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  I watch as her blonde head moves back and forward, and rather than being turned on by the sight, my cock starts to fucking soften. I stop rocking into her mouth, ready to pull backwards but her fingers grip my hips tighter, and she holds me steady as she sucks my cock with utter determination to get me off.

  After all, I haven’t told her to stop.

  I’m torn between chasing that moment of heady release and running the fuck out of the room. In the end, my demons make the decision for me and I allow her to coax my cock back to life. Tonight, I’m taking whatever I can get.

  Closing my eyes, I imagine another pretty mouth sucking my dick. I imagine her haunted eyes looking up at me as she fucks me with her mouth. The woman I see has dark hair, green eyes and a body that’s as broken as my own messed up soul.

  My balls tighten as the rush of my orgasm rips through my body, and for a few brief seconds I find sweet, sweet relief. The woman’s groans have me opening my eyes and looking down at her parted mouth. She runs her tongue over the tip of my cock, lapping at the last drops of my cum. I ease out of her hold whilst she drops her head and waits, just like I taught her.

  My chest heaves as I battle with the thoughts swirling through my head. I never fantasise about another woman when I’m with someone. My head is always in the game. Nothing exists in that moment than the woman I’m with and my need to get off. And yet, somehow, in the brief time I’ve known her, Rose has managed to creep into my fucking head.

  Your soul, a tiny voice says.

  “Screw that,” I growl, making the woman jump.

  This is just a blip. A new piece of arse turning my head. That’s all.

  There’s only one way to get her out, and I intend on making that happen right now.

  Reaching down, I grab my flick-knife and pull up my trousers.

  “We’re done. Ms Hadley will call you a cab.”

  The woman smarts, her mouth popping open in shock, but I give her no other explanation. I don’t have to. Instead, I turn on my heel and stride from the room with only one thought in my head.

  I’m going to fuck Rose Gyvern.

  Chapter Seven

  Rose

  Throwing my coat on the couch I stride into the kitchen, ignoring the stabbing pain I feel in my knee and lower back. Grabbing the bottle of Merlot I started last night, I unscrew the lid and pour myself a large glass.

  “Fuck you, Mr Sachov!” I say, before drinking the whole lot in one go.

  Smacking my lips, I place the glass back on the counter and fill it up again, knocking the second glass back as quickly as the first. Who gives a crap about a hangover, it’s not as though I have a job to go to tomorrow anyway.

  I’ve. Got. No. Job.

  I’ve just been fired by Luka Petrin.

  Fired by one of the most talented ballet dancers of all time and a man I lusted after in my youth. In fact, the whole company had wanted to sleep with him, even some of the men. But he only had eyes for Svetlana, and I don’t blame him.

  Yes, I’d heard the rumours like everyone else, but I’ve no doubt he was faithful to her. I mean, they were made for each other. They belonged to one another. Why would anyone want to ruin that?

  She was just so perfect.

  A beautiful dancer, a beautiful woman, and nice too. Believe me, nice isn’t a trait most ballet dancers have. Competition is fierce, and friendships difficult to maintain. Or perhaps that had just been me. I kept away from most of the social aspects of the troupe. I never joined in on any of the partying or gatherings. I rehearsed, I worked hard, and I slept. Occasionally I would eat, and I never drank.

  Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

  For ten years, that had been my life, interspersed with a few brief relationships. I’d been happy enough, but I never made it to the dizzying heights Svetlana had. I just wasn’t talented enough. She’d had this light that just seemed to follow her everywhere she went, and when the pair danced together… Christ, it was magical.

  I remember the first time I’d watched them perform, I’d been a fresh faced dancer and they’d been in their prime. Like the rest of the company we were brought to their rehearsal room and introduced to them collectively, then they’d performed a scene from the ballet. I’d watched in awe, totally taken away by the beauty of them dancing together. They were like gods flying in the stratosphere and the rest of us mere mortals. Mortals who could get hurt, who could feel pain.

  My back spasms just at that moment, reminding me of just how ungodlike I am.

