by Cait London
“Hi,” she returned breathlessly.
She glanced at Willow, who was obviously interested in the quiet exchange and leaning close. Jessica recognized Willow’s expression from the last time Willow was infatuated; it said she was falling in love. It said that Willow pictured herself as the heroine of the Western movies she watched, riding off into the sunset with the cowboy.
Wounded in love, Alexi might need Willow’s sweet, tender care for a rebound, but eventually he’d hurt her and Jessica couldn’t have that. Jessica did the only thing she could to temporarily save her friend from Alexi Stepanov. “Willow, I’ve just got to get some gifts in the mail. Your soaps would be perfect. Do you think you could open the shop now, please? Sorry, Alexi, but I really need Willow now. You don’t mind, do you?”
She stood abruptly and nudged her shoe to Alexi’s boot, a warning to him to play along. His expression didn’t waver, his steady brilliant-blue eyes startling amid his tanned face.
Jessica didn’t want anyone to see inside her past the protective barriers to the private guilt and hurting edges. Alexi was circling her now, searching in emotional fields she wanted to forget—
He stood slowly in front of her, forcing her to look up at him, to be aware of how feminine she was in contrast to his size and force—the contrast of a man and a woman, the physical differences….
His hand raised to frame her cheek, his thumb stroking her skin. Jessica shivered, not from the chill but from that quiet, steady search of her eyes, as if he were seeing deeply inside….
“It is cold, Willow. I’ll talk with you later,” Alexi said without removing his gaze from Jessica’s, and then he walked away.
“See you later, Alexi,” Willow called cheerfully. “I just love the Stepanov men, don’t you, Jessica?”
Not that one, Jessica decided silently. She rubbed her cheek briskly, trying to erase how easily those fingers had held her, how gently they had removed her hairpins. Alexi wasn’t at all what he seemed to other people.
In the shop Jessica collected a few assorted soaps and paid for them. “I’ll call the addresses where you can send these. Is that okay?”
Willow carefully began to wrap the fragrant seashell-shaped soaps into tissue, then tied raffia around them. “Great. Thanks. You’ve helped me so much. Goodness, I’ve gotten so many orders from the people who know you. I’ve been pouring molds ever since the holidays ended, and I’ve reordered some great scents and colorings, more seashell molds, too—the small kind, like for guest soaps. I think they’ll sell well, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so.” Jessica studied Willow. She seemed flustered and hurrying through her words, her hands fluttering over her work, dropping one soap to the floor, raffia tangling in her fingers. “Willow, I want you to tell me what is troubling you. I know something is.”
“Boyfriend trouble. You don’t know him,” Willow answered briskly. “That old Kamakani curse, you know. Boy, that Alexi Stepanov is sure sexy. I think he likes me. He was in here, looking around the shop, and he seems really nice. He’s lonesome, I can just tell. Maybe I’ll ask him over some night for a movie and dinner. Oh, I suppose you could come, too,” Willow added as an apparent afterthought.
“Thanks.” Jessica didn’t like the way Willow looked, dreamy and already in love, when she spoke of Alexi. And she didn’t like the way Willow ignored the ringing of the telephone. “Shouldn’t you get that?”
“No,” Willow answered in a high-pitched tone, her expression too innocent.
“Is someone threatening you, Willow? I want to know—” She frowned as she noted the paper sack that Willow had just knocked over—it contained new packages of door locks.
Before Alexi and Danya had removed Lars Anders, the man had threatened a few women, a bully picking on the defenseless. Willow was totally trusting and afraid, judging by her darting quick look at the front window, the way she jumped at the slightest noise, a shutter banging in the wind. Jessica followed Willow outside and helped her secure the shutter, closing it. On impulse, she hugged Willow close against her. “You’re like the sister I never had. I don’t want anything happening to you.”
Willow was suddenly calm, leaning back to smooth Jessica’s hair. “I love you, too. Everything is going to be just fine. I knew it today. Everything came very clearly to me. I don’t want you to worry anymore. It’s time to love again.”
