Page 70 of The Arrangement

“Yeah, great.”

“Okay.” He hummed a dark sound, letting her hips sway with the heavy bass in the music. “Love you.”

Viviana reached up and patted his cheek. “I know. Ty nuzhen mnye. Always, Anton.”

He froze behind her, his arms tightening their strong grip. His fingers dug deliciously into her side, drawing her backside harder into his groin as the bass picked up a little more. Lights flickered around them and people kept talking, but Viviana knew they were being watched. The choked noise he made told her she got the pronunciation perfect.

I need you.

And she did, in more ways than he knew.

“Oh, baby. Who taught you that?” he asked.

Another quiet laugh fell into the air. It was funny that he asked, considering all the conversations she’d had in the last little while. It could have been just about anyone, but Viviana only trusted very few to actually give her the right translation to use.

“Why, you going to go all boss on them for it?”

“No. Thank them, maybe. That was just … fuck.”

“Rory. I couldn’t find Ivan.”

“His wife arrived a little bit ago. She wasn’t supposed to come because she was at her mother’s and she’s quite pregnant. Ivan was just getting her to go back home … Rory as in your bull Rory, really?”

“Yep. Blushed like a schoolboy when I asked. He was hitting on Jen again. Girl should give him a shot. She could totally pull off the cougar thing.”

“She could, but I have a rule about employees dating my guys.”

“You should bend it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

She tried to ignore the dozen curious gazes that watched their near silent interaction. They couldn’t hear his low, sexy words in her ear, but they could clearly see his lips skimming her neck as he spoke, the way his body pressed into her back to fit them tight together, and the way her breath had picked up just by his close contact. It seemed anytime she moved during the evening, someone was always watching.

She’d already had a dozen and one conversations with people she didn’t know from Eve. Sweet drinks were constantly being brought over from one of the three girls working the floor with a wink stating this was from another so and so. Viviana was overwhelmed. It wasn’t that they weren’t nice because everyone was very respectful, but it was a lot to take in all at once.

“Where’d you disappear off to, anyway?” Anton asked with a smooth, black molasses tone. Those lips of his ghosted behind the shell of her ear, teeth nipping at a sensitive spot. “One second you were at my side, and the next, gone.”

“Someone wanted to dance.”

Ouch.

His fingers squeezed tighter. Viviana’s breath caught as a dark sound rumbled in her ear.

“Who?”

“Anton.” Turning in his grasp, she met his cocked brow. “Stop it.”

“I told you. Jealous motherfucker …” he warned, pointing at his chest with one finger, “who is no way afraid to cut a fool for putting hands on what’s mine.”

With two fingers, she reached up and tapped his lips gently to shut them up. The last thing they needed was him going all possessive right there because it served to do nothing for her self-control, of which she had little to none as it was when it came to him.

“All the guys have been super respectful, or they’re just really terrified you’d bite their heads off if they even suggested I dance with them. So, while you were talking with Ivan …”

Anton cringed. “Sorry, it was kind of important.”

“Erik’s wife asked me to dance.”

“Oh, well …”