That wounded. "I'd like to hear you speak my language."

She set the purse she still carried onto a table with a snap. "Baryshnikov, glasnost."

His lips curled. "This is Russian. I am Ukrainian. This is a mistake you make, but I overlook."

"It. You overlook it," she corrected. "In any case, it's close enough." He took a step forward, she took one back. "I'm sure we can have a fascinating discussion on the subtleties of language, but it will have to wait." He came closer, and she—casually, she hoped—edged away. "As I said before, I enjoyed the evening. Now—" he maneuvered her around a chair "—stop stalking me."

"You imagine things. You're not a rabbit, you're a woman."

But she felt like a rabbit, one of those poor, frozen creatures caught in a beam of headlights. "I don't know what's put you in this mood—"

"I have many moods. You put me in this one every time I see you, or think about you."

She shifted so that a table was between them. Because she well knew if she kept retreating her back would be against the wall, she took a stand. "All right, damn it. What do you want?"

"You. You know I want you."

Her heart leaped into her throat, then plummeted to her stomach. "You do not." The tremble in her voice irritated her enough to make her force ice into it. "I don't appreciate this game you're playing."

"I play? What is a man to think when a woman blows hot, then cold? When she looks at him with passion one minute and frost the next?" His hands lifted in frustration, then slapped down on the table. "I tell you straight out when you are so upset that I don't want your mama, I want you. And you call me a liar."

"I don't…" She could hardly get her breath. Deliberately she walked away, moving behind a chair and gripping the back hard. It had been a mistake to look into his eyes. There was a ruthlessness there that brought a terrible pitch of excitement to her blood. "You didn't want me before."

"Before? I think I wanted you before I met you. What is this before?"

"In the car." Humiliation washed her cheeks of color. "When I—when we were driving back from Long Island. We were…" Her fingers dug into the back of the chair. "It doesn't matter."

In two strides he was in front of the chair, his hands gripped over hers. "You tell me what you mean."

Pride, she told herself. She would damn well keep her pride. "All right then, to clarify, and to see that we don't have this conversation again. You started something in the car that night. I didn't ask for it, I didn't encourage it, but you started it." She took a deep breath to be certain her voice remained steady. "And you just stopped because… well, because I wasn't what you wanted after all."

For a moment he could only stare, too stunned for speech. Then his face changed, so quickly, Sydney could only blink at the surge of rage. When he acted, she gave a yip of surprise. The chair he yanked from between them landed on its side two feet away. ,

He swore at her. She didn't need to understand the words to appreciate the sentiment behind them. Before she could make an undignified retreat, his hands were clamped hard on her arms. For an instant she was afraid she was about to take the same flight as the chair. He was strong enough and certainly angry enough. But he only continued to shout.

It took her nearly a full minute to realize her feet were an inch above the floor and that he'd started using English again.

"Idiot. How can so smart a woman have no brains?"

"I'm not going to stand here and be insulted." Of course, she wasn't standing at all, she thought, fighting panic. She was dangling.

"It is not insult to speak truth. For weeks I have tried to be gentleman."

"A gentleman," she said furiously. "You've tried to be a gentleman. And you've failed miserably."

"I think you need time, you need me to show you how I feel. And I am sorry to have treated you as I did in the car that night. It makes me think you will have…" He trailed off, frustrated that the proper word wasn't in him. "That you will think me…"

"A heathen," she tossed out, with relish. "Barbarian."

"No, that's not so bad. But a man who abuses a woman for pleasure. Who forces and hurts her."

"It wasn't a matter of force," Sydney said coldly. "Now put me down."

He hiked her up another inch. "Do you think I stopped because I don't want you?"

"I'm well aware that my sexuality is under par."

He didn't have a clue what she was talking about, and plowed on. "We were in a car, in the middle of the city, with your driver in the front. And I was ready to rip your clothes away and take you, there. It made me angry with myself, and with you because you could make me forget."

She tried to think of a response. But he had set her back on her feet, and his hands were no longer gripping "but caressing. The rage in his eyes had become something else, and it took her breath away.

"Every day since," he murmured. "Every night, I remember how you looked, how you felt. So I want more. And I wait for you to offer what I saw in your eyes that night. But you don't. I can't wait longer."

His fingers streaked into her hair, then fisted there, drawing her head back as his mouth crushed down on hers. The heat seered through her skin, into blood and bone. Her moan wasn't borne of pain but of tormented pleasure. Willing, desperately willing, her mouth parted under his, inviting him, accepting him. This time when her heart rose to her throat, there was a wild glory in it. ,

On an oath, he tore his mouth from hers and buried it against her throat. She had not asked, she had not encouraged. Those were her words, and he wouldn't ignore the truth of them. Whatever slippery grip he had on control, he clamped tight now, fighting to catch his breath and hold to sanity.

"Damn me to hell or take me to heaven," he muttered. "But do it now."

Her arms locked around his neck. He would leave, she knew, just as he had left that first time. And if he did she might never feel this frenzied stirring again. "I want you." I'm afraid, I'm afraid. "Yes, I want you. Make love to me."

And his mouth was on hers again, hard, hot, hungry, while his hands flowed like molten steel down her body. Not a caress now, but a branding. In one long, possessive stroke he staked a claim. It was too late for choices.