She concentrated on the traffic outside, telling herself she could handle this guy. He asked her a few light questions about her time in St Petersburg and the atmosphere in the car settled down.
Feeling a little more confident, she covertly ran her gaze down the length of him. From his unruly close-cropped hair to the high planes of his face that revealed a southern Russian ancestry, the sensual jut of his mouth, the clean, solid lines of his jaw, down the strong column of his throat to his big husky body that made her cheeks burn. He was a sight to incite a female riot.
He looked at her again, and his eyes told her he knew exactly what she was doing.
Deciding to brazen it out, she said outright, ‘I like your jacket.’
He smiled, forming appealing creases around his mouth that made him appear younger, more relaxed, as if he was enjoying her company. He got the joke. He’d play nice. She found she could relax.
The traffic eased as they went over the bridge. One of his hands rested lightly on the wheel, the other throwing gears as he negotiated the car in and out of snags and got them across town with a skill that mesmerised her.
Other images began to crowd her head and it was difficult to censor them. The way he had lunged at those men—all that aggression and cracking of bone—the way he had taken physical blows for her and scared those guys off. He’d done it because underneath all the politesse and courtesy he had shown her he was a big, strong, rough guy—and didn’t it make all the girly parts of her tingle? She’d been on the money the first moment she saw him. They just didn’t make men like this any more.
‘You’ve gone quiet,’ he said, in that deep, gravelly voice.
Pulling herself together, she slammed down the reply that was on her lips. I was admiring the view.
It really was time to pull the curtains on the flirting. She was having so much fun; it was like the old days, before she’d learned how her teasing could be misconstrued.
‘I was thinking how light it is.’
‘The White Nights are almost upon us. There’s nothing quite like them.’
‘It’s a shame I won’t be here to see them. But it’s lovely right now. The light seems to mellow everything.’
He glanced at her. ‘I find that too.’
She was something else, Serge reflected as he followed the twitch of her seductively rounded bottom into the restaurant. She was built the way women used to be, before diets and gyms and size zero. She was shaped this way because that was how nature had made her.
Mother Nature had done a superlative job.
He’d decided on an out-of-the-way place—small, cosy. There was a chance Clementine wouldn’t like it. He’d brought a couple of women here before, watched them pick their way through the traditional Russian cuisine, listened to them dismiss their surroundings as quaint. But he was only in town for a couple of nights, and he loved the place. It was family run and noisy, and after eight there were gypsies.
Tonight wasn’t about the location. It was merely a means to an end. But he wondered now why he had instantly thought of Kaminski’s in relation to Clementine.
She was with him because she liked the money; she’d been pretty upfront about that with all her little flirty comments. Correspondingly, his feelings about this girl were down and dirty and basic. He had what she wanted, and she definitely had what he was after. Where he took her for dinner shouldn’t figure into it.
Clementine tipped her head back as he escorted her inside, taking in the low-beamed ceiling. She scanned the room, already filled to capacity with diners. The décor was simple—round tables, wooden floors, murals of historical Russian scenes on the walls. He wondered what she thought of it.
She beamed at him. ‘This is amazing. You are a dark horse. I expected a wine bar.’
The pleasure on her face took him off guard. Men’s heads turned as they weaved between the tables and he felt an unfamiliar trickle of possessiveness.
Clementine seemed oblivious, giving him little backward glances over her shoulder as the restaurant’s owner, Igor Kaminski, led them to their table. It brought back his uncharacteristic pursuit of her up the Nevsky, and fancifully he acknowledged that despite corralling her into a dinner date nothing had changed. She was still a step ahead, as elusive as ever, and he was enjoying it.
She gave an exclamation of delight as they reached their table, and he observed Igor grow about a foot as he gave her a potted history of the restaurant. Then she did that thing all women did as he seated her, smoothing her hands over her lavish hips and thighs to adjust her skirt. Somehow Clementine managed to turn it into a performance of female sensual pleasure. Igor stood there, a big smile on his broad, unhandsome face, watching her.
Am I supposed to hit him or order? Serge wondered, only half amused. He broke the spell by asking Clementine what she would like to drink.
She gave him one of those sweet little smiles. ‘I’ll leave it up to you.’
He ordered Georgian wine, and Igor returned with the menus himself, flanked by three men Serge knew were his sons. Clementine was enjoying herself, so he sat back and let the good-natured teasing unroll as zakouski was served and the men encouraged Clementine to taste—pickled mushrooms dipped in sour cream, different varieties of caviar, ikra fresh from the Caspian, salty sevruga. She washed it down with a mouthful of her wine, and Serge observed her trying to make sense of the heavily accented English, giving everyone equal attention.
Their table was busy in a noisy restaurant. This wasn’t what he had pictured doing tonight. Food, alcohol, a little sweet-talking and Clementine gasping his name for a few enjoyable hours had been the plan.
Then Clementine leaned towards him and said, ‘When does our date start, Slugger?’
Serge beckoned Igor over, whilst not taking his eyes off her, and murmured something to the owner. Their company evaporated, leaving them alone.
‘Everyone’s so friendly,’ she confided over the rim of her glass. ‘They certainly know you.’
‘I think, kisa, the drawcard is you,’ he observed wryly.
‘Don’t be silly.’ As she slid her spoon through her soup her eyes teased him.
The little red candles in the glass bowls on the table between them cast a tantalising glow over her heart-shaped face. Her lightly tanned bare skin—what he could see of it—had the burnish of pale honey, extending from the curve of her shoulders, the slender length of her arms all the way down to those long-fingered hands and the gold bangles that clinked around her wrists.
A girl who looked like this, with the level of independence Clementine exhibited, knew exactly what she was doing. She had to know what tonight was all about. She was going home on Saturday, which meant it had to be tonight or tomorrow.
The anticipation was beginning to burn.
‘So, what is it that brings you here, Clementine?’ He needed to do his bit—the what-do-you-do, tell-me-your-story routine—before the food and alcohol kicked in and he put thoughts of a soft mattress and his hard body into that pretty head of hers.
‘Is it time to get to know one another?’ she teased, wishing her tummy wasn’t fluttering. She’d done this before—flirting in a public place. But it didn’t feel public. It felt very, very intimate. Maybe too intimate for a first date.
He leaned towards her. ‘Only if you want to, kisa.’
His eyes made her so aware of herself she was sure she was blushing. Trying to get back on track, she decided to fire some questions of her own at him.
‘So you’re a regular?’
‘When I’m in town.’
‘A