Dressed down by my standards or not, I’d still be in a different zip code from the man I was going to meet.
And I needed whatever edge I could get. Maybe the clothes didn’t make the man, but I looked a hell of a lot more imposing sharply dressed. It compensated a little for my not quite six feet of height.
Well, okay. Five foot ten. But close.
Pechorin probably could’ve intimidated nearly anyone stark naked, I thought with a surge of bitterness.
Of course, that was why I needed him.
I spun away from the mirror and headed for the car before I could talk myself out of it all over again.
By the time I’d checked in and texted Pechorin the room number, I only had half an hour to make sure I had all my ducks in a row. It didn’t feel like enough, but within ten minutes my notes on my requirements were all laid out on the table—not in any legally binding format, since I could hardly enforce a contract I didn’t want anyone besides the principals to know existed—and I’d put on the provided pot of undoubtedly vile coffee and rehearsed what I needed to say.
The room didn’t offer much by way of distraction. I wrinkled my nose at the ugly bedspread and the prints of scenic Idaho mountains on the walls, none of which had more aesthetic appeal in the sunshine pouring through the room’s one large window. Since the sun wouldn’t set for another hour and a half, at least we’d have natural lighting for this. Somehow, agreeing to a sordid mating-for-money under the dim, pinkish glow of the room’s cheap compact fluorescent lightbulbs would’ve seemed so much sleazier.
At 7:56, the elevator around the corner dinged. I wiped my sweaty palms on the seams of my pants. Showtime.
But then nothing happened. It must have been someone going to another room.
Would he stand me up? He’d shown up yesterday; he’d even been early, although that had to have been more about scoping out the bar and having an edge than about courtesy. And he’d all but agreed to do this. Would he be late on purpose, just to make the point that he wouldn’t do what I told him to? To demonstrate his dominance? I grimaced. That kind of petty mind game didn’t show dominance; it showed immaturity, but plenty of alphas didn’t know the difference.
A sharp rap on the door made me jump. There hadn’t been any other sounds from the hallway. I glanced down at my phone.
Eight o’clock on the dot.
That had to have been him in the elevator.
Now I had to wonder: Did malicious compliance show dominance or not?
My mouth quirked in something not quite a smile. It definitely showed a sense of humor, although it came at my expense.
Two could play at that game.
I stood there and watched my phone until it changed to 8:01, and then opened the door. Pechorin raised one eyebrow and stared me down. To my shock, he’d dressed up—by what appeared to be his standards, at least—for the occasion, wearing decent jeans, a black button-down, and a leather jacket. He wouldn’t have stood out at all crossing the hotel lobby.
“You’re late,” I said.
“You looked at the time and waited to open the door,” he replied, and sauntered in, forcing me to step too quickly out of the way or get run over. It knocked me off-balance both literally and figuratively, and I stumbled as I shut the door behind him.
A warm, firm hand wrapped around my elbow, a match to the warm, looming presence of him, making me feel hemmed-in and off my game. We hadn’t touched before.
We’d be touching a lot if we went through with this. I shivered.
“Careful,” he rumbled. “Your depth perception isn’t the best, right?”
I jerked my arm away, stumbling again and knocking my shoulder into the wall. “My depth perception is fine,” I snapped, lying through my clenched teeth.
“Uh-huh.” His skepticism rasped on my already stretched nerves. “I did a little reading last night. You have Hensley’s Syndrome. Nearsightedness, poor night vision, bad depth perception, and that’s just the eye symptoms. I noticed all of those last night, by the way.”
I fell back against the wall like he’d cut my strings, gaping up at him open-mouthed with shock and horror. His raised dark brows and frowning mouth blurred in front of me, and not because of my eyesight. If my heart beat any faster, I’d go into cardiac arrest.
Pechorin stepped toward me, broad shoulders blotting out the light from the window, his heat and alpha pheromones and hard gray eyes filling all my senses.
“Seizures, strokes, spinal deformation—you obviously don’t have that last one. Tremors. Your hands were shaking yesterday. Hearing loss, although that doesn’t seem to be an issue for you. Seems like the kind of thing you might want to disclose to a potential mate, doesn’t it?”
The hypothetical stroke might happen right now, actually. Terror held me rigid against the wall. He was trying to blackmail me. Extort the money I’d have paid him to mate with me without doing anything but threaten to expose me, and by extension, my family.
My fingers went numb and tingly. I could feel the blood draining out of my face, my skin cold and clammy.
