“I know about the catalytic converter because my mother’s was stolen once. I guess it’s a thing for young thugs to steal them and sell them for the precious metal. Mom was livid.”
“As she had a right to be.”
“I suppose, but getting a concealed weapons permit and storing a handgun in her Navigator’s glove box was taking it about sixty million steps too far. It wasn’t as if she was in the car when they stole the thing.”
Demyan felt his lips twitching, the amusement rolling through him an unusual but not unwelcome reaction. “I am sure you are right.”
“Is English your second language?”
“It is.” But people rarely realized that. “I do not speak with an accent.”
“You don’t use a ton of contractions either.”
“I prefer precise communication.”
Her storm-cloud gaze narrowed in thought. “You’re from Volyarus, aren’t you?”
He felt his eyes widen in surprise. “Yes.”
“Don’t look so shocked. My great-great-grandfather helped discover the oil fields of Volyarus. Did you really think I wouldn’t know that the Seattle office of Yurkovich Tanner is just a satellite? They paid for my university education. It was probably some long-ago agreement with Bartholomew Tanner.”
She was a lot closer than was comfortable to the truth. “He was bequeathed the title of baron, which would make you a lady.”
“I know that, but my mom doesn’t.” And from Chanel’s tone, she didn’t want the older woman finding out. “Besides, the title would only pass to me if I were direct in line with no older sibling.”
“Do you have one?” he asked, knowing the answer but following the script of a stranger.
“No.”
“So you are Dame Tanner, Lady Chanel, if you prefer.”
Her lovely pink lips twisted with clear distaste. “I prefer just Chanel.”
“Your mother is French?” he asked, continuing the script he’d carefully thought out beforehand.
Demyan was always fully prepared.
“No. She loves the Chanel label, though.”
“She named you after a designer brand?” His investigators had not revealed that fact.
“It’s no different than a parent naming their child Mercedes, or something,” Chanel replied defensively.
“Of course.”
“She named me more aptly than she knew.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked with genuine surprise and curiosity.
He would have thought it was the opposite.
“Mom loves her designers, but what she never realized was that Coco Chanel started her brand because she believed in casual elegance. She wore slacks when women simply did not. She believed beauty should be both effortless and comfortable.”
“Did she?”
“Oh, yes. Mom is more of the ‘beauty is pain’ school of thought. She wishes I were, too, but well, you can see I’m not.” Chanel indicated her lab coat over a simple pair of khaki slacks and a blue T-shirt.
The T-shirt might not be high fashion, but it clung to Chanel’s figure in a way that revealed her unexpectedly generous curves. She wasn’t overweight, but she wasn’t rail thin either, and if her breasts were less than a C cup, he’d be surprised.
That information had not been in her dossier, either.
“You’re staring at my breasts.”
“I apologize.”
“Okay.” She sighed. “I’m not offended, but I’m not used to it. My lab coat isn’t exactly revealing and the men around here, well, they stare at my data more than me.”
“Foolish men.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“You’re flirting again.”
“Are you going to try to ignore me like the delivery man?”
“Am I going to see you again to ignore you?”
“Oh, you will definitely see me again.”
* * *
As hard as Chanel found it to believe, the gorgeous corporate guy had meant exactly what he said. And not in a business capacity.
He wanted to see her again. She hadn’t given him her number, but he’d called to invite her to dinner. Which meant he’d gone to the effort to get it. Strange.
And sort of flattering.
Then he’d taken her to an independent film she’d mentioned wanting to see.
Chanel didn’t date. She was too awkward, her filters tuned wrong for normal conversation. Even other scientists found her wearing in a social setting.
Only, Demyan didn’t seem to care. He never got annoyed with her.
He didn’t get offended when she said something she shouldn’t have. He didn’t shush her in front of others, or try to cut off her curious questioning of their waiter on his reasoning behind recommending certain meals over others.
It was so different than being out with her family that Chanel found her own awareness of her personal failings diminishing with each hour she spent in Demyan’s company.
She’d never laughed so much in the company of another person who wasn’t a scientist. Had never felt so comfortable in a social setting with anyone.
