Fire And Ice

‘It was a bad joke to play on you.’

‘No, it is stupid to think that man can pleasure himself too much.’

Struck dumb, Julia could only gawk under his scrutiny, until his lips twitched.

‘That is my joke,’ he told her, and shrugged. ‘Not a good joke, I see.’

‘Actually, it wasn’t that bad,’ she conceded, ‘though if you really want to get back at them, I suggest you forget the violence and teach them a few fake lines in Russian for picking up women.’

‘Already done, and is probably why they told me about hairy palms.’

‘Then I was clearly mistaken about who the asshole is, Mick.’ The toaster popped, and she quickly flipped breakfast on to her plate. ‘Hungry?’

The back of her neck prickled as he moved behind her. His breath tickled her ear as he peered over her shoulder. ‘Strawberry?’

Julia expelled the last of her breath through her nose in a whiny ‘mmm-hmm.’

‘I only like cinnamon, but I will have some of your weak coffee,’ he said, and retreated.

Leaning against the counter to support her wobbly knees, Julia felt like she was turning to mush.

She kept her back to him as she nibbled on her breakfast and admonished herself for being so affected by big shoulders and scruff.

Back in the living room, Julia left him on the sofa and craned around the edge of the television to plug in the headphones. She was sure he checked her out while she bent and stretched. As she turned with the headphones in hand he all but confirmed it by quickly meeting her gaze. He raised his coffee cup with a smirk and took a sip.

She was a little shaky as she approached, and she detected a challenge once she stood over him.

‘So, since you’re stuck in a loop of listening to yourself mangle the French language, I’m going to trick you.’

‘You plan to torture me with bad music?’

‘You’re not that hopeless, at least not yet. No, Mick, I’m going to use an old trick to make you speak perfect French. I’m going to play a bunch of phrases in your ears, and you’re just going to repeat them. You won’t be able to hear yourself so you won’t be able to criticise yourself. Head back.’

Mick eased all the way back on to the sofa and rested his head on the edge. Julia chuckled as she held the headphones over him.

‘Easy, this isn’t a lap dance.’

‘What is a lap dance?’ he asked, but the twitching at the corner of his mouth betrayed him.

‘Nice try,’ she said, and dropped the headphones over his ears before her giggle could escape.

She grabbed the remote and took a step back, only to bump the edge of the sofa. Hot coffee splashed her leg and she jerked, then toppled forward, right into Mick’s lap.

The oof! sound he made matched his befuddled expression, but neither could compare to her scattered nerves as she felt the sting where his hand had landed on her ass with a slap.

He scowled, but there was something playful in that expression. ‘I ask for answer, not demonstration, but I will not complain.’

‘Oh…shush.’

He offered her no assistance as she tried to get up, instead looking infuriatingly pleased with her efforts as she wriggled over his lap.

Julia rolled her eyes. ‘Can you let go?’

‘If you fall and hit your head on the table, I might go to jail. No more French and no more hockey for me.’

His big body quaked against hers as he laughed, and Julia gave up with a groan.

Humiliation aside, his lap wasn’t a bad place to find herself. Beneath her thighs, his made a hard seat, and through his sweater she caught the tick of his heartbeat speeding up. He had yet to remove his hand from the curve of her ass, and she could appreciate the irony that the hand that had delivered the blow was the one that soothed the ache now. She’d never needed a code of conduct before when it came to her tutoring work, but as the compulsion to wrap her arms around his neck struck her, she had to admit that a list of dos and don’ts had merit.

Don’t fall into the lap of enormous Russian on my sofa.

Do speedily rise from his lap and apologise.

Don’t even think about making things worse by entertaining how easy it would be to unzip that fuzzy sweater and reach inside.

Do outlaw all thoughts of crazy-hot sex on living-room floor with hockey player you’ve only just met.

‘Jesus, Julia, most businesses just use coupons to sweeten the pot.’

As Kris clomped to the bottom of the stairs, Julia vaulted herself out of Mick’s arms and sloshed even more coffee across the table to stain his textbook. She managed to save his laptop from the puddle just in time, but there was no saving her dignity as she looked from her student to her roommate.

Still looking like a horror show, Kris waved as she headed for the kitchen. ‘Good morning, Russian guy.’

‘Hello…’ He leaned aside and watched Kris’s disappearing act, then looked up at Julia. ‘Crazy-haired woman in fluffy bunny slippers?’

Julia dropped his laptop on to the sofa and sighed. ‘That’s just my roommate. She’ll go back upstairs in a minute. I’ll – I’ll be right back with a dish towel.’

She raced into the kitchen and met Kris’s cheeky smile head-on.

‘I fell, and I have nothing more to say.’

‘Please, another thirty seconds and he would have had his hand in your bra. It’s cool, Julia. All that teaching the language of love and eventually you were going to come across someone who knew how to use it.’

‘First of all, he’s terrible at French. Second of all –’ She snapped a tea towel from the oven handle and thrust it in Kris’s face. ‘Second of all, shut up.’

Mick stood as she returned to the living room and stretched out his arm. ‘Let me. My fault for not letting you loose.’

Julia waved the towel like a flag. ‘I’ve got it. You just sit back and put those headphones on.’

She held her breath until the video played, her computer recorded and Mick recited one bland phrase after another. She signalled to him that she was stepping out of the room for a minute.

Kris hadn’t moved, save for the addition of the cup of coffee she slurped from.

Julia thumped her head against the fridge. ‘This never would have happened if I kept my job at the bookstore.’

Cackling, Kris shoved away from the counter and slung her arm over Julia’s shoulders. ‘I don’t think you could find anyone who would put grinding on top of a hot Russian on the con side.’

‘I didn’t grind,’ she said in a sigh, then groaned. ‘OK, so I did a little unintentional grinding.’