by Shandi Boyes
After a handful of clicks on the mousepad, Isabelle says, “Isaac, allow me to introduce you to Ms. Blaire Williams, now referred to as Mrs. Enrique Popov. Her name is on a leased apartment at a complex in west Ravenshoe. She’s been a kindergarten teacher the past two years, and up until a recent trip to Vegas for a Teacher of the Year award gala, was believed to be single.”
I arch a brow but remain quiet. Who am I to judge the swiftness of someone’s feelings? Isabelle knocked me on my ass within a second of my eyes landing on her, so who’s to say the same thing didn’t happen to Blaire.
I point to an underscored attachment in Blaire’s file. “What’s the case file attached to her dossier?”
With a grin that reveals why I fell for her so quickly, Isabelle takes a seat in my chair before pulling it in close to my desk. “This is where things get interesting. That’s a cold case from ten years ago. Blaire was the only witness to a brutal kidnapping. Katie…” She brings up a second file. “… was abducted on a relatively peaceful Sunday afternoon, and she hasn’t been seen since. The only witness to come forward about her abduction was her best friend, Blaire. In her statement, she identified the perps’ accents as Russian.”
My brows furrow. “Then she married a Russian on a whim almost ten years to the day of her friend’s abduction? That’s odd.” I’m not saying it’s right to deface an entire ethnicity by the deeds of one, but unfortunately, that usually happens more times than not.
“I thought the same thing, so I dug a little deeper.”
Isabelle brings up another file. This one is for a man with blond hair, glasses, and a battered face.
“Who’s that?”
“Timothy Jamison. He was nominated along with Blaire for Teacher of the Year. On paper, he appears to have the perfect life—a beautiful wife, three small children, and a house with a white picket fence.” I smirk at the gag she releases when she describes what most American’s believe is the ideal life. “In reality, he’s a monster comparable to Col Petretti and Vladimir Popov.”
I’m stunned she’d reference anyone to being similar to those two men, but when she brings up the photographic evidence of Timothy’s crimes, it makes sense. Only last week, he was charged with the rape and murder of thirteen women.
I prop my hip onto my desk before dropping my eyes to Isabelle. “Does the FBI believe he has any association with Katie’s abduction?”
Her shoulders slump as she sighs. “No. Unfortunately, there’s no link between him and Katie’s disappearance.”
Hearing a ‘but’ in the air, I verbalize it.
“But… their investigation into Timothy confirmed the rumblings in the barracks the past three months. Several mob entities are vying to get footholds into Hopeton… Russians included.” She sighs, not needing to hear my words to know of my suspicions. “It’s not Enrique, Isaac. He forwarded the information he unearthed onto the FBI. If it were him, why would he do that?”
Knowing Roger scanned my office for bugs earlier today allows me to talk freely. “Because extraditing him to Russia was an error on my behalf. It may have a no-extradition treaty, but it could have caused ties more fortified than blood relations.”
“Or…” She waits, loving that she’s the only woman I’ll ever wait for. “He returned to fortify ties no amount of money could ever sever.” She nudges her head to Blaire’s picture on the screen of my laptop. “Love knows no barriers, Isaac. Our relationship is living proof of this.”
4
Isabelle
Compromise can save a relationship
more than it can hurt it.
* * *
I just made a fatal error—one Isaac won’t let me off lightly for. The instant I switched our conversation from Enrique and Blaire to Isaac and me, I reopened an argument we’ve been having nonstop the past six months.
Isaac’s low tone is frustrating, but the throb in my throat still jumps up a few decibels. “If that’s the case, why haven’t you set a date yet? I want you to be mine, Isabelle—”
“I am yours, Isaac. A wedding won’t change that. Besides, this isn’t about us.”
“It is now. You opened this bag of worms, so I’m running with it.” After plucking me from his chair, he sits in it, then tugs me until I’m sitting side-straddled in his lap. “This is the one thing I can give you that I can’t give anyone else. I can give you my last name.”
That lowers my defense as much as it does when he cups my jaw. When he drags his thumb across my lips, frustration switches to compromise. “Have the prenup redrafted.”
“No,” he mutters without pause for thought. “Everything I have, I want to share with you.”
I fight back with just as much gall. “You’re not sharing, Isaac. You’re giving me everything.”
He remains quiet, incapable of denying the truth. His prenup isn’t the standard one that will protect his assets if we divorce. It will leave him as decimated as it would me if we ever traveled down that road.
“I don’t want your money or your empire. I just want you, but I’ll never have that if you keep pushing the prenup you had Regan draft.” It’s low of me to do, but with my emotions teetering from discussing my brother, and the early hour, I can be forgiven for my next set of words. “It hurts knowing you distrust your love of me so much, you feel you need to display it so elaborately. I understood your inability to express your feelings at the start of our relationship, Isaac, but you have no excuse now. Ophelia is alive. She didn’t die the night you told her you loved her, so I don’t need extravagance to know you care about me. I just need you to tell me.”
With my eyes close to spilling the moisture brimming in them, and before Isaac has time to protest, I leap up from his lap and exit his office. He growls my name in a low, demanding tone, but I keep walking, needing space before one of us says something we’ll later regret. I love Isaac in a way many can’t understand, but that’s why I’m adamant this needs to happen.
