Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nikolett took a second to smooth her skirt down her hips before turning away from the door.
Gus looked even bigger inside the room, and a tingle of awareness passed through her.
It was that ancient instinct that both warned her that she was physically outmatched, and this man could hurt her.
That was quickly followed by the first strings of desire—a hind-brain instinct that said this man would survive and could protect her, so she should probably fuck him.
Nikolett’s stomach twisted. She’d desperately wanted to feel something with Laszlo and hadn’t. It appeared she wasn’t going to have that problem with Gus, but after last night, after Eric…
Gus looked around the suite, then half turned to smile at her. “Lass, are you sure you’re not a princess?”
She laughed, coming up beside him. “Not a princess. Just a political activist. There’s someone who doesn’t agree with my politics.”
“That explains the guards, but not the suite. You’re a well-paid political activist?”
“No, the people I advocate for—” The people I used to advocate for. “—have no money. I have investments that fund my work.”
She leaned back on her old pre-admiral life to half answer his question, though in that life she hadn’t had investments. She had been a political activist and advocate, but she’d also held an elected position that paid her just enough to survive while her opponents lived lavishly.
She started walking past him toward the bar cart where a bottle of white wine sat in ice, while a bottle of red had been decanted so it could breathe. Gus touched her elbow as she passed. A bare brush, but she stopped.
His gaze slid down her and he bent to the side, two fingers still on her elbow. Nikolett realized what he was doing and hiked up her skirt a little, showing off her green cast and the cast shoe she wore with it that allowed her to move without thumping around while still protecting her leg.
She had a sandal with a thick sole on the other foot that evened out the height so she didn’t rock side to side as she walked.
Even with the added centimeters, she was nowhere near as tall as Gus, who probably hadn’t been able to see the cast between the height-difference angle and the skirt.
“It’s even greener in person.”
“I never have trouble finding it,” she agreed.
Gus straightened, and when he took a small step toward her, not touching her except the two fingers on her elbow, but definitely in her personal space, she held her breath.
“Someone is still trying to hurt you, lass?”
Nikolett looked up into his blue eyes…and imagined another pair of blue eyes looking down at her.
Damn it, Eric, get out of my head.
“Let’s have some wine,” she said instead of answering. She took a step, pausing when his hand slipped under her elbow, supporting her. Together, they walked to the bar cart.
“White or red?” she asked.
“Red, please.”
She liked that he let her pour for him instead of taking the decanter from her.
When he stuck the flowers in the ice bucket with the bottle of white, she laughed, but didn’t stop what she was doing to go find a vase.
She poured them each a glass, choosing white for herself before handing him the red.
Gus brought his glass toward her, as if for a toast, then stopped. “No clinking glasses, right?”
“That’s only with beer. You don’t clink glasses of beer when you toast, because in 1848 the Austrian generals toasted their victory by clinking glasses and Hungarians vowed not to clink glasses of beer for a hundred and fifty years.”
As she spoke, Nikolett headed for the seating area, Gus keeping pace with her. She knew with a certainty that should have worried her that if she were to trip or tip, he’d catch her and keep her upright.
She sat in an elegant armchair, while Gus chose the couch. His big body would have been cramped in one of the delicate chairs.
“I’m pretty good at maths.” Gus sat forward. “I think it’s been a hundred and fifty years already.”
She smiled. “Hungarians are stubborn like that.”
The silence was heavy but not awkward. The moment was holding its breath, deciding how to exhale.
“Then how about this?” Gus shifted so he was at the end of the couch closest to her. He leaned forward, glass outstretched.
His gaze met and held hers.
She felt something more than just primal awareness. A small fluttering. The classic butterflies in her stomach. It was wholly unexpected, given how thoroughly her heart and soul had been wrung out by Eric.
Then again, most of her adult life had been lived anticipating two spouses.
Maybe her heart had been reformed by her membership so there was automatically space for two.
Eric may have damaged one of those slots, but when Gus looked at her, she thought that maybe, just maybe, there was hope for her finding love with someone else.
There was something else too, not quite unease but a sense of disquiet. As if something wasn’t quite right.
Because this should be Eric.
“Sláinte,” Gus said.
Nikolett leaned forward, holding eye contact as she touched her glass to his. “Egészségedre.”
They each took a sip, all without breaking eye contact. Maybe it was because he knew it was bad luck to look away during a toast; maybe it was because he wanted the intimacy.
Gus set his glass down, finally looking away. “How much danger are you in?”
Nikolett scratched “just sex” off the short list of options for the night. He was clearly here for more than just sex if he was asking questions like that.
“I don’t have a definitive answer.” Nikolett winced. “I should have informed you that there was a risk in coming here to see me. So far, no one associated with me has been attacked, but—”
Gus slid off the couch onto one knee in front of her. She went still, quickly assessing, calculating, but not coming up with an answer as to what he was doing.
His bent leg pressed against hers, the inside of his thigh against her knees. Between the chair and his big body, she was trapped. Restrained.
Nikolett swallowed.
“I’m not worried about myself, lass. I’m worried about you.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know you’re tough. Smart.” He touched her knee, just above the cast, then looked at her, waiting for permission.
Nikolett felt fluttery and light, like it had been champagne instead of white wine she’d sipped. She’d felt alone since that day in Dublin when Eric finally and fully killed the fragile hope she’d clung to. The idea of a connection, of being touched, was desperately appealing.
She nodded, a tiny motion, but it was the permission he needed.
“And you’re beautiful.” Gus spread his fingers, cupping her knee. When he balled his hand into a fist, he gathered her skirt, raising the hem several centimeters.
