Chapter 4

"I should leave you to" she said, now trying to sidestep him.

"My name is Mikhail Barinov," he announced, stopping her. There was a touch of pride in his tone, but it lacked the arrogance that she expected to go with it. It was almost as though he expected her to know of him, but she obviously didn't. Which begged the question, who the hell was he?

"I'm Piper, Piper Linwood."

Mikhail raised her hand to his lips and gave her a chivalrous kiss. His lips were warm and soft on the backs of her fingers. She shivered. It was impossible not to imagine his lips touching other parts of her. The wicked thought filled her with a wild rush of excitement and a hint of panic. She never thought about strange men like this. Was it because Mikhail was insanely gorgeous? Or was it because at the age of thirty she was still a virgin and her hormones were finally kicking into high gear?

"Will you be attending the reception at the Thorne Auction House tonight?" he asked her.

Surprise fluttered through her. "Why yes. How did you know about that?" She didn't think the reception was open to the public.

There was a flicker of hesitation before he replied. "I shall be there as well." His lips curved into a small crooked smile that sent her heart racing. "I shall look forward to seeing you again, Ms. Linwood. And the jewels."

Before she could reply, the mysterious and sexy Mikhail Barinov slipped into the crowd and disappeared. He hadn't even told her how he'd known about the private reception.

Her friend Jodie Harkness joined Piper at the display case. "Who was that?"

The emerald clock and the scattered pearls lay on the velvet cloth. They were beautiful and enchanting, but now when she looked at them all she could see were Mikhail's eyes. She remembered what he'd said: The pearlsthey used to be so beautiful. They gleamed like moonlight trapped in frozen drops of dew.

It was as though he'd seen the original jewels before they'd been lost beneath an old inn for five hundred years. But that was impossible. She must have misunderstood him. He was clearly Russian, and English was not his first language. Yes, that was ithe'd gotten his tenses mixed up and hadn't meant to make it sound like he'd seen them before, but rather that he was sad to see them not looking brand-new.

"Hey, Earth to Piper," Jodie teased.

Piper finally drew her scattered thoughts together and looked at her friend. "What?"

"Who was Mr. Tall, Dark, and Devastatingly Handsome? Tell me you're finally exploring that kinky side you mentioned you had. He looked like he was into it."

Jodie tugged the ends of her gray suit jacket down and leaned against the wall next to the display case. Piper sighed with more than a little envy. Jodie was tall and slender, with dark hair and pretty brown eyes. She looked like she'd come out of a Vogue fashion ad.

Piper, on the other hand, was only five foot four and too curvy to look good in most off-the-rack outfits. Her hair was that boring color somewhere between brown and blonde, and her eyes were a light, almost washed-out blue. The only thing she really liked about herself was her face. It wasn't model caliber, but pretty enough if she put some makeup on. Not that she did that very often. When she was examining gems through her tools and viewing scopes, heavy makeup on her eyes posed a problem.

"I don't know him. At least, not before two minutes ago. He said his name is Mikhail Barinov. I believe he's Russian."

Jodie's eyes sparkled. "Russian? Oh, they are the best in bed." Piper laughed, but her friend continued, her tone earnest. "I'm serious! They are dark and brooding and more than a little kinky. This could be good for you!"

Piper's heart jumped in her chest. "Kinky?" Although she was a virgin, she'd had plenty of fantasies, and she knew what turned her on. She'd begged her past boyfriends to experiment, but none of them had been into it, so she'd never been that interested in handing over her V-card. She wanted her first time to feel explosive, to blow her away, to fulfill her fantasies.

"Yeah." Jodie leaned in to whisper as a crowd of tourists strolled by. "Like tying you down, bit of spanking, bit of bondage. That sort of good stuff. I've dated a few Russians, and they're all like that. Dominating and sexy."

Piper's eyes widened as she imagined Mikhail in bed, pinning a woman down while he

"Easy, girl." Jodie giggled. "If your face gets any redder, you'll set off the fire alarms."

That was the problem with having some seriously dark fantasies and a modest personalitythey tended to collide in uncomfortable ways. She'd told Jodie only a few weeks ago that she'd like to have a man who would be a little rough, someone who would dominate her in bed, maybe spank or tie her down. Her friend hadn't laughed, but she'd never forgotten, either. The mere mention of it and her entire body heated up, and it always turned her face an embarrassing shade of fire-truck red.

Jodie changed the subject. "So what did you and Mikhail talk about?"

She could tell her friend was trying to suss out any details of a possible romantic encounter. Ever since she and Jodie had flown to London a week ago, Jodie had been hell-bent on finally getting Piper laid. But she didn't hold it against her.

I was the idiot who had too many cocktails at the airport bar, then told her I was a virgin and that I got turned on by a bit of domination. Smooth.

It was sweet, though, Jodie's desire to help her get rid of her pesky V-card.

"Talk about? Oh, well, we talked about the jewels at the reception tonight."

"Is he coming?" Jodie asked.

"It sounded like he is. I wonder how he got an invite. Only potential buyers and employees are attending." Piper bit her bottom lip, thinking it over. Who does he know who could get him into the auction? She'd met many of the potential buyers and seen lists with names on them from the auction house, but she hadn't seen any Barinovs on the list. Still, he might be a late addition, fresh off a private jet from Moscow or something.

"Maybe he's connected to the auction house, but we just didn't meet him before today?" Jodie suggested.

"There was something about him" Piper murmured, once more thinking of Mikhail's green eyes and how, for a second, she'd sworn they'd started to turn gold. How he'd acted like he knew the jewels personally, which was, of course, ridiculous.

"He was crazy hot. You need to jump his bones ASAP before he flies back home," Jodie added and then brightened. "That's it. We're going shopping. We'll get you something totally amazing to wear tonight. I could see he was into you from across the room." Jodie seized her arm and hauled her out of the exhibit room. "We are so not missing this opportunity."

She wasn't really looking forward to shopping, but she did have a sudden urge to look her best for the sexy, mysterious Mikhail Barinov. She would've felt pathetic acting like this for any other man, but there was something about the man and the way he'd looked at her, the same way he'd looked at the jewels: with an intense hunger.

Was it foolish to hope he might be genuinely interested in her? Probably. But she wanted to take a risk. If there was a man worth risking herself for, it was definitely the man with bewitching green eyes and a Russian accent.