He looks shocked to his core, completely taken by surprise. His brows are raised and his eyes are wide as he stares at me.

It takes him a few seconds to realize what has happened—and when he does, he can’t stop laughing.

“Jeez, woman. Where did that come from?” he asks, lifting me off him.

“I wanted to admire the view—from really close.” I grin.

“It looks to me like you want to play?” his voice darkens with mischief.

I nod.

He stands up, holding his hand out to pull me to my feet—then he steps further onto the mat and gestures for me to follow him. “Alright. Try again.” He dares me.

I walk a full circle around him, deciding on my approach, then I come at him from behind and put him in a head lock.

I do really well for a while, but this time he was definitely ready for me and he ends up throwing me over his shoulder onto my back on the mat.

I squeal with fright.

He plays as rough as my brothers.

I guess I can play rough, too, then.

As he reaches down to offer me a hand up, I grab his wrist, wrap both of my legs around his arm and tug him down into a kneeling position. Once he is there, I move quickly, wrapping my thighs around his neck and twisting him onto his back as I kneel over him, locking him in place with his head between my legs.

Again, he looks surprised that I got the upper hand, but then another mischievous grin steals its way onto his face as he runs his hands up my thighs.

“This—I could definitely get used to. This doesn’t seem like a bad place to be at all.” He chuckles, grabbing my ass and squeezing it.

I feel my cheeks flushing pink and quickly roll off him, getting to my feet as fast I can, ready for the next round.

For over an hour we are on the gym mats, tackling, trying to take each other down, and having a good laugh about it. He teaches me some moves I didn’t know and I show him most of the moves my brothers taught me.

I am surprised that despite his obvious advantage in size, there are one or two moves where I really manage to lock him down—even if only for a little while.

At least it shows me that everything my brothers taught me in the self-defense classes wasn’t a waste of time. Besides that—it is an incredibly good workout. We are both sitting on the mat, leaning back on our arms and breathing heavily.

“Damn. I’m hungry now,” he says, wiping his hand across his brow. We’ve worked up a good sweat.

He pushes himself onto his knees, then stands up and stretches his shoulders back. I watch as the muscles ripple across his biceps, my eyes taking him in.

“I’m hungry and feeling hot and sweaty,” I complain, trying to think about something other than how fucking sexy he is.

I roll onto my side, then push myself up to stand as well. My stomach growls in protest. I didn’t even have coffee yet.

“Where did you learn all of those moves? I have to admit, I am really impressed.”

“I do havesixbrothers. I think it’s kind of obvious where I learned the moves,” I laugh.

Oleg chuckles. “I guess it is.”

“I think they were worried about me—I mean, with the lifestyle they live. Even if I avoided becoming a part of it—there was always a chance things could go wrong and they wanted me to be able to protect myself.”

“You mean in the event of some tall, good-looking guy kidnapping you and forcing you to marry him?” Oleg smirks at me with mischief in his eyes.

“Yes—exactlythat.” I tilt my head to the side and narrow my eyes at him with a sly grin across my face.

Then I turn towards the big glass wall looking out into the garden.