Pairing Off (Red Hot Russians #1) by Elizabeth Harmon

Max, but you’re going to listen to me. I want you to eat this and I’ll sit here while you do.”
    She stared, shocked by his rudeness. “You’re bossy, you know that?”
    “And you’ve got no strength. It’s why you can’t land anything. How long since you ate something besides fruit?”
    She tucked her apple under her skirt, as though she’d been caught doing something illegal. “I had a Big Mac...recently.”
    “Recently.” He sounded less than impressed. “How much Big Mac?”
    She sighed. “A bite. I wanted to see if it had caviar on it.”
    “Caviar?” He furrowed his brow at her, then shook his head. “Max said forty-five kilos he wants you to weigh. Why aren’t you doing that?”
    “Because that’s what I weighed before and as we all know, my partner had to resort to...extraordinary measures because I was too damn fat for him to lift properly!”
    She might have just given him a reason to fire her, but it was a relief to get it out in the open. No matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise, Cody and their coach’s joking threats to replace her with a skinny teenager had hurt.
    “Carrie,” he said, softly. “Look at me.”
    Um...okay.
Slowly, she took in every stunning inch. He was like a Greek god in the flesh, with thick, wavy dark hair, chocolate-brown eyes. Her gaze lingered on his muscular shoulders, and chest, then moved down to his flat stomach, powerful legs, strong arms and tawny skin. But only because he asked.
Yeah, right.
    Anton gave a cocky little grin. “I’m a big guy, right? Big guys skate pairs. That’s how we do it here. I’ve worked with Max long time. He knows what I can lift. Olga weighs forty-five, you can weigh forty-five.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, then slipped them inside her sleeve. “Too fragile,” he murmured.
    Fragile? He meant physically of course, though the word and the warm brush of his fingers made her shiver. Not because she was afraid of him. Far from it. He was big and strong, yet gentle. What frightened her was the attraction that grew stronger each day.
    “Go on,” he said. “Eat.”
    He released her arm, and she unwrapped the sandwich. Turkey and cheese, on the chewy black bread she’d eaten that first night. Borodinsky bread, they called it. Her mouth watered and her stomach growled. She was starving as usual, and was damn tired of the feeling. She wanted to eat. He wanted her to eat. She took a bite and chewed slowly. Then she took another.
    When the sandwich was gone, she sat quietly, unaccustomed to a full stomach but liking it anyway. And it wasn’t simply the food. Anton’s concern made her almost believe she was more than his last-ditch hope. She wadded up the sandwich wrap. “Thanks.”
    “No problem. You need to forget what that guy before used to say. I could lift him, if I had chance.” The cocky grin returned, and her heart fluttered. “We’re partners, Carrie, not just two skaters making tricks. If something’s wrong, we talk. If still wrong, we try something else. Easy as that.”
    If I told him I wanted to drop the
Evita
program, he’d probably change his tune real quick.
But wrapped in his warm gaze, still feeling his touch, everything else faded away. The tenderness in his dark eyes took her back to the night in Amsterdam, after they made love.
    Made love
. Strange, how she always thought of it that way.
    * * *
    Her good mood lasted until she checked her email during the cab ride home. Nothing from Dad or Lolly, but after a welcome ten-day absence, Cody had slithered back into her life.
    Subject: Come out, come out, wherever you are!
    She ought to change her email address, but kept remembering Dad’s advice to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That approach had served him well on his rise through politics. It seemed like a smart way to handle Cody.
    Let me guess, you’re hiding out with your mom’s trailer-trash kin, working at WalMart. Okay, time to take off the blue vest and quit