by JoAnn Ross
Mitch stared at Sasha, then down at the chips, then his eyes moved questioningly back to his bride. “How much do all those chips represent?”
“I don’t know. When we left the roulette wheel I had eight thousand dollars. But we’ve been winning more over here, and as Ben taught me, the odds are better, so—”
“Eight thousand?” His voice cracked. “You’ve won eight thousand?”
“More than that,” she reminded him.
“I’d say she’s around twelve, give or take a few hundred,” Ben offered.
“Twelve thousand dollars?”
“Not peanuts, boy,” Ben said, slapping him on the back. “And although we hate like the dickens to give our little Sasha up, I suppose you’d kinda like to have her to yourself for a while.” His lips curved in a masculine grin. “Considerin’ that this is your honeymoon and all.”
“Yes, I would definitely like some time alone with my wife.” Mitch was still having trouble taking it all in. “Where did you get the money in the first place?”
“Ben gave me a dollar.” She smiled up at the man, who grinned back, annoying Mitch even more. “Then I won the jackpot. And a very nice woman brought me some champagne.” Her smile softened. “Have you ever had champagne, Mitch?”
“Sure.”
“This was my first time.” She sighed happily. “I think it is my very favorite drink.” She smiled at him over the rim of the glass before polishing it off. “Can we have some more with lunch?”
“Why not,” he agreed absently, his attention drawn back to that amazing stack of chips. “It appears you can afford lit.”
“I won them for you, Mitch,” she said earnestly as she slid down from the chair. “To pay you back for the wedding and the ring, and...”
Before she could finish her sentence, her legs suddenly folded. If Mitch hadn’t caught her, she would have fallen onto the crimson-and-gold carpeting.
“I do not understand.” She gave a silvery little giggle. “My legs seem to have fallen asleep.” She was holding on to him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her body against his, her breath coming in soft puffs against his throat.
For the first time Mitch realized that her words were faintly slurred. “How much of that champagne have you drunk?”
She tilted her head back and looked into his suddenly narrowed eyes, which was difficult to do the way he kept going in and out of focus. Sasha blinked to clear her vision. “I do not know, exactly.” When she began to sway, his bands settled more firmly at her waist, literally holding her up. “Every time I won, the waitress brought me more.” He was so fuzzy! Sasha blinked again. “Did you know that it is free?”
“So I’ve heard. I also know you’re smashed ”
“Smashed?”
“Drunk.” Last year a group of Russian firemen had toured the US. to learn modern fire-fighting techniques. When they’d arrived in Phoenix, Mitch had been assigned to show them around. The experience, which had included visits to all of Phoenix’s popular watering holes, proved helpful now as he recalled one of the few Russian words he’d learned. “Pyahnyj. ”
“Oh.” She considered that for a moment as she continued to cling to him. Then she giggled. “I think, Mitch, that you are right.”
Her musical laughter set the others off, as well. For his part, Mitch found little humor in the fact that his bride of two hours had gotten drunk with a bunch of Shriners in a casino.
“I’d better get you upstairs to bed.”
When that suggestion earned a roar of appreciative laughter, Mitch experienced a hot urge to slam a well-placed fist into a few grinning faces. But since Sasha obviously wasn’t the only one who’d had too much to drink, and the last thing be needed was to start a drunken brawl, he managed to rein in his uncharacteristic anger. “Let’s get out of here.”
This was easier said than done. When he released her to scoop up the chips, she began to crumble bonelessly to the floor again. Fortunately, once again, he caught her just in time.
While he tried to figure out what to do, a dark-haired man appeared at his elbow. “I’m Quenton Vaughn, manager of the casino,” be told Mitch. The slim gold badge on his lapel confirmed his words. “Why don’t you let me cash in your wife’s winnings for you, Mr. Cudahy? And I’ll have a cashier’s check delivered to your suite.”
