The Man She Shouldn't Crave

by Lucy Ellis

  Not that kind of girl...

  When dating-agency owner Rose Harkness approaches a world-renowned ice hockey team with a daring PR proposal, it puts her manhandling skills to the ultimate test...especially when she realizes that the best of the bunch, enigmatic owner Plato Kuragin, isn’t a man she can handle. At all.

  Wealth and sinful good looks have given Plato rock-star privileges when it comes to women, but Rose refuses to become another groupie—no matter how her body burns for his expert touch. But after an outrageously sexy taste of the forbidden, Rose is hooked—and her heart is in serious trouble....

  Then he saw her.

  She gazed unblinkingly back at him, and if the eyes were the window to the soul, these eyes had the curtains open, the bed unmade and a woman lying on it naked, all hot and flushed and bothered. And waiting.

  For him.

  Oh, yeah, this was enough to take his mind off the team.

  Big blue eyes, round cheeks dusted with rosy color and a ruby curve of a mouth that made her look on the verge of a smile. Plato found his own mouth reluctantly returning that smile. She had a subtle fullness to her face that made him unaccountably think of Renaissance Madonnas.

  She was a stunningly beautiful girl.

  For a moment he allowed himself the fantasy of having her brought up to his suite. He’d have her run that accent over him on her knees, bury his hands in that thick dark hair. He’d…

  ...lost his goddamned mind.

  All about the author…

  Lucy Ellis

  LUCY ELLIS has four loves in life: books, expensive lingerie, vintage films and big gorgeous men who have to duck going through doorways. Weaving aspects of them into her fiction is the best part of being a romance writer. Lucy lives in a small cottage in the foothills outside Melbourne.

  Other titles by Lucy Ellis available in eBook:

  Harlequin Presents®

  3057—INNOCENT IN THE IVORY TOWER

  Lucy Ellis

  The Man She Shouldn’t Crave

  For Charlotte

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHE’D come all the way to Toronto to find herself a man. Just not this man.

  Shoot! She hoped it wasn’t this man.

  Yet, unable to help herself, Rose drank him in—along with every other woman in the room.

  Broad, high cheekbones, long straight nose, wide sullen mouth and deepset eyes the colour of a night sky. His bored expression only highlighted the male beauty of his face. Undeniably the gene pool had blessed him. He stood far over six feet, his lean, muscular body clad in expensive dark threads that remained faithful to the strength of him and drew Rose’s attention to how essentially different the male body was from the female.

  As if she’d needed reminding, but this man just seemed to be in your face about it.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t have competition. A huddle of gorgeous young men, shifting in their suits, jostled either side of him. They were talking amongst themselves, one of them smirking at the cameras, another looking a little shy.

  Rose could feel her face becoming flushed, but this wasn’t the moment to suffer an attack of nerves. She’d known what she was getting into when she’d first spotted the Wolves’ visit to Toronto in the daily newspaper. It was so high-profile it had leapt out of the sports section altogether and landed on ‘look at me’ page three along with a grainy photo of a couple of the team’s stars.

  Rose cared about sport about as much as she was interested in stock prices, but what the featured article had very clearly told her was other women did care. They cared a great deal. Not about the sport—that was all statistics and injuries, sweat and testosterone. No, women were interested in what all red-blooded females the world over paid attention to: a good-looking man with a honed body who knew how to use it.

  The Wolves had that in spades, as well as the addition of some very high-profile players. And then there was that Russian thing they had going on. Melancholy eyes and high broad cheekbones, and rich dark accents that rolled r’s like Formula One™-tuned tyres—hard and fast into the corners.

  Rose liked to think she knew exactly what women wanted. She liked to think she was an expert. She—and the bank that held her loan—was depending on her expertise.

  She wanted to prove to the world—or perhaps only to metropolitan Toronto—that she knew what women wanted in a man and how to get it.

  Except she hadn’t reckoned on this man. He was talking quietly to the guy at his side, but his gaze kept sweeping the room, bored, moody.

  Simmering, Rose decided, fanning herself with the programme the girl at the door had shoved into her unresisting hand.

  It seemed the city’s press had turned up to hear what these young, built Russian athletes, uncomfortable in their suits, had to say. The Russian national ice hockey team was dominant in the sport, but this Siberian team had all the glamour of its owner, Plato Kuragin, whose personal wealth and notorious reputation existed apart from the team. With him was a former national team coach but not, Rose noted, the couple of players—twin brothers—the NHL here in Canada were keen to poach. More star Russian athletes had come out of the Wolves team than any other in the country.

  Not that Rose cared—and she knew that neither did any of the other women in the room if they were honest. What mattered was that the guys were all hot. This press jaunt wasn’t about sport. It was about sex. Sex sold everything nowadays.

  Women wanted them. Men wanted to be like them. She wanted a couple of ice hockey players to do a guest spot for her dating agency. It was publicity money couldn’t buy, and as she didn’t have very much money she intended to use charm to get what she wanted. A Southern woman’s greatest asset.

