Page 50 of You Belong to Me
“Nothing,” he replied, but he had gone perfectly still, bent over the firewood.
“The fire, Petroff,” she prompted impatiently. “Or do you think we can survive the night without one?”
He wasn’t going to survive the night either way, so what did he care? But he got a grip on himself and went through the motions of starting the oven.
“Tell me why Pavel dislikes your cousin so much,” she said.
Excellent. Something else to think about—besides what she was going to be doing soon.
“Pavel was in love with Latzko’s daughter, Arina, and possibly still is. But she had higher aspirations. She met Stefan some eight years ago when he was the Crown Prince, and she became his mistress for a time. Then they had a fight and she came back here. Stefan followed her to make amends, and ended up having to pay Latzko the fifty rubles before he would allow her to leave with Stefan. Pavel also insisted that Stefan fight for the privilege.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds rather romantic.”
Vasili snorted. “There was nothing romantic about it. Pavel fought dirty, but still lost. The trouble was, he’s a bad loser. When Tanya was captured—”
“Who isTanya?”
He ignored the fact that her voice had gone sharp again. “‘Tanya’ is what Tatiana insists she be called. As I said, she was raised in America and that was the name she was known by there. She didn’t learn her truename until we found her last year…but I digress. As I was saying, when she was captured, Stefan had to come here again, and Pavel saw it as an opportunity to have revenge. He challenged Stefan again, this time with knives, with the sole intent of killing him.”
“I’m going to assume he lost that fight, too?”
“Indeed, but you heard him. He’s still not satisfied, even though Latzko warned him the last time that he’d kill him himself if he ever challenged Stefan again.”
“Ah, but Latzko isn’t here to enforce that warning and…you think he’s going to challenge you before this is over, don’t you?”
Did he hear concern in her voice? Jesus, now he was imagining things. Alexandra concerned for him? Maybe when cows learned to dance.
“He’d be an idiot to challenge me,” Vasili scoffed.
“He strikes you as having some sort of intelligence, does he?”
Her tone was so dry, he almost chuckled. And that surprised him. When the hell had he started to find her wit amusing?
The fire had finally caught, and it wasn’t as weak as he’d feared it would be. The clay oven would still take a while to warm the room completely, but surely not the hours he’d first thought.
He turned to suggest that Alexandra move closer to the oven before she took off herclothes. He wasn’t prepared to find her already with a blanket wrapped around her, her coat, pants, and shirt draped over the back of one of the two chairs next to her, even her feet bare. He was breathless. His mind went blank, then abruptly focused on one thing. Was she completely naked under that blanket, or did she still have on some sort of underwear? Did she even wear underwear? He was about to embarrass himself by asking, when he knew damn well he didn’t dare find out.
He looked away from her, but he couldn’t find anything to settle his gaze on that would help him to ignore the reaction of his body. Had he been the one to ask for private quarters? He must have been out of his mind.
“You can take the bed,” he blurted out. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Don’t be absurd. I’m not going to make any pretense of liking this situation—”
He whipped his head back around and interrupted her with an emphatic “We are in complete accord.”
“—but we are adults, there is only one bed, and once you remove your boots, you will discover that the cold happens to be seeping through the floorboards. You would be extremely ill come morning if you attempted—”
“I get the point, Alex!” he snapped, albeit a bit too loudly.
She drew herself up stiffly because of his tone. “You can try to get someone’s attention to ask for separate quarters, but from the distant sounds of revelry and music, our banditsare apparently barrel-deep in their celebration. I seriously doubt anyone will hear you.”
He doubted it as well, but this wasn’t going to work. He wanted her—well, he didn’t, certainly he didn’t, but his body did, and he was a man who too often allowed his body to govern him. But he couldn’t allow it this time. He absolutely refused to let her find out how intensely she’d aroused him.
“You’re right on all counts. I simply didn’t expect you to be—sophisticated about this.”
