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I open my mouth but then close it again. Who am I to argue with this beautiful, terrifying woman?
Careful not to tread on the hem of the designer dress, I climb the stairs and go into my room, shrugging out of my bathrobe and PJs and slipping into the silky blue dress. It’s more low-cut than I’m used to and hangs oddly around the hips.
One look at me, and Natasha clicks her tongue. I don’t even make it down the stairs before she turns away to select a different gown.
The pile of silk and tulle on my bed grows rapidly as Natasha hands me dress after dress. Each one is accompanied by a pair of the most gorgeous shoes that I’ve ever worn in my life.
At one point, as I slink out of a skintight black number, I start to wonder if I’ve been chosen for some crazy reality TV show where this woman actually has an endless supply of dresses outside in a van.
Finally, though, I slip a deep burgundy number over my head and shiver as the silk cascades down over my breasts. The dress hugs every single bump and curve and plunges dangerously low in the back. The keyhole detail below the bust is more revealing than what I’d usually wear, but when I look at myself in the full-length mirror, something within me settles.
This is it.
I can’t fight the flutter of nerves in my belly as I step into a pair of three-inch heels. Natasha is already waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, and her eyes flash with something like pride when I start my descent.
For the first time, I understand what Natasha meant when she said a dress must “move well” on stairs. The silky fabric slides effortlessly over my thighs, brushing my shins with every step before rippling back into shape.
When I finally stop on the bottom step, Natasha is wearing a look of immense satisfaction. “Zat is zee one.”
DIMITRI
“I fucking hate these things,” I mutter, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as Beckett ties my bow tie. “It feels like I’m wearing a collar.”
“Better than a leash,” Beckett muses, two lines appearing between his brows as he finishes the knot.
You’d think I’d know how to tie a bow tie after how many stupid functions I’ve attended, but I lack the patience for something so intricate, and ex-snipers are nothing if not patient.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this nervous,” my head of security mutters, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement.
“What makes you think I’m nervous?” I snap, jerking away from him with a scowl and straightening the tie myself.
“I can smell it. And you only fidget when you’re nervous.”
“I’m not fidgeting,” I mutter, but Beckett knows me too well. We were pack brothers long before I launched Nesteg, and he’s maybe my only friend.
His dry chuckle chases me all the way out of my suite and has me fleeing to the living room for a drink. Jules hasn’t said she changed her mind, yet part of me is certain she’s going to back out.
It’s fucking weird that I asked my housekeeper to go as my date — and even weirder that she said yes. Jules is smart and beautiful and completely fucking irresistible. I can’t imagine what she’d see in a disgraced broken man like me.
But then I hear the sound of footsteps in the upstairs hallway, and my wolf instantly perks up. The footsteps are coming from Jules’s suite, and they slow as she reaches the stairs.
I set down my drink and shrug into my jacket, trying to calm my frayed nerves as I step into the foyer.
I busy myself with straightening my lapels so she doesn’t think I’m waiting on her. It shouldn’t matter that Jules agreed to go to this thing — she’s just sweet like that — and yet I can’t deny that it does. My heart is a relentless drumbeat against my ribs, and it feels as though I have an electric current surging through my veins.
When I lift my eyes to the top of the stairs, my heart stops beating altogether.
If I thought that Jules was beautiful before, there are no words to describe how she looks in that dress. Her skin practically glows against the lush burgundy silk, and my eyes draw a straight line from her lips to her breasts to the little circle of exposed skin where the material gathers.
Cabernet silk ripples like water as Jules descends the stairs. With those dark waves cascading over her bare shoulders, she looks like a goddess come to life.
Mine.
The word is a growl I can’t ignore, and I have to plant my feet and curl my hands into fists to resist the very real urge to toss her over my shoulder and carry her back upstairs.
I suck in a breath as Jules comes closer, trying not to stare at the way that dress hugs each and every curve. She is painfully beautiful to look at — much too alluring to share with the world. I’m worried that if I let her out of the house where other males can see her, I might do something I regret.
Jules lifts her eyebrows when she reaches the bottom step, hunching her shoulders up around her ears before dropping them in a questioning shrug.
