Nikolett blinked. “Grab-ass?”
“He gave me a pat-down.” Gus tipped his head to Maxim, the mood shifting. “Copped a bit of a feel, I think.”
Nikolett pressed her lips together to keep from smiling, even as the amusement in Gus’ gaze was infectious.
Iacob thrust the flowers back at Gus. “They’re clean,” he said in English.
“You thought they were out romping in a pasture and got mucky?” Gus asked.
Iacob didn’t react, maintaining a flat, bodyguard-appropriate expression.
Nikolett waited, giving him one more chance to bail after the indignity of a search and pat-down.
Gus didn’t leave, merely waited, a cute, half smile curving his lips as he looked down at her, patient and calm.
Nikolett stepped back from the door. “Would you like to come in?”
He flashed her a full smile, walked past her, and Nikolett closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nikolett took a second to smooth her skirt down her hips before turning away from the door.
Gus looked even bigger inside the room, and a tingle of awareness passed through her. It was that ancient instinct that both warned her that she was physically outmatched, and this man could hurt her. That was quickly followed by the first strings of desire—a hind-brain instinct that said this man would survive and could protect her, so she should probably fuck him.
Nikolett’s stomach twisted. She’d desperately wanted to feel something with Laszlo and hadn’t. It appeared she wasn’t going to have that problem with Gus, but after last night, after Eric…
Gus looked around the suite, then half turned to smile at her. “Lass, are you sure you’re not a princess?”
She laughed, coming up beside him. “Not a princess. Just a political activist. There’s someone who doesn’t agree with my politics.”
“That explains the guards, but not the suite. You’re a well-paid political activist?”
“No, the people I advocate for—” The people I used to advocate for. “—have no money. I have investments that fund my work.”
She leaned back on her old pre-admiral life to half answer his question, though in that life she hadn’t had investments. She had been a political activist and advocate, but she’d also held an elected position that paid her just enough to survive while her opponents lived lavishly.
She started walking past him toward the bar cart where a bottle of white wine sat in ice, while a bottle of red had been decanted so it could breathe. Gus touched her elbow as she passed. A bare brush, but she stopped.
His gaze slid down her and he bent to the side, two fingers still on her elbow. Nikolett realized what he was doing and hiked up her skirt a little, showing off her green cast and the cast shoe she wore with it that allowed her to move without thumping around while still protecting her leg.
She had a sandal with a thick sole on the other foot that evened out the height so she didn’t rock side to side as she walked.
Even with the added centimeters, she was nowhere near as tall as Gus, who probably hadn’t been able to see the cast between the height-difference angle and the skirt.
“It’s even greener in person.”
“I never have trouble finding it,” she agreed.
Gus straightened, and when he took a small step toward her, not touching her except the two fingers on her elbow, but definitely in her personal space, she held her breath.
“Someone is still trying to hurt you, lass?”
Nikolett looked up into his blue eyes…and imagined another pair of blue eyes looking down at her.
Damn it, Eric, get out of my head.
“Let’s have some wine,” she said instead of answering. She took a step, pausing when his hand slipped under her elbow, supporting her. Together, they walked to the bar cart.
