by Lora Leigh
“He’ll try again,” Ronan predicted, turning to Ilya. “I want to go back to the house. I’ll keep watch with Sawyer. I didn’t make any promises to EJ. I can kill him and get away with it.” And Ilya believed Ronan would actually do it, if he had the chance. Unfortunately, he couldn’t allow the younger man to do so. It would break her heart to know her brother had killed for her.
The thought of having Ronan there taking turns with him through the night inside the house while Sawyer and Tobias covered the outside had Ilya breathing a little easier.
The more Ilya thought about Matt’s breaching of the house and the device being used to hack their security, the more certain he was that another attack was coming soon.
Sitting in the darkened living room after Emma Jane went to bed, Ilya stared through the crack he’d made between the curtains, eyes narrowed against the darkness he could feel coming.
They could block the bursts of activity it generated, but the effort was wasted. It wouldn’t break the adjustments he and Sawyer made, and other than an out-and-out assault they weren’t getting in tonight.
They were patient, as Sawyer had pointed out. Patience equaled a nearly unlimited budget. But whether it was mercenaries or an in-house security force, it cost money to just sit around, wait, and watch. And that was what they were doing.
Men who had that kind of time had the advantage. And Ilya didn’t accept anyone having an advantage over him. Especially not where Emma Jane was concerned.
As he sat there he was aware of Ronan entering the room. Emma Jane’s brother was quiet, he gave him that. But Ilya knew a lot of men who were quieter and a few no man could slip up on.
“You should be sleeping,” he told the other man as he eased back from the window.
“No one else is,” Ronan grunted. “Don’t think EJ is sleeping either. As long as you’re up prowling the house, she won’t be sleeping.”
No, she wasn’t sleeping he knew. The light laughter of that afternoon had eased away when they returned to the house and darkness began to fall. She was too quiet, her gaze touched by sorrow. The knowledge that the attempt to harm her wasn’t a mistake or a misunderstanding was hurting her more than anyone could guess.
“She’ll insist on working in the morning,” Ronan pointed out, his voice resigned. “Go to bed, man. I know where you’re sleeping, I’m not stupid.”
There was an edge of censure in the younger man’s voice though. Just enough that before Ilya could stop himself, he had the edge of the knife he kept tucked in his boot at Ronan’s jugular.
“Where I sleep is no man’s concern. But brother or no, you’ll not blame her for it. Blame the one at fault,” Ilya warned him.
Ronan glanced at the knife. Lifting his hand, he carefully placed two fingers against the blade and pushed it away from his throat as his gaze snapped with disgust.
“Listen, you Russian bastard,” he snarled with a hiss, his chin tilted pugnaciously. “As far as I’m concerned, my baby sister is a virgin for life. I helped raise her, fixed up the strays she brought around, and dried her tears when she cried over them. You on the other hand”—he shot Ilya a disgusted look—“when you leave, she’ll do more than cry. Her heart will never be the same again. And men like you never hang around, do they? You blow into town, save the girl, and ride away before she knows you took her heart with you.”
Staring back at the brother, he realized where the censure was directed, not at his sister but at the man sharing her bed.
Flipping the knife, he caught it easily and tucked it back in his boot.
“Long as we understand each other,” Ilya muttered, turning back to the window. “Now go get some rest.”
“Emma’s the best thing that ever came into your life and I bet you don’t even know how to deal with it,” Ronan sneered behind him, his voice low. “Men like you don’t know how to love anymore, do you, Ilya?”
If it had been fury in the brother’s censure, or even a hint of disgust, Ilya could have flipped him off and never looked back. But it wasn’t. It was the brother who would dry her tears, who would have to see the pain Ilya left behind.
He didn’t turn back to Ronan, he stared out the window, but it wasn’t the yard or the tree line he saw. It was the past, bleak and filled with blood, without hope, without Emma Jane.