  Sliding onto my kitchen stool, I pick up the bottle and pour another glass, sipping it slowly this time. My hands are trembling, the adrenaline that had got me home ten minutes quicker than usual, now wearing off. My back and knee throb and I feel feverish.

  “Shit,” I say, regretting my stupidity. I’ve overdone it, again. I know tomorrow I’m going to feel ten times worse. Groaning, I settle the glass back down and lean my head against the cold marble work surface, gritting my teeth against the pain.

  Pain… it’s become a part of my life that I can no longer run from.

  Ballet had been my escape from this house, from this village, from the memories haunting me. It had been an escape from the emotional pain I felt, and for ten years it had kept my past at bay. I danced to be free of that pain, and now when I dance I’m punished with more. It’s a vicious cycle and one in which I can’t escape.

  Is there really any point in carrying on, Rosie?

  That dark voice I know so well whispers in my ear, taunting me.

  “Don’t fucking call me by that name. She’s dead. Rosie is gone.”

  Ha! Rosie’s still within you… that girl who watched her...

  “Leave me alone!” I scream.

  You’ll never dance again.

  “Please, leave me alone.” My voice catches, and I hate myself for allowing the darkness in.

  You’ll spend the rest of your life in pain. Aged and broken. Worthless and unloved.

  “Stop it.”

  He didn’t love you. Your parents were ashamed of you.

  “No more, please.”

  No one will ever love you, Rosie.. You’re too broken to even dance.

  “SHUT UP!” Standing abruptly, I pick up the glass and throw it against the wall. It shatters, splattering red wine over the white tiles. But it’s not enough to appease the anger and despair I feel, not nearly enough. So, I pick up the wine bottle too and smash it against the counter. It explodes before me, shards of glass and red wine covering the work surface, floor and my clothes.

  You couldn’t even keep your job filing away someone else’s success.

  “Fuck you,” I whisper, dropping the remains of the bottle on the counter.

  Turning on my heel, I walk from the kitchen and upstairs to my bedroom, sleep my only reprieve now.

  I awake a few hours later to the sound of thunder and a cold blast of air across my neck. Shifting in bed, I pull the covers up higher, covering most of my head so only a portion of my face is poking out. I should get up and shut the window, but I really don’t want to move. My head is groggy from the combination of painkillers, sleeping pills, and wine.

  Another loud rumble of thunder sounds as heavy rain pelts against the window, and as much as I enjoy a good storm, tonight all I want is sleep, though it appears I’m failing at that too.

  Rolling onto my back, I shut my eyes and try to coax sleep back, but all I see is Luka, or should I say Ivan, given the man who won’t leave my head is not the principal dancer of eleven years ago, but the man I’d stood toe to toe with not a few hours before.

  Ivan is completely different to the person I remember. He’s brash, rude, angry, and nothing like Luka. Okay, maybe not nothing like, he still has the same allure. Except this time, it’s the dangerous kind. I guess the loss of his wife has changed him. Loss does that, it changes a person. Ivan is living his own kind of hell, just like me.

  No wonder he’s so angry. He’s clearly spent a lot of time and effort trying to forget his past and pu
t his wife’s death behind him. He’s built a life without her, a successful one by all accounts. Then he’s confronted with me, a reminder of a time when they were happy, when she was alive. I can almost understand his reaction.

  She’d ‘died in tragic circumstances’, that’s what we’d all been told at the company. I know none of the details, I don’t think many people do. Her death had made the news for a few days, but after the funeral Luka and Svetlana were forgotten and he’d disappeared from the ballet scene, confessing that he would never be able to dance again, not without her.

  My heart squeezes at that. I’ve often wondered what it would feel like to be loved so completely… to give up his passion because he’d lost his one true love.

  There’s been only one time in my life I believed that I had been loved just as much. My foolish sixteen year old heart had been so trusting, gullible. I’d been wrong, so very wrong. That wasn’t love.