People can’t comprehend my objection to his prenup. If I’m confident in our relationship and am certain nothing will come between us, why don’t I just sign it? The simple answer is once I accept the prenup, what other elaborate ideas will Isaac conjure up to prove his devotion?
He used his only favor from a mob boss to have my brother extradited to Russia when he was looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars, and he bought my sister to stop her being part of a sex trafficking ring before she turned four. He doesn’t need to prove his devotion any more than he already has. He just needs to learn how to express himself without the gimmicks he believes I want.
I’ve read many hurtful articles about myself in the media the past six months. They wouldn’t sting as much as they did if there weren’t some truth to them. I don’t want to be seen as a money-hungry wench, but I won’t be given the chance if Isaac doesn’t stop showcasing me to the public as if I am one.
Isaac finds me in the shower of our master suite twenty minutes later. Although my emotions are still on edge, the fact he came to me eases them—somewhat. I could never be accused of having a clear head anytime he’s in my presence, much less when he’s stripping out of his clothes.
With each article of clothing he removes, my vulnerability lowers just as quickly. I should feel weak and hopeless when standing across from a man as powerful as him, but it’s the susceptibility only he can unearth that showcases my true strength. When subjected to Isaac’s wrath, grown men quake in their boots. My thighs quiver in excitement. If that doesn’t reveal the integrity of my backbone, nothing will.
When his cock springs free from its tight restraints, my breathing grows rampant. Angry, palpable tension is still bristling between us, but it will never be strong enough to overtake the inane sexual chemistry that will forever bind us.
My pulse quickens when he steps into the shower. His ticking jaw exposes he is still frustrated, but a glint in his eyes tells me it isn’t as bad as I’m predicting. “Allow me.”
He removes the shampoo bott
le from my hand before squirting a generous dollop onto his palm. The tingles racing through every inch of me double when he massages the fruity cleanser through my hair. This is how I need him to show he cares. I don’t want the promise of billions of dollars—way more than I realized he had.
If Isaac’s businesses are all run above board, he’s funding the entire division of the IRS just on the tax he pays on his earnings each year.
Once my head is covered in bubbles, Isaac tilts my head back. “Close your eyes. I don’t want you to get suds in them.”
An outsider would believe the concern in his tone. I know he isn’t panicked about burning corneas. He needs my eyes closed so he can express himself freely. He can’t look at me without having his vulnerability exposed. It’s why he demands my eyes to his during sex. He needs to see them when they’re open, exposed, and raw as his are now.
“Years of bad choices are a hard habit to give up, Isabelle. As I’ve said previously, I never thought I’d experience something like this again, and that was before I knew what we have is so much more than anything I thought possible.”
I swoon like crazy, loving both the tenderness in his tone and how he’s handling me. He’s never been more gentle.
“But, in saying that, I’m a protector before I am anything. It’s how I show the people I care about how much I love them. It’s how I express myself. I need control, Isabelle. I need to know you, and now Callie, will be taken care of in the event I’m incapable of doing so. That’s what my prenup is about.”
His words are like a knife to my heart, but they don’t stop me from saying, “That’s what a will is for, Isaac. If you’re worried about how your assets will be divided when you’ve passed, have Regan draft a will.” God, you have no idea how hard that was to articulate. Just the thought of Isaac not being here shreds me to pieces.
“This isn’t about death, Isabelle.” When I pop open my eyes, confused, he tilts my head under the water so profoundly, my vision is blurred by the torrent sliding down my face. “It’s about so much more than that.”
Even with shampoo-primed water rolling down my face, I keep my eyes open. The uniqueness of his alluring gray eyes hits me full force from his closeness, but it has nothing on the trouble glossing them. They’re beautiful, yet troubled.
“What’s going on, Isaac?” The last time I saw him this bothered was when he told me about Col’s grudge and how he felt responsible for Ophelia’s supposed ‘death.’ “Is it my father?”
“No.” His head shake should add to the assurance in his tone. It doesn’t. Not in the slightest. “It’s something I can’t tell you right now, Isabelle. But when I can, I will.”
My heart slides into my stomach. “No, Isaac. We’re not doing this again. When Callie came into our lives, we promised there would be no more secrets between us.”
“I also promised to show you how you could have both me and your dreams—”
“And you’re doing that. Every single day, you teach me that I deserve to be loved as profoundly as I love you.” When his hand moves toward my breast, I swat it away. I can barely breathe from his closeness, but not even the thickest lust cloud could blind me now. “Are you regretting me rejoining the workforce?”
“No.” Isaac doesn’t lie, so it only takes a nanosecond for him to backtrack on the one he just told. “Yes, but only because I hate the gap it places between us. I went over twelve hours without hearing you quiver my name yesterday. It almost killed me.”
The most inappropriately timed giggle springs from my mouth. It can’t be helped. You’re not seeing what I am. He isn’t joking. He is one hundred percent serious that a twelve-hour delay between our ‘fuck sessions’ was the cruelest form of punishment he’s ever endured. I love that he craves me as much as I do him. It means there’s less chance of me being rejected.
