by Cait London
“A lover, you mean?” Her voice was low and trembling with rage. “I told you, hands off.”
Alexi turned to Jessica. What did he feel for her, this tenderness despite the fascination, the raw need of her? “You started this. Now finish it.”
“You’re not talking about Willow now, are you?” Jessica stared at the man challenging her. There was nothing sweet or gentle about Alexi Stepanov, the sensual sparks heating, sizzling, in the air between them.
She couldn’t move as Alexi stepped toward her and took her face in his hands; his eyes slowly closed and his lips brushed hers. His kiss hovered and warmed and enticed, touching lightly at the corners of her lips, only to lift again and smooth her bottom lip. His smile curved against her cheek. “You’re very warm, Mrs. Sterling.”
“It’s the wood stove.”
“Uh-huh. And you’re shaking. You want to run and hide, don’t you? From me? From yourself? That’s why you didn’t go to the Stepanovs’ family tea this afternoon, because you wanted to hide from whatever they are that frightens you.”
Because she’d never been touched like this, she’d never had a man look so deeply into her eyes as if he found more than she was—more than she could ever be. And she had to know—what she could be, other than the woman who had survived and who never wanted to see her parents again. “This isn’t about Willow at all, is it?” she repeated.
“No. But I will see to her safety. It would be easier to move closer to her, if you trusted me to be your friend, too.”
“Your lover,” she corrected.
“I would like that—yes, to feel your skin against my own, to feel you sigh as we make love, to taste your body, to feel your hands on mine. To see where this goes—or where it ends. But the choice is yours.”
His honesty shocked Jessica as did the gentle way he drew her against his body, holding her easily. Alexi’s uneven breathing and tense body said he was holding himself in check; Jessica sensed that he was letting her know and trust him. “I am very tired,” she said, meaning it, as she leaned her forehead against his shoulder.
“You’ve come a long way.”
“You don’t know how far and how hard.”
“Tell me.”
Behind Jessica’s closed lids, images of her girlhood slid by, the destitute living conditions, her alcoholic father and a mother who couldn’t cope with a girl who wanted “more” and “better” and “clean.”
And Jessica had married too young that first time, in her late teens, filled with hope—or was it escape?
Then Robert had desperately needed her to be strong, and somewhere deep inside was the girl that Alexi sought—filled with dreams and hope and laughter. That girl was safer, shielded and tucked away from harm.
The tear that had just slid down her cheek had slipped onto Alexi’s broad chest, a silver trail on his tanned skin. Jessica realized that he’d taken down her hair, his fingers rubbing her scalp as he rocked her against his body.
She steeled herself against needing anyone, and pushed back from Alexi; she turned quickly before he could see into her unsteady emotions. “This is outrageous on both counts. I could make your life living hell—if I moved in here to play your lover.”
“You could,” Alexi agreed easily.
“I’m going back to the resort.”
“Ah, yes. Of course. To your safety, where no one can touch you…where you can issue your orders and yet retain distance from the world, from reality, from yourself. I’ll walk you back, and don’t argue.”
“You’ll see about Willow?”
She turned to see Alexi staring out at the night, his hands slid into his back pockets. He didn’t seem to be a man who would turn away from a woman in danger. “You’re going to take care of her anyway, aren’t you? No matter what happens between us.”
“Of course. I want you with me. It’s that simple, and it’s your choice.”
In the furniture shop the Stepanov men sat around a huge, custom-made walnut dining room table, a canvas tarp protecting the glossy finish. A large plastic container of Mary Jo’s raspberry-filled cookies sat on Fadey’s stomach, his arm protectively around it as he munched on one. “So Jessica has gone back to Seattle. By the time she comes back, we can have it finished. Two days. No more. A bathroom for a woman. Alexi has already placed his order for new fixtures, and it will be delivered this morning. We can do that, eh, Mikhail? Jarek? What are men for, if not to make a woman comfortable where she stays, eh? We take out the old fixtures, put down new floor, a pretty little sink and mirror, a nice tub with feet.”
“I don’t know that she’s coming back,” Alexi stated carefully.