  Sighing heavily, I sit up in bed. The digital clock on my bedside table tells me it’s ten pm and deciding that sleep isn’t going to return anytime soon, I get out of bed. Hobbling towards my bedroom door, I pull on my dressing gown and head back downstairs into the kitchen, my head pounding in time with the ache in my knee and hips. Flipping on the kitchen light, I am faced with the carnage of my earlier anger. I step gingerly into the kitchen, trying to avoid the shards of glass scattered over my floor, and grab some paper towels and the dustpan and brush.

  Crouching down I pick up the larger pieces of glass and place them in a pile. Reaching for a rather sharp looking shard, I gingerly grasp it when a loud knock on my door makes me jump. I drop the glass, managing to slice open the pad of my middle finger in the process.

  “Shit!” I exclaim, as blood slides from the cut. It’s deep. Fortunately for me, the pain doesn’t register given the drugs, alcohol, and painkillers still in my system.

  The door knocker bangs sharply again.

  “Hold on a minute!” I shout, grabbing a tea towel and wrapping it around my finger. Blood seeps through the material.

  Another couple of sharp raps on the door has me hobbling down the corridor, ready to give Mrs Samson a piece of my mind. She has a habit of knocking at my door at all manner of hours asking for sugar or milk or something similar. One time she even asked if I had some cigarettes knowing full well I don’t smoke. The woman is a royal pain in my arse, and now finger. Clutching my hand to my chest, I yank open the front door to find Ivan Sachov standing in front of me soaking wet and with a thunderous look on his face. Without giving me a moment to ask what the hell he’s doing on my doorstep looking like he wants to murder someone, Ivan pushes open the door and strides into my hallway.

  “Who do you think you are, barging in here like that? How dare you!” I shout, turning on him.

  I’m so pissed off that I forget to hold the tea towel against my finger, and it drops to the floor. Blood seeps from the wound and drips down my hand.

  “Shit!” I say, moving to pick it up, but Ivan gets there before me and snatches it up in his hand.

  “What happened?” he barks, grabbing my wrist and wrapping the towel back around my bleeding finger. Ivan stares me down, his eyes dark and smouldering.

  For a moment I can’t speak, I’m so caught up in the look he’s giving me and the weird affect it seems to be having on my body. I don’t recognise this man; Ivan is a different beast to Luka, principal dancer and ballet god.

  “Well?” he demands, still holding onto my wrist.

  His hands are cold and wet, but it’s his touch that makes me shiver. His clothes are completely wet through and his hair is plastered to his head. I watch as a raindrop rolls down his cheek and falls from his jawline.

  “I cut it on a piece of broken glass. Now, can you just leave?” I say, yanking my hand back.

  His grip tightens. “What were you doing with broken glass?”

  He peers down at me, his eyes narrowing. Then he does something strange, he pushes back the sleeve of my dressing gown and pulls my arm out towards him, running a finger over my skin.

  “What are you doing?” I retort, trying and failing to get out of his grasp, trying and failing to ignore the pleasant sensation of his touch.

  “You need to sort out that cut. Where’s your medical supplies?” he snaps.

  What the hell is his problem? He fired me, he has no right to come into my home acting in such a way. Come to think of it, how does he know where I live?

  “If you let go of my arm, I might be able to sort it out!”

  He makes a noise that’s a mixture between a snarl and a snort, then proceeds to drag me along my own hallway and into the kitchen.

  “Watch the glass!” I yell as he steps straight onto the pile I’d just cleared. I yelp as my bare foot steps on a shard I’d missed. He looks at me holding my foot up, then down at the pile of broken glass before finally resting his eyes on the red wine covering most of the kitchen surfaces.

  “What happened?”

  “Shit, that hurts,” I say, completely ignoring his question. His presence has certainly sobered me up sharpish because now I feel all the pain. My finger and foot are throbbing and my knee and back are aching. Not to mention the little voice in the back of my head intent on bringing me further down. The black clouds aren’t just gathering outside.

  Ivan lets go of my wrist and I hobble backwards trying to get away from him as much as the broken glass all over the floor. I don’t get very far before he grips me around the waist and lifts me up onto the section of worktop that isn’t covered in spilt wine and broken glass.

