Christmas Tsar (Blood and Thunder 1)

by Susan Stephens

  “You could have asked her just as easily,” he countered blackly.

  Dante huffed. “I’d like to see your face if I tried. I did see her go into the stable while we were changing ponies during chukkas.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Alexei exclaimed. “Did you see her come out?” He stared at his teammates, but they all shook their heads. He remembered Amber’s comments about security and his own feelings. He didn’t pause to examine those thoughts, he just ran. He arrived at the stables in time to find Amber exiting through the open barn door with a prisoner under guard.

  “Don’t underestimate the hired help,” she said, smiling grimly as she pushed the mortified youth ahead of her.

  “How did you—?”

  “How did I hear him? Trick him? Throw him to the ground and tie him up?” She shrugged. “Really? You didn’t undergo the same training I did in Special Ops?”

  As several of his security guards came to take the youth into custody, she explained, “I knew you’d be busy with the match, so I called security—congratulations on scoring the winning goal, by the way. The guards told me. They said you were heroic.” She pulled a comic face.

  As they led the youth away, Alexei gave her a considering look. “You did well.”

  “You don’t say,” she murmured.

  The warning not to patronize her rang out loud and clear. “So, who was he? Did you find out? And how did he breach our defenses?”

  “Well, breaching the defenses here doesn’t take too much skill, since there aren’t any. And he’s no one—except to his mother, whom I called. He’s a keen rider who wanted to see the world’s top ponies in real life. But,” she added significantly, “he could just as easily have been a scout for a gang of horse thieves.”

  “And you’re sure of his identity, how?” he asked, needing proof before he could call off the hounds.

  “I checked with his school, his mother, and with the police on the mainland. He plays polo in junior league. He slipped onto your security-approved ferry under the guise of being an additional groom who’d been recruited last minute. He landed on the island and mingled with the crowd. He almost got away with it, but I had a feeling that something might happen, so I went to check the horses.”

  “Lucky you did,” he conceded.

  “Nowhere is ever completely secure, Alexei. He wasn’t doing any harm, so, yes, we were lucky this time.” She started back toward the stables. “But now we know what is and isn’t possible, we need to tighten up security both ends—here and the mainland, to make sure this never happens again.”

  He caught up with her. “We?”

  “Yes. We,” she insisted. “I keep telling you, who’s better qualified to join your group than me? Everything you do, including your work with horses, is all well within my sphere of expertise.”

  “You? Join us?” He laughed. “You’re deluding yourself, Amber.”

  “Am I?” she challenged stonily. “I thought you were offering me a job before.”

  “With the horses,” Alexei agreed. “The work we do outside of polo is far too dangerous.”

  “For someone trained in Special Ops?”

  “You are not getting involved in this,” he stated firmly.

  “I’m already involved, Alexei.”

  “Not unless I say you are.”

  “And what would it take for you to do that?”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “How about we discuss it afterwards,” she suggested, coming to a halt outside the stable block.

  “Afterwards?” He frowned. “After what?”

  “You know that feeling you get right after a particularly satisfying victory?’

  Easing onto one hip, he rested a fist next to her face on the barn door. “I’m sure if I’ve forgotten, you’ll remind me.”

  Sliding the bolt free, she backed her way into the heavily shadowed silence of the stables. Reaching for his hands, she drew him with her.

  Their faces were close—far too close for his determination to distance himself from Amber to count for a flying fuck. She was right about victory sending his testosterone levels into orbit.

  Nuzzling Amber’s face was exquisite torture. Her scent, the soft noises she made, all of it drove him insane. He breathed her in and teased her with almost-kisses. He held back as long as he could, while she drew him deeper into the barn to where hay motes were drifting above a pile of clean bedding.

  “Multitasking again?” he murmured when she let go of his hand to start undoing the buttons down her shirt.

  “Something I’m getting good at,” she agreed, leading him on. “How’s your plan to avoid me going so far, Alexei?”

