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  She heard him rise from his chair.

  She should just turn the knob and exit the office. That was exactly what she should do.

  Save herself.

  CeCe had a frighteningly real premonition that she needed to save herself, and that meant removing herself from this man's presence before he had a chance to touch her again.

  But when she finally managed to convince herself to obey her intuition on this and actually open the door, she felt him standing entirely too close to her – not touching her, though. There was no point of contact between them – not one.

  But he might as well have reached out and pulled her back to him, pressing his considerable erection into her soft skin. Her knees felt weak, every nerve was standing on end, waiting for him to do just that as her heart hammered away inside her chest.

  "Close the door."

  The softly given command wafted to her ears, and she automatically began to obey him – then stopped, drawing a dark, hypnotic chuckle from behind her.

  "Stubborn girl. I like that. It means you'll be just that much more of a challenge to tame to my hand."

  The violent shudder that ran through her jiggled the doorknob loudly where her hand still clutched it.

  "You won't like it if I have to tell you again, Celia," he fairly purred, the words deceptively soft and civilized when she knew the man, who was standing so close that she could literally feel his presence surrounding her, although he still remained quite scrupulously detached, was anything but.

  No one had called her that in years. It had been her father's nickname for her.

  She yelped loudly as two big hands were brought forcefully down onto her ample behind, one to each cheek, her body jerking a step away from the considerable discomfort and the sheer power of his effort, closing the door for her, whether she'd ever intended to comply with his order or not.

  And leaving her – for all intents and purposes – trapped against it, unless she opened it again, which would require that she lean back against him to do so.

  Yet, other than those two fleeting – if humiliating – shots, he left her untouched.

  "I can smell your arousal, Ms. Frankin. Ninety-nine percent of the female population of this planet – most especially the American women – would have long since slapped my face for the liberties I just took with your person, threatened to call the authorities or file what they considered to be a very lucrative lawsuit. Probably it would end up being what they hoped to God would be some lethal combination of all of the above. But, at the very least, they would have made haste to depart the premises, lest I mistake their docility in the face of such treatment for acquiescence or even encouragement."

  He took that last step, the one that did crush her both up against the door in the front and against him in the back, neither surface proving to be in the least yielding to her soft flesh.

  Still, his hands remained at his sides.

  He didn't need them, she acknowledged to herself in an unwelcome moment of raw honesty.

  All he needed was that sex on a stick voice of his in alarming conjunction with his impressive body.

  "You're very lucky that I'm feeling like I want to indulge impertinent little ladies who dare to suggest to my face that I am anything less than a model citizen. You will meet me tomorrow night at the Montclair Inn, at eight p.m. sharp for dinner, during which – if you are well behaved – I will answer some of your questions."

  Unable to stop himself while so close to her feminine warmth, Nico leaned just a bit closer, his nose millimeters from her hair, inhaling slowly and deliberately of its flowery scent.

  Then he rumbled huskily, "Personally, I'm very much hoping you're not so well behaved."

  Apparently, that was what it took to get her moving. She pushed valiantly back against him. He paused for an ungentlemanly long moment to press the point home to her that if he hadn't, she wouldn't have been going anywhere. Until he yielded and took, granted, a small, very small, step back. That allowed her to open the door she'd been grasping the handle of – in her sweaty palmed hand – for quite some time now. She skittered away from him, running three steps before remembering that she didn't want him to see how nervous he had made her with so little effort, after which she slowed her pace to a more sedate stroll.

  All while haunted by his soft chuckling as it drifted to her ears, reddening them – and the rest of her body – even further, if that was physical possibility.

  When CeCe finally made it to the relative safety of the elevator, she literally collapsed, sinking down the wall her back was pressed against – as it had been seconds ago against him – until her butt touched the immaculate carpet.

  What had possessed her to do that in the first place? To walk so boldly into the lion's den, as if she was impervious to the power he wielded with the wave of a hand – police, laws, courts be damned. He'd slipped the grasp of all of them at one time and no doubt would again, in the future.

  And he'd seen right through her – right past the gooey, soft, marshmallow heart of her to the part of her he would find the most interesting.

  He had pegged her for what she truly was – a skill he had long since honed that had probably meant the difference between life and death for him on occasion – from the moment she had entered his office.

  "Ninety-nine percent of women," he'd said, would have done something to discourage him from doing to them what he had done to her.

  Why couldn't she have been born a part of that large crowd of average women, rather than one who knew, even as she was huddled, shaking, on the floor, that she was going to have to change her panties as soon as she got home. And, as well, that she would do everything in her power to make sure she was there, at the Montclair, by seven-forty-five, at the very latest, not wanting – or perhaps wanting a bit too much – to know what he'd do to her if she was late.

  Chapter Two

  As luck would have it, of course, try as she did, she was ten minutes late due to an accident on the small two-lane road leading to the restaurant.

