Calm Before the Storm

by Cara Lake

  “I am fully qualified, Mr. Bellor…”

  “Really?” His skeptical gaze raked down her small frame. “You look like you just graduated school.”

  “Well you look like you’re just back from raping and pillaging!” she snapped back, hackles rising. Irina clamped her mouth shut, gritting her teeth in annoyance and shock at the clearly unprofessional response. She was usually so calm, so controlled.

  Her skin burned as she tried to focus on anything other than the masculine predator in front of her. Unfortunately the room was basically empty apart from the table at which she sat, so that was a lost cause, and in any case her eyes were strenuously resisting any break in contact with his face.

  And what a face! She had known he was handsome, but now…up close…those black, black eyes, dark like an endless night, and well-defined cheekbones that were surely carved by a master sculptor. Chiseled planes of perfection.

  His jaw was cut sharp and the light dusting of dark stubble that played across his chin enhanced the raw animal masculinity that made him just…beautiful. No, not beautiful. He was too male, too savage and too earthy to be just beautiful. No, not beautiful but—stunning. The kind of stunning that would make it almost impossible for any woman not to feel some jolt of attraction.

  “I can’t believe I just said that!” Irina stammered flushing red with embarrassment, at the same time struggling to fight against the magnetic pull.

  “Well my name is Norse in origin,” said the man sitting across from her, with a smirk. “And that was a favorite pastime of many of my ancestors.”

  Rolling her eyes skyward, she tried to stop the corners of her lips twitching in amusement, noting that he was staring at her mouth with an expression that suggested he wanted to lick it. And didn’t that thought just knock her for six!

  “Mr. Bellor.” Irina breathed in deeply trying to gain a sense of equilibrium. “Shall we start again?”

  “What do you want to know?” The gravel tones in his voice catching her right in the solar plexus, the sensation causing her to fight for breath.

  “Your side of the story.” She managed to get the words out, hoping she didn’t sound as if she were panting or deranged. God! What was he doing to her? Fighting hard for control, her brain managed to switch into gear. “You have been charged with the murder of Saleos Black, your coach.” Her eyes flew to his, trying to gauge some reaction. Though his large body remained still, it was wound up tight. A coiled spring. Ready to pounce.

  A predator surveying his prey.

  Irina squirmed inwardly under the intense scrutiny but persisted. Despite everything, this man was her client and she was a professional. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “No comment.”

  The new lawyer pinned him with her amazing amber eyes. “Look. I don’t know why you’re refusing to talk,” she said and shook her head. “But staying silent, that’s not going to help you. You need to let us represent you by talking through what happened. Then maybe we can see what kind of plea to go in with. Right now it doesn’t look good. All the evidence points to your guilt and until you talk it’s going to stay that way. I’m here to make a case for you, Mr. Bellor, but I can only do that if you talk to me.”

  Tyr Bellor couldn’t remember ever being so intrigued by a woman. Surprised that his day was taking a turn for the better, he sat back and carefully observed the young woman in front of him. She was definitely a welcome change from the middle-aged suit they had sent the day before. Not that it would make any difference to him who they sent. He still wasn’t talking. Although she was the kind of woman who could almost make a man forget what he was saying. Either that or he would say just about anything to get her into bed.

  His fascination increased when she failed to hide her smile at his claim of Viking ancestry, and he found himself mesmerised by the molten liquid gold of her eyes, amber lightning flashing in anger. Temper. Nice. She should be running from him, screaming in terror, not challenging him, her fiery response drawing his gaze to her lips. And what lips!

  Cherry-red and full. Lickable. He wanted to lick them.

  His friend twitched in agreement. Down, boy.

  Taking his time, Tyr let his eyes rake a path up and down her slender form, noting the very feminine curves her formal suit could in no way disguise. She was frowning at him now as if she could not believe what she had said. But she had thrown down the gauntlet and he had never been known to refuse a challenge. Was she declaring war? He sure hoped so.

  Damn but she was fine! Especially with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with flame.

