LITMIR.BIZ

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her attempt to keep her distance, he put his hand around her waist, tucking her body close to his as they approached her building. “I am delighted by your company.”

      Heat arced between them and, that quickly, she remembered why after only three dates she was ready to break a lifetime habit of virginity.

      “I’m still not sure why we’re here.”

      “You live here?” Amusement laced his voice as he led her into the unsecured building.

      The lack of a doorman was a bone of contention between Chanel and her mother. If the older woman had been concerned for her safety, Chanel might have considered moving, but the issue was in how it looked for her to live in an unpretentious, entirely suburbanite apartment complex.

      “I do not like the fact that the entrance to your home is so accessible. This dark cove outside your door is not entirely secure, either,” Demyan complained as he took her keys and unlocked the door.

      She hadn’t quite decided if the action was some throwback to old-world charm or simply indicative of his dominating nature when he ushered her inside.

      They moved into the living room and he shut the door behind them. There was meaning in that, right? The shut door. If he’d wanted only to see her inside, he could have left her on the landing.

      “Would you like a drink or something?” Like her?

      Was she really going to do this? Chanel thought maybe she was.

      “Not tonight.” The words implied he planned to leave, but the way he stepped closer to her gave an entirely different meaning.

      She didn’t reply, his proximity stealing her breath just that fast. For the first time in her life, she began to understand how her mother, Beatrice, had ended up pregnant by a man so very different from herself.

      Sex was a powerful force. “Body chemistry is so much more potent than I ever believed.” She sounded every bit as bewildered as she felt.

      “Because you have never felt it so strongly with someone else.” There was no question mark at the end of that sentence.

      Chanel would take umbrage at the certainty in his tone if Demyan didn’t speak the absolute truth.

      “I’m sure you have.”

      Something strange moved across his features. Surprise? Maybe confusion. “No.”

      “You stopped earlier, not me.”

      “It was not easy.”

      Was that supposed to make her feel better about the fact he’d been more determined to go to the lecture than she’d been? Sarcasm infused her voice as she said, “I’m glad to hear that.”

      His eyes narrowed, a spark of irritation showing before it disappeared. She wasn’t surprised. Demyan might not be the corporate shark her stepfather was, but he was not a man who liked to lose control, either.

      Not that he had. Now, or earlier.

      He had stopped after all, and right now, as much as she could read desire in his dark gaze, he wasn’t acting on it.

      She, on the other hand, was seconds away from kissing him silly. She, who had never initiated a kiss in her life.

      “Do you want to stay?” she asked baldly.

      Subtlety was all well and good for a woman who found the role of flirt comfortable, but that woman wasn’t Chanel.

      He smiled down at her. “Do you want me to?”

      “I don’t know.”

      Shock held his face immobile for the count of three seconds. “You don’t know?”

      She shook her head.

      “You didn’t seem unsure about what you wanted earlier tonight.” Disbelief laced his voice.

      She nodded, making no attempt to deny it. Subterfuge was not her thing. “I barely know you.”

      “Is that how it feels to you?”

      She experienced that strange sense of disparity she’d had with him before. The words were right, the expression concurrent and yet, she felt the lack of sincerity.

      Only, unlike at the dinner, there was a vein of honesty in his words that confused her.

      “You already know you could take me to bed with very little effort.”

      “I assure you, the effort will not be minimal.” Sensual promise vibrated in every word.

      Chanel felt his promise to her very core and her thighs squeezed together in involuntary response, not because she feared what he wanted but because it made her ache with a need she’d never known.

      “That’s not what I meant.” Her voice cracked on the last word, but she pretended not to notice.

      The slight flaring of his nostrils and the way his eyes went just that much darker said he had, though. “What did you mean then, little one?”

      “I’m hardly little.” At five foot seven, she was above average in height for a woman.

      “Do not avoid the question.”

      “I wasn’t trying to.” She’d just been trying to clarify, because that was familiar territory.

      The rest of this? Was not.

      Only he knew how tall she was, so if he wanted to call her little one, maybe that was okay. “I suppose I do seem kind of short to you. You’re not exactly average height for a man in North America, though maybe I should be comparing you to Ukrainians, as that’s your country’s formative gene pool.”

      In fact, he was well above average height, certainly taller than most of the men in her life, and that gave her a peculiar kind of pleasure. Which, like many things she’d discovered since meeting him, surprised her about herself.

      She’d never thought she would enjoy feeling protected when she was with a man, or that the difference in their height would even succeed in making her feel that way. Maybe it wasn’t just that difference but something else about Demyan entirely.

      Something intangible that didn’t quite match his casual designer sweaters and dark-rimmed glasses.

      “You do not seem short.” He tugged at one of her red curls, a soft smile playing about his lips as if he could read her thoughts and was amused by them. “You are just right.”

      This time there was no conflict between the words and sincerity in his manner.

      But it put the times there was in stark relief in her mind. “I can’t make you out.”

      “What do you mean?” He looked surprised again and she got the definite impression that didn’t happen a lot with him.

      “Sometimes I think you mean everything you say, but then there are times, like at dinner tonight, when it seems like you’re saying what you think I want to hear.”

      “I have not lied to you.” Affront echoed through his tone.

      “Haven’t you?”

      “No.” Dead certainty, and then almost as if it was drawn from him without his permission, “I have not told you everything about myself.”

      “I didn’t expect you to bring along an information dossier on our first date.” Of course she didn’t know everything about him; that was part of the dating process, wasn’t it? “You don’t know everything about me, either.”

      His gaze turned cold, almost ruthless. Then he adjusted his glasses and the look disappeared. “I know what I need to.”

      Sometimes there was a glimmer of another man there—a man that even a shark like Perry would swim from in a frantic effort to escape. Then Demyan

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