Tempted & Taken

by Rhenna Morgan

  He sighed and dropped his head back on the top of his desk chair. She still hadn’t shared about her past, though. She’d come close a few times, the far-off look on her face and the way she’d chewed her lower lip before she’d abruptly steered them into lighter territory the stuff of secrets dancing on the tip of her tongue. At least he assumed the past was what was on her mind. It damned well better not be their future.

  A soft knock sounded on his door.

  Knox jerked his head up, gaze shooting straight to the camera feed with a straight-on shot of his office door.

  Well, speak of one very gorgeous devil.

  He spun in his chair. “Yeah.”

  The knob turned slow and silent, like a burglar was on the other side of the door instead of the woman he was half out of his mind for. She poked her head through the opening. “Knox?”

  “Sweetheart, you know you don’t have to knock.”

  “But your door was closed. I thought maybe you were in the middle of something and didn’t want to be interrupted.”

  He motioned to the door with a lift of his chin. “You shut and lock that door then we’ll both be in the middle of something I don’t want interrupted.”

  Her coy smile matched the pretty flush that swept across her cheeks, but her hips swayed with natural sensuality as she drifted closer. “I thought we had a no-hands policy at work.”

  The second she was within grabbing distance, he snapped forward, grabbed her around the waist and tugged her into his lap. “Oh, we’ve got a no-hands policy all right. You promise no-hands on any man but me and I promise no-hands on any woman but you. Between the two of us, it’s a free-for-all.”

  Her husky laughter was the stuff of wet dreams, a sensual rasp against his ears that fired all kinds of dirty thoughts. She cocked her head to one side and peeked playfully up at him through her soft lashes. “You sure you don’t want to talk business?”

  Instant. Focus.

  “Are we talking something you’re trying to work out code-wise, or long-term career plans?”

  Her gaze slid to his chest where her fingers were pressed above his heart. “Long-term.”

  Thank Jesus. He probably could have made it to the end of the day, but if she was willing to bring things to a head early he might actually be able to get some much needed oxygen to his brain. “Well, then that depends. If you’re going to give me the answer I want, then we can talk. If you’re not, then we’ll take a sidebar so I can spend extra time extolling the virtues of being my employee.”

  Her mouth quirked in an adorable smile. “Perhaps you should tell me about those virtues regardless.”

  “Sweetheart, I won’t be telling you anything. I’ll be showing you. Likely with your ass perched on the edge of my desk and your thighs around my hips.”

  One second. One infinitesimal second and her eyes grew weighted. Her lips parted just a fraction, a welcome invitation he was halfway tempted to take regardless of how serious the root of their conversation was—or where he wanted it to lead. He palmed her hip and cradled her closer instead. “Say yes. The skip jobs don’t pay you anywhere near what I can, let alone what you’re worth. And you said from the get-go you didn’t like the work.”

  She pressed her hand more firmly to his chest, as though seeking something to steady her.

  He tightened his arms and lowered his voice. “Take the jump. Let me catch you.”

  “I already jumped,” she whispered. “Months ago.”

  Pure pleasure fired through his veins, a high-octane rush that even some of his more dangerous exploits couldn’t rival. “Is that a yes?”

  She dipped her head, keeping her gaze on him.

  “Good, then you won’t mind if I push my luck while I’m at it.”

  Her lips pursed in a cute little mew. “You always push your luck.”

  Hell, yeah he did. Especially with the physical aspects to their relationship. He might be hesitant to voice the depth of everything he felt for her, but he had zero problem expressing it sexually. In the weeks since they’d settled into a routine bouncing back and forth between her place and his, he’d not only put her meager toy collection to good use, but had built a more sizable arsenal at his place. “Then you know you’d be wise to give in now. I’ll get my way in the long run anyway.”

  “Give in to what?”

  He swallowed hard, the magnitude of what he was about to propose the biggest step he’d taken to date. If she said yes, postponing a deeper conversation with his brothers wouldn’t be an option anymore—whether she’d opted to share her past with him or not. “Move in with me.”

  For long, gut-wrenching seconds she sat motionless in his lap, so still it was hard to tell if her lungs were even working.

  “We spend half our time at my place anyway,” he said. “We can’t do anything without your neighbors hearing and I don’t have nearly the room I need to work you in the shower. Not to mention the place is a security nightmare.”

  “But what about Beckett?”

  “What about him? He adores you. And outside of him inhaling the food before either of us can get to it and hogging the late-night television, we never see him.” Except maybe that was the kicker. Maybe she wasn’t big on the idea of co-habitating with another guy besides him. “Unless you want a place of our own,” he tacked on. “We can leave him that floor and take on another one for us. I own half the building so we can do whatever we want. Or I can buy something—”

  “Shhh.” She pressed two fingers over his lips and smiled that soft smile that always made him wonder if she wasn’t more angel than human. “I don’t mind being with Beckett. I like your place. I just don’t want to do something that would make him uncomfortable.”