“Phooey. She will. You are a Stepanov man, are you not? She will come,” Fadey said. He tossed a cookie to Jarek and another to Mikhail and then to Alexi. “This Jessica. I like her. And no, you boys cannot have all the cookies.”
Fadey grinned widely. “I tell you what…we put in a good cooking stove, then Jessica can bake cookies—no more taking mine home with you.”
“With a crew, we could put that house together in no time,” Jarek offered.
“But then, Alexi couldn’t get what he wanted, could he?” Mikhail asked smoothly.
Alexi shrugged casually, aware of how his cousins could tease him mercilessly. “She doesn’t ask me to protect herself, only her friend.”
Fadey tossed a cookie to the young man who had just entered the shop. Ryan Van Dolph, Jarek’s brother-in-law, had the look of a surfer disgusted with winter weather. He caught the cookie, took off his coat and sat glumly, munching on the cookie. “What’s up, man?”
“Alexi has a girlfriend. He needs the place fixed up fast so she can move in with him.” Jarek grinned and placed a small bottle of orange juice in front of Ryan.
“Jessica hasn’t made up her mind yet,” Alexi returned. “So if you’re planning on teasing me about her, you could be wasting the effort.”
“Jessica Sterling is a powerful, hard-driving woman, who runs a big corporation,” Mikhail said quietly. “When she’s at the resort, she puts in hard hours in her suite’s minioffice. I can’t see her stopping that. I wondered why she was here—a person like that is usually tied to her desk and not staying too long at a resort. Willow is her friend, but—”
“Someone is bothering Willow, and Jessica wants Alexi to find out who it is and stop it. That’s why Jessica might live with Alexi—to stay close to her friend. It’s not as if she couldn’t just stay at the resort, or at Willow’s, but oh, no. Our cousin here wants her to stay with him,” Jarek briefly explained. He winked at Ryan. “He’s making his move.”
“Lay off,” Alexi ordered firmly, and Jarek hooted, teasing his cousin.
Ryan shook his head. “Kapolo hates Willow. He’s supposed to be a direct descendant of Kamakani, and Willow has proof that he isn’t. He’s not the only one she’s upset. She’s been digging around family histories for a book on Amoteh and got a few people stirred up. She should just stick with her soap business. Hey, look at my folks, Bliss and Ed. They care less about a family tree, unless it’s to hang tie-dyed T-shirts on or love beads.”
He sighed wistfully and leaned back to stroke the new surfboard leaning against the wall with a lover’s touch. “Man, I can’t wait to start showing these babies off, Fadey. You think they’ll really sell?”
“You and I are partners. Have I not said they would? You take these boards to Australia and Hawaii, swim with them and bring back orders.”
Ryan snorted and shook his head, covered with unruly blond curls. “Swim? Man, I’m a surfer. I hit the big ones, go for the tunnel—”
Fadey nodded. “Still. This morning we go to Alexi’s and start making a bathroom for a lady.”
Ryan’s disgusted expression turned into a big smirk. “So finally, after everyone worrying about him, thinking of who they can set him up with, Alexi’s got a girl. That ought to stop all the chatter between our women about finding him someone. Bliss is all worked up. She’s been powwowing with
Mary Jo, and Precious Child—my sis—and Ellie. If he hadn’t come up with one soon, they were going to start importing a selection. He just saved himself a whole lot of trouble. Hey, maybe they’d do that for me—the homegrown chicks around here aren’t digging me and it’s a long time before the summer brings relief.”
Fadey tossed him another cookie. “Eat, boy. Then we’ll go to Alexi’s. It is time to make a bathroom for his woman.”
Alexi looked at Jarek and Mikhail and Ryan, who were all grinning at him. “Uncle Fadey, it’s only a—it’s to protect her.”
Fadey lowered his brows and frowned at Alexi. “Nephew. You want her. You want her with you. This is not so hard for a man to admit today, is it? That the man wants the woman? What is this modern thinking? She wants you—I saw it yesterday at breakfast. You talk to my sons, Alexi. They know how to get woman. Talk to your aunt. She came from Texas and her family didn’t want this poor immigrant boy to marry her, take her away, but she come, anyway. Your aunt, she give me two fine boys with her green eyes. What is this wondering, this waiting—yes, okay, no, he wants her, she wants him? What is the problem here, nephew?”