“That’s so wunnerfully nice of you,” Sasha said before Mitch could answer. She tilted her head back, and smiled blurrily up at Mitch. “Isn’t that nice, Mitch?”
“Yeah.” Her arched back succeeded in pressing her hips closer against his, which did nothing to soothe his discomfort. “Real nice.”
He started to sling her over his shoulder fireman style, then, remembering the brevity of her denim miniskirt, cradled her in his arms instead. He left the casino followed by waves of laughter and applause.
Although her brain was strangely fogged, it gradually occurred to Sasha that Mitch had not smiled once since he’d entered the casino.
“Mitch?”
“What?” The elevator walls were mirrored, allowing a disconcerting view of lace-trimmed panties. The skirt really was indecent, he decided.
“You are mad at me, yes?”
Sighing, he looked down into her lovely face, where a watery sheen brightened her eyes. Fearing a crying jag, he said, “I’m not mad at you, Sasha.”
“But you are not happy.”
“Of course I’m happy,” he retorted. “Why shouldn’t I be happy? I go to sleep after a hellish night trying to keep Phoenix from burning to the damn ground, then I wake up and find my bride of two hours has deserted me in order to play roulette with a bunch of drunk Shriners. And gotten smashed, besides. What man wouldn’t be thrilled?”
“I did not mean to get smashed,” she said earnestly. “But when I began winning—”
“You’ve explained all that.”
His tone was sharp. And final. She fell silent and bit her lip to keep from embarrassing them both by crying again.
As the elevator continued its climb up to the tower suite, neither Mitch nor Sasha said a word.
“Mitch?” she asked as the mirrored doors finally opened on their floor.
“Yeah?”
“I did not think you would be angry.” Her voice was thickening. He could hear the tears. “I left you a note.”
“I wasn’t angry, dammit. Not in the beginning. Not until I got scared something had happened to you.”
She thought about that, struggling to clear the cobwebs from her head as be marched down the hallway. “You were worried about me?”
“Of course.” He had to juggle her in his arms as he dug into his jeans for the coded card key to the room.
That was nice, Sasha decided. Surely a man would not be concerned if he didn’t care, just a little.
His next words dashed her faint hope. “I’m a fireman. Worrying about people comes with the territory.”
It was true. But what Mitch was not prepared to admit, even to himself, was that the cold fear he’d experienced when Sasha wasn’t in the coffee shop was like none he’d ever before felt.
He carried her into the bedroom, and tossed her unceremoniously onto the bed, creating waves. “You’d better try to sleep some of that champagne off. I’ll call room service.”
His tone was flat and uncaring. Sasha sighed, trying to recapture a bit of the pleasure she’d experienced before Mitch’s arrival in the casino.
“Mitch?”
“What now?”
Although it was difficult, she managed to push herself up to her knees, wrap her arms around his waist and press her cheek to his chest. “I am truly sorry that I upset you. Especially after you were so kind to marry me.”
Hell. He reached out, intending to put his hands on her shoulders to push her away. Instead they found their way into her hair. “Sasha—”
“Please, Mitch.” She held on tighter. “Do not tell me you would do it for anyone. Even if it is the truth.”
The anger and frustration drained
out of him and was replaced by something far more dangerous. “That wasn’t what I was going to say.” He buried his face in her lush, fragrant hair and felt himself slipping deeper and deeper into hot water.
They stayed that way for a long, silent time, holding on to each other. The air between them grew thick with unspoken thoughts.
She could feel his heart pounding beneath her cheek, hard and fast. Her need for him was so powerful, so staggering, that it made her tremble. Something deep and secret inside her was struggling for release. Something that could no longer be denied.
“Back in the chapel,” she murmured against his chest, “before you fainted—”
“Thanks for bringing that up,” he muttered.
“I was just wondering something.”
“What’s that?” Mitch asked distractedly. Her hair felt like silk and smelled like flowers.
“Is our marriage official? If you did not kiss me as the minister instructed?”
