"I came here with friends." I couldn't see my crew! "I don't want to leave!"
He faced me, lips drawn back from his teeth. "Were you going to fuck that man?"
"Are you a jealous kind of guy, baby?" The absolute best type of mark for a milk-cow con. Of course, he'd never admit it.
"With you? Yes! I wanted to kill him!"
Oh boy. Had Dmitri meant that . . . literally? "Yet you didn't contact me today?" Could I revive this con?
His eyes darted. "I need to talk to you."
We couldn't continue this conversation over the music, but I wasn't prepared to leave with him yet. "I know a place. Head toward the back." Taking my hand, he walked in that direction, stopping at what looked like a solid black wall.
"Here." I ducked behind a dark drape into the club's secret area.
He followed, drawing up short. "What is this place?"
"The Carousel. It used to be a speakeasy." Carnival decorations from bygone fairs lined the walls. Strings of lights cascaded over ceramic horses from one of the first steam-powered carousels. Drums that still smelled of greasepaint were stacked in the corner. Bright banners and an acrobat's net hung from the ceiling. "Now only locals know about it."
The management opened it for friends' parties, so I'd been here several times. I found the place magical. On slow nights, people hooked up back here since there were no cameras.
"And it's simply . . . here." He surveyed the area, murmuring, "I need help with things like this."
"Like what?"
His gaze held mine. "I need curtains drawn back. I need to be shown things I never would see on my own."
His strange words--plus my cocktails--equaled zero comprehension for me. "How did you find me?"
"This club is popular with Calydon staff."
I scooted into a booth. "What did you want to talk to me about?"
He slid around the table to sit beside me. "I am struggling to . . ." He closed his mouth. Another try: "I want to . . ." His eyes were fierce with some pent-up emotion, but he also looked frustrated, like he was trying to read my mood and knew he was failing. "Are you angered with me?"
I traced the gathered edge of one of my boots. "After what we did, I thought you'd get in touch with me." Like a grifter, he'd given me a taste, then he'd become elusive.
"I went downstairs tonight, thinking you would be at the casino, or that Peter would be."
I had told Dmitri I might be working. "But no call?"
"The day slipped by me. I was very . . . distracted. I did call three hours ago."
We'd probably just gotten here. My phone was in my purse. "Do you want a drink?"
He eased even closer, as if he couldn't help himself. "No. I have to keep control."
"Why?"
"Last night I considered doing things to you . . . things that would've unnerved you even more. Had I been drinking, I would have."
"Like what?" I asked, intrigued.
"I wanted to get my mouth on you and prove that you would love oral sex. I wanted to whip you even harder, to make you feel me for longer. I wanted to sink inside the flesh I stroked and fuck you till you screamed."
My breaths shallowed.
"I was nearly overpowered. I hadn't been with anyone for some time, and all of a sudden I was with you." His penetrating eyes said so much, but my buzz blurred the message.
"How long had it been?"
"A very long time. I could argue that I had been waiting on you."
Guh. "What do you want from me, Dmitri?" I met his gaze as I closed the last little distance to him. "Just tell me, and we'll see if we want the same things."
He stared into my eyes, his pupils dilating. "You make it sound so simple."
"Then don't make it complicated. Just bottom-line it for me."
"I must have more of what happened last night," he said, his words laden with raw need.
I leaned in and drunkenly whispered, "You want to drench my tits again?"
He hissed, "Mercy," then yanked me across his lap, settling me over his hard cock.
The heat of his erection reached me through our clothes, and my lids went heavy. "I'll take that as a yes." I wriggled on him.
He inhaled sharply. "I want more of you. More access to you."
His words reminded me of my earlier loneliness and turmoil. "But you didn't call me?" I murmured, sounding drunk and sad. "If you'd called, we could've talked. We could've gotten to know each other better."
"I was not . . . feeling like myself. Do you think I didn't want to talk to you? I feared I would spook you. I'm told I can be overly . . . intense."
"Is that what all the girls say?"
"It's what anyone says."
Though he was dressed as immaculately as ever and clean-shaven, he'd nicked his face in a few places. On a scale between pissed and worried, I tipped toward on the latter. "Why weren't you feeling like yourself?" Had something happened? My protectiveness toward him lingered.
"I fought with my brother Maksim."
"I'm sorry. You seem close to him."
"I am. After our parents died, he basically raised me."
Why wouldn't the oldest brother have done that? "Do you want to talk about what happened?"
"Maksim stuck his nose into my business." Pure menace burned in his eyes as he said, "And then he told me I will likely lose something I want very, very dearly."
This conversation had strange depths. Once again on this con, I was drunk and at a disadvantage.
"I asked my family to leave," he said.
"Yet you stayed? For the opportunity you're investigating?"
He nodded, his gaze softening. "Da." He surveyed the area, exhaling a gust of breath. "I didn't plan for this."
"Do you always plan everything?"
"When someth
ing is important to me, yes." He grasped my nape, bringing our foreheads together. I loved when he did that. He seemed to carefully choose his words as he said, "Confusion is not . . . good for me. I handle it . . . badly." His voice was halting, and he looked a little crazy. "I need things solidified. How do I solidify things with you?"
His idea of solidifying couldn't possibly match mine--unless the billionaire was talking about a commitment after knowing me for a day. "You're bringing up confusion, Dmitri? You're sending my brain spinning here."
"Come back to my room with me."
Wow, right when I thought he was interested in more than sex.
Which meant I shouldn't be interested in more than money. The con was back on. Time to plant some more good-girl seeds. "That's not going to happen. I gave you the wrong impression last night. I don't know why I behaved like that." Truth. "But there won't be a repeat." Lie.
He gave me his thrall look. "Indulge me, and I will indulge you." Did he mean financially? Or sexually?
Because I was drunk, I answered by burying my face against his neck and inhaling him. "Your scent drives me absolutely wild. If you ever got me in your bed, I'd probably just roll around in your sheets and masturbate."
He groaned. "I never want to stop seeing that in my head."
When I dragged my head back to face him, his hooded expression made me shiver. I rubbed his chest, loving how his muscles twitched in response. "You must work out."
"Religiously for the last year."
"Lemme guess," I said drily, "you just aren't hot enough?"
"I work out to focus my mind, not to affect my looks. You are obviously attracted to me," he said, as if my attraction was all that mattered.
"Cocky much? What if I was faking?"
"You were too aroused to have feigned that. And I would wager you thought about me when you got off today."
"Yep. I did, a few times. In the shower, I fingered myself and came so hard my knees buckled."
"Mercy, woman!" he said again, his cock jerking beneath me. "You don't know what you do to me."
Oh, but I do. "If you hadn't noticed, I'm a smidge hammered. Will you take care of me?"
Curt nod. "Without fail."
I grinned at him. "I like that. You won't take advantage of me? I don't want to have sex with you."
"So you have said." His tone held a hint of disbelief.
"I'm not looking for an affair--even if you wanted a longer arrangement."
"What are you looking for?" He seemed very curious about my answer.