He cast a lazy gaze my way. “Sounds like you miss it.”
“I do.”
The conversation was practically harmless, but the innuendo grabbed ahold of my throat.
He sat on the couch and fixed me with a heavy stare. A ray of remaining sunlight from the window fanned across his black-suited form, making the blue heart-shaped earring between his fingers sparkle.
I reached up to find an earlobe bare.
He smiled.
I didn’t know how long the earring was missing or how he got ahold of it, but he said nothing, only twirled it between his thumb and forefinger. His presence overwhelmed my senses, each breath more difficult to push out.
“Are you enjoying your stay?”
I swallowed. “Very much.”
“What do you like about Moscow? It can’t be our french fries.” He was amused.
I chewed my lip in contemplation and fidgeted with my necklace. “The architecture. The vibrant colors and rich history. I like how I can hear the bells from the chapel every day, and how I could live here for a hundred years and still not see everything the city has to offer.” The room held onto the words for a moment, though we both seemed to know I wasn’t finished.
Maybe he would shut me down hard, but I had to know what this was. I needed absolution from the twisted, consuming way I felt about him. I needed more before this was forced to end. Or maybe what I needed from him the most, from this man who seemed to be so respected, so commanding and alive, was to be accepted. Every yellow, rebellious, heart-on-my-sleeve inch of me.
“And you,” I added softly. “I like you.”
He watched me for a heavy second, then his eyes darkened. “Do you get off on embarrassing yourself?”
A flush crept up my neck, and the hot feeling of vulnerability twisted the next words from my mouth. “You should know what I get off on.”
The memory of me grinding on his leg sparked and hissed like electricity between us, burning the oxygen in the room like fuel.
Gaze glimmering between heat and something entirely unamused, he put my earring in his jacket pocket and rested his elbows on his knees. “Apparently, first dates’ thighs. Are all American girls as unparticular as you?”
He may as well have just called me easy. Resentment stirred inside, but I tamped it down. For whatever reason, he was trying to make me angry. I knew he felt this connection too, and I didn’t want to play games—not with him, not right now, and especially not after being rejected by half the city.
A restless buzz saturated the air, and I dropped my necklace to hold onto the edge of the dresser. “You can deny it all you want, but we both know there’s something here.”
His gaze narrowed. “There’s nothing here. Trust me, Mila, if there are happily-for-nows, I’ll never be yours.”
He said my name like I was young, stupid, like I was too immature to recognize something as simple as attraction. If he was aiming for a nerve, he hit it. Bitterness singed my lungs until it escaped in one harsh accusation.
“I may be naïve, but I know a liar when I see one.”
His pause was the only tell of his surprise, shortly replaced by a slow smile. “So there’s some fire in you after all.”
There was so much fire in me, he had no idea. For years, it had festered inside like a volcano, rumbling and pressing at the seams of tight clothes and expectations. It was so close to erupting a cold sweat spread.
“Careful.”
His warning was the last straw. He wanted to see fire?
So be it.
“If the only reason you came here was to warn me away from you, then get out.” My words lashed at the air in the room, the release vibrating beneath my skin with cool adrenaline.
His eyes hardened, the shadows inside them rising to the surface. “Nobody talks to me like that.”
He’d blown the top off the bottle I’d pent everything up in for years. There was no stopping the backlash now. Not even the imposing and threatening presence on my couch.
“Maybe that’s your biggest problem.”
“Kotyonok,” he mocked, darkly amused, “so worried about my problems when you have no idea what kind of shit you’ve stepped into.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but I did know I didn’t appreciate him turning this around on me. He was the liar in the room. And my next words became a battle of wills to make him admit the truth.