He pressed closer, caught by surprise when a raw awareness of her slender body seared through him. It was inconceivable. He enjoyed his women soft and vulnerable. The sort who depended upon him to offer support and protection. Not aging tartars who smelled of soap and starch.
“Then let me clarify the joining of resources.”
Her color deepened at the hint of huskiness in his voice. “What do you mean?”
“You desire my assistance, then you will have to follow my rules. Otherwise you can turn around and leave now.”
A tense silence filled the room he had recently converted into his private office, then without warning, Emma was shoving him away and pacing toward the window that overlooked the street.
Dimitri couldn’t deny a grudging respect for her courage. He knew only one other woman who would not have fainted or fled by now.
His mother.
The realization did nothing to ease his potent need to tame the prickly female. His mother’s courage had put her in an early grave.
“Fine.” Slowly turning, Emma regarded him with an unflinching gaze. “What are these precious rules?”
“The first is that I will not tolerate an ill-tempered termagant in my presence. If you cannot control your sharp tongue, then I will discover a means to tame it.”
Her eyes widened. “Tame? If you think I will tolerate being beaten by—”
He was moving before he could halt the impulse, his hands holding her face steady as he lowered his head and covered her mouth in a soft, coaxing kiss. He had intended to teach her a lesson in controlling her shrewish tongue, but at the first taste of her honeyed innocence his passions stirred, his body hardening. His hands tightened on her face as he deepened the kiss.
Just for a moment she softened against him, her lips parting in a sweet surrender. Then, with a choked moan, she jerked back, her eyes blazing with a fury that did not entirely mask her startled desire.
“Why, you…”
Well versed in the ways of women, Dimitri easily caught the hand she lifted to slap his face, bringing her fingers to his mouth.
“The second rule is no striking your master,” he could not resist taunting.
Flecks of gold smoldered in the hazel eyes. “Master?”
He kissed her slender fingers. “You are in desperate need of my assistance, which means that while you remain in St. Petersburg you are in my power.”
“I will not be treated as if I am a serf.”
“You will do precisely as I say and you will do so without complaint.”
She jerked her hand from his grasp, marching toward the door with her chin high and her back stiff.
“This is absurd.”
“If you walk out that door, Emma, I can assure you that you will never find your sister.”
CHAPTER THREE
EMMA HALTED AT THE soft threat.
Dimitri Tipova was not at all what she had expected. She had been prepared for a rough, ill-mannered oaf who used his fists, not his wits, to control the underworld. Certainly, she had never dreamed he would be a sophisticated, well-educated gentleman who was as beautiful as an angel and as wicked as Lucifer.
And that kiss…
No. She hastily thrust aside the feverish memory of her first kiss.
She was suitably rattled without the distracting thought of Dimitri’s warm, seeking lips and the potent heat that speared through her body.
Slowly turning, she met his ruthless gaze. “You know where she is?”