The file also stated that in the past—before Gregori Markovic’s marriage six months ago—the two men had often shared women in a threesome, and sometimes in a foursome.
Telling Daisy this man was well out of her league on a physical level.
Growing up with two protective older brothers had pretty much ensured she rarely dated during her teen years, let alone had sex with anyone. She was pretty sure she had joined the army mainly to escape that overprotectiveness, only for her two brothers, one a fireman, the other also in the military and a captain, to put out the word that she was off-limits there too. A few brave souls had dared to take the risk by asking her out on a date or two, but they had never dared to suggest taking it to the next level.
When she had left the army and joined Grayson Security two years ago, it had been with her virginity intact. Now she was aged twenty-five, it was still intact.
Nikolai Volkov wouldn’t give a shit about my two protective older brothers, or my protective ex-army colleagues, if he should decide he wanted me in his bed.
Maybe not, but Daisy’s own sense of self-survival had to count for something where he was concerned. Didn’t it?
“The answer is still no,” she assured him dismissively. “Shall we?” She indicated it was time for them to leave this smelly alley and resume the journey to his apartment.
Having a brooding and silent Nikolai fall into step beside her was a little disconcerting. The grimness of his expression confirmed how unhappy he was with this unexpected situation.
She didn’t envy Gregori Markovic the conversation he would be having with Nikolai later today.
“Why the fuck do I need a bodyguard, Gregori?” Nikolai wasted no time on pleasantries as he strode into the other man’s study later that same day.
“And a good morning to you too, Nikolai,” Gregori drawled, a slight smile curving his lips as he leaned back in his chair to gaze at him across the width of his desk.
He sighed. “Don’t play coy with me, Gregori.”
The other man shrugged. “Miss Redmond carried out Lijah’s instruction to introduce herself to you last night.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Miss Redmond pointed a gun at me last night,” he snarled in response.
“But only after you had pulled a knife on her. Yes, I’ve read her report from last night, Nikolai.” Gregori’s smile widened. “It would seem you’ve been off the streets too long, my friend.”
He leveled his gaze on the other man. “Have you seen Miss Redmond?”
Gregori raised dark brows. “Of course.”
“And?”
“And what?” The other man appeared totally mystified as to his meaning.
“And it would seem being married to Gaia has rendered you blind where the beauty of other women is concerned.” Nikolai gave a disgusted shake of his head.
Gregori chuckled. “I happen to want to keep all my body parts intact, something that would not happen if Gaia saw me so much as glance at another woman. Besides.” He shrugged. “Why would I bother?”
Why indeed? Gaia Miller, now Markovic, was not only beautiful and vivacious, but six months ago, everyone close to Gregori had reason to be impressed with her bravery and the love she had demonstrated for Gregori. More to the point, the couple adored each other and fully deserved the happiness they had found together.
It made it a little difficult for anyone else to be around the two of them when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, but what the hell. Gregori was happy. Gaia was happy.
If Nikolai felt the occasional pang of regret for the loss of the close friendship he and Gregori had once shared, then so be it.
If he occasionally felt a little envious of the happiness his friend had found with Gaia, then that was also his problem, not theirs.
Besides, Nikolai didn’t want to fall in love, let alone get married. Hell, his past and his job made it impossible for him to ever think of having any woman as a permanent fixture in his life.
He certainly didn’t want to have to explain to any woman how he had survived those years living on the streets of Moscow or once he reached London. Or the things he had done in the years since, for that matter. Things a woman would want to know if they intended to stay together.
No, he was pleased for Gregori and Gaia, but that love and permanence wasn’t for someone like him.
That doesn’t explain why I haven’t so much as looked at a woman for weeks, let alone fucked one.
No, it didn’t.
Because Nikolai didn’t have an explanation for that lack of interest, except to know those meaningless nights in bed with a woman no longer held any interest for him.
Until now.
Daisy Redmond was nothing like those beautiful but vacuous women he usually fucked. She wasn’t a model or an actress, or one of those bored wives of the superrich. Instead, she was a fellow warrior, capable of disarming a man, of killing him if the need arose.
