The Unwilling Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

conversation was taking. She slugged down a gulp of the brew and grappled to explain. “A sex object is when someone is treated like a thing instead of a person. Women wanted to be valued for more than just their bodies or looks. They wanted to be valued and loved for their minds.”
    “Yeah? So what is the news here? This is automatic. What man with brain would love half the woman? Why waste time loving less than body, soul, mind, whole caboodle? How else would you love?”
    “Um, maybe we’d better try this language lesson another time,” Paige said desperately. Her conscience shot her slivers of guilt for copping out. Before he went to town again—for his sake—he really needed to understand that it wasn’t wise to call strange women “cupcake” or warmly suggest that they “get it on” or “hit the sack.” But to summarize the whole history of feminist philosophy and politically correctlanguage in a short conversation—it just wasn’t that easy. There was clearly a whole difference in cultures.
    Or there was a difference in him. An image flashed through her mind of Stefan, making love, inhaling a woman’s mind, body, soul, “whole caboodle.” Blood charged through her veins in an embarrassing rush. He had sounded so matter-of-fact. Maybe loving “whole caboodle” was status quo for him, but it wasn’t anything she was familiar with. And she was utterly confounded how the subject had veered in such an intimately personal direction. They’d started out in the nice, cool North Pole—how had they ended up in the hot climate of Tahiti?
    “You are probably frustrated with me. I learn too slow,” he said morosely.
    “No, no, you learn very fast. It’s just that learning certain things about any language probably takes a lot of time.”
    “Yes, exactly true. But it helps much having someone to explain. I hope we can talk like this again?”
    “Sure,” Paige said. What else could she say? She had a bad feeling she’d only further confused him about the language instead of helping him this time. Still, she carefully added, “I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of free time, though, Stefan. I work long hours.”
    “I understand. I saw your workroom, your cameos. Maybe you could show me something about your art another time, too, okeydoke?”
    “Okeydoke.” When he surged to his feet, Paige abruptly realized that he was leaving—without having to be asked, which was a huge relief—and she swiftly uncurled from the couch and popped to her feet, too. She opened her mouth, intending to say something cordial about his stopping by. Instead agiggle bubbled from her throat and escaped. A giggle. Her. A plain old girlish, giddy, happy giggle. How appallingly silly.
    Stefan threw back his head and laughed. “You sleep good tonight, babe. Vodka good for you. Nothing to worry, lyubemaya. Great medicine for the soul.”
    Paige didn’t know what that lyubemaya meant, but knowing his fondness for affectionate terms, she figured it was too dangerous to ask. Temporarily her reaction to a couple of spiked coffees was embarrassing her to death. At five foot seven and a sturdy one hundred and thirty pounds, she certainly should have been able to handle a little alcohol. For that matter, she’d never been a sissy drinker, had always taken her brandy in straight shots anytime she had a cold. It just belatedly occurred to her that she hadn’t had a cold in three or four years. “I’m afraid I haven’t had much experience with vodka,” she admitted.
    “And I bet you never had borscht? Caviar? Solyanka? We will have to fix all those missing experiences in your life very soon.”
    Food, he was talking about. Not love. Not sex. It had to be the hundred-proof liquid sloshing in her mind that made her suddenly think of “missed experiences” in a context with Stefan.
    Vodka might be medicine for the soul in Russia, but it wasn’t for her. Positively she was never touching the stuff again if it made her feel