Threat: Follow up to Stranded but not Alone (Dragoslava Connection)
Page 4
His knee brushed the center console when he shifted on the seat getting closer, not much, an inch, her sweet aroma teased a song to play through his mind. The one she’d hum walking down the hall in the office. A love song.
While they dated, he’d ask her questions to get a glimpse of her lips caressing each word as it left her mouth. Mikhail traced a finger along the wood inset on the steering wheel, picturing the last time they’d worked together in his office. Setting up an account with her made everything sexy.
Stop thinking with your cock. In all the time they shared over the last year, the reality that they’d never slept together gentled her in his eyes. She was special.
He touched her cheek with his open hand. The butter soft leather of the headrest cushioned the back of his head when he dropped back to watch her fight not to lean into his hand trailing down her cheek.
“You haven’t said one word to me the entire way up the mountain, avoiding any conversation about our relationship. You’re pissed and upset. I get it. I understand. But I’m sick of you treating me like I kicked your cat when all I’m trying to do is protect you—talk to you—Bethany,” he ranted. Being this close, every breath he took was a reminder of her sweet scent, a scent he might never know personally again unless they were arguing. She was the only woman who could arouse and piss him off with the same look.
He watched as the anger she held bled into what were normally the softest warm walnut brown eyes he’d ever known, turning them into angry brown disks. “If you don’t want me to kick your dog…”
“Alright—I cheated, I’m an ass, I’m sorry,” he apologized feeling his face flush under his anger. Bethany didn’t flinch.
“Can we just not do this to each other, Mikhail? I don’t care anymore. We’re no longer a couple.” Her voice wavered. “Thank you for the ride, but I’m done talking to you.”
He dipped his chin to look at her lowered face and into intelligent eyes that wanted nothing to do with him. “Not doing this as in not discussing what happened between us or why someone is using you against me. Which one, Bethany?” Agitated, he hurriedly unzipped his jacket feeling hot under the collar. “Are you waiting to see the veins in my head explode—” He ran a hand down his face, and blew out a breath to the battle raging inside his heart. Damn, that was not how he wanted to say that. He wanted to pick her up, carry her inside, crawl under the covers, make love to her for hours, and stay there until the threat was gone. But Bethany was too stubborn to reason with right then.
“It’s bad enough I had to ride up with you; now I have to wait on a guard to follow me around so I supposedly don’t make another attempt on your life. And to top it off Yannik was supposed to be my ski partner, then I get a text he couldn’t make it at the last minute. I’m so frustrated. How am I supposed to be Ms. Sunshine for you or anyone for that matter, Mikhail?” She gripped the handles of her bag crushing it against her chest. Was that supposed to keep him from touching her? Well for her sanity he’d let it stop him this time.
“You were kidnapped, dammit Bethany talk to me. Somebody shredded your lingerie and left it on my desk. And that and a crazy email saying I took something from them and gave it to you. What happened in that cabinet or truck for you not to want me to touch you?”
“The pervert who locked me in there told me not to trust you after he sat behind me on the floor and played in my hair, the same way you do.” She hesitated, swallowing her anger. “The very same way, Mikhail. His cologne smelled like yours Mikhail. Just like yours,” she said an edge of hurt when she said his name, her words a crippled complaint.
“You think I had something to do with kidnapping you when I’ve been going crazy all morning tearing my office building apart from top to bottom searching for you, accusing every person I came across for your disappearance?”
“I don’t know!” The vertical line forming between her eyes deepened with every thought. “No that’s not true,” rubbing a hand down her thighs smoothing her jeans, “I know you didn’t, Mikhail. But why would someone say that if there wasn’t an ounce of truth to at least some of it?”
Because she brought in million dollar accounts, that’s why. “There’s more than just our personal relationship involved. You’re worth millions.” Didn’t she know that? No she didn’t because he’s never told her. Her net worth had been rising with every customer in the last six months, it just wasn’t time to tell her until the official numbers came out.
She snorted at his words. “Because I dated the boss…do they think I’m your mistress with access to your millions?” She rubbed her eyes, bundling up her purse, and pulled away fumbling with the handle. “That’s crazy.” When it opened, she flung the door out, stepping a foot down on the running board under the truck. “I’ll grab my things and wait for Glenda.” Bethany hopped out and opened the back hatch, pulling out her luggage.
He bore down on the latch, shoved the door open, and sprang from the seat to run around the hood to the other side. They were going to talk right now.
Snow crunched under his footsteps around the truck. Stopping inches from Bethany’s face, he backed her against the door.
She drew in a breath when he settled a hand to her waist, the gentle swell of her hip teasing the side of his hand. He fought the urge to cup her behind and kept his gaze on her eyes.
They were alone for right now.
Bethany sucked in a loud, noisy breath, heaving breasts catching a slant of light from the parking lot lamppost and his attention. He should be unzipping that jacket instead of fighting the urge to slide it open and kiss her throat. She had him in knots.
