by Black, Paula
The rumbling bubbles of the chest-drain barely registered as he groaned and his rough hands yanked at the hem of my gown. He weighed my naked breasts in his palms, and as his thumbs grazed my hard nipples, a whimper of need spilled from my mouth into his. I tugged at his robe and felt the short hairs on his thighs tickle my ass. He rolled his hips and I swallowed his moan as the underside of his cock kissed the lush wetness of my lower lips.
The heart monitor kicked into a frenzy of bleeps, a fitting soundtrack to the wildfire lust consuming our bodies. Just one small shift of my pelvis and he’d be inside me –
The sound of a throat clearing was the audio equivalent of a bucket of ice-water. Breaking the kiss, my head whipped round to the door, even as Konstantyn hurriedly yanked the crumpled gown back down my body.
“Your heart rate set off an alarm at the nurse’s station. I thought your lung might have collapsed again.” The buxom nurse’s scrubbed cheeks flared so hot that bacon would have sizzled on them. “I ah, I see I needn’t have worried.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my heart,” Konstantyn growled, ripping the leads off his chest, “and nothing has deflated.”
I could vouch for that much. His rock-hard erection pulsed against my thigh.
“I was merely undertaking some physical therapy,” he added.
Having none of it, she folded her arms under her ample bosom and waited as I climbed off Konstantyn with as much dignity as I could muster. If I was flushed, though, it was with the embers of passion. I couldn’t rustle up even a shred of regret.
The nurse stepped forward, taking charge of replacing the electrical leads and rearranging the sheets. “Matron left very specific instructions. If your lung is to heal, you must rest.”
“Aw, but then I’d have to go home, and miss seeing your pretty face every day.”
Studiously ignoring him, she tucked him in so tight, his frustrated arousal showed in a taut bulge beneath the starched cotton. Spotting it, she flushed a dark shade of puce, and her head disappeared below the bed-line as she busied herself with checking his chest drain.
I pressed my lips together and tried my hardest not to laugh out loud.
“Visiting hours are strictly two ‘til three thirty, and seven ‘til nine,” she said, staring daggers up in my direction.
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” I said with an apologetic smile.
Konstantyn dropped his head back into the pillows and groaned. “You’ll come back?” The private look he gave me from beneath his dark lashes was smouldering and my heart did a backflip.
I swallowed, wetting my lips. “Rabid nurses couldn’t keep me away.”
The nurse cut me a filthy look, and simultaneously both Konstantyn and I burst into laughter.
I practically floated out of the room, like a helium balloon, trailing my frayed heartstrings along behind me. I hadn’t known what to expect, certainly not a declaration that I’d become his singular obsession, that he wanted me just as much as I craved him. That was a heady feeling, intoxicating even.
But as I stepped out into the light, a hand touched my shoulder, yanking my strings back down to earth.
“Jamie,” I said, blinking. I stared up at him, flushed and vacant-eyed. I probably looked like I was coming out of a hypnosis.
“A word,” he asked, “in private?”
“Sure.” Frowning, I followed him a short distance down the corridor until he turned back to speak with me. Was he going to hit on me, now he was officially no longer my bodyguard? Really bad timing, I thought. No ordinary guy was ever going to cut it against the force of nature that was Konstantyn.
“I like you Neva,” he said, brushing a hand down my arm.
“Jamie, I –”
He held up a hand to silence me. “No, hear me out, please.”
I looked at him, expectant, bracing myself for what was to come.
“I like you, a lot. You’re sweet and funny and I respect the hell out of you for what you did with that whole cyanide pill thing.”
Chewing my lip, I stared at my slippers as he went on.
“Any fool can see you’ve fallen hard for Lazarenko, and it’s not surprising, given the psychological shit storm you two weathered together. I’d just hate to see you get too attached.”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” I countered. Who did this guy think he was, passing judgement on my relationship with Konstantyn?
His hands fell limp to his sides. “You’re right. It is none of my business. I just thought you’d want to know.”
“Know what exactly?”
“The authorities are moving to have him sent back to the Ukraine.”
“What?”
“He entered the country on a fake passport and a forged visa. It’s why we’re still guarding him.”
“Does he know this?”
Jamie shook his head. “Not yet, but he will soon enough. What I’m telling you is strictly on the QT. I just wanted to give you a heads up, save you getting hurt all over again.”
“I see,” I said, frowning. But I didn’t see at all, how fate could be so mean, how we could survive Dante’s sick dungeons, only to be separated by something as ridiculous as an invisible border between countries.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Konstantyn had said to wear something nice. I shimmied into the red silk dress, drawing the spaghetti straps up onto my shoulders. I’d lost weight again. My collarbones were a little too prominent, my cheeks too hollow, but the bias cut of the fabric clung in all the right places, creating the illusion of curves, even where I had none. The marks on my wrists where I’d been bound and cut hadn’t fully faded either, but I’d found a pair of silver cuffs to disguise the scars. It was all about confidence, I told myself, and when that man looked at me, I had confidence in spades. All doubt evaporated in the sizzle of his gaze, as did my common sense.