I snap my mouth shut and square my shoulders when the haunted gleam in his eyes switches to one I’m all too familiar with. His gaze is primal and dominating, and it activates every one of my hot buttons. “No, Isaac, we’re not finished with our discussion.”
When a seductive smirk etches onto his mouth, intimacy fires between us. He’s not smiling about my pathetic attempt to continue our conversation but from the giant step I took away from him. Even though it lodged a foot of space between us, it hasn’t weakened the intensity brewing between us in the slightest. If anything, it made it more pronounced.
“I told you your pussy was mine for the next twelve hours, Isabelle. If my calculations are correct, I still have twenty minutes left.” I shudder out a hot breath when he sucks in an undignified one through his nostrils. “If your scent is anything to go by, I won’t even need two.”
When he takes another step toward me, I hold my hand out in front of myself, begging for him to stop. He doesn’t listen to my silent prompts. He never does. He knows as well as I do how much my qualm is faltering, and how I’ll never have the ability to deny him.
Just as he did in the elevator of my old apartment building, and before I can comprehend what’s happening, he has me splayed against the shower wall. My legs are wrapped around his waist, his mouth is on mine, and two of his talented fingers are working me into a frenzy.
It all happens so quickly, I’m screaming his name, and the walls of my vagina are clenching around his fingers in no time at all. The fireworks erupting throughout my body are enough to buckle my knees. I’m not worried, though. Even with one of his hands required to bring me to climax, he won’t drop me. He’d never hurt me.
The hot water pelting from the shower adds to the heat bristling between us when he guides the crest of his cock through the folds of my pussy. I’m drenched from both the shower and my recent orgasm, but he still takes his time notching in the first few inches. He wants me at his mercy, not withering in pain.
“Eyes, Isabelle.”
When my eyes snap to his, a throaty moan rolls up my chest. Our exchange isn’t as I imagined. He doesn’t want me at his complete mercy. This isn’t even a declaration of love. He’s showing me he’s just as vulnerable as me, and his nightmares far exceed any I’ve ever had. He wants to give me his world because he can’t imagine me not being in it.
The coaxing glint in his eyes is my undoing. I’m not strong enough as it is with this man, much less when his eyes are on me as they are. “Have the prenup redrafted, then we’ll pick a date suitable for us both.”
Isaac shakes his head. The pummels of his thick cock are as remorseless as the gleam in his eyes. “No. That’s one negotiation I’m not willing to discuss. You gave me your heart, Isabelle, now I’ll give you the world.”
The impact of his statement isn’t any less compelling hearing it for the second time. We fucked like uncultured maniacs that night. It was a blistering embrace that showcased our feelings for one another in a way we’ve refined the past six months.
This is how we express ourselves—through touch, manifestations without words, and a connection that will never be denied. Sex won’t make or break us, but there won’t be a negotiation made without it. It’s how we operate.
“Have it changed to the standard terms. Anything you had before we wed is yours to leave with if we were to separate.”
I’m stunned I can talk. Even with the water cooling from how long we’ve been in the shower, my body temperature is unbelievably hot. I’m roasting all over and on the verge of climax. We fooled around in this very shower many times, but I’ve never had the devotion of Isaac’s eyes as I do now. They’ve not once left mine, as insistent as he is for us to wed with the prenup he had Regan draw up.
After adjusting my hips, spreading me wider for him, he reenters me at a slower pace than we were going earlier. “That kind of defeats the purpose of giving you everything I have, doesn’t it?”
When he takes me even deeper, I swivel my hips, striving to fit him all in. His thickness exposes how important this is to him. He doesn’t enter a negotiation without his game face on. Although, right here, right now, he’s
not a determined, ruthless businessman without a face. He’s my lover, the man I’d sacrifice anything for. The one who held me when I thought I was close to breaking and sided with the devil to ensure I didn’t.
“I don’t like this, Isaac. I hate the way it looks.”
His grip on my hips tightens. He heard the defeat in my voice, the low simpering tone that exposes I’m close to giving in. “This isn’t about anyone else. It’s about you and me. Us, as a couple. We’re one and the same, Isabelle.”
He moves us off the wall, so we stand under the lukewarm water as the solid unit he’s trying to display us as—an unbreakable force that will weather the most brutal storm without a scratch. This is why I fell for him so fiercely. He’s exposed, unguarded, and raw, yet the most beautiful I’ve ever seen him.
He’s also right. It is him and me. It’s always been us—two smudges of gray in a black and white world.
“Okay.”
My voice is so faint, I’m surprised Isaac heard me. I know he did, though, because not only did his thighs bunch, so did the vein feeding his magnificent cock. He’s even girthier now, my agreement having him eager to celebrate how we have every event in our life. I can’t blame him. I’ll never forget the look on his face now. It shows I just gave him the world he’s so determined to give me.
5
Isaac
Mistakes are a part of life.
It’s how you fix them that counts.
* * *
“I don’t believe it.” Regan’s eyes widen when I hand her the prenuptial agreement Isabelle signed this morning—a week after agreeing with my terms. “Izzy wouldn’t sign the prior six months, so what changed?”