Russian Heat by Rhyll Biest Page B

spent pressed against hot Russian muscle while bumping along dirt roads from one oblast to the next. After a month she was worn but still hanging in there, gripping by her fingertips to good sense above the yawning chasm of libido below her dangling feet.
    “Jane,” Slava’s English wasn’t as good as Vlad’s and his mouth softly twisted the initial consonant of her name.  “Next time there’s shelling, leave the ovtsa and get in the car bistri.”
    The mix of Russian and English told her Slava was pissed, as did the narrowing of his hazel eyes. An extra level of tension was moulded around his solid neck, and she wondered what change he sensed in the air.
    “Something different about today’s shelling?” she asked. The rumble of shells and ping of bullets was ever-present, part of the scenery, not reason enough to keep her from stemming a livestock epidemic that could blight the region’s livelihood for years, starving civilians and soldiers alike.
    The slight flare of Slava’s nostrils reminded her he was not a fan of being questioned.  “No ask, just do.”
    There it was, the obnoxious, chest-thumping attitude that stirred snakes in her breast and steeled her resolve not to succumb to temptation. She caught Vlad’s grin at the exchange, the lop-sided twist of his lips sweet enough to cajole a scud out of exploding, his smoky grey eyes filled with such sinful amusement her body clenched in need.
    Damn them both to hell, and this stupid car. She’d ride on the roof rack before she’d do anything as stupid as get involved with two armed danger-addicts. At thirty-two, she was old enough to keep a lid on her hormones and her legs firmly closed. Still, it was good to have Yuri in the front as chaperone. Just in case.
    ~* * *~
    Caged in the stuffy confines of the car, Yuri’s noxious cigarette smoke embedded in the vinyl seats and the upholstery of his lungs, Slava could at least enjoy the way Jane’s back stiffened at his words. Like he’d goosed her, and since he could only fantasise what it would be like to get a hand on one of her pert round globes and gently pinch the firm flesh between finger and thumb, any strong reaction he wrung from her was profoundly satisfying.
    Viacheslav
    
     “Slava” Vlasov had been prepared not to like the Australian Government veterinarian. He was not a bigot. His country’s mix of Russians, Germans, Ukrainians, Tatars, Chuvashi and other minorities was fine by him. But what limited interaction he’d had with westerners had not impressed him. Many of the men, including foreign aid workers, dripped with entitlement and a sense of superiority, despite being quick to succumb to the lure of bargain basement prostitutes.
    He’d predicted the Australian woman vet would be the same minus, perhaps, the taste for prostitutes. Instead he’d met a five-foot-nothing unbreakable wisp, quietly wilful and unrelentingly dedicated to her work. For a month she’d let nothing keep her from grabbing this or that animal and extracting blood, strands of long blonde hair escaping her helmet while her face reddened with exertion despite the autumn air.
    Vlad
    
     sometimes teased her that she was a blood-thieving vampire, but Slava pictured her a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired rusalka, at home in watery depths or combing her hair by a river as she waited to tempt men to their deaths. With his thigh and arm pressing her soft curves, his nose twitching inches away from her silky tumble of pale hair, he counted himself among the tempted.
    He listened with half an ear as she parried Vlad’s suggestive comments using a laugh and a throw-away line or telling dirty jokes to deflect his attention. She maintained a well-fortified wall around herself, keeping the perimeter of her inner sanctum tightly guarded, but she didn’t fool Slava. Underneath her cool defences
     smouldered a passionate soul and each time she ignored shelling and storms to fill her vacutainers, she betrayed that hidden intensity, along