I pinned my hair up, and went with a little extra mascara and liner for a smoky-eyed look. This feels a lot like a date, I thought. God, when was the last time I’d been on one of those? My hand shook as I glossed my lips a dark red to match the dress, and nervous anticipation tightened low in my belly.
Slipping into my heels, I took a turn in front of the full-length mirror, and just as they did every time I let my guard down, the fingers of doubt crawled up my neck, constricting my throat. Was I trying too hard? Ever since he called, I’d had the niggling suspicion this was Konstantyn’s way of saying goodbye.
The life or death situation had made us both reckless. I knew that. We were living in a moment, both denying the inevitable. There’d been no talk of the future, no declarations of love on either side, just a whole lot of desperate, needy, life-affirming sex snatched in that darkened hospital room, with the threat of Nurse Ratched walking in on us at any moment.
I’d gone back on my birth control as soon as I got the negative pregnancy test, but there was a small part of me that wished the test had gone the other way, if only to give him a reason to stay in my life. And how messed up was that thinking?
Never once did he mention his deportation, and knowing it would break the spell we’d been living under, I hadn’t had the guts to bring it up either. What would it change? For all I knew, he was happy to be leaving this whole sordid episode behind him. His work here was done, and I wasn’t so naive to think he’d want to abandon his entire life just because we shared some amazing sexual chemistry.
But for as long as the doctors declared him unfit for discharge, I’d embraced the illusion. It was just him and me, insulated from the world outside.
Today all that had changed. A clean bill of health meant he’d be fit to fly, and they could make him leave the country, and me. It would take more than chemistry to get him to stay. It would take a miracle.
So, yes, I was drunk on his touch and riding the high, dizzy from it even, but in the back of my mind, I was waiting for the crash. There was always a crash. My mother taught me that. And all this goddamn mascara was tempting fate
. I had the horrible feeling I’d be wearing it on my cheeks before the night was through.
The doorbell buzzed, startling me from my thoughts.
Too late to change anything now.
I snatched up my purse and wrap and with a nervy exhale, I opened the door.
He stood on my doorstep wearing a dark suit and an even darker smile. There was danger in the green glint of those hooded eyes, the kind of delicious danger that puts you in fear of losing both your life and your panties simultaneously.
I wasn’t wearing panties.
And that thought wasn’t helping one bit.
Nor was the way his gaze roamed my body with naked sexual desire.
Heat bloomed in my cheeks and unfurled low in my pelvis. I was molten and weak in my knees. Unconsciously my moistened lips parted, but no words came out.
Stepping forward, he brushed a kiss to my flushed cheek. He was clean-shaven and smelled divine, like soap and leather and raw masculinity. Much as I’d tried to steel myself for the prospect of a goodbye, he was making it so very hard.
“I made plans, but looking the way you do,” he murmured, “I’m not sure we’re going to make it out the door.”
“Is it too much?” I asked, capturing my lower lip between my teeth as I hitched a wandering strap back up my bare shoulder. Jeez, I only had to look at him, and my dress was taking itself off.
“Oh yeah,” he growled. “We could get arrested for indecency.”
“We?”
“Umhm.” His hand curled around my wrist, guiding my hand down to graze the rock-hard erection straining his pants.
“Oh. I see.” I breathed out the words on a ragged exhale and when I shaped his girth in my palm, his eyes closed on a groan that flooded liquid heat between my thighs.
“We should go,” he said, and I relished the husk in his voice that said he didn’t want to leave any more than I did.
“Yeah.” My throat bobbed on a swallow and my fingers trembled as I took his outstretched hand and he led me down the garden path.
“Nice cufflinks,” I observed as he opened the passenger door to a sleek black car. They were shiny silver bullets that caught the reflection of the streetlights.
“Thank you. Nice panty-line,” he whispered.
I was halfway into the car, and I shot him a look over my shoulder. “I’m not wearing any –”
He was grinning like the cat that licked the cream.
“Oh.”
He shut the door on my bashful smile and I struggled to compose myself as he came around to take the driver’s seat. It was a low-slung sports car, all leather and walnut trim, the epitome of restrained elegance and understated wealth. Just the way he handled it was enough to make a girl jealous. I stole a glance at his hard profile as he navigated through the streets of London, and knew he’d caught me staring when the corner of his mouth curled up in a knowing smile.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, my eyes falling to where his palm was curled around the gear-stick.
“Home. To my place.”
“Oh.” I’d pictured someplace neutral, where he could break it to me gently, and not have the awkwardness of having to ask me to pick up my broken heart and leave. His place just seemed so intimate.
He turned to me with a frown. “Is that okay? I didn’t think you’d want to court publicity, with the story still so fresh.”
“No, that’s perfect,” I replied, schooling my troubled expression into a smile. At least I wouldn’t have to cry in public.
It wasn’t a long drive across town, but I was so strung out on lust and fear, it felt like an eternity. We discussed Mariya, and how she’d been refused bail, while she in turn had adamantly refused to meet with Konstantyn. He spoke of it in matter of fact terms, but the hard lines bracketing his mouth betrayed his pain.