  I let out a tiny sound of indignation and push at his chest for having the audacity to manhandle me. He ignores my attempts to shove him away, and simply grips my hips tighter. I fight the urge slap him.

  “Get your hands off me,” I grind out, caught between being completely pissed off for his audacity and uncomfortably turned on. Who the hell does he think he is?

  “Do you have a medical box or not?” he asks, still grasping hold of my hips. Somehow, he’s managed to work his way between my open thighs. I glance down, aware that my dressing gown has fallen open and I’m only wearing a pair of boxer shorts and a camisole, without a sodding bra. His gaze follows mine, and his mouth presses into a hard line as he takes a good look at my breasts.

  “The medical box?” he snaps, stepping back quickly.

  “Over there in the cupboard above the sink,” I reply, slamming my knees together and yanking my robe back around me. I know I’m bright red, I can feel the familiar heat rise up my chest and neck. Ivan strides over to the other side of the kitchen and a couple seconds later he has pulled the box from the cupboard, the same stony expression plastered on his face as he returns with it.

  “Give me your foot,” he barks, placing the box of medical supplies next to me on the counter. He rummages through and pulls out some antiseptic wipes and a plaster.

  “I’m perfectly capable of sorting myself out,” I say, pulling my foot up onto my knee so that I can see if there’s any glass stuck in it. I suck a breath through my teeth at the sudden sharp pain in my finger and foot, as well as my knee which is already beginning to swell up. Shit.

  “Where does it hurt?”

  There’s something in the way he asks that question that makes me think he isn’t just talking about the physical pain. I glance up at him, but although I’m certain he knows I’m staring at him, he refuses to meet my gaze. Instead, he opens an antiseptic wipe and slides it over the cut on my foot. I grit my teeth as he cleans away the blood.

  “There’s a bit of glass embedded in your foot. I can feel it,” he says, his eyebrows drawing together as he attempts to pull it out.

  “Ow!” I flinch, trying to yank my foot out of his grasp. He just grips it tighter.

  “Do you have any tweezers?”

  “Why?”

  “So I can pull the glass out, I can’t get it with my fingers.”

  I don’t respond right away, I’m too distracted by the way his thu
mb is massaging my foot just by the ankle bone. I don’t think he even realises he’s doing it. Why is he doing it? I zero in on that simple touch, at the heat building beneath his thumb as it moves over my skin. Jesus, what is happening here?

  “Rose, do you have any tweezers?” he repeats, snapping me out of my troubling thoughts.

  I nod, swallowing hard, trying not to show how affected I am by his touch.

  “Upstairs in the bathroom cabinet… Look, you can go, I can manage on my own,” I say, attempting once more to get rid of him.

  He makes that odd noise again, then releases me from his grasp. “I’ll get them,” he says, before striding down my hallway and disappearing up the stairs.

  I watch him leave, my mouth gaping like a goldfish and my heart galloping. What the hell is going on? Why is he here? And more to the point, why isn’t he bloody leaving? I think I’ve made it clear that I don’t want him here.

  Haven’t I?

  Then I remember the sudden flush of heat from his touch, and the awkward moment when our eyes met earlier. Leaning my head back against the kitchen cabinet, I close my eyes and try to calm my breathing. Upstairs my bathroom door slams shut.

  Chapter Eight

  Ivan

  I step into Rose’s bathroom and slam the door behind me. Staggering over to the washbowl, I turn the cold tap on and splash my face with water. I’ve never felt so out of control around a woman before. Not even with Svetlana.

  What the fuck is she doing to me?

  Collectively, I’ve been in her presence no more than half an hour, and in that time, she’s managed to well and truly fuck with my head. The feel of her skin, the way her lip curls up when she’s angry, the flush of red heat at my touch, the shape of her legs and her glorious breasts… the way her gaze cuts right through me. Those eyes. Fuck.

  Gripping hold of the washbowl I lean over, fighting the urge to throw up. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Luka?” I ask myself.

  Luka? I haven’t referred to myself as Luka for more than two years now. Things really must be bad.