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Fire And Ice
AM Hartnett
Play hard, love hard.Don’t fall into the lap of the enormous Russian. Do outlaw all thoughts of crazy-hot sex on living room floor with hockey player you’ve only just met.When junior hockey star Mick “The Dragon” Volkov first shows up on her doorstep, Julia gives her ornery student a month before he bails on his French lessons. Yet by the end of that first day, she finds herself smitten with the playful flirt beneath that intimidating exterior.Trying to keep her attraction to this bruiser in check becomes a futile exercise for Julia. Once Mick makes it clear he wants her in his bed, Julia decides to give in to temptation and discovers that “The Dragon” is just as explosive in bed as he is on the ice.
Fire & Ice
A. M. HARTNETT
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright (#u32e65c3b-6d2d-52da-9fa4-f68b0c969c7c)
Mischief
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London, SE1 9GF
www.mischiefbooks.com (http://www.mischiefbooks.com)
An eBook Original 2015
Copyright © A. M. Hartnett 2015
A.M. Hartnett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novella is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2015 ISBN: 9780008148751
Version: 2015–05–13
Contents
Cover (#ue362a275-6792-5acb-baf9-2790328d33b9)
Title Page (#ua8b2732d-5292-5598-84d4-2b31a8d67e65)
Copyright (#ub5299ee2-9ff9-51c4-b334-3467f0707e3b)
Chapter One (#ue7c85147-0d14-5d85-bc7d-562f57a83c98)
Chapter Two (#u6986ff25-5966-564d-844c-436eba7fe9ce)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
More from Mischief (#litres_trial_promo)
About Mischief (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u32e65c3b-6d2d-52da-9fa4-f68b0c969c7c)
The pounding was so brisk that it rattled the windows, and as Julia pushed the cold eye mask from her face she uttered her first curse of the day.
‘Oh, come on, it’s October. Enough with the home reno’s,’ she groaned, and looked longingly through the bathroom door to the bedroom where her noise-cancelling earphones were slung over the headboard. They were the best three hundred dollars she had ever spent and had saved her from more than a few homicidal rages as she tried to work through Mr Morgan’s noisy to-do list.
After a moment of silence, Julia sighed and pulled the mask back down over her eyes and sank deeper into the tub. She gave herself over to the fizz of what was left of her bubbles and David Gray crooning ‘Babylon’ from the Bluetooth speaker on the toilet tank, determined to stay that way until her phone’s alarm beeped to let her know it was time to get a wiggle on her day.
A second onslaught of pounding rose up. Through the flurry of expletives she let loose Julia realised that the sound wasn’t Mr Morgan but her front door.
She tore the mask off and it landed with a splat on the tile floor.
Someone, some lunatic, was hammering on her front door at ten to eight in the morning.
The knocking continued in a rhythmic burst of insistent raps while she pulled herself out of the tub and dragged her robe on. As she passed by Kris’s door she slowed with a growl, overflowing with jealousy over her roommate’s ability to sleep even if Liam Neeson broke into the house and detonated a bomb in the kitchen.
‘I’m coming,’ she barked as she reached the bottom step, but it did nothing to abate the teeth-chattering blows upon her door.
She twisted the knob, scowl ready to drive back her unwanted guest, but it was Julia who found herself taking a step back.
The man on her doorstep looked like he had burst free from a video game featuring barbarian raiders wielding axes and been given a makeover. Shoulders went on and on, and a chest pressed against the front of his fleece pullover. His dark hair stuck out in errant curls and licks, and the scruff of beard looked like it hadn’t met a razor that could best it.
It was the expression that cinched it. Lips pressed tightly together and thick brows almost meeting where the deep line formed between them. Julia had never seen a more perfect glower in her life…outside of mugshots.
Before she could recover and greet him, the man reached into the satchel that hung at his side and withdrew a book, which he thrust between them.
‘I am here for the French,’ he said in a thick Russian accent.
Julia looked down at the book. Emma et Olivier: French for Beginners.
‘Oh,’ she said, and found it a bit of a challenge to meet his intense gaze. ‘Right. You’re…really early. Aren’t we supposed to meet at nine o’clock?’
His scowl deepened, and his gaze moved slowly from the top of her blonde head to her bare feet. The temptation to follow nearly killed her. She hoped there were no coffee stains on her robe, or dried blobs of the mashed-banana face mask she’d used the other morning. It didn’t seem completely out of the realm of possibility that her visitor would make her drop and give him twenty push-ups for being slovenly.
Nostrils flaring impatiently, he tucked his free hand into the outer pocket and pulled out his phone. Using only his thumb, he swiped the screen a few times and then held up the device for her to see.
‘You said eight,’ he insisted, the word coming out as et.
Daring to drag her gaze from his face, she looked at the screen. There it was, the email she had sent him three days ago about their first tutoring session. The date and time was highlighted in blue. Sure enough, she had made a typo.
He was on time, and she was an idiot.
Radiating impatience, he tucked his phone back into his bag and looked expectantly past her.
Julia did a quick check to make sure her robe was still closed and then stepped aside. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought we were meeting at nine o’clock. Come in, please. It’ll take me just a few minutes to get dressed – ah, what is your name again?’
‘Mikhail Volkov,’ he said, and eclipsed her as he stepped into the foyer.
Right. The hockey player. The Dragon.
