Born to be Bad (International Bad Boys Book 3) (3 page)

“Milly likes having me here,” Clifford said and got back to leering. But when his hand went beneath the table and Roman guessed that the old man was having a feel of himself, he got to his feet and walked, a touch unsteadily, over to him.

“I said,” Roman repeated. “That I think it might be time for you to retire.”

“I don’t need some young punk telling me when to leave. I’ll have you know I’m a judge . . .”

“
Mne pohui!
” Roman told him, rather rudely in Russian, that he didn’t care who he was. “Get your filthy eyes off of her and get out.”

“Roman,” Milly warned, wondering if she should call down for security. Simon was right, Roman
was
like a ticking bomb and by the looks of it he was about to go off!

“You can’t speak to me like that,” Clifford spluttered, but then, perhaps realising he wasn’t in his courtroom now, and that this six foot two, muscled wall of testosterone would have no qualms taking him down, he chose to head for the exit.

“I’ll be speaking with management in the morning about the low-life they’re letting in Club . . . ”

“
Idi syuda
 . . . ” Roman told him to come here and say that. He was back to the streets, young, wild and furious with the world and he went to follow Clifford but Milly pushed her hand to his chest.

“There’s no need for that . . . ” She could feel the hard muscles beneath his shirt and the thump of his heart and she actually had to peel her hand from him for it wanted to remain.

“I can’t stand that old goat,” Roman said and Milly looked at him, angry and tousled yet somehow he made her smile. In truth, she was glad for Roman intervening. Clifford was another ticking time-bomb but of a very different kind and she was rather glad that Roman had been here tonight.

“Thanks,” she conceded and then looked at him. “Though I think that it might be time
you
retire for the night.”

“I haven’t been to bed this side of midnight for a very long time.”

“I’ve heard.” Milly smiled and then carried on setting up as Roman sat back down.

“Do I get another drink?” Roman asked and Milly was about to run her usual line about how the drinks were locked away but, what the hell, Roman
was
her favourite guest. She went and got the keys to the bar fridge and took out a glass and then she pulled his bottle vodka from the freezer.

“You’ll cost me my job,” Milly said as she placed them on the table and Roman proceeded to serve himself.

“I can give you another.”

Milly blinked, wondering if he meant that she could work in one of his many hotels.

At that moment, that was exactly what Roman meant.

“Doesn’t it turn your stomach?” Roman asked as she finished setting up. “Being chatted up by drunk old business men?”

“At times.” Milly gave a small shrug. “But you do what you have to to pay the rent.”

Roman was drunk enough to misinterpret. He knew very well what went on in hotels and it clearly went on at Ravello’s, after all, he’d seen the pilot slip Simon his swipe-card. He and Isaak had done what they could to stamp it out in their own hotels, but really it was impossible to police and they had given in. At the end of the day, given the way they behaved, who were they to judge others?

“Take the bottle up to your room,” Milly warned because she’d get in trouble if it was found here in the morning.

“I know how to be discreet,” Roman said and met her eyes and watched as a dull blush flooded her cheeks, but then she walked off.

Milly?

She was so sweet, he simply couldn’t imagine it from her, but then, Roman mused, what did he really know about Milly?

What did he need to know?

Roman had never paid for sex; he had never needed to.

He might just be prepared to pay for affection though.

He needed that tonight.

M
illy went through
to the kitchenette, and leant against the wall for a moment. She told herself that the reason her heart was hammering was because of the near fight between Roman and Clifford. It had nothing to do with that though and she knew it—it was the look that Roman had just given her and the fact that her hand was still tingling from the brief contact with his chest.

She put on her trench-coat and did up the buttons and belt, telling herself she was imaging things. Roman wasn’t interested in her.

Surely?

Yet he always spoke with her, when he didn’t with the other staff, and he’d stood up for her with Clifford.

As Milly walked out she turned off the overhead lights and left the Club with just the small sidelights on, then she went to the wall control to turn off the music.

“Leave it on,” Roman said.

“I can’t,” Milly said. “I have to turn everything off before I leave.”

“Then don’t leave,” Roman said, and Milly turned and looked to see to see that Roman had stood and was now walking slowly over to her. “It’s raining outside.”

Milly glanced to the windows, while knowing that the fact it was raining was completely irrelevant.

“Would you like to dance?” Roman offered.

His words were so unexpected, the feel of Roman standing in front of her in the darkened room had Milly slightly breathless, slightly confused and very, very aware.

She was naive about men, given that her teenage years and early twenties had been spent taking care of her mother, but no matter how innocent she was, she knew where a dance with Roman could possibly lead.

It would be beyond foolish to say yes to him, Milly knew that. Not just that it could cost her her job. Roman Zaretsky was way, way out of her league. It would be like taking a key and letting herself into a tiger cage, Milly thought, and yet, rather than leaving, still she stood there.

It would be like taking a dance with the devil himself, Milly told herself as he moved her well away from the door, so that they could not be seen and he took her bag from her shoulder and placed it on a table.

Yet, still she did not leave.

He removed her coat too and she did nothing to stop him. His hands undid the belt and then one by one he dealt with the buttons and then,
nothing
like a waiter, he took it off—moving it down each arm, his eyes looking into hers as he did so, and not looking away as he gently tossed it over a chair.

Still he stood before her, the most beautiful man she had ever known and possibly the most dangerous too—for he could very easily take her heart.

“Dance with me,” Roman said.

“One dance,” Milly answered as temptation more than beckoned. It begged. One dance, just to know how it felt to be wrapped in those arms and held by him.