Tonight they were going to a dinner lecture: Symmetry Relationships and the Theory of Point and Space Groups. She’d been wanting to hear this particular visiting lecturer from MIT for a while, but the outing had not been her idea.
Demyan had secured hard-to-come-by tickets for the exclusive gathering and invited her.
She’d been only too happy to accept, and not just because of the lecture. If he’d invited her to one of the charity galas her mother enjoyed so much, Chanel would have said yes, too.
In Demyan’s company, even she might have a good time at one of those.
Standing in front of the full-length mirror her mother had insisted Chanel needed as part of her bedroom decor, she surveyed her image critically.
Chanel didn’t love designer fashion and rarely dressed up, but no way could she have been raised by her mother and not know how to put the glad rags on.
Tonight, she’d gone to a little more effort than on her previous two dates with Demyan. Chanel had felt the first two outings were flukes, anomalies in her life she refused to allow herself to get too excited over.
After all, he would get that glazed look at some point during the evening and then not call again. Everyone did. Only, Demyan hadn’t and he had—called, that is.
And maybe, just maybe, she and the corporate geek had a chance at something more than the connection of two bouncing protons.
He understood what she was talking about and spoke in a language she got. Not like most people. It was the most amazing thing.
And she wanted him. Maybe it was being twenty-nine or something, but her body overheated in his presence big-time.
She’d decided that even if their relationship didn’t have a future, she wanted it to have everything she could get out of it in the present.
Both her mother and stepfather had made it clear they thought Chanel’s chance of finding a lifelong love were about as good as her department getting better funding than the Huskies football program.
Nil.
Deep inside, Chanel was sure they were right. She was too much like her father—and hadn’t Beatrice said she’d married him only because she was pregnant with Chanel?
Chanel wasn’t trapping anyone into marriage, but she wouldn’t mind tripping Demyan into her too-empty bed.
With that in mind, she’d pulled out the stops when dressing for their dinner tonight. Her dress was a hand-me-down Vera Wang from her mother.
It hadn’t looked right on the more petite woman’s figure, but the green silk was surprisingly flattering to Chanel’s five feet seven inches.
The bodice clung to her somewhat generous breasts, while the draping accentuated her waist and the line of her long legs.
It wasn’t slutty by any stretch, but it was sexy in a subtle way she trusted Demyan to pick up on. She would usually have worn it with sensible pumps that d
idn’t add more than an inch to her height.
But not tonight. Demyan was nearly six-and-a-half feet tall; he could deal more than adequately with a companion in three-inch heels.
Chanel had practiced wearing them on and off all day in the lab.
Her colleagues asked if she was doing research for a physics experiment. She’d ignored their teasing and curiosity for the chance to be certain of her ability to walk confidently in the heels.
And she’d discovered it was like riding a bike. Her body remembered the lessons her mom had insisted on in Chanel’s younger years.
The doorbell rang and she rushed to answer it.
Demyan stood on the other side, his suit a step up from his usual attire on their dates, too.
He adjusted his glasses endearingly and smiled, his mahogany gaze warm on her. “You look beautiful.”
Her hand went to the crazy red curls she rarely did much to tame. Tonight she’d used the full regimen of products her mother had given her on her last birthday, along with a lecture about not getting any younger and looking like a rag doll in public. “Thank you.”
“Do we have time for a drink before we leave for the dinner?” he asked, even as he herded her back into the small apartment and closed the door behind him.
“Yes, of course.” Heat climbed up her neck. “I don’t keep alcohol on hand, though.”
The look in his eyes could only be described as predatory, but his words were innocuous enough. “Soda will do.”
“Iced green tea?” she asked, feeling foolish.
Her mother often complained about the food and drink Chanel kept on hand, using her inadequacies as a hostess to justify the infrequent motherly visits.
Demyan’s eyes narrowed as if he could read Chanel’s thoughts. “Iced tea is fine.”
“It’s green tea,” she reiterated. Why hadn’t she at least bought soda, or something?
“Green tea is healthy.”
“Lots of antioxidants,” she agreed. “I drink it all the time.”
He didn’t ask if the caffeine kept her up, but then the man drank coffee with his meals and had gotten a large-size fully caffeinated Coca-Cola at the movie.
“I keep both caffeinated and decaf on hand,” she offered anyway.
“I’ll take the caffeine. I have a feeling we’ll be up late tonight.” The look he gave her was hot enough to melt magma.
Suddenly, it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her apartment’s cheerfully decorated living room. “I’ll just get our tea.”
He moved, his hand landing on her bare arm. “Don’t run from me.”
“I’m not.” How could two simple words come out sounding so breathless?
His hand slid up her arm and over and down again, each inch of travel leaving bursts of sensation along every nerve ending in its wake, landing proprietarily against the small of her back. “I like this dress.”
“Thank you.” Somehow she was getting closer to him, her feet moving of their own volition, no formed thought in her brain directing them.
“You’re wearing makeup.”
She nodded. No point in denying it.
“I didn’t think you ever did.”
“I stopped, except for special occasions, after I moved away from home.”
“An odd form of rebellion.”
“Not when you have a mother who insists on image perfection. I wore makeup from sixth grade on, the whole works.”
“And you hated it.”
“I did.”
“Yet you are wearing it now.” The hand not resting on her back came up to cup her nape. “For the visiting MIT professor?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” Then Demyan’s head lowered, his mouth claiming hers with surprisingly confident kisses.
And she couldn’t think at all.
Sparks of pleasure kindled where their lips met and exploded through her in a conflagration of delight. It was only a kiss. He was barely touching her, just holding her, really. And yet she felt like they were in the midst of making love.
Not that she’d actually done the deed, but she’d come close and it hadn’t been anything as good or intimate as this single kiss. She’d been naked with a man and felt less sensation, less loss of control.
Small whimpers sounded and she realized they were coming from her. There was no room for embarrassment at the needy sounds. She wanted too desperately.
She’d read about this kind of passion, but thought it was something writers made up, like werewolves and sentient beings on Mars. She had always believed that this level of desire wasn’t real.
Before meeting Demyan.
Before this kiss.
The hands on her became sensual manacles, their hold deliciously unbreakable. She didn’t want to break it. Didn’t want to take a single solitary step away from Demyan.
Their mouths moved together, his tongue barely touching hers in the most sensual kind of tasting. He used his hold on her nape to subtly guide her head into the position he wanted and she found it unbearably exciting to be mastered in this small way.
Demyan was one hundred percent in control of the kiss, and Chanel reveled in it with every single one of her sparking nerve centers.
The hand on her waist slid down to cup her bottom. He squeezed. The muscles along her inner walls spasmed with a need she’d never known to this intensity.
She’d been tempted to make love before, but never to the point of overcoming the promise she’d made to herself never to have sex—only to ever make love. In her mind, that had always meant being married and irrevocably committed to the man she shared her body with.
For the first time, she considered it could well mean giving her body to someone she loved.
Not that she loved Demyan. How could she? They barely knew each other.
The feelings inside her had to be lust, but they were stronger than anything she’d ever considered possible.
He kneaded her backside with a sensual assurance she could not hope to show. She tilted her pelvis toward him, needing something she wasn’t ready to give a name to. Her hip brushed the unmistakable proof of his excitement; they moaned into one another’s mouths, the sounds adding to the press of desire between them.
The knowledge he wanted her, too, poured through her like gasoline on the fire of her desire.
Her hands clutched at his crisp dress shirt as she rocked against him, wanting more, needing something only he could give her. He rocked back against her, the sounds coming from him too feral and sexy for the “normal corporate guy” he was on the outside.
The disparity so matched her own newly discovered sexual being inside the science geek, the connection she felt with him quadrupled in that moment.
Without warning, he tore his mouth from hers and stepped back, his breathing heavy, his eyes dark and glittery with need. “Now is not the time.”
Her own vision hazy with passion, all that she saw in focus was his face, the expression there an odd mixture of confusion and primal sexual need that could not be mistaken.
Even by someone as socially inept as she was.
Why was he confused? Didn’t he realize how much she wanted him, too?
“We don’t have to go to the dinner.” She stated the obvious.
ISBN: 9781460316696
DUTY AT WHAT COST?
Copyright © 2013 by Michelle Conder
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