The Deadly Series Boxed Set
Page 120
Good. The last thing he wanted was questions, because right now, he might not keep his mouth shut about things he needed to keep his mouth shut about.
Ian gently laid her on the bed, her eyes still clouded with fear, but heavy with sleep. He saw the book on the nightstand and picked it up.
“You want to read this one?” She tucked the blankets under her arms and nodded, sniffing.
He reached out and wiped at a tear track with his thumb.
He didn’t look as the others walked out, didn’t turn to see if Rori stayed. He felt her. Ian opened the book and wondered if they’d always had it. Jock was a bit of a bibliophile. He might have collected it through the years. Not exactly the normal children’s book.
Ian shook his head, read the words, then translated them into Russian for his daughter.
As he read he realized this was what he wanted. Things he’d never allowed himself to even hope for.
He looked over his shoulder to see Rori putting the towels back in the cupboard.
Ian kept reading.
Bedtime stories to a little girl who could easily pass as his, a wife who understood where he came from, why he often reacted the way he did, and accepted him anyway.
He shook his head. It was all just a ruse. A ruse until they learned who Darya really was, whom she belonged to and if she needed to go back.
Rori?
Time would tell on that.
For now, he had a death to fake—no, Dimitri Petrolov did—and a mole to find.
He felt something on the hand he had rested beside Darya. Her small one lay atop his as he read.
Something in him settled and smiled.
Tomorrow, he’d look again. If no yellow notices had still shown up, if no reports in the databases matched Darya’s description, then screw it. The papers said she was his. And that would be the end of it. He’d made certain that the documents both for his marriage and the adoption of one Darya were in his legal name. As was Rori’s.
He wondered if she’d even thought of it yet.
Somehow he didn’t think so.
He kept reading and then realized Darya was back asleep. He gently closed the book and watched her sleep. He felt Rori’s hands on his shoulders.
“We need to get one of those baby things.”
He frowned and looked up at her.
“You know,” she whispered. “Transmitters. We can hear her. Forget the cutesy ones. Don’t you have any in your bag of tricks we managed to get out of the car?”
He grinned. “Yeah. We do.”
Her brows rose. “It’s late. I told your parents to go to bed. Why don’t you stick one in here and then come to bed?” She continued to rub his shoulders.
He took a deep breath and nodded, rising and wondering why he hadn’t thought of that sooner himself.
• • •
Rori washed the shampoo out of her eyes, the hot water stinging her back where whatever the hell it was had landed. She was bruised and sore and had an eight-inch-long burn down the middle of her back. At least it hadn’t been Darya.
The stall door opened and she grinned.
He was really magnificent naked. Long lean lines of him, all hardened muscle. His chest had a swath of dark hair across the front, and a scar . . . several scars, she amended, wondering how he’d come by several of them. This was the first time she’d seen him in full light, she realized. Long-fingered hands that could kill as easily as most men signed their names, she knew, could also be as caressing as a gentle breeze.
A man so in control he was practically frozen. The more enraged, the softer, cooler he became.
She wanted him to lose that control.
Right now, he looked tired. No, more . . . weary, a headache in his eyes.
She took a deep breath. “I’d ask you to wash my back, but it’s a bit sore yet.”
He stepped in, pulled the door closed and said, “Turn around.”
Her stomach fluttered. Bloody stupid is what it was.
She turned and gave him her back. He didn’t touch her, but she could feel his eyes on her. Knew he was looking down her as she had him.
“You have a beautifully sexy back,” he said, and she felt his fingers graze around the edges of the bruise and burn. “Why did you take the bandage off?”
“Don’t care for them.” She started to turn back around to him, but he put his hands on her hips and kissed the curve of her neck between her shoulder and jaw. “I’ve wanted to kiss your neck all damn evening. I’d look across the room at you and think I don’t want all this to be going on. I wanted to be up here with you. Kissing you right here.” He nudged her chin up and kissed just beneath the side of her jaw.
This man could make her feel.
She turned in his arms, and leaning up, she kissed him. “I want to make you feel better,” she heard herself whisper. Not knowing where it came from, but knowing it was the truth. This would never last, but she would damn well enjoy the ride.
Water poured over his face as her mouth met his, the water sluicing over the both of them. She kissed him, nipped his lips, and when he reached for her, she locked his wrists in her hands. Of course, he could get out if he wanted to.
“What game are you playing?” he asked her softly.
She started to be cheeky, but kissed him again, saying against his mouth, looking into his eyes, “No game, Ian.”
Rori kissed him with all that was in her. He saved everyone else, worried about everyone else, made certain they were all safe.
Who saved him?
The thought all but pierced her heart.
She leaned into him and rubbed her breasts against his chest, until he pulled out of the kiss, staring at her, his nostrils flaring. “I want to touch you.”
She slowly shook her head. “No.”
Then she stepped closer and rubbed her enter body against him. Her groin cradling his, his friction against her.
There was a tiled bench in the shower big enough to wash four people.
She nudged him backward, and without looking he stepped back until his knees hit the bench.
