by Cait London
The worn shoelaces had been knotted instead of replaced, the toes of the boots were scuffed.
Then she was tilting, eyes closed, already sleeping deeply before her head touched the pillow. Mikhail slid her boots from her feet and noted the worn, mismatched socks before stripping them away. He eased her legs up onto the bed and covered her.
Ellie snuggled into the luxurious featherbed and comforter with a sigh. Suddenly, she sat up, her eyes pleading with him. “Mikhail? Mikhail, you’ll see that Tanya is okay, won’t you? She wakes up at night, and she needs to know that I’m with her.”
She threw back the coverlet as though fear drove her. “I’ve got to go. She’ll need me.”
What fear could drive her so desperately? Mikhail recognized an exhausted mother who would give her last for her child. The image did not suit what he knew of Ellie. “If she needs you, my mother will call. You’re staying here.”
“You promise that she’ll call?” She sounded like a sleepy, hopeful child and not like the willful Ellie he’d known.
“Of course,” he returned with an arrogance typical of the Stepanov males. “I have said so, have I not?”
“Of course. When you say that, I know….” With as light smile, Ellie allowed herself to be tucked in again. She was soundly sleeping within minutes, and Mikhail was left with an uneasy sense that he was susceptible to her. What could have driven her so hard, so desperately, to him?
Asleep, one hand by her face, her hair splayed across the black satin pillowcase, she looked like a vulnerable child, her lips slightly parted.
No, she looked like an inviting woman and trouble, and after experiencing his ex-wife, he’d already had his share of spoiled society women. Mikhail jammed his hands into his slacks pockets, resenting the sensual tug Ellie could always draw from him. The need to hold all that fire in his hands, to possess her in a storm that would wash him free of her.
Or would it?
Two
Ellie awoke slowly, stretching and enjoying the smooth feel of the sheets along her bare skin. Was she really sleeping, cramped in her car and dreaming? Or was she awake and the big warm bed and the crackling warmth of a fire real?
A hard slash of sleet on the windows tore her from sleep. She sat up, already fearing for Tanya—who wasn’t anywhere near. Ellie could feel the bone-chilling fear seeping into her, despite the warmth of the featherbed. For six months, she’d been running to keep Tanya safe, and now—
Mikhail Stepanov was there. On top of the coverlet and sleeping beside her, Mikhail’s arm crossed her lower stomach. His big hand had curled possessively on her hip.
Ellie jerked the comforter up to her throat and shook her head slightly, trying to dislodge the nightmare. Still, Mikhail lay big and solid beside her in the high sturdy bed, his meticulous dress shirt opened halfway down his chest, his long legs sheathed in slacks, his feet bare. Stubble was beginning to darken his jaw, and he did not look civilized at all, not with the firelight flickering over that hair on his chest, those tousled dark waves.
She breathed quietly, trying to bridge the unsteady gap between deep sleep and Mikhail in a bed beside her. Her bare skin and the lacy white drift of cloth tossed on a sturdy bedside table told her that she was wearing only briefs. She summed up the situation: She was in bed with Mikhail, wearing very little. And she was very much awake.
One more heartbeat and Ellie closed her eyes in relief; Tanya was safe, sleeping at Fadey Stepanov’s house.
When she opened her eyes again, the bold sturdy furniture in the room reminded her that this was the Stepanov showroom. In the dim light, the bold, almost primitive style was unmistakable. Behind a huge brass fireguard, a fire blazed, warming and lighting the room, catching the textures of cloth and wood and dancing on the metal. Above the massive stone fireplace, a thick mantel of smoothly polished walnut wood bore pictures in gleaming assorted frames. Mikhail’s business jacket and tie were meticulously placed over the back of one of the matching big wood chairs near the fire. His highly polished shoes gleamed on the woven rug circling the chairs, and pottery marked with the Amoteh’s strawberry logo sat on a food tray.
Brochures gleamed on the long woven scarlet runner crossing a bold dining room table with matching chairs. The rich colors of cloth, purple and red, were almost savage, cutting across the dark wood. The thick slabs of blood-red cushions softened the bold, blocky style. The black throw pillows had been crushed, suggesting that Mikhail had sat there for a time.