“Balaur pereche,” he murmured. “It’s Romanian for ‘dragon’s mate.’” He rubbed his chest where the emerald, where hope, rested. “Emma Jane is balaur pereche. The light to my darkness. My hope.” He wiped his hand over his face before shaking his head. “All the light in the world can’t change what made me. I would cut my own throat to protect her, if it would ensure her protection, but once the hound gets the scent, it never lets up, does it? And I have a feeling hell’s hound is exactly who’s determined to take her from me.”
He could feel Ronan behind him, tense, waiting.
“Was my sister attacked because of you, Ilya?” He could hear the suspicion, the fury threatening to explode.
“I don’t know,” he breathed out roughly. “I lied when I showed up here, Ronan. There was no relationship. Your sister and I had a simple business transaction a year ago. Nothing more. As far as she knew, there was nothing more. For my part, I knew who she was to me. There’s no intel that suggests it’s because of me, no whispers of it. But neither is there a whisper of why, no matter how we search.”
“If you lied, then why come back when she was attacked? Why lie to her family?” The confusion in Ronan’s voice was understandable.
“I saw her at that job fair,” he told Emma Jane’s brother. “On Eric’s surveillance display. She knew he was there, she didn’t know I was.” He laid his hand against his heart. “Shadows filled her pretty eyes, but she stopped at the camera, made a goofy face at Eric. ‘Hey, punk.’” He wanted to smile at the memory. “She said that, thinking it was Eric, and I found myself wishing she would smile at me like that. Then her smile turned sad and she looked away. ‘Gotta run. Save home and hearth.’ And I saw her pain. And that was when Eric told me her estranged husband had cost her a job and was trying to make sure that she didn’t get another. She was losing her home in her divorce, she had lost friends and wasn’t certain who to trust any longer.”
He had seen a loss of hope, of dreams, in her soft gray eyes and something inside him had melted for her.
“Despite all she had against her, hope still lived in her gaze, and despite her fears, she was still fighting for what was hers. I wanted only to make certain she never lost that glimmer of hope, or that valiant courage. I would give all I own to ensure she always keeps it.”
“It was bad,” Ronan agreed. “I didn’t think we had a chance. Dad was trying to take out a second mortgage. She wouldn’t let Nik give her the money.”
“So Nik called me,” he admitted. “When she lost her job he gave her a job, and I secured her mortgage. And for three days she negotiated like a shark for that place. And I saw a woman’s love for her home.”
And in those three days he’d fallen more and more in love with her.
“Are you going to walk away from her, Ilya?” Ronan asked then. “Because that would be the biggest mistake of your life.”
“Would it?” Ilya asked. “Russia is not America. And just because we’re citizens here now, it doesn’t mean the ocean is so vast that the past can’t follow. I’m the Dragon heir, the living legacy of blood, death, thieves, cutthroats, and assassins. Emma Jane is the light, innocence, laughter. I’d only bring darkness to her life, Ronan. She deserves far more than that.”
He’d wanted to stay. For a small amount of time he’d told himself that if Emma Jane could accept his past then he had a chance.
If.
A lot to place on one delicate little woman’s shoulders.
It wouldn’t take long before the innocence dimmed in her eyes, before she stopped smiling, stopped laughing. Before the dreams were lost forever.
“I fucking hate you, Ilya,” Ronan said softly. “Watching
my baby sister live with a broken heart when you’re gone will make me hate your ass.”
The face of a mother’s hatred flashed before his eyes. As Petrov, her brother, and Ivan’s father held him down, he’d stared at the woman with the cold blue eyes as he screamed in agony, the blade slicing his face open, over and over again.
Years later, walking into his apartment to find his mistress dead, her flesh carved open, her blood staining the floors, he’d known who had ordered it. Ilya had killed her brother in front of her, the bastard who had cut him open, beaten him mercilessly for years.
And still, she’d have any woman he cared for murdered. She had hated his father for not making her his matcha, and she hated the son she’d tricked that dragon into giving her. The son could pay for the father’s sins, she’d decided.
