by Lora Leigh
She wasn’t frightened of the other woman. She was wary of her; she had no doubt Elizaveta considered her the enemy. But from what Amara had told her and what Journey had seen for herself, Elizaveta’s loyalty to Ivan was absolute.
Brushing her hair back from her face, she slipped into the glass-enclosed patio room and back into the living room beyond it, aware of the bodyguard following her.
Thankfully, Ivan wasn’t waiting for her, and rather than asking where he was, she continued through the house to the guest room he’d shown her to earlier. The room wasn’t as nice as the Colorado estate; it was more impersonal but comfortable. Not that comfort was going to help her much now. And she sincerely doubted it would help her much later.
And once he joined her, she wouldn’t give a damn; of that she was certain.
* * *
Ivan heard the conversation between Elizaveta and Journey, never revealing to his cousin that she hadn’t fully disengaged the comm link when she tapped it. She’d only disengaged the audio on her end.
At Journey’s statement that she’d wanted to ask for his help, he poured himself a drink. When she told Elizaveta she had wept for them, her voice resonating with grief, he’d tossed the drink back and poured another.
He’d have to discuss this with his cousin. Even he acknowledged long ago that his war with the Taites had no bearing on the youngest child. Had he found her before she arrived in Colorado, he had no doubt he would have tried to help her. She wasn’t to blame, no more than Amara was to blame for his crimes or his actions.
Once he’d seen her, had been foolish enough to touch her as he had in Colorado, he’d known he’d have to find a reason to keep her for a while though. That fact that someone was trying to kill her only enraged him. Just as he knew there were very few plans that would reveal what Stephen and Craig Taite would gain from her death.
There was no doubt they’d gain something. Once he’d begun asking questions last night and tapping a few sources he had outside the Elite Operations unit he worked with, he’d learned the Taite men had been up to some very interesting games.
There were already dozens of guards at the prison on their payroll, as well as the stronger of the prisoners. Until the unit had managed to put a stop to it, prostitutes were being brought in regularly; a few hadn’t made it out alive.
It was their secret visitors who intrigued him though. The men, many foreign nationals and unidentified, were being slipped in for long meetings with the two men. Ivan had learned several of the prisoners he had on his own payroll had turned against him, as well, and were now providing the two Taites with information they gained from within his organization.
For the moment, he was allowing them to live. He needed them. They’d provide the perfect vehicle to bring the information to Stephen and Craig that Journey was sleeping in his bed. That the daughter Craig had so hoped to use as a bargaining chip with Beauregard Grant was no longer his to use.
From what he’d learned though, the assassins looking for Journey weren’t theirs. There had been no order to kill her, and according to the few trusted sources he still possessed, Stephen and Craig were still hoping for a marriage between Beau and Journey.
That left far too many unanswered questions. He’d assume he could be wrong about the Taites and they were behind the order, because he couldn’t come up with any other source who would benefit from her death. He’d put out an order for information from other sources though, those within the Elite Ops and several outside it.
Which was why he was sitting in his office watching through the security monitor as Journey entered her bedroom alone. Because the sources he’d gone to within the Ops had done as he knew they would: contacted the one man who could throw a wrench in all his plans.
Jordan Malone, husband to the cousin desperate to find Journey and provide her a safe haven.
He couldn’t allow that. If she was taken from him, there would be no way to learn who was trying to kill her, and no way to push the Taites into revealing their ties within his organization or their part in the last attempt to murder Amara.
There was no doubt they were involved. The interrogation of the assistant district attorney had provided that information. Andru, the trusted servant they knew as Danny, had been on the Taites’ payroll for years before his own brother, Alexi, had killed him when he’d managed to attack Amara in her own home.
As he refilled the glass from the bottle he’d placed on the table, his attention was drawn to the low ping of the computer. The notice of an incoming video call had a grimace pulling at his lips. Bastards couldn’t use a goddamned phone anymore. Everything was video, revealing a man’s expression unless he controlled every nuance of it.
There were times when a phone was far preferred.
Hitting a button on the keyboard, he watched as the video screen opened, revealing Jordan Malone and his wife, Tehya.
“Hello, Red,” he drawled teasingly, focusing on Tehya’s features. “Tell me you’re tired of putting up with that bastard beside you and I’ll rescue you immediately.”
Her green eyes, so like Journey’s, flickered with amusement as her husband scowled back at him.
“As I hear it, you have your own redhead in residence, Ivan,” Jordan growled, causing his wife’s gaze to chill and the amusement to disappear. “That true?”
Ivan frowned as though confused. “I’m partial to redheads,” he admitted as though uncertain of the direction of the conversation. “Why?”
“Is it Journey?” Tehya wasn’t one for beating around the bush, it seemed. “If it is, get her ready to leave, Ivan, because I’m coming for her.”
That amused him. He really didn’t think he was going to allow that to happen.
He leaned forward on the desk, placing his folded arms atop it as he glared at both of them. “If I had Taite’s brat she’d already be on her way to you,” he snarled, not really lying. Journey was no brat, just a temperamental little hellion when she wanted to be.
Jordan’s sapphire blue eyes met his wife’s before he turned back to the screen. “The men we have searching for her tracked her to Boulder, then to California under the identity of Ellen Roberts. They glimpsed two of your men in the same vicinity just before Ms. Roberts disappeared.”
What an enterprising little thing his Syn was. Even he was unaware of that identity.
“I can assure you, Jordan, I haven’t heard that name before and I have no one named Ellen Roberts here. I’m in town for business and had received a report from the team your men glimpsed that they may have found Ms. Taite in Nevada City, but I haven’t heard back from them yet. I called in a few sources within the Ops unit to track down any rumors that the Taites had found her. I assume that’s why you’ve called.”
