“You liked what I represent enough to come out to dinner with me this evening,” he rasped harshly.
Her eyes narrowed warily. “And what do you ‘represent’, Mr. Wynter?”
He moved his hand beneath the table and wrapped it about her thigh beneath her dress, fingers squeezing lightly as she gave a squeak of surprise at the unexpected intimacy. “Marco is on his way over here with our oysters,” he warned softly as he saw the light of battle appear in her eyes.
Those eyes flashed a warning of their own. “Take your hand off my thigh,” she told him evenly.
“And if I choose not to do so?”
She smiled at him insincerely. “Then I may have to start screaming until you do.”
Lucien could see that she meant it too. He liked her all the more for it.
He liked her?
Lucien couldn’t remember the last time he had allowed himself the luxury of liking anyone.
He chuckled softly as he removed his hand in order to sit back and allow Marco to place the cooled silver platters of oysters in front of them, speaking again once the older man had left them to enjoy their meal. “You lift up the shell and—”
“I know how to eat oysters, thank you,” Nicky snapped, completely unnerved, both by their conversation and the heat she could still feel from where Lucien’s hand had gripped her thigh beneath the table.
She was aroused as well as unnerved.
How did this man manage to annoy and irritate her so much she wanted to hit him? And the very next minute, it seemed, cause her body to go up in flames?
As well as frighten the hell out of her with his comment about ‘knowledge being power’...
She gave a shake of her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came out to dinner with you because I thought you would be interesting to talk to—”
“You came out to dinner with me because I’m the CEO of Wynter Enterprises, and listed as one of the top fifty richest people on the planet!” he corrected hardly.
Nicky felt her face pale. “You were listening to our conversation in the coffee shop earlier...”
“I found it very enlightening.” He nodded. “Especially the part where you and your friend discussed the idea of you becoming the mistress of a rich man, who in exchange for occasional sex, would then be expected to keep you and pay off all your debts.”
“That would be an old rich man—and I believe I rejected the idea totally.” Nicky’s cheeks were now ablaze with color.
“Only the old part. And I’ve heard it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.” He looked at her challengingly. “Now might be a good time to change yours...”
Nicky’s eyes widened incredulously. “Are you suggesting that I become your mistress?”
“Why not?”
Why not? Why not? Had she fallen asleep and was dreaming? Or maybe fallen into a parallel universe?
None of this could really be happening, could it? This too-handsome man at her side. The empty restaurant. Lucien’s hand up the skirt of her dress. His outrageous suggestion that she become his mistress...
She gave him a pitying glance. “Possibly because, no matter what you might think you overheard earlier, I’m not for sale!”
“Everyone has a price, Nicky,” he taunted softly. “Everyone. It’s just a question of finding out what that price is.”
“And what’s your own ‘price’, Lucien?”
“Hmm, perhaps there is one exception to that rule, after all...” He eyed her mockingly.
“God, you’re such an arrogant ass—” Nicky broke off with a start as she felt his hand return to her thigh beneath the table before moving higher still, her breath catching in her throat as a finger played along her groin at the edge of her lace panties. “What are you doing...?” she squeaked as she looked about them frantically to see if anyone was watching—they weren’t—as that finger now dipped below her panties and stroked the moist folds beneath.
His eyes glittered between thick, dark lashes. “You know what I’m doing, Nicky.” That finger now moved the length of her slick folds, dipping tantalizingly into her wet channel and then out again, before moving upwards to circle, but not quite touch, the hard knot of sensitive muscle above. “Ask me to make you come,” he instructed gruffly.
“I—you—no!” Even to her own ears her protest sounded weak, her voice heavy with arousal as heat radiated over the whole of her body. “Is this why you always empty a restaurant and eat in this same private booth?” She attempted to fight back even while her body began to melt with pleasure. “So that you can do this to the woman you’re with, rather than eating?”
