The Man She Shouldn't Crave. Lucy Ellis

he couldn’t be thinking what she thought he was thinking.

      Because why would a man get overheated about a dress when he’d already seen her in her hot-to-trot underthings?

      Men looked at her. She couldn’t walk down a city street without second glances, a wolf whistle, something that cheered up her day. But she well knew the pitfalls of being judged on her bra size, and she dressed to diminish rather than play up any sex appeal she might possess. Men appreciated aspects of her body, but none of that had prepared her for how Plato Kuragin was looking at her now, or the effect it was having on her.

      ‘In the cupboard just above—next to your head.’ He was so tall nothing was actually above him.

      He stared back at her blankly.

      Oh, my Lord, this is so silly. ‘I’ll get them,’ she said, a little embarrassed, and crossed to him, reaching up to open the cupboard door.

      He barely shifted, just looked down at her, ever so slightly poleaxed. ‘I was told you run a dating agency,’ he said in a rough voice. ‘Is that true?’

      ‘Uh-huh. Date with Destiny.’ For some reason this less-than-sure-of-himself Plato Kuragin was letting the real Rose uncurl herself from hibernation for the first time since he’d arrived. She even angled up her chin and gave him a curious look, which was a mistake because they were awfully close all of a sudden.

      She brought down her arms with the glasses in her hand and her right breast brushed very definitely against his arm. She felt his bicep contract and saw his eyes go hard and hot as they dipped lower. Her nipples came out to play, and suddenly her brains just scrambled.

      She turned to set the glasses down with a clatter and put some physical distance between them. The bench. There. No one could get through wood and Formica—although looking at the heavy musculature in those arms she wouldn’t bet money on it. Stop staring at his arms, Rose. What on earth was wrong with her?

      ‘I was at the Dorrington Hotel drumming up business, if you really want to know,’ she said a tad awkwardly, because suddenly it really mattered that he thought well of her. ‘And that’s the total extent of this agenda you say I have.’

      ‘Drumming up business?’ he repeated, but Rose got the impression she could have said anything.

      He was intent on appreciating the look of her—her hair, her face, the cling of the dress down her legs. Was it her imagination or did he literally rip his gaze away from her as he held up the wine to check its label?

      Rose stifled a groan, her attention shifting to how downmarket all this must seem to him. The house, the wine, her … ‘It’s just a regular white from the supermarket,’ she explained, her voice tailing off. It was an echo from her other life—the one in Houston where she’d never been quite good enough for Bill and his hoity-toity family—and that it should assail her here and now dumped a bucket on her fantasy.

      Dammit, if she wanted a fantasy she could have it! She wanted to enjoy Plato Kuragin whilst he was here, because goodness knew he could vanish as abruptly as he had arrived.

      Plato reached into his pocket and whipped out a cell phone. She watched as he thumbed the keypad.

      ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘Sorting out food. We can do better than pizza and cheap wine, detka.’

      ‘You’re ordering a meal? For both of us?’

      ‘Da, is there a problem?’

      He’d had her thrown out of the Dorrington, invaded her home, virtually forced her to sit in front of him in her underwear, threatened her with legal action … and now he wanted to share a meal with her! Was there a problem?

      ‘I guess that would be all right,’ she murmured, looking down at her bare feet, tracing circles with her red-painted big toenail on the tiled floor.

      You could almost call this a date, a little voice whispered in her ear.

      Stop it, Rose.

      ‘We will sit in a restaurant and relax and talk,’ said Plato, rounding the bench.

      Rose told herself to hold her ground, play it cool. She wasn’t going to hop about like a frightened rabbit. Truth be told, this was so much more than she had hoped for when she’d crashed the Dorrington press conference this afternoon.

      He closed a big hand over her wool-clad shoulder and for a moment the gesture lingered, as if he was learning the delicacy of her bone structure, the roundness that was so much a part of her, as if his touch was about to turn into something else. He turned her effortlessly towards the door.

      He wasn’t really asking, but he didn’t strike Rose as the kind of guy who asked. He seemed just to issue directives and take what he wanted—and why that should send happy messages to her lace-clad regions she wasn’t going to second-guess or question. Besides, this wasn’t about him controlling her, because this was what she wanted.

      ‘We’re going out?’ she asked redundantly.

      ‘Da, is that a problem?’

      ‘I guess not,’ she prevaricated.

      ‘You can tell me about this business of yours,’ he said, in that growly, sexy Russian voice of his.

      Rose glowed.

      I will. And whilst you’re being all he-man and Russian I’ll convince you that being my Date with Destiny is the least you can do, seeing as you burst in here and scared me out of my wits, you big lug.

      ‘I guess that would be okay,’ she responded with a little smile.

      Being foreign, Plato Kuragin obviously didn’t understand that if you gave a Texan woman an inch she’d take a mile.

      Yes, this was definitely a date.