The Man She Shouldn't Crave

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Plato only half listened to the question being directed at him by the bright-eyed young journalist, with her two cameramen bearing down on him as if he was an endangered species and they had him cornered.

The girl was saying something about the novelty value of tonight’s stunt.

I am insane for agreeing to this, he thought wryly. I should be across town, in Rose’s little dolls’ house, on my damned knees, begging for her forgiveness…

‘The proceeds are going to charity, it’s promotion for the sport, and we’ve heard about how beautiful Canadian women are,’ he drawled. ‘Win-win, yeah?’

He’d said the right thing. Satisfaction crossed the hard face pushing a microphone into his space.

‘Go and talk to the boys,’ he said casually. ‘They’ll say the same thing.’

He knew they would because they’d all been schooled. He’d done it himself. This was his personal project.

The journalist gave him that speculative look he was accustomed to from women. She wasn’t his type—too blonde, too skinny, too hard. But then a few days of dark and round and gentle as summer rain and he was ruined for life.

Was it only a week ago she’d stepped out of the scrum, blue eyes fixed on his face, that smile coaxing all sorts of outrageous thoughts to the surface of his mind? The same smile had dragged him across town on a wild chase after something elusive, something he’d found on that doorstep when fate had overstepped its bounds.

Rose.

There was a hush as a brunette in a deep amethyst sheath of a dress, which clung so tightly Plato swore if he was any closer he’d be able to see the indent of her navel, sashayed across the stage, microphone in hand.

‘Ladies, gentlemen—if y’all would quieten down we can get this lottery underway.’

There was an almost immediate ripple of reaction across the room. Nothing to do with the lottery, Plato recognised, and everything to do with the woman in the dress. It wasn’t showing anything. It was a lot more modest than what most of the women here tonight had on. But there was something about the way she wore it. There was something about Rose.

His Rose.

Plato followed the purple satin from just above her breast to just below the curve of her sweet knees, so tight she couldn’t be wearing a scrap of underwear underneath. Although he knew she was. He knew Rose would be wearing elaborate corsetry to ensure everything stayed exactly where she wanted it. In fact he could picture perfectly how that corsetry would look, snugly fitted to every last inch of her very female body. He just didn’t want other men doing the same thing. Could they dim that spotlight?

‘My name is Rose Harkness. I’m the director of Date with Destiny, and I’m honoured to be able to take part in this wonderful opportunity provided to us by the management of the Wolves ice hockey team. All proceeds tonight, as y’all know, will be going to a women’s charity.’

She kept walking—swaying, really—as she spoke. The spotlight was barely keeping up.

She lifted her hand to shade her eyes. ‘I’m sure he’s out there somewhere, but Mr Plato Kuragin has been instrumental in bringing this to us, ladies, and I think he deserves a round of applause.’

Was it his imagination or was the top of that dress inching ever further south? At what point was he going to have to bound up there with his jacket to cover her up?

Why did she have people applauding him? This was her success, her moment. He’d engineered it all for her.

‘Girls, y’all reach into those handbags, if you don’t have your tickets handy already, because we’re going to start lifting numbers. Where’s that handsome Denisov? I believe he plays forward. Where are you, honey? Don’t be shy!’

An hour. This was going to take at least an hour. An hour of Rose, in that dress, with that voice, running her gentle hands over the boys as one by one they joined her on the stage. He would have to stand here in the dark, watching her flirt and manage and use those female skills of hers, until he went insane from wanting her, unable to tear his eyes away. Just like every other man in this room with a working Y chromosome. She actually had Denisov’s arm around her waist. What the hell did he think he was doing?

Get your goddamn hands off my woman.

‘Who is she?’ asked Serge Ivanov, general manager of the Wolves.

‘She’s a pistol, whoever she is,’ commented the guy beside him.

You can’t take on all of them; maybe just land a punch on Ivanov.

‘That’s Rose,’ said Sasha Rykov genially, tugging at his collar. ‘Rose with the little gold pen.’ He checked Plato. ‘She’s the Date with Destiny.’

Mine.

‘Da,’ Plato growled, ‘she is.’