The dangerous words vibrated against his chest, seeping into his bloodstream. Did she know what she was doing? Did all Russian women foolishly play with fire this way? Or was Sasha Mikhailova—Sasha Cudahy, he reminded himself —unique?
When she pressed her lips against his shirt, the last of his good intentions fled. He tangled a fist in her hair and tugged, pulling her head back.
“You’re right. It’s high time I kissed my bride.”
His mouth took hers quickly. Stunningly. She hadn’t expected it to be so hot, or so hungry. Kissing Mitch was glorious. And terrifying.
“You’re supposed to close your eyes,” he murmured against her champagne-sweet mouth.
“If I close my eyes, I will not be able to look at you.” Her fingers climbed up his neck to cup the back of his head. “I like looking at you, Mitch.”
“Not as much as I like looking at you.” He tilted his head, changing the angle of the kiss. “But I want to kiss you properly. So, close your eyes, sweetheart.” He pressed his lips against her lids, encouraging them to flutter shut.
As his mouth took a slow, sensual journey over her face, she felt the scrape of his afternoon beard against her cheek and the pleasure of it, dark and dangerous, lanced through her.
“Lord, you are sweet.” His hands pushed her blouse off her shoulders, allowing his lips access to silken perfumed flesh. “And warm.”
When his hot, wicked mouth left a trail of sparks on the way back up to her tingling lips, Sasha heard a ragged sob and realized through her swimming senses that it was coming from her own burning throat.
The little sounds she was making, along with the way she was moving her lush feminine body against his, made Mitch feel about to burst. It was not something he was accustomed to feeling from a mere kiss.
To prove to himself that he’d not lost control, Mitch decided to court danger a little further.
“Open your mouth for me, sweetheart.” His thumb tugged at her rosy lips. “let me kiss you the way a woman like you should be kissed.”
A woman like her. He made her sound special. Desirable. Loved. Melting against him, Sasha did as instructed, accepting his plundering tongue as she longed to accept his heart.
It was only a kiss, Mitch reminded himself. He could end it anytime. His hands roved down her body, brushing the sides of her breasts, before settling on the shapeliest little butt he’d ever felt. He pulled her tight against him, so close he could feel their hearts beating in the same wild rhythm.
He wanted her. Here. Now. He wanted to drag her down on to the wildly rocking mattress, strip off her clothes and taste every ounce of her warm flesh. He wanted to bury himself deep inside her, so deep and so hard the heat of their bodies would raise the water in the bed to boiling point.
It was when he realized that he was on the verge of doing exactly that, Mitch became vividly aware of how close he’d come to a line he dared not cross.
“Mitch?” She swayed when he abruptly released her, her hands reached for him, her eyes were wide and confused. And laced with a passion he could still taste.
“You’d better get some sleep, Sasha.” She was as pale as milk. Not wanting her to fall off the bed onto her face, he took hold of her bare shoulders and lowered her gently but firmly to the mattress. “You’re going to have one helluva hangover.”
“I do not understand. I thought you wanted me.”
Her accent had thickened. Mitch could hear the hurt in her voice. See it in her eyes. “Any man would want you, Sasha. You’re beautiful and sexy as hell. But that’s all it is. Animal attraction. It happens.”
“Perhaps to you.” The vast quantity of champagne she’d drunk allowed her to say something that under any other circumstances she would have wisely kept to herself. “But nothing even close to this has ever happened to me, Mitch.” Her teeth nervously began worrying her ravished bottom lip. “No one has ever made me feel the way you do.”
As he felt himself being inexorably drawn into Sasha’s warm, doe-brown eyes, Mitch felt something move through him that was more complex than lust, more dangerous than desire.
“It’s the champagne.” Knowing it could be fatal to touch her, but unable to resist, he ran his palm down the tousled silk of her hair. “Go to sleep, Sasha. You’ll feel differently after the buzz wears off.”
With those less than encouraging words ringing in her ears, Mitch left the room. A moment later she heard him making a telephone call on the other side of the closed door.