“I put the transmitter in Darya’s room,” he said as he sat down, his hands on her hips again, pulling her to him.
“I would assume so, yes. I’d never distract you otherwise.” She ran her hands over his much shorter hair and wished that she’d been able to run her fingers through his long locks as he’d been Dimitri.
She leaned over and turned another faucet on, this one raining down directly from little showerheads all lined along one pipe directly above their heads. Rain showered down on them.
Ian looked at her. Not smiling, not frowning, the deep lines bracketing his mouth.
She ran her hands over his chest, stopping near his right nipple. “How’d you get this scar?” A long slash ran from there to his armpit.
“Knife.”
“Hmmm . . .” Her hands swirled through his hair to his other pec. Many wanted a complete beefed bull. Not her. Men with too much muscle had never been her thing. Athletic, yes, muscled, yes, and Ian was . . . He was . . . “Bloody damn perfect,” she muttered, leaning down and kissing him.
His hands ran down the backs of her thighs, pulling her closer to him.
“My way,” she said, licking his lips.
“Rori,” he mumbled.
She grinned and cradled his head in her palms, kissing him as deeply as she could, hoping he could read in that act what she couldn’t put into words.
She ran her hands down his face, the water trailing her, down his corded neck. She gasped when she felt one of his hands playing near the back of her thighs, so close . . . so . . .
She moaned as his fingers slid deeper.
“M-m-my . . . way . . .” She leaned her head back, heard his chuckle gravel on the wet air between them.
His other hand ran up her stomach, her abdominal muscles tightening in his wake. He grazed his thumb over her breast.
With his arm around her, he all but jerked her forward.
She gasped, and held his head.
She wanted to make him lose control, not her.
She shoved his head away and wiggled out of his arm. “You can put your hands on my hips, and only my hips, unless I tell you otherwise.”
His grin was slow, but still she could see pain in his eyes. “And if I don’t.”
“It will be very bad for you, boyo.”
He leaned back against the wall, his hands on her hips, and pulled her with him. She stepped up on the ledge and lowered to her knees.
His grin turned wicked.
She shook her head and slid off his lap, ran her hands down his thighs. They tightened under her fingers. She looked up at him as she ran her hands up the insides of his thighs until she cupped and fondled him.
Grinning herself, she leaned in and kissed him, licking him and finally taking him in her mouth.
He hissed, his hands holding her head.
“Rori.”
She slowly licked her way back up to the tip of him, around and around, and then released him. “What? You don’t like it?”
He jerked her to her feet. “Too damn much.”
Shaking her head, she once again straddled him. “You know what your problem is, Mr. Kinncaid?”
He watched her, reached between them, and those wicked fingers of his danced over her.
“No, Mrs. Kinncaid, what is my problem?”
She paused. Mrs. Kinncaid. Shaking off the stupid thrill that had shot through her, she mumbled-moaned, “You’re too bleeding controlled.”
He grunted.
She reached down and pulled his hand away. “My way. Or I’ll get you just to the point and then go to bed.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’d only do it once.”
She leaned back to study him, even as she took him in her hand and slid herself slowly down on his erection. “Is that a threat?”
His eyes darkened, and his arms came up to hold her, but then he dropped them to his side. “It’s a promise, babe.”
She grinned. “One day when I don’t want you so badly, I’ll have to try it.”
She closed her eyes, moving as gently on him as the water falling on them.
One day?
One day . . .
She had no idea how long they kissed, their hands running over wet skin as she made love to him in the shower, but soon, the tempo increased, his features hardening, a slight blush staining his cheeks. He reached between them and raked his fingers over that one spot that would shatter her.
“Come with me,” he said, his other hand wrapping around her nape to pull her down for his kiss.
His fingers did a wicked dance, his tongue parried and forayed with hers, his thrusts hit deep within her . . . And through it all, she just wanted to hear him . . .
He groaned, thrusting again, his finger pressing her small bundle of nerves against him buried deep inside her.
She shattered, yelling out his name.
One day . . .
Chapter 21
Elianya, or rather Alla as she was calling herself, looked over the files she’d found. Mr. Dimitri Petrolov, with a dozen or more aliases, was no more than a rich boy.
His family owned high-class hotels all over the globe. She herself had stayed in several of their more exclusive resorts.
Ian Kinncaid.
What a little family man.
Four brothers, all but one married with families of their own. Two parents, still married, and a little great-grandmother in Ireland.
She grimaced. Alla simply did not work with the elderly. They terrified her with their eyes seeming to look either through you or all the way down to your soul.
Old people made her very nervous.
Alla wondered at Mr. Ian Kinncaid. What had made him leave the security of that home, that family, to become the person she knew as Dimitri Petrolov.
Did his family know he worked for his government in places the general public wanted to forget existed?
Probably not.
So how could she get to him?
She’d heard the attempt on him had failed.
Idiot. She’d thought the contact would be intelligent enough to handle this situation, but since that was not the case, Alla would handle it herself.