He wanted to fist her jacket, hold her to the truck, and kiss the doubt from her body, every inch of her beautiful skin. “Do you think my bringing in SWAT was so I could find you huddled in the back of an SUV’s cargo area under a blanket with your bare feet sticking out like a corpse…do you? Is that how little you think of me, Bethany?” He couldn’t curb the anger from his tone, the fear in his gut seeped out with every word.
Well she needed to hear the truth.
He barely moved when she shoved at his chest. “You have some nerve talking to me like this. I’m not the one who cheated on me. Now I’m the main suspect for sending you a threat because we dated for two lousy months.”
“Two months but we’ve been together for nearly a year. And the threat came from your computer. Where else do you think they’ll look?”
“So you think I did it too?” She tossed back her frosty words, cold enough to chill the truck’s cabin.
That irked as he tried for understanding to the plight she endured today, but why was she pissed at him. He couldn’t change any of it.
“So I was right, you think I sent the threat along with shredding that ugly ass lingerie you sent me.”
He drew back. Ugly—that was the perfect color for her golden complexion. No wonder she never even took the tags off, she hated it.
“No! Baby… Someone broke into your condo and trashed it.”
This was frustrating. Flustered, he released a long drawn out sigh. She was scared and tired, and he was aggravated and angry, but they had to work this out. Reaching down between them, grazing the length of her thigh, he closed his fingers over hers curling them together.
“They destroyed where I live, Mikhail…my home…my things,” she said her voice trembling. “Why? Why me? Some freak kidnaps me from the stairwell in the office building and locks me in a cabinet, and all I can remember about him is his thick accent and he likes the sound of my name.”
“Your name?” He turned to face her. “What does that mean?”
“When he came in and crouched behind me while I was tied up on the floor, curling his fingers in my hair, touching my scalp.” She laughed, wringing her hands nervously. “He said, Ich Folter sie zuerst. aufhört zu schreien.” She turned watery eyes to him as the words left her mouth on a shiver.
That sick dog.
“He said he’d torture you if you screamed.”
“When did you tell this to Munson?”
“When you released the other employees and we went upstairs.”
“That’s why the detective thinks the kidnapper works in the building,” he stated more than questioned, remembering his nemesis Detective Munson interrogating him and Bethany in the conference room after they’d found her downstairs.
“All I could think of was if I lived through this the last thing I wanted was another nightmare on top of the one of my brother dying. I can’t handle another tragedy, Mikhail. I can’t.”
He never knew exactly what happened to her brother outside of he knew she had a nightmarish reaction to large knives and her brother Robert died when they were teenagers. After selecting her out of five other candidates for his diversity program and transferring Bethany to the Austrian office from America, Mikhail was lost in her beauty and intelligence. She’d turned into the biggest asset to his company and the most requested financial rep he’s ever had on his staff.
Now that they had broken up, someone was using their failed relationship as a catalyst to blackmail them. Why?
“I think you’re about the bravest woman I’ve ever met. If you hadn’t somehow shut down the power in the computer server room we’d still be looking for you.”
“Somehow!”
“Alright—” Arguing with her was like pulling teeth before they’d grown in. “If Yannik hadn’t shown you how…”
Debating with her gave him a headache…both heads. His smart woman was sexy and never backed down from a fight.
“Why did you tell the detective it was cross training instead of my friend was a techie anyway…you still think something’s going on with me and Yannik? That’s perverted, Mikhail. He’s barely twenty.”
The envy of his college buddies…
“We have to stop fighting, Bethany. If you won’t let me explain what happened between me and Gemme…”
“I don’t care. Your infidelity is not on my itinerary for the week. You’re vouching for my innocence, let’s leave it there, and get through this alive.”
Guilt drew his attention away to look around the back of the SUV avoiding the ache settling over her features. “The guard should’ve been here by now.”
“Detective Munson texted me, said the guard hung back to see if we were followed,” she informed him. Her breasts heaved. Haughty her rant filled the cabin. “Is there a hot tub up here?”
In his cabin.
And why hadn’t Munson texted him with the change in plans? “That was the text you got on the way up? I need to know that, Bethany.”
“He didn’t cancel just said he was following us. You talked the entire way up the mountain so take it up with Munson why he called me over you, when you’re his contact. We’re not a couple, but employee and employer.”
That stung. To him they were a couple. Couples fight. Couples ignore one another when emotions are high. Their emotions couldn’t get any higher.
He fought the irritation pulsing through his forehead. “You’re right. I’m still your boss, Bethany Cansler, so watch your tone. You’re still being investigated and…”
She shoved a hand against his chest, her eyes blazing with disgust. “How dare you pull rank on me out here? Don’t you dare treat me like that Mikhail. Investigation or not, don’t act as if you really care what happens and expect everything to be yours to control because I had the misfortune to date you once. If I was wrong then I’m sorry, but get the pole out of your spine when you talk to me.”
His lips compressed together. He had to let her rant. She was hurting. He squatted down in front of her and calmed his voice. “I’m pulling rank because the man in your life doesn’t know what else to do to fix this.”
Her chin tipped high in the air. “I didn’t send the threat. I didn’t lock myself in that room the size of a cabinet, and I sure as hell didn’t come up here to be ordered around by you!”
