Bewitched in Budapest (Xcite Romance)

Bewitched in Budapest

By Justine Elyot

by Xcite Books Ltd – 2012

Chapter One

ON MY FIRST NIGHT in Budapest, I woke up to find a strange man in my bed.

Now, while the decision to come here had been taken so rapidly that I hadn’t had time to do any research on the place and had little idea of what to expect, I was fairly sure this wasn’t normal. I’d had vague notions of goulash, gypsy violinists and splendid 19th Century architecture. A strange man in my bed, not so much.

In the low dawn light filtering through the ill-fitting shutters, I turned my head fractionally – afraid of waking him – and tried to discern the contours of his head and upper body. Judging by the shape beneath the covers and the feet sticking out of the bottom, he was tall and well-built. His face in repose was peaceful and rather touching, but in a more animated state I could imagine it being proud and even fierce, or perhaps I was just projecting my own prejudices about men with large moustaches. Moustaches like that always seemed to come with a bayonet, in my mind. The full lips below the thicket blew out brief whistles of air whenever he exhaled. He had long eyelashes and thick, dark hair. Like most of the Hungarian men I’d spotted between the airport and the apartment, he was a looker.

But what the hell was he doing here?

Carefully, with infinite precision, I edged my body away from him. The heel of my left foot found the place where the mattress ended and my toes flexed, looking for the floor. Just at the moment I tried to pivot my hips away, he flung an arm across my chest. His arm was very heavy and I abandoned all my efforts to handle this situation calmly and screamed.

He grunted and muttered something completely incomprehensible and then his eyelids fluttered and I did my best to scramble away but that arm was just a dead weight, so I kicked him hard in the shin and tried to bite him.

That woke him up.

There was a horrible moment of pure terror during which I felt sure my heart would splat across my ribcage, then his eyes focused and his stare was every bit as shocked and appalled as mine, which was weirdly reassuring.

He sat bolt upright and stabbed a finger at me.

I don’t know what he said, because I don’t speak Hungarian and besides, I was too busy leaping out of bed and leaning flat against the wall, trying not to vomit with panic.

He spoke again, rising to his knees so that the covers rumpled about his hips, exposing his bare chest and the gold chains around his neck. He really was fit. Pity he was probably some crazed axe murderer who preyed on women alone in their Budapest beds.

This time I understood one word. The word was “Jodie”.

‘Jodie!’ I seized on this, nodding my head urgently. ‘She is gone.’

‘English?’

I nodded.

‘Jodie is gone? What you mean?’

‘She’s at Lake Balaton for the month. You know her?’

‘Lake Balaton? Who she is going with?’

‘I don’t know. Some guy she met. Sorry. Are you … her boyfriend or something?’

‘Who am I? Who in hell are you?’

‘I asked you first. And I think I have a right to know what strange men are doing in my bed.’

‘This is my apartment! You answer me.’

I skipped a beat, let my jaw drop for a moment. His apartment?

The note Jodie had left for me on the kitchen table came back to mind.

‘You can get round the landlord by sweet-talking him. He’s a bit scary at first but a pussycat really.’ What had she called him? She’d told me his name, but I just couldn’t remember it. It was a strange name and I had no idea how to pronounce it.

‘So you’re …’ Oh God, what was it? ‘…János?’ I pronounced it Jay-noss.

He snorted and shook his head. ‘Yah-nosh,’ he corrected me. ‘Yes. And you?’

‘Ruby. Friend of Jodie’s. She said it would be OK …’

He sat back down and pulled the sheets up to his chin, his lower lip stuck out like a sulky child’s. ‘She say nothing to me. She is bad person.’

Well, I could see how he might get that impression. Jodie had a reputation that could fill a trashy mag back at home, but her heart was in the right place and you never had a dull time when you were with her.

‘Were you and she …?’ I broke off delicately. I’d made it to the bedroom door. I didn’t want to bear the brunt of rejected passion, not at half past five in the morning.

‘Was nothing,’ he muttered. ‘We are friends, is all.’

‘Friends with benefits,’ I said, eyebrow raised.

‘I not understand.’ He pressed his lips together for a moment, then put his head to one side and looked at me properly. His eyes were a keen, clear blue and I felt I was being stripped down and X-rayed beneath my pyjamas.

‘So, Ruby,’ he said. ‘You want to stay here?’

‘That was the plan.’

