“No,” I murmur with a smirk. “Some are in denial.”
Her lips move silently for a moment like she can’t think of a retort. But the blush on her cheeks is persistent.
As is my throbbing cock.
“If I’ve insulted you, I can always have Reggie brought back here,” I suggest after a moment has passed. “You can finish your drink with him instead. Maybe even get dessert. I hear the crème br?lée is to die for.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re wrong about that, kiska,” I laugh. “I’d dare to do things you’ve never even dreamed of.”
“You’re not kidding about that either, are you?”
“No. Not in the slightest.” I lean forward instinctively. Her lips are pursed and full. I want them wrapped around my cock. “Does that frighten you, Cami?”
“Oh, gee, am I that easy to read?” she retorts sarcastically.
“I’ll tell you at the end of the night.”
“Do you always speak in riddles?” Cami snaps. “Or are you just really leaning in to the whole ‘handsome, mysterious stranger’ deal?”
I chuckle and swirl the wine in the glass. “Did you just say I’m handsome?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend like you don’t know you’re handsome.”
“Fair enough. No woman has ever complained.”
“She’d have to be blind.”
The energy between us has grown prickly and dangerous now. I wonder if she can feel it the way I can. Based on the way she clears her throat and stiffens her posture, I’m guessing the answer is yes.
I lean back in my seat and study her. “What do you like to do, Cami?”
“You mean besides go tit-for-tat with arrogant men in expensive suits?”
I shrug. “Everyone has a hobby.”
“Let me assure you that this is not mine,” she says solemnly. “This is very much a first time thing for me, you know.”
“You’ve never been on a date before?”
“I’ve never abandoned one bad date for another, wise guy,” she says, though she can’t help but giggle. The sound is enough to drive a man crazy with lust. I have to adjust my cock again where it’s straining at the zipper of my pants.
“And here I was, thinking we were getting along well,” I drawl.
“Sorry to burst your bubble.”
“You can make it up to me,” I say coolly.
She wrinkles her nose again. It’s bizarre how much that tiny little motion affects me. Like hooking up jumper cables to my balls. It makes me want to see what other faces she makes.
“How do you suggest I do that? No, better question: why would I do that?”
“You can do it like this—” I wave a hand over my shoulder and the bartender whose eyes have followed me all evening long comes scurrying over immediately with another pair of drinks. “And you should because I’m not the kind of man who likes being told no.”
Cami’s eyes widen when she sees the bartender set the drinks down on our table. “Oh, no, no, no,” she stammers. “I said one drink. Now you’re gonna start getting ideas.”
“You were telling me about your hobbies,” I say. “Continue.”
She eyes the drink then me, back and forth, back and forth. Eventually, she sighs and her shoulders slump forward. “One more,” she says. “But that’s really it. I’m deadly serious.”
I clink my glass to the edge of hers. “To the last drink we’ll ever have, then.”
The bartender has brought me whiskey neat this time. Twelve-year Glenlivet, one of the best bottles they keep in stock. I take a sip and relish the crisp edge and smooth burn as it slides down my throat.
Cami takes a tiny sip of her white wine and sets it back down on the table with trembling fingertips. “I read,” she blurts suddenly.
“Books?”
“No, postcards,” she snaps. “Yes, of course books.”
“What kind of books?”
“Good books. Classics. Austen, Dickens, Du Maurier, Shakespeare. That kind of thing.”
“Shakespeare, huh?” I muse. I stroke my clean-shaven jaw. “You strike me as a King Lear kind of girl. I always preferred Hamlet.”
Her eyes leap up on her forehead. “You’ve read Hamlet?”
“Should I be offended by your surprise?”
She blushes guiltily. “Sorry. I just… You don’t seem like a big reader.”
“So yes, I should be offended.”
Laughter bubbles through her lips. I can’t take my eyes off her fucking smile. So goddamn innocent.
I eye her unapologetically. The flush has extended past her cheeks and down to her chest. The tops of her breasts are rosy now. Begging for attention.
Her green eyes are bright, shimmering with excitement, with the adrenaline of stepping outside of the neat lines of her life. She’s bookish and quiet, a wallflower, a stay-out-of-the-way kind of girl. My polar fucking opposite.
And I notice that she’s leaning towards me. Same as how I can’t help leaning in towards her.
Our bodies seeking one another out.
The fact that I haven’t yet touched her, apart from that fleeting kiss on the cheek, seems ridiculous. Damn near offensive. I’m itching to tear that dress off her and lick all the way down to her thighs.
“What else have you read?” she prods. “Or do you just throw out the Hamlet line to impress women?”
“Why do I get the feeling that I’m being tested?”
She picks up her wine glass and shrugs her shoulders in a gesture that’s very femme fatale. I like her fire, her feistiness. “Am I making you nervous?” she teases.
“I’m never nervous. Merely intrigued.”
“By the question?”
“By you.”
She almost wilts under the intensity of my stare. Maybe this is all too much for a girl like her. She’s not used to a man like me. A man who isn’t afraid to take what he wants.
But then, at the last moment, she sucks in a frantic breath and straightens up. Shoulders back, eyes forward, spine tall, she looks me in the eyes and meets fire with fire.
I’ve never been harder.
“To answer your question, I’ve read a fair amount. Dostoevsky. Tolstoy. Bulgakov. Pushkin. Gogol. To name a few.”
“All Russian authors,” she says. “Am I right in assuming you are, too?”
I nod.
“Vorobev,” she murmurs, her eyebrows knotting together thoughtfully. “Why do I feel like I’ve heard that name before?”
I give nothing away. The Bratva isn’t exactly a commonly discussed topic in this city. Mostly because the cops don’t like admitting they have no control over me or my men.
But we’re not a secret, either.
“I couldn’t say.”
She smiles. “Is this you being mysterious again?”
“Maybe you should ask another question.”
She purses her lips. “Fine. What do you do?”
“A lot,” I reply vaguely. “I own many different businesses.”
“Please don’t say you’re a ‘self-made man,’” she says. “Reggie said it about thirty times tonight, and the phrase alone makes me want to throw up in my mouth.”
I grin. “In some ways, yes; in others, no,” I say. “But I’ve worked hard to build and expand them. So you shouldn’t think I’m a—”
“A trust fund kid?”
I smirk. “I haven’t been a kid for a long time.”
Her smile slowly fades away. “I believe that.”