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that I hoped would pass for classy. I knew my clothes weren t nearly expensive enough to match up to whatever Luka would wear, but then I was meant to be just a tourist not one of the super-rich. The dress seemed to meet with Luka s approval. I could feel his eyes on my legs, stroking upward along my thighs. I self-consciously tugged the hem down a little. His gaze was unnerving and a turn on but it had another effect, too. For the first time in years, I was able to almost forget that I was in a car. I found I only needed to do my translation trick a little to keep me calm. The car slid through the streets of Moscow and, again, there was almost no sound. We were cocooned in our own little world inside and it hit me for the first time that the windows were tinted. We could see out, but nobody knew we were in there. We might as well have been invisible ghosts, flitting through the streets. Luka looked, if it was possible, even hotter than before. He d changed into a black shirt and expensive-looking black jeans. The lack of color only emphasized the blue of his eyes. His collar was open just enough to reveal that enticing triangle of hard, tan chest I d seen at the party. Those broad shoulders and thick biceps looked even better under the more casually-cut shirt and I could see his powerful thighs as they stretched the denim tight. I couldn t help thinking about what all that muscle would mean in bed. Brutal and hard and able to take me for hours. I flushed. I didn t normally think of men in that way. It was like a pheromone or an aura he put out, sweeping my senses every time I was close to him. I was starting to find that my mind went to shreds every time I was around Luka Malakov, reducing me to animal instincts and base needs. As we sped through the city, he didn t say anything. He just looked at me, his eyes shining in the dim light from the streetlights. Being looked at like that isn t something I m used to. And it wasn t like the restaurant or the park or even at his house in New York. There was something about being in that private little cocoon with him, like being trapped in a cage with a hungry tiger. I should have been terrified. I was terrified, on some level. But I could feel that same connection I d felt before, crackling in the air between us. If I was trapped in a cage with a tiger, that made me the deer. The prey. And part of me just wanted to shake my hair away from my neck and offer it up to him to be savaged. Where is it we re going? I said, more to break the silence than anything. He gave me a sly smile. There isn t a direct translation for its name. The closest I can get is, the underside of heaven. We pulled up right outside two huge, smoked-glass doors. Before the car had even stopped, the doormen were putting their hands to their earpieces, telling someone we d arrived. They unclipped the velvet rope and showed us straight past the waiting line of people and inside. The nightclub was vast one massive room with a ceiling at least three floors above us. The dance floor itself was another level down, a sea of bodies lit up by blue and green lights. At one edge of the room, a shining bar made of what looked like glass stretched most of the length of the club. There must have been twenty bartenders behind it, but they were still working flat out. As we descended the stairs, I realized my little black dress was horribly out of place. There wasn t a single woman there without something that shone or sparkled. Even their shoes had crystals or sequins or both. And it wasn t that their clothes were flashy but cheap they were flashy and expensive. Designer bags, big rings and pendants everyone was displaying their wealth. The men were slightly more subdued, but there was still plenty of jewelry on display. I saw a few women glance at me and then away, disinterested I was too drab to be competition. And then they d see Luka, behind me, and their perfectly-painted lips would open in shock. Do you come here a lot? I asked over my shoulder. All of the women around me were supermodel-gorgeous, all long legs and high cheekbones. I wondered whether he d met Elena or Svetlana or Natalia here. He shrugged. Sometimes. Is good place to let off steam. I could tell he was relaxing because his English slipped slightly. Then he smiled. But it s more fun with someone new. And, as I turned to look at him, his fingers brushed my cheek. They left a scorching, tingling trail behind, like the feeling you get when you touch ice fresh from the freezer and it burns instead of freezes. He took me downstairs and headed through the crowd to the bar. I could feel the energy rise up around us as we plunged in. Back home, I didn t exactly spend much time in clubs, but I d been to some at college. Some of it was familiar: the swell and ebb as the crowd reacted to the music, the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |