“You are a hard woman to track down,” Nazar said as he watched the beautiful woman almost trip over her feet in her hurry to leave the suite.
Nikki froze and spun around, her eyes wide as she took in the very man she’d been trying hard to avoid. “You’re supposed to be in a meeting!” she said with an accusatory tone.
He moved forward until he was about a foot away from her. “I should be in a meeting. But a beautiful intruder snuck into my suite with a fake security badge. The same woman who stole someone’s press credentials yesterday. Which made tracking said woman very difficult.”
Nikki squared her shoulders, trying to hide her nervousness. “I wasn’t doing anything malicious,” she told him, trying to be reassuring, but not sure what to tell him. How does one accuse a powerful man of kidnapping? Especially when trapped in his domain?
“How did your guards know my badge was fake?” she asked.
Nazar chuckled, thinking she looked adorable with that disgruntled look on her face. “First of all, you ran out on me yesterday. So my guards were watching for you. They are under orders to find you. Every one of them has memorized your face in their efforts to find you.” He laughed softly as he pulled a soft curl that had slipped out of the knot on the top of her head. “We weren’t expecting you to fall into our hands.”
Nikki snatched the curl away from his fingers. “So I basically walked into your trap.”
He grinned. “I hadn’t laid a trap. Since we didn’t know who you were, we couldn’t analyze your moves and discover how to trap you. But yes, in answer to your unspoken question, we would have figured out how to get you back into my clutches.” His finger ran along her jaw and down her neck, causing her to shiver delightfully. “Are you going to tell me your real name?” he asked. His fingers snaked out and snapped the badge off of her waist. Looking at the picture, he smiled slightly. “The name fits you,” he commented, his eyes taking in her appearance. “I’m not sure the maid’s uniform does your exquisite figure justice though.”
Nikki stiffened, her eyes glaring back at him. It was her only defense in the face of his overwhelming sexuality. How did he do that so well? It was almost as if she could smell something about him, something that made her toes tingle – and everything higher up as well.
“I’m thrilled that you approve of my name, sir. And since I’ve been caught, I’ll just get out of your way.”
He laughed when she tried to walk away, but before she’d taken one step, he’d grabbed her hand and spun her around. “Oh no, my little invader. You disappeared on me once. I don’t think I’ll allow that to happen a second time. I’m smarter now.”
She looked back up at him, one brown eyebrow raised as if to question whether he was smarter, or if he was going to fall for another of her tricks. Nikki knew a few moves. She’d been in similar situations with other men when she didn’t want them touching her. Although, this time, the feelings were dramatically different! Not that she would admit that to him. Not that she fully understood it herself!
“I really have to go,” she told him firmly, not pulling her arm away because she knew it would be useless. “There’s no point in continuing this conversation.”
He chuckled and moved closer. “We can either converse here in the comfort of this suite, or I can call the authorities and we can converse in their less than opulent surroundings. The choice is yours.”
Nikki’s mouth fell open. “Why would you call the police?” she demanded. “I haven’t…”
“You entered my suite under false pretenses. I believe that is considered breaking and entering in your country. I suspect that you also broke a few laws in your attire, not to mention the interesting security badge you somehow managed to obtain.” He lifted the badge up again, looking at her picture. “How did you falsify this so quickly?” he asked. His thumb flicked the edge of the card and, sure enough, the plastic film she’d quickly plastered over the top of her picture came loose. “Ah. Not such a good forgery job, my little beauty.”
He tossed the badge onto the table behind her but pulled her over to one of the deep sofas. “So tell me why such a beautiful woman wants to be in the arms of a man like me,” he asked, looking like a casual conversationalist, but Nikki wasn’t fooled. She could see the strength in his eyes, knew that he wasn’t relaxed. He was like a predator, just waiting for his prey to spring for freedom so he could swoop down and capture her.
And then his question hit her and she gasped, looking at him askance. “In your arms?” She snorted and shook her head. “You have a very high opinion of yourself, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I can see no other reason why you would sneak into my hotel room. It has been attempted many times before.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “It didn’t seem very hard to me. You have pretty poor security, sir.”
He chuckled again. “My guards were under strict orders to let you in if you were brave enough to test the lion’s den again.”
Her mouth fell open with that announcement. “You were waiting for me?” she asked in a whisper.
He shrugged again. “Waiting is too mild a word. My team has been scouring video tapes of the press conference, trying to find clues as to your identity. Since you snuck into the press conference, and I suspected you hadn’t gotten the information you wanted, I also suspected you would try again. So my approach to finding you wasn’t necessarily simply waiting. It was more multi-faceted.” His fingers captured a shiny curl again. “Just as I suspect is true of your personality.”
She was transfixed by his words as well as his touch. She wasn’t sure what to say or do, but her eyes dropped from looking into his dark gaze to his lips. They weren’t full lips, they almost looked mean. But something about them drew her gaze. Her mind started wondering what it would be like to be touched by those lips, to feel his lips kissing her. She wondered what he tasted like.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he warned.
Nikki started, surprised to find his words echoing her own thoughts. “I don’t want you to kiss me.”
He smiled slightly. “Yes you do.”
She was about to protest again, but his mouth swooped down, covering her lips with his and stopping any additional protest.