Unforgiven - Complete

Chapter Six

"Great game, Comrade," Rose said, intentionally using her pet name for him. Moving slowly, so he could see what she was going to do, she slipped her arms around his neck. Reflexively, Dimitri's sweaty arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him. She reached up and gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek, hearing his soft moan as he pulled her even tighter against him, his fingers playing with the ends of her hair.

God being in his arms felt good. Hell – even his sweat smelled amazing. Acrid yet somehow oh so manly. It must have been the pheromones because completely unbidden a vision of him naked and sweaty looming above her as she lay in bed flitted across her mind, and she only just stopped herself gasping at the thought of it.

"I haven't forgiven you, not even close," she whispered breathlessly in his ear. "But I'm not going to let that skanky ho think she can throw herself at you when I can see how uncomfortable it makes you."

"I understand," he murmured, still keeping her tight within his embrace, even daring to drop a small kiss into her hair before nuzzling the spot with his nose. "Thank you, Roza."

"Belikov!" It was Coach Schoenberg, coming across the court with a huge smile, followed by two guys holding clipboards. Scouts, by the look of it. "Got a couple of fellas here who want to meet you."

Rose slipped out of Dimitri's arms, giving him an encouraging smile. "Keep it 100, Comrade! See you at midday tomorrow for lunch with my parents?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he said with a huge grin, dutifully turning to speak with his Coach.

Seeing she wasn't going to get a rise out of Rose, and more than a little confused at her interaction with Dimitri, Tasha gave them all a nasty look and took off. Eddie looked hopefully after the scouts, but Schoenberg didn't seem to be looking for him. Not that Eddie had his heart set on college. His family owned a big meatpacking and distribution business, and he'd worked as a junior meat cutter weekends and holidays since forever. He planned to study and get his Butcher's certificate and start up a high-end butchery in one of the better parts of town.

There were a few areas that were underserviced, and he'd been doing the math. He'd need a pretty big loan from his parents, and he'd have to live at home for three years, pay himself next to nothing plus work the majority of the shifts himself. But even using conservative earning estimates, within three years he should be able to repay his parents, and within five years he hoped he'd have enough saved to buy a starter home in the neighborhood he'd earmarked. Still – the offer of a sporting scholarship would have been nice, even if he would turn it down!

"So what's going on?" Camille gasped as soon as Tasha was out of earshot. "Are you and Dimitri back together?!"

"No," Rose said, flustered and confused about what she'd just done. She'd just wrapped her arms around Dimitri, let him kiss her (even if it was just in her hair), and worse still – she'd kissed him.

"Then why did you just put your arms around him, and why are you finally introducing him to your parents?" Camille countered in surprise.

"I put my arms around him to tell that slut to back off. Couldn't you see how uncomfortable he looked when she threw herself at him? And I never introduced Dimitri to my parents when we were dating because you know what my Tata is like; he would have given him the third degree! But now we're just classmates working on a project together, and we need to use Tata's workshop, so he's coming for lunch and then we'll do our physics project in the afternoon."

"Have you told Belikov that? He looks pretty happy for a guy who's just coming over for lunch," Eddie said, looking over to where Dimitri was standing with Coach Schoenberg and talking with the scouts. He looked over the moon, and even though he was carefully listening to what was being said, Rose noticed his eyes slip once or twice to where she was standing.