  It was why she hadn’t approached the Wolves management team with her request. She had decided to put her man-handling skills to the ultimate test.

  Except the best of the bunch, Mr Tall, Bored and Built, was the one footing the bill, and Rose suddenly knew she was in a lot of trouble—because feminine instinct told her Plato Kuragin wasn’t a man she could handle. At all.

  Rose had never seen a man less in need of a dating agency. He was built like an athlete, but everything about him asserted authority and power. She didn’t have to be told who he was. Oh, yes, this was the guy who would cause her some trouble.

  Well, her daddy hadn’t raised a quitter, and that was why she was standing here in the middle of a media scrum in Toronto’s Dorrington Hotel with that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  People were firing questions at him in Russian and English, and although she didn’t understand much of it she heard every word said in the deep, deliberate voice from up front. Wanting to get another look at him, Rose shuffled sideways in an effort to detach herself from the scrum.

  ‘Pardon. Sorry. Just a sec—sorry.’

  This wasn’t strictly necessary—in fact understated to the point of invisible was supposed to be her modus operandi—but she now had an uninterrupted view. A daunting view.

  Thank God he wasn’t in her plan. She could not possibly approach this man.

  And then she realised he’d stopped speaking. He was looking at her. His eyes, so deep and intens
e in their regard, were riveted on hers, and what she saw in them had a direct effect on her breathing. As in it completely stopped.

  He angled his big muscular body towards her and what broke the spell, Rose realised, was the fact that she’d stepped towards him. Just fractionally, but clearly enough for him to notice.

  Also enough to step on the back of the shoe of the woman in front of her, who said something rude. And then the facilitator standing on the podium made a gesture towards her and said, ‘Angliski? English?’

  A microphone was shoved in front of her face. Rose looked down at it and back up into those spectacular, mesmerising eyes that were… Why was he looking at her like that?

  Ask a question, Rose. He wants you to ask him a question.

  Her throat, already dry and unaccountably scratchy, was constricted. She ran her tongue along her bottom lip. From somewhere her voice came, all high and breathy and really, really Texan.

  ‘Are y’all single?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  PLATO was not a fan of the media, but he knew how to play their game. You turned up; you used the publicity; you told them nothing.

  Not that it would stop the tabloid reports, but it might deflect somewhat from the constant stream of drivel emanating from his last five-minute girlfriend about blondes and orgies on super-yachts. The bath of vintage champagne a burlesque dancer was supposed to have performed in at his recent twenty-eighth birthday celebration was the most current story doing the rounds. Yet, despite that last report actually being true, there was something belittling about seeing it all strung out like so many coloured lights—as if in the end this was his net worth. Lurid entertainment for the masses.

  His media profile, however, helped out the team, and he had turned up today to give the coach and the boys the benefit of his press exposure.

  It was a simple meet-and-greet before the match, but his mind was elsewhere. He’d spent this morning at a local gaol as his lawyers went through the paperwork to get two of his best players out of the cells. They were both currently holed up in a hotel room with Security. He didn’t trust them on their own. But it was only a matter of time before the story broke.

  For the time being, though, he needed to keep a cap on it.

  Then he saw her.

  She gazed unblinkingly back at him, and if eyes were the windows to the soul these eyes had the curtains wide open, the bed unmade and a woman lying bare naked, all hot and flushed and bothered. And waiting.

  For him.

  Oh, yeah, this was enough to take his mind off the team.

  Big blue eyes, round cheeks dusted with rosy colour, and a ruby curve of a mouth that made her look on the verge of a smile. He catalogued every one of her attributes and found his own mouth predictably returning that smile. Until this moment he’d had nothing to smile about all day. Things had just turned around.

  Plato found himself standing a little straighter, with purpose edging back his shoulders. She was an angel, he thought, amused at his own susceptibility. The subtle fullness of her face made him unaccountably think of Renaissance Madonnas.

  Da, a stunningly beautiful girl. In any era.

  Aware she had completely stolen away his attention from the event at hand, he asked for her question.

  For a moment her blank expression had him about to redirect to someone else, but then the little goddess licked her sweet ruby lips, opened her mouth, and asked the only question that needed no answer.

  The entire world knew he was single.

  At this moment, thanks to the disgruntled ex-girlfriend, he was possibly the most single man on the planet.

  As the room reacted with laughter the girl, goal achieved, gazed levelly back at him.

  Wealth and good-looks had given him rock star privileges when it came to women—privileges he was no longer so quick to indulge in. But she was not to know that. For a moment he allowed himself the fantasy of having her brought up to his suite. He’d have her run that accent over him on her knees, bury his hands in that thick dark hair. He’d…

  …lost his goddamned mind.

  Another question came at him. This time something about the national team. He could answer that in his sleep—which was just as well because Blue Eyes was making her way to the front of the room and she had taken his full attention with her.

