“She betrayed her own husband?”
“Worse.” Kir tried to swallow, for all the good it did him. “Once he was arrested, she worked him incessantly. Begged him to give the authorities the information they wanted to incriminate the whole family so that the three of us could escape and live a luxurious life.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone escaping such a life.”
His shrewd woman. Always wise and seeing things even before they would be apparent to others. “With Sergei? He would release me, wish me the best and do everything in his power to see to my success so long as I kept my silence. That’s who he is.”
“But your father’s family wasn’t like that.”
Kir shook his head and stared at the coffee table in front of him. “Nyet. They were powerful. Ruthless and deadly. My father knew it and fought it as long as he could.” He met Cassie’s gaze. “But as I said, he loved her and would deny her nothing.”
Cassie voice dropped to a whisper. “What happened to him?”
Saying it out loud even now cut deep. Brought all the pain and agony of those initial moments when he’d learned the truth back to the surface as though they’d never abated. “He was dead before he could share a word. My mother and I were captured and brought to the vor before his body was cold.”
He remembered every moment. His father’s blood. His mother’s screams. The terrifying silence, and the way the men in the car stared at him throughout the long drive.
“She sold me to them,” he said. “She was given money to disappear in exchange for my service to the family. Everything she’d ever wanted.”
“Oh my God. And she took it?”
His sweet Cassie. So genuine and forthright. Had she been put in the same position, he had no doubt she’d have fought tooth and nail to free herself and her son. “In truth, she had no choice. I would be theirs either way. She could walk away from me and live, or insist on keeping me and die. It was that simple.”
He gave himself a moment to let the emotions pass, wiping his palms along the outer edges of his thighs. “Sergei helped me keep tabs on her until she died five years ago. She was a husk of a woman. Went through her money in very little time and died mostly alone.”
“And what about you?”
“I was a part of a family—the same as Sergei’s led by a man named Anton—but I was never allowed into the inner circle. My father’s betrayal was a stain I could not erase.” The peace that always came when he thought of his brothers settled inside his chest. “But then Sergei befriended me. He, too, was a misfit. Was brought into Anton’s family when he was very young and withstood many trials from others who’d been born into the life. He stood by me when most would not trust me.”
“That’s why you came here with him?”
“Yes. And for what he has done for me, he has my complete loyalty.”
She studied him for long moments, those insightful, curious eyes of hers processing any number of thoughts and theories. “Why are you telling me this? Not the story, but why are you telling me today?”
There it was. The opening he’d created. An opportunity to change the past and share his own truth.
He stood, took her hand and guided her to her feet. Let the feel of her tiny grip in his ground him. “Today, when you owned our relationship, you chose honor. Even when it meant the loss of your job.”
She ducked her head, but he guided her face back to his with a gentle nudge beneath her chin. “I understand you’re hurt. I understand not liking the way you went out, or wondering what people will think. But what difference do they make in our life? The life of a reporter will always be in conflict with how we live. You are happy with our family. With us. You have a chance to do what you really love.” He cupped the side of her face. “Let me give you that. Let go of what was and take what’s right in front of you.”
He studied her face. Searched her gaze and prayed his words would take root. “Choose me, Cassie. Take the risk. Accept me. Accept us all. Be mine and all that comes with it.”
Chapter Seventeen
She couldn’t have heard him right. Couldn’t possibly be drawing the right correlation between the words he’d spoken and the meaning her mind calculated in its wake.
Cassie shook her head. Blinked her eyes a few times and rewound what he’d said one more time in her head, but the sincerity on his face didn’t waver. Didn’t flinch or show a single sign of humor. She licked her lips, the effort woefully inadequate for how dry her mouth had gone. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking me.”
“You know what I want. What I’ve wanted since the night I picked you up for dinner. I have no intention of changing my mind.” He slid his hand from the side of her neck to the back of her head, his grip implacably holding her in place for his steely stare. “Be mine. Only mine. My wife.”
Holy hell.
As proposals went, it was completely unapologetic. An alpha’s open declaration of pursuit and verbal claim wrapped up in the guise of a request.
But he wanted her agreement. Her acquiescence and complete surrender. Not just a personal surrender, but of life as she’d known it—her career included. The stark determination was written in every feature—in the harsh press of his lips, the sharp angles of his cheeks and jaw and the unyielding resolve behind his ice-blue eyes.
It would be so easy. Too easy after the day she’d had. But rash decisions seldom paid off. Particularly when made in the aftermath of sudden change. Hell, she’d had a month of sudden changes.
She eased into him. Stroked her hands from his elbows to his shoulders and savored the strength of him beneath the cool, crisp fabric of his fine shirt. “I won’t lie to you. I want to say yes. Want to give you what you want and drown myself in the promise of some idyllic happily ever after.”
“Then do it.”
