by Lora Leigh
“I didn’t move fast enough.” She shrugged as she met his gaze, then dropped hers.
It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth.
“You didn’t move fast enough to keep some sorry bastard from trapping your hand?” he growled. “It’s an old scar. I’m going to guess a parent.”
That bastard father of hers no doubt.
“I wasn’t a very obedient child,” she said softly, turning to look out the window as she tugged her hand from his grip.
“Neither was Amara.” He could feel the fury burning closer to the limits of his control. “And by God, she doesn’t carry any scars from the experience.”
She pulled her hand back to her lap and stared down at the scar in the dim light.
“I was sixteen,” she told him then. “I spoke to the wrong person at a party. When I was told not to do so again, I argued.”
Him.
By God, that son of a bitch had burned her because she’d spoken to him at some fucking party. And Ivan knew it was him. She’d looked so uncomfortable, out of place and frightened that he’d asked her if she wanted to dance. He’d known she was just a kid, but there had always been something about her eyes that got to him.
“A boy?” he asked, almost strangling on the need to know.
“A man.” A mysterious smile tilted her lips. The smile of a woman child learning her way. “It was worth the scar.”
The pain that struck at his chest shocked him. That scar had been worth it, she said. That smile, the soft tone of her voice. What the fuck was he going to do about her?
“Should I be jealous?” he asked as though it were a possibility.
That smile again. Mysterious, totally female, even as she shook her head.
“No need to be jealous.” She shot him a quick glance and in her expression, he saw rueful amusement. Not a lot, but enough to wipe the fear from her face. “It was a long time ago anyway.”
Her expression sobered again, and she turned back to the window, watching the night pass as the SUV drove swiftly through the darkness.
“You can trust me, Syn,” he finally said gently, knowing she wouldn’t.
“I know I can.” She nodded but he heard the fear in her voice. “I know I can, Ivan.”
“But you won’t?” And that just pissed him off.
“I do trust you.” She turned to him again, her gaze meeting his, that trust, so innocent, and so wary, gleaming in the depths of her eyes. “But I won’t involve you. Now please, just let me go.”
His jaw clenched.
Damn her. Son of a bitch. He was going to paddle her ass for sure.
“No,” he snapped. “Not quite yet.”
He was starting to wonder if he’d be able to ever let her go?
chapter five
The next evening Journey still couldn’t believe the sheer arrogance Ivan displayed in forcing her to stay with him as she stood at the glass wall overlooking a sheer cliff where it plunged down to the lashing waves of the Pacific Ocean.
Only pure, unadulterated arrogance and supreme confidence would give a man the boldness to live in a cliffside home in a state where earthquakes were the norm rather than a rare occurrence. As though he were daring Mother Nature to strike.
The house was beautiful though. The living area behind her was spacious and led to a monstrously large kitchen and dining area that would be perfect for entertaining. The house spread out to include three luxurious bedrooms with attached baths that were simply decadent. On the other side you stepped out to an impressive pool and patio area.
Glass surrounded the better part of the house, which made little sense considering he was suspected to be the head of a Russian criminal organization. What crime czar surrounded himself with windows? The fact that the property was enclosed by a high stone wall didn’t excuse the deliberate challenge to danger.
As she watched the sun dip below the horizon, the splash of the sun’s rays against the ocean as it seemed to sink into the water itself was spectacular. She understood the desire for glass when the view was so gorgeous, but it didn’t excuse the lack of protective walls.
“There you are. I wondered when you’d make it out of your room.” The sound of his voice was smooth, dark, stroking against her senses like black velvet and reminding her how much darker it could get as he touched her.
“There are a lot of windows here.” She turned to him as she wrapped her arms across herself. “Aren’t you afraid of someone taking a shot at you?”
He paused in the middle of the room, his brow arching in condescending humor. As though he believed no one would dare. He was crazy. It was that simple.
“The windows face the ocean and we’re isolated enough that I feel fairly secure.” The shrug was nonchalant. “Besides, no one’s taken a shot at me in years.”
“Surprising.” She gave a droll little roll of her eyes. “Give me a gun and I’ll take care of that. I’d hate for you to forget what it felt like.”
His chuckle was accompanied by a gleam of mirth mixing with the sensual wickedness of his expression. Dressed in his customary slacks and white shirt, sleeves rolled back on his arms, he looked as predatory as any other dangerous creature.
“I tried to leave.” She glared at him as he moved closer. “Your henchmen refused to allow me past the front door.”
His lips quirked as he moved closer. “They know how to follow orders,” he murmured, stopping within a few inches of her and forcing her to stare up at him.
“I want to leave, Ivan.” She kept her voice firm, her arms crossed over her breasts and her expression determined. “I’m not your responsibility and I refuse to pretend I am.”
It took effort to keep her accent from her tone. She’d gotten better at it over the years, but during times of stress it tended to slip free. And the past month had been nothing if not stressful. Her first language was English, but the French influence couldn’t be completely erased no matter how hard she tried.
“Allow me to pretend for you, then.” The suggestion had her freezing in shock and staring up at him.
It was the last thing she would have believed he’d think, let alone actually suggest. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, be his responsibility; she didn’t dare.
