He’d swallowed, his throat working. “Like what?”

In as casual a tone I could feign, I’d said, “I loved it when you whipped me with the venik.” When the stinging had turned to heat and the heat to bliss. “So maybe we should raise the stakes and try a paddle, or something like”—I’d shoved an ad for a flogger at him—“this.”

My cool Siberian’s upper lip had beaded with perspiration.

“Or this.” I’d showed him a picture of a naked and gagged woman trapped in a pillory. A fully dressed man was behind her, smacking her between the legs with a dogging bat, which looked like a leather-covered bookmark that flared at the end. “That must feel . . . electric.”

With a blistering curse, Sevastyan had snatched the mag from me, flinging it in the backseat.

I’d been certain he was about to pull the car over to ravish me on the side of the road. Yet he never had. He wouldn’t even discuss what I’d shown him—as if it’d never happened.

Basically, my relationship with Sevastyan was emotionally stunted and heading toward sexually frustrated. Two very big hurdles . . .

Now, as the lights of Paris twinkled in the distance, he turned me in his arms. “What are you thinking about?”

“The drive down. The magazine.”

He dropped his hands and drew away from me. Crossing to the railing, he rested his forearms atop it. “I’m not discussing that.”

I narrowed my eyes, filled with irritation and disappointment. But recalling his white-knuckled reaction to my choice of light reading made me realize I could wear him down. Tempt him to lose control. Maybe?

Of course, that would mean having to pay the piper. Was I ready to commit to a BDSM relationship with this man? Part of me wanted to, simply because it would at least be a defined relationship.

As we stood now, everything was up in the air, with zero stability. I was discovering that I liked stability. I’d liked living on one farm my entire childhood with steady-as-rocks parents. I’d liked settling in at one school.

Naturally, Sevastyan would feel differently after his hand-to-mouth existence as a child. But I needed more. . . .

“Talk about something else, Natalie, or we won’t talk at all.”

“Fine. We’ll discuss other things. Such as how you made so much money.” I’d had no idea he was independently wealthy to this degree, but it made sense considering he was a vor himself. Now I realized he’d lived at Berezka by choice, to be close to Paxán. The idea of that tugged at my heart. “Will you not tell me how?”

“I . . . fought.” He fell silent. I guessed he knew he’d have to give me something more, because he tried again. “In my teens and twenties, I fought in underground mafiya matches. It was lucrative for me.”

“I imagine you won lots.”

“I never lost one of those match-ups,” he said, not with conceit, but almost with . . . regret. In a lower tone, he added, “I am singularly suited to fighting, always have been.”

“How so?” Superior bone density? High pain threshold? I recalled Paxán telling me that he’d never seen anyone take hits like Sevastyan, and he’d only been thirteen at the time.

Ignoring my question, Sevastyan continued, “A few years ago, I realized I wouldn’t be able to fight forever. I had a business idea, and brought it to Paxán. He encouraged me to use my winnings to develop the scheme on my own.”

“What was it?”

“A way to smuggle cheap vodka into the country.”

“Isn’t Russia the land of cheap vodka?”

“It costs significantly less to buy it from the States, but our alcohol tariffs deter most from importing it. So I came up with a way to disguise the vodka from customs.”

“How?” I asked, fascinated.

“I had it dyed light blue with food coloring. Then we labeled the barrels as windshield-wiper fluid. Once in Russia, we reversed the dye.”

I grinned up at him. “That’s scarily brilliant.”

He shrugged, but I could tell he was pleased with my assessment. “It made millions, still does,” he said, again without conceit. Then he exhaled, gaze gone distant. “I help get cheap alcohol into the country. Ironic.”

“How’s that ironic?”

Attention back on me, he said, “Enough questions.”

I tilted my head at him. I’d had a victory—he’d told me more about himself than ever before. So should I let him off the hook?

I’d just decided I would when a lustful look arose on his face, the look I now recognized and breathlessly welcomed.

“I want to show you something.” He led me up the stairs, then through a foyer to a palatial bedroom suite.

Inside, I saw our bags beside each other. “This is our room?” Staying in hotels with a traveling companion wasn’t that big a deal. But it struck me that I was now living with a man.

At his place.

“You don’t like it?”

The room was decorated in understated colors, dark blue and cream. The counterpane over the immense bed was lush but refined, the walls papered with a tasteful design.

The furniture was a complementing mix of masculine and feminine. There was a sophisticated dresser for cosmetics and jewelry—that I no longer had—as well as a weathered leather ottoman that looked like it’d been stolen from some duke’s retiring room. Yet everything worked together. “What’s not to like? Is this what you wanted to show me?”