Bad Nerd Falling (8 page)

He had yet to contribute to the lunch
conversation. Had she upset him? Said something she shouldn’t have?
Yet they hadn’t talked much. They’d been too busy exploring the
other’s mouth to worry about talking.

It should worry her, but
it didn’t. Instead, she was fretting over the fact that…
That what?
She delved
deeper into her unease. It wasn’t comfortable, but the deeper she
sank the more she understood her own fear that Vlad hadn’t enjoyed
their kisses as much as she had.

What if he hadn’t enjoyed
them at all?

“
I can’t believe you left
me,” Tia exclaimed from the doorway.

She traipsed in, laid a possessive,
happy kiss on Aleksi then slipped into the chair beside
him.

Hans, the waiter who normally served
Aleksi, conjured up a plate of food for her. “Thank you, Hans.” Her
smile set the entire room alight with joy and happiness.

Helena suppressed a sigh.

“
You’re welcome, Your
Highness.” Hans obviously basked in her smile.

The happiness dimmed as Tia’s smile
turned upside down. Her scowl was something to behold. “Hans, you
did not just call me Your Highness.”

“
No, he did,” Vlad
answered. It was the first thing he said the entire
meal.

Hans smirked at Tia. “That’s your
title the moment you marry His Royal Highness here.” He made it
sound like marrying Aleksi was equivalent to Ebola
exposure.

Aleksi growled. “She is not breaking
up with me to marry you, Hans.”

“
I think you should
give
her
that
option.” Hans stood his ground.

“
Want me to kill him?”
Vlad wiped his mouth as he stared Hans down.

Hans’ eyes widened. “Hey, you can’t do
that.”

“
Yes I can. If
my prince
commands me
to.”

Aleksi turned a nasty
smirk on Hans. “I do believe that bears thinking about. Hans gone
from my life. No longer flirting with my fiancée. No longer trying
to
steal
my
fiancée.”

“
Hans, run.” She used her
most dictatorial tone.

He didn’t wait for her to finish the
statement but took off.

She glared at the two gloating men
across the table. “You two should be ashamed of
yourselves.”

“
He keeps trying to steal
Tia.”

“
Stop whining, Aleksi. Tia
doesn’t have eyes for anyone except you. You know that.” She
scoffed before turning to her whatever-Vlad-was-to-her. “As for
you, you are not killing anyone while we’re trying to enjoy a civil
lunch.”

“
Did someone just turn
Helena into the princess?” Aleksi turned into the picture of
innocence.

Tia eyed him with amusement over her
coffee mug. “You better be careful. Helena knows a lot about
you.”

“
I’ll just sic Vlad on
her.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger on either side of his
chin.

She turned her own quite interested
eyes on Vlad. “That’s fine by me.” She blew Vlad a kiss. “He has
much better chances of survival than you do.”

Vlad’s eyes morphed from warm
amusement to hot interest. Her body did that whole bone melting
thing. He needed to be declared illegal. No man should provide such
masculine perfection in one gorgeous, enticing package. It was a
crime against womankind.

“
This is just a guess
here, but I think we lost them.” Tia leaned forward to flirt with
Aleksi.

“
It’s okay, they’re still
young.” Aleksi might have leaned forward to kiss Tia, but she
didn’t have enough available gray matter to confirm
that.

Drowning in Vlad’s dark,
nearly black eyes was far more interesting to her. The man was
so…
incredible, magnificent,
delicious…

One of them, and she wasn’t certain
which one started it, rose from the table, the other quickly
following. The remains of their lunch left without a thought.
Instead, Vlad grabbed her hand and hauled her out of the room. She
offered no protest whatsoever.

“
It’s nice to know Vlad
has one weakness.” Aleksi said this from far away. But really, she
couldn’t be expected to comprehend anything when Vlad was around.
It was asking far too much.

With the stealth she associated with
Vlad, he located a small, deserted sitting room. Tugging her inside
he quickly shut the door and locked it before turning to her with
burning eyes. Hers could melt a Bunsen burner at least. She met his
passion with her own, kissing him with every pent up frustration
the man had left smoldering within her all these years.

The kiss ended because they needed to
breathe.

“
Why are you looking at me
like that?” Vlad tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

“
How am I looking at
you?”

“
Like you don’t quite
believe I’m here.” He tugged her closer, warming her, fitting her
curves like he had been made to do so.

If there was ever a man made for her,
here he was.

Yet also lurking in the back of her
mind was the knowledge that she didn’t know anything about him.
Nothing pertinent anyway. She knew his family, knew which school he
had attended, but she didn’t know what he did for a living or
anything about his training.

She didn’t even know what his favorite
food was, or color, or song.

Did he even like music?

“
See, that look is making
me nervous.” He teased her and those strands of hair.

“
I just realized that you
can kiss me senseless, but I know nothing about you.” Her voice was
definitely breathless.
His
fault
.

“
Sure you do. You know my
family and history.”

“
I don’t know your
favorite food, or favorite color. I don’t even know what you do for
a living.” Frustration simmered.

He paused in stroking an escaped curl.
“My favorite color is,” he paused to stare into her eyes.
“Green.”

“
What shade?” When had her
voice turned husky?

His finger stroked across her cheek
and down to her needy lips. The pad of his thumb caressed them.
“Look in the mirror.”

“
For what?”

“
To see what my favorite
shade of green is.”