“Oh I’ll enjoy eating you too eventually, Nicky. I’m sure you’ll taste delicious,” he added softly, turning to her fully now, and making no secret of what he was doing to her as he pushed a finger, and then two, up inside her, beginning to thrust at the same time as his thumb swirled teasingly around her swollen clit. “Ask me to make you come, Nicky,” he encouraged gruffly. “You know you want me to.”
Without realizing she had done so, Nicky had slid slightly down the seat, her legs apart as she allowed Lucien easier access, unable to look away from his mesmerizing eyes now as his fingers began to thrust harder and faster, his thumb stroking around but not quite touching her sensitive clit.
She tried to fight the pleasure washing over her. She really did try—
“Please...!” Nicky groaned achingly as she felt her orgasm approaching with the speed of an express train. If only Lucien would touch her clit rather than torment her with caresses around it. Touch it. Squeeze it. Pinch it. Anything but continue teasing her in this elusive way. “Oh God, please...!”
“Say the words, Nicky,” he encouraged throatily, his face all harsh angles in the candlelight. “Say them, damn it!” He curled his fingers up inside her, massaging a second knot of muscles he found there, until her juices flowed freely over his fingers, making between Nicky’s thighs slick and wet.
She couldn’t take any more, ached, needed, wanted— “Oh God, please Lucien, I want to com—what?” Nicky felt totally bewildered, bereft, as those fingers were suddenly removed from inside her and her channel was left grasping and contracting on nothing, her clit throbbing, aching, with that same unfulfilled need.
“Is everything to your satisfaction, Mr. Wynter?” The manager of the restaurant now hovered politely beside their table.
“Very much so, thank you, Marco,” Lucien replied coolly. “Nicky?” He turned to look at her.
She wanted to hit him. Wanted to scream and shout at him for just leaving her hanging there, in total sexual frustration.
How could Lucien do this to her? How could he make love to her in public but at the same time remain so cool himself, so totally aware still of everything else around him, such as the approach of the restaurant manager. When Nicky had been so totally lost to sensation she wouldn’t have cared at that moment if the manager, the chef, and the piano player had all gathered around to watch the show.
Lucien knew it too, damn him. And he was amused by it, mocking laughter glittering in his eyes as he now looked at her with calm enquiry.
She managed a stiff smile for the benefit of Marco. “Everything is just wonderful, thank you, Marco.”
“Everything, Nicky?” Lucien leaned forward to murmur in her ear once the other man had gone. “I believe you were just about to ask me to make you come?” His hand slipped beneath the table once again.
“Stop it!” Nicky pushed that hand off her even as she moved along the bench seat away from him. “You really are an absolute and utter bastard.” Tears burned her eyes.
His head tilted mockingly. “That would be a no then?”
“With bells on!” Nicky gave him a glare as she straightened her panties and pulled the skirt of her dress down beneath the table, totally aware of the wetness of her panties, of the spicy and pervasive scent of her own arousal. “Bastard, bastard, bastard!” she muttered self-consciously as she gathered up her clutch bag.
Lucien laughed softly. “Do you even attempt to filter what comes out of that sinfully screwable mouth?” He held her gaze with his as he lifted his hand to his parted lips before deliberately and slowly licking her juices from his fingers. “Mm, as I suspected, you do taste delicious.”
Nicky was mortified. Completely humiliated. “Go to hell, Mr. Wynter.” She moved to the end of the bench seat. “How silly of me—you already live there!”
He chuckled. “So you think I’m the devil, hmm?”
“One of them, yes!” She stood up, her head held high as she strode angrily across the restaurant.
Much to the surprise of the manager, as he hurried forward to open the door for her, and so allowing Nicky to make a sweeping exit.
She totally ignored the man in black standing guard outside the restaurant, the scar livid on his temple in the lamplight, as she walked to the curb to flag down a black cab—and to hell with the expense—only to have him step forward and open the cab door for her to get inside.
Nicky kept her face averted as she got into the cab, determined that the man who obviously worked for Lucien Wynter wouldn’t see, and report back to his employer, that there had been tears in her eyes as the cab drove away.
