Yes, probably, I chuckled while I scrubbed paint-thinner stench from Volkov’s vodka off my skin.
But there was an upside to this fiasco. Being married to someone else would keep Demyan Volkov and his mafia-princess daughter at bay for a few weeks, a silver lining to the thundercloud that was my drunken binge the night before.
Yes, for the next few weeks or so, Demyan Volkov couldn’t push his daughter upon me, demanding marriage and access to my connections, until the annulment was granted.
I blinked shampoo and water out of my eyes.
Wait—
CHAPTER 22
yet more negotiations
LEXI BYRNE
Nico bargedout of the bathroom holding his phone and wearing a towel slung low around his hips again and nothing else,again.
I averted my eyes,again.
Jeez, a guy who looked likethatshould not be paradingmostly nakedaround a hotel room, flaunting his ripped eight-pack of abs that rippled when he twisted or crunched (who looked like that in real life?) and V-slanted oblique creases ducking below his entirely too-small towel.
His towel didn’t even wrap around him properly. Every time he took a step, one of his muscled thighs peeped out. I suddenly understood why evening gowns with thigh-high slits were considered so sexy that Jimmy’s church had banned any of us girls from wearing one to prom.
Step.Peek.Step.Peek.
Avert eyes!
Plus,oh dear baby Jesusplus,a thick black tribal tattoo swirled over Nicolai’s heavy pectoral muscle on his left side, the design curving over his broad shoulder and almost slithering up his neck, then down over his ribs to his taut waist, sheathing his arm in a full patterned sleeve that stopped just inches short of his wrist.
The design would be entirely covered by a long-sleeved shirt, hiding all that sexy ink.
Whoa, Nellie.I could only imagine how much that tattoo had cost.
The way his muscles slid under his pale gold skin and that black ink was making me crazyagain,not that I’d know what to do with him. When he’d been sitting on the floor freaking out about the wedding ceremony, I’d had trouble concentrating. I’d just wanted tolook.
Yeah, I felt like a creeper.
But, dang-a-rooni. The artwork of that tattoo washot.
“We need to talk,” Nico said, bending sideways to reach for the floor to pick up his suit jacket and socks. I’d dropped them on the hotel room’s thin carpet last night after I’d wrestled him out of a few things so he would sleep better.
Leaning sideways as he reached for his socks, his broad shoulders and strong arms looked like that Grecian statue of an athletic discus thrower. His hair dripped crystal drops on his wet torso.
He looked up, catching me licking him with my eyeballs.
Oops.
I looked pointedly back at my phone screen and tried to remember what I was doing, which was evidently trying to finish a five-letter word puzzle with only one guess left.
W-A-N-T-S.
Nope, that wasn’t it. I lost the day’s game.
Nico plucked the hotel phone’s handset from behind the champagne bucket on the nightstand. “Concierge services, please? I’d like to add my account number to my hotel room.” He glanced at his cell phone in his other hand and rattled off a series of digits.
The tinny voice from the phone that I could barely hear rose several notes in pitch and became much more obsequious in cadence, practically like singing.
“Yes, quite,” Nico said. “I need one-hour laundry service right away. I also need room service for breakfast. Plain yogurt, granola, fruit, espresso.” He held the phone away from his face and looked over at me, startling the heck out of me.“For you?”
