Page 49 of You Belong to Me
“The one your friend mentioned—”
“He’s not my friend.”
“—when he asked if I will be worth as much as the other one!”
She sounded so furious, it finally occurred to him why she might have been glaring at him out in the snow when Pavel had posed that question. “Were you jealous, Alex?” he asked softly by her ear.
He imagined he could feel her squirming in his arms; however, her reply, when it came, was a stubborn “Answer my question, Petroff.”
“Answer mine first—or I might recall a promise I made to you about inflicting violence upon me—”
“You son of a—!”
His arms tightened around her waist just enough to shut her up so he could add, “I was going to suspend that promise temporarily, since these do happen to be unusual circumstances, but—”
“I wasn’t jealous,” she cut in quickly. “It’s only the women you attempt to bed now who will feel the point of my blade. And I told you why.”
“Yes, yes, because I’m yours,” he said in a tone that implied he’d heard that too often. “That smacks of jealousy to me, sweetheart.”
“What it is, is your loss,” she growled. “Now, who was she?”
“Queen Tatiana.”
“Who?”
“My cousin’s wife, though she was merely a princess at the time. She was raised in America, was lost there in fact, but that’s a long story I’m sure you’re not interested in. Now, aren’t you ashamed of your suspicions?”
“Of a man who has no shame? I don’t think so,” she retorted. “How much was paid for her?”
Vasili sighed. “Five hundred rubles, and before you go comparing yourself with a princess, you should know that that was a ridiculously high price to demand for a woman and that Latzko expected to have it haggled down. My cousin, however, was too angry to haggle. He just wanted his bride back. But he set a bad precedent by paying it, which is why Pavel is being ridiculous in his own demands.”
Her tone became excessively haughty. “The price he asks for my horses is not ridiculous.”
“You’re missing the point, Alex. These are simple people with simple needs. The reason they survive up here in the mountains is that they never take too much. The people they rob or ransom are merely annoyed by the inconvenience. But if the bandits start taking too much, someone will get angry enough to do something about them. Latzko understands that. Pavel doesn’t have enough sense to.”
“Are you saying there is no danger?”
“If Latzko were here, I might say that.However, with Pavel in charge, nothing is certain, particularly where we’re concerned. And that’s as I said, because he hates Stefan so much.”
“You can put me down now, Petroff.”
Vasili certainly hoped so. Holding her this long was giving his body ideas that his mind was trying desperately to ignore.
“No more throwing things?”
“I believe I can restrain myself for a while.”
The sarcasm in her tone was actually more reassuring than a straight answer would have been, at least from her. He had found that when she was angry, she was extremely direct in her responses.
He set her down carefully. With the loss of her warmth, a chill went through him, and he turned immediately toward the firewood again.
He wasn’t sure how she was going to take his next suggestion, but it had to be made. “We have to get out of these wet clothes.”
“I know,” she said in a small voice behind him.
She could be sensible? Thank God for small favors. And then it hit him. She was going to take her clothes off. And they were in a locked room, alone—with a bed. He was fully aroused within seconds and groaning.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
