by Amelia Elias
She sighed, staring at the dark ceiling and praying for sleep. Where had her exhaustion gone? She was wide awake. Finally she closed her eyes, wondering how long it would be before Diego shifted in his sleep and she could get away.
* * *
Sian awoke disoriented, unsure what had jolted her out of her slumber. There was something warm under her cheek. She ran her hand over it, frowning at the strange ridges that didn’t feel remotely like the pillow she remembered finally falling asleep on. She raised her head, trying to focus her blurry eyes.
She froze when she realized she was once again lying with her head pillowed on Diego’s chest. Their legs were entwined and her arm was around his waist, her hand resting on the firm ridges of his abs. She hardly dared move for fear of waking him, but fury burned through her.
How dare he sneak up on her again? Did the man have no decency at all?
But when she drew in a breath to let him have it, she realized his hands were tucked behind his head. He wasn’t touching her at all. She blushed to the roots of her hair when she felt the pillows at her back.
He hadn’t crossed her barrier of pillows.
She had.
Sian was trying to think of how to get out of this without waking him when Diego broke the tense silence. “Don’t get shy now, querida. Please, feel free to finish what you started.”
She remembered running her hands over his chest in confusion when she’d woken and felt her face grow hotter. “I wasn’t awake,” she mumbled, wondering if it was possible to die of embarrassment. “I can’t be held responsible for what I did when I was sleeping.”
His deep chuckle sent a thrill down her spine. “If that’s the case, I’m going back to sleep right now.”
Sian scooted away from him, rolling over the pillows and almost falling off the bed in her haste to put some distance between her and the overwhelming temptation Diego represented. He laughed again and sat up. “Relax,” he said, grinning at the panic she knew showed in her face. “Trust me, querida, I plan on being fully awake when I make love to you for the first time. I don’t want to miss a second of it.”
“Keep dreaming. I still haven’t decided if I even like you and you already have us making love?”
His eyes were emerald fire. “Oh, you like me,” he said with complete assurance. “You like me so much you have to run every time I get close to you. And the way you look at me sometimes—your eyes say you like me just fine.”
“Your ego knows no bounds,” Sian snapped, reaching for her robe and pulling it on as she fled the bed. “You’re holding me prisoner here, or have you forgotten?”
He shrugged. “From what I remember, you were holding me prisoner there, not the other way around. Besides, if you left, where would you go?” he asked, also rising and stretching. She couldn’t stop herself from admiring his lean body as he did, his every muscle defined and rippling. He gave her a grin that clearly said he’d noticed her interest and she marched to the bathroom, seething.
She didn’t like him, no matter what he said. “Why do you insist on keeping me here?” she demanded through the door as she turned on the shower.
His voice was alarmingly close to the door when he replied. “I told you, you’re my mate,” he said. “Remember the mark on your arm? You belong with me. It is my duty and my pleasure to keep you safe and see to your needs.”
Like my need for decent underwear? Sian thought sarcastically, but she didn’t quite dare say it. “I’m not interested in being your duty or your pleasure, and where I come from both parties have to agree to a relationship,” she said instead.
“Same here, but in this case Eli’s will overrode both ours.”
She frowned, shrugging off her robe. “You’ve mentioned Eli before,” she said. “Who is he?”
There was a low sound from behind the door that might have been a groan or a growl. “I suppose you could say he’s my boss,” Diego replied after a long pause.
“And he’s picking your girlfriends?” Sian asked when Diego didn’t elaborate. “He’s taking micro-management to the extreme, don’t you think?”
There was a short snort of laughter. “I would have to agree with that statement whole-heartedly.”
Sian hesitated before slipping off her gown. There was something incredibly intimate about talking with Diego through the door as she prepared for her shower. She almost expected him to come through the door at any moment and ask to join her.
“I definitely would if I thought there was any chance you’d let me,” Diego said softly, and Sian spun around with a gasp.
“You can’t read my mind,” she snapped at the door, double-checking the lock. “It’s impossible, and I want you to stop it!”
He laughed again. “I can only catch the odd thought from time to time, querida,” he said. “I know I shouldn’t answer, but I can’t help myself.”
“You should really make the effort,” Sian said acidly before catching herself. “Stop that!”
“Stop what?” He sounded genuinely confused. “I’m not reading your mind right now, Sian, I promise.”
“No, of course you’re not, because it’s impossible. Stop trying to suck me into your delusions! I don’t believe one word of this vampire, psychic crap you keep telling me, so cut it out already, will you?”
His deep chuckle seemed to caress her right through the door. “If you don’t believe a word of it,” he murmured, “you won’t be upset if I keep trying to prove it to you. Aren’t you supposed to humor crazy people?”
“I am not humoring you!” she cried, clenching her fists in impotent rage. He was manipulating her again. She never acted like this! She was a cop, for God’s sake. She never lost her head and she knew damn well he was trying to brainwash her. Heaven alone knew why he wanted her to believe this vampire soul-mate crap, but he wasn’t giving up.
Well, she was too smart for this and she wasn’t going to listen to it anymore. Sian dropped the gown and stepped into the shower, plunging her head under the spray and determined not to listen to another word he said.
