Mistresses: Enemies To Lovers: No More Sweet Surrender / A Deal with Di Capua / Her Return to King's Bed

“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 (#u2604603f-c35b-570c-86df-095d907673b1)

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 way of telling her that her publisher had rejected her latest book proposal.

And as she’d sat there at dinner, pretending she found this latest rejection a delightful intellectual challenge instead of another crushing defeat, what had really bothered Miranda was that she hadn’t been able to regulate her temperature. Too hot, too cold, like some impossible fever—and she couldn’t get Ivan Korovin’s frank midnight gaze out of her head. The way he’d looked at her, as if she was dessert and he wanted to indulge. Like he’d been imagining doing it right then and there in the conference hotel lobby, no matter what barely civilized things he might have said.

How could one man make her feel safe and out of control at the same time?

Eventually, the worst of the storm passed. She leaned her head back against the door and blew out a long breath. She kicked off her shoes and tied her long hair back into a low ponytail, wishing she’d booked herself on the train back to her home in New York City tonight. She’d planned to sleep in the following morning and then head back to her office on the Columbia University campus, where she’d taught since being awarded her Ph.D. there three years ago, reinvigorated from the conference and plotting out how she’d use what she’d learned in her latest article.

She hadn’t planned on that awful Guberev. Much less Ivan Korovin.

Or that devastating mouth of his.

A long, hot bath will do the trick, she told herself now, rubbing her hands over her face, trying to banish all of her ghosts. Old and new. All those nightmares in the making. Along with a nice big glass of wine.

This was nothing more than a delayed reaction to Guberev and the sickeningly familiar sensations he had unleashed within her. And all of those memories of her childhood—but that was nothing Miranda particularly wanted to confront head-on tonight.

Unbidden, then, she remembered the way Ivan Korovin, of all people, had pulled her against him. So gently. So easily. He hadn’t been what she’d expected, what she’d imagined him to be. What she’d spent a lot of airtime telling people he was. That rich, dark voice, like the finest chocolate, that had seemed to warm her no matter how cold the words he used. That stern, black gaze of his that had seen too much. The way he’d held her, as if she was precious enough to save. As if she really was his. That had been dizzying enough. And then that kiss …

She sank down on the soft bed that took up most of the efficient room—almost involuntarily, as if his kiss was still that potent in her memory. She was obviously more shaken up than she’d thought. She remembered that she’d switched her phone off before her segment earlier and pulled her bag to her now, rummaging through the outside pocket. Finding her cell phone, she powered it up and sat there, waiting, flexing her bare, stiff toes into the carpeted floor beneath her and staring out the window into the Georgetown night.

Breathe, she ordered herself. But she couldn’t seem to pull in a deep enough breath, and all she could see was that considering gleam in Ivan’s midnight gaze. Something licked in her then, dark and secret, and she felt herself flush with an unwelcome heat. She told herself she was overtired.

She glanced down at her phone as the welcome screen appeared, and watched as the tiny icon noting the number of missed calls appeared.

And rose.

And kept rising.

Next to it, another icon showing her number of emails did the same. Ten. Twenty. Thirty-five. Forty. Her heart began to beat fast and hard, as if to match.

Miranda was still frowning down at the phone in her hand when the room phone shrilled loudly from the bedside table. She jumped, and that was when she noticed that the red light on the hotel phone was blinking, too, indicating even more messages to go along with the mounting numbers on her cell phone.

Fifty. Sixty-two.

Her heart gave a great thump in her chest. Then again. The hotel phone shrilled insistently. Feeling shaky again, and not sure why or what, exactly, she was afraid of, she forced herself to lean over and snatch it up.

“Hello?”

“Professor.”

It was Ivan Korovin, as if she’d conjured him with her wayward thoughts. She flushed hot and hated herself for it, but she would know that voice anywhere. The erotic flavor of his native Russian, that commanding tone that was purely his. It snaked through her, wrapping around her, pulling tight inside and out. She couldn’t think of a single reason why this man should be calling her. Something pulsed, hard and hot and deep in her belly, and she hated herself for that, too.

“We have nothing to discuss,” she said, proud of herself for sounding so calm. So in control. She glanced down at her phone and swallowed. Seventy-three. Eighty-nine. What was going on?

“On the contrary,” he said, and the tone he used then made her realize somewhat belatedly that there were layers of steel to him, ruthlessness and authority, that he’d been holding in reserve before.

“We have a great deal to discuss,” he continued in the kind of tone that suggested he expected nothing less than swift and immediate obedience, from her and anyone else hapless enough to stumble into his path. Hadn’t he spoken in much the same tone to Guberev? “My car is waiting for you downstairs.”