Willow’s statement would trouble Jessica for hours—until she decided to jerk Alexi, alias the “Sex Magnet,” away from any Willow temptation.
Four
After a sponge bath, Alexi threw down the towel he’d used to dry his body and drew on his jeans. He stepped into comfortable worn loafers and shook his head as he traced the beam of light moving unsteadily from the resort toward his house. He quickly eliminated Marcella, who detested exercise; she wouldn’t walk at night. At nine o’clock, that person was probably Jessica Sterling, the woman he most wanted to avoid—or to take into his arms, to taste that lush mouth—
Jessica Sterling stirred his senses, not a calm desire, either, rather a stormy passion he’d never revealed to another woman. His need for her was too immediate, too hungry, too elemental, just heat and storm—and for that reason, he’d stayed away from the Amoteh Resort. With Jessica under the same roof, sleeping in a bed nearby, he’d be—
Aching all over again, he reminded himself sharply—torn into shreds by a manipulating woman set on what she wanted and treading over anything and anyone to get it.
He should have known that a woman like Jessica, used to getting what she wanted, would come after him—for his answer about Willow.
He looked at the sheets he had torn from his bed and stuffed into a pillowcase to be laundered. He had attempted to remove her scent—that erotic, feminine, sweet scent.
Didn’t she know better than to come to a man’s home at night? Wasn’t she aware of what could happen—what was already happening between them?
Alexi pushed his hand through his hair and shoved the rush of questions aside. He moved to the outer door, opening it to better trace his invader. The path was dangerous and she could slip and—
Then he moved out into the night, whipped by wind and rain.
Cold weather always whipped his instincts, made them keener and lifted his need to hunt—
And perhaps to satisfy the sensual hunger that had been nudging him all day.
Intent upon the rocky, treacherous path before her, Jessica didn’t see him standing silently as she passed. Dressed warmly in her hooded jacket, jeans and hiking boots, she looked small and vulnerable, like a woman who needed protection, who looked so lonely that she needed love.
“Jessica,” he said quietly, and she stilled, the beam of light slashing into the night.
Alexi stepped behind her and when she turned, he caught her wrist, staying the flashlight from hitting his face. He didn’t move, but a storm of images shot through his mind—that of Jessica prepared to defend herself—why? What had caused her to react so suddenly, as if she’d been attacked before and knew how to protect herself?
He could almost feel her heartbeat, the fear racing through her. Then the softening, the relief, the recognition in the wisp of her voice. “Alexi?”
Not “Stepanov” but Alexi. Is that how she thought of him? As Alexi?
“Yes, Alexi,” he whispered, and followed his instincts to calm her fear by placing his face along hers, to let her feel and catch his scent.
She hesitated momentarily, then moved close, her coat cold against his bare chest. Jessica was breathing rapidly, a release from her previous fear. She placed her forehead on his shoulder and her free hand opened on his belly, the glove warm on his skin. “You’re cold.”
“Yes. You should not be out tonight.”
She lifted her face, scanning his. Inside the hood, drawn tight around her face, raindrops shimmered like silver on her skin. “I came for an answer. I couldn’t find you earlier.”
He’d gone to Kamakani’s grave on Strawberry Hil
l, no easy path, slippery with ice and mud and snow. But once there, Alexi had removed his coat and had taken off his sweatshirt. He’d let the winds hurling up the cliff from the black ocean tear at him, an attempt to cleanse his need for this woman, who stirred him so primitively that he could barely keep his hands from her.
Now the wind hurled a slash of rain against him and Alexi moved to block the force from Jessica.
“You’ve been brooding again. You’re so unpredictable and moody,” she said quietly, and placed her glove against his cheek, rubbing it gently.
That unexpected touch soothed, and Alexi eased his face away. He couldn’t have her reach into his heart so easily. “Yes.”
“And afraid of me.”
Alexi saw no reason to lie. “Maybe.”
She slowly unzipped her coat and held it open for him. “You did this for me.”
