Her expression cleared as she realized what he was doing. “Your brothers are on their way here?”
He nodded. “And once they arrive, I’m going to open the door and rip the guy’s head off his shoulders.”
“O…kay.” Lena decided it probably was time for her to beat a tactical retreat when Caleb’s eyes were glittering so dangerously. She was pretty sure he meant exactly what he said.
As he meant that threat to spank her?
Now why did the thought of that send a delicious shiver down her spine, cause her nipples to tingle and swell, and a damp heat to spread between her thighs? Probably because the thought of Caleb’s hands on her, for any reason, was enough to send desire coursing through her body.
Caleb’s cell phone beeped three times. “Okay, game on.” He glanced back at her, his body tensed in readiness for the fight ahead. “Go, Lena.”
“I do love you, Caleb,” she told him urgently.
He nodded. “I love you too.”
He loves me too?
Chapter 15
“You’re still here, Lena.”
It took some effort to pull her thoughts together. To realize Caleb had no intention of opening the door until she had moved out of danger. “Don’t you dare die on me, Caleb,” she warned fiercely as she saw he was sliding back the bolts on the door.
He gave a wolfish grin. “I wouldn’t dare. Now get your beautiful self out of here so I can do my thing.”
Caleb waited only long enough to make sure Lena was out of sight before pinging his brothers’ cell phones to let them know he was in position. Their pings back confirmed they were too.
What happened next was a blur of movement as Caleb threw open the door, quickly and suddenly, at the same time that his brothers converged on the doorway from three different directions.
Alexei’s expression was one of panic now as he had no idea in which direction to shoot first.
It was over within seconds as Caleb disarmed him and brought him down without a single shot being fired, after which his fists started flying. All his anger, the pent-up tension he’d been suppressing for years, now came to the fore as he pinned the bastard down and began pummeling him into the ground.
“Caleb.”
He ignored his brother Gabriel’s voice, the rage like a red-hot tide sweeping over him and holding him in its grip as his fists kept flying. He no longer saw the face of the man beneath him. Instead, he saw his own torturers. The men who had abducted and hurt Lena. Sinclair. Dukakis. The bodyguards.
“Caleb!”
“Get the fuck away from me!” He turned to growl at Gabriel, who tried to grab his arm and pull him off the man now cowering on the ground with his arms over his head. “Fucking cowardly piece of shit!” His fists were bloody and raw but he didn’t care as he kept punching.
“Caleb, darling, it’s over now.”
That voice. His angel’s voice. The same angel who had pulled him out of his nightmare on Petros. Lena.
“You can stop now.” Her hands grasped the tops of his arms, gripping them and preventing him from throwing any more blows. “Caleb, come back to me.”
He looked at her blankly for several seconds before recoiling in horror at what she had just witnessed. He’d been out of control. Gripped in a killing rage.
Shit.
Caleb looked at the man beneath him. He was no longer conscious, no longer pretty, and covered in blood. Most of it Alexei’s, some of it Caleb’s.
He stood abruptly, dislodging Lena’s hands but avoiding looking at her, too afraid of what he would see in her face. Instead, he turned to look at his three brothers. Gabriel’s expression was blank, Ash’s a pained wince. Ethan’s was dark with concern.
Caleb straightened. “Get this piece of garbage out of my sight.”
“Caleb, where are you going?” Lena called as he walked away.
Where was he going? He had no idea. Only that he had to leave. That he couldn’t stay here any longer. Couldn’t bear to see the fear in Lena’s face instead of the love she had expressed for him such a short time ago. She wouldn’t want him now. How could she?
“Don’t you dare walk away from me, Caleb Knight!”
He froze at the sound of Lena’s voice before turning slowly, body tense, his gaze wary as he waited for her killing blow.
Lena had no idea what had happened the past few minutes. One minute, Caleb was telling her he loved her, the next, he had become that one-man army he had said he was. Cold. Deadly.
No, he hadn’t been cold, she realized. Caleb’s anger had been red-hot. Blazing. Out of control.
She was barely aware of the Knight brothers picking up a now conscious and groaning Alexei Fedorov and carrying him over to a black SUV. Her attention was focused solely on Caleb. For all that he had attacked so lethally, he now looked…defeated. His shoulders were slumped, his face pale, his bloody hands clenched at his sides.
His bloody hands.
“Come back inside and let me help you clean that off,” she encouraged gently, moving to his side to lightly grasp his arm. “Caleb?” she prompted when he didn’t move.
His eyes were dark pits of pain. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
His throat moved as he swallowed. “Let’s not prolong this any longer than we have to, Lena. I-I’ll make sure you and the baby are okay, but I can’t… You won’t want someone like me around—”
“Baby?” she echoed softly. “What baby?”
“Yes, what baby, Caleb?” Gabriel had returned without either of them being aware of it.