The big hand on her hip caressed, and Ellie watched, frozen and fascinated, as Mikhail’s fingers opened and dug into the lush purple material—and pressed deep to lock onto her flesh.
In that moment, she knew that whatever Mikhail wanted, he would possess and keep.
He breathed heavily, just that once, and her skin prickled in warning. Mikhail sharp and untouchable in a business suit was one thing; this man was another.
This aroused man, she corrected as her eyes swept down his body and the coastal wind slashed the rain against the windows. The sound of wind and rain was almost as primitive as Mikhail looked now.
She’d felt this way before with Mikhail, but never so sharply. The stirring within her was that of a huntress finding exactly what she wanted and pitting herself against a man in the most elemental of ways, stripping away all else and battling until she had filled whatever need drove her. As a natural competitor, she wanted to throw herself at him, nothing withheld, she was overwhelmed by that very irritating physical need to dominate Mikhail’s arrogance.
And yet Ellie feared what would happen if ever they really clashed, because Mikhail was definitely up to any battles.
Her senses prickled, every nerve in her body went taut and she looked up quickly. Those drowsy green eyes were watching her, those of a predator, and his voice was deep and slow, like that of a sleepy lover. “It’s three o’clock. I called my parents. They know you’re not coming back tonight. Go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Mikhail’s image now didn’t suit her “Ice Man” label for him. That he was a man now and not encased in ice and steel terrified her. He looked as if she could turn to him and—
Ellie’s protective instincts leaped; she’d learned not to trust her softer instincts as a woman. “I’m not sleeping in this bed with you, and you had no right to undress me.”
He sighed heavily and slid his hand from her to place it with the other behind his head. His expression was that of drowsy interest and humor. “You’re not completely undressed. You’re wearing briefs. Beige, I think, cut high on the thigh. Cotton, not lace. One sizable hole on the left cheek. And I didn’t touch you.”
She tugged the coverlet to raise it over her bare shoulders, but Mikhail’s weight declined the favor. She refused to ask, choosing a demand to cover her uncertainty. “Move…off…this bed.”
Mikhail’s eyebrows rose slightly, mocking her. They both knew she was at the disadvantage, and not in any position to order him. He spoke too softly, his deep voice grating on her senses. “I want to get to the bottom of this, why you’re here. Now. Tonight. Do we talk here, or by the fire while you eat, or are you going back to sleep?”
“How did I get undressed then? Exactly how do you know what briefs I’m wearing?” she pressed furiously, humiliated that she had exposed her body to him. The purchase of new underwear wasn’t possible, and she didn’t like Mikhail seeing how destitute she had become. Despite what he thought of her, only her ex-husband had seen her undressed and even then, she’d been shy and self-protective—wary of exposure and criticism.
Was that pleasure in the slight curve of his hard mouth? “I was resting by the fire, minding my own business, with a little paperwork and some food, when you threw back the covers, stood and undressed. Your clothes are right where you dropped and threw them. I’m not your maid.”
She stared at him, and he reached to press a fingertip beneath her jaw, lifting slightly. “You can close your mouth now.”
That dark gaze was
roaming over her mussed hair, her face unshielded by cosmetics, and lower to her mouth and still lower, over her bare shoulders. Mikhail was studying her like a man interested in her as a woman. She shivered and realized that color was slowly rising in her cheeks. Ellie turned away, not wanting him to see so deeply inside her, to know that intense male assessment could terrify her.
The bed jarred as Mikhail suddenly stood up. He impatiently tore off his shirt as if no longer interested in her, tossing it onto the bed. “Put this on. We’re not going anywhere tonight and Tanya is safe and sleeping. Since you are awake, now is the best time to talk without interruption. Come by the fire and eat.”
There was the slightest roughness to his voice, the inherited trace of Fadey’s Russian accent, as Mikhail turned his back to her. He walked to the fire, crouching to prod it into a blaze.
Ellie slid into his shirt, buttoning it firmly. When she began to roll up the sleeves, she caught his scent—underlying the soap and starch of the cloth, his personal scent warned and stormed around her. Wary of this new Mikhail, she watched the movements of his powerful shoulders, the firelight gleaming on them. He stood, hands on hips, watching the fire, a big powerful man who held his family…and his precious resort safe.
