Tamed: A Kinky Adult Fairy Tale (Bedding the Bad Girl Book 2) (5 page)

Love had turned Kat into a monster the first time around, and she couldn’t handle the idea of becoming that person again. She might not be a “good girl” all of the time, but she never wanted to get close to hurting anyone again, including herself.

“Do you do this every day?” a deep voice asked from beside her.

Shit.
Think of the devil…

It was Serge, on the next treadmill over.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, with a scowl. Let him think she was an ugly old sourpuss, anything to keep him from getting his hands on her again.

“I was beginning to think I had imagined the pinch-faced shrew.” His smile was so sexy she wanted to leap onto his treadmill and beg him to fuck her against the console. “You were so lovely to observe today.”

“I’m nice to people who are nice to me,” she said as she upped the speed on her machine.

What was he doing here? She’d never seen him at her gym before. Had he followed her here after the filming?

The idea was both faintly creepy and incredibly exciting.

“I thought I was very nice to you.” His voice left no doubt as to what he was referring, making Kat’s nipples tighten against the stiff fabric of her sports bra. “And I am sincerely curious about your running habits,” he added after a few moments had passed with no sound except the steady fall of their footsteps as they jogged.

“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.

CHAPTER SIX

Katarina

“Serge?” Kat poked her head cautiously into the entrance of the men’s locker room. “Hello? Is there anyone in here?”

It was after eleven on a Friday night and the place appeared deserted. She hadn’t seen a soul except Serge and herself—other than Molly, who had been on her way out—since she’d walked past the attendant at the ground-floor entrance.

Still, she didn’t want to burst in on any strange men unannounced.

“Serge?” she called again, hearing nothing but the sound of a single shower’s spray hitting the elegant Italian tiles. Decadently outfitted showers were one of the touches that made her club the most exclusive in the city.

She should have sold her lifetime membership after she was released from the dungeon and pocketed the money, but it was one of the few places where she still felt welcome. Though she’d never had tons of friends at the club, the few people who had known her—like Molly—seemed glad to see her back at the gym, looking healthy and determined to stay that way.

“Hello?” she called one more time before easing through the doorway.

So this was the men’s locker room. It looked exactly like the women’s except it was done in muted browns and yellows instead of peaches and pinks. She preferred the more masculine colors herself, but she had longstanding issues with pink. Some redheads could pull it off, but she didn’t consider herself one of them.

The sound of the shower led her down the hallway at the rear of the room, where she prayed she would find Serge. Surprising him at the urinal wouldn’t be remotely sexy. The shower was better, especially if she wanted to pull off the “kiss and make up” thing. Her hands shook as she opened the glass door that led into the shower and hot tub area, more nervous than she could remember being in years.

She paused just inside, taking a deep breath of hot, humid air, fighting the urge to flee. There was no reason to be nervous. What man wouldn’t want a naked woman to surprise him in the shower? Right?

“Right,” Kat whispered, ignoring her racing heart as she peeled off her white t-shirt and black spandex pants.

The sports bra, underwear and socks went next. And then…

Then she was naked and freezing in the middle of the men’s locker room, getting ready to surprise a man she wasn’t even one hundred percent sure was Serge.

Shit!
She should have thought of that before stripping down. What if Serge hadn’t gone to the locker room? What if he’d headed down to his limo without bothering to shower in his haste to get as far away as possible from her? What if—

Quit freaking out, and take a peek inside! It’s not too late to grab your clothes and run
.

Right. Kat tiptoed to the last shower stall, cursing the wavy glass that made it hard to see who was behind it. She could make out a hint of tanned skin and dark hair and that was about it. Half the men in the gym met that description.

She was just going to have to take a chance and hope that she wouldn’t flash a stranger. “If you’re not Serge, then I’m not here for you,” she said as she opened the door to the shower.

Not the sexiest greeting, but it got the point across.

Thank God, it wasn’t a point that needed to be made.

“Even if I weren’t myself, I would try my best to convince you I were.” Serge smiled and shot her a heated look, appearing unsurprised to see her nude in the men’s locker room.

The man was impossible. Did nothing shock him?

He nodded for her to join him. “You’re beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Kat stepped into the stall and closed the door behind her, an electric thrill of anticipation running through her body.

He was also beautiful and unbelievably sexy. All his hard, sculpted muscles were on display, slick from the shower and practically begging for someone to run their tongue over them and lick away the beads of water. His shoulders looked even wider than they had in his suit and the raw power in his arms was obvious as he ran hands through his hair, flipping it out of his eyes. More curly black hair dusted his chest and tapered to a trail that led her eyes down over his flat stomach and then inevitably lower.

God help her, he had the most perfect cock she’d ever seen. It was the same shade of dark tan as the rest of him with a thick head and a luscious ridge of flesh where head became shaft. It was perfect.
He
was perfect.

So perfect, she almost couldn’t believe that he was hot for her and her nonexistent breasts and apparently undesirable scrawniness.

“I hope this is okay,” Kat mumbled, her confidence flagging. She tried to smile, but failed and was seriously considering making a run for it when Serge captured her around the waist with one strong arm and pushed her back against the cold tile.

Kat gasped as his body pressed tightly against her, the contrast of his heat at her front and the cold tile at her back making her nipples diamond-hard. His cock pressed against her belly, thick and demanding. She tried to wedge her hand between them and get her fingers wrapped around his shaft, but he captured her wrists, pinning them to the tile above her.

“You’re a study in contradictions, beautiful Katarina.” The desire in his eyes and clear in every taut line of his body, made her tremble.

“You don’t really think I’m beautiful.” She fought the urge to moan as he pushed his hips closer, forcing her into even more intimate contact with his arousal.

She squirmed in his arms, wanting to loop a leg around his waist. She ached to rock her slick sex against him and ease the tension coiling low in her body, but found herself unable to move.

“Don’t tell me what I think.” He held her still, immobilized, and her heart raced at the strange thrill of being under this man’s power.

“You were trying to fatten me up.”

“I was worried about your health.” His lips dropped to her throat, the warm water hitting his back spraying lightly into her face as he kissed and licked and her pulse sped faster. “Now stop fighting me.”

“I’m not fighting you.” She moaned as he bit down on the sensitive skin at her throat before letting his lips play softly at her ear.

“Then stop fighting yourself.” He transferred control of her wrists to one hand and cupped her face with the other, tilting her mouth up to meet his lips.

His pressure was commanding, but tender and Kat couldn’t keep from melting into the kiss. Soon she was oblivious to everything but the feel of his lips, teeth and tongue swiftly driving her out of her mind.

No one had ever kissed her like this. No other man had ever made her feel as if the taste of her were vital to his very existence. She was so consumed by him, she hardly noticed when he released her wrists and she suddenly found her bottom possessed by a pair of strong, warm hands.

His palms slid up her sides to tease her breasts before venturing back down to cup her ass, but she could feel his attention was still on the kiss they shared. Every movement of his lips, every nip of his teeth was an erotic communication. The kiss crashed through her defenses, making her ache to be closer to him, to merge with him completely. She craved the erotic freedom, the emotional liberation of surrendering herself to another person.

And it scared her half to death.

She wrenched her mouth away from his lips and the horrible intimacy that was so tempting and terrifying all at the same time. “Fuck me already, will you?”