Her heart picked up its beats per
minute to a rather uncomfortable tempo. For some reason she was
trembling and her hand kept stroking over his arm and shoulder.
Like she couldn’t get enough of this man.

Probably she never would. So it was
best not to waste the moments she spent with him. Their eyes
connected and she loved the way his smiled into hers. Vlad had a
certain way of looking at her that set fire to every neuron she
possessed. It was rather unfair. No other man wielded this
power.

He could turn her into a puddle of goo
with one look.

Certainly that should be against the
law.

His lips curled up. Her stomach tried
out for gymnastics. “What are you thinking?”

“
That you should be
illegal.”

One of his dark eyebrows shot up.
“Illegal?”

“
You have far too much
power, Vladimir Wellington.”

“
I’m quite happy to hear
that.” She felt those words against her lips. They made her
ache.

Her eyes narrowed. “There will be no
abuse of your power,” she stated clearly, decisively. That was
good, right?

“
Aye aye, princess.” When
he connected their lips, he was smiling. She could feel it. But
with a heartfelt groan, that smile dissolved into the best kiss
yet.

Her temperature shot to somewhere near
five hundred degrees while her blood took on the consistency of
lava. Being burnt from the inside out was interesting. Not nearly
as interesting as the man causing this phenomenon though. Helena
twisted her arms around him and clung, her participation
absolute.

She moaned and his lips detoured from
hers so he could kiss his way from her jaw and chin to her neck.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as her limbs turned
leaden.

“
You’re everything I
dreamed you would be.” His lips trailed to her ear.

A bit of the passion haze
lifted.
What had he dreamed she would
be?
Could she live up to his
expectations?
Since she didn’t know what
those were, her heart offered a terrified thump.

Working to place a modicum of space
between them, she lifted heavy eyelids to stare up at
him.

“
What did you dream?” Her
voice was a sliver of a whisper.

“
About you.”

Thank you for telling me
nothing
.

“
What do you want from
me?”

His answer was sincere, warm, and inflexible.
“Everything.”

Chapter 8

When Tia tilted her head like that
Aleksi had trouble concentrating on the mundane plate in front of
him. Like Vlad had done, he really wanted to whisk his woman away
and kiss her socks off.

“
Do you think we need to
interfere?” Since she sounded concerned, he decided he should take
her question seriously.

“
Do you prefer my head the
way it is?”

Her smile heated his inhibitions.
“Yes, I do.”

“
Then we don’t
interfere.”

“
Vlad isn’t going to do a
thing to me.” She had stopped eating and was staring at him the way
she did. Like she couldn’t believe her life.

That dreamy, happy expression crossed
her face. He was certainly no prize, yet she didn’t believe that in
the least. It was like she was blind to his faults, except that she
knew them all too well. She loved him despite his
faults.

Staring at her now, he understood. He
wasn’t blind to Tia’s faults either but he loved her more each day.
Shoving back his chair, he patted his lap. Smart, beautiful woman
that she was, Tia planted herself there in three seconds flat. He
was still laughing when she fused their lips together.

“
I love you.”

“
Likewise,” he managed to
gasp as her beguiling tongue beguiled him. “Anything you want, it’s
yours.”

“
Don’t stand me up at our
wedding.”

It was his turn to smile. “Like that’s
ever going to happen.”

“
I’ll send Vlad after you
if you try.”

“
Why do people always
threaten me with Vlad?” Their conversation didn’t do much to
dissuade him from exploring his fiancée’s delectable
neck.

“
Because he’s scary.” Her
voice was breathless and that made him happy.

He raised his head to stare into those
blue-green eyes he loved so much. “Yes. He’s always
been.”

Her eyebrows bobbed before
her forehead creased. “He’s
always
been?”

“
Are you speaking of
Vlad?” Emerson sank into a nearby chair.

Tia’s hand slid into his hair as she
gave him one last, lingering kiss before wriggling off his lap to
return to her own seat. “He’s scary.”

“
You are speaking of
Vlad.” Emerson nodded sagely. “You won’t need him. The last thing
you have to worry about is Aleksi not showing up for your
wedding.”

Her smile lit the room. “Thank you,
Emerson.” She sent him a private smile that increased the heat
already zinging through him.

And that fast, he fell even further in
love with her. “You’re the perfect woman for me.”

Emerson cleared his throat for the
third time. “About Vlad?”

“
Yes?” So he sounded a
little impatient. Oh well.

“
Where is he?”

“
He dragged Helena
somewhere.”

Tia tapped her lips and distracted
him. “She might have drug him, though.”

One of Emerson’s brown eyebrows rose.
“He took Helena and you didn’t stop him?”

“
We believe they wanted to
be alone,” Tia murmured discreetly as she finished off her
sandwich.

“
Oh, so she was
willing?”

“
We’re not certain who
dragged who, but the desire was obviously mutual.” He grinned as
both Tia and Emerson groaned.

***

“
Are you certain we have
to return to work?” Helena darted a remorseful look at Vlad’s
retreating back.

“
I’m sure. Your lips are
so swollen I’m surprised you can talk.” Tia kept a firm grip on her
arm.

“
I’m not going to run
off.”

“
Ha, that’s
debatable.”

“
Yes, very
likely.”

Tia laughed as she turned into the
lab. Since her boss still clutched her arm, she had to
follow.

Jorge and Maria were already there.
They were exclaiming over the mostly empty benches. Helena let out
a gasp of her own. “It’s all gone.”