Touch Me Not (Manwhore, #1)(15)

“Oh, I think you might be surprised there.” Nikoli gaze swept to Adam and Sue’s table. “The way he’s glaring at me right now smacks of jealousy.”

Lily forced herself to refrain from looking in Adam’s direction.

“Again, you’re wrong,” she told him. “He’s only looking out for me. I am? after all, going to dinner with Boston U’s very own manwhore.”

Beer spewed, and Lily laughed out loud. Nikoli looked at her, aghast.

“What did you just call me?” he demanded, his eyes smoldering.

“A manwhore,” she replied sweetly.

“I am not a manwhore!” he denied hotly, which only made Lily laugh harder. He looked so shocked.

“Yes, yes, you are,” she wheezed. “You sleep with a different woman every night, sometimes several a day. You define the word whore. It’s your nickname with most of the girls.”

“I am a connoisseur of women,” he growled. “Yes, I enjoy sex, but that doesn’t make me a whore!”

Lily giggled, thinking about her earlier conversation with Janet about him hooking on the corner. She wondered what he’d say to that, but he looked so upset she decided to hold that little tidbit for later.

“I’m not sure I want to sleep with you anymore,” he told her petulantly.

She only laughed harder. Gods, she hadn’t laughed like this in ages. Her sides ached from it. She caught Adam staring at her from the corner of her eye. He looked bewildered and alarmed. It was almost as comical as the outraged look on Nikoli’s face.

“This is a situation I’ve never been in before.” Nikoli leaned back. “The girl I want to sleep with is in love with her best friend, who’s getting married.”

“It’s not your average quandary,” Lily agreed, trying to stop laughing.

Nikoli stared at her, his look calculating, and it made her nervous, drying up her laughter. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m thinking, here, Lily Bells,” he said softly, his eyes measuring.

Lily’s sense of self-preservation went on high alert, DEFCON two, to be exact. Her eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing to think about here, Nikoli. Adam’s getting married, I’m moving to New York when we graduate, and you’re not sleeping with me tonight.”

“No, I’m not sleeping with you tonight,” he agreed, shocking her. “I have other plans for you, Lily. Things we can’t really discuss here, though.”

“We can discuss anything you want right here out in the open.” No way was she going anywhere private with him. That might not bode so well for her.

“Let me ask you a question.” Nikoli leaned forward, shifting his legs so they were touching hers. He’d essentially trapped her, because she couldn’t scoot anywhere else. So she pulled her legs up underneath her. Nikoli raised his eyebrows. “Question answered.”

“What was the question?” She pushed her food around on her plate nervously. She had an idea of where he was going with this.

“You don’t like to be touched.” It came out more of a statement than a question. He’d answered it himself so she saw no point in denying it.

“No, I don’t, but that’s really none of your concern.”

“Oh, but it is, Lily Bells, especially if I’m going to help you.”

“Help me?” What was he talking about now? “If you think your sexual prowess is going to instantly cure me, you’re dead wrong.”

He smiled, but it was a smile full of danger. Lily shrank a little against the booth she sat in. That smile made all sorts of things inside of her clench in a not unpleasant way. She didn’t understand how a smile could do that to her, but she was beginning to see how so many different girls had succumbed to it.

“Do you want Adam?”

“That’s a moot point. He loves Sue and he’s getting married. Once we graduate, I can escape like I tried to before. He’ll go off with Sue, and I’ll go to New York and move on.”

“Escape?”

“I decided to come to Boston because Adam was going to LSU,” she admitted. “He changed his mind and came here instead.”

“So he followed you to Boston?” Nikoli’s gaze became more calculated by the second.

“Yeah, but not for the reasons you’re thinking,” Lily put in quickly. “He only wanted to make sure I was okay, that I could handle it.”

“Why wouldn’t you be able to handle it?”

That was not something she wanted to get into with him. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Does it have something to do with why you don’t like to be touched?” he asked softly.

Her nostrils flared defiantly. Why was he getting so personal?

“You realize if you want to stand any chance of winning him away from the blonde model, you’re going to have to let him touch you.”

“Adam is aware of my sensitivity to people touching me,” Lily hissed. “Why are we even talking about this?”

“Look over at Boy Wonder, see how he’s holding her hand? Would you let him do that? Could you let him touch you like that?”

Lily peeked over at Adam’s table. Sure enough, he was holding Sue’s hand, his thumb idly brushing the back of her palm. Lily wanted to be able to let him do that, but the thought alone sent her into panic mode.