  “You’re kidding right? Most of my better memories come from making Beckett uncomfortable. I’d just have a partner in crime this time.” He cupped the side of her face and pulled her in for a kiss. “Seriously. Just think about it. No pressure.”

  She pulled away from his lips and cast an incredulous expression on him. “No pressure? From you?”

  “Okay, maybe a little pressure. In fact, I vote we spend the night at your place tonight so I can spend adequate time pointing out everything that’s wrong with it.”

  God, her smile was beautiful. Just as powerful and blazing as the August sunshine outside his window, but tinted with the cooler hues of a full moon. “Okay. My place tonight. And before I give you an answer, you have to promise me you’ll talk with Beckett.”

  Oh, he’d talk to Beckett all right. Along with all the rest of his brothers. “I’ll talk, but he’ll be on board.” He patted her hip and straightened in his chair. “Now, hop up and get your butt to work. I want us out of here before the sun goes down this time, and I haven’t got half the shit done I need to.”

  She swiveled in his lap, but paused before she stood to lean in and study his screen. “You’re working on something new?”

  “No, combing through log files.”

  “That doesn’t look like anything out of an application log file. Those look like websites and IP addresses.”

  He chuckled at the confused frown scrunching her face. “They’re login hack attempts against one of our mail servers. I set up honeypots to draw nosier types away from the real stuff. When they try to access the data, it fires an auto-blocking trigger for their IP. Reviewing them is about as exciting as overnight infomercials, but I like to keep an eye out for persistent attempts.”

  She reached for the mouse, but paused just before wrapping her hand around it and glanced back. “Can I look?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  Eyes back to the screen, she scrolled from the top of the screen. “What’s a honeypot?”

  He couldn’t help it. Not with her lobbing up such an easy one for him to swing at. He slipped his hands between her thighs an
d rubbed his finger along the center seam of her jeans. Looking back, talking her out of wearing those prim skirts and the easy access they provided was a serious misstep. “Well, this is one of my favorite ones.”

  She giggled, squirmed in his lap and batted his hand away. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  Sighing, he sat back and let her refocus on the long stream of text on the screen. “It’s exactly what it sounds like. A diversion. A lure. I set out fake data and draw the people interested in nosing into our business there instead of to the good stuff. When they bite, I block ’em.”

  She nodded, but the motion seemed distracted. Her finger stilled on the mouse wheel and a subtle but very real tension held the rest of her locked in place.

  Knox sat up and looked at the screen. “Something wrong?”

  Releasing the mouse, she stood and took two shaky steps away from his desk. “No, I just...” She smoothed her hands against her hips and cleared her throat, stopping just short of meeting his gaze. Her smile was about as empty as they came. “I just don’t know what any of it means.”

  Bullshit. Not once in the time he’d known her had he ever got the feeling she’d lied to him.

  Until now.

  Maybe it was more avoidance than an outright falsehood, but it still stung. He’d given her everything. Knocked down barriers he’d never even considered dismantling for anyone else, and she couldn’t even give him this? He stood, tempted to prowl closer, cage her against the wall and demand answers. Instead, he fought it. He’d already told her he wanted her past and more than anything he wanted to earn it. To know she trusted him enough to give it. Still, if what she’d seen had shaken her this bad, he needed to know. “What did you see?”

  She swallowed huge and her gaze slid to the screen behind him. “There was a word—Koschei.” Just uttering the term made her face blanch.

  He turned, leaned into his desk and scrolled through the list. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  Having isolated the line she’d called out, he highlighted the text, pasted it off on a separate document and scowled back over his shoulder. “You look like the boogeyman just flashed a heinous set of nuts on my computer. Don’t tell me it’s nothing. What’s it mean?”

  “It’s a figure from Slavic folklore. Koschei is...” She circled one hand and her gaze grew distant, as though scrambling for the right mix of words to convey her thoughts. “Deathless.” Her gaze sharpened and she locked stares with Knox. “He cannot be killed because his soul is kept separate from his body.”

  Knox straightened. “So, it’s the folklore that shook you?”

  Pain flashed behind her eyes, and for a second he thought she’d deflect with some bullshit excuse as she had minutes before. “No.”

  Fuck distance. Fuck waiting and worrying and everything else that came in between it. He stalked to her and wrapped her up close. “Whatever it is, just tell me. I can’t fix what I don’t know.”

  “You can’t fix this,” she whispered. Her attention slid to the screen then back to him. “Maybe it’s nothing. I hope it’s nothing. But you deserve the truth.”

  Finally.

  “Okay. Good.” He hugged her tighter and kissed the top of her head. “Let’s shut down. We’ll get out of here early and just chill at your house.”

  She pressed her hands against his chest and pulled back to meet his gaze. “No, you finish your work. We’ll do our normal routine and talk tonight. Okay?”