He stood up, wrapping himself in the top blanket. I stepped back as he swept past me like an impoverished emperor, through the bedroom door and out into the little kitchen cum living-room beyond.

While I stood in the doorway, rubbing my eyes, he opened a kitchen cupboard and took out a half-full bottle and two glasses.

‘Here,’ he said with an imperious gesture. ‘Drink with me.’

I didn’t know what was in that bottle, but it didn’t look like my morning orange juice.

‘At this time in the morning?’ I objected.

‘Yes, why not? Come on.’

‘Just a moment.’ I shut the door on him and switched on the bedroom light, staring at myself in the dresser mirror.

What was going on? What was really going on? And was it going to go on while my hair was sticking up like a static-shocked porcupine?

I pulled a brush through it, had a quick face-splash and tooth-scrub in the tiny en suite bathroom and crossed the threshold to whatever lay in that room with that man.

I sat down on the sofa, as far away from him as possible, picked up the glass of orangey liquid and sniffed. It smelled like fruit on fire.

‘What is this?’

‘Pálinka,’ he said. ‘I think is apricot, maybe plum. Drink, it’s good. I welcome you to Hungary.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’ 

He raised his glass to me, then threw his pálinka down his throat, gasping with satisfaction once the liquid was despatched.

‘So you’re not angry?’

‘Drink it!’

I took a sip. My lips stung, then my tongue followed suit. I took another and my lungs and stomach lit up.

‘Wow,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Finish it.’

I tipped the rest down my gullet, the way he had, and let my eyes water and my face burn while it did its nefarious work.

‘Good, huh?’ He smiled, broadly and approvingly, and stretched an arm along the back of the sofa so that his fingers dangled dangerously close to my shoulder.

‘Seriously good. I couldn’t drink another though.’

‘I could.’ He poured himself one, drank it down, then turned back to me. ‘Jodie is your friend?’

‘She’s my cousin. She said the flat would be free for a month, asked me if I wanted to use it.’

‘So she plan this trip to Balaton,’ he mused. ‘Only two days ago we are in bed together.’ He shook his head, his eyes misting tragically.

‘Are you very fond of her?’

‘Fond?’

‘You like her a lot?’

‘Oh no, not really. She is a person with many moods, you know?’

I laughed. ‘Yeah. I know.’

‘But …’ He lifted his hands to wave a curvaceous woman’s outline into the air.

‘She’s hot stuff,’ I translated unnecessarily.

He looked at me with wordless intensity for a moment until I felt uncomfortable and picked up the pálinka bottle, affecting interest in the label.

‘She is OK,’ he said, his voice dropping a notch lower. ‘You are prettier than she.’

I blinked, slightly incredulous that this man appeared to be making a play for me minutes after having his heart broken by Jodie.

‘Thanks. And thanks for the drink but, you know, it’s pretty late and I was hoping for a bit more sleep –’

‘You want go back to bed?’ His voice was all broken and croon-ey. I shivered. His fingers brushed my shoulders and I leapt away.

‘Alone!’ I exclaimed. ‘Back to bed alone!’

He sighed and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘What’s wrong, you don’t think I am attractive?’

‘No. I mean, of course, you’re not bad, but I’m not looking for a man.’

‘You are lesbian?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t like sex?’

‘For God’s sake! None of those things, but I just want to sleep alone.’

‘Ah, you are tired.’

‘Yes! Nail on the head. That’s it exactly. I am tired.’

‘OK. I understand.’ He rose, gathering the blanket back around him. ‘I am tired also. Let’s go to sleep.’

I leapt up, at a loss as to how to make this man understand I didn’t want to share a bed with him.

‘You mean … you are coming into my bed?’

‘It’s my bed,’ he pointed out.

‘Yeah, but … I just …’ I could do no more than gibber while he watched me with an eyebrow cocked.

‘Ó Istenem, you are afraid of me? Fine. I sleep here.’

I looked rather dubiously at the couch, which didn’t seem quite sufficient to accommodate his full length, but he merely waved his blanketed arm towards the bedroom door and ordered, ‘Go!’

There seemed no option but to obey.

Two and a half hours later, I woke to the smell of cooking and the sound of pans clattering. It took my memory a few seconds to catch up with my consciousness and remember the events of recent hours.

That man is still here.

