Ch. 1 Temptation

We started kissing, and I felt him move his mouth over the side of my neck. I shivered as he sucked on the side of my neck, and moved his lips down to my collarbone.

I looked into Dimitri's dark, seemingly bottomless eyes. They were full of love….and more than a little bit of lust.

"You're making it utterly impossible for me to resist you," I whispered, pulling him even closer to me and kissing him softly. There was virtually no space between us.

I felt him laugh and he whispered back in his Russian accent, "Roza, you have no idea how hard it is to resist you whenever I see you."

"Oh?" I asked, and without a second thought took off the blouse I was wearing and exposed a rather skimpy tank top. "What about now?"

I felt his heartbeat accelerate even more quickly as I moved my fingers up against his chest, and then tossed his shirt over his head and to the other side of my room.

We kissed even more passionately, and we stumbled over to my bed while I unzipped his jeans. I ran my fingers over the soft skin of his chest, and he let out a soft sigh.

He brought his lips down to the exposed skin of my shoulders and chest, and kissed those spots very fiercely. I wouldn't be surprised if there would be bruises left there tomorrow. Hell, maybe even by the time we were-

My thoughts were interrupted as his hands traveled down to a certain dangerous area. I gasped, and we kept kissing and he took off my-

BEEP! BEEP!

I groaned and rolled over in my bed. "Right when we were going to get to the good part too," I muttered, slamming down the button on that stupid alarm clock. This dream wasn't going to be helping me out any.

I flopped back into my bed, and closed my eyes. That dream of me with Dimitri was so vivid…if only we could get all hot and heavy. But the only time we'd gotten even close was the lust charm that Victor Dashkov had unleashed on us…

I blinked open my eyes and stared at the clock. It read 5:10. In the "morning" (figuratively speaking, since we run on a nocturnal schedule)

Oh, CRAP, I thought, scrambling out of bed. Practice was supposed to have started 10 minutes ago! Dimitri was going to kill me.

I flew around my room, pulling on a shirt, sweats, and sneakers, before rapidly brushing my teeth and grabbing a bottle of water and flying down the stairs and out of my dorm.

I broke into a sprint and headed for the gym as fast as I could, my dark hair flying out crazily behind me. The cold air made it a little hard to breathe, but I kept running towards the gym.

I stopped in the room, panting, and looked up at the clock. 5:15. My eyes fell on Dimitri, and my heart started racing as I took all of him in.

All of his six-seven glory was sitting on a chair, reading a Western. He looked up at my approach, and raised his eyebrow. I could feel all the tension between us practically simmering in the air.

"Sorry, sorry," I apologized, even though I really wasn't sorry. I needed my beauty sleep after all, and after that dream…

"You're fifteen minutes late," he pointed out in that irresistible Russian accent of his.

"Sorry, Comrade," I shot back playfully as I bound my hair into a ponytail and stepped back. "I'll be up at 4 PM sharp next time."

Dimitri rolled his eyes. "You can barely get up at your normal time, let alone a whole hour early," he said, setting his book down and getting up. "Go through your normal routine, and then run five laps around the track."

I wanted to complain about the laps in such cold weather, but I doubted he'd be very sympathetic. And I guess I deserved it for running fifteen minutes late to practice. Oh well.

To my surprise, as I started my warm-up exercises, Dimitri sat down next to me and started doing them with me. He was sitting so close to me that there was barely any space between us.

"Why are you doing my routine with me today?" I asked, stretching towards my toes and holding it for ten seconds. "Read too many Westerns?"

Dimitri laughed, one of his rare full laughs. "It's impossible to ever read too many Westerns."

"You're the only one who'd say that," I murmured to myself as I stretched to my other foot.

After finishing my five laps (Dimitri ran those with me too), we moved on to a sparring exercise.

My breath hitched a little inappropriately when he told me. Although it wouldn't be exactly the type of touching I wanted, it would at least give me an excuse to touch him…

Studying Dimitri, he looked a little amused-and a bit eager. But when I looked at him again, his face was clear of emotion in the blank guardian face he was so good at.

"You're going to get your ass kicked," I murmured as we squared off on the gym mats, facing each other.

There was a slight hint of a smile in Dimitri's voice when he spoke. "That's really not a bad idea."

My mouth almost wanted to drop. Who knew that Dimitri could-and actually knew how to-talk dirty?

I hid my feelings and lunged at him. He effortlessly blocked my arm and twisted my arm behind my back.

I aimed a slight kick at his leg but he blocked it and without an effort, threw me to the gym mat so he was on top, his hands holding my wrists.

"I win," he said.

"You cheated," I accused, sticking my tongue out at him.

He smirked. "I didn't. I just have more experience than you."

I rolled my eyes. "Being seven years older than me doesn't give you more experience, Comrade."

Silence hung in the air, and I realized that we were still on the gym mat...and I was under him. His hand still held my wrists. Our bodies were pressed very warmly together, and I could feel his heart racing through the shirt he wore.

My eyes dropped down to his lips and then back to his eyes. I wanted to kiss him more than anything else in the world. More than that, I wanted him to kiss me and want me back in the same way I did.

"Roza…" My name was like a soft prayer on his lips.

I knew, from his whisper, he wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss him. He was trying very hard to hold back and not give in to what he wanted.

I had very little self-control. But I was trying to work on it. And kissing him when we were trying to keep our feelings for each other a secret till graduation…I suppose that really wouldn't help our current situation.

But goddamn, he was so gorgeous and we were so close that we didn't have any space between us…and he wasn't letting go of me… It was so frustrating, to have Dimitri so close to me but we were unable to kiss.

He hesitated. I could see the conflict in his eyes. There was nothing more than he wanted to kiss me, but doing so would set off the sparks and feelings we had for each other.

Disappointed, I watched him pull back a little for me. I guess it was too much for, wishing that he would kiss me. He was very good at self-control, unlike me…

He leaned down and kissed me very softly on the lips.