by Lora Leigh
She had her chance now, she told herself. She could take his offer to be in his bed, to be his lover for the amount of time it took her father and grandfather to completely slip into demented rage at the knowledge of it. Even four years ago, the two elder Taites had been desperate to secure that marriage. The importance of it had been drummed into her head that last year.
He would no doubt break her heart.
She touched her lips with trembling fingers. And give her days and nights of pleasure.
He could give her what she’d dreamed of for so many years, she thought then. If he wanted his vengeance bad enough, then he’d pay any price for it. He’d give her the impossible.
He’d give her the illusion she craved and when it was over, maybe, it would be worth the broken heart.
chapter seven
Stepping from the shower the next morning, as she wrapped one of the large towels around her, Journey came to a sudden stop, her eyes widening at the sight of Ivan as he stood, propped against the bathroom entrance. Tall, imposing, and far too sensual as his gaze moved over her slowly before meeting her own.
“I didn’t notice the freckles before,” he said quietly, nodding to her shoulders. “They’re rather cute.”
They were cute?
She hated them.
“They’re freckles!” she snapped, off balance with his sudden appearance and a night filled with restless nightmares. “Would you leave? I need to get dressed.”
She glanced toward the counter where she’d left her clothes after removing them, only to find the marble counter empty. And she knew she’d placed them there before stepping into the shower.
“I had some new clothes delivered. They’re on the bed.” He stepped back from the doorway as though in invitation for her to follow him.
“I liked my old clothes,” she informed him querulously, following him as she silently cursed his high-handedness.
She’d actually been dreading redressing in the clothes she’d worn the day before. The scent of old grease and hamburgers clung to the material, causing her to wrinkle her nose in distaste when she’d awoken to it.
“No, you didn’t.” He seemed to read her thoughts. “I’d never allow my mistress to wear those clothes either. If you’re going to play this game, my little Syn, you need to look the part.”
She frowned at the “little Syn” comment. The play on words didn’t amuse her in the least.
Stepping into the bedroom, hesitantly she neared the bed, tucking the towel securely between her breasts, and stared at the clothing laid out. There were several soft, flirty dresses. They were more casual wear though and paired with open-toed heels. A couple of skirts and coordinating blouses, several club dresses more revealing than anything she’d ever worn in her life, and a small mound of sinfully brief thongs and matching lacy bras.
“These will do until I can take you to the shops myself.” He moved behind her, his hands cupping her bare shoulders as she froze.
Her stomach clenched in reaction, her heart suddenly racing as the air around her seemed to thin, making her breaths come harder, faster.
“Ivan, I don’t know if this is going to work,” she whispered, more uncertain now than she believed she’d ever been in her life.
“Of course it will.” His head lowered as he lifted a hand to push her hair back and allow his lips to caress her neck.
Heated bursts of pleasure exploded against the sensitive nerve endings, sensitizing her flesh further and causing her nipples to tighten impossibly harder.
Clenching her fingers on the front of the towel, she had to fight to keep her head from tilting for him and allowing him greater access to the area his lips were stroking. The pleasure from that caress alone could become addictive, she thought with dazed appreciation. When he added the scrape of his teeth, the faint flicks of his tongue, it was all she could do not to moan.
A dark chuckle rasped at her neck. “You fight so hard not to feel pleasure from my touch, don’t you, my little Syn?”
Syn. He wasn’t calling her a sin but using the abbreviation of the identity of Crimsyn.
“It shouldn’t…” Her breath hitched when he bit down erotically on the side of her neck. “Feel so good.”
His hands moved to her hips, tightened, pulled her closer until she felt the thick wedge of his erection against the small of her back.
“Why shouldn’t it?” The rasp of his unshaven jaw sent a shiver washing through her as she felt the moisture between her thighs building. “What would life be without such pleasure?”
It was cold and bleak; she already knew that. It was a constant hunger that made no sense until his touch, his kiss.
She nearly came to her tiptoes when he laid his lips against the bend of her neck and shoulder to deliver a harder, hotter kiss. She couldn’t stop that gasp of pleasure or her hands falling to his wrists, gripping them desperately.
“But it’s just with you,” she protested, her head tilting for him, silently begging for more. “Oh God, Ivan…”
The towel fell away from her body, sliding across her nipples as his hands tugged at the material. She was naked before him, hot and dazed, unable, and damned unwilling to even try to learn how to deny his touch.
* * *
Just with him.
It was all Ivan could do to keep from bending her over the bed and taking her like a damned animal. Lust thundered through his bloodstream, hardening his dick impossibly further and pushing at his control.
He knew women, their responses, the sound of their voices as arousal filled them. He knew the feel of their bodies, the irregular panting of breaths that signaled the dazed intensity filling them, and he knew she wasn’t even aware of the information she gave away. That she’d only felt this way with him.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t heard such claims before, but before he’d also heard the calculation, the deliberate manipulation, in the words. Something Journey’s voice didn’t hold. She was so lost in such a simple pleasure, his lips against her neck, that she had no idea what she’d whispered, or the implications of it, the power it gave him.
