lifting her. Hell, he’d hoisted heavier beer kegs. And, despite her attitude, she was decent enough to look at when she cleaned up, unlike now, after their little disagreement.
Jordan couldn’t draw her eyes away from his chest; immensely wide, rock hard and covered with dark, curling hair that peeked out the ‘v’ of his shirt; couldn’t make her hands release the muscular arms so warm beneath her fingers. Her knees still felt like jelly; refusing to support her and the creep hadn’t even struggled when he lifted her despite having one leg in a cast. And why did he have to smell so damn good? Jordan shook her head trying to clear the dizziness from her numb mind. She had to restore her thoughts to the rational and reasonable, and stop thinking about how Aleksei felt against her.
“This won’t work.” She stated suddenly, abruptly releasing Aleksei’s arms and turning to skate away, only to catch her toe pick against Aleksei’s cast and find herself falling backward to land flat on her butt.
Aleksei could only watch her legs fly from beneath her and keep clear of the flashing blades. Crossing his arms over his massive chest, he cast an amused look her way and stated tauntingly. “Not if you can’t stay on your feet around me, it won’t,” Aleksei offered.
Jordan narrowed her eyes, clearly understanding his insinuation about the Canadian incident. “That wasn’t my fault.”
Aleksei shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe it was—maybe it wasn’t. Doesn’t matter much, since you’re still the one on your ass.”
“You’re a shit, Rocmanov!” Jordan stated firmly, swatting away Aleksei’s offer of a hand-up and gracefully getting to her feet. “You’re mean, and you’re irritable and you’re definitely obnoxious and you think entirely too much of yourself!” she ranted. And you’re gorgeous, and you smell wonderful and you feel so damn good! she thought to herself.
Aleksei listened patiently, enjoying the way her eyes flashed in her fury, the way her hands never stopped moving, remembering their warmth as she had held him moments before and wishing she would touch him again. Hearing her voice, musical and sexy despite her anger. “Fine, I think too much of myself and you’re a spoiled bitch,” he countered, “That should make us a great match-up.”
“According to whom?” Jordan stormed.
“All the great pairs had moments of dissension. It’s a part of the process of bringing differences together to make one perfect blend.”
“What a bunch of bull shit!” Jordan choked out, laughter escaping despite Aleksei’s serious expression. “We aren’t making a meal. We’re two people so obviously wrong together that it will never work.”
“The ‘Ice Queen’ has spoken,” Aleksei taunted, and bowed deeply despite his broken leg.
“Don’t even go there, Rocmanov,” Jordan warned, her eyes darkening dangerously.
Unperturbed, he shrugged well-built shoulders. “I told Whittaker babies shouldn’t be allowed to compete, but he convinced me otherwise. You’ve just proven I was right. You’re not ready to handle a man for a partner. You’d better go find yourself another boy, someone you can push around.”
“You didn’t think I was a baby when you copped a feel during that press conference,” Jordan stated dangerously.
“I was just trying to figure out what parts I’d have to worry about tripping over on the ice when they fell off,” Aleksei answered tauntingly, turning around and carefully limping across the ice toward the doorway.
“Don’t you turn your back on me, you coward. I’m not through with you yet,” Jordan demanded, following after him.
“I’ve got better things to do with my time than baby-sit the likes of you!” he told Jordan, then shouted to the ceiling, “Whittaker, this fiasco is over!” and continued to limp slowly toward the boards.
Jordan screamed in frustration and picked up her pace to skate around him and come to a quick t-stop before