“Better your hatred, her pain, than her blood,” Ilya told him quietly, aching for her touch, for her passion. “As long as she breathes, I breathe. If I stay, neither of us has a chance. But if blood could ensure a life with her, I would shed it. Over and over again.”
“Fuck, Ilya,” Ronan cursed in a whisper of a sound. “God damn. Go to bed, man. I got this, and I don’t think we have to worry about me getting sleepy tonight.”
* * *
Emma Jane turned from where she stood at the bottom of the steps and silently hurried back to her room as she lost the fight with her tears.
The sobs were contained. Ilya couldn’t know she’d heard every word, every lost and broken dream that had echoed in his voice. Or the knowledge that he intended to leave her. He couldn’t know her heart was already breaking in two and it would continue to break, over and over again.
Sliding back into the bed, she knew there was no way to hide her tears from him. He’d know the minute he was close. She hadn’t cried in all the weeks since her attack. Tears didn’t help her think, they didn’t help her figure things out. They just gave her a headache.
A sob hitched her breath as she wrapped her arms around his pillow and held it to her. Her cries were silent, but her tears were slick and wet, dampening the pillow as they rolled from her. As her heart broke, over and over again, for her dragon.
She heard the door open and fought to stop the tears, the silent sobs. She had him for now. For now, he was here, and he was hers. Could she really ask for anything more from him? Did she have that right?
“Emma Jane? Baby?” He lifted her into his arms, holding her against his bare chest.
He must have undressed as soon as he came in, before he realized her heart was breaking.
“I’m sorry.” She tried to halt the sobs, because she knew earlier that day he’d been willing to promise her anything to make them stop.
Would he promise to stay?…
No! She tightened her arms around his neck. She wouldn’t do that to either of them.
“What’s wrong?” Cradling her in his arms as he sat on the bed, he pushed her hair back from her face, kissed her lips.
She could only shake her head. She couldn’t lie to him, she couldn’t tell him the truth.
“I’m okay.” She tried to stop the tears again, but they refused to stop. “You weren’t here when I woke up.” And she’d gone looking for him when she should have stayed in the bed.
“I’m here now.” His lips brushed hers, lingered, then his teeth nipped at the lower curve. “You can sleep now, baby. Let me hold you. I promise not to let you go.”
He wouldn’t let her go until it came time for him to leave.
But that time wasn’t now. He wasn’t leaving tonight.
Gripping the hem of her pajama tank top, she pulled it off, rose in front of him. Tangling her fingers in his hair as he stared up at her, his green eyes gleaming with hunger, she licked her lips.
“Don’t be easy, Ilya. Not even once,” she whispered.
“God, baby,” he groaned, burying his head between her breasts. “Your brother’s prowling the damn house. He hears me make you scream and he’ll slice my throat.”
Yeah. There was that.
“Will you make me a promise?” she asked as he slid the pajama pants off her hips.
“Anything.” His lips moved over her breasts, licking, stroking the short length of his beard over them. “Whatever you want.”
“When my brother isn’t in the house, will you make me scream? Make me scream, Ilya, because it hurts so good I can’t bear it.”
She was on her back a second later and he was pushing her legs apart, coming between them.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “If you let your brother hear you, I’ll sleep in the guest room the next time.”
She buried her lips against his chest, then clenched her teeth on a moan of ecstasy as his cock pushed inside her.
He stretched her, filled her. Pulling back, he thrust deeper, working his hard flesh inside her as she capped her hand over her mouth and fought back the moans.
She would not let him sleep in the guest room.
“You’re tight, Emma Jane.” The Russian in his voice thickened as his dark voice rasped over her senses. “Slick and sweet around my dick.”
She lost her breath, forgot to breathe until he thrust fully inside her and she almost forgot not to scream.
A wicked chuckle vibrated at her ear.
“When I take you next, I’m going to spank that pretty bare pussy. Watch you come to the most erotic caresses.”
He was thrusting inside her as he spoke, holding her to him, his lips at her ear as he pushed her higher with his words alone.
