She was pretty sure it was the first time he’d called her by her nickname, and there was no reason she should dislike it. But she did.
And she hated that she’d even noticed. “Wait, wait. Are you telling me that despite your snide commentary on the number of countries you’ve lived in and the number of times people have claimed to be special only to prove that they were not... I am, in fact, not like the other girls?”
He leaned forward then, but for emphasis. Or so she assumed, because he didn’t reach across the table to her.
“This is what fascinates me,” he said in that same mild tone that was completely belied by the fire in his eyes. The fire that matched hers, and that was what was going to kill her. She knew it was. “Why would you fly all this way, two years later when anything could have happened in the meantime, only to pretend you did such a thing for fun?”
There was the knotting inside and the way each little snarl pulled painfully tight. There was the clatter of her heartbeat, the din of her pulse. And now Indy found her throat was dry, which would tell him all the rest if he heard it, wouldn’t it?
“What else would it be?” she asked, in a vain attempt to sound lazy and unbothered.
But Stefan only smiled.
That damned smile of his that made her melt where she sat.
“You had better eat before you go,” he told her, sitting back again and resuming that lounge of his, as if a man as lethally built could ever look truly languid. “Regardless of whether or not you hate the meal that had you scowling so ferociously, you expended a lot of energy last night. For all that fun we had.”
She stared at the meal in question as if she’d never seen it before. Then lifted her gaze to his again. “Where am I going?”
“We agreed on one more night.” He shrugged, looking entirely unbothered. “The night is over. I assumed you would be in a hurry to get away. After all, Indiana, the world is stocked full of the kind of fun you claim to love so much, is it not? Why would you waste your time here?”
Indy knew that this was a part of the game he was playing and clearly, she’d walked right into his hands. Because even though she’d been planning to leave when she woke up earlier, had been very nearly eager to get away and settle herself down, she’d gotten sidetracked in all this...light and heat.
It felt like a gut punch.
She wanted, more than anything, to pull out a measure of that effortlessness that usually came so easily to her. An airy laugh. A languid hand. She could stand up, stretch, and grin mysteriously down at him as if she already had six more lovers lined up for the next twenty-four hours. Because both of them knew she could make that happen. She could pile her hair on top of her head, because it was rare that she did that in front of a man without him itching to get his fingers in it.
Indy had never considered these things games of her own, but she could see now—with uncomfortable clarity—that they were. That she’d been playing all kinds of games for a long time. The difference today was not only that Stefan could see through her.
The difference was that she could, too.
And it didn’t matter anyway, because she couldn’t seem to move.
“One night,” she managed to say, fighting to sound anything but thrown. “Yes. That’s what we agreed.”
“Are you not satisfied?”
That darkly mocking note in his voice should have been all she needed to hear. It should have sent her running for the door—or in her case, sauntering with purpose while doing her best to look as unbothered by this as possible.
But sure, a voice inside chimed in, as mocking as Stefan. You’re not a game-player at all.
“It’s not a question of satisfaction,” she replied. And even managed a smile. “This is what I’m trying to tell you. I’m always satisfied.”
He didn’t actually call her a liar then. He didn’t have to.
“Terrified,” he said softly, instead.
“Maybe,” she heard herself say, filled with a wild, dizzy sensation that was certainly not terror, “I’d like to renegotiate the one night we agreed on.”
“Because you want to see?” His voice was so rich. A dark ember, already lodged deep inside her, yearning to catch fire. “What can be?”
“Not at all.” Because she didn’t. Did she? She couldn’t. “To prove to you what it is.”
He took a long time to smile at her then, though his poet’s gaze gleamed bright. Like everything else where he was concerned, it pierced her. She was sure he could see straight through her as if she were glass.
Indy had never thought that she was trying to fool anyone, but she knew without question that she wasn’t fooling him.
“Very well,” Stefan said. He inclined his head slightly. “Convince me then. Show me how much fun you’re having, Indiana. You have one night.”
CHAPTER FIVE
STEFAN EXPECTED HER to crawl directly onto his lap to work her magic the way she knew best, but she didn’t.
Instead, Indy seemed to relax, though he didn’t believe it for second. Still, she sat differently, still curled up in the chair opposite him. His T-shirt seemed to grab at her, or almost let go to show more skin... And he suspected there wasn’t a lot his Indy didn’t know about the way her body moved, how it looked from all angles, and what those things meant.
She shook her hair out of its braid so that it fell all around her in a silken, heavy mass of dark waves. The smile she aimed at him rivaled the summer sun above them. And then she dug into her breakfast at last, looking for all the world as if she was totally unaware of
