“Kiss me,” she ordered him, straddling his lap, pressing herself against his delicious hardness, torturing them both.
He took her face in his hands and then her mouth with a dark, thrilling kiss, making her moan against him. He tasted like the winter night and a little bit like her, and the kick of it rocketed through her, sensations building and burning and boiling her down until she was nothing but his.
His.
The world was his powerful body, his masterful kiss, his strong arms around her that anchored her to him. And she loved him. She loved him with every kiss, every taste. She couldn’t get close enough. She knew she never would.
He lifted her higher, up on her knees so she knelt astride him, then held her there. He took her nipple into his mouth again, the sharp pull of it like an electric charge directly into her sex, while his wicked fingers played with the other. Alicia shuddered uncontrollably in his arms, but he held her still, taking his time.
And all the while the hardest part of him was just beneath her, just out of reach.
“Please...” she whispered frantically. “Nikolai, please...”
“Unlike you,” he said in a voice she hardly recognized, it was so thick with desire, with need, with this mighty storm that had taken hold of them both, “I occasionally obey.”
He shifted then, taking her hips in his hands, and then he thrust up into her in a single deep stroke, possessive and sure.
At last.
And for a moment, they simply stared at each other. Marveling in that slick, sweet, perfect fit. Nikolai smiled, and she’d never seen his blue eyes so clear. So warm.
Alicia moved her hips, and his breath hissed out into a curse. And then she simply pleased them both.
She moved on him sinuously, sweetly. She bent forward to taste the strong line of his neck, salt and fire. She made love to him with every part of her, worshipping him with everything she had. She couldn’t say the words, not to a man like Nikolai, not yet, but she could show him.
And she did.
Until they were both shuddering and desperate.
Until he’d stopped speaking English.
Until he rolled her over and drove into her with all of his dark intensity, all of that battle-charged skill and precision. She exulted beneath him, meeting every thrust, filled with that ache, that wide-open rift he’d torn into her, that only this—only he—could ever soothe.
And when he sent her spinning off into that wild magic for the third time, he came with her, holding her as if he loved her too, that miraculous smile all over his beautiful face.
At last, she thought.
* * *
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Alicia had been so lost in her own head, in Nikolai, that she hadn’t heard the door to the women’s lounge open. It took her a moment to realize that the woman standing next to her at the long counter was speaking to her.
And another moment for what she’d said to penetrate.
Veronika.
The moment stretched out, silent and tense.
Alicia could hear the sounds of the ball, muffled through the lounge’s walls. The music from the band and the dull roar of all those well-dressed, elegant people, dancing and eating and making merry in their polite way. She’d almost forgotten that this was the reason she was here at all. This woman watching her with that calculating gleam in her eyes, as if she knew things about Alicia that Alicia did not.
There was nothing hard or evil-looking about Veronika, as Alicia had half expected from what little Nikolai had said of her. Her hair cascaded down her back in a tumble of platinum waves. She wore a copper gown that made her slender figure look lithe and supple. Aside from the way she looked at Alicia, she was the picture of a certain kind of smooth, curated, very nearly ageless beauty. The kind that, amongst other things, cost a tremendous amount to maintain and was therefore an advertising campaign in itself.
Alicia told herself there was no need for anxiety. She was wearing that bold, gorgeous blue dress, alive with sequins, that had been waiting for her in her room. It clung to her from the top of one shoulder to the floor, highlighting all of her curves, sparkling with every breath, and until this moment she’d felt beautiful in it. Nikolai had smiled that sexy wolf’s smile when he saw her in it, and they’d been late coming here tonight. Very late.
Standing with him in this castle-turned-hotel, dressed for a ball in a gorgeous gown with the man she loved, she’d felt as if she might be the princess in their odd little fairy tale after all.
She’d let herself forget.
“Tell me that you’re not so foolish,” Veronika said then, breaking the uncomfortable silence. She sounded almost...sympathetic? It put Alicia’s teeth on edge. “Tell me you’re smart enough to see his little games for what they are.”
It was amazing how closely this woman’s voice resembled the ones in her head, Alicia thought then. It was almost funny, though she was terribly afraid that if she tried to laugh, she’d sob instead. She was still too raw from last night’s intensity. A bit too fragile from a day spent in the aftermath of such a great storm.
She wasn’t ready for this—whatever this was.
“If you want to speak to Nikolai,” she said when she was certain her tone would be perfectly even, almost blandly polite, “he’s in the ballroom. Would you like me to show you?”
“You must have asked yourself why he chose you,” Veronika said conversationally, as if this was a chat between friends. She leaned closer to the mirror to inspect her lipstick, then turned to face Alicia. “Look at you. So wholesome. So real. A charity worker, of all things. Not his usual type, are you?”
She didn’t actually tell Alicia to compare the two of them. She didn’t have to, as Alicia was well aware that all of Nikolai’s previous women had been some version of the one who stood in front of her now. Slender like whippets, ruthlessly so. Immaculately and almost uniformly manicured in precisely the same way, from their perfect hair to their tiny bodies and their extremely expensive clothes. The kind of women rich men always had on their arms, like interchangeable trophies, which was precisely how Nikolai treated them.