  She was bold. He had to give her that. A member of his security team intercepted her, and from the corner of his eye he watched as she remonstrated with the man.

  Then a sharp-eyed rep from the Moscow Times lifted a hand, and the questions zeroed in on the rumour that Sasha Rykov would be signing with a Canadian team. Plato’s attention swerved back to doing an effective job of spin to keep the question at the forefront of everyone’s mind. As long as the press were asking about Rykov they wouldn’t be asking any uncomfortable questions about the absence of two of their best players.

  The coach, Anatole Medvedev, fielded the next question, and after several more it was meet-and-greet time. He made it a practice to keep moving in these situations, keeping any interaction brief. There were corporate sponsors and a lot of journalists. He’d keep his eyes on the boys. A few of them were still wet behind the ears, but the language barrier would solve any concerns about an info leak.

  Blue Eyes had vanished, taking his sexual fantasy with her.

  * * *

  Feeling a little shaky after her encounter with the big, bad boss of the Wolves, Rose looked around the room, knowing it was better to get this done fast—kind of like pulling a tooth. All she needed was two definite takers.

  It crossed her mind that it still wasn’t too late. She could walk out of here, go home, forget about the publicity. She was uncomfortably aware her behaviour could be perceived as a little underhand. But this was about more than her business. It was about the women’s shelter where she volunteered, and where she hoped to be able to offer more than just her professional counsel. If Date with Destiny was the success she hoped it could be, there was a real chance come the end of the year, when the lease on the shelter came up, that they could move to larger, better premises.

  And there was no way she was going to get even one of these players on side through legitimate avenues. She’d tried. No one would speak to her.

  On a less important but personal level, today was also about firming up her confidence in herself. If she could do this—if she could take on an entire Russian ice hockey team with a bit of charm and a line of chat—she could finally put the past into a box and ship it to Utah. She was done with being that unhappy, humiliated girl who had fled Houston two years ago.

  She spotted a couple of team members gripping wineglasses like life jackets, clearly cut off by the language barrier. They would have been easy pickings—they reminded her of herself once—but they weren’t the ones she wanted. She wanted confident, a bit brash, hard to pin down. Those were the guys who would sell her business.

  It was absurd, but it was human nature. You always wanted what you couldn’t have. A guy who had the world at his feet, who could have any woman, who could walk away at any time, was not long-term material. That was certainly not the type of guy she wanted on her books. Too much hard work.

  But they were perfect for publicity purposes.

  She just realised she’d described Plato Kuragin to a tee. Not that she would be approaching him any time soon. She was confident, but she wasn’t delusional.

  Her plan was to send a couple of these hockey boys out on dates, add a film crew to the mix, and pull in a favour with a local TV producer who was the friend of a friend who had assured her a spot if she could pull it off.

  Now she only had to find a couple of photogenic specimens and run her little pick-up spiel by them.

  She had a lot of competition. There were some seriously gorgeous women here. But attracting a man’s attention had less to do with looks and more to do with confidence—and it helped to have a plan.

  She fixed herself in front of the dark-haired athlete she’d seen earlier, smirking fo
r the press corps.

  ‘Oh, my, nobody move!’ She made a helpless gesture, lifted her gaze so that they made definite eye contact, and then dropped to her knees. ‘My contact lens!’ she wailed.

  The guy dropped to his haunches and cast his gaze around on the floor—but mainly had a good long look at the shape of her bottom and thighs outlined by her crouching position. A few minutes of pointless searching and she was coming to her feet and holding out her hand.

  ‘Rose.’

  ‘Sasha.’

  She was aware they were being surreptitiously watched by a couple of women, and Rose knew she’d made a good choice. She thanked him, made sure she kept eye contact because guys liked confidence, bemoaned how fuzzy the world suddenly looked and asked him how he was enjoying Toronto.

  It only took a few minutes before she had his vital statistics: enthusiastic, a bit dull, and possessing less confidence around women than his outer swagger would suggest. But he had the face of an angel. It wasn’t hard to scrawl her cell number on his hand, and she added her name: ‘Rose’. He didn’t look bright enough to remember it if she simply left her trademark drawing of the flower.

  It was her signature strategy. Handing out business cards would be intimidating to some of these boys, and likely to go straight into the bin. The coy girl who pressed ink to their palm was going to be remembered.

  Everyone was sceptical about a young woman setting up her first business on such a flimsy premise as matchmaking, but Rose knew her youth was on her side. She came across as unthreatening, unserious, and to some of these men as a bit of harmless fun. The fact she had been doing this since she was eight years old and considered herself an old hand at it was her secret weapon.

  After all, she had managed to find a wife for her father, and two of her four brothers, and several of her girlfriends were happily settled with men Rose had helped them land.

  It was a little different when she was doing the landing, keeping a smile on her face despite the bite of her heels and the uncomfortable warmth of her wool suit, and every time she approached a new face her heart began to pound.