Ellie smoothed the large shirt around her. Maybe it was just her fantasy, her hope, her desperation, but just wearing Mikhail’s shirt made her feel safer.
He was just the man she needed, and clearly she would have to play this game his way. She cautioned herself to be patient, not her best quality.
Ellie slid from the high bed and reached for the only softness in the room, a dull gun-metal green fringed shawl placed over a dresser. The flight of the last six months ached in her bones; exhaustion dragged and sucked at her, the warmth of the bed calling her now. Once in it, she didn’t doubt that she could sleep for a week—if Tanya were safe. In the past, Ellie would have loved pitting herself against Mikhail. Now the battle to convince him seemed overwhelming, a grudging step-by-step uphill battle to get him to commit to Tanya’s safety.
She wrapped the shawl around her waist, knotting it.
She didn’t do well at her first attempt to ask Mikhail to help; he’d set her off too easily. Just seeing him, so confident and disdainful of her, she’d felt that instinctive need to prod those cold, aloof shields.
Ellie couldn’t afford to fail a second time. She couldn’t fail Tanya; she had to be alert for Mikhail’s agile mind. Inhaling deeply, she braced herself to convince Mikhail and walked to the fireplace.
His body seemed to tense, though he hadn’t moved, and that flick of his eyes took in her bare leg, exposed by the shawl’s fringes.
Ellie tried to ignore the leap of her senses, because now she couldn’t afford her habit of nettling Mikhail. She concentrated on the mantel’s pictures, gathering as much calm as she could. The hair on her nape lifted as it always did when Mikhail was nearby, and she could almost feel him breathe, waiting for her to talk.
Not just yet. She had to be very careful this time.
From their gold frame, the immigrant Stepanov brothers, dressed in peacoats and knitted caps, stared back at her—tough, unflinching, determined, with the same wide and uncompromising jaw and slashing cheekbones as Mikhail. In another frame, softly ornate, a young Fadey beamed as he held a blissfully happy Mary Jo in her wedding dress. Then the young brothers, Mikhail and Jarek, looking wild and free as the ocean wind tossed their hair, huge fishing poles in one hand and holding aloft strings of fish in their other hands. In the photograph, the ocean waves crested behind them.
“Eat,” Mikhail said simply when she came to stand beside him, though he didn’t turn. The firelight played on his face, lighting the jutting angles and escaping the hard planes. He had set the terms already, the schedule by which she must perform, make her plea.
She’d learned terms and prices at an early age, from her father. Everything was a trade-off, wasn’t it? she thought wearily.
Ellie eased into a chair near the food and wished that her stomach hadn’t just growled. Obviously, Mikhail was not playing waiter. She opened the thermos bottle and inhaled the delicious scent of chowder, easing it into the large pottery soup bowl. She carefully unwrapped the thick slabs of dark bread, heavily slathered with butter. In another moment, she was diving into the food, forgetting about Mikhail. She was halfway through the soup before Mikhail reached to open the other thermos bottle, pouring milk into her glass.
“Thanks.” For now it was delicious food, no matter who was serving it. She crushed crackers into the soup, mixed rapidly and hurried to eat the savory creamy mix of clams and potatoes.
The impact of the hot food and the warmth of the fire had made her drowsy again. With little effort, she could lean back against the chair’s cushion and sleep—but she couldn’t; she couldn’t fail Tanya.
Mikhail sat, leaning back on the chair, his legs in front of the fire as he studied the flames. In profile, his rugged features looked too primitive, the light flickering over his chest and arms. In a suit, he looked powerful and sleek and untouched by emotion. But now, he seemed even stronger, more potent—more elemental, from his broad shoulders to the slight matting of hair on his chest that veed downward.
Ellie tensed as she remembered awakening to him, the soft beckoning of her senses to smooth his skin, to touch and hold all that male power within her hand…. He’d been aroused. A little quiver shot deep within her; it was difficult to think of Mikhail as a man with ordinary needs.
“Finished?” he asked softly.
