Page 43 of You Belong to Me
But shehatedgiving in, and she did it now with ill grace, snapping, “Go, then! Go back to the last town and find yourself a whore. Spend the whole day with her. We’ll wait for you in the next town.”
Whether that was what Vasili wanted to hear, he was damned if he was going to go with herpermission.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said thoughtfully, his eyes dropping deliberately to her breasts. “I think I’ll wait until you slap me again.”
Alexandra gritted her teeth against the blush she felt rising, but it mounted her cheeks anyway. Slapping him again was just what she felt like doing. She had never known anyone who deserved it more.
Instead she threw caution to the wind and taunted him. “A wise decision, Petroff, one that won’t benefit you, of course, but nonetheless wise—because I probably would have changed my mind as soon as you left. And think how embarrassing it would have beenwhen I interrupted you and your whore—hopefully at a crucial moment.”
“Did anyone ever tell you what a bitch you can be, sweetheart?” he asked in a deceptively lazy tone. The glow was back in his eyes.
She injected some sweetness into her own tone, just as false. “I do try.”
She then turned abruptly toward her horse. Vasili reached out to stop her, though she didn’t notice it. But whatever might have happened next didn’t happen at all, because they were both distracted.
Alexandra first saw why Sultan’s Pride had nudged them earlier. He’d wanted to get her attention because Vasili’s stallion was encroaching too close and taking nips at his haunches. Then she saw something even worse, but something she should have expected.
The Razin brothers had started after her. And apparently Vasili’s guards had ridden after them to prevent their interference, because the lot of them were halfway between the road and the tree, literally rolling on the ground as they pounded one another.
Vasili swore beneath his breath before he cast Alexandra a black look. “Now look what you’ve done,” he growled accusingly.
“Me?Did you think my Cossacks would just sit there and do nothing when they saw you hit me?”
“I didn’t hit you.”
“Then what would you call it?” she demanded even as she mounted.
“A tap on the cheek to get your attention,” he said, also mounting. “If Ihadhit you, you would have been knocked flat on your back—which isn’t a bad idea, actually.”
That was the last straw. “Consider yourself lucky that Bojik didn’t follow me, or your men would be spending the rest of the morning burying you instead of attending to their black eyes. And get control of your damn horse!” She was shouting at him now, since they were both riding back to break up the fight, and she had easily taken the lead. “If he nips at mine again, I’m going to let Sultan’s Pride have at him—and I hope you’re on him at the time!”
“Alex?”
“What?”
“I’llconsider any violence from you or at your instigation a slap.”
She shut up.
19
“The hell of it is,” Vasili was telling Lazar as they rode ahead of the party, “I had no desire to bed her. I merely wanted to prove to myself,andto my little barbarian, that I could.”
Lazar nodded, not the least bit surprised. But then, Lazar understood Vasili better than most people did because he knew all of his quirks and foibles, all of his faults and virtues.
Vasili had met Claudia Shevchenko not long after they’d come down from crossing the Carpathians, when he was still boiling with resentment that he was even making this trip. He hadn’t stayed with the lady a week because he couldn’t resist her. He’d stayed to prove the betrothal wasn’t going to change his self-indulgent lifestyle.
Like most men, Vasili enjoyed two kinds of women, the ones he was actually attracted to and those who were merely available for the taking. He had the latter in abundance because of his looks. These were mostly women who offered themselves without being asked.And Vasili accommodated most of them because he was, after all, used to overindulgence.
Countess Shevchenko fell into the latter group. She was pretty enough, but she was definitely on the skinny side, and Vasili preferred a more voluptuous, full-figured form—like Alexandra’s.
Lazar said now, “Well, one thing did come out of that nonsense. You found out that the baroness knows how to use a horsewhip.”
Lazar got a glare for that reminder. He would have been disappointed by any other reaction. Five days had passed since the incident that he wasn’t likely to ever forget had occurred, and he’d been mentioning it at least once a day just to rile Vasili.
One of Alexandra’s Cossacks had suffered a broken finger fromthe fight, which was how it was now being referred to by all of them. Jesus, it had been hilarious, not the broken finger, but the fight itself, and Lazar had sat back and enjoyed the entire spectacle. And it had only gotten better once Alexandra had discovered the Cossack’s injury.
She had gone after Vasili’s man with a horsewhip, and Vasili had been the only one daring enough—or annoyed enough—to get near her while she was wielding that vicious thing, to yank it out of her hands. She had been giving the guard,andVasili, killing looks ever since.