Nikolett reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder but not to stop him. To connect them.
Gus slowly drew her skirt up, until he’d exposed her knee. He stopped there, not pushing the fabric any higher.
Part of her wanted him too. Part of her wanted to spread her legs just a bit, see if he’d take it as an invitation, as permission, to take control the way she needed.
“And I know that you’re in danger.” Gus slowly lifted her bad leg, propping her cast-encased calf on his thigh.
Nikolett exhaled. This had veered toward caretaking, which was also intimate, but not in the way she’d been anticipating.
Though she enjoyed the way he’d taken control, moved her body how and where he wanted it.
The skin at the back of her neck prickled. She didn’t know him well enough to let him take control, except in fantasy.
At least not today.
Gus was looking at her cast. “Is the, er…bad guy…trying to kill you or incapacitate you?”
The practical question shifted the mood further from sex, and Nikolett took a bracing sip of wine, eyeing him as she did.
“Sorry, lass.” He shook his head at himself. “I like to read thrillers, and I was thinking since this is political, maybe someone is trying to incapacitate you so you don’t do something, rather than kill you which might…” His eyes widened as he trailed off.
“Rather than kill me to make me a martyr?” She finished for him.
He looked horrified. “That was right shite of me to say.”
She laughed. “No, it’s a valid idea. The person attacking me doesn’t seem to want me dead, only hobbled. Ineffective.”
Gus reached over for his glass, taking a sip, apparently content kneeling, her leg propped on his thigh.
“You don’t have to play footstool,” Nikolett said. “I don’t need to keep it up anymore. It’s mostly healed.”
“I don’t mind kneeling for you.”
Nikolett’s breath caught in surprise. Gus looked almost as surprised. As if he hadn’t meant to say that, though there was no embarrassment in his expression. There was a line between his brows, his gaze in the middle distance, his attention inward.
She tried very hard not to dwell on the visual of this massive, strong man on his knees for her. She vehemently didn’t like being in charge when it came to sex, no matter how hard she’d tried to be an authoritative femme fatale in the past.
Not that she couldn’t fake it for a while.
There was one very specific fantasy she could tap into when she needed to take the lead in sex, but it would never last.
Still, that fantasy hovered at her shoulder, a specter tempting her not to her doom but to something else.
With an abrupt movement, as if shaking himself out of the introspection, Gus turned his face to her, a sheepish smile on his lips. “Sorry, lass. I’ll put your leg down now.”
“No need to apologize. You were being thoughtful.”
Gus’ hand slid under her calf, the cast meaning he didn’t touch skin. He lifted at the same time she bent her knee.
The double lift raised her leg higher than either of them anticipated, and Nikolett’s skirt slid halfway up her thigh, exposing the lacy top of the taupe thigh-high stocking and a hand-span of pale flesh.
Gus inhaled slowly as he lowered her foot to the ground, his attention on her thigh.
Nikolett made no move to push down her skirt.
A kernel of doubt tried to root in her—maybe he was looking at her leg in surprise or disgust, not desire.
Then Gus took an unsteady breath and pushed away, returning to the couch. He picked up his glass and took a long drink, head tipping back enough to draw her eye to the line of his throat. It was not the action of a man who didn’t like what he saw, but one working to control his desire.
Gus set his glass down and looked at her, gaze slowly tracking from her face over her body and back up.
Nikolett raised her chin, not defiant but self-assured.
She was not so arrogant as to assume every person she met found her attractive—her features were too sharp, her attitude abrasive, and her ass too small for current fashion.
She was attractive enough by most standards.
And she knew Gus was attracted to her. She’d seen the appreciation in his eyes when they first met, and the way he’d reacted to the small visual intimacy confirmed it.
She was braced, waiting for him to make the first move, and if he didn’t, she would. The disquiet that still plagued her, the sense of wrongness, was still there, but she boxed it up and shoved it into a back corner of her mind.
“Food.”
Nikolett blinked. “Food?” That was not the direction she’d anticipated this going.
“We need to eat dinner.”
She blinked again. “Of course.” Nikolett rose. “The plan was to order room service, for security purposes. The menu—”
Gus was on his feet. “It’s not that I’m hungry.” One long stride brought him up beside her. He took her hand, big warm fingers wrapping around hers.
Nikolett froze, looking back and up (and up) at Gus.
“I mean, I am hungry, but…I’ve been fantasizing…” His gaze slid down her once more, a devilish quirk to his lips. “…about feeding you.”
Her face must have shown her surprise because the quirk became a full grin.
“Ever since that day in the café when you were clearly famished and wouldn’t let me buy you food or even eat half my cookie, I’ve been imagining feeding you.”
Nikolett’s cheeks heated, and she hoped her foundation at least muted the blush.
“I forgot about that.”
“About the cookie?” Gus reached past her to the embossed room service menu she’d been reaching for.
“I didn’t forget about the cookie. I saved you in my phone as ‘Cookie Guy.’”
“Just ‘Cookie Guy’? Not ‘Sexy Cookie Guy’, or ‘Braw Cookie Guy’?”
Together, they returned to the seating area. This time, Nikolett sat on the couch, Gus beside her. When he sat, the cushion dipped and she tipped against him.
Before she could move out of the way, Gus stretched his arm along the back of the couch.
Not touching her, not yet, but making space for her to scoot closer to him, her arm and shoulder almost touching his side.
Close enough for her to feel the heat of his body and to be hyper-aware of their size difference.
He flipped the menu open, holding it so they could both read it. “Indulge me, lass, and let me feed you.”