“It’s not that easy, Kir. Everything has changed for me since I met you. My day-to-day routine. My home. Twice. How I’m looking at my life, and what I want from it. Not to mention losing the job I’d fought so hard to build and finding myself in the middle of a murder.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I didn’t just choose honor today. I followed my conscience and the future I think the two of us can have together. The future I want for us to have. But I need for you to give me time to make sure I can commit at the level you want. Time to make sure my answer isn’t driven on wanting an escape, but on a real belief we can make it. That we’d be happy with each other for the long haul.”
“You know we will be.”
“I think we will be. But I’m reeling right now. My emotions are all over the board. Definitely not a frame of mind suited to making life-altering decisions like marriage. You deserve an answer I feel in my gut as well as my heart and my head. We both do.”
His lips pinched tighter, and a muscle at the back of his jaw twitched.
She caressed the spot with her thumb and lowered her voice. “That’s not a no. That’s just me saying I need some time to tune out all the chaos. To forget today’s pain. To get a little more practice letting go of all the old things that used to drive me and let the idea of trying on a new career settle in my head.”
His fingers in her hair tightened against her scalp, and his voice was a broken growl. “They hurt you.”
“Only whoever it was that shared the information. My boss and his boss were just protecting themselves. But it will pass. Tonight, I just want to forget. About everything. My parents and their expectations. Jobs. Killers. All of it.” She teased her fingers through the loose curls at his temple. “Everything except you.”
The light behind his eyes changed in an instant, the spark of inspiration honed by laser-focused tenacity. “I can make you forget.”
The swirl in her belly and pleasure spearing to her sex shouldn’t have been possible. Not with everything else that had happened.
But this was Kir.
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A man who resonated with her physically, emotionally and mentally unlike anyone else. Who seemed attuned to her needs and responses at the most primal level. Maybe she couldn’t give him the answer he wanted right this moment, but she could give him all that she was right now. Let go of her worries and pride and yield to his comfort and strength. “I’d like that. Very much.”
She waited. Anticipated the tightening of his arms around her as the dominant in him rose to the surface. The confident play of his mouth against hers and the sweet peace his kiss created. The mastery he employed with each touch.
The predator was right there in front of her. Bristling with energy and an unbending resolve she couldn’t wait to feel unleashed on her overwrought senses.
But he held completely still. Studied her with a keenness that cautioned the old and structured part of herself to run. To reconsider the door she’d just opened and what might lie on the other side. When he spoke, his voice roiled with the power of thunder in the distance—a warning and a vow of what was to come. “You have no idea of the lengths I would go to for you.”
A tremor snaked down her spine, and goose bumps that had nothing to do with the room’s chilled temperature fanned along her shoulders and arms. “The way you say that, I’m not sure me knowing is wise.”
His mouth crooked on one side, the grin of a mildly amused pirate that did little to dissipate the intensity of the moment. “My actions will never hurt you.” He skimmed his calloused palms from her bare shoulders up to her wrists. “But I will be your protector.” He peeled her arms from around his neck. “Your provider.” He held her stare and kissed the palm of one hand, his voice pure velvet. “In all things.”
There he was.
The wolf free of his cage. Hungry, focused and poised to take what he wanted.
Keeping his fingers manacled around one of her wrists, he inched backward and tugged her arm. “Come.”
If he kept looking at her like that and talking in that low, throaty voice, coming wouldn’t be a verb that entailed walking. Her feet got on board despite the ache quickly building between her thighs, and she followed him up the stairs.
Sun slanted through the master suite’s wide window, the boldness of the early evening rays bleaching the blue from the skies beyond and painting the horizon with hints of gold. Before she could get her bearings, Kir veered to the bathroom, led her inside and spun her so her hips pressed against the vanity’s ledge. Not pausing, he turned, padded to the glass-fronted shower and cranked all three showerheads to life.
Her brain tried to keep up. Struggled to match his actions with the libidinous weight of his stare as he approached her. “What are we doing?”
He lifted the hem of the soft cotton tank she’d donned shortly after her early return home and peeled it over her head. “You want to forget, yes?”
She nodded. Or tried to. Between the wanton promise in his expression and the erotic sweep of the room’s chilled air against her bared breasts, anything more was impossible.
“Then I will wash it all away.” He slipped his fingertips in the waistband of her cotton pants and pushed them past her hips until gravity took over and made them pool around her ankles. “Drown the day with my touch. My kiss. My body.” He stepped back and raked her naked body with a long and covetous perusal. Only once he’d taken his fill did his eyes lock onto hers once more and he began to undress himself. “All you will know is us. All you will need is us. And when you fall asleep, you will do it beside me. Where you belong. Free from worry. Relaxed and drifting from the pleasure delivered by the man who will give you everything.”
All too quickly, the story of his mother and father leapt to the front of her thoughts. “I’m not asking for everything, Kir. Only you. As you are.”