Reminding herself that she was a survivor, Sasha vowed that she wasn’t going to let Mitch Cudahy break her heart. If he wanted to claim that the heated kiss meant nothing to him, that was fine with her. Because she didn’t care. She wouldn’t let herself care.
Sasha’s last thought, as she drifted off into an alcohol-induced sleep, was to wonder when she’d become such a liar.
Mitch ate a solitary dinner, and as evening gave way to night, he sprawled on the couch, staring out the undraped windows at the lights of the gambling city. And thought about Sasha, warm and oh, so very willing, just on the other side of the door.
He could have had her. And if the kisses they’d shared were any indication of the passion lurking inside her, it would have been incomparable.
But then what? Although the license on the coffee table declared them to be man and wife, they’d gone into this agreeing that it was only a marriage of convenience, designed to get immigration off her back.
If he were to make love to his bride, which he had every legal right to do, he reminded himself, he’d be taking advantage of her sweet and generous emotions. And Sasha was the kind of woman who deserved more than a passionate one-night tumble on a waterbed. She deserved a real marriage, with a husband who’d mow the lawn and take out the trash because he adored her, and a passel of gorgeous, dark-eyed kids who looked just like her.
What she deserved was the happy-ever-after ending that was a staple of Russian fairy tales. And unfortunately, since he had no intention of tying himself down to one woman for the rest of his life, he was not the man to give it to her.
That being the case, it was important that he maintain some physical—and emotional—distance.
Which was going to be a helluva lot easier said than done.
Just thinking about Sasha made his body ache in a way it hadn’t since his hormone-driven teenage days. As he lay in the dark, trying to keep erotic fantasies about his bride at bay, the sounds of yet another Elvis impersonator singing drifted up from the cocktail lounge on the floor below.
When the baritone voice began singing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” Mitch cursed.
Timing, he thought with an agonized groan, was indeed, everything.
6
NEITHER MITCH nor Sasha mentioned the kiss the following morning. Nor was it brought up during the long and silent drive back to Phoenix after a new starter had been installed in the Mustang.
But they both were thinking about it. A lot.
“I’m afraid Jake was right about the place being a mess,” Mitch mu
mbled as he carried Sasha’s suitcases up the outside stairs leading to his second-story apartment. His voice sounded rusty from all the hours of disuse. He cleared his throat. “But, all this happened so quickly—”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, Mitch,” Sasha said quickly. Too quickly, Mitch thought, which revealed her own nervousness about the situation.
He opened the door and stared. Obviously some fairy godmother had waved her magic feather duster over the place while he’d been away getting married in Laughlin.
“It’s very nice,” Sasha said, her own surprise evident. It also occurred to her that if Mitch considered this Spartan example of housekeeping excellence a mess, he was going to be less than pleased with her housekeeping skills. She could literally see her reflection in the gleaming cherry end table. “And very clean.”
Mitch ran his finger over the top of the television, which, when he’d gone to work four days ago, had looked as if it had been frosted with a layer of snow. “It is that,” he agreed absently.
It was more than the fact that a guy could go blind from the sun streaming through the polished windows and reflecting off the shining furniture that had the apartment looking so unfamiliar. There was also the little fact that the furniture was not the same.
The cherry end table and the candlestick lamp, for example. And what the hell had happened to his couch? All right, so it might have had a few broken springs. And perhaps the stuffing was coming through the cracks in the burgundy red leather. But it had been huge. And if a guy spilled some salsa or beer on it while watching a football game on the tube, nobody cared.
Unfortunately, he could not say that for the new blue-checked cotton sofa that had taken its place. What kind of people broke into a place, took your stuff and replaced it with new?
“Oh, look,” Sasha called from the adjoining kitchen, “fresh flowers!”
The minute he saw the handwriting on the white envelope stuck in the bouquet of perky yellow-faced daisies, tiger lilies, carnations and star asters, Mitch had his answer.