And Nikolai had wanted her from the moment he turned and saw her standing at the end of the alley last night, silhouetted in the moonlight and pointing a gun at his chest.
“Do I take it from your remark that you find Miss Redmond attractive?”
“I said she’s beautiful, not that I personally find her attractive.” He frowned his impatience with Gregori’s question coming so quickly on the heels of his having mentally acknowledged he was physically attracted to Daisy Redmond.
In the same way he knew he had only been half joking when he tried to proposition her last night…
At the time, he had convinced himself he was just trying to get a reaction out of her, because he was still feeling slightly wrong-footed about the way in which she had released herself from his hold.
He’d only been fooling himself.
Once they reached the lit foyer of his apartment building, he’d been able to get a closer view of Daisy Redmond. Her hair wasn’t just blonde, it was a mixture of colors, from gold shading through to silver. Her eyes weren’t just green, they were the color of moss in springtime. Her skin was creamy smooth and completely unblemished. As for her mouth…
Nikolai had spent a long time in the shower earlier today, fingers wrapped around and pumping his own aroused shaft until he reached release, just imagining all the things those sinfully full lips could do with and to his body.
Daisy Redmond wasn’t only beautiful, but the knowledge she could disarm and fell a man also made her sexy as hell.
So yes, Nikolai was attracted to her.
There would be something wrong with me, or another woman in my life blinding me to the charms of other women, as Gregori is, if I wasn’t, he told himself firmly.
“She will be joining us later this afternoon,” Gregori now informed him briskly. “As will Lijah Smith.”
Nikolai frowned at mention of the man he had butted heads with several times six months ago. “I thought he was off somewhere getting married?”
“He’s back in the office for just a couple of weeks, dealing with paperwork, and then he’s getting married. Otherwise he might have offered to take on your protection detail himself,” Gregori added mockingly, well aware of the tension that still existed between the two men.
Nikolai chose to ignore the dig. “Are the two of you finally going to tell me what the hell’s going on?” As Gregori’s head of security, Nikolai felt the other man should already have made him aware it.
Gregori eyed him impatiently. “The arrangements I’ve put in place are for your own safety.”
Nikolai didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t like the sound of that at all.
Chapter 2
“You’re proposing that Miss Redmond pose as my lover when we leave for New York in four days?” Nikolai repeated in slow disbelief.
“That’s the plan Gregori and I came up with this morning, yes,” Lijah Smith confirmed mockingly.
Daisy had known about the planned trip to New York—had been looking forward to it, in fact. She’d never been to New Yo
rk.
Lijah had outlined the rest of the plan when she spoke with him earlier today, and she couldn’t say she was any happier about it than Nikolai appeared to be.
Not when the plan required she act as Nikolai’s bodyguard under the guise of being his lover. A lover with live-in and sharing-a-bedroom privileges. A cover the two of them were expected to foster in the days before they all flew to New York by being seen together at the Utopia nightclub and Daisy spending several nights at Nikolai’s apartment.
He narrowed piercing eyes on his employer. “That’s completely unnecessary when we’re taking a full contingent of my men with us to this meeting of the families.”
Daisy knew the “families” were the powerful Russians who now had a foothold in the criminal underworld of all the major cities in the world.
“I would prefer you have someone with you at all times. Night as well as day.” Markovic’s dark eyes met that silver gaze unblinkingly. “Having Miss Redmond pose as your girlfriend will ensure that.”
“Why am I in need of this added protection?” Nikolai snapped his impatience. “Why not you? Or Gaia?”
Daisy wanted to know the answer to that question too. She didn’t just want to know, she was going to need to know the exact threat in order to do her job properly.
“Because I have every confidence in the security you provide for Gaia and myself,” Gregori answered Nikolai dismissively.
“But not in my ability to protect myself, obviously.” Nikolai made no effort to conceal his disgust.
