“And you’re beautiful.” Gus spread his fingers, cupping her knee. When he balled his hand into a fist, he gathered her skirt, raising the hem several centimeters.
Nikolett reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder but not to stop him. To connect them.
Gus slowly drew her skirt up, until he’d exposed her knee. He stopped there, not pushing the fabric any higher.
Part of her wanted him too. Part of her wanted to spread her legs just a bit, see if he’d take it as an invitation, as permission, to take control the way she needed.
“And I know that you’re in danger.” Gus slowly lifted her bad leg, propping her cast-encased calf on his thigh.
Nikolett exhaled. This had veered toward caretaking, which was also intimate, but not in the way she’d been anticipating.
Though she enjoyed the way he’d taken control, moved her body how and where he wanted it.
The skin at the back of her neck prickled. She didn’t know him well enough to let him take control, except in fantasy.
At least not today.
Gus was looking at her cast. “Is the, er…bad guy…trying to kill you or incapacitate you?”
The practical question shifted the mood further from sex, and Nikolett took a bracing sip of wine, eyeing him as she did.
“Sorry, lass.” He shook his head at himself. “I like to read thrillers, and I was thinking since this is political, maybe someone is trying to incapacitate you so you don’t do something,rather than kill you which might…” His eyes widened as he trailed off.
“Rather than kill me to make me a martyr?” She finished for him.
He looked horrified. “That was right shite of me to say.”
She laughed. “No, it’s a valid idea. The person attacking me doesn’t seem to want me dead, only hobbled. Ineffective.”
Gus reached over for his glass, taking a sip, apparently content kneeling, her leg propped on his thigh.
“You don’t have to play footstool,” Nikolett said. “I don’t need to keep it up anymore. It’s mostly healed.”
“I don’t mind kneeling for you.”
Nikolett’s breath caught in surprise. Gus looked almost as surprised. As if he hadn’t meant to say that, though there was no embarrassment in his expression. There was a line between his brows, his gaze in the middle distance, his attention inward.
She tried very hard not to dwell on the visual of this massive, strong man on his knees for her. She vehemently didn’t like being in charge when it came to sex, no matter how hard she’d tried to be an authoritative femme fatale in the past.
Not that she couldn’t fake it for a while.
There was one very specific fantasy she could tap into when she needed to take the lead in sex, but it would never last.
Still, that fantasy hovered at her shoulder, a specter tempting her not to her doom but to something else.
With an abrupt movement, as if shaking himself out of the introspection, Gus turned his face to her, a sheepish smile on his lips. “Sorry, lass. I’ll put your leg down now.”
“No need to apologize. You were being thoughtful.”
Gus’ hand slid under her calf, the cast meaning he didn’t touch skin. He lifted at the same time she bent her knee.
The double lift raised her leg higher than either of them anticipated, and Nikolett’s skirt slid halfway up her thigh,exposing the lacy top of the taupe thigh-high stocking and a hand-span of pale flesh.
Gus inhaled slowly as he lowered her foot to the ground, his attention on her thigh.
Nikolett made no move to push down her skirt.
A kernel of doubt tried to root in her—maybe he was looking at her leg in surprise or disgust, not desire.