“Ivan…” a soft, pleading moan whispered from her as he lifted her hands from his wrists and raised them until her hands clasped his neck and he could cup the full, swollen mounds of her breasts.
The brush of his fingers across her nipples had her jerking against him in reaction to the pleasure. Her lips were parted, eyes closed, her breathing coming in hard pants as she leaned farther into him.
“So pretty, and so sensitive. Can I suck those pretty nipples again, Syn? Will you get wild for me again?” She had that first time. The harder he’d sucked the little points, the more she’d become lost in the sensations he gave her, that mix of pleasure and pain, of darker lusts and carnal delights.
And he’d wanted to do so much more, teach her things about her body that would allow her to slide past her shyness and tempt him to push her harder.
She arched into his caress, pushing her breasts against his palms, silently begging for more. Her expression was mesmerized, so lost in the pleasure of such a simple touch that it amazed him. She was beautiful, sensual, and she’d been denied, for whatever reason, a lover’s touch.
The satisfaction he felt in being the lover to show her this pleasure the first time only intensified his own arousal. What the hell did she do to him and why did he have a feeling he was getting in far too deep here?
A low moan whispered from her lips again as he played with her sensitive nipples. Pretty, pink, swollen with need. As he turned her, his head was lowering to the tight, hard points when a firm knock at her door almost had him snarling.
“What?” he snapped as he felt Journey stiffen in his arms, the haze of sensual pleasure dissipating as reality intruded.
She moved quickly from his arms as he shot her a brooding glare, bent, and jerked the towel from the floor before wrapping it around her once again.
“Ivan, you have a call you need to take,” Ilya called through the close
d door. “I’ll meet you in your office.”
Someone’s timing sucked.
“I’m going to shoot him,” Ivan growled, then turned back to her. “We’ll continue this later. I promise you.”
“Why?” Her expression was angry now, wary. “You don’t have to actually put yourself out to fuck me, Ivan. You can do what you need to do without going that far.”
Oh, he doubted that. More to the point, he had no intention of trying.
“We’ll discuss it later,” he growled, frustration eating at him now.
She had to be the most difficult woman he’d ever met in his life. Even for a redhead she was unusually frustrating.
Turning on his heel, he strode to the door, jerked it open, and left the room. To have disturbed him Ilya would have considered the call important, and the only calls of any importance that he was expecting concerned Journey. And, he hoped, the answers to who or what was behind a team directed to kill her.
* * *
She hadn’t worn clothes like this in her life, Journey admitted as she stared at herself in the full-length mirror in the corner of the guest room. The flirty multi-colored skirt ended just above her knees, the white camisole tank meeting the low band of the skirt and dipping just enough at her breasts to be tastefully sexy.
The lace bra and matching thongs were sinfully brief and soft, the sandals she found buried under the skirts perfect for the warm California weather. She felt more feminine than she ever had. Even her pale skin looked prettier, not as bland or unattractive as she imagined. Though the freckles across her shoulders were clearly revealed.
No matter what her face looked like, those freckles would give her away to her family. They were distinctive, though they’d always been covered until now.
If Ivan had his way, her family would soon know exactly where she was and who she was with. Beau, her mother, brother, and sister, and no doubt her cousin Tehya and her husband would descend on Ivan like a brick wall.
She almost grinned at the thought of that. She would have grinned if the reality of the situation were anything but what she knew it to be. She would be in his bed for his vengeance, to put the final nails in the coffins of his enemies.
Her enemies.
Turning from the mirror, she found herself rubbing at the small scar between her thumb and forefinger. The small, circular mark wasn’t as easy to see as it had once been, but it was there, a memory of the disobedient child she had always been.
Obedience had just never been her strong suit. It still wasn’t. She hated being told what to do, being ordered or forced. It raked against her pride, filled her with a restless anger and an urge to do the exact opposite.
This situation wasn’t one she could run away from though. She’d realized that the night before, and digging in her heels in silent rejection of it wasn’t going to work either. If she was going to come out of it with some semblance of pride intact, as well as her life, then she had to find a way to meet Ivan on a more even field. Unfortunately, sexual experience wasn’t something she possessed. And it was something he possessed in abundance.
What she lacked in experience she could make up for in other areas, maybe. He wasn’t exactly immune to her touch. She could give herself to him, learn from him, let him teach her how to ease the sexual needs she found so confusing. And she could follow his lead in learning who threatened her.
Tehya had once told her that she was braver than she knew she was, stronger than she imagined. The other woman had assured her that she could face the life Stephen and Craig left her with her head held high, because they weren’t her crimes. And she could refuse any decision made on her behalf that she didn’t agree with.
Journey hadn’t seen that strength in herself four years ago, but as she faced the fact that someone was determined to kill her she’d felt the complete rejection of allowing them to do so easily. She’d fight, just as she fought to escape the life she was born into. And if that fight involved sleeping with the dark, forbidden Russian, a man who mesmerized her senses, then so be it.
