LITMIR.BIZ

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nearest exit, hailed a taxi, then headed straight home to the comfort of her bloody laundry. Because she knew she couldn’t be trusted outside the confines of the rules she’d made for herself. She’d been living the consequences of having no rules for a long, long time.

      But here, now, in this loud place surrounded by so many people and all of that pounding music, she didn’t feel like the person she’d been when she’d arrived. Everything she knew about herself had twisted inside out. Turned into something else entirely in that electric blue of his challenging gaze.

      As if this really was a Shoreditch fairy tale, after all.

      “What big eyes you have,” she teased him.

      His hard mouth curved then, and she felt it like a burst of heat, like sunlight. She couldn’t do anything but smile back at him.

      “So be it,” he said, as if he despaired of them both.

      Alicia laughed, then laughed again at the startled look in his eyes.

      “The dourness is a lovely touch,” she told him. “You must be beating them off with a stick. A very grim stick.”

      “No stick,” he said, in an odd tone. “A look at me is usually sufficient.”

      “A wolf,” she said, and grinned. “Just as I suspected.”

      He blinked, and again looked at her in that strange way of his, as if she was an apparition he couldn’t quite believe was standing there before him.

      Then he moved with the same decisiveness he’d used when he’d taken control of that kiss, tucking her into his side as he navigated his way through the dense crowd. She tried not to think about how well she fitted there, under his heavy arm, tight against the powerful length of his torso as he cut through the crowd. She tried not to drift away in the scent of him, the heat and the power, all of it surrounding her and pouring into that ache already inside of her, making it bloom and stretch and grow.

      Until it took over everything.

      Maybe she was under some kind of spell, Alicia thought with the small part of her that wasn’t consumed with the feel of his tall, lean frame as he guided her so protectively through the crowd. It should have been impossible to move through the club so quickly, so confidently. Not in a place like this at the height of a Saturday night. But he did it.

      And then they were outside, in the cold and the damp November night, and he was still moving in that same breathtaking way, like quicksilver. Like he knew exactly where they were headed—away from the club and the people still milling about in front of it. He led her down the dark street, deeper into the shadows, and it was then Alicia’s sense of self-preservation finally kicked itself into gear.

      Better late than never, she thought, annoyed with herself, but it actually hurt her to pull away from the magnificent shelter of his body, from all of that intense heat and strength. It felt like she’d ripped her skin off when she stepped away from him, as if they’d been fused together.

      He regarded her calmly, making her want to trust him when she knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t.

      “I’m sorry, but...” She wrapped her arms around her own waist in an attempt to make up for the heat she’d lost when she’d stepped away from him. “I don’t know a single thing about you.”

      “You know several things, I think.”

      He sounded even more delicious now that they were alone and she could hear him properly. Russian, she thought, as pleased as if she’d learned his deepest, darkest secrets.

      “Yes,” she agreed, thinking of the things she knew. Most of them to do with that insistent ache in her belly, and lower. His mouth. His clever hands. “All lovely things. But none of them worth risking my personal safety for, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

      Something like a smile moved in his eyes, but didn’t make it to his hard mouth. Still, it echoed in her, sweet and light, making her feel far more buoyant than she should have on a dark East London street with a strange man even she could see was dangerous, no matter how much she wanted him.

      Had she ever wanted anything this much? Had anyone?

      “A wolf is never without risk,” he told her, that voice of his like whiskey, smooth and scratchy at once, heating her up from the inside out. “That’s the point of wolves. Or you’d simply get a dog, pat it on the head.” His eyes gleamed. “Teach it tricks.”

      Alicia wasn’t sure she wanted to know the tricks this man had up his sleeve. Or, more to the point, she wasn’t sure she’d survive them. She wasn’t certain she’d survive this as it was.

      “You could be very bad in bed,” she said, conversationally, as if she picked up strange men all the time. She hardly recognized her own light, easy, flirtatious tone. She hadn’t heard it since before that night in her parents’ back garden. “That’s a terrible risk to take with any stranger, and awkward besides.”

      That smile in his eyes intensified, got even bluer. “I’m not.”

      She believed him.

      “You could be the sort who gets very, very drunk and weeps loudly about his broken heart until dawn.” She gave a mock shudder. “So tedious, especially if poetry is involved. Or worse, singing.”

      “I don’t drink,” he countered at once. His dark brows arched over those eyes of his, challenging her. Daring her. “I never sing, I don’t write poems and I certainly do not weep.” He paused. “More to the point, I don’t have a heart.”

      “Handy, that,” she replied easily. She eyed him. “You could be a killer, of course. That would be unfortunate.”

      She smiled at that. He didn’t.

      “And if I am?”

      “There you go,” she said, and nodded sagely. Light, airy. Enchanted, despite herself. “I can’t possibly go off into the night with you now, can I?”

      But it was terrifying how much she wanted to go off with him, wherever he’d take her, and instead of reacting to that as she should, she couldn’t stop smiling at him. As if she already knew him, this strange man dressed all in black, his blue eyes the only spot of color on the cold pavement as he stared at her as if she’d stunned him somehow.

      “My name is Nikolai,” he said, and she had the oddest impression he hadn’t meant to speak at all. He shifted, then reached over and traced her lips with his thumb, his expression so fierce, so intent, it made her feel hollowed out inside, everything scraped away except that wild, wondrous heat he stirred in her. “Text someone my name and address. Have them ring every fifteen minutes if you like. Send the police. Whatever you want.”

      “All those safeguards are very thoughtful,” she pointed out, but her eyes felt too wide and her voice sounded insubstantial. Wispy. “Though not exactly wolfish, it has to be said.”

      His mouth moved into his understated version of a smile

      “I want you.” His eyes were on fire. Every inch of him that wolf. “What will it take?”

      She swayed back into him as if they were magnets and she’d simply succumbed to the pull. And then she had no choice but to put her hand to his abdomen, to feel all that blasting heat right there beneath her palm.

      Even that didn’t scare her the way it should.

      “What big teeth you have,” she whispered, too on edge to laugh, too filled with that pulsing ache inside of her to smile.

      “The biting part comes later.” His eyes gleamed again, with the kind of sheer male confidence that made it difficult to breathe. Alicia stopped trying. “If you ask nicely.”

      He picked up her hand and lifted it to his mouth, tracing a dark heat over the back of it. He didn’t look away.

      “If you’re sure,” she said piously, trying desperately to pretend she wasn’t shaking, and that he couldn’t

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