The Bandits typically provided their own English as a Second Language programme to foreign players, but for some reason this bruiser wanted to learn French. Professor Gwynn had put Volkov in touch with her just a few days ago and, though she was already stretched thin with this tutoring gig, teaching and her master’s programme, she’d taken on this new client.
He didn’t look around and take in the house she shared with Kris. Once he stepped into the living room, he focused on the table beyond the archway in the dining room and stuck his arm out.
‘There.’
Julia was almost afraid to correct him, and it took a few more seconds to untie her tongue. ‘Actually, we’ll be doing this in here. I’ve got some videos I want you to watch on YouTube and I use the television for that sort of thing.’
He swivelled around so quickly she took a step back, and Julia waited until he had completed his assessment of the living room before she spoke again.
‘So, I’m going to put on a pot of coffee while I get dressed. Would you like a cup?’
He hauled his satchel over his head and dropped it on the sofa, then looked at her.
‘Let me make coffee as you dress, then we begin.’
She wasn’t quite sure she wanted him wandering around the house, but she couldn’t think of a reason to insist he sit down and wait, especially not after she’d screwed up their meeting time.
She pointed in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Coffee is on the counter, and the coffee maker is your standard coffee maker. I won’t be more than ten minutes.’
Once upstairs, she drained the bathtub and took her things back to her bedroom. As quickly as she could, she dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, twisted her hair at the back of her head and fastened it with a clip. Forgoing her full makeup regimen for the sake of timeliness, she settled for only a dusting of powder on her face, some mascara and a tinted lip balm.
The smell of coffee wafted from downstairs as she stepped into the hallway, computer tucked under one arm. Outside Kris’s door she paused once more, then slipped inside.
‘Kris – wake up!’
The lump under the covers didn’t move, so Julia gave it a shake.
Without so much as a groan, Kris pulled the blankets off of her head and sat up. Her face from last night was smeared under her eyes and around her mouth, and her unwashed and gelled hair stood out like the bride of Frankenstein’s.
‘What?’
‘I’ve got The Terminator downstairs for a French lesson.’
Kris scowled, and though it was ugly it was nowhere near the level of disapproval that the man downstairs conveyed.
‘Explain.’
‘Remember I told you about the hockey player that Professor Gwynn asked me about? The Russian guy? He’s downstairs and he’s downright terrifying.’
‘How terrifying?’
‘If the house was attacked by ninjas right now, I’m pretty sure he’d have the situation under control in about sixty seconds.’
Kris giggled and sank back into her fortress of pillows. ‘Have fun with that. If I’m still asleep at eleven, wake me up.’
Downstairs, Mikhail had set up an orderly area on one side of the coffee table. Emma et Olivier lined up neatly alongside a spiral notebook and a thin laptop. The other side, obviously designated her slice of real estate, was clean and empty.
‘Not much room,’ he stated as she slipped her MacBook on to the surface, and he glanced at the dining table.
‘Don’t need much room,’ she said cheerfully and plucked two remotes from the caddy on the arm of the sofa.
She turned on the television and the media streamer, then went quickly to her online video channel.
‘So how it works is that we start with the sort of things you need to know if you were travelling through a French-speaking locale. Once I’m sure you can survive a week in Montréal without getting arrested, then we’ll move on to more advanced skills – but first, I need a cup of coffee. What do you take in yours?’
‘Black,’ he said, and as she headed for the kitchen she caught an impatient sigh.
She rolled her eyes as she poured out two cups of coffee. It was challenging enough teaching French to someone to whom English wasn’t even a first language, but put the attitude on top of it and she predicted that he’d give up after less than a month of lessons.
Reaching into the fridge for the cream, Julia looked over the door and peeked into the living room. Her student had clasped his hands in front of him and was twisting his thick fingers together as he looked around. Rather than surly, he merely looked uncomfortable and out of place.
With the red film of her rage gone, Julia had to admit that he wasn’t bad to look at. She certainly wouldn’t call him pretty, but as soon as she turned her back on him she felt the tiniest of shivers, compelling her to turn around and give him another look.
She resisted long enough to splash cream in her cup, then indulged as she returned to the fridge. She caught him returning her stare, though she couldn’t tell if it was annoyance or merely curiosity in his expression.
Embarrassment mingled with the thrill of being caught, Julia finished up and returned with his black and her double cream, double sugar. She sidled next to him and slid the cups on to the table. Though the work area was evenly divided, there seemed to be a disproportionate division of space on the sofa. He took up so much of it and the weight of his sprawl put her off balance. She shifted a few times to keep from sliding closer to him before determining it was a useless effort. He seemed to be everywhere, not just his body but his presence. The air surrounding her was thick with it.
To keep from rolling into his lap, Julia perched on the very edge and resigned herself to the inevitable pins and needles in her ass.
‘Before we start, why don’t you tell me why you want to learn French,’ she asked more out of nosiness than anything else, and prepared herself for another blast of that disapproval.
Mikhail instead took a loud slurp of his coffee. His thick lashes fluttered and what sounded like a soft purr rumbled from his chest.
As the sound skittered over her shoulders and settled under the skin, Julia bit her bottom lip.
Oh, my.
It was far too easy to imagine that sound wrapping around her in the darkness, as rich as the aroma of coffee that filled the room.
Desperate to banish that most unprofessional impulse, Julia opened her laptop and turned it on.
‘I am here to play hockey for Bandits, but this is my last season,’ he told her. ‘I wish to begin studies next fall. I want to stay, and I want both English and French. More opportunity.’
Julia picked up her own cup. ‘Business degree?’
