Page 6 of Touch Me Not: Anniversary Edition

“Calm down, Lily Bells,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean any harm. I just didn’t want you to run.”

“I wasn’t running.” Her voice remained low, and it went even softer. “I just didn’t want to suffer your unbearable ego one more minute.”

As much as he wanted to focus on her reaction, he was a guy, and he couldn’t ignore what was right in front of him. His gaze swept from those luscious lips to her perky breasts, to her trim waist, and down to her petite feet.

Color flooded her face, and blood rush downward to settle right where he didn’t need it to. But, again, he was a guy, and he loved the opposite sex. He especially loved Lily’s reactions to him. He couldn’t help but to needle her just a bit.

“I was hoping you’d run so I could chase you.”

“Problem here, Lily?”

Nikoli wanted to shout in frustration. No fewer than six members of the football team, two of whom were from his own frat house, stood behind Lily. How the hell was he going to wear her down if he couldn’t get five minutes alone with her?

“No, Jimmy.” She smiled up at the guy who’d spoken. “Nikoli and I were just discussing his STD status.”

His mouth fell open. She did not…the little…oh,hell no. He stood, ready to…damn, he didn’t know what he wanted to do.

He heard laughs all around, some not as concealed as others. Fury radiated from him in the next second. The laughs stopped as fast as they’d started when he rolled his shoulders, muscles rippling. Football player he wasn’t, but he fought with the best of them and had beaten all the guys standing across from him bloody at one time or another over the last three years. They knew better than to cross him. He gave them his best hard-ass stare, and several took a step back.

“You know what?” Lily shook her head and started walking away. “I don’t have time for the testosterone showdown. I have more important things to do.”

“Let me buy you dinner, at least.” Nikoli leapt after her, ignoring the snickers behind him. He wasn’t letting her get away that easily. He made sure not to touch her this time around, though. “You didn’t get to eat your lunch.”

“Will you go away and leave me alone if I let you buy me dinner?”

He gave her his patented cocky grin. “Trust me, Lily Bells, you won’t want me to leave you alone.”

She gave him a long-suffering sigh, one reserved for an unruly child, and resumed walking, leaving the food court and heading back toward the dorms. “I am not sleeping with you now, tomorrow, or a year from now. What do I need to do to get it through that thick skull of yours?”

“Milaya, there are so many things I can think of you doing to me.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, frowning.

“It’s Russian.”

“But your last name is Scottish.”

“My mother is Russian, but my father’s family originated in Scotland before they moved to the United States. When he joined the Marines, he was stationed in Russia, where he met my mother.”

“Did you grow up in Russia?”

He had her talking, and he let out a little sigh of relief. While he didn’t normally talk about his life to women, he made an exception for Lily because she wasn’t falling for his usual BS.

Nikoli noticed her football player friends following them at a discreet distance. Luther was right about one thing. Lily was not one to be taken lightly with so many would-be protectors waiting in the wings. Even knowing he could get the shit beat out of him, he didn’t care. He wanted her.

“Until I was fourteen. Then Dad sent me to live with my uncle Brian in Virginia the summer before I started high school. Papa did that with all of us. He wanted his sons educated in the States where he grew up. My parents still live in St. Petersburg, though.”

She smiled. “I’ve seen photos of the city. It looks beautiful.”

“It is,” Nikoli agreed. “I miss it sometimes. There are so many places I used to roam when I was a kid. My brothers and I played in old ruins and pretended we were great knights fighting for Mother Russia.” He let out a laugh. It had been years since he’d thought of that.

“How many brothers do you have?”

“Five.” They always brought a smile to his face. All of his brothers, except Mason, were older, and he’d been their punching bag until he was old enough and strong enough to beat them black and blue.

“No sisters?”

He laughed. “Thank fuck, no.”

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