“There is a size difference,” he reminded her, but stood closer and placed his arms around her. The coat barely fitted to his sides, but Jessica’s arms circled him.
“I’m sorry she hurt you, Alexi.”
“Maybe only my pride, not my heart. Which way are we going, you and I? Back to the resort? Or to my home?” Was he so hopelessly drawn to her, so needy of feminine comfort, that he accepted her so easily?
“I think we could speak more privately in your home,” Jessica said quietly.
He turned and circled her with his arm, guiding her on the path toward the house. “Because?”
Resisting and wary, she moved slightly away, and instinctively Alexi tugged her back to his side.
“Because I’d rather discuss business privately. You have a way—like today at the Stepanovs’—of irritating me, of setting me off. That was unfortunate. I don’t want another display.”
“But you react so beautifully. I see more of you each time that surface is scratched, and I can’t resist.”
“I worked hard to get that ‘skin.”’
Alexi didn’t want to explore the hows with Jessica. She’d married a wealthy older man and ran a corporation—yet that image didn’t match what he felt ran inside the woman.
What had happened to her? What was she hiding?
Inside Alexi’s warm living area, Jessica removed her coat and tried not to look at Alexi’s back as he bent to stoke the fire. Gleaming with rain and tanned by sun, his bare skin slid over powerful muscles. Her fingers ached to rub those shoulders, to soothe him as she had on the path. Alexi raised her feminine instincts and she wasn’t certain that was good.
“About Willow. I’ve decided to call off the offer,” she said suddenly. She feared the intimacy circling the room now, here with a man she barely knew yet trusted to protect her friend.
Why did she react to him so instinctively? How could she trust Alexi so quickly? After all the years of her struggle to be strong and independent, planning each move, scheduling her days, how could she trust a man she’d known only one week?
Alexi rose slowly and eased into the wooden armchair facing the fire. He leaned his head back against the cushion and closed his eyes. For the first time Jessica noted the cellular phone lying on the table, the laptop computer near it. A notebook was opened, a pen upon it, a calculator at its side. She hadn’t thought of Alexi as a today-man, rather one who disdained technology and preferred his senses and the elements. She could have called him—but then, she’d really needed to see him, hadn’t she? Why?
Jessica folded her arms around herself and stood in the shadows, studying Alexi’s hard profile, the way his skin gleamed, defining his slashing cheekbone, the dark stubble of his jaw, that powerful throat, the muscles running into his shoulders.
“Tell me how you and Willow met.” Alexi’s deep, quiet command rocked the silence.
“Is it important? We’re friends. I want her protected…but not by you. I’ll find someone else.”
“I want to know.”
“All right—if you must. It was a simple meeting. Two years ago we were just two women who had entered a trade show bathroom. We shared a mirror and washed our hands. She used one of her soaps and I loved the scents and asked her about marketing them in Sterling Stops. A very simple meeting.”
“Nothing about you is simple.”
Willow had held Jessica as she’d cried—just simply opened her arms to hold Jessica, a new widow wrapped in grief and stunned at the heavy responsibilities ahead of her. She’d feared failure, and Willow had given her confidence during that dreary, fearful time. “She was there when I needed her most. I had just lost my husband. Willow is very dear to me. When the signs of danger to her started just before Christmas, I wanted to stay with her, but she…she wanted to keep me away. Probably to protect me.”
“She’s upset someone,” Alexi stated quietly. “Or so it seems.”
“You know that? What do you know?” Jessica came to stand beside him, fearing what he had discovered. “Tell me. It’s important that I know exactly where you’re at with this—she’s so dear to me. You want the job because you like her—how much? How much do you like her?”
Alexi turned slowly to look up at her. “What is it to you?”
“That won’t do, Alexi. Don’t even think about it.”
“I could move in close that way, to protect her and find out what she’s hiding. I like her, too. What makes you think that I am unsuitable for her?”
He rose slowly to his feet to face Jessica. “This?” he asked rawly as he tugged her into his arms.