Diego felt her anger and sighed, turning away from the door and going to the closet. Every time they connected on any level, she either got mad or got scared. It was getting frustrating.
Of course, frustrated didn’t even begin to describe his feelings at the moment. Waking up with Sian’s arms around him and her hand caressing its way over his chest was a slice of heaven, but watching her almost fall off the bed in her haste to get away from him was definitely a taste of hell. Dios, he was starting to wonder if an immortal could die of prolonged sexual frustration.
If there was a woman who could do it to him, it was Sian Lazuro.
Diego pulled on a pair of black jeans and paused, glancing at her things hanging neatly beside his clothes. Putting her new clothes in his closet had unleashed a fresh surge of possessiveness last night and he still wondered if it had been a smart thing to do. Still, he loved seeing her clothes beside his.
He laughed silently at himself. She would probably find a way to move them out of his closet by the end of the night if he knew anything about his wildcat. She was so fiercely independent he was starting to wonder if she would ever trust him in anything. He imagined her standing there in the shower, rehearsing her arguments to convince him to give her a room of her own.
Well, that was definitely not going to happen. It might have made her supremely uncomfortable to wake up draped over him, but he wouldn’t miss an instant of it for the world.
He looked back at his shirts, remembering how her eyes had caressed his bare chest last night. No matter what she might think of him personally, Sian certainly had no complaints with his body. Finally Diego pulled out a platinum silk shirt, putting it on and leaving it open to show his chest and abs. There was no need to help Sian ignore him, after all.
He heard the water turn off and glanced back at the door. His groin tightened at the memory of Sian stepping out of his bathroom yesterday wearing nothing but a towel and a lot of b
are, damp skin. What he wouldn’t give to capture every one of those tiny clinging droplets with his tongue…
Diego shook his head sharply and forced himself to walk out of the bedroom. There would be time for that once she trusted him. It was one thing to flirt with her, to try unrepentantly to seduce her, but to stay in here and watch her dress was crossing the line.
He heard James typing in the den and headed toward the sound. “What’s up?” he asked, wondering at the frown on his Steward’s face.
James spared him a glance before turning back to the computer. “Someone’s trying to buy your old stomping grounds again,” he said, pushing a FedEx package across the desk. “They want to turn it into a fairgrounds, sort of a Renaissance fair kind of thing.”
Diego picked up the package, all thought of Sian evaporating in a surge of anger. He’d bought the ruins of the castle where he’d been born several hundred years ago and had willed it to his first Steward. The deed had been passed down through the generations, each Steward doing whatever they had to do to keep it safe for Diego.
At the end of James’s father’s career, however, a legal challenge had been filed in a Spanish court by a development company. They challenged the veracity of the ancient deed and wanted a judgment to allow them to buy Diego’s land at auction prices.
Diego had spared no expense for the case, hiring the most brilliant and vicious legal team money could buy to fight the development company off. He’d won, but the challenges had continued after the first case. First had come a vineyard, tempted by the lush hills around the ruined castle. After that had come a wealthy recluse who’d wanted to bulldoze the remains of the castle and build his own ultra posh mansion there.
Diego had visited the man in the middle of the night and frightened him so badly he’d ended up building in a part of Alaska so remote he didn’t even have a road.
The Leonides family was gone, his Clan massacred. All Diego had left of them was a few hundred acres of land and a ruined castle, and now they were trying to take even that away from him.
Diego couldn’t understand why it kept happening. Yes, the ruined castle was in a prime vineyard region, but he had three judgments in his favor now and yet the new challenges to his ownership—or rather, James’s—kept on coming. His scowl deepened as he read this latest one. This land was all he had left of his family heritage and he’d be damned if he would ever stop fighting for it. He’d done it more than once with a sword, then with cannon and musket, and now in the courts where blood still flowed in the color of money.
Money was no object. The land was his. He’d do anything it took to keep it.
“I am more than tempted to pay a few midnight visits to these people,” Diego growled, scanning the artist’s conceptions of what his castle would look like when they were done with it. It looked like a bloody cartoon, nothing at all like the proud fortress it had once been.
James leaned back in the desk chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “These people have the legal team from hell,” he said. “They’ve got reports from the surrounding villages on the fiscal advantages of their plan and environmental surveys proving they won’t wreck the landscape with their little park. They’re well prepared to argue their case.”
Diego threw the papers down. “However much they spent on their lawyers, I can spend twice as much,” he said through gritted teeth. “And all the studies and surveys and public opinion in the world doesn’t change that the land is mine.”
James gave him a ghost of a grin. “Don’t you mean mine?”
Diego raised an eyebrow at him. “Unless your name is Leonides, that castle will never belong to you no matter what I put on a paper a few hundred years ago.”
James’s grin widened. “Like I’d try to take your land away from you,” he laughed. “You’re just way too much fun to wind up about it, though.”
Diego shoved his hands in his pockets and didn’t smile back. He was feeling decidedly unamused by the last decade of legal maneuverings to simply keep what was his. “Are you ready to go now or do you need to pack?”