Caleb looked at his brother. “Nikolai was here this morning, and he said Lena has all the symptoms of a pregnant woman. Morning sickness, followed by a healthy appetite. The glow. The slightly rounder figure. The increased—” No, better not to go there! “I-If Lena is pregnant, then it’s my baby.” His baby. His woman. And in a matter of minutes, he had fucked it all up. Jesus.
Lena released his arm to step back, her face pale, eyes gleaming an accusing gray. “You believe I’m pregnant, and you were going to walk away from me?”
“I… Well, yes.” His frown was pained. “You won’t want me now that you’ve seen—”
“Stop telling me what I do and don’t want,” she shouted, her expression fierce. “How dare you? How fucking dare you?”
“Lena—”
“And you can stay out of this, Gabriel.” She turned that fiery gaze on him. “Most people may treat you as if you’re related to God Almighty but to me, you’re only Caleb’s brother. As such, this has absolutely nothing to do with you.” Her gaze flicked back to Caleb. “Get back inside the warehouse. Now!”
“I should do as she says,” Gabriel advised Caleb. “I’ve heard pregnant women can get violent, and she has a knife in her hand.”
“Stop talking about me as if I’m not here!” Lena glared at both of them. “Caleb!”
“We’ll take Fedorov to the police station, explain the situation, his connection to Sinclair, last night’s attempt to shoot Lena.” Gabriel placed a brief reassuring hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “They will probably want to talk to the two of you later.”
“Make that much later,” Lena bit out, her gaze fixed firmly on Caleb.
“I’ll see what I and my well-connected relations can do to delay them,” he drawled.
Lena winced. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“God help me if you ever do.” He chuckled. “Congratulations to you both.” He walked across to get in behind the wheel of the SUV, Asher seated beside him, Ethan in the back of the vehicle watching Alexei Fedorov as they drove away.
Caleb eyed Lena warily. She looked like a tigress about to pounce with that knife in her hand. With him as the prey. “Lena—”
“You really don’t want to annoy me any further by continuing to keep me waiting, Caleb,” she warned, her foot tapping a tattoo on the ground as she waited for him to precede her.
Caleb moved slowly inside, keeping a wary eye on her all the time. Th
e sound of the lock clicking into place seconds later and the dead bolts hitting home with none of the care Caleb had taken with them earlier both seemed ominous.
Lena’s head was buzzing with too much information.
The main one being could she really be pregnant?
She hadn’t had a period since leaving Petros, but neither had she been concerned by it. She had put the omission down to the stress of the past three months. But what if it wasn’t the reason? What if she really was pregnant?
Her hand moved instinctively to the curve of her belly. In the midst of all that horror, had a baby taken up residence in there? A miniature Caleb? Just the thought of that was almost enough to bring her to her knees.
Her gaze flicked up sharply to where Caleb stood in the sitting room, still eyeing her warily. As well he should!
Her hand moved back to her side. “Let’s get the blood washed off your hands before we do anything else.” She moved into the kitchen area.
“Lena—”
“Caleb, you can’t grovel convincingly with blood on your hands.”
“Grovel?” he echoed as he slowly followed her.
“Grovel.” She nodded, placing the knife down on the side before turning on the mixer tap to get the right temperature. “It’s going to take a lot of it for me to forgive you for even thinking of leaving me and our baby.”
Our baby.
The happiness that had exploded in her chest earlier at the realization she loved Caleb now grew even larger as a vision of their future together with their child took root and began to grow and grow.
A future that could begin as soon as she had taught this man that he would never so much as think of leaving her ever again.
“So where did you think you were going?” She made conversation as she washed the blood from his hands, relieved to see that most of it wasn’t Caleb’s. Although his knuckles were raw and bloody, and would need some of the soothing salve she had seen up in the bathroom cabinet if they weren’t to be too painful for the rest of the day. On second thought… “Well?” she demanded as she wrapped his wet hands in a towel.
Caleb hissed. It seemed to him Lena was being a bit too roughly enthusiastic with the drying of his damaged hands. “It didn’t matter where I went, as long as it was away from you. And the baby.”
“Oh?” She arched her brows.
“You saw what I was like.” He removed his hands from hers and dried them himself, dabbing at the abrasions rather than scrubbing at them as she had been doing. “You can’t possibly want to be around a man capable of losing it like that.”
“Why did you lose it?” She stood back, hands on her hips as she looked at him challengingly.
“You know why!”
“Do I?”
He glared. “Because the bastard tried to kill you!” His voice shook with emotion. “Last night, he tried to take you away from me before I’d even had a chance to tell you how much I love you. Before you had a chance to tell me you loved me.” He hung his head, talking into his chest, too afraid to see that love had already died.
Her hands covered his gently. She finished drying his hands before discarding the towel and turning back to him. “I do love you, Caleb.” Her hands cupped his, careful not hurt him. “That isn’t going to change. And certainly not because you saved my life. Again.” She dipped her head so that she could look up into his face. “Look at me, darling.”