  The hair that framed her elfin face was a dark chocolate confection of shoulder-length curls, complemented by pale creamy skin and a light dusting of freckles across her nose. Breathing in the scent of her challenge, he felt a sudden urge to kiss each of those freckles. A wave of lush exotic lilies and passionflowers slammed into him with the power of a force-ten gale.

  Damn and double damn!

  Tyr could feel this woman invading his senses, the temptation to indulge in the warmth seeping through his skin, so strong he was shocked by it. More shocking still, a pulse of energy shot a rapid burst of electricity that seared into his brain even as he fought for some logical explanation for the attraction. His cock twitched again. Okaaay. So much for logic. He scanned her face intently. She was regarding him with no small amount of fear. For some reason, he didn’t want her to be afraid.

  Not wanting to appear threatening, Tyr relaxed back into his chair, letting the liquid wave of her voice, so cool, so serene, wash over him. This slip of a girl was an oasis of tranquility and he felt…calm. Such calmness he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He would rather sit here listening to the music of her voice than think about the reality of what had happened to Sal. He was still struggling to understand it himself. Recent events were now clouded, veiled in an illusion that he had failed to decipher. Since arriving at the station he was beginning to think that what he had seen could not possibly have been real. Maybe he was going insane? But here, with her…something was different. The reality of his life was a storm, a rage of catastrophe, one disaster leading to another but she…for this brief moment in time, was easing that chaos, making him feel… He shook himself out of it. He did not want to feel.

  “What do you think happened?” he asked. A sudden burning need to know her thoughts. Did she believe him a stone-cold killer? Would she run from him if she met him on the street? What would she do if she knew some of the things he’d done in his life?

  “I am not here to speculate, Mr. Bellor, you need to tell me.”

  She sounded frustrated. She also thought him guilty. Tyr was under no illusions that he was in deep with no concrete means of escape. He found himself wishing he had met her under different circumstances. He badly wanted to wipe the suspicion from her eyes. But that was impossible. If he told her the truth, others would be in danger. For the moment his lips were sealed. It was just a great pity they weren’t sealed over hers. What would they taste like? Jesus! He blew up that image in his head but it took a lot of explosives to do it.

  “Tyr,” he managed to say, the shrapnel in his brain fusing into another thought. How would his name sound on her lips?

  “I’m sorry?”

  “My name is Tyr.”

  Irina clasped her hands together in frustration. This man was an enigma. She had come prepared to be repelled by a brutal thug, in no doubt of his guilt and expecting to see in him one of the torturers responsible for the annihilation of her family. Instead she saw something else. Felt something else. God help her! She was wrapped in a coil of fascination that had wound itself around her so tightly that she already felt there was no escape. There was something hidden beneath the façade he projected to the world. She was in no doubt of his power, his strength, could see his warrior blood oozing from every pore. He was the kind of man who would fight to the death to get what he wanted. But she had also felt his keen intelligence, heard the steel in his voice.r />
  Irina found herself mesmerised by his lips as he told her his name. Luscious. That was the only word she could use to describe them. How would they feel pressed against hers? Heat rushed to her cheeks. More embarrassment as she realized he couldn’t fail to notice.

  Dragging her gaze from his beautiful, sensuous mouth Irina focused on the words on the page she had read so many times. Ugly words. Brutal words. Words laid out in black and white in the manila file she found she did not want to believe equated to him. There was more going on here than the obvious. There had to be. How could she possibly be feeling the way she did toward someone…evil? Whatever this feeling was.

  Trying not to analyze her reactions, she took a breath and fought to regain her composure. “Look, Tyr.” Irina glanced up from the file, her eyes holding his, struggling not to drown in the deep pools of pitch. She blinked, resurfacing, shook her head. “I…I want to help you…so you need to give me something to build a case on…for your defense.”

  His eyes turned the blackest black as she said his name. Tyr trapped her with their intensity as he asked, “Do you think there’s anything to defend?”