“Yes, it was delicious. Did I thank you?” She struggled against sleep; she needed to be alert to ask Mikhail’s help.
“Of course.” There was the old-world arrogance, as if he had momentarily relaxed his shields with her. “Now tell me why you have been sleeping with the child, singing to her and holding her tight against you?”
Ellie’s drowsy senses snapped to alert. “How do you know that?”
Mikhail turned to her and said slowly, “Because it was me you held in your arms, Ellie. Me you rocked and petted and reassured in your sleep. The experience was unique, to say the least.”
While Ellie stared at him, wide-eyed, her lips parted, Mikhail dealt with his unsteady emotions. The big, chunky chair only served to make her more feminine, more vulnerable. He resented the woman in front of him, all curves and soft lips, the shawl tied around her waist opening to reveal long smooth legs. His hand flexed, remembering the jut of her hip, the curve of her waist beneath the thick comforter.
Ellie Lathrop was a disaster, his personal Kamakani curse. His instinctive need to have her wear his shirt, to claim her as his, nettled.
He was not an emotional man, yet what man would not be affected by a woman’s bare breasts pressed against his arm, those little affectionate hugs, and those soft lips kissing his shoulder and whispering in the night, “Go to sleep, baby. I’m right here and I’ll never leave you.”
“Rock-A-Bye Baby” had never been so erotic, the husky, sleepy sound of Ellie’s voice making him hard—and weak. Despite himself, he could not move when she curled so close to him, her hands stroking his skin, cuddling him, her body scent reaching inside his senses, tormenting him. Yet, as much as he knew the danger of staying, he could not leave her. Instead, he resented the fine sheen of perspiration on his skin, the sensual tension humming through him.
Mikhail scoffed at himself and was surprised at the hard, derisive snort that could only have come from himself. Him. Hard. Aching to take her. Aroused by Ellie, the spoiled, willful heiress.
What could have happened to a child that she would need such reassurance in the night?
“You will tell me now about the child and why you have come.” That his accent had slipped beyond his control also nettled. The fact that the shawl had shifted slightly, revealing an enticing thigh, golden and gleaning in the firelight, hit him like a physical blow.
He wanted to press his lips to that soft flesh. He wanted to toss her on that bed and fight out
the storm brewing between them for years.
What would that solve? his logical, nonaroused side demanded. They would still be the same people, each disliking the other.
He’d battled another woman, and that experience with his ex-wife had been enough to turn his sexual needs cold.
There was no reason for Ellie to excite him, none at all, and yet she did.
He watched Ellie pull into herself, the sleepy vulnerability gone. She ran her fingers through her hair and sipped the milk, a ploy he knew that gave herself time to organize what she would say to him.
“I’m having a bit of a rough patch, Mikhail,” she said almost briskly in a get-it-over with tone. She reached gracefully to claim a black mussel shell from those in the earth-colored pottery bowl. “I think you can help me—and Tanya. Most of all, Tanya.”
“The girl you hold in the night? Your daughter?”
“My daughter,” Ellie repeated softly. She looked into the flames and then down to the empty mussel shell; her fingers traced the smooth pearl and pink-colored interior as if feeling for answers that escaped her. “She has nightmares. Are you certain your parents know where to find me?”
“Of course. I am a thorough man and she will be well treated. My parents dote on children.”
“Yes, I know.” This time she spoke more thoughtfully, running her finger over the edge of the shell, testing its sharpness. “You’re going to want everything, aren’t you? Every detail.”
There was no reason to soften his words with Ellie; she’d seen him in tough business deals, cutting right to the bottom line. “Of course.”
Still watching the fire, Ellie drew her legs up on the chair, circling them with her arms. “Tanya isn’t my natural child, but I love her as if she were. Hillary is her biological mother.”
Now everything made sense—Paul’s reluctance to talk about his daughters, the telephone calls inquiring about Ellie, and Tanya’s birth date, which ruled out Ellie as her biological mother.
Mikhail waited, sensing that Ellie was moving very carefully through her thoughts and words, as if she had replayed them many times before. Her voice sounded as if it came from an exhausted woman dragged through hell.
