“I’m fine,” she said. She dropped her hands back to her sides, shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and Ivan had spent too much of his life reading body language not to understand that she was far less composed than she appeared. He shouldn’t have taken any kind of satisfaction in that, either. “And while I appreciate your urge to help, if that’s what it was, you’ll understand that I can’t condone the method you used.”
“It was extreme, perhaps,” he allowed. It was certainly that. Why had he kissed her? Like so many bullies, Guberev was at heart a coward, as Ivan well knew, having been forced to contend with the slimy little man in the mixed martial arts world for years. What Guberev might want to do to a weaker creature like this woman, given the chance, he would not dare to do in the presence of someone stronger. That Ivan was there should have been enough. Why had he taken it further? “But effective.”
“Effective for whom?” she asked, that smooth voice finally betraying her tension. “You may have single-handedly derailed my entire career. I can only assume that was your goal. What better way to undermine the things I say about you than to render me no more than one of the sexual playthings you famously run through like water?”
As if he had to fight like that, dirty and underhanded. He was Ivan Korovin. He was a champion and a movie star and neither by accident, despite her insinuations. He’d put in hours upon hours of grueling training to become the fighter he was. He’d become fluent in English and had minimized his accent within three years of leaving Russia. He did not undermine. He preferred the direct approach. He was famous for it, come to that.
“Did you become one of my sexual playthings?” he asked darkly. “I feel certain I would remember it.”
“Let’s be clear,” she said, her voice under that smooth control of hers once more, which made him want to throw her off balance again, somehow. “I study you. You’ve spent your entire professional life strategically taking down your opponents, one after the next, without admitting the possibility of defeat.”
He told himself the new color on her cheeks then was a result of the same stark and wild images that were currently torturing him, and had nothing to do with her study of him, as if he was an animal in a zoo. That wicked mouth of hers, slick and addictive. That damnable fire. Her long, graceful limbs wrapped around him. How could he find her so attractive when he knew she would destroy him in an instant, if she could? When she had already done her best to do so? But reason had nothing to do with the heat that rocketed through him. He wanted to sink his fingers into the dark fire of her hair and hear her scream his name as she came all around him, hot and wet and his.
Ivan despaired of himself.
“You are often called an unstoppable force,” she said crisply, her chin rising as if she expected a fight, as if she thought that simple truth was an insult. “It doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to conclude that you saw a way to cut me down, too. And jumped at the chance.”
“I can find your work interesting, Dr. Sweet,” he said, sick of himself as he tried to force the seductive, distracting images from his head, “even if I completely disagree with it. And I can disagree with it without concocting wild strategies to discredit you. I wanted to help you. I would have helped anyone in the same position. I’m sorry if you find that offensive.”
She studied him for a moment, her fine brows lowered into a frown. He had that dislocating sense of being measured and found wanting, another unpleasant reminder of his unfortunate youth, his desperate, determined climb to fame. He had to take a breath, control his response, keep himself calm. Lucky for her that he had made an art of it.
“Life is not an action movie, Mr. Korovin,” she said in her cool, professorial voice, as if she was rendering judgment from high on some podium instead of standing right there in front of him, within reach, her lips still slightly reddened from his. “You cannot sweep in, kiss a woman without her permission and expect accolades. You are far more likely to find yourself slapped with a harassment suit.”
“Of course,” he replied in that bored tone that made temper kick bright and hard in her dark jade gaze. A better man might not find the sight exhilarating. “Thank you for reminding me that I am currently in the most litigious country on earth. The next time I see you in the path of a truck, be it human or machine, I’ll let it mow you down where you stand.”
“I can’t imagine our paths will ever cross again,” she retorted, all elegant affront, which only made that dark current of want in him intensify. He’d felt her against him, meltingly pliant. Her heat. Her fire. He knew the truth, now, behind her high-class, overeducated front. Behind the cool way she’d ripped him into shreds for years now with every appearance of delight. It burned in him. “For which I am profoundly grateful. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go perform some damage control, since the whole world saw me let some macho Hollywood hulk kiss me in—”
“Be honest, Professor,” he interrupted her. “If you dare.”
His gaze met hers. Held. And he wasn’t amused or fascinated or anything that distant, suddenly. It was as if she’d woken that part of him he’d thought long buried with her cool disdain and her quiet horror at his touch—like he’d polluted her somehow. Like he was one of the very monsters he fought against. As if everything that hung in the balance here didn’t matter anymore, save the very real response he’d tasted on her lips.
He knew fire when it burned him. God help them both.
“You kissed me back, milaya moya,” he said softly, feeling the kick of it when her cheeks stained red again, the truth right there, written across her fair skin, his to use against her as he wished.
And that was the problem. He wished.
His brows arched high, daring her to deny it. Daring her to lie to him, to his face, when he knew better. “And you liked it.”
CHAPTER TWO
FINALLY! Miranda thought in relief as she arrived back at her hotel room in Georgetown much later that evening. You can drop the act.
She let the heavy door slam shut behind her, and entertained the notion that she was ill instead of … thrown. But she knew better. She locked the door and then leaned back against it, sliding all the way down to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest and burying her head against them.
She didn’t cry. Not quite. She didn’t weep over the bruises on her upper arms, or the fact they throbbed slightly now. She thought about how scared she’d been one minute, and then how off balance and confused, if inexplicably safe, the next. She thought about that damned kiss and her wild response, and how little she understood what had happened to her when Ivan Korovin had touched her. She thought about what out of control meant, and how unacceptable that was for her. She didn’t let out the old, terrified sobs that she’d thought she’d put behind her so long ago, though she could feel them clawing at her throat, insistent at the back of her eyes.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight, she fought for breath, and then she simply sat there and held herself for a very long time. If she sat still long enough, maybe the nightmares wouldn’t come this time. Maybe she could think them away. Maybe.
She’d made it through the rest of her day on autopilot. She’d taped a segment on school bullying with one cable news channel and had suffered through an early dinner with her literary agent, who was in town to wrangle a loudmouthed politician’s ex-wife into a book deal and who had eyed Miranda with what looked like pity when she’d tried to discuss her work.
“The truth is,” Bob had said baldly over his filet, “you need to come up with something sexy as a follow-up to Caveman Worship. Nothing you’ve mentioned tonight is sexy.”
Which was his obnoxious