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‘Veterinary. I grew up on dairy farm. I would like to stay, but father has six sons and I am runt.’
Julia couldn’t help but cast him a dubious look. Runt wasn’t exactly the word that sprang to mind when she took in all of that brawn.
He went on, ‘I do not want small slice of pie. I want whole. I will play hockey, and then I will live here and work here. Business is good, but it is better to learn to talk to people, make them feel better.’
He looked at her with clear blue eyes, and as he returned her smile a pair of deep dimples appeared.
Delight ran through her like warm water. Julia smiled back and curled her fingers around her cup.
‘That’s very helpful, Mikhail,’ she replied quietly.
‘Mick,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘I go by Mick.’
Julia shook, and with a gasp realised she hadn’t introduced herself properly. ‘Oh, call me Julia.’
He raised a brow. ‘Not Miss?’
This time the giggle escaped. ‘No, not Miss.’
She raised her cup and took a sip of coffee. One mouthful and she coughed, and with a wave of her hand dismissed his concerned expression.
‘You make a strong cup of coffee, Mick.’
‘Too strong?’
‘No, not at all,’ she lied and set the cup back down. One sip would be enough to keep her alert until midnight.
He nudged her with his elbow. ‘Strong is good. Puts hair on palms.’
This time, Julia couldn’t keep the laughter in. She clapped her hand over her mouth but still sputtered around her palm.
The frown returned, and under its glare it took her another few moments to put a stopper on her sniggering.
‘I think you mean chest, not palms,’ she managed, and suffered a fresh attack as he looked down at his hands. ‘The expression is “puts hair on your chest”. Palms is…something else.’
‘You sure? Men on team said –’
‘The men on your team were being assholes. Trust me, it’s chest and not palms.’
He didn’t look convinced, but he nodded and tugged his collar aside and smiled. ‘Hair on chest, then.’
And what an inviting chest it was. Just that little flash was enough to add a little more sensation to her flash fantasy: the brusque friction of hot skin and coarse hair rubbing against her breasts.
This surprise arousal made her ticklish and struck her dumb for a moment. Surly had further softened, and a lazy smile curved his mouth.
She fumbled for the remote, feeling foolish for squirming like this under such intense scrutiny. Relief went through her as she found it wedged between her ass and the cushions, but it was short-lived when, as she whipped the remote towards the television, it slipped out of her sweaty palm and smacked him in the chest.
‘Oh, fuck, I’m sorry!’ she exclaimed and reached for the remote, and stopped herself just in time. It had landed between his legs, sticking up perfectly vertical from his crotch.
Ninjas didn’t seem like such a bad idea at that moment.
Mick collected the remote and held it out, but he didn’t let go once she had it in her hand.
He leaned forward and his grin widened. ‘Is “fuck” first lesson? How do you say in French?’
Julia couldn’t get her tongue to work, and she couldn’t stop the grimace that she was sure made her look like an imbecile.
‘In this country they usually just say “fuck”,’ she managed to croak.
He raised his brows. ‘Just…“fuck”?’
Julia pressed her lips together. She couldn’t even imagine such a wicked word chucking into the atmosphere with that growling accent close to her ear.
‘I think we should just focus on the introductions for today.’
It took some time, but as she led him through a series of formal and informal greetings her blood cooled and she got back into her usual groove. Mick had little trouble committing them to memory, but saying the words in the proper accent eluded and frustrated him. His cheeks reddened and his scowl returned, and his words became short and clipped.
Julia turned off the television and sat back with a sigh. ‘You need to take a break. You practically have smoke coming out of your ears.’
He turned his scowl full force on her. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s an expression. It means your brain is working too hard, like a machine that needs greasing. We still have forty-five minutes left, so why don’t you take a five-minute break? I haven’t eaten yet, so I’m going to throw a Pop Tart in the toaster.’
His lips remained in a tight line and his forehead broken by lines as he glared at his open textbook.
‘It is not an easy language, this French. Reading is easy. Speaking and listening, not easy at all.’
Julia laughed as she rose. ‘Some people would say that Russian is hard to learn.’
‘That is a lie,’ he said firmly, and his growl followed her all the way to the fridge.
She glanced at the clock. Five minutes would give her enough time to pop a tart and brew a less hair-raising pot of coffee, and to give Mick enough time to chill out, though it did cross her mind to offer him a belt of whiskey to mellow him out.
As she waited for the toaster she turned at the sound of the couch springs creaking. Mick entered the kitchen, his empty cup and her full cup in his hands.
‘You are a student at the university, are you not? History?’
‘That’s right. Coach Gwynn’s brother is my adviser,’ she told him, and stepped aside as he placed the dirty dishes in the sink. ‘He told me you didn’t speak any English when you first came to this country.’
‘Very little. Coach speak Russian, so not so bad to start. Team mates help – except for hairy palms.’
Julia snorted, and held her hands up when the question appeared on his face. ‘I’m really not going to be the one to tell you.’
‘You must. I need to know why I punch them in face.’
She doubled over, then cringed as she found herself giving in. ‘People say that a man gets hairy palms when he…pleasures himself too much.’
Mick cocked his head, one brow raising up. ‘That is stupid.’
‘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.’