Her fascination with him had haunted her for years. She’d been sixteen when she’d first seen him at one of the social gatherings she was forced to attend as a Taite daughter. And over the years, each time she’d seen him again that fascination had grown.
A silent, secretive crush perhaps, something she’d hidden and only allowed free in the dark privacy of her fantasies. It didn’t matter that he was accused of heading a merciless criminal organization. His reputation as a criminal or as a killer had meshed with the fantasies she’d built around him.
Childish.
She was a mess, then and now, where Ivan Resnova was concerned. But why allow her pride and the situation to keep her from those fantasies? And if he failed and she died, at least she wouldn’t die without having known what it meant to be bold, to be pleasured.
And if he wanted her to give the world an illusion that would ensure his vengeance, then he could give her a fantasy as well. One that would ensure she had something to carry with her if she survived it.
The only question now was if she was strong enough to stop running and to fight.
* * *
Ivan closed the video chat and wiped his hand over his face before looking up at Ilya’s somber expression.
“Maxine’s in ICU. Carter’s stable and the doctors are certain of a full recovery. Their assailants escaped before Tobias and his team could get there. Carter counted four men, heavily armed, Russian accents. They have no idea which direction they were headed,” he told his assistant. His closest friend, Ilya, and he had been working together, watching each other’s backs and attempting to navigate the dangerous world they lived in, since they were boys.
The dragon tattooed at the side of Ilya’s face flexed dangerously as his jaw clenched, the dimly colored scales appearing almost iridescent for a moment.
“Max and Carter are two of our best agents,” Ilya murmured as he sat down wearily in the chair across from Ivan’s desk. “Getting the drop on them wouldn’t be easy.”
That was no more than the truth. Carter wasn’t just well trained but intuitive as hell, and Maxine took women’s intuition to a level Ivan had never seen before.
“Pull Elizaveta into the house,” he ordered. “Tobias and the others will be here in a few hours. Have the plane readied. We’re returning to New York.”
Ilya’s brows lifted in surprise. “Her family is back in the states,” he said. Ivan didn’t need the reminder. “As well as Beau. They’ve taken an apartment in Manhattan. Are you sure you want her that close to them?”
Fuck no, he didn’t. He’d wanted to keep this in California, give Journey a measure of peace before the game began in earnest. The men chasing her wouldn’t have a hard time finding them and Ivan no longer had eyes on them to keep track of their progress or alert him to a possible attack.
“I’ve no choice.” Ivan steeled himself for what he knew was coming.
He’d not yet managed to secure Journey’s complete cooperation in this game, and without it there would be no way to convince anyone who knew him that she was his mistress. That she shared his bed nightly when no other woman ever had.
He didn’t keep live-in mistresses. He had lovers, he went to their beds, occasionally he had one slipped onto his estate in Colorado when he was there, but only for the night. He’d had a daughter, a child whose innocence he’d wanted to maintain as long as possible. He didn’t flaunt his sex life in front of her.
His daughter was with her fiancé now though, planning the wedding she’d dreamed of and overseeing the home she and her fiancé were building in Texas. His daughter was a woman and his own life was decidedly emptier now. A perfect excuse for taking a more permanent lover.
The tabloids and gossip rags would eat it up. The Taites would be puking on their fury.
“Have the house in the Hamptons prepared,” he told Ilya as he made the decision. “We’ll fly out as soon as the others arrive.”
He didn’t bla
me Ilya for his added surprise. The house in the Hamptons had never been used for a lover. It was where he and Amara had hosted the few social events he had thrown in the past, and where his daughter had been raised as a teenager. It was the family’s base, their security, not just a residence.
It would only add to the romantic cast that would be thrown on his relationship with Journey.
“Want me to have a selection of engagement rings delivered as well?” Ilya snorted. “Arrange for a meeting with the priest?”
Ivan narrowed his eyes at what he knew was a facetious suggestion. It had merit though.
“I don’t like the look on your face, my friend,” Ilya said carefully. “Surely you wouldn’t go that far?”
Would he? Until Ilya had said it, he hadn’t really thought that far, but it wasn’t an unpleasant thought.
Ivan shrugged. “I’m getting no younger, Ilya. My daughter is married, moving into her own life now. What man wouldn’t consider such a thing?”
He’d make certain his favored gossip columnists received that information.
“And what of her?” Ilya asked somberly. “She’s young, Ivan, and far too innocent for this game. Even if that was your wish, what of her desires? She’d want more than such a loosely based relationship for marriage. She’d also no doubt want children.”
He shot his friend a brooding look.
There would be no more children for him; he’d made certain of that when he was twenty and realized the danger Amara would always face. Children were to be treasured, protected not just from danger but also from the realities of a parent’s past or even future actions. And his life would never be secure enough to allow for a true family, other than his daughter.
The vasectomy he’d had performed had ensured he was never tricked again as he had been by Amara’s mother. Barely more than a child, a virgin to her twenty, whose hands were already stained with blood.
“Call for the plane.” He moved to rise from his seat only to sit back at a soft rap at the door.