He had to step away. This wasn’t about the threat anymore. This was about them.
Threading his hands behind his head, he walked a tight circle beside the railing along the river. This was his fault, and he’d fix it.
“Forget about the office, the threat…everything. We bury this fight between us this week or I’ll…”
“You’ll what…fire me? Send me back to America? Don’t think I haven’t thought about going back.”
Rushing over to stand face-to-face before her, fuming with frustration the heat radiating off his skin melted the snow settling on her eyelashes. “Then why are you still here? I’ll tell you why, because you like it here, that’s why. And I’ll tell you something else, Ms. Cansler—you like it here with me!”
Her breathing picked up, and he could’ve kicked himself. “Believe it or not…I do like you and quite a number of people here. Did you ever add that to your bottom line, Mikhail, that it may not just be about you? How I might genuinely like the people, I work with and don’t want to be thought of as the boss’s arm candy…be respected for my work. Because everybody knows you don’t respect me.”
No, he hadn’t thought of that. He had too much on his mind, and the fact that someone broke into her home plus the kidnapping added to the edge he tittered on now. And snapping at her wasn’t helping them get closer. Mikhail leaned against the railing. “Beth…Your right. I’m sorry. And what I did…the week you were gone…It was a dumb ass thing to do. I screwed up. But you can’t hold that over me for the rest of my life.”
A glint of a tear puddled on her lashes. “Don’t call me Beth, Khail,” she ordered, hurriedly closing a hand over her mouth to cover her nickname for him, but it was too late, he’d heard it. And it felt like salve on a third degree burn to be called that again. She was still his. His shoulders unhinged from his ears allowing his body to relax.
“Beth…”
“I’m not your Beth anymore.”
The hell she wasn’t and he’d make her see that before the week was over. Staring off into the sky chewing her lip wasn’t making him go away either. Besides that was his lip to chew. The lip he loved sucking into his mouth when she walked him to the door as he left her condo on Friday nights after they’d watched some crazy show she was too scared to watch alone.
“What are you so afraid of being with me?”
Her beauty stole his anger when she finally spoke after taking in a long breath. “My lack of judgment as a woman when you’re around,” she admitted, leaving him with a virtual slap across the face as she backed away toward the river. Her boot tracks barely visible in the dense snow.
Bethany’s confidence was a second layer of beauty that lit up her face, and he’d shaken it being an ass.
He stepped forward.
Bethany stepped back. “Maybe cheating is okay in your world, but not in mine.” She chastised him scrubbing a booted foot in the layers of snow, uncovering the dead grass under the wood railing, no longer giving him eye contact.
In a blur, he crossed the space that separated them, trapping her between the wood railing and his hands flat on the surface to either side of her hips. Her soft brown eyes held pain and passion for him, still alive and fighting for control.
“I should have done better by you, but you can’t tell me there’s nothing about our relationship worth saving.” He paused and brought his voice down, ducking his face under hers to kiss the tip of her reddening nose, loving the coconut scent of her hair. “Am I that horrible, Beth?” Her face relaxed when he angled his face down to hover above her slightly parted lips. Every centimeter he closed in tighter, his heart thudded a bit harder. A tug on the hem of his jacket he let her bring him closer to her body, closing the space between them. Bethany’s lips parted, her breathing picking up speed, steam
rising from her soft lips. “I think we’re worth fighting for and worth hanging onto. Don’t throw us away because of what happened.” He felt the heat off her mouth, her lips softer than he remembered. A hint of peppermint filled his senses as he brushed his lips over hers. She was still his. “There’s too much good to toss out for the one moment of bad. Give me another chance…please.” The round tip of her nose bumped his as their lips met. The kiss was gentle. He missed her touch, her fragrance, and her moans. Cupping the back of her head, he deepened the kiss. Bethany’s hand moved under his jacket up to his chest, bunching the material between them. God this is what he wanted, for her to let go. Give him some sort of a sign she still wanted him.
Abruptly, she shoved her hands against his chest. The heat from her lips cooled with every side step she took getting away from him.
“Don’t you see, Mikhail? I’m not a sample in a box of women you pull out and match to your suit. I go with everything. From Monday morning to Sunday night, I match everything.” She folded her arms. “But I come back from the states and find out you went out with Gemme…every night.”
He stepped back as the truth hung between them. She backed away, shoulders slumped as she moved down the slope from the parking lot, wiping her mouth with her hand. It was three dates, but it didn’t matter, hurt was hurt.
She laughed but it was as dark and lifeless as a funeral dirge. “I knew you had no answer for that. I need to stretch my legs and get some air…not ready to go inside just yet.”
He had one, one she wouldn’t like, because he hated it.
A group of women emerged from an SUV, he glanced their way and when he looked back, Bethany was staring at him, soft brown eyes gone cold.
“You haven’t changed.” She threw up her hands.
Was he supposed to?
“Because I looked, Bethany? Give me a break, they’re guests.” He stepped toward her then gripped the ends of her scarf holding her to his chest. “What do you want me to do, pretend I don’t see them so they leave?”