Even to herself, she lied, for surely there was no such thing as one dance with Roman Zaretsky, yet she breached the tiny distance between them.

Her face was on fire when first he held her and Milly closed her eyes and rested her head on his chest. She could hear the steady thud of his heart as her own leapt in her throat. It wasn’t just the masculine spice of his cologne but the base scent of male that infused the air she now breathed that had her slightly heady.

The ice of grief Roman was encased in seemed to thaw a little as he took her in his arms. He lowered his head and smelt not just her familiar scent, but the lavender of her hair and it soothed him. Her body was soft and warm against his, and Roman, who did not usually dance, and certainly not like this, just buried his face in her curls and revelled in the contact.

“My reward,” Roman said, for it really had been a black day.

“Was the funeral awful?” Milly asked and Roman, who never spoke about such things, even with his brother, nodded.

“He was a good man,” Roman said. “And there are very few of them.”

Milly lifted her head and met his gaze.

“I’m not one,” Roman said.

“I don’t believe you,” Milly said to him, for the second time tonight.

“You should believe me. If you knew my father and grandfather then you would be running a mile now . . . ”

“But I’m not running anywhere. I’m dancing with you.”

She was neither scared nor shy in his arms and she asked him if it was true that his brother had just got engaged as she had seen on the news.

“Isaak is up to something,” Roman said. His guard was down, there was no filter tonight. “They are to marry in two weeks’ time.”

“Maybe they’ve fallen in love.”

“Maybe the sky will be purple in the morning.”

Milly smiled and got back to dancing. She liked that he trusted her enough to tell her that did not believe that Isaak’s engagement was real.

The further he confided, the deeper he stole into her heart.

Pin by slow pin, he took her hair down as they danced. Milly felt his fingers in her hair and the slight tug as he gently unravelled her curls until they fell over her shoulders. She simply rested on the firm wall of his chest and tried to tell herself that she wasn’t dreaming, that she really was being held in his arms.

One dance became two.

Two became three.

They were barely moving, yet the gentle sway of them had pressure mounting in Milly. His hands, when they slid from her waist to caress the curve of her bottom brought certain relief. A short-lived relief though, for as he pulled her into him further so that his hardness was pressed into her, it did not deter, instead he incited a building need in her.

She lifted her head, not to protest, more in shock at her own want.

Those grey eyes awaited hers and she stared into them.

He lowered his head just enough that she had to stretch a little to meet his kiss.

He felt sublime to her lips—both soft and warm. Milly felt unexpectedly safe on the borders of thrilling and so she lingered there, familiarizing herself with a kiss.

Roman closed his eyes in bliss at the softness of her mouth. The gentle way it explored his stirred a cocktail of pleasure and need and he fought for rare restraint just to revel in the feel of her mouth.

His tongue slid her lips apart and Milly tasted the cool of vodka and the warmth of a more intimate kiss as his hands roamed her bottom.

She could hear him breathing, she could feel it too and there was a slight trip in him and then more thoroughly he kissed her and, with his mouth, Roman led her to lost. His hands dug deeper into her bottom and he moaned, this low urgent moan, as deeply they kissed.

He left her mouth, just at the point where she might have pulled back. Just as she might have realised this was going too far he removed his lips from hers. There was no reprieve from his passion though and Milly closed her eyes as he lifted her hair and buried his face in her neck. His tongue, his hot mouth, moved along the warm skin. Milly arched her neck to the side as more deeply he started to kiss the base of her neck though she warned him not to bruise.

“I’ve got an audition tomorrow . . . ”

“For what?” he breathed.

“I’m an actress,” Milly said. “Or rather, I hope to be one. I’m auditioning tomorrow for the part of Desdemona . . . ”

Tonight she was
his
Desdemona.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Roman whispered in her ear “I left the family early because I needed to see you . . . ”

His admission had her reeling.

“I want to make love,” Roman continued, his hips pressing into hers. “I want normal. I want soft. I want tender.”

Milly blinked, not really understanding.

“I can’t date guests . . . ”

Oh, such crossed words: she meant romance; he meant tricks.

“I told you—I know how to be discreet. I won’t let you get in trouble,” Roman said. His hand moved into his jacket and he took out his swipe card and he told her the number of his suite. His hand tugged at the hemline of her top and freed it from the skirt. He slipped his warm hand under her shirt and into her bra, where he lingered a while—stroking her nipple with the pad of his thumb as his hand took the heavy weight of her breast, almost bringing Milly to her first ever come.

He left the card inside her bra and then his hand slid around to her back, toying suggestively with the button on her skirt. And as Roman kissed her again he undid it, then nudged the zipper down just enough that his warm hands slid and stroked the peach of her cheek. It was Milly now who was pushing into him, her panties were soaked, her sex on fire and her mouth could no longer move to his, she could barely even breathe. Her body was now deliciously rigid in his arms.

“Oh, baby . . . ” Roman sighed. “We’re going to be so good together.”

He released her then, and picked up the bottle and headed to his suite, leaving Milly standing alone with her desire, trying to resist the urge to run to him.

She should collect her things and go home, Milly knew.

She did up her skirt but did not tuck in her top. She could feel the card to his room cutting into her aching breast as she put on her coat and retrieved her bag.

Milly turned off the music and then went into the kitchenette and tried to tame the fire of her cheeks with her make-up. Her hair was tousled, her lips swollen from his kiss and her nipples ached from his slow caress. She pulled down her top and saw, despite the warning, the bruise that his mouth had made.