Bought For Her Innocence. Tara Pammi

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t realize you visited London anymore.”

      “And you would know because you have kept in touch?” An impression of contained energy and a barely civil smile hit her. “Stavros prefers to look after the Athens side of the business.”

      Entering the brilliantly lit lobby from the dark, hushed luxury of the outside was like stepping into a different world. Jasmine blinked and stared around, losing her bearings for a few minutes.

      Black-and-white art deco flooring complemented soft beige walls while a stunning, magnificent chandelier took center stage in the vast space. Bold lines and sweeping curves made the hotel look timelessly elegant.

      And Dmitri stood in the center of it all.

      Black jeans and black leather jacket made him look effortlessly breathtaking, the long, lean lines of his body drawing looks from more than one woman even in the predawn hours.

      He might have started where she did, but there was an aura of casual power and panache that made Dmitri not just blend, but stand out amidst the extravagant grandeur of the hotel.

      At five-ten, she matched his six-three stride easily. She only wished she could say the same of her clothes and more important, her insides. The vast foyer felt as if it would take forever to cross and all she wanted to do was to fade away from the brilliant lights.

      It was not that she thought herself plain. On the contrary, she had heard all her life, and felt nauseous, that she was exotic, lush, possessed of perfect voluptuousness for her vocation. She was stared at six nights of the week and earned her living making love to a pole, but it was how she felt next to the casual elegance of the man next to her that bothered her.

      The shame that always clung to her, as if it was etched into her very skin, was amplified when she stood next to him. Just as it stung her that he had seen her at such a weak moment.

      As if suddenly he was a measure of her looks, her world, her very life.

      She flinched when he pulled her away from the reception area toward the bank of elevators. He held her loosely and yet a thread of his emotions, not so contained, brimmed within him.

      Beneath that polite smile, she had a feeling he was ragingly furious. And she was afraid of finding out why.

      “The hotel is fit for a king,” she said, trying to keep the utter awe she felt out of her words.

      “I have a feeling that you’re the opposite of impressed.”

      The doors of the lift closed with a soft ping, trapping them inside. Her heart beat like the thundering hooves of a horse when he hit the stop button.

      “You have to look at me now, Jasmine” came his soft command.

      “You’re making a big deal out of...”

      “Are you afraid of me, thee mou?”

      Shaking her head, she looked up.

      The four walls of the lift were glittering mirrors that showed her a stunningly gorgeous face.

      Her femininity, beaten down and stuffed into a bag, roared a primal scream of joy at the sight of the magnificent man in front of her. Every inch of her—from her skin to her breasts, from her cells to her core—stood to attention.

      His legs crossed at the ankles, his hands gripping the wall behind him, he filled the space with his masculinity. Something else burst into life in that enclosed space, swelling and arching, until Jasmine felt as though there was a hum inside her every nerve.

      Even at sixteen, he had had arresting features, but now...the power he exuded and his command of the world filled the planes and angles of his face, making him a lethal combination of stunning looks and effortless masculinity.

      Long, curly lashes kissed cheekbones that were honed so sharp that it was like looking at the work of a master sculptor. Deep-set gray eyes studied her just as hungrily as she studied him. As if he knew her volatile reaction to his nearness.

      Of course he knew, Jasmine scolded herself. There couldn’t be a man alive who looked like Dmitri and didn’t know it, didn’t wield it to his advantage. And the fact that she, too, with all the rules she had set in place to be able to face herself in the mirror, was staring at him with googly eyes, measuring herself against him... That woke up Jasmine like nothing else could.

      Now she understood the sense of danger that had skittered through her very blood when he had held her from behind so intimately.

      The danger to her didn’t come from him. The danger to her came from her reaction to him.

       CHAPTER THREE

      DECIDING THAT HE would protect her at any cost was one thing, Dmitri thought as Jasmine devoured him with those wide eyes.

      The actual logistics of what he would do with this wild creature were quite another. With lush breasts and narrow hips that swayed with every step she took, from the way she tucked that tumbling jet-black hair behind her ear to the pouty mouth that came from no injection, Jasmine was not simply beautiful, but stunningly sexy.

      Was that the reason for that ridiculous auction? Had some man coveted her because of those Arab genes that she had inherited from an absentee father, and Noah had turned it to his advantage? What horrific scheme had she caught herself in?

      Round jet-black eyes, dark arched eyebrows that suited perfectly those big eyes, a sharp, bladelike nose and a pointed chin.

      There was not an ounce of extra flesh on her face, giving her a lean, sharp look. As if every bone in that face had been sculpted by years of hunger and sleepless nights. Her hair, jet-black and thickly curling, was pulled back tightly, exaggerating the feral sharpness of her features. One curl dangled alongside a sharply defined jawline.

      There was an alert look in her eyes even now, just as there had been in that warehouse. The straight, tense line of her shoulders, her sharp breaths... He realized how alien this was to her.

       How alien he was to her...

      When he had seen her five years ago, she had barely turned eighteen, and had looked nothing like this...except for that wary distrust.

      It had been there then, too. But where she had barely glanced at him then, her bold gaze drank him in today.

      He had never experienced such a thorough, artless appraisal. Women came on to him all the time and he enjoyed it, but Jasmine’s searing gaze was more than basic female curiosity.

      It was as though she was looking for something, or someone. And instead of that shallow echo he was so used to, he felt something inside him vibrate in response to her look.

      As if a part of him that had lain dormant and unfeeling for so long suddenly uncoiled itself at the sight of her. Dangerously tempting and thoroughly unwise... He wondered how to distance himself from it.

      Because as hungry as he’d been to feel something like that, he had nothing to give her.

      “No one would know you were from the streets,” she said with a brittleness that he wouldn’t have associated with her.

      “And СКАЧАТЬ