“Have you lost your mind?” Damn, the French nearly slipped out again.
Shaking her head, she moved away from him quickly, keeping her eyes on him as she put several feet between them.
“Strange, Amara never mentioned you were unbalanced.” She watched him suspiciously. “I would have thought she’d have told me that at some point.”
There was something about the half grin that pulled at his lips that had the hairs at her nape lifting in warning.
What was he up to? Ivan did nothing without a damned good reason and she could find no reason for this. It didn’t benefit him in the least.
“Amara does like to keep her secrets,” he finally stated, stepping toward her again. “But then, she’s not the only one, is she? You like your secrets as well, it would appear.”
Did she like her secrets?
She hated them. She hated the fact that she had to run, to hide from her own family, just as she hated the fact that it seemed her family was a little too determined to reacquire her.
Who else could it be? They were desperate she honor the engagement to Beauregard Grant, the distant cousin her father had sold her to. Her mother was so determined that she go through with it that she had threatened to have her committed to a facility until she learned how to be a dutiful daughter. The fortune the Grants possessed now was imposing, especially considering the loss of the companies, titles, and respect the Taite name had suffered.
“All the more reason to allow me to leave.” She frowned at him as he stopped again, far too close to her, his fingers cupping her shoulders, holding her in place.
“But I’m intrigued. You intrigue me, my little Syn.” His head lowered, his lips brushing her ear and sending a shiver racing through her flesh.
The
heat of him …
She wanted to close her eyes and soak it up, wrap him around her, and allow herself to sink into his skin. He was so warm, and even after escaping Colorado’s spring chill, she was still cold inside. So cold and alone, and tired.
The weariness had become ever deeper in the past weeks. Always running, staying in one place only long enough to make enough money and run again. And there was never enough money to run and to eat properly. If it weren’t for the waitressing jobs she took and the free meals that invariably came with working under the table, she’d likely starve. Or already have been caught.
She was smart enough to know she’d been incredibly lucky the night before though. She’d been faster than she’d expected, and she wouldn’t have had a hope of escaping had it not been for Ivan.
“Ivan…” She wanted to protest as she felt his lips caress her ear; she truly did. She wanted to pull away, deny him, deny his touch.
But she’d ached for him after she left his Colorado estate. And when she slept, she dreamed of his touch, of the pleasure, the mind-stealing sensations she had no idea how to fight or to keep from needing.
She was twenty-six. She’d been a virgin until he’d touched her. She hadn’t been raised to accept touch as an everyday part of her life and she hadn’t understood how weak it could make her, or how she could crave it.
Her skin actually grew more sensitive at just the thought of Ivan touching her, kissing her again.
“You were gone when I returned to the estate,” he breathed against her ear. “I was hard, imagining you in my bed waiting for me. Only to find you’d run.” His lips moved to her neck, brushing against flesh so sensitive her breath caught. “I’d spent hours imagining what I was going to do to that very lovely body.”
She’d never been told she had a lovely body. Too curvy, unfashionably heavy, and downright fat, but never lovely.
“I had to leave,” she whispered only to lose her breath as his teeth raked against the side of her neck, rasping the flesh with such erotic promise that her womb clenched with need.
She had no idea when she’d gripped his forearms, but she could feel the tough skin under her fingers as his hands flexed at her hips. And just as the night before, she could feel her sense of self-preservation evaporating beneath the pleasure she felt whenever he was near her.
“And now I’ve found you.” His cheek, raspy with the shadow of a beard, brushed against her shoulder. “And I’ll make up for the weeks of lost time.” A lingering kiss to her shoulder had her lifting to her tiptoes to get closer as she fought to breathe now. “And I’m going to fuck you until you’re too tired to run from me, Journey. How does that sound?”
Oh God …
Journey.
He called her Journey.
He knew who she was …
* * *
He was almost unprepared.
She was soft and sweet; melting against him one second, in the next she was tearing herself from his arms. Ivan barely managed to keep her from falling over the glass table at her side and still she fought him.
“Let me go.” The cry was fraught with both fury and fear as panic gleamed in her pale expression and exquisite green eyes.
She wasn’t pale now. Her face was flushed, her expression filling with desperation when he refused to release her but, rather, wrestled her to the couch, where he pushed her to her back and came over her, holding her by the most effective means of using his own body.
“You bastard,” she screamed, half sob, half fury. “Let me go.”
Holding her wrists in one hand above her head, he held her hips still by lying between her thighs, ignoring her kicking legs as he gripped one hip.
A man could tell a lot by the expression when a possible enemy believed themselves helpless, unable to fight, to escape. When all the secrets were laid bare and there was nothing left to hide behind, that was when the true depth of their strength and their weaknesses were revealed.
It took only seconds to realize Journey was no fighter. She didn’t possess the instinct, training, or ability to get herself out of a wet paper bag, let alone kill a highly trained agent in a garden knee-deep with snow.
Watching her curiously as she fought while doing nothing to keep her from feeling the erection straining his slacks, Ivan simply held her to the couch and waited for her to run out of steam. It didn’t take long.
