stop immediately if you changed your mind. There would be no anger. No tantrum. Nothing.”
There’s something to his voice, a harshness, a realness I haven’t registered before with any man.
I stare at him, trying to read his expression, but it’s hardened. Like a wall has erected right in front of me, and I wonder if he’s closer to this topic than he’s letting on.
I touch his cheek, running my fingers over the roughness of his five o’clock shadow. “That’s good to know.”
He grabs my wrist and pulls it to his mouth where he places a warm kiss to my skin. His eyes stay locked on mine while his lips press against me.
“It’s getting late, Christiana.” He places my hand in my lap. “Your friends are watching us, waiting to hear the answer to the same question I’m asking myself.”
My face heats.
“What question is that?” Somehow I manage to get my voice in working order, even though my insides are quickly turning to molten lava.
He runs the tip of his middle finger along my bottom lip as he leans forward.
“Are you going home with them…or me?”