Daisy frowned as she saw the way Gregori Markovic and Lijah exchanged a brief, telling glance. Whatever was going on here, it was obviously serious enough that Gregori and Lijah—and also Dair, as the owner of Grayson Security?—were united in their effort to protect Nikolai. Even if they had to fight the other man in order to do it.
“I trust I may rely upon your silence as well as discretion regarding what you are about to hear, Miss Redmond?” Gregori Markovic, a man of brooding appearance, now leveled his dark and penetrating gaze on her.
Her chin rose. “Of course.” Client confidentiality went along with the job, was part of her employment contract with Grayson Security, in fact. And even if it hadn’t been, Daisy would never discuss any of the details of her work with a third party.
That secrecy in regard to her job was the reason most, if not all, of her friends also worked for Grayson Security. It involved too much lying on her behalf regarding what she did and where she was to have friendships outside the company. Her parents and brothers knew better than to ask about her work.
Markovic turned to Nikolai. “You already know Boris Petrov has taken over as the new head of the Orlov family in New York. What you perhaps don’t know is that the transition has not gone as smoothly as he’d hoped. The rumor is he’s out to prove himself, either before or during this meeting of all the families next week.”
The Russian names Petrov and Orlov sounded vaguely familiar to Daisy; she just couldn’t remember why or from where.
She could tell by the way Nikolai’s hands curled into fists at his sides, his eyes glittering and his jaw tensing, that those names meant something to him too. “Prove how?” he prompted tightly.
“Guess?” Lijah gave a hard smile as he perched against the edge of Gregori Markovic’s desk, probably to take the weight off the knee he’d been shot in only weeks ago. As usual, he was wearing his battered Stetson, a tight dark T-shirt, ragged jeans and scuffed cowboy boots, despite the fact that his clipped and educated voice revealed he was English.
Nikolai’s mouth thinned. “Revenge for Sergei’s death?”
The name Sergei Orlov did mean something to Daisy. Mainly because her employer, Dair Grayson, was now married to Kat, Sergei’s widow. Kat also happened to be Gregori Markovic’s beloved younger sister.
As far as Daisy was aware, Sergei Orlov’s body had been found floating in the Hudson almost a year ago, cause of death a single bullet wound to the back of his head. Implying an execution rather than just a murder.
Which posed the question, was Markovic so concerned for Nikolai’s safety while they were in New York, the home of the powerful Orlov family, because Nikolai was the one responsible for executing Sergei Orlov…?
A shiver ran down the length of Daisy’s spine just imagining the coldness needed to place a gun at the back of someone’s head and pull the trigger.
She had been in several war zones during her years in the army, and had been sent into battle too, had even been forced to shoot someone on one occasion. It hadn’t been in cold blood but out of self-defense. A him-or-her situation. From the little she knew of Sergei Orlov’s death, it had been cold-blooded murder.
And Lijah was now asking her to literally get into bed—at least, as far as the rest of the world was concerned—with the man responsible?
“Don’t believe everything you hear or read, Daze,” he now advised her dryly. “Sergei Orlov died six months ago, not almost a year ago, as everyone believes. And if Nikolai hadn’t shot him, I would have killed the bastard myself,” he added grimly.
“As would I,” Gregori put in with as much, if not more, feeling.
When none of the men added anything else to those two statements, Daisy realized these three men had a history together they didn’t intend to confide in her. “Does any of this have a bearing on what’s happening now?”
“Only in as much as we believe Petrov has chosen eliminating Nikolai as his way of proving his worthiness to lead the Orlov family.” Lijah shrugged.
“Surely this man Petrov knows you would retaliate if he were to kill Nikolai,” Daisy reasoned.
“Of course he knows that.” Gregori frowned. “But even if I were to wipe the Petrov/Orlov family from the face of the earth, it would not change the fact that Nikolai would still be dead.”
Daisy winced as she realized by the intensity of Gregori’s expression that he really meant the “wiping off the face of the earth” comment. He was powerful enough to do it too. “Then why risk taking him to New York with you at all—”
“I do not cower from facing my enemies!” The harshness of Nikolai’s voice was clipped and slightly accented. A reminder that English wasn’t his first language.