Lucien Wynter was an arrogant, cold-hearted bastard, and Nicky never wanted to set eyes on him ever again.
Chapter 3
Eight months later…
“What can I do for you, Miss McKenzie?” Lucien enquired coolly as he leaned back in the black leather chair behind the shiny black marble desk in his London office.
She blinked. “You don’t remember me...?”
Did Lucien remember her?
Admittedly, the young woman now standing in the middle of his office bore little resemblance to the wild-haired student he had met eight months ago; then she had been dressed in ragged jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt, her hair a wild halo of red corkscrew curls.
This Nicky McKenzie had secured those wild red curls into an intricate knot at the nape of her neck, a light foundation on the paleness of her face, a peach lip gloss coloring her lips—which was a pity, because Lucien had really liked the glistening red lip gloss she had been wearing the last time they met. She also wore a black business suit, not an expensive one, but smart enough for a junior executive, and teamed with a fitted white blouse.
At first glance there seemed very little of the student Nicky McKenzie of eight months ago.
Until he looked into her eyes.
The fire leaping in those deep brown eyes definitely belonged to that other, more headstrong Nicky. The Nicky who had walked out of Petruccio’s eight months ago. Leaving him.
Lucien arched one dark eyebrow. “Should I remember you?”
Cold, heartless, ruthless, arrogant bastard, Nicky fumed inwardly.
A cold, heartless, ruthless, arrogant bastard who no doubt sat up here in his office on the penthouse floor of Wynter Enterprises, dressed in his designer label suits—black today, worn with a white silk shirt and pale grey tie—and looked down on what he no doubt saw as the lesser mortals below.
Getting in the building at all had been difficult enough. The security man at the desk downstairs had finally come to the glass entrance door, after she had rung the bell on the wall outside and looked at him expectantly. He had then politely but firmly informed her, when she asked to see Lucien, that Mr. Wynter didn’t see anyone without an appointment; his tone had implied that very few people ever qualified for one of those, and she certainly wasn’t one of them.
Nicky had reasoned, pleaded, and then out of desperation, flirted, but it was only when she had the foresight to show him the business card Lucien Wynter had given her eight months ago, that the man had reluctantly agreed to put a call through to Lucien Wynter’s head of security.
She had spent another ten minutes outside on the pavement before the guard came back and unlocked the door, allowing her to step into the building. Nicky had then been confronted by the same man she had seen with Lucien Wynter in the coffee shop and at the restaurant eight months ago. The man with that distinctive scar at his temple, who had also opened the cab door for her when she walked out of Petruccio’s.
He had nodded terse acknowledgement of her but hadn’t spoken a word as he escorted her to the elevator, waiting until she had stepped inside before pressing a button for the top floor, his cool gaze remaining fixed on her until the elevator doors closed. After which Nicky had begun to breathe again. Until the elevator began its rapid ascent and she had realized she was actually on her way up to see Lucien Wynter.
A cool, tall blonde had been waiting outside when the elevator stopped on the top floor of the building, inviting Nicky to sit on one of the plush seats while she disappeared into the adjoining room for another ten minutes.
This vast and imposing room, with a thick black carpet on the floor, the cream silk-covered walls adorned with modern, original paintings, more artwork on show in glass display cabinets, and a fully stocked bar between two black leather sofas, with a view of the London skyline rivaling that from the London Eye.
It was the perfect setting for the cold and intimidating man seated behind the black marble desk.
Lucien Wynter.
The last man Nicky had expected, or wanted, to ever see again.
A man she wasn’t even sure remembered meeting her at the university eight months ago, let alone what had happened between the two of them in Petruccio’s later that evening.
“I don’t have all day to waste waiting for you to answer, Miss McKenzie,” he barked at her continued silence.
She frowned at his tone. “We met at LSE eight months ago, when you gave a lecture to Professor Grant’s students. I—later you invited me out to dinner.” Her cheeks warmed as she all too easily recalled the events of that evening.
