Touch Me Not (Manwhore, #1)(2)

“Hell if I know.” She laughed at his chagrined expression. Somehow, over the last three years, she’d become the unofficial football team tutor. She blamed Adam for that. It had started with him asking her to help out a friend or two, and before she realized it, she was tutoring most of them in one subject or another. Now she found it hard to say no. They depended on her. As a result, she was friends with the entire team, their frat houses, and several of their girlfriends and their sorority houses. She’d gained tons of “friends,” but really, she could count her friends on one hand. Sad, but true. She had major trust issues.

“He can go sign up for a tutor.” His girlfriend, Janet, shook her head at him. Janet was a tiny little thing. She always reminded Lily of Tinker Bell with her gamin features and pixie cut strawberry blonde hair.

“Hey, can I borrow you for a sec?” That was the only thing Lily heard before someone grabbed her hand and she was running to keep up. What the hell?

She ran straight into him when he stopped. They stood about a hundred feet away from the crowd she’d just been in. Yanking her hand free and taking several steps backward, she turned furious blue eyes up at him and nearly stopped breathing. The inky black depths she stared into were alight with amusement.

“That was rude,” she told him in an attempt to regain a bit of her composure.

“I thought you needed rescuing, Lily Bells.”

“That’s not my name,” she seethed. The nerve.

“I know who you are.”

Lily knew exactly who he was too, and what his reputation was, but damn, why was his voice like silk with his sexy Russian accent? She had no intention of ending up on his list of one-nighters, though.

“And I know who you are, Nikoli Kincaid, so you can just march yourself back to wherever you came from. I’m not interested.”

“Aw, now, Lily Bells, don’t get your panties all in a twist. I never once asked you out.”

Lily narrowed her eyes. She could see Adam and Mikey staring at them, a frown on both their faces. “I’m just saving you the trouble.”

He smiled, which caused things south of the border to clench, and Lily gasped slightly. “What if all I wanted was a tutoring session?”

“Your GPA is as high as mine.”

He reached up and traced the outline of her lips with a finger, and she flinched back. She did not like to be touched.

“That’s enough,” she told him a little more forcefully than she’d intended. “I’m going back to my friends now. And even if you did just want a tutoring session, the answer is still no.”

His words stopped her retreat.

“I don’t give up that easy, Lily. I always get what I want.”

“Then get used to disappointment.”

Nikoli watched her stomp back over to her friends and smiled wickedly. He hadn’t had a challenge since the ripe old age of seventeen when he’d set out to seduce one of his uncle’s newly divorced friends. She’d held on to her morals for all of a week. Lily was going to be a challenge he’d relish.

Yes, indeed, Lily Holmes and he were going to be on intimate terms, and soon. This was going to be fun.





Chapter Two




Lily was fuming by the time she returned to her friends. The nerve of the cheeky bastard. She was mad at herself too. Nikoli’s touch had not inspired the same type of fear everyone else’s did. The fear was still there, just lessened a bit by something else she didn’t understand. Something that made her stomach clench deliciously. He wasn’t going to know that, though, not ever. She had no intention of ever being one his girls.

“What was that about?” Adam asked as soon as she returned.

“Nothing,” she said dismissively. “So how was your summer, Mikey?”

Mike laughed at her obvious attempt to change the subject. “You need us to go explain a few things to old Nik?”

“No, there’s nothing to explain,” she said, exasperated. “He needed a tutor, and I told him I didn’t have time to take on anyone else.”

“Tutor, my ass,” Adam grumbled. “Lily, you…”

“I know exactly who he is, Adam,” she interrupted. “I already told him no.”

Adam frowned at her, before turning his eyes back to where Nik still stood under the tree where she’d left him. Sue, who up until now had not said anything one way or the other to Lily, reached out and tugged Adam to her, reminding him she was there. He looked down and gave her his one hundred watt smile. Lily died a little inside at the sight, but she kept her bland expression firmly in place. Wouldn’t do to give Sue any more ammunition against her.

“So, did you guys watch the news last night?” Janet piped up. “There was another woman reported missing.”

Lily had been watching the news, and it disturbed her. Three women had gone missing in the Boston area over the last three months. The bodies were recovered exactly a week after their disappearance. All three had been brutally raped, tortured, and severely beaten before being strangled. The police were finally admitting they had a serial killer on their hands. This latest disappearance had occurred six days ago. If the serial killer stuck to his pattern, the poor woman’s body would show up tomorrow.

“Janet, you worry too much.” Sue rolled her eyes. “We’re perfectly safe on campus.”