Had she gone mad? Had the fear and uncertainty of the past three months finally pushed her over the edge? Caused her to imagine things? To hear what she wanted to hear? Or was this just another part of Volkov’s sick game? Tell her lies, give her hope, before ripping that away from her too?
“I can’t do this…” Her knees threatened to buckle beneath her when Dmitri—Caleb?—lowered his head to suckle one of her puckered nipples into his hot mouth, and she felt the rush of juices slick the plumpness of her nether lips. “Stop. You have to stop… Please!” She began to struggle weakly against him, even though she knew it was futile to do so.
His hand easily held both of hers captive as he raised his head to look at her, the hot water streaming over his hair and face and down his body.
He pushed his hair back to reveal that his eyes were no longer cold or pale. The color had deepened to a warm green, with flecks of silver fanning out from the pupil. There was a flush of arousal along his hard cheekbones. His lips appeared fuller, more sensual. “Lena, you have to listen to me—”
“I don’t have to do anything!” She could still glare at him, at least.
“Yes. You. Do.” His lips were back against her throat as he spoke softly, urgently. “Otherwise, you’re going to get both of us killed.”
Was it her imagination, or did his voice sound different? Less guttural? With no accent?
“We’re being watched and listened to right now,” he murmured. “Only the steam and the sound of the shower are preventing Dukakis from seeing and hearing us clearly. But they can still see the outline of our bodies, which is why I’m doing this.” He continued to trail his lips down her throat. “I am going to get you out of here,” he repeated grimly. “Maybe not tonight, but I will do it. What you have to do right now is start looking as if you’re enjoying this.”
His voice was less guttural, with none of the coldness that had struck such fear into her earlier tonight.
Was it possible he really was who he said he was?
Could she, dare she, trust him?
Chapter 6
Lena thought quickly, needing something more, anything to convince her he was telling her the truth. “Release my hands. As a gesture of your goodwill,” she added as he tensed.
“Put your hands on my chest when I do.”
“No!” She shuddered. She had already surrendered too much of herself to this man tonight. If she touched him voluntarily—
“For the love of God, just do it,” he groaned. “We can’t stay in here forever, and I still have a lot to tell you.”
Her heart squeezed in her chest as uncertainty still ruled her. After months in captivity, she was so afraid to trust. To believe she might be offered a means of escape after all. That someone had come for her.
But what if Spiro and Dmitri had concocted this cruelty between them? To torment her further before snatching that glimmer of freedom back, and so leaving her utterly defeated and accepting of her fate? What—
“Hands,” he reminded her as he released her.
Her movements were tentative, slow, as she lowered her arms and placed her palms against his muscular chest. Only to give a gasp as a jolt, not unlike an electric shock, shot down her fingers and along the length of her arm, causing her nipples to tighten and her core to heat.
“Say you trust me now, Lena.”
She breathed raggedly. “I need more proof than that…”
He eyed her impatiently. “What sort of proof?”
“I… Tell me something only I would know.”
It seemed as if he wasn’t going to answer for several seconds, causing a return of Lena’s tension and fear. “Earlier, I tapped Morse code on your thigh. Daniel told me you were the one who taught him how to do that,” he finally whispered against her throat.
Her breath caught in a sob. “He’s alive?”
“And back with Angel—Angela,” he corrected ruefully. “You know Sinclair did this to you and Daniel?”
“Yes.” Lena shuddered as she remembered the shock of realizing Clive Sinclair, Daniel’s own father, was responsible for their abduction.
She closed her eyes as she recalled her car being forced off the road by a black van and into a quiet side street as she was driving Daniel home from school. Their shock as two men emerged from the front of the van, their faces hidden by balaclavas, when they wrenched open the doors before Lena had a chance to press the central lock button. Not that she thought that would have stopped them when they both had guns pushed into the waistband of their jeans.
She and Daniel were pulled from the vehicle kicking and screaming and then bundled into the windowless back of the van. The door was locked behind them, and metal mesh separated them from the driver and his companion.
Daniel had been so frightened, Lena hadn’t dared allow him to see her own fear as she cuddled and consoled him.
When the van stopped some time later, they had been blindfolded and their hands tied before they were half dragged, half carried into a building. Once inside, the blindfolds had been removed and Lena found herself looking into the lust-filled face of Clive Sinclair.
She had never found him a particularly pleasant man to work for, but luckily he was often away on business, so she didn’t see a lot of him. Daniel was adorable, and Angela Sinclair so nice, Lena had been willing to put up with Clive for the times when he was at home. She couldn’t say she was sorry when Angela decided to leave her husband, though, and readily agreed to leave with Angela and Daniel.
Having Clive look at her that day, as if she was a particularly tasty piece of meat he wanted to sink his teeth into, had been one of the worst experiences of her life to date.
She hadn’t realized how much worse they were going to get!
“Did he touch you?”
Lena blinked as she refocused on the man who claimed he was Caleb Knight and not Dmitri Volkov. His eyes now burned with an anger that was barely contained. “No.” She shuddered at the memories. “He was going to, and then…and then he received a phone call and had to leave.”