And have a hell of a time doing it.
So who could she get to? Any of them. She could become his mother’s new best friend. Probably couldn’t seduce the father. If he’d been married to the same woman that long, he might not be that easy. Then again, maybe he would. She’d keep her ideas open.
The brothers? The oldest was married to some writer and had twins. She pulled up their picture. Lovely happy little family. He might be doable. Handsome enough.
The next on her list was Gavin. A woman’s doctor. She immediately nixed him. He might see through some of her lies. Then again, he might not. But a man who saw women’s bodies as landmarks and made a living out of noticing deficiencies was not someone she wanted to bed.
The next . . . Brayden. Newly married as well within the last year. And what a lovely little girl he had.
Her business brain tallied what she might get for the girl on the market. Maybe that’s the angle.
But then she remembered the girl had been kidnapped before with some cousin, which meant her parents probably kept a very close eye on her anyway. Maybe not. But she’d think about it.
The last brother’s face flashed on-screen.
Wasn’t he the changeling? He looked nothing like his other brothers, who were all black-haired and blue-eyed. This one, she checked his name—Quinlan—took after his mother. Green eyes, dark brown hair with tints of red. Handsome himself, just different from his brothers and just a bit . . . innocent-looking. She grinned. Oh, she could have fun with this one. Her source confirmed he lived in the D.C. hotel.
She still thought he was probably her best bet on getting an in with the family. He wasn’t around the others much. And even if he had a guard, she didn’t really look like Elianya Hellinski, with the different-colored contacts and new hair color and style.
“The things I will teach you,” she muttered, tapping her long red nail on his picture on the computer screen.
She looked over at the file folder open to a photo of both Ian Kinncaid and Dimitri Petrolov. Even knowing they were the same man, they were so different, she might never have put them together.
Dimitri simply looked different to her. Harder, colder somehow. The Reaper.
Ian Kinncaid was the Saint.
She smiled. “Your time is coming, my friend.”
No one rejected her, especially no man, and no one betrayed her the way he had. Taking a hit on her . . .
She shook her head and looked back at the computer screen. “Quinlan Kinncaid.”
• • •
Ian sat in the chair he’d sat in years ago and looked at the man behind the desk. Jock sat, dressed in his normal chinos and a cable-knit sweater, his shoulders more stooped, his hands atop each other on the blotter, and those once leveling eyes seemed almost lost.
He shouldn’t care.
But he did. Damn it.
“Is everyone all right this morning?” Jock asked.
Ian nodded and shifted, putting his ankle on his other knee.
A heavy silence thickened the air between them.
Ian sat, not saying a word and wishing he knew what to say. His skin itching, he stood and walked to the window, looking out at the back lawns. The workers had arrived already and were working on replacing windowpanes. Should keep them busy for an entire day.
The lawns were brown, dormant for the cold winter to come. The leaves that had vibrant shades of red, orange, and yellow only a month before were now a dull brown upon the ground beneath their bare-branched trees.
His mother’s rosebushes were bare. He’d
forgotten how she’d like to plant a new one every year.
“I’ve called all your brothers. Your mother wants her damn dinner tonight. Quin doesn’t know if he can make it.”
Ian smiled. “The workaholic wouldn’t know what to do without a timetable.”
Jock grunted and Ian looked over his shoulder at him.
“And you don’t think family dinners are important?”
Ian closed his eyes and shook his head. “Jock, don’t start.”
Silence again. This time longer than before. Ian needed to call Johnno and check again to see if he’d learned anything else. He needed to get to the office and meet with Pete, there were things he needed to see to ahead of time.
A lawyer. He’d call his uncle Brody, see if he could draft up a new will. Never before did he care what happened to his stuff. He’d just left it all to Aiden.
Now?
Now he had someone to look after. Darya. And legally Rori . . . and then . . .
“Why is someone trying to kill you?” Jock broke the silence.
Ian sighed. “We’ve been over this, I can’t talk about it.” He didn’t turn from the window.
“You said your cover was blown.” A pause. “What cover?”
Ian finally turned from the window and walked back to sit in the chair. Steepling his fingers, he looked at his father. “Do you really want to know?” He held his father’s stare. Not that he could tell him everything.
Jock stared at him, then blinked and finally shook his head. “I guess not.”
Ian looked at his watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I have meetings. Did you need something?”
Jock started to shake his head, then he tapped the top of his desk. Tilting his head, he said, “Do you remember when you were a boy?”
Where was this going? “Yeah.”
A smile lifted one side of Jock’s lips and a chuckle danced out. “You used to pull so many pranks I didn’t know if I wanted to strangle you or if I wanted to laugh.”
Ian laced his fingers over his stomach and listened, frowning.
“You were going to work side by side with Aiden. Always were since you two were little. I’d take you to the hotels with me. Your mother and I used to argue over what you’d do when you grew up. She wanted more kids in medicine. I said more hotels.” Jock’s smile turned nostalgic and he looked not at Ian, not at himself, but at some memory Ian couldn’t see.