And also a testament to how angry he was?
“And that, Miss Redmond, is the reason I have arranged for Nikolai to have his own personal bodyguard, night as well as day, now and while we are in New York,” Gregori bit out in his impatience with Nikolai’s stubbornness.
“Nor do I hide behind a woman’s skirts.” Nikolai turned his glittering gaze on the other two men. “If Petrov wants me, he can come and get me. He will die trying.”
“Petrov is too much of a coward to do his own dirty work.” Lijah grimaced. “And I can’t say I’ve ever seen Daze wearing a skirt. Why is that, Daze? I bet you have a great pair of legs.”
Nikolai breathed out in a sharp hiss. “I see you’re as lacking in gravity as you ever were.”
The other man gave an unconcerned shrug. “What can I say, I’m in love and getting married. You should try it sometime, Nikolai. It might succeed in partially humanizing even you.” He gave him a challenging grin.
“You—”
“Nikolai.” Gregori Markovic’s soft warning was enough to stop the other man from reaching out and physically assaulting Lijah. “This really isn’t helping,” he told Lijah impatiently.
He gave an unrepentant shrug. “Maybe not, but it’s my last chance to bait the bastard before my retirement as head of Grayson Security becomes official next month. Besides which,” he continued in a hard voice, “Daze is one of my favorite people, and if you allow a single hair on her head to be harmed, then you’ll answer to me,” he warned Nikolai.
“The obvious way to achieve that is not to send her to New York with me in the first place.” The Russian glared his displeasure.
Lijah shrugged again. “Dair’s orders, not mine.”
Make that, these four men had a history together they
weren’t willing to talk about, Daisy decided, because Dair was obviously in on this shared past too.
“Maybe as a start you could invite me to go to Utopia with you this evening, Nikolai?” Daisy broke through the rising tension from too much aggressive testosterone in one room together. “It’s members only, so I’ve never so much as been inside the place.”
Nikolai turned slowly to look at Daisy Redmond, not sure if he’d heard her correctly. “Are you seriously thinking of going along with this ridiculous plan?”
She shrugged. “It sounds like an okay plan to me. Not the girlfriend part. Or being your live-in lover.” She grimaced. “But I can handle the protection part, no problem. I did kick your ass this morning,” she reminded as he would have spoken.
“I seem to recall it was another part of my anatomy, and it was your knee you used as a weapon, not your foot.” Nikolai ignored Lijah’s snort of laughter as he continued to gaze at Daisy.
“So it was,” she came back breezily. “Any bruising, by the way?”
He eyed her mockingly. “And if I said there was, is your first task as my lover going to be to offer to kiss—”
“I wouldn’t even go there, Nikolai,” Lijah advised with an indrawn wince. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy seeing you on your arrogant ass, but I almost didn’t make it out alive the last time I said something like that to Callie.”
It was Nikolai’s turn to smile mockingly. “Your fiancée sounds like someone I would enjoy knowing.”
The other man shrugged. “You’ll meet her at the wedding.”
He raised surprised brows. “I’m being invited to your wedding?”
Lijah gave him a long considering glance before answering. “As long as you try not to frighten away any of the other guests with your scowl.”
It was Daisy’s turn to stifle a laugh this time. Whether Nikolai realized it or not, Lijah actually liked him.
She had known Lijah for a couple of years now. He was good at his job and had been completely in charge at Grayson Security since Dair all but retired almost a year ago. But until Lijah met Callie just a couple of months ago, he had also been one of the most taciturn men Daisy had ever met. He had lightened up a lot since falling in love with Callie, but even so, this bantering with Nikolai—even semiserious as it undoubtedly was—wasn’t something he did with just anyone. Nikolai might not realize it, but Daisy could tell Lijah both liked and respected the arrogant Russian.
Warrior Alpha (Alpha 6) Page 2