James stood and stretched. “I just finished booking my flight,” he said, rotating his neck and wincing in pleasure at the pops that resulted. “I packed while you were still up there snoozing with the hottie.”
Diego gave James a look of amused surprise. “Hottie, is she now?” he asked. “What happened to psycho?”
“Well, she’s actually pretty decent if you can get past the fact she thinks we’ve kidnapped her for some nefarious purpose,” James replied with a shrug. “And we haven’t kidnapped her. That’s all you.”
“My purpose isn’t nefarious!”
James laughed. “When you convince her of that, let me know, will you?”
Diego shook his head and changed the subject. He didn’t want to think about Sian right now. It would only lead to wondering if she was dressed or not yet, and if she’d broken down and put on one of those tiny little thongs or was going bare again. He wasn’t sure which thought was sexier, but neither was conducive to rational thought. “When do you think you’ll be back?”
James shrugged. “I have meetings with the lawyers tomorrow and the next day,” he said. “I went ahead and booked my return flight, but you know how these things go. If the lawyers say I need to stay, I’ll stay.”
Diego nodded. “Keep me updated.”
“Of course.” James headed for the front door where two suitcases were already waiting. “I went to the blood bank today so you’re all restocked. I also stuck a few extra things in the first aid kit. Do you think Sian would help you out if you needed it or do I need to call in someone just in case?”
Diego raised an eyebrow at his Steward in amusement. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a few years now, Mom. I’m sure I’ll be fine without you for a couple of days, but I’ll promise to miss you if it’ll make you feel better.”
James made a face at him and grabbed a suitcase and went out. Diego followed him with the second one. “Do you want a ride to the airport? I thought you hated leaving your car in the lot.”
James shrugged. “I figured you’d offer, and I appreciate it, but don’t you think it would be better if you don’t let your woman anywhere near the airport? If she decides to make a break for it all she’d have to do is evade you until dawn and she’s gone.”
Diego knew the Steward was right, but hated feeling like he was holding Sian hostage. It was the only way he could be sure of keeping her safe, but the rationale didn’t keep him from feeling like an ass. “All right,” he said. “Let me know when you get there. With the time difference I can talk to the lawyers by phone if you need me to.”
A few minutes later, Diego watched James drive away and went back into the house, frowning. Something had to be different this time. No company put out the money on environmental studies and fiscal plans unless they were damn sure they’d win their case.
No, something didn’t feel right here. Diego had learned long ago to trust his gut instincts and they were screaming at him right now. This wasn’t about land.
This was something personal.
* * *
Sian was surprised to find the bedroom empty when she finally worked up the nerve to emerge from the bathroom twenty minutes later. She’d fully expected Diego to still be there lounging on the bed, ready to get a voyeuristic thrill out of watching her get dressed. She even had a host of scathing put-downs ready to use to chase him out of the room if he’d tried to talk his way into staying. He was gorgeous and he was charming, but he was also starting to get on her nerves in a big way with his confident assurance that it was only a matter of time before she fell into his arms.
The most galling part was that he just might be right.
She breathed a sigh of relief to find herself alone. She padded to the closet and pulled out a shimmery sage green T-shirt that looked great with her blonde hair and after much debate decided on a black denim skirt to go with it. When she put them on the shirt clung to her breasts an
d the skirt came only to mid-thigh. She looked at herself in the mirror, sighing.
It was clear her normally conservative style of dress would be impossible to maintain if she let James or Diego keep choosing her clothes. This shirt was positively decadent. Sian plucked at it for a moment, trying without much hope to keep it from clinging like a second skin before giving it up as a lost cause.
She glanced back at Diego’s shirts hanging in the closet, wondering what Diego would say if she asked to use one. All she saw in there were button-up shirts that would swallow her whole. Sian turned to the dresser, biting her lip. The man had to have some T-shirts. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed one.
She started opening drawers at random, slamming the first one when she glimpsed a pair of black silk boxers. She absolutely did not want to know kind of underwear Diego wore, she told herself firmly as she opened the next drawer.
In the bottom one, she finally found a stack of neatly folded T-shirts. She pulled out a black one and was about to slide the drawer shut again when she noticed something out of place.
There was a red leather strap peeking from between his shirts. Cherry red, to be precise. The exact shade of her purse, in fact.
Sian reached for it, her blood boiling when she pulled out her missing purse. How dare he hide her things from her? She looked inside, wondering if he’d gone through it and if she had anything left of her own in there.
She was surprised to see the soft sheen of metal. She pulled out her gun and checked the clip, her surprise growing to find it still fully loaded. She set the gun aside and pulled out her wallet. Her cash was still there, along with all her ATM and credit cards.
He’d hidden her purse from her but hadn’t bothered to look inside it?
It seemed incredible but Sian didn’t question her good fortune. She slid her wallet and gun back inside and snapped it closed before pulling on Diego’s shirt. She put on a pair of black sandals, her mind racing.
This purse was all she needed to make her escape. She had five thousand dollars sewn into the lining, and she had ATM cards available to clean out her accounts. With what she had in there she could get a car—she briefly mourned the loss of her Mini—and get out of here and away from Santonyo’s hired killers again.