  As she dressed, donning a beautiful designer little black dress – satin with a lace overlay that she'd found at one of the Goodwill stores she haunted, in a ritzier neighborhood, looking for just such a bargain – she wondered why he hadn't offered to send a limo for her. But then, that was not something she was about to expect, or Heaven forbid, demand, in any way. After parking in the next county rather than making a valet drive her beat up old Subaru, she made her way to the entrance. Once inside, she opened her mouth to speak to the maitre d', but before she could get a word out he whisked her to the back of the quietly opulent restaurant, down a short hallway, to a private, understatedly elegant dining room.

  He was there, someone she assumed was an associate in the chair next to him, and as soon as he saw her, they both rose. She saw him nod his head dismissively to the younger man, who exited the room without having been introduced.

  The maitre d' was long since gone. She was alone with him, and, as she looked at him, all of the air in the room seemed to vanish, leaving her breathless and feeling more than a little weak.

  He'd extended his hand to her, as if he would again kiss hers, but she slid hers into his and shook it, almost forcibly, in what she intended to be an entirely businesslike manner.

  But Nico wasn't about to allow that. He wasn't going to let her distance herself from him like that. He could see that she was nervous, and he couldn't blame her, although he bet that he was attributing a wariness to her that she wasn't aware she should have.

  Lateness was a bit of a bugaboo with him, as she would soon find out.

  The hard way.

  "Mr. Antonelli," she murmured, meeting his eyes and instantly wishing she hadn't.

  This time, when she couldn't withdraw her hand, it wasn't because he was kissing it, but rather because his hold had tightened on it and he was drawing her inexorably closer to him, until she was standing directly in front of him.

  Damn. How tall was he, anyway? she won
dered as he looked down at her from a considerable height, and she felt every nerve ending she owned begin to dance agitatedly beneath her skin.

  "What did I tell you to call me, Celia?" he asked gently, although nothing could detract from the fact that his question was a definite rebuke.

  She would have given anything to be physically unable to blush. However, that was the opposite of the way her body seemed to react to him.

  "N-Nico."

  "That's it. I'll deal with that little misbehavior later."

  He'd what? she thought, hoping…hoping…she had misheard him.

  He drew out the chair next to him, although she had been trying to head for one that put much more distance between the two of them. It didn't seem to her that he was giving her much of a choice in the matter. Although he didn't stop her from going there, as soon as she turned around to sit down in a chair that was a couple feet away from him, she could see that his hand was still out and open, indicating where he intended she would sit.

  CeCe made as if she would claim her own spot, but even as she bent a bit to do so, the look he gave her had her reconsidering her decision.

  Sighing and grumbling softly under her breath, she ungraciously acquiesced.

  "Good choice. I don't know why you have such an aversion to it, but you should sit where I tell you to, when I tell you to do so – and while you still can."

  She snorted at that, surprising the both of them, and as she looked up at him – because he managed to tower over her even when they were sitting, she decided to take her life in her hands and stuck her tongue out at him.

  It was entirely unbecoming to her just how relieved she felt when he laughed loudly at her impudence. After all, why should he harm her? She was no one at all to him; it would gain him nothing – unless that was his kink – to hurt her in any way.

  She just had to keep telling herself that all evening.

  A waiter appeared, as if on a signal from him that she hadn't discerned he'd made, he ordered a bottle of wine, and when it arrived, he allowed the steward to do everything but pour it for them.

  And when he brought the bottle to her glass, she put her hand over it. "Thank you, but I don't drink wine."

  "Move your hand."

  No more than a whisper, but she felt compelled to obey him, regardless.

  He poured no more than a shot glass worth of what she was sure was a terribly expensive vintage into her glass, then poured himself a full one, raising the glass to her.

  "To what I sincerely hope will be a most mutually profitable – and satisfactory – collaboration."

  They clinked glasses. She took a small sip, but CeCe was too distracted to taste it. His remark had her ignoring his reference to satisfaction and wondering if he was going to demand a chunk of the profits – if there were any – which was probably well within his rights to do, if he gave her anything like the insights she wanted from him."Now, Celia," he began, sitting back in his chair. She was preoccupied, and he intended to call her mind back to them. "You were ten minutes late."

  Her mouth went dry. "There was a –"

  "Did I ask for a reason?"

  "No." If she got any more tense, she was going to have a stroke, so she drew a deep breath and forced herself to relax back into her chair in the same way he was in his, meeting his eyes as she did so.

  Oh, he liked her. He liked her a lot. She was no simpering sycophant, despite that she showed distinct signs of discomfort around him. Most folks did. And he hadn't helped the situation in the least by consciously introducing a subject that he knew would ratchet up her nervousness, and it had, at first.

  But he had literally watched her exert her will and rein them in. Now, those intelligent pools of bright green had turned to him, not challengingly, not beseechingly, just…resting, and he was reacting to it as if she had those tiny fingers of hers wrapped around his cock, which had been perpetually hard since their meeting yesterday – and none of his attempts at self-relief had made much of a dent in it.