“Lucky for him.” The man who said he was Caleb not Dmitri nodded grimly. The dampness of his hair trailed across her shoulders and breasts as he kissed her throat. “He’s been arrested, awaiting trial.”
“How do you know all this? How do you know Angela Sinclair?”
“She’s going to marry my brother Gabriel.”
Lena’s head spun with the hope this man wasn’t lying to her. With relief at Daniel’s safety. To this sudden overload of emotions after feeling numb for so long.
Could she really believe this man when he told her he wasn’t Dmitri Volkov but someone who had come here to rescue her?
The guttural accent had completely disappeared in the past few minutes, but were any of the things he’d told her enough to put her trust in what this man was telling her? She had never even heard of Gabriel Knight, this man’s brother, whom he claimed Angela Sinclair was going to marry.
She so desperately wanted to believe him, though… “Even if all this is true, why would you want to help me? You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, so why would you put yourself in danger by coming here to rescue me?”
“My brothers and I run a private security company.”
“So?”
“So Angel came to us when you were abducted. She’s frantic for news of you. Your parents are too.”
She swayed slightly at the mention of her parents. “They know what’s happened to me?”
“Not all of it, no.” Caleb and his brothers had kept the worst of Lena’s abduction from the Roigs. But the couple weren’t stupid, had to know the reason there had been no ransom demand for their daughter’s return, and they hadn’t been able to find Lena since.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. You have Daniel back. Did Mrs. Sinclair or my parents hire you to find me too?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
Caleb wasn’t about to tell her about his obs
ession with her. He knew how his brothers worried about him, how his PTSD attacks, his obsessions, could seem off to some people. He didn’t need Lena thinking he was weird too. “It means no one gets left behind.”
“What…?”
“It’s a military thing,” he dismissed.
Her eyes widened. “You’re a soldier?”
“Was,” Caleb corrected, sensing the indecision, the uncertainty still inside Lena as to whether or not she should trust him.
Not that he could blame her after what she’d been through the past three months. He’d also played his part as a ruthless Bratva very well this evening. He’d had to, for both their sakes. But it was definitely adding to Lena’s wariness now.
She frowned. “Do you have more men coming to help us?”
“Only me.”
She gave a sob. “We’ll never get away, then. Spiro has too many guards—”
“Ten. Plus alarms on the windows and doors, and camera surveillance and listening devices in the house and all over the island.”
“I— You knew all that and yet you still came here?”
“A good soldier does his homework.”
“But if you are Caleb Knight and not Dmitri Volkov, all you’ve done is put yourself in danger too.”
“I am Caleb Knight,” he assured her. “And the men who did this to me…” He touched the scars on his chest. “I wasn’t lying when I said they’re all dead. But they weren’t Russian Bratva, they were Afghan rebels. My brother Gabriel helped me to escape, and then we killed them all.”
“I so want to believe you…” she groaned.
Caleb understood Lena’s hesitancy in trusting him only too well, but they had run out of time for him to convince her he was telling the truth. “We can’t stay in here any longer, Lena. You can either believe me or not believe me, but in a few minutes Dukakis and his goons are going to expect us to go back into the bedroom and have sex— It’s not going to happen,” he assured hastily as she stiffened in his arms. “We’ll get into bed, turn out the lights, and give the impression that’s what we’re doing under the covers. Okay?”
At least Caleb prayed to God that was what was going to happen. His obvious physical response to Lena so far hadn’t exactly been reassuring. Although he seemed to have that under control for the moment.
“In the morning, we’re going to take a walk outside together,” he continued. “I’m going to disable any guards I need to and then use Dukakis’s own helo to get us out of here.”
“You can fly a helicopter?”
“I can fly or drive anything with an engine. Even without an engine,” he added ruefully as he remembered on one occasion he’d had to land a plane that had complete engine failure. “What I need is for you to be strong for just a little longer.”
Her mouth firmed as she straightened. “If it turns out you’re lying to me, I’ll kill you myself!”
He raised his head to grin at her. “You may not get the chance if Dukakis discovers the truth first.”
Her hands clenched against his chest. “Don’t say that, even jokingly.”
Caleb wasn’t joking. But he’d known the risk he was taking when he came here. It was a risk he was willing to take. For Lena.
She was everything, and more, that he had hoped she’d be. So much more than she had looked in those photographs. She was beautiful and brave. A little battered round the edges right now, understandably reluctant to trust, but he knew the fight was still there inside her from the way she’d stood up to him even when she thought he was Russian Bratva.
He smoothed the wet hair back from her face. “We have to get out of the shower now, Lena. Are you ready to do this?”
Was she? Could she pretend to have sex with this man? A man she knew she had responded to even when she had believed he was a cold-blooded killer. He was still an admitted killer, she reminded herself. But as a soldier, not Bratva.
He claimed he was Caleb Knight.
An ex-soldier who had been tortured.
And the future brother-in-law of Angela Sinclair.
If Lena could make herself believe all those things, then she had to also believe he was here to rescue her.
If.
What real choice did she have?
She nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Good girl.” He bent and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“Caleb—”
“Dmitri,” he instantly corrected. “Remember, once we’re out of here, they can hear and see everything we’re doing.”
She shivered. “When— If we get away from here, I want Spiro and his guards strung up by their balls.”
“Ouch.” Caleb winced. “You’re a bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?”
“Where they’re concerned I am, yes,” she stated vehemently.
Although that determination wavered a little once they were out of the shower and had both dried off before going back into the adjoining room. Lena kept a towel wrapped about her nakedness.
She gave a startled yelp as Caleb ripped that towel away before pressing his body against her back, his hands sliding forward to cup her breasts.
It was all part of an act for the people watching them. She realized that, but the knowledge didn’t prevent her nipples from pebbling to aroused peaks. Or Caleb’s cock from engorging with that same arousal as it pressed against the crease of her bottom.
“You have beautiful, responsive breasts.” The guttural accent was back in Caleb’s voice as he squeezed and rolled her erect nipples between fingers and thumbs.
Lena groaned. Only the knowledge they were being watched prevented her from arching her back and pressing her breasts more firmly into Caleb’s hands as she gave in to the pleasure now coursing through her body.
“Did I not tell you that you would enjoy my lovemaking?” He pushed her damp hair aside to kiss and then bite the sensitive skin at her nape.
The taunt and bite were deliberate, she was sure. A reminder to her they were being watched. That this was all an act…
And yet it didn’t feel like an act as the pleasure of having her nipples tweaked and squeezed now bloomed between her thighs. She could feel her nether lips plumping, becoming slick and wet, the clit above swelling into an erect nubbin of need.
One of his hands moved downward, caressing her waist, along her hip, and then causing her to groan as he parted the curls between her thighs and his fingers rubbed over and around her erect clit. “Are you wet for me too?” His other hand continued to tweak and pull on her nipple as his fingers dipped lower still.
Two of them parted her labia before entering her slickness. Those fingers curled upward to stroke against the sensitive knot of nerves inside, his palm pressing and then grinding against her aroused clit.
Lena gave a groan, her back arching involuntarily as she leaned her head back against his shoulder. Her groans became louder as she gave in to the bliss created by those caressing hands and thrusting fingers. It built higher and higher, until she felt herself on the edge of release—
“Shall I finger-fuck you harder and make you come, kotehok.”
The coarseness of his words, along with that Russian endearment—or insult—instantly brought Lena back to her senses. To the reality she was not only being watched but also making a fool of herself by responding to a man who probably only had an erection because it was what would happen to any man when he was holding a naked woman in his arms.
This was an act, damn it, for the benefit of the men watching them. And she had better start remembering that.
Lena pulled his hands from her body before wrenching out of his arms completely and turning to glare at him. “Go fuck yourself!”
“I would rather fuck you.” That pale green gaze roamed over her with mocking insolence before he raised his hand and slowly licked the taste of her from his fingers. “Mm, you taste delicious.”
Her cheeks blazed with color. “Bastard!”
His mouth thinned. “For tonight, at least, I am your ba
stard, Lena.”
“Don’t call me that!” She was shaking in reaction, and more than a little mortified for having responded in the way she had.
It didn’t matter who this man was, Dmitri Volkov or Caleb Knight, when she hated one of them and the other was a stranger to her. He’d touched her intimately, had his fingers inside her wetness. He’d slowly and deliberately tasted the evidence of her arousal on those fingers. Dmitri or Caleb, this man knew what effect he’d had on her.
She’d had two lovers in her life, both during her years at university, and neither of them had any more experience than she did. Whoever this man was, Dmitri or Caleb, he knew exactly how to arouse her body until she forgot everything else but the pleasure he was giving her. Until she ached for more.
“You are mine to call whatever I wish,” he bit out. “And my patience is at an end.” He scowled. “I advise you to get in the bed before I decide to throw you there.”
He was every inch Dmitri in that moment. Cold. Ruthless. Bratva.
Lena kept her wary gaze on him as she slipped between the covers. His long hair was still damp, droplets of water falling onto the muscular width of his shoulders. There was a light dusting of hair on his chest, the muscles clearly defined on his abdomen, with two more arching down to where his engorged cock jutted up and forward. It seemed to throb and grow even longer and thicker, the top moistening, as her mesmerized gaze came to a halt there.
He’s a man, she impatiently reminded herself again, as he climbed into bed beside her. Of course he had an erection after cupping and tweaking her breasts and thrusting his fingers inside her pussy. It didn’t mean he wanted her. It was just a natural reaction any virile man would have to seeing and touching a naked woman.
She breathed a sigh of relief as he turned out the light, only to draw in a gasping breath as he then moved on top of her. He leaned on his elbows to look at her in the moonlight as his hard cock pressed against her mound.
“It’s still me, Lena.” Caleb risked reassuring her softly as his hands gently cupped either side of her face. He had seen the fear in her eyes a few minutes ago and was able to feel her tension now as she lay stiff and unmoving beneath him.
Capturing Caleb (Knight Security 3) Page 5