“It’s not that simple.”
Fadey threw up his hands. “Phooey. I say phooey. You are worried because she is a big shot. But yesterday, I saw a girl at my table. I give her big hug. There is no problem. You live together. You get to know the girl, she knows you. I have already called Viktor. My brother is happy for you. He has a troubling heart. You would trouble him more? Either this works or it doesn’t. I can tell you, when your aunt and me—”
He looked around the table at Ryan and Alexi and his sons, who were all listening intently. Fadey cleared his throat and stated cautiously, “It is a good arrangement to get the girl to live with you, nephew. I say no more…. It’s either that, or our women start this importing brides, maybe for you. Then, maybe they will have to stay at my house. I love women, of course, but I also do not like to wait for my bathroom in the morning.”
“I thought you weren’t going to say any more, Pop,” Jarek stated when he had finished laughing.
In the elegant Seattle home she had shared with Robert, Jessica slashed through paperwork that had been waiting for her signature. Unable to concentrate, she sat back in her desk chair, looked out into the late-morning drizzle and thought about Alexi.
In the middle of January, one long week had passed since Alexi had left her at her Amoteh suite door. He’d walked silently on the trail beside her, linking his hand with hers, offering a soft caution about a rock in the path. He’d waited as she placed her key card into the suite’s door and opened it. “Don’t be frightened, Jessica,” he’d said behind her.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
She’d turned slowly and looked up at him. “Alexi, I think you’re on the rebound and hurting. Or you’re out for revenge. Living with you isn’t necessary. I don’t understand you.”
Those steady, silver-blue eyes hadn’t flickered, denying nothing. “Your choice,” he said quietly. “But I want you with me.”
After a sleepless night, one in which she couldn’t remove Alexi’s light kiss at the door of her suite, Jessica had dressed quickly. She’d driven to Seattle and to safety—to what she understood and could manage. It wasn’t possible to simply step into a life outside these elegant walls and the stress of a corporation—or was it? Was it only an enticing dream?
Jessica watched the ships passing by and thought of another waterfront, one with the Amoteh Resort overlooking it.
She mentally jerked herself back into her elegant Seattle office and tried to push away thoughts of Alexi. She tried to forget how her instincts had told her to wrap her arms around him, to kiss those hard lips and taste his hunger, meet it with her own.
Alexi stirred her sexually, that was all, she told herself, and sailed through another stack of paper. A cowboy on the make and looking for a rich— That image didn’t fit Alexi.
Willow had wrapped herself into a tight wall of secrecy. Her replies to Jessica’s queries gave nothing away. A window had been broken in her shop, but she was certain that it had only been a child tossing a rock—an accident.
Was it? Or was Willow in real danger?
“Thank you, Audrey.” Jessica smiled briefly at her personal assistant who had just brought in a luncheon tray.
Audrey arranged Jessica’s favorite dish, a Crab Louie salad, onto a table by a window overlooking Puget Sound.
Willow would be exactly what Alexi should have—a sweet, giving woman.
Alexi, on the other hand, wasn’t sweet. Jessica had experienced the primitive male instincts that simmered beneath that rugged appearance. Whatever had run between Jessica and Alexi had been too instinctive to be false, too hot and hungry.
Maybe he just needed sexual relief. Maybe she did. Maybe it was just two people meeting at the wrong—or right time…. Maybe that’s how one-night stands were done—needs met and fed, nothing more…. But with Alexi there would be more…and she hadn’t allowed herself to be a woman for so long—if ever. Alexi made her feel—made her feel, senses hiked, anger, tenderness, fear, hunger.
Quiet and efficient, Audrey had gone back to her desk. Jessica stood and smoothed her hair in its neat chignon. She’d crawled out of a destitute situation, met Robert and had started a new life. Now he was gone and she carried on what he had loved, Sterling Stops. Jessica rubbed her emerald wedding bands; she wasn’t a woman for a fling—or was she?