Hadn’t Alicia told him no one would believe he was interested in her after that kind of parade?
“I can’t say I have the slightest idea what his ‘type’ is,” she lied to Veronika. “I’ve never paid it as much attention as you’ve seemed to do.”
Veronika sighed, as if Alicia made her sad. “He’s using you to tell a very specific story in the tabloids. You must know this.”
Alicia told herself she didn’t feel a chill trickle down her spine, that something raw didn’t bloom deep within at that neat little synopsis of the past few weeks of her life. She told herself that while Veronika was partly right, she couldn’t know about the rest of it. She couldn’t have any idea about the things that truly mattered. The things that were only theirs.
“Or,” she said, trying desperately not to sound defensive, not to give any of herself away, “Nikolai is a famous man, and the tabloids take pictures of him wherever he goes. No great conspiracy, no ‘story.’ I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
But she was lying, of course, and Veronika shook her head.
“Who do you think was the mastermind behind Ivan Korovin’s numerous career changes—from fighter to Hollywood leading man to philanthropist?” she asked, a razor’s edge beneath her seemingly casual tone, the trace of Russian in her voice not nearly as appealing as Nikolai’s. “What about Nikolai himself? A soldier, then a security specialist, now a CEO—how do you think he manages to sell these new versions of himself, one after the next?”
“I don’t see—”
“Nikolai is a very talented manipulator,” Veronika said, with that sympathetic note in her voice that grated more each time Alicia heard it. “He can make you
believe anything he wants you to believe.” Her gaze moved over Alicia, and then she smiled. Sadly. “He can make you fall in love, if that’s what he needs from you.”
Alicia stared back at her, at this woman who smiled as she listed off all of Alicia’s worst fears, and knew that she should have walked away from this conversation the moment it started. The moment she’d realized who Veronika was. Nothing good could come of this. She could already feel that dark hopelessness curling inside of her, ready to suck her in....
But her pride wouldn’t let her leave without putting up some kind of fight—without making it clear, somehow, that Veronika hadn’t got to her. Even if she had.
“You’ll forgive me,” she said, holding the other woman’s gaze, “if I don’t rush to take your advice to heart. I’m afraid the spiteful ex makes for a bit of a questionable source, don’t you think?”
She was congratulating herself as she turned for the door. What mattered was that she loved Nikolai, and what she’d seen in him last night and today. What she knew to be true. Not the doubts and fears and possible outright lies this woman—
“Do you even know what this is about?”
Alicia told herself not to turn back around. Not to cede her tiny little bit of higher ground—
But her feet wouldn’t listen. They stopped moving of their own accord. She stood there, her hand on the door, and ordered herself to walk through it.
Instead, like a fool, she turned around.
“I try not to involve myself in other people’s relationships, past or present,” she said pointedly, as if the fact she hadn’t left wasn’t evidence of surrender. As if the other woman wasn’t aware of it. “As it’s none of my affair.”
“He didn’t tell you.”
Veronika was enjoying herself now, clearly. She’d dropped the sympathy routine and was now watching Alicia the way a cobra might, when it was poised to strike.
Leave, Alicia ordered herself desperately. Now.
Because she knew that whatever Veronika was about to say, she didn’t want to hear it.
“Of course he didn’t tell you.” Veronika picked up her jeweled clutch and sauntered toward Alicia. “I told you, he’s very manipulative. This is how he operates.”
Alicia felt much too hot, her pulse was so frantic it was almost distracting, and there was a weight in her stomach that felt like concrete, pinning her to the ground where she stood. Making it impossible to move, to run, to escape whatever blow she could feel coming.
She could only stare at Veronika, and wait.
The other woman drew close, never taking her intent gaze from Alicia’s.
“Nikolai wants to know if my son is his,” she said.
It was like the ground had been taken out from under her, Alicia thought. Like she’d been dropped into a deep, black hole. She almost couldn’t grasp all the things that swirled in her then, each more painful than the next.
Not here, she thought, fighting to keep her reaction to herself, and failing, if that malicious gleam in Veronika’s eyes was any indication. You can’t deal with this here!
She would have given anything not to ask the next question, not to give this woman that satisfaction, but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t stop. None of this had ever been real, and she needed to accept that, once and for all. None of this had ever been—nor ever would be—hers.
No matter how badly she wished otherwise. No matter how deeply, how terribly, how irrevocably she loved him.
“Is he?” she asked, hating herself. Betraying herself. “Is your son Nikolai’s?”
And Veronika smiled.
* * *
Nikolai saw Alicia from the other side of the ballroom, a flash of shimmering blue and that particular walk of hers that he would know across whole cities.
He felt it like a touch. Like she could reach him simply by entering the same room.
Mine, he thought, and that band around his chest clutched hard, but he was almost used to it now. It meant this woman and her smile were his. It meant that odd sensation, almost a dizziness, that he found he didn’t mind at all when he looked at her.