  He turned in his chair to face her more fully, inquiring with a glint in those dark eyes of his, "Hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Sleepy? Happy? Grumpy?"

  She giggled unexpectedly. "I think I'll take it as a compliment that you neglected to list Dopey…"

  "Nah. If you're a writer you can't be that stupid, although some would say you must have a death wish just being in my company."

  Her eyebrow rose. "And are 'those people' right?"

  Instead of answering her directly, he diverted her by confessing, "I had you investigated."

  She took a sip of her water. "I can't think you'd be dopey enough not to."

  "And you seem relatively harmless."

  "And you seem anything but."

  He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm not. Don't ever forget that."

  "I don't intend to."

  "That having been said, however, as long as you are who you seem to be, you need fear nothing from me."

  Her guffaw startled him.

  "Why are you laughing?"

  "Because you've been trying to Dom me since we were introduced and yet you say I have nothing to fear from you."

  Nico reached out and tugged on one of the stray blonde curls that framed her face. "And are you afraid of being Dommed?" Then his eyes narrowed a bit and he asked shrewdly, "Are you afraid of being Dommed by me?"

  CeCe pulled away from him. "Since I don't intend that you're going to be anything of the sort to me, then I have nothing to be afraid of, do I?" she returned, smiling sweetly.

  He gave her a doubtful look, leaning closer, still never really having touched her beyond shaking hands and swatting her. "And if I strip you naked and lay you on the table that's beside us, part your legs and place my hand where it would most need to be to answer the question, would I find the fingers I withdrew from your body to be slick and wet?"

  She realized, belatedly, that her lips were open – just enough to betray her – and closed them slowly, so as not to call attention to what he undoubtedly already knew. "As if I would allow you to do any of those things."

  "Well, frankly, my dearest Celia, there's allow, and then there's allow…"

  Her laugh tinkled again, and even though he knew she was laughing at him, he didn't mind. He'd agree to be the butt of every joke, if she would laugh like that for him all the time. "Therein lies the reason why you're not a lawyer, I'd bet."

  His smile was rueful. "One of the many, I'm afraid. That, and the fact that I'm deeply allergic to them."

  "Then it must irk you to have to pay so many of them so much just to keep you out of trouble."

  Nico put his hand on his heart and looked Heavenward. "Such is the cross I bear."

  She hadn't expected to discover that he had a sense of humor. She knew he was smart, but he ended up well read, politically savvy, less stridently opinionated than she was, and a damned good dinner companion.

  And he even waxed poetic about his childhood, giving her a reasonable amount of fodder to work with, about what he remembered about his early family life.

  They were offered dessert before she realized that they had even ordered dinner.

  "My word, where has the time gone?" she asked, startled suddenly into realizing that she had no idea how long they had been there.

  When she reached to remove her phone from her purse to check the time, though, she found her hand covered by his.

  "Leave it. It's Friday night. I'm assuming you don't have to work tomorrow?" he asked pointedly.

  "No, no, I don't."

  "No other pressing plans?"

  Her eyes glided away from his, then away from where their hands lay to study the carpet, the wallpaper, anything neutral. "Just housework," she answered honestly, resisting the urge to add, "That I'd give anything for you to give me a reason to ignore." Partly because she wasn't at all sure that was true, especially when he was the one who would be providing said reason.

  "Then what difference does it make what time it is? Are you going to turn int
o a pumpkin at midnight?"

  She mock frowned at him. "No, everyone seems to get that wrong. Cinderella was never going to turn into a pumpkin. That was her coach. If she missed her curfew, Cinderella was going to end up standing in front of the prince in the rags she usually wore – and why that glass slipper didn't turn back into a holey, worn out shoe, I'll never know. Loopholes, I guess – the blasted lawyers have even gotten ahold of fairy tales!"

  Laughing, he reached into his suit coat and produced his own phone. "What do you say we both go AWOL for the evening?" His thumb pressed a button, and then he handed it to her. "It's off. The world can do without us for the evening. What do you say?"

  She couldn't believe what he was saying. If she turned her phone off, she would have bet that no one would notice. But him? How could he even consider doing that?

  Yet he had, with absolutely no hesitation that she could detect.

  How could she not meet that challenge, especially when his casually asked, lewd question had been spot on, as if he already knew the answer, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when he'd asked it?

  She didn't want to be, but she was definitely attracted to him. She was trying her best to remember just who and what he was, and he seemed to be doing his best – which was loads better than hers – to make her forget those things, being disarming and charming and…winning her over with devastating ease.

  For once in her life – and possibly the last – she wasn't going to overanalyze, wasn't going to worry or consider every angle. She knew she was probably going to get herself in entirely too deep – and with someone who was absolutely the wrong person with which to do that, especially for the first time – but CeCe was sick of being the responsible one.

  She wanted to get into trouble for once, not be the one everyone called to get him or her out of it.