Just one more reason for him not to stay, I thought, fidgeting with the silky hem of my dress.
The air in the underground garage was warm compared with the chill breeze from the river above. Even still, the tiny hairs on my arms prickled and I found myself watching the shadows. It was going to take some time before I could feel comfortable below ground again. Sensing my unease, Konstantyn draped a strong arm around my shoulder and guided me towards the elevator. Even in my heels the man out-heighted me by a good six inches, and I’d have happily relaxed into the man-scented protection his hard body offered, if it weren’t for the ever-present sexual tension crackling between us like static electricity.
The apartment was much as I remembered it: plush cream carpets and swathes of stainless steel and black leather, but dominated by the spectacular glass wall with its views across the river Thames. A multitude of tiny lights shimmered their reflections on the water, instilling the night with all the magic of the big city. The interior lights were turned down low, and a table had been set for two, formal but intimate, with candles and starched white linen, and a bottle of champagne on ice.
He pulled out a chair for me.
“We’re having dinner?” I smoothed out my dress as I sat at the table.
“I had food brought in from a restaurant.” His smile was apologetic. “The best I could find. I’d have cooked, but I didn’t think you’d appreciate my speciality.” He pulled the champagne from its bucket and ripped the foil from the top.
“If you made it, I’d have eaten it,” I said. I’d never tried Ukrainian food. “What is your speciality?”
“Burnt toast,” he replied with a droll smirk.
I laughed. “You mean to say there’s a skill the great and powerful Konstantyn Lazarenko has yet to master?”
I could teach you to cook, I thought, but the words remained unsaid. You couldn’t domesticate a wild animal, and at his heart, Konstantyn was a wild creature. Just one more reason why we were destined to part.
“I have many shortcomings,” he said, as he eased the cork from the bottle with a subdued pop, and filled both glasses.
“Really?” From where I was sitting, he seemed pretty damn perfect. He made love to me like he danced, with passion in his eyes and artistry in his hands. He’d proved himself a loyal and strong protector. The man had taken a knife in the chest trying to save my life. He’d risked his own life to get those people, those strangers, out of that cesspit. Hell, he could even make me laugh when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry.
“Not vodka tonight,” I observed, raising my glass and feeling the bubbles tickle my nose.
He shook his head. “Not tonight. I have some things to tell you, Neva.”
Oh God, I thought, here it comes.
My fingers trembled around the cold glass, my nerves stretched tight as a drum. I wasn’t ready for reality. I wanted to buy more time.
I watched him pull a folded letter from the inside of his jacket.
He smoothed the paper out on the table in front of me.
I didn’t get beyond the top line that read ‘Deportation Order’ in bold font, before my vision began to swim. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, dropping my glass onto the table. Champagne soaked the tablecloth as I pushed up from the chair. “I really need some air.”
“Neva?”
Salt tears stung my eyes as I fumbled the sliding door open and rushed out into the bracing chill of the balcony. I white-knuckled the railing and sucked in a shuddering breath, willing the tide of emotion to recede. I didn’t want him to see me like this. I didn’t want him to remember me as some weak, snivelling girl.
His hands wrapped warm around my goose-fleshed upper arms. “He’s gone Neva. You’re safe. He can’t touch you anymore. No more looking over your shoulder. I know it’s not the way you wanted it, but –”
“You think I’m upset about Dante?” Was he really that blind to how I felt about him? I shook my head viciously, strands of my hair falling loose as I swiped tears from my cheeks.
His hands tightened. “What else am I supposed to think, when I show you his deportation order and you freak out on me?�
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“His deportation order?” I spun around to the confusion etched on his stupidly gorgeous features.
“Yes,” he said, frowning. “Dante was put on a morning flight, with a medical team and an armed escort. He’s never coming back. I thought you’d be pleased.”
“You thought I’d be pleased?” Hysteria edged my voice and I hated that I was losing control.
The fear I saw in his face almost made me want to laugh. How could he not see?
“Neva, please. Tell me what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that you’re leaving too, you cruel, insensitive bastard. I know!”
He looked like I’d just slapped his face.
“What is it you think you know?” he demanded.
I tipped up my chin and focussed my gaze on some distant point inside the apartment. I couldn’t look at him, and my words came out tight with restraint. “I know you’ve been ordered to leave the country. Admit it. That’s why you really brought me here. To tell me you’re going home.” I bit down on my lower lip. “And I know it’s not your fault, and I’m not allowed to blame you, but goddammit, I do. I do blame you, because you seem to be doing everything in your power to make me fall irrevocably in love with you, and that’s just cruel. I already lived through the nightmare of losing my brother. I can’t lose you too. It’s not bloody fair.”
There. It was out. Not the poignant, tearful goodbye I’d pictured, but then life didn’t play out like the movies. Life was messy, with snot and ugly crying and streaks of mascara that trickled all the way to your lips. I wrapped my arms around my chest, and a shudder wracked through me.
“Neva,” Konstantyn growled.
I pressed my lips together and steadfastly refused to take my eyes off the fascinating view over his shoulder, not even when his strong hands framed my face, and his thumbs brushed the tears from my cheeks.