Perspiration coated her face and neck, her muscles strained until they quivered weakly, and her screams turned to desperate rasps until her head finally collapsed against the couch. And as she stilled, he watched a single tear roll from her closed eyes.
That drop of moisture did something to him, something he wasn’t certain how to describe, even to himself. The slow-motion track it made down the side of her face, leaving a trail of dampness, like a faint scar against her flesh, softened something inside him.
Those pretty green eyes flashed open then and the fury that burned in them had his dick flexing in demand that he take the challenge, the silent dare in the depths of her gaze.
“Do it,” she snarled, her voice rough with the anger and the tears she refused to shed. “What are you waiting for? For me to beg? My begging days are long over, you son of a bitch.”
She’d begged her father, he knew; it was in the reports he’d read. For years she’d begged him. She’d even begged when she realized the monster she faced in a dark warehouse when she’d learned he’d sold her to a fiancé she didn’t want.
“If I remember correctly, you’ve already begged me,” he reminded her as he fought the instincts raging at him to soothe her, to take the anger and coax it to lust instead. “You begged me in my bed, didn’t you? ‘Please, Ivan, lick me there.’” He kissed her jaw gently. “‘Please, Ivan, harder. Take me harder…’” he reminded her. “Those are the only pleas I want to hear from those pretty lips.” Lifting his head, he stared down at her again, refusing to relent when he saw the misery filling the depths of her eyes. “Are you ready to talk now? Or shall we lay here a while longer?” He lifted his brow mockingly. “I’ll warn you though, my dick’s only getting harder. I lay here pressed against that hot little pussy much longer and I’m going to fuck it.”
“You want to talk?” The sheer disbelief in her tone was rather amusing.
“Killing you just seems rather bad form, all things considered,” he murmured, and watched the wariness as it filled her expression. “Amara would of course become suspicious at some point. She’d be very angry with me.” He allowed his lips to brush against hers as he stared into her wide eyes. “Besides, who does it hurt? Your father?” He sneered the title. “Your grandfather? As I understand it, you were only useful to them as long as you were a virgin. Something I’ve already taken care of. Correct?”
She remained silent, simply staring up at him, waiting. She was an intuitive little thing, wasn’t she?
“You are far more valuable alive, in my bed, on my arm in public, and playing the besotted lover, wouldn’t you think?” he asked, and watched her face leach of all color.
“No…” she whispered, the fear in her voice infuriating him. “You can’t do that. Ivan, you can’t…”
Couldn’t he? Oh, he could, and he would.
“Why is that, sweetheart?” His lips brushed against hers again before he jerked back, barely avoiding her teeth as he chuckled at the attempt before staring down at her, his expression, his voice, hardening. “They’re still conspiring against me even from their prison cells, and I suspect they’re behind the others chasing you. Push them, piss them off, and they’ll make a mistake. Once they do, the rest of their power structure will fall.”
Journey stared at him, silent for long moments as she tried to process what he was saying, tried to push back the need burning in her body to make sense of the words.
“They’ll kill you, then me,” she whispered, the knowledge that he was willing to sacrifice her so easily slicing her with a sense of betrayal. “No wonder you have no plans to kill me yourself.” Mo
rbid amusement filled the sharp laugh that passed her lips. “You’re going to let him do it for you.”
Was her heart breaking?
The sudden pain that sliced at her chest echoed through the rest of her body as she stared up at him. She couldn’t strike out at him, restrained as she was by his hard body and shackling grip. Could she have fought if she wasn’t restrained? The shock that filled her went so deep, she wasn’t certain she could.
A frown jerked at his brow, anger making the blue in his eyes brighter.
“Is that really what you think? And what do you think those bastards chasing you intend to do?” He jerked off her then, releasing her. And as she suspected, the fight that she would have normally felt couldn’t escape the pain radiating through her.
She’d thought she couldn’t feel more betrayed than she had felt by her family. The mother she believed loved her, the sister she’d thought she was close to, the brother she’d thought would always try to protect her, if he knew she needed it. And the friend she’d learned was the cousin they believed dead, a cousin who hadn’t wanted her kinship known.
But strangely enough, she felt more betrayed now.
Sitting up slowly, she stared up at him, shaking her head slowly. “They’re Beau’s men,” she whispered. “He’s determined that I’ll honor the engagement…”
He laughed at that. The sound wasn’t one of amusement.
“No doubt Beau would love to secure the Queen Mother’s regard by marrying the only Taite child she was fond of, but trust me, baby, that wasn’t just a snatch and grab you’ve been running from. The men that came by that diner last night were a strike force, Journey. They were there to kill you or anyone willing to help you. They weren’t taking chances.”
That wasn’t possible.
“Beau wouldn’t have me killed,” she denied. “As you said, he’s desperate to reacquire the Taite title by marrying me. It will never happen; the Queen would never return it…”
“The title has yet to be taken, sweetheart.” The brooding quality of his voice, the anger in his expression, assured her he wasn’t lying. Besides, Amara had told her many times that her father rarely bothered to lie to enemies. “It’s merely being held out of reach, subject to your arrival home. Alive. Those weren’t Beau’s men. You can trust me on that.”
