48
CORA
I push open the doors of the gym. Yasha immediately slides his headphones off and slows his treadmill. “What are you doing here? Did Jorden send you to see me?”
“No… Should she have?”
“No!” he answers a bit too fast. He downshifts into a grimace. “It’s not a big deal. We just had a little disagreement. I figured she sent you in to mediate.”
“Ah,” I say. “Hence the running. If you two are fighting, I’m sure you have a lot of excess energy to burn off.”
“On the contrary: when we’re fighting, I’m even more exhausted than usual, if you catch my drift.” He grins and waggles his brows—as if I needed the nonverbal explanation.
“Gross.” I wrinkle my nose. “Moving on. So why are you two fighting?”
“We aren’t fighting. She just wanted me to come to her place last night and I told her I couldn’t.”
“Why couldn’t you?”
“Because.”
I raise my brows. “Because… why?”
“Because of you,” he says, like it’s totally obvious. “You’re back and Mikhail and Alexander are still out there. I need to be here in case anything goes wrong. To keep you safe.”
“That’s actually what I came to talk to you about,” I say. “I want to be as safe as possible, too. After the other day with Mikhail, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how useless I felt.”
“Ivan had Mikhail handled, Cora. He didn’t need your help.”
“No, I know that. I get that. But there might come a point when I need to fend for myself.”
Just the thought of a point like that brings back memories I’d rather forget. Mikhail cornering me in my bedroom at Alexander’s house, pressing me against the wall while his hands crept lower and lower and…
I blink the images away and find Yasha studying me. He swipes the sweat off of his forehead. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I want you to teach me how to fight.”
“No. Correction: hell no.”
His answer is so fast that it takes me by surprise. I’m sure I must have misheard him.
“What?”
“No.” He shakes his head firmly. “I can’t.” He pulls out his phone, ignoring me entirely.
I’m still standing there, wondering if I’m the butt of some joke I don’t get. “You can’t? What does that mean?”
“Listen, CorCor—can I call you that?” He pockets his phone. “CorCor, I basically view you as a sister at this point. You are a sexless, shapeless blob in my eyes.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Somehow, I’m both grossed out and offended at the same time. What are you talking about?”
“Fighting is close and personal.” He does a little bob-and-weave to prove his point. “For you, grappling would probably be the best use of your learning time and that can only take place in close quarters, you know what I mean? I’m not going to do that without talking to Ivan first.”
“You’re kidding. What is this, like, some kind of ‘bros before hoes’ thing?”
He snaps and points at me with a pleased grin. “Exactly! You get it.”
I gasp in mock horror and pull out my phone. “I’m going to tell Ivan you called me a ‘hoe.’ How do you think he’ll feel about that?”
“Woah! It’s just a phrase. He knows that. He won’t care.” Yasha watches me pace while I dial and the phone rings. Just before Ivan picks up, he whispers, “But don’t tell him… just in case.”
“Hello, solnishka,” Ivan answers. “Everything okay?”
“I want Yasha to teach me how to fight.”
Again, I expect a few moments of consideration and a discussion. I’ve got my argument ready, an extremely convincing PowerPoint already cued up in my head. But just like Yasha, Ivan answers immediately.
“No.”
My mouth falls open. “What? Why?”
“He said no, didn’t he?” Yasha crows. “I knew it! He would have killed me if I’d done it without asking.”
I ignore him and focus on Ivan’s deep voice. “Yasha is not going to teach you how to fight.”
I frown. “You already said that, but why?”
As I ask, the doors to the gym open up and Ivan walks in. He lowers the phone from his ear and slides it into the pocket of his gray sweatpants. “Because I am.”
Ivan is in a black tank top that is molded to every ridge and valley of his body. I stand stock-still and ogle him. His broad shoulders, muscled arms, and tapered waist. I haven’t even gotten below the belt yet and I’m already giddy and squirmy.
I’ve never seen Ivan in casual clothes like this in the light of day and, good God, I think he was created for athletic wear. He is broad and solid and the idea that I should learn to defend myself seems silly in the face of everything that he is.
“Okay,” Yasha says, creeping forward one step at a time. “That is my cue to leave before something physical goes down.”
Ivan blinks away from me to look at his best friend and I am forced to acknowledge once again that we are every bit as bad as Yasha and Jorden. Fifteen seconds in the same room with us and Yasha is sprinting for the exit.
As he passes Ivan, he pats him on the shoulder. “Good luck. And if Cora says anything about me calling her a name, it was a misunderstanding. You know how women can be.”
“Hey!” I call after him. But it’s too late. Yasha is already hightailing it for the doors.
And then Ivan is in front of me. Every hot, chiseled inch of him.
I blink away from his chest and look into his eyes. That doesn’t help much. He’s got them cranked up to full power today. I’m a helpless deer in the headlights. “Where were you?”
“I was planning to get a workout in when Yasha texted me that you were here.”
“Can I do anything in this house without you knowing about it?”
“Probably not,” Ivan admits. “Not until things cool down. The only reason I agreed to leave for my meeting this morning is because Yasha swore the security team would update me on where you were every fifteen minutes.”
The oppressive surveillance has an echo of being trapped in Alexander’s house under lock and key. The difference is, Ivan is doing all of this to keep me safe—to keep me free. He’s looking out for me. I get that and I love him for it.
I just want to be able to look out for myself, too.
“So,” Ivan starts again, “you want to learn how to fight?”
I nod. “Will you teach me?”
“Of course. For a price.”
“A price?”
He grins wickedly. “I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Quid pro quo. That sort of thing.”
“Well, I don’t know how to fight. Even if I did, you don’t need me to teach you that. I can teach you how to French braid hair if you want?”
He chuckles. “Tempting, but I’ll pass.”
“Then what do you want?”
He leans in, bringing his woodsy scent with him. “I’ll decide later.”
I have to exhale away the haze in my mind. “You want me to agree to conditions I don’t know yet? I think every lawyer in existence would tell me that’s a bad idea.”
Ivan spreads his arms wide. “I don’t see any lawyers in here, solnishka,” he says. “It’s just you and me.”
I sigh. I’m one thousand percent positive I’ll regret the words that are about to come out of my mouth. I’m also one thousand percent positive it’s the kind of regret I can live with.
“Fine. I’ll pay your extortion price, Ivan. Teach me to fight and I’ll do whatever you want.”