He could feel the sting of tears as he slowly lifted his head and met her gaze. Misty-gray eyes that glowed and shone with a love so strong and pure, it almost blinded him. “Lena!” He drew her into his arms, crushing her against him. “I almost lost you! Dear God, I almost lost you…”
They both moved at the same time, hungry lips meeting, devouring, claiming. Caleb claiming Lena. Lena claiming him right back again.
Caleb was shaking by the time the kiss broke apart, his forehead resting against hers as they stared into each other’s eyes. “You aren’t afraid of me.”
“Of course I’m not afraid of you.” Her fingers caressed his cheek. “You’re my hero, remember?”
“But—”
“There are no buts between us, Caleb. I love you. Unconditionally.”
His breathing was ragged. “I’ve loved you for so long…”
“How long?” She continued to stroke his cheek.
“Since the moment I saw a photograph of you and Daniel together.” He nodded as she looked at him in surprise. “You were in the park, playing some sort of game. You were laughing into the camera. God, you were so damned beautiful.” He trembled. “I had never seen anything as beautiful as you.”
“You fell in love with my photograph?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you carried on looking for me? Why you came to Petros to save me?”
“Yes.”
“Dear God.” Tears welled in her eyes and then slowly cascaded down her cheeks as she realized she had felt that love, the reverence in Caleb’s touch, as he made love to her that night on Petros. “And you thought I was going to allow you to walk away from me?” she choked out, her arms moving about his waist as she pressed her face against his chest. “Will you marry me, Caleb?”
“Because of the baby—”
“We don’t know if there is a baby yet. I’m asking for you.” She looked up at him, gaze unwavering so he could see the love she felt for him. “Because I don’t want to spend another day of my life without you in it. For the rest of my life. Marry me, Caleb. Please.”
“Yes.” He swung her up into his arms, his smile so wide, his cheeks hurt. “Yes, yes, dear God, a thousand times yes!”
Chapter 16
One week later
“Do you think it’s a boy or a girl?” Caleb’s hand rested possessively on the swell of Lena’s belly where they now knew their child was thriving.
“What I think”—Lena turned to face him, the two of them lying in bed together after making love for hours—“is that it’s our child. Conceived in love, and it will be born into a family of love.”
He glanced up at her. “Did I remember to tell you what a beautiful bride you looked today?”
“About a dozen times.” She nodded, smiling. “It was very generous of Angela and Gabriel to let us have a double wedding with them.”
He grinned. “No way was Gabriel going to say no when we asked them. All my brothers are terrified of my little tigress.”
“I’m only a tigress in defense of you,” she announced firmly.
Caleb had witnessed that defense of him several times this past week alone, and it didn’t make him weak rather it empowered him. It was also a constant source of amazement to him. That and Lena’s love for him. As she had said, it was an unconditional love. As his was for her. They hadn’t made all the decisions yet as to what their future would be. For the moment, Caleb intended to continue working at Knight Security, and once the baby was old enough, Lena was going ahead with her law degree. Whatever the future held, they would be doing it together.
“Mrs. Knight…”
Lena’s smile widened. “Yes, Mr. Knight?”
“We still have a little matter to settle between the two of us.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “I promised you a spanking for not doing as you were told last week.”
Lena felt the warmth of excitement in her cheeks. “Surely you wouldn’t spank a pregnant woman?”
He sat up, taking her with him. “You could always beg me to make love to you instead.”
“Beg?”
He arranged her across his bare thighs so that her bare bottom was readily available. “Feel free to start begging at any time.” His hands roamed caressingly over her rounded flesh.
“You haven’t spanked me yet.”
“I prefer this to spanking you.” His hands grew bolder, dipping between her thighs, seeking out the slickness of her channel, stroking, caressing, until Lena was once again a writhing mass of need.
“Please,” she groaned as his
fingers circled but didn’t quite touch the throb of her clit.
“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.” One of those fingers dipped inside her dripping channel, finding that cluster of nerves that was guaranteed to drive her insane with need.
“I said please, Caleb. Please!” She groaned even louder as that finger was joined by another, playing her with precision and determination until she cried out as the pleasure washed over and through her. “Sadist,” she murmured dreamily.
“It’s your turn to torture me now.” He helped her to sit up and kneel between his parted legs, his hard cock between them.
“I promise I will only ever torture you with love.” Lena leaned forward, kissing her way up his scarred chest before claiming his lips with hers.
Caleb groaned when Lena ended the kiss to move lower and take his cock into her mouth.
He gladly gave himself up to the sweetest, most loving torture on earth.
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About The Author
Carole Mortimer is the author of 220 novels, contemporary and Regency romance. She is a USA Today Bestselling Author. Recipient of the 2015 RWA Lifetime Achievement Award. Received the 2014 Pioneer for Romance Romantic Times Award. Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Author. She was also recognized by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 for her ‘outstanding service to literature’.
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