It meant this strange new springtime inside of him, this odd thaw.
At some point last night, it had occurred to him that he might survive this, after all.
Nikolai had lost track of how many times they’d come together in the night, the storm in him howling itself out with each touch, each taste of her impossible sweetness. All of her light, his. To bathe in as he pleased.
And in the morning, she’d still been there. He couldn’t remember the last time any woman had slept in his bed, and he remembered too well that the first time, Alicia had sneaked away with the dawn.
Daylight was a different animal. Hushed, he thought. Something like sacred. He’d washed every inch of her delectable body in the steamy shower, learning her with his eyes as well as his greedy hands. Then he’d slowly lost his mind when she’d knelt before him on the thick rug outside the glass enclosure, taking him into her mouth until he’d groaned out his pleasure to the fogged-up mirrors.
He didn’t think he’d ever get enough of her.
She curled her feet beneath her when she sat on the sofa beside him. Her favorite television program was so embarrassing, she’d claimed, that she refused to name it. She was addicted to cinnamon and licked up every last bit of it from the pastries they’d had at breakfast, surreptitiously wetting her fingertip and pressing it against the crumbs until they were gone. She read a great many books, preferred tea first thing in the morning but coffee later, and could talk, at length, about architecture and why she thought that if she had it to do over again, she might study it at university.
And that was only today. One day of learning her, and he’d barely scratched the surface. Nikolai thought that maybe, this time, he wouldn’t have to settle for what he could get. This time, he might let himself want...everything. Especially the things he’d thought for so long he couldn’t have, that she handed him so sweetly, so unreservedly, as if they were already his.
Mine, he thought again, in a kind of astonishment that it might be true. That it was even possible. She’s mine.
Alicia disappeared in the jostling crowd, and when she reappeared she’d almost reached him. Nikolai frowned. She was holding herself strangely, and there was a certain fullness in her eyes, as if she were about—
But then he saw the woman who walked behind her, that vicious little smile on her cold lips and victory in her gaze, and his blood ran cold.
Like ice in his veins and this time, it hurt. It burned as he froze.
“Privyet, Nikolai,” Veronika purred triumphantly when the two of them finally reached him. As sure of herself as she’d ever been. And as callous. “Look who I discovered. Such a coincidence, no?”
This, he thought, was why he had no business anywhere near a bright creature like Alicia. He’d destroy her without even meaning to do it. He’d already started.
This is who you are, he reminded himself bitterly, and it was worse because he’d let himself believe otherwise. He’d fallen for the lie that he could ever be anything but the monster he was. It only took a glance at Veronika, that emblem of the bad choices he’d made and with whom, to make him see that painful truth.
“Alicia. Look at me.”
And when she did, when she finally raised her gaze to his, he understood. It went off inside him like a grenade, shredding him into strips, and that was only the tiniest fraction of the pain, the torment, he saw in Alicia’s lovely brown eyes.
Dulled with the pain of whatever Veronika had said to her.
He’d done this. He’d put her in harm’s way. He was responsible.
Nikolai had been tested last night. He’d had the opportunity to do the right thing, to imagine himself a good man and then act like one, and he’d failed. U
tterly.
All of his demons were right.
Nikolai moved swiftly then, a cold clarity sweeping through him like a wind. He ordered Veronika to make herself scarce, told her he’d come find her later and that she’d better have the answer he wanted, and he did it in Russian so Alicia wouldn’t hear the particularly descriptive words he used to get his point across.
“No need,” Veronika said, also in Russian, looking satisfied and cruel. He wanted to wring her neck. “I had the test done long ago. You’re not the father. Do you want to know who is?” She’d smiled at Nikolai’s frigid glare. “I’ll have the paperwork sent to your attorney.”
“Do that,” Nikolai growled, and if there was a flash of pain at another small hope snuffed out, he ignored it. He’d see to it that Stefan was taken care of no matter what, and right now, he had other things to worry about.
He forgot Veronika the moment he looked away. He took Alicia’s arm and he led her toward the door, amazed that she let him touch her. When they got to the great foyer, he let her go so he could pull his mobile from his tuxedo jacket and send a quick, terse text to his personal assistant.
“Whatever you’re about to say, don’t,” he told her when she started to speak, not sure he could keep the riot of self-hatred at bay just then. She pressed her lips together and scowled fiercely at the floor, and his self-loathing turned black.
Your first response when you feel something is to attack, Ivan had said. But Nikolai had no idea how to stop. And for the first time since he was a boy, he realized that that sinking feeling in him was fear.
He slipped his mobile back in his pocket, and guided her toward the front of the hotel, not stopping until they’d reached the glass doors that led out through the colonnaded entrance into the December night. Above them, the palatial stairs soared toward the former palace’s grand facade, but this entranceway was more private. And it was where his people would meet them and take her away from him. Take her somewhere—anywhere she was safe.
Not Just the Boss's Plaything Page 16