  “My plan?” Her look told him not to mess with her. “Not so well,” he admitted, curving a smile.

  ~o0o~

  Sex with a tousle-haired, hunky polo player fresh from the game in grubby breeches—if this was the last time they made love, she’d make it count. “I need you to hold me.” Alexei’s eyes darkened as she took off her shirt and then her bra. “I need to feel you hot and hard against me.”

  “I need a shower.”

  “No. You’re perfect as you are,” she argued.

  Stepping forward, she pulled his black team shirt with the bloodred initials of the team embroidered on the breast pocket out of his breeches and slipped her hands underneath. Closing her eyes, she explored. He was hot from the game and hard from the constant exercise. He was big and he was tall, and powerful beyond belief. And she wanted him. It was like a madness clawing inside her. Standing on tiptoes, she drew his shirt over his head. Alexei had to dip his head, or she wouldn’t have been able to reach. She stood back and stared at him half-naked. He was magnificent. His wound had almost healed now. It was just a faint ridge beneath her fingers. He was everything she had ever dreamed a man should be, but so much more. And his breeches fit so snugly, she could see exactly how much he wanted her. “That must be uncomfortable,” she remarked dryly.

  “It is,” he assured her.

  “Why don’t I help you?” She reached for the fastening on his breeches.

  His cock sprang free, proud and glistening. “You go commando in a match? Isn’t that dangerous?” She had imagined that, like other sportsmen, he’d wear a box or some other form of protection.

  “I have to feel the horse responding beneath me,” he explained. “I want as little as possible to come between me and my ponies, so they know what I need from them.”

  She felt exactly the same way. Sinking to her knees in front of him, she drew him deep into her mouth. He tasted so good, so familiar. She traced the thrusting length of him with her tongue, and then brought him deeper into her mouth. He was too big for her to close her mouth around him, but she could taste him, lave him, and suck him until he groaned.

  “You’re mine,” she said then, looking up.

  Alexei replied by swinging her into his arms and dropping her on the deep bed of hay. “Clothes off,” he commanded softly.

  She turned her back on him and took her time. She couldn’t resist flaunting her buttocks, neatly displayed in a flimsy lace thong.

  Dropping down at her side, Alexei appreciatively stroked the curve of her bottom. The delicacy of his touch drove her crazy. Needing so much more, she arched her back.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  “But very naughty,” she said.

  “Don’t I know it,” he agreed.

  Still with her back turned to him, she parted her legs a little more. Dipping down low enough to rest her cheek against the hay, she made sure that Alexei’s view of how hungry he’d made her couldn’t be better.

  “Greedy must wait,” he murmured.

  “Not this time, Alexei.”

  “Are you disobeying me?”

  “I certainly am.” She arched her back a little more.

  Removing her thong in one easy action, Alexei captured her buttocks in a firm grip and chastised her exactly as she’d hoped he would.

 
“You are so deliciously plump in all the right places,” he commented huskily as he dropped kisses on the glowing swell of her bottom. “And now so very pink as well.”

  There was no finesse now and none needed. They both had the same goal in mind and worked with the same need to reach climax, and when it came, it was so powerful, they were lost to pleasure for the longest time. Amber was sitting up, clinging to Alexei as their hips worked furiously together, and no sooner was that peak conquered than they chased each other over the next.

  “I don’t think we’re going to make the party,” Amber commented much, much later.

  “Do you want to?” Alexei enquired, but as he was kissing and nibbling the back of her neck in a way that made her arch her back again as much as she could for him, she couldn’t really make a sensible reply. “Will you be missed?” was the best she could come up with.

  “Do you care?” he demanded softly.

  “I’m only concerned about you and the part you played in the match. Won’t people want to congratulate you? Shouldn’t you be there with your team?”

  “Just once more, then,” he suggested.

  She shared an intimate smile. “At least.”

