scared I’d feel that again, that lick of pure fire that
seared through all the ice I could possibly throw out and
scorched me from the inside out.
“What?” I finally mumbled, my eyes on his shoes.
“Irina.” He said it as if he was testing it out, matching
the name to the person...and I realized he was still
gazing at me, drinking in every little detail of me, even
though I wasn’t dancing anymore. I could feel his eyes
on the loose strands of hair that had escaped my bun,
on the little patch of skin revealed by the neck of my
leotard, on my bare, freezing arms.
I’d known he wouldn’t be Russian, of course. But his
accent was still a surprise: it was everything I’d
dreamed of, back in Moscow, the throaty rasp of every
US movie hero. Plenty of times, I’d thrashed under the
sheets, hand between my thighs, to a fantasy of an
American guy who’d say my name just like that as he
fucked me. But this was even better. That low rumble,
like a V8 engine that throbbed through my whole body,
had been tuned and given a musical note: it sang like a
sports car instead of just bellowing like a truck. I
couldn’t place it but I wanted to hear more of it. Now.
And immediately, I clamped down on that feeling. So
what if he had a sexy accent? It didn’t change anything.
I looked around for my bag. Found it. Started to walk
over to it.
He followed. “You dance…. Shit, I don’t even know how
to describe it. It’s amazing.”
That made me frown. He didn’t sound like the guys who
normally come to ballet shows, or stop to watch it in the
park. They’d wax lyrical about graceful jetés or how my
pas de chat was magnificent. This guy sounded blue
collar, not white collar, yet his clothes were expensive.
Literally white collar clothes: a snow-white shirt that
looked tailored, a black suit cut to fit his muscled body
perfectly. And yet I could see something beneath the
crisp whiteness, now that he was closer: big, black
shadows on his pecs that could only be tattoos. What
sort of man dressed in a thousand dollar suit but had a
tattooed chest? I was momentarily fascinated.
No, you idiot! Get out of there! “Thank you,” I muttered,
as gruffly as I could. I picked up my bag.
“I’m Angelo.”
I sneaked a glance at him and finally figured it out: the
name, the olive skin and jet-black hair, the subtle,
musical note in the New York accent. Italian-American.
And then the glance slid and changed into a gaze and
then I couldn’t stop it: we were staring at each other.
The air was so cold and he was so close that I could
feel the warmth radiating from his body and his breath
toying with the loose strands of hair which fell against
my cheek. I needed to look away but I just...couldn’t.
And the thing that really shocked me was that he had
the exact same expression on his face. This big,
gorgeous man looked as out of control as I was.
And then a freezing gust of wind cut between us,
numbing my bare arms and stinging my cheeks. And I
remembered who I was...what I was. I had to end this
now, before it ever began.
“The collection bucket’s behind you,” I said, nodding to
it. “If you want to make a donation.”
I waited until he turned away from me and pulled out a
roll of bills.
And then I ran.
3
Angelo
That accent.
I hadn’t expected it. Delicate but savage, like frozen
shards of the finest wine. Holy shit. She spoke and
about a million images filled my mind: every Russian
stereotype I’d watched in a movie or seen drawn in a
comic book. Da, comrade and red stars and hammer
and sickle flags, Cold War spies seducing our agents and
ruthless, pouting, blonde women in fur hats. Jesus
Christ. It took my breath away. But it made sense:
where else was a beauty like her going to come from
but Russia?
She went, in that second, from being the most gorgeous
woman I’d ever seen to being simply off the chart. She
couldn’t be number one: numbers were now fucking
irrelevant. Other women were fucking irrelevant. And
her frostiness...I was used to women giggling and
flirting, grabbing my arm and whispering in my ear. She
was the opposite and it made her all the more enticing.
Especially because of what I’d seen in her eyes, when I
could actually get her to look at me: a spark of fire, hot
enough to glow even under all that ice. She liked me,
even if she didn’t want to.
And then, suddenly, she was gone. I stood there
blinking like a moron for fully three seconds.
Oh, no. No you don’t.
I sprinted after her. Her friend from the night before
gave me a panicked look—shit, now I really did look like
a crazy stalker. But I didn’t care: I wasn’t going to lose
her again.
She moved fast, even in those weird ballet shoes she
wore. As she ran, she pulled a black hooded top out of
her bag and tried to pull it on over her head, but then
she nearly collided with a jogger and thought better of
it, stuffing it under her arm instead. She must be
freezing! “Stop!” I yelled, and saw her tense, but she
didn’t slow down.
I pushed myself harder, shoes pounding the icy path,
feeling like a rhino chasing after a gazelle. She slipped
between the passers-by; I just battered them aside.
“Stop!”
If anything, she sped up. I threw myself forward and
managed to grab one wrist, then hauled her to a halt.
She cried out in frustration and shock and looked down
at my hand. My big fingers completely encircled her
slender wrist.
“Just...stop,” I panted. “I just want to talk.”
She was panting, too, and the way her breasts rose and
fell under the tight leotard had my cock swelling against
my thigh.
“I’m going to let you go, now. Don’t fucking run away
again.”
She just glared at me, as if ready to go for my throat.
I took a deep, slow breath. “Please.”
Her expression relaxed just a fraction. I slowly released
her wrist, both of us looking down at my hand as I
broke contact. Immediately, I missed the touch of that
soft skin. And she followed my hand with her eyes as if
she missed my touch a little, too.
“Why did you chase me?” she asked, lifting her eyes to
my face.
“Why did you run?” I gazed down at her. God, she was
beautiful. And that accent was making me fucking
delirious, every syllable carved from ice, razor-sharp but
with that throaty, sensuous rasp. “I just want to talk. I
think that—” I stared at her, suddenly tongue-tied. Why
was this so difficult? I’d whispered in plenty of women’s
ears that they were so fucking gorgeous while I was
pounding them. But that didn’t do Irina justice. “I think
that...sei bellissima,” I said at last.
Maybe she knew it meant beautiful or maybe she could
tell I meant it, but I swear, just for an instant, I saw a
flare of color in her cheeks. But then she shook her
head, almost as if to clear it, and glanced left and right,
ready to run again. Shit! I couldn’t let her slip through
my fingers again,
Then she shivered. Immediately, she glared down at her
bare arms as if furious she’d shown weakness. But it
was too late: I was already whipping off my overcoat
and settling it around her shoulders. “Here,” I said.
“Take this. You’re freezing.”
She squirmed as I put it on her, as if she really didn’t