  “I hope so.”

  He flinched, and she knew he had heard her whisper as the door creaked open announcing the guard’s arrival.

  “Time’s up, Miss Columba.” The voice sliced across the thin thread of the connection, cutting them apart. Irina stood up fumbling to push the papers back into the manila folder. Tyr’s hand brushed hers as he helped gather them toward her. A sizzle of electric pinpricks. Irina drew back her hand as Tyr did the same. They were both standing now.

  “Little Dove,” he whispered, betraying his knowledge of her Italian heritage. He lowered his head, drawing closer, his sensuous mouth breathing heat into her ear. “Can you do something for me?” Irina nodded, swallowing to catch her breath as the force of his proximity enveloped her senses again, causing her heart to stutter. She struggled with the urge to melt into his heat and the solid wall of his chest. “Can you contact Sal’s wife Leah for me? I need to talk to her.”

  “I’ll try,” she said, exerting all her willpower, forcing her feet to move in the direction of the door. Exiting the room, Irina paused for a moment, the compulsion to turn back and take a last look an irresistible pressure she could not ignore. As she turned to gaze at the tall man who stared at her with such a solemn expression in his eyes of pure darkness, she thought she heard him say, “Come back soon, little dove.”Words so soft that she thought perhaps she had imagined them.

  Chapter Three

  Tyr Bellor sat back against the wall having returned to his cell and clenched his fists in frustration. A spiral of confused images bombarded his brain as he replayed the recent conversation with his new lawyer. Lawyer! She was a mere girl, a child but…her voice. He could have drowned in that voice, would have enjoyed doing it. The moment she had opened her lips to speak, her voice had wrapped a soft silky blanket around his body, the honey tones rubbing erotically over his skin. He could still feel the tingling sensation in his chest. But it wasn’t just his reaction to her voice that had him confused and reeling, it was those amazing eyes. He struggled to remember where he’d seen them before. They were so…familiar.

  A sudden punch to his gut as those amber eyes slammed into focus. He could hear the intense stadium noise around him. At the fight! Her eyes, on the way to the ring! How could he forget? He had fought for those eyes. The memory crashed into him with sudden clarity and not for the first time. Those stunning eyes had been in his dreams every night since that day.

  Tyr pictured the scene again, remembering how the adrenaline had raced through his veins, heart pumping pure anticipation, eager for the fray. Then sudden shock as fiery molten gold claimed his attention and for a fraction of a second everything around him had stilled. He had found himself in that calm space at the center of a hurricane, his heart thundering in his chest, slamming violently as if revived by a hundred thousand volts.

  The connection severed, Tyr had entered the ring with one thing in mind, to win and see those eyes again. Of course he had been victorious but had looked in vain at the end for that face in the crowd, as his jubilant team had ushered him from the ring to the obligatory celebrations. Tyr relived the crushing sense of disappointment at their absence remembering how he had also left the after-party early, his enjoyment of the victory tempered by the sense that something was missing.

  Since that day, despite the initial whirlwind of his triumph and then the subsequent despair of Sal’s death and his implication in the murder, his one anchor in the storm had been the remembrance of those eyes. The hollowness of their absence now replaced by a liquid warmth that soaked inexorably into his chest as he pictured her beautiful face. Irina Columba. He had a name now, not just a face. And she was just like her name. A little dove, a haven of serene calm, she fluttered on the edge of his consciousness, amber light in the black chaos that threatened to consume his mind.

  Tyr blinked his own eyes shut, struggling to combat the darkness that intruded, helpless as it merged into another face. Sal. He had to be strong for the sake of Sal’s family. He needed to talk to Leah, Sal’s wife. His thoughts flew back to the day he had first met Sal. Saleos Black. Highly respected in the boxing world as a trainer and sporting legend in his own right, Sal was a former world heavyweight champion and since retirement had set up the premier gym that had churned out winners on a regular basis. But Tyr hadn’t known that at the time. No, he had been a dumbass, ignorant kid. All he had seen that first day was a lithe, fit, middle-aged man with graying hair and eyes to match. He now knew that what he had seen had been a lie. Most of his life to date was a lie.