She didn’t dare even whisper his name as he moved forcefully inside her, stroking across sensitive flesh, exciting her body to a fever pitch.
“Once you’ve come for me, I’ll turn you over, watch your pretty ass turn pink as I spank it.” Harder. He thrust harder, his hold on her tightening as image and sensation pushed her closer to the edge. “Once you’re begging for me, screaming from the pleasure…” He gripped her hips, his own pumping hard and fast, stroking her to an orgasm she almost feared. “When you’re pleading, Emma Jane, I’m going to take that pretty ass. Mark it. Fuck…” His voice was ragged as she shattered, lifting against him, her body tightening, shuddering as pure rapture raced through her senses. “Mine. Fucking mine.”
Ilya buried deep, his cum pumping inside her as something in his chest pulled free and sank into her as well.
She was his. Fucking his. She was the Dragon heir’s mate and he might have to leave, but he’d make damned sure she never forgot …
“Mine…” The word tore from him one last time as he felt her teeth clench against the tattoo inked just for her. Her mark covering the mark that was made for her.
God help him, he’d die without her.
chapter fourteen
Despite the tears she’d shed the night before and the sleepless hours afterward as she just lay in Ilya’s arms, Emma Jane woke before the alarm went off.
Ilya was awake. He was lying on his side, watching her, his gaze probing.
“Good morning, sweet,” he said, his voice not in the least bit drowsy.
“How long have you been awake?” Turning on her side to face him, she cuddled closer to his broad chest, her hand stroking over his bicep, feeling the corded strength just below his flesh.
He was warm and naked against her, and aroused. His cock pressed against her lower stomach, iron hard and so very hot.
“Hmm, for a bit.” His lips brushed over her forehead as he murmured the words. “I considered waking you, but that brother of yours keeps coming to the top of the steps, then retreating as if the hounds of hell wait beyond this door.”
The amusement that touched his voice roughened the tone further and made her wish her brother had stayed at home.
“You’re the one that let him butt his nose in,” she reminded him, pushing against his chest as the alarm began beeping. She rose from the bed.
Silencing the strident tone, she slid him a teasing look, taking in the look of sexual frustration as he watched her.
&
nbsp; “Send him home today,” she suggested, not bothering to cover the nakedness of her body. “And tonight, maybe I’ll see if I can make you scream.”
Pure, carnal anticipation lit his gaze as she turned and hurried to the bathroom. She had just enough time to get ready and get to work. If she was late, Nik would give Ilya one of those knowing male looks and Emma Jane would have to kick both of them.
She walked back into the bedroom nearly an hour later, dressed in a black skirt that ended just above the knee and a sleeveless white blouse. Pushing her feet into the black pumps she’d put out the night before, she stared at the man sitting on her bed, fully dressed now. The short growth of beard only emphasized the hard lines of his face and made his dragon more imposing. The red-eyed creature seemed to watch her with the same, lazy interest as Ilya. “What are your plans today?” she asked as he rose and met her at the door.
Dressed in one of those white cotton shirts that made him look too damned sexy, jeans, and scarred boots, he looked dark and dangerous.
Exactly what he was.
“Ronan, Eric and I are going to see if we can run Matt to ground,” he said, his gaze somber. “Two agents will be outside the offices. Don’t leave unless you’re with them or Nik until I return.”
“I can handle that,” she promised. It wasn’t as though Nik would allow her out of the office without protection anyway.
“Before we leave, I think you should change clothes.” He said it so seriously that she paused and looked down at the skirt.
“Why?” Lifting her head, she looked back at him as he stood staring at the garment in interest.
“Because you look far too beautiful to let out without me at your back. And I wouldn’t last long before I had to fuck you. I could see Nik objecting should I run him from his office so I can take care of that little problem,” he observed as her reached her, gripped her hips, and pulled her to him.
The hard shaft beneath his jeans pressed against her lower stomach, tempting her to say to hell with it and demand he take her back to bed.