  He watched Amber interacting with his team and with their guests. What the hell? She was easier with them than he was. She was easier with everyone than he was, including the British ambassador, who was a crusty old man and irritable at the best of times with everyone, but not with Amber, it seemed. The after-match party was being held on the grand terrace of Cesar’s glorious home overlooking the beach and was packed with the great and the good. Amber had exceeded her brief to arrange caterers for the party and was introducing people and laughing with them easily as she checked that everyone had everything they needed. She was the consummate hostess. She had it all down, even to approaching the band to make a request.

  His heart banged in his chest when she turned to look at him. The band had just struck up a slow, moody love song.

  I will never forget how you kissed me…

  He got a horrible feeling she was saying good-bye to him with a song, and had to tell himself not to be so ridiculous. She wouldn’t leave him. Why would she? They had a second Christmas to look forward to just around the corner on January the seventh.

  What a fucking stupid thought. What did Christmas or any other day matter if Amber was leaving him?

  She wouldn’t leave him. She couldn’t—

  Could she?

  He was only aware of Amber on the crowded dance floor. Having fixed her gaze on his, she drew him in until they were standing toe to toe. He took her in a light hold, as if she were a dream that might dissolve too soon. I think I love you. He played around with the phrase in his head as he dropped lingering kisses on her shining, fragrant hair. And he still had the nagging feeling that this couldn’t last. Even when he had reassured himself that there was no way off the island, except by boat, helicopter, or private jet, none of which Amber had access to, he couldn’t shake it.

  She had no reason to leave, he told himself firmly, and if she did want to go, he’d take her.

  Tears burned behind Amber’s eyes as the words of the song she’d chosen tore another strip off her heart. Being in Alexei’s arms felt so right, so good, but she couldn’t build a future on a dance or on fabulous sex. Nor could she work alongside Alexei, wanting him as she did, body, heart, and soul, when he resolutely pushed her away. Even with his teammates, there came a tipping point when Alexei got back on his ship and sailed to some new destination without them, so what chance did she have? Enjoy this dance, she mused, because tomorrow doesn’t come with guarantees. And, look on the bright side, Amber reflected, beating off dejection at the thought of turning her back on her dreams and Alexei. It wasn’t every party where she could hitch a lift back to London on a private jet, which was what the British ambassador had offered her.

  Chapter Ten

  She had slipped away while he was rehashing the match with the team. He’d been distracted longer than he had intended, as the Spanish opposition had joined them to organize a rematch. Pride demanded that the Spaniards got their chance for revenge. It had ended up with eight men facing each other like boxers before a fight. Unflinching, unblinking, radiating pure aggression, until the moment the details were ironed out, when the tension vanished completely and they were all the best of friends again. It was only then he realized that Amber had left the party. Deciding there was only one place she could be, he checked the stable, but she wasn’t there.

  “She’s leaving,” one of the stable lads told him.

  “Leaving?” Leaving where? Leaving the island? Impossible. Leaving him? Entirely possible. He couldn’t even defend his behavior. They had danced as if they were the only two people left in the world and then he’d casually walked off to join his teammates.

  He ran to the bunkhouse and was relieved to find the light on. He went to the room that had been allocated to Amber and walked straight in. She was bent over her rucksack, which she was packing on the bed. His sudden entrance made her jump.

  “When were you going to tell me?” he demanded.

  “When will you learn to knock?” Straightening up, she regarded him steadily.

  “Come off it, Amber,” he flared impatiently. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I wondered earlier this evening, when you joined your friends and forgot about me.”

  “I didn’t forget about you. I had team matters to discuss.”

  “Team matters that I was excluded from.” She nodded. “I get that. I also get that each time you and I are close, you find an excuse to pull away. I don’t want that anymore, Alexei.”

  “Which means what?”

  “I’m leaving you,” she said quietly.

  He frowned. “How will you leave island?”

