Everything about her told him she was practised at being provocative, but her smile and the look in her eyes spoke of the fun she was having with it.
‘You like expensive things, kisa?’
‘I really like it that you’re rich,’ she answered, batting those false eyelashes at him outrageously.
‘And I really like a woman who appreciates leather. I liked your skirt this afternoon.’
‘It’s nice against my skin.’ Her cheeks were starting to turn pink.
He had to ask. ‘What else do you like against your skin?’
She laughed—that husky sound again. ‘Warmth.’ She suddenly sounded more down to earth. ‘I get cold easily.’
‘Good to know. I’ll make it my responsibility tonight to keep you from getting cold.’
‘You’ll loan me your jacket?’ Her eyes were sparkling. Her little smile had blossomed. ‘Such a gentleman.’
He gave her a look, then a second look—as if to check and see that what he’d seen the first time hadn’t altered—and then his eyes went all speculative. Male speculation.
Clementine drew herself together and settled back a little further in her seat. Maybe it was time to rein in the flirting.
She concentrated on the traffic outside, telling herself she could handle this guy. He asked her a few light questions about her time in St Petersburg and the atmosphere in the car settled down.
Feeling a little more confident, she covertly ran her gaze down the length of him. From his unruly close-cropped hair to the high planes of his face that revealed a southern Russian ancestry, the sensual jut of his mouth, the clean, solid lines of his jaw, down the strong column of his throat to his big husky body that made her cheeks burn. He was a sight to incite a female riot.
He looked at her again, and his eyes told her he knew exactly what she was doing.
Deciding to brazen it out, she said outright, ‘I like your jacket.’
He smiled, forming appealing creases around his mouth that made him appear younger, more relaxed, as if he was enjoying her company. He got the joke. He’d play nice. She found she could relax.
The traffic eased as they went over the bridge. One of his hands rested lightly on the wheel, the other throwing gears as he negotiated the car in and out of snags and got them across town with a skill that mesmerised her.
Other images began to crowd her head and it was difficult to censor them. The way he had lunged at those men—all that aggression and cracking of bone—the way he had taken physical blows for her and scared those guys off. He’d done it because underneath all the politesse and courtesy he had shown her he was a big, strong, rough guy—and didn’t it make all the girly parts of her tingle? She’d been on the money the first moment she saw him. They just didn’t make men like this any more.
‘You’ve gone quiet,’ he said, in that deep, gravelly voice.
Pulling herself together, she slammed down the reply that was on her lips. I was admiring the view.
It really was time to pull the curtains on the flirting. She was having so much fun; it was like the old days, before she’d learned how her teasing could be misconstrued.
‘I was thinking how light it is.’
‘The White Nights are almost upon us. There’s nothing quite like them.’
‘It’s a shame I won’t be here to see them. But it’s lovely right now. The light seems to mellow everything.’
He glanced at her. ‘I find that too.’
She was something else, Serge reflected as he followed the twitch of her seductively rounded bottom into the restaurant. She was built the way women used to be, before diets and gyms and size zero. She was shaped this way because that was how nature had made her.
Mother Nature had done a superlative job.
He’d decided on an out-of-the-way place—small, cosy. There was a chance Clementine wouldn’t like it. He’d brought a couple of women here before, watched them pick their way through the traditional Russian cuisine, listened to them dismiss their surroundings as quaint. But he was only in town for a couple of nights, and he loved the place. It was family run and noisy, and after eight there were gypsies.
Tonight wasn’t about the location. It was merely a means to an end. But he wondered now why he had instantly thought of Kaminski’s in relation to Clementine.
She was with him because she liked the money; she’d been pretty upfront about that with all her little flirty comments. Correspondingly, his feelings about this girl were down and dirty and basic. He had what she wanted, and she definitely had what he was after. Where he took her for dinner shouldn’t figure into it.
Clementine tipped her head back as he escorted her inside, taking in the low-beamed ceiling. She scanned the room, already filled to capacity with diners. The décor was simple—round tables, wooden floors, murals of historical Russian scenes on the walls. He wondered what she thought of it.