She’d heard about summer flings and shipboard romances from her friends.
Alexi wasn’t a man to be forgotten—even now, she wondered how he would taste without that fine control, unleashing his hunger…. What instinct moved inside her to make that happen? Was it because she loved challenges, and Alexi was one big, fascinating temptation to step out of her box and live as a woman, to feel as a woman?
The brisk knock at her office door sounded before Howard pushed his way into the room. “So you’re back.”
He flung himself into a chair in front of her desk, jerked open his tie and stared at her. Howard looked like his father and, for a heartbeat, a sweet memory slid by Jessica. Then Howard’s harsh voice cut through it. “So you’ve had a nice little holiday.”
Jessica sat behind her desk, putting the distance and her official power between them. Perhaps Alexi was right about Howard—that he was furious another man had entered her life, that the ante had been upped. “It was nice—yes.”
“I could have spent New Year’s Eve with you.”
“I assume you mean with your wife—together. I’m certain you could have booked into the Amoteh Resort if you wanted. The suites are beautiful, furnished with local artisans. The furniture is particularly unique, made by a local family, the Stepanovs.”
Howard’s expression tightened with anger. “You didn’t return my calls and the resort’s switchboard operator was uncooperative…so was the manager, Mikhail Stepanov. The Amoteh is one of the Mignon International chain, and I immediately called his boss. It seems as though Mikhail is well seated in the resort chain—he’s married to the boss’s daughter and apparently he is top dog there.”
Jessica fought smiling, which would only antagonize Howard, and he was unpredictable when very angry. “What business did you have with me that was so important it couldn’t wait for a few days? I never take a vacation and I needed a rest.”
“You’re a workhorse, Jessica. You never rest. I’ve seen you handle a twenty-hour workday and then take care of my father. What are you up to?”
She didn’t want to tell him that Willow’s calls had disturbed her and that she’d gone to help her friend. It wouldn’t do to let Howard know that anyone was particularly close and dear to her. “What is the real problem, Howard?”
He lurched to his feet and walked toward the immense windows overlooking Puget Sound. He turned to her and his eyes glittered savagely, taking in her loose white silk blouse, neatly tucked into her practical but flowing black slacks. Aware
of his unsteady nature, she never dressed casually when Howard might appear, needing all of her shields, her protections.
“Alexi Stepanov. You were with him, weren’t you?” Howard accused.
“That’s none of your business, Howard,” she said, pushing down her anger. Howard had steadily inferred that she was his private property, just waiting for him to claim her, an inheritance of sorts from his father.
Howard shot facts at her like bullets. “You’re a rich widow—my father’s estate is in your hands and the majority of stock in a family-owned business. Fifty-one percent makes you quite appealing. Stepanov is a down-on-his-luck Wyoming cowboy. He started a ranch, built a house and had to sell. He’s probably licking his wounds by taking the crumbs off the family table—he’s a cousin of that Mikhail Stepanov.”
Jessica did smile then. Alexi wasn’t the begging sort. “You work fast, Howard. And you said all that before.”
“He’s out for your money. Don’t have anything to do with him.”
That curt order caused her to frown. If he chose, Howard could make life difficult for Alexi. “That’s my business, Howard.”
He slammed his fist down on her desk. “I’m making it mine.”
In the next instant he had reached down and clamped his hands around her upper arms. He jerked her up against him.
“You’re mine,” he raged huskily against the cheek she turned to him, avoiding his kiss.
Jessica heard the door open—Audrey was always protective of her when Howard was near—
But Audrey stood at the side of a tall man with windswept brown hair and glittering ice-blue eyes. Alexi was wearing well-worn jeans and a denim jacket over a red-plaid flannel shirt—and an aura that bristled, narrowing the world to the drama between Howard and himself.
Her senses leaped, not with the fear of Howard but with a blast of pure happiness—She could almost feel herself in Alexi’s arms, feel his heart beat against hers, as if he were the other part of her. She wanted to go to him, to have him hold her, to wrap her arms around his shoulders and tug his head down for a long, sweet kiss—and then she winced as Howard’s fingers tightened on her arms.