  Her mouth curved in a rueful smile. “Trust you to dive straight into the practicalities, Alexei.”

  “Well, they are fairly vital unless you plan to swim home.”

  “Yes, they are,” she agreed, “But that’s my point. It didn’t occur to you to say, ‘You’re leaving me?’ and to sound as if you cared. You can’t understand how I feel because you won’t allow yourself to feel anything. If you think about me at all, it’s as little more than a convenience that you pick up or drop whenever it suits you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Maybe you don’t feel that way, but that’s how you act.”

  They were facing each other across Amber’s narrow bed, and the tension was greater than between him and his Spanish counterpart. “What can I do to make this right? If you want to leave the island, you only have to ask, and I’ll take you.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? I’m my own woman. I might be insignificant in your world, but I don’t need to be shepherded around by the billionaire like a little woman who’s incapable of acting for herself. I might not have much, but I have my self-respect and a good life back in London, as well as a place I call home, which is more than you have, or will ever have, if you don’t change.”

  Her words stung him. “I’ll leave you to calm down, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

  “I won’t be here in the morning. I’m leaving the island, and I’m leaving you. Not that I was ever with you, in any real sense—you wouldn’t let me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No. I don’t think you do,” Amber agreed. “I don’t think you have the slightest idea what it takes to build and nurture a relationship.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he fired back as an image of his grandfather flashed into his mind. “I know exactly what it takes.”

  “Hard work, loyalty, trust, and constant devotion,” she said. “The same that your grandfather gave to you. When you think back to how hard he worked to raise you, and how selfless he was, and how tired he must have been, you know what a huge commitment love is. You’re frightened to risk it, because it might not work for you, so you vent your anger
and frustration on the polo field instead—when you’re not working flat-out on your business responsibilities or saving souls with your private army. What about you, Alexei? What about your happy Christmas? Why don’t you just put those spinning plates down for a few minutes and work out what you want. I’ll tell you this—all your money and power can’t buy what your grandfather gave you. Only you can do that, but first you have to risk your heart, and I’m not sure you’re prepared to do that.” She glanced at the door. “And now, if you don’t mind, I have a plane to catch.”

  “What do you mean, a plane to catch?” He stared at Amber’s few belongings strewn across the bed. She was taking nothing from her new wardrobe, he noticed. “I don’t have a flight plan filed,” he pointed out, in case she thought he could just jump in the jet and take her home. “And none of my colleagues is planning to leave tonight, as far as I’m aware.”

  “The ambassador has a pressing engagement in London, and he’s not only leaving tonight, but he’s offered me a lift home.” She smiled a little sadly. “I’ve never had friends in high places before.”

  She didn’t need him. The realization hit him like a truck. It unsettled him. He turned for the door. “I’ll leave you then—”

  “You were never with me, Alexei,” Amber said quietly.

  ~o0o~

  Opening the door onto a slightly damp bed-sit on a freezing-cold morning in the middle of a London winter came as quite a shock after the balmy climate on Isla Celeste, but it was home, and Amber would soon make it warm and welcoming.

  It was good to be back among things she loved, though the loneliness in her heart was a big black hole she doubted she could ever fill. Leaving Alexei had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, but there was no point fooling herself that he would change. He’d have to want to change before that could happen.

  Taking a deep breath, she took a moment to appreciate all the things that made up a home, her home—playbills and photographs, small gifts from friends, and quirky items she hadn’t been able to pass by from the street market, like the sad monkey and the gaudy parrot. Mr. Mouse would fit right in. Then there were the tapestries she’d hand-stitched and made into cushions, and throws she’d knitted from all the colors of the rainbow. She should have come here first instead of nursing a series of lukewarm breakfast coffees in the local café. She knew now that she’d been delaying the moment when she had to step back into her old life, leaving Alexei behind for good. Sliding her knapsack from her shoulders, she switched on the three-bar electric fire and raised the blind on the front window to peer out.