How would she ever be able to forget it, when this man—this man had— Her thighs clenched together at the thought of what Lucien Wynter had done to her in Petruccio’s.
“You offered me a job,” Nicky blurted, as she desperately tried to block out the memories of having this man’s hands on her. In her.
Lucien Wynter slowly regarded her, from the low-heeled black shoes on her feet to her neatly styled hair, his gaze so piercing Nicky felt as if he could see right through her clothes to the white bra and matching panties beneath.
Finally that mocking gaze moved back up to meet hers. “Ah yes, I remember you now.” He relaxed back in his chair. “I believe you called me an arrogant ass and a bastard before walking out of the restaurant where we were having dinner together?”
“I don’t believe we got as far as having dinner!”
“I distinctly remember the taste of—”
“I walked out on you because you had just asked me to be your mistress!” Nicky defended heatedly, not wanting to discuss what he ‘remembered’ having for his dinner—namely her!
“I believe I suggested it as a hypothetical possibility,” he corrected dryly. “A hypothetical possibility you refused, if I also remember correctly? With bells on! But perhaps you’re here today because you’ve changed your mind...?”
Not only did this man remember her, but he remembered every word she’d said to him that night too.
And what did he mean when he asked if she was here because she’d changed her mind? Did it mean he still wanted her physically? That the offer of becoming his mistress was still open if she wanted it?
Nicky didn’t want it.
Of course she didn’t.
It was just—she would be lying if she said she wasn’t flattered to know that this powerful man might still desire her.
“That isn’t the job offer I was referring to,” she mumbled uncomfortably.
“No?” He stood up, instantly dwarfing even this imposingly large room.
Nicky was so unnerved as he stalked softly towards her that she only just stopped herself from taking a step backwards. She almost broke and ran, anyway, when instead of standing in front of her as she had expecte
d, he moved to stand behind her. So close Nicky could smell the heady spice of his aftershave, and feel the warmth of his breath on her nape.
She began to tremble as he just continued to stand there. Not speaking. Not moving. Not touching her. Completely silent. And just there.
Lucien had thought of Nicky often for the first few days after she walked out on him. Had wondered if she might have second thoughts and change her mind, and attempt to seek him out.
He had respected her more when she hadn’t.
And tried his damndest to forget her.
Nicky McKenzie was beautiful, yes. As well as intriguingly frank, in a way he wasn’t used to. But Lucien had made it a rule over the years never to pursue any woman. He rarely spent more than one night in the company, or bed, of the same woman; it tended to give ideas of a permanence that simply didn’t, and as far as Lucien was concerned, never would exist. That he had suggested Nicky might become his mistress that night had been completely out of character. That she had refused had been by far the wisest choice, for him, as well as for her.
But she was back now. Slightly changed. More mature. But still the same earthy and desirable Nicky he had wanted to fuck eight months ago.
“Then which job were you referring to?” He didn’t like her hair confined like this, but it did allow his gaze to fix hungrily on that enticing mole just beneath her earlobe. “No, don’t turn around,” he instructed, as she would have done exactly that. He licked his lips as he anticipated licking and then sucking that mole.
She tensed, becoming rigid under his hands as Lucien rested them lightly on her shoulders before stepping up closer behind her. So close Lucien could feel the trembling heat of her body, and smell the intoxication of her arousal.
Nicky ran the moistness of her tongue over the dryness of her lips, her face feeling hot, her palms damp, her blouse feeling too tight against the hard pebbles of her aroused nipples, as she was utterly and completely aware of the danger of Lucien’s body behind her.
She had known she shouldn’t come here. That she should stay well away from a man like Lucien. And she would have done exactly that if she hadn’t been so desperate she didn’t know where else to go. “You gave me a card with this address on it and—and told me to contact you when I finished university. You said you might be able to offer me a job with your company.”
Dark Alpha (ALPHA 2) Page 3