  An uncomfortable prickle danced down the back of his neck. Whatever thoughts were moving through her nimble head, he had a pretty good idea he wouldn’t like them. Still, if she needed him to wait two more fucking hours, he’d give them to her. Then he’d make sure the demons from her past never darkened her thoughts again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A tear splattered on the back of Darya’s hand, the helpless tremor that shook her arms sending it careening to the mound of clothes in her open suitcase. Since the day she’d watched her mother walk away, she’d known the day would come when she’d have to make her own sacrifice. Had known she’d only upped her debt against the universe when Yefim and JJ had been delivered to aid her once more.

  Today was the day to pay that price.

  She dashed the back of her hand across each cheek and forced her legs to keep from crumbling. At most she had ten minutes to gather her wits and be ready for Knox. Probably less given the clipped delivery when he’d called demanding to know why she’d left before him.

  Fear far more potent than the prospect of the days that lay ahead lanced straight through her, the mere thought of what her actions would do to further destroy his trust nearly crippling in their power. He’d never forgive her. Never. And how could she blame him? She’d not only broken her promise to him, but would give him a fresh new layer of emotional brick to hide his heart behind.

  She crammed in the last of her most essential clothes and jerked the straps to cinch them down tight.

  The door chunked open and her heart punched so hard it hurt.

  “Darya?” An urgent call. One filled with worry as well as anger. His quick footsteps sounded through the living room.

  A cold sweat broke out against her skin, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t steady the ragged breaths chuffing out of her chest.

  When he spoke again, his voice was as ragged as her own, the tone more of an accusation than a question. “What are you doing?” he said from behind her.

  She forced herself to turn and nearly buckled at the stark vulnerability on his face. His attention wasn’t on her, but on the three suitcases waiting on the bed. “I have to go.” In that second, she’d have done anything to draw the words back. To rewind the last four weeks and take them slower. To savor every single second and not waste a moment on sleep. She’d thought she understood what JJ had meant about living, but now she understood. Really understood the meaning of loss.

  “This has to do with what you saw in the log files.” It was a confirmation, not a question.

  She nodded. “Yes.” She braced her hand on the open suitcase, needing something—anything to keep her upright and steady. “I checked the IP address. It’s from Russia.”

  He inched cautiously into the room. “Sixty percent of our hack attacks come from Russia. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It does when the name Koschei is tied to them.”

  His eyes narrowed, a predator who’d just watched his prey take a full step into its trap. “That why you ducked out early and logged into our security apps remotely?”

  Of course, he’d know. What Knox didn’t glean from physically watching through the cameras mounted in every nook and cranny of his office, he monitored electronically through logins and God only knew how many code traps. She swallowed hard, hating the sludge of betrayal tossing in her stomach. “I wanted to believe it was a coincidence. I left early to think about what I wanted to say. How to share my past. On the way home I remembered the recordings. I thought looking would help calm my nerves. Help me realize I was probably overthinking things.”

  “And?”

  “I wasn’t overthinking things.”

  In a flash, his expression shifted. Raw fury eradicating any trace of fear or loss. “Show me.”

  The force of his directive jolted her into action, sending her on unsteady feet to the company laptop still poised on her dresser. It took three tries to enter her password, his scalding presence licking fire against her back. The second her password took, the screen displayed the frame she’d left the footage on. She pointed to a parking lot across the street and a cable company worker walking toward his truck. His dark hair was short and a well-trimmed beard covered his jawline. His eyes were covered with mirrored sunglasses. “This is wrong.”

  Knox leaned in closer. “You’re
packing your shit and running because a cable guy was caught on tape across the street from where I work?” He straightened and looked her in the eye, an incredulous fire burning behind his gray gaze. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “He’s not a cable worker, Knox. Look at him.” She tapped the screen again. “Have you ever seen a cable worker wear coveralls? In August? And where are his tools? He has none. Never took any out of the van with him. In fact, all he ever did was disappear out of the camera’s range for a short time.”

  A trace of comprehension seemed to register and she’d swear he stopped breathing.

  Darya zoomed in the image. “I almost missed it, but once I looked closer, this made it certain.” She pointed to the man’s hand. A half monster, half man was tattooed on the back of it. “This is Koschei and the men who serve him all wear it.”

  “You said it was a folklore.”

  “It is, but the man who is after me took the moniker for his own. He believes he cannot die. Believes he’s invincible. And he wants me.”

  “Like a hit? Retribution? What?”

  She met his stare and tried to swallow, the harshness of her reality stealing any moisture from her tongue. Never in a million years would she forget the way Ruslan had looked at her. She couldn’t let him get her, but more than that, she couldn’t let him hurt Knox. “No, he wants me.”

  She wasn’t sure what she expected. More arguments, maybe. Or an elevation of simmering rage he’d already displayed. Instead a fierce determination slipped into place. Indomitable, resolute conviction. “He can want all goddamn day, but he can’t have you.”

  Ice-cold terror cracked and splintered through her veins. “Knox, you don’t know what this man is like. I promised you that first day my past would only come for me. Only I didn’t know how things would end up between us. If Ruslan has so much as an inkling you and I are together, he’ll kill you. Possibly hurt the other people you love just to make a point. I have to go and I need to do it quickly so I draw him away from you. From all of you.”