“I run almost every day. It helps me decompress,” she said, not wanting to admit that jogging was the way she worked out the sexual frustration that had tormented her for years.
She hadn’t touched a soul sexually the entire time she was in the dungeon, and when she had been released six months ago, she had been too consumed with trying to resurrect her career to be distracted by a man in her bed. Not to mention that the idea made her nervous. She’d never been able to screw for screwing’s sake, no matter how much she wanted to believe that she could. She always became emotionally involved and that was something she didn’t need while she was still so close to the edge.
“You’re too thin already,” Serge said. “You shouldn’t be running; you should be eating an ice cream sundae.”
“For your information, I don’t run to lose weight and I don’t gain weight if I stop running. I’m just skinny. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to look at me.” She spoke calmly, reasonably, refusing to get pissed off. “Besides, I don’t like sweets.”
She had always been a string bean and had heard all the jokes and critiques before. People seemed to feel entitled to comment on your size if you were smaller than average, which stunk. Wasn’t being flat-chested and flat-assed enough punishment for being scrawny?
“How about a steak?” he asked, unperturbed. “Would you be interested in getting a steak?”
“I’m a vegetarian.”
“Pasta? I know a place that has a fabulous Fettuccine Alfredo.”
Kat shot him a narrow look. “Are you here expressly to fatten me up or is there something else on your agenda?”
“Fattening you up was secondary,” he said. “My primary motive is to secure your company for dinner.”
Only foreign men used the language so well. That was one of the things Kat had loved about her ex—the way he spoke had turned her on like nothing else. She really had loved the man, though few in the Kingdom seemed to believe that.
“A business dinner?” she asked, mopping her face with her towel.
“A pleasure dinner. If that’s’ amenable.”
She sneaked a glance in his direction. His forehead was beaded with sweat, but he didn’t seem to be winded. He was obviously in fabulous shape. He could probably make love all night and get up and go hard all the next day.
Oh no. Hell no.
She couldn’t let her thoughts go there anymore than she could let him take her to dinner if the word “pleasure” was involved.
“Is dinner necessary?” she asked with what she hoped was a bored expression. “Why not just ask if I want to give you a blow job in the men’s locker room?”
She was being a bitch and all he had done was ask her out to dinner. But then, he seemed to like her bitchy. Maybe he was one of those guys who couldn’t get enough of bad girls, real bad girls, not ones who simply played the part.
Which was she? Really? Deep down?
It scared her to admit it, but Kat had lost track of the answer to that question somewhere in the past six years.
“Why would I speak to you in that way?” Serge slowed his treadmill to a stop and turned to stare at her with his amazing eyes, those intense green eyes that threatened to unravel her.
“Because men like blowjobs and usually they like them sooner rather than later,” she said, refusing to stop her own treadmill. She had come here to run and she was going to run, no matter how awkward she felt. “Dinner is only a means to an end, right? I’m sure you’d rather skip to the good part.”
“Is that the kind of man you think I am?” he asked in a chilly voice.
“I don’t know what kind of man you are. And I don’t care to learn.”
“Very well then.” Without another word, he turned and walked away.
Shit.
But that was what she’d wanted, right?
No, it wasn’t. She had wanted him to go, but she didn’t want him to go like this. No matter how well she’d performed today or how easy she felt it would be to outshine the other contestants, it wasn’t smart to alienate the executive producer. He held her future in his hands and if she pissed him off badly enough, he might decide to use his influence to get even.
As she hit the stop button on the treadmill and leapt off the end of the still-moving belt, Kat told herself the contest was the only reason she was following Sergei Sokolnokov. It wasn’t that she liked him, that she was in lust with him, or that she felt ashamed for the way she’d behaved.
It was for the competition’s sake and nothing more.