The Russian Seduction by Nikki Navarre Read Free Book Online

definitely playing her, plucking her strings like a maestro with a violin. Kostenko had to know her own husband had proven eminently capable of resisting her, that it was all those models and aspiring film stars Geoff hadn’t been able to resist—his coterie of trophy girlfriends. So the captain was trying to manipulate her insecurities, and she’d better not let him think his underhanded ploy was working.
    “Sorry, but I’m still unmoved by your charms,” she said blandly. “If you want to disconcert me, I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that.”
    “Is that a request or an instruction?” His mouth nuzzled her palm, shredding every pretense of indifference she’d projected. A deep throb of response rolled through her, shocking her.
    Low in her throat, a sound shivered out before she could swallow it. And despite the murmur of half-a-dozen languages rising from the parterre, she prayed he hadn’t detected it—he, whose life had hung on listening and reacting in the ocean’s dark depths.
    He shot her an upward look from eyes that flickered with electric heat. “How am I doing now, Ms. Castle?”
    The shrill chime of a mobile phone sliced through the vibrating web of tension between them. Must be his phone, since Alexis had switched hers off in preparation for their appointment. She jumped and snatched her hand away.
    Kostenko allowed this strategic retreat, thank God, because she needed a minute to reassemble her fractured poise. But at least she didn’t seem to be the only one who’d been disconcerted, since annoyance at the interruption made him scowl.
    Extracting the flat silver phone from his pocket, he glanced at the display, then uttered a curt apology and flipped it open.
    “Damn it, man,” he growled into the receiver. “What is it?”
    While he handled the call, Alexis retrieved her pen and pulled herself together. He’d just been testing the waters, hadn’t he? Taking a sounding of her terrain, to assess how vulnerable she might be—a recent divorcee whose ex’s infidelities were public knowledge—to the same trick her team had just pulled on his. Or maybe Kostenko viewed her as a juicy bonus, a way to indulge his appetite for adventure while getting back in his government’s good graces
    But she was no longer a starry-eyed kid, to be swept off her feet by a casual touch. God knew she’d done enough experimenting at Stanford during those four heady years of freedom when she’d thought—mistakenly, naively—that she’d broken free of her father’s smothering shadow.
    She’d learned enough about herself in all those beds to figure out that sexual bliss for women was an urban legend. That the mechanical shock of climax was something she could induce in herself without the bother, the risk, the head-games of a seduction. She’d learned to barricade herself against the inevitable feelings of loss and abandonment that sucked at her once her casual flings were over. Above all, she’d learned not to rely on the temporary mirage of intimacy—that brief escape from the gnawing ache of solitude, when she cuddled with the guy for an hour or two afterward.
    If she’d wanted a meaningful relationship, she would have had to cede control to someone else. She hadn’t cared to make herself that vulnerable.
    So she understood that Victor Kostenko could offer her nothing more than a fleeting thrill, with the added fillip of danger thrown in. It was hardly worth losing her career over, no matter how strongly her sex-starved body reacted to his touch.
    “I can’t come there now,” the captain growled into his phone. “For once, they’ll have to manage their crisis without me. I’ll eliminate the loose ends tomorrow.”
    He snapped the phone shut, with another gruff apology for the interruption. Composed, Alexis extracted the documents from her briefcase and managed a wry smile.
    “Careful, captain,” she murmured. “First an invitation to the ballet, and now suddenly you’re