Steam from the shower drifted from the open glass door and coiled near his feet. He pushed his boxer briefs to the floor, stepped free of them and prowled toward her, his shaft fully erect and straining toward his belly. “Nyet. You are not my mother. You are wise. Grounded in the ways of the world and driven by a good heart.” The weight of his hands at her hips was a godsend. An anchor to keep her steady as his words rushed over her. “But I understand my father’s actions now. Knew when I heard the pain and frustration in your voice downstairs that there is nothing I would not do to give you what you need.” He pressed his body against her, his cock an insistent rod above her mound, and his lips a whisper that teased her mouth. “My heart is hard and unskilled in love. But it is yours.”
He’d barely touched her. Had only undressed them both and let her feel the crackling skin-to-skin connection between them. But his humble words undid her. Cracked open what was left of her resistance and left her as bare and vulnerable inside as out.
She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped his shoulders, need, want and all the emotions of the day crashing through her in an all-consuming wave. “Please.” She didn’t know what it meant. Only knew that she trusted him to find the way. To help her across the shaky bridge of emotions to the haven of just the two of them in this moment.
“I’ve got you, malyshka.” He lifted her. Cradled her against his chest and skimmed his lips against her forehead as he moved. “No more thinking. No more reality.” The warmth and heaviness of the steam embraced her as he carefully lowered her feet to the tile floor. “Only pleasure.”
He eased her backward with hands at her hips, and water from the rainshower faucet overhead gently spilled from her crown to her shoulders and back. She closed her eyes, tipped her head back and savored the heat. The internal sigh as her muscles responded and released the day’s tension. Releasing her hold on his shoulders, she sluiced the water through her hair.
The sharp snip of plastic on plastic and the coconut scent of her shampoo floating through the steam drew her head up and her eyes open.
Kir poured a good amount of the pearlescent shampoo on one palm, set the bottle back on the inset tile shelf and rubbed his hands together.
“What are you doing?”
He grinned, smoothed his coated palms atop her drenched hair and carefully worked his strong fingers against her scalp. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
It was such a simple thing. A task she handled every day on her own in the most perfunctory manner.
But this was something else entirely. A level of intimacy beyond anything they’d done before. An act that spoke of love and care more than sexual contact.
He was showing her. Demonstrating with his actions that his words were anything but empty. This unbending, powerful man accustomed to leading many who expected absolutely loyalty was serving her. Relinquishing his power to give and provide exactly as he’d promised in the simplest of gestures.
Odd, how hard it was to let go. To let him work the thick lather in a slow, but purposeful massage. To guide her back into the water, rinse each strand clean and repeat it all once more with her conditioner. With every movement—every moment—her certainty solidified. Her trust deepened.
His heart really was hers, and he would undoubtedly move mountains if it meant seeing to her happiness.
She skimmed her fingertips over his taut pecs, eager to give him the same experience. “My turn?”
He shook his head and reached for the shower gel. “Nyet. Tonight is for you.”
The almondy goodness of the gel filled the shower, but its scent was nothing compared to the feel of his hands along her shoulders and neck. The sensuous massage he worked into each stroke, and the erotic glide of the gel and water against her skin.
He took his time. Gave ample attention to every place he touched. Her arms. Her back. Her breasts and ass. Her thighs and shins. Sitting on the built-in bench against the shower’s back wall, he guided her hands to his shoulders for balance and lifted one foot.
An involuntary moan slipped free of her lips, the throaty sound of it reverberating against the glass and tile walls as he work
ed the arch with utmost devotion.
“I love that sound.” His head was down, but the longing behind his words echoed the desire building inside her. “Love the way your body comes alive beneath my hands. The taste of your kiss and the scent of your skin on mine.”
He eased her foot to the floor and repeated his massage on the other. With every second the mood shifted. A sexual awareness creeping into the moment and permeating the thick steam around them. Deepening the bond between them.
His gaze drifted from her foot to her sex, and his fingers hesitated.
Oh, dear God.
If the ravenous hunger on his face matched even a tenth of the determination behind his eyes, she was done for. A pagan offering left standing before a starving heathen god.
He guided her foot to the bench outside his thigh, never once shifting his stare. The hand closest to her anchored leg skimmed up her shin and over her bent knee. His thumb dragged a wicked path along her inner thigh and traced teasing circles just shy of her sex.
“I should not.” He added his other hand to her standing leg. Skimmed his thumb just a hair’s breadth from the seam at the top. “I wanted to give. Not take.” He lifted his head, the clawing lust that drove him setting the icy blue of his eyes on fire.
He’d deny himself. Cheat them both of the gratification that waited if she so much as balked at the idea.
Could she be this bold? Grab on to the instant and take what he freely offered—the physical and what lay beyond it?
You know the truth. Would never have acknowledged who he was to you today if you didn’t.
She trailed her fingers from one shoulder to his neck. Combed her fingers through the loose, damp curls at the side of his head and surrendered to what lay ahead. “Then make it a gift.”
A low rumble rolled from his chest. His fingers squeezed her thighs and his gaze sharpened. An alpha unleashed from his cage. “My beauty.” He lowered his head and kissed the inside of one thigh. “My prize.” He rolled to his knees and nuzzled her swollen clit. “My heart.”
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