  Tyr had been taken to the gym by the man the street gangs knew as Aamon Abrasax. The man he once thought had saved him from a life of hardship and struggle just because he had seen the fighting potential in the feral orphaned child he had been. As an unwanted orphan, Tyr had no other means of survival but to work the streets, running with a pack of hooligan vermin, constantly battling with anyone and everyone. Lawless scavengers, they laid claim to the city, stealing, fighting and marking their territory. Society had no means to deal with the problem that had grown to epidemic proportions over the last number of years. Chaos and disorder had ruled his life. Abrasax had seemed like a godsend.

  He now knew that Abrasax’s philanthropy was a lie. The street gangs were in fact unwitting pawns, leashed to powerful men who used them ruthlessly, inciting them to violence for their own ends. However in some ways Abrasax had saved him. Certainly his life had changed at that point and his rise to become a respected boxer and athlete had been what every kid on the street dreamed of. As his reputation increased so had his wealth and for the last few years Tyr had been living the dream. He’d supposedly had it all. Until now. But as recent events had proved, he was still just as much a pawn as he had always been. Albeit now he was a famous one.

  It was his instinct to fight and never give up that had brought him to Abrasax’s attention and to Sal’s gym fourteen years ago. He had been just fifteen and angry. Sal’s gray had eyes had appraised him thoughtfully as if he knew more about Tyr than he did himself. Tyr remembered the conversation, even now, as if it were yesterday.

  “So,” he said slowly, “this is the boy.”

  Abrasax nodded. “Yes,” he replied. “He has a lot of…potential.”

  Saleos Black lifted his eyebrows at that, his cool gray eyes boring holes into Tyr’s brain as if he could see right through him. His hand came up to touch Tyr’s shoulder. Tyr flinched. An involuntary response, not knowing what kind of touch to expect. Sal made contact with his shoulder in a firm grasp. “Can you fight, boy?”

  Tyr nodded. He had been fighting his whole life. His fists were his armor as well as his only weapon against the harsh reality of life on the streets. Sal threw him some gloves. “Show us what you’ve got.”

  He motioned to one of the lads in the corner to get into the ring and Tyr followed him under the ropes. He li
fted his hands, which felt strange with gloves on. He was used to bare skin, knuckles and bones, fists colliding in ferocious impact. His opponent danced around him, all fancy footwork and cocky pride. “What you waitin’ for? Come and get me then,” the lad taunted, bouncing up and down on his toes.

  Tyr watched and waited, turning slowly on the spot, his mind projecting ahead, anticipating his opponent’s next move. “Come on, lads!” he heard Sal shout, “get on w—!”

  His opposition suddenly thrust out a right hook followed by a jab. Tyr immediately blocked and responded with a fierce succession of punches that left no doubt as to the raw power he had at his command. His opponent went down.

  Hard.

  “Whoa! Fuck!” He heard a breath from Sal. “What was that, twenty seconds?”

  “Train him up, Sal,” he heard Abrasax say, “and clean him up.”

  “Sure thing, Boss. I don’t think it’s gonna be too difficult.”

  With that, Abrasax left and Sal threw a towel over Tyr’s shoulder.

  “Come on, son, let’s talk.”

  After that day, Tyr had essentially become a part of Sal’s family. Not just the family of fighters at the gym but almost a son. No dammit! He had been a son. And Sal’s wife Leah the only mother he had ever really known. Tyr had lived with them over the gym for five years before his career took off, and their two daughters Melanie and Delora had gradually begun to treat him as if he were an older brother. He needed to talk to them. Explain.

  He also needed to find out if what he had learned the day Sal died was true. How much did they know? Everything he had believed was a lie. Abrasax had lied. Even Sal had lied. His thoughts became tangled as he tried to unlock the truth. His lids closed and he saw a face, her face. The little dove.