I locked myself in the tiny bathroom and showered for as long as I thought it might take him to go away, thinking over our night-time encounter as I massaged shampoo into my scalp. What a bloody nerve he’d had! He had actually thought I’d be willing to jump right into the role of Jodie’s replacement in bed as well as in the flat. ‘Wanker,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Talk about a brass neck.’ I remembered a line from Jodie’s letter to me. If 15 Hungarian men haven’t tried to pull you within an hour of landing, check that you still have a face. I snorted, wiping lather from my eye. If you want to give a man the brush off tell him quite loudly and precisely that you are pregnant with Chuck Norris’ baby. Subtlety won’t work. I thought of János’ apparent incredulity at my not wanting to hop into the sack with him and snorted again.

By the time I was out of the shower and dressed, the cooking smells were too seductive to resist, the promise of cholesterol drawing me into the other room.

János stood scrambling eggs in a skillet with his back to me. I don’t know when he had collected his clothes – presumably he must have crept into the bedroom while I was sleeping, ugh, freaky – but he was half-dressed in a pair of jeans and a belt and nothing else. He hadn’t heard me come in, so I watched his rear aspect for a moment while he cooked, the shoulder blades flexing and back muscles rippling. He had a tattoo – a bird of some kind – right at the base of his neck where his hair ended in a V-shape of downy brown. I tried very hard not to look at his arse, but it couldn’t be helped. The tightness of it in those jeans needed capturing in the memory to be brought out at a more appropriate time.

He lifted the skillet and tipped the scrambled eggs into first one bowl and then another, so that it sat alongside something else already in there.

Without turning around he said, ‘You like what you see?’

I suppressed my yelp of alarm at having been perceived and tried to retrieve the situation. ‘Scrambled eggs, yeah, lovely.’

‘Not the eggs,’ he said. ‘You are checking out my ass. You like it?’

‘I’m not … nothing of the kind,’ I protested, but it sounded too lame to continue with. Instead, I sidled up to the counter and peered into the bowl. ‘What’s this?’

‘Lecsó,’ he said, but I was none the wiser, so he explained. ‘We like for breakfast. Onions, peppers, tomatoes, cook with sugar and salt and paprika until they are soft. Then we put with eggs, right?’

‘It smells lovely.’

‘Thanks. You sit down. I bring coffee.’

He slid the bowl and a tiny cup of super strength coffee under my nose once I was ensconced at the kitchen table, then he joined me opposite.

‘Healthier than a fry-up,’ I commented, sampling the fare. It was delicious. He was a good cook. I eyed him, all rumpled and tattooed and sinewy and handsome over there. I’d pre-emptively kicked him out of bed. How strange of me.

I reminded myself that he was arrogant and entitled. And, what was that other thing? Oh yeah. I was on the rebound. Big style. Stay away, Ruby.

‘Healthy,’ he said, chewing speculatively. ‘Not typical Hungarian food. Much fat.’

‘But there isn’t an ounce of fat on you,’ I said before I could help myself. 

‘Ounce?’ But he had understood me, if that devilish smirk was any evidence.

‘You don’t look fat,’ I blethered on.

‘Thanks.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘You like my body?’

I’d played right into his hands, it was clear.

‘I just meant that you look healthy.’

He leant forward on one elbow, his head low, eyes fixed on mine. ‘I’m healthy,’ he said. ‘You’re healthy. We can be healthy together.’

Whatever he meant by that, it sounded filthy. I guessed he wasn’t offering to introduce me to his gym.

‘Ah … I came here for some alone time,’ I told him, hoping it sounded more convincing to him than it did for me. ‘Time to think.’

He put out a hand and I froze, unable to move, as he brushed a damp curl from my forehead. I hadn’t been able to blow dry my hair, forgetting that Hungarian sockets were different.

‘Your eyes they are sad,’ he said. ‘You have sad thoughts.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said in a high, tense voice. ‘Just want to be left alone.’

To my horror, my throat closed over the food it had just swallowed and my eyes filled with tears. 

‘Hey now.’ János was up and around the table in a flash, crouching by my side, sliding an arm around my shoulder, pulling my face against his neck. ‘Hey.’

He felt warm and reassuring, his bare skin with its peppering of hairs bathing me in a strange lulling calm. I squeezed out the stupid tears then let myself be held a few moments longer before muttering, ‘I’m OK,’ into his neck.

‘My lecsó not as good as my mother’s, but is it so bad?’

I made a sound that was half-laugh half-sniff. ‘No, it’s nice.’