Jessica braced herself as his lips lowered, hovered over hers, and then Alexi freed her, stepping back to scowl at her.
She’d wanted him to kiss her. She’d wanted to taste him, to step inside those dark storms with him, to soothe him, to lie with him, skin against skin, hunger burning—
“It wouldn’t stop at a kiss,” he said unevenly, and pushed a hand through his hair. “And you know it.”
“I want to go—” Jessica shivered, her body hungry for his touch, that near kiss lingering, nudging her….
Alexi’s eyes glittered in the lamplight as his hand rose to curve around her throat, his thumb stroking her skin. “There’s always a price, Jessica. You know it, and so do I. Here’s mine—I want you to live with me, help me rebuild this place. It will appear as though we are lovers. The three of us will be good friends, and Willow will more readily trust me. I can watch over her…and you.”
Stunned, Jessica shook her head. “I can’t possibly live with you. I’m not the one who needs protection.”
“I think you do. Mikhail tells me that a man is calling you, an insistent man, one who likes to threaten the staff. Frustrated bullies usually don’t stop at threats.”
Jessica rubbed her cold hands together. Howard’s influx of calls had tripled today, his e-mail and faxes insistent—because of Alexi. Her husband had loved Howard dearly, and Jessica hadn’t been able to tell Robert, a dying man, that his son was pursuing her. For seven years, before her marriage and after, Jessica had maintained a steady and businesslike distance from Howard, but the introduction of Alexi had set off his jealousy. “I can handle him.”
Alexi’s head inclined to her. “But I prefer to help you. That is my price to protect Willow.”
“Forget about me. You know that she’s in danger, then. Something is wrong. What?”
Alexi seemed to draw inside himself. “She isn’t giving that away. But the signs are there. She’s upset someone.”
“That’s exactly what I thought. She didn’t come out and tell me exactly, but she’s nervous when the phone rings. A window has been broken at her shop, and I found a note that she had dropped. It said that she was going to pay. She won’t answer my questions—”
Jessica shook her head. “I can’t live with you. That’s impossible. I run a corporation. There are basic daily duties. I’m quite safe, really.”
When had anyone but Willow or Robert been concerned about her safety? Jessica wondered. How could a man she barely knew want to protect her? Why?
Alexi shrugged, his
expression unreadable. “Your call.”
“You think I’ll back off, don’t you?”
“Maybe. Okay, I do. You don’t really have to help me, but I’d like you to stay just the same. I can’t really see you working with me, sawdust sticking to your sweat—oh, ladies don’t sweat, do they? I can’t see Mrs. Jessica Sterling hauling nails and boards around, breaking her fingernails.”
His face was in shadow and Jessica moved closer. Alexi knew how to push and so did she. “You need me to pay for what she did to you, is that it?”
Those silvery eyes lowered down her body then up to lock with her eyes. “You are a different woman.”
“How do you know so much? I married a much older man, didn’t I? I’m rich and spoiled, right?”
“I think you loved your second husband very much,” Alexi stated slowly. “But you need me now, like it or not, and I’m involved, like it or not—with you. You want something from me. I want you to stay here, with me, where you’ll be safe. That is my price.”
“I think you are living in the wrong century, Alexi. I can buy what I want.”
“Not me.” He turned away and looked out at the night, his image reflected in the glass with Jessica’s appearing to one side, her face pale, her fists clenched at her sides. Then he added a neat alternative, one he knew she wouldn’t buy. “Or I can start dating Willow. That would get me very close to the problem. If she doesn’t want to tell a girlfriend, she might want to share with a man who is very close to her.”
“A lover, you mean?” Her voice was low and trembling with rage. “I told you, hands off.”
Alexi turned to Jessica. What did he feel for her, this tenderness despite the fascination, the raw need of her? “You started this. Now finish it.”
“You’re not talking about Willow now, are you?” Jessica stared at the man challenging her. There was nothing sweet or gentle about Alexi Stepanov, the sensual sparks heating, sizzling, in the air between them.