Tehya’s expression dropped as Jordan grimaced in regret.
“I was hoping you’d found her,” the other man said regretfully. “Our men reported sighting another group, heavily armed, that seemed to be searching for her too. It sounds as though her father is tired of waiting on her to marry Grant and may have decided to just kill her.”
That was his assumption as well, Ivan thought, but he knew he couldn’t depend upon it, just in case there was another enemy in play.
“Not according to several secure sources I have within the federal prison they’re being held in,” he revealed, watching the interest that darkened the other man’s eyes. “The team I have tracking the girl reported the same group as well, but the information I received tonight says the Taites are still talking a possible marriage to Beauregard Grant. There’s not been so much as a whisper of anything more threatening.”
Jordan’s expression turned thoughtful. “I’ll check a few of my contacts outside the Ops and let you know what I hear. Maybe between the two of us we can come up with an answer. I have a feeling she’s in a hell of a lot more trouble than she knows or we’re guessing.”
Ivan nodded, then asked about their small family. Several minutes were spent discussing more mundane is
sues before he excused himself from the conversation saying that he had a few more matters to deal with before turning in. There was a certain flow to their normal conversations that Ivan made certain to keep intact. Jordan was a highly suspicious man, as was his wife, and rousing those suspicions at the moment wasn’t something he wanted to do.
Once the video call was disengaged he finished his drink, rose from his seat, and made his way from his office to the guest room where he’d taken Journey the night before. Opening the door, he stared into the dimly lit room, aware that she’d left the bathroom light on, the door partially opened.
She didn’t sleep well in the dark. He’d begun to suspect that in Colorado as he passed her door each night and caught the faint light from beneath it at all hours. She preferred to be able to see past the shadows, while Ivan lived within the shadows.
She was stretched out on the bed, dressed in the white silk pajamas Elizaveta had bought for her that morning, her head pillowed on her arms as she slept. She looked like a fucking teenager and made him feel like a depraved pervert. The things he wanted to do to her would erase that innocence for all time, he knew. And the thought of doing them had his cock pounding in lust.
He’d been hard since the second he and Ilya had grabbed her on that dark street in Boulder. That hunger hadn’t abated either. But it was doomed to remain unsatisfied tonight because he couldn’t bring himself to wake her.
She’d been pale all day; the fact that she was exhausted wasn’t lost on him. She’d fought to stay one step ahead of three different teams searching for her for a month, and it was sheer luck that he’d found her first.
The information that someone wanted her dead would haunt her now, and he knew it would take time to digest. Unfortunately, he had a feeling they might not have enough time for her to fully comprehend it.
Stepping into the room, he collected a throw blanket from the chair next to the bed and placed it over her, careful not to wake her. He’d let her sleep tonight; tomorrow was soon enough to begin the game he was carefully putting together. A game that would increase the danger for a while perhaps but would ultimately see her safe and her father and grandfather eliminated. Their deaths would be her only assurance of safety. They may not have put out the order to have her killed, but they were no doubt the reason for it.
“Ivan?” She came awake as the blanket settled around her, sitting up and staring at him in surprise. “Is something wrong?”
She pulled the pale peach cashmere throw over her breasts, but he’d glimpsed her hardening nipples beneath the material of the silk tank. He restrained his smile, staring down at her, wondering why in the hell this woman seemed to sink so deep inside him.
“I was merely checking on you before turning in.” He sat on the edge of the bed as she propped herself against the headboard. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She shrugged at the comment. “It’s not your fault. I don’t sleep well anyway.”
Unable to stop himself, he lifted a hand, moving slowly, and reached out until he could run his knuckles down her cheek. Soft, warm silk.
“You need to rest,” he told her, lowering his hand to brace it against the bed. “And eat. You’re letting yourself get run-down, Syn.”
She almost rolled her eyes. He knew that look. It was one Amara tried on him often.
“You’re obsessed with my health for some reason.” The light amusement in her tone pulled a small grin to his lips. “I’m a redhead. We’re naturally pale.”
No, she’d been naturally pale in Colorado last month. This was different and it concerned him.
“Perhaps,” he murmured rather than arguing with her.
She was more relaxed than normal right now. She leaned back on the pillows propped against the headboard and watched him with those slumberous, witchy eyes. A little sleepy, a lot sensual, like a kitten contemplating whether or not to awaken enough to cause havoc.
“You should have had six kids and a wife who made your knees shake when she frowned at you.” She grinned. “You worry too much about others.”
He hid his surprise. That was something few saw, and even fewer recognized.
“I was barely thirteen when the woman my father brought to me conceived Amara,” he told her, the memory no longer as bitter as it had once been. “He couldn’t control me with his fists, so he thought to control me by other means. He succeeded. For a while.”
The amusement eased from her expression, and he regretted that.
“I’m sorry…” she began.
“Amara was not the perfect child you seem to think she was,” he chuckled, hoping to bring that smile back to her face. “From the moment she could crawl, she was like that battery bunny on television. There were six of us watching out for her, and together, we could barely keep up with her.”
Journey watched him doubtfully now, but the amusement was returning.
“Amara?” she questioned him suspiciously.
“I swear it.” He placed his hand on his heart as he grinned back at her. “She made a game out of driving us crazy, especially after we came to the states.”
Before, while in Russia, fear had kept her contained. She’d known fear from a very young age, and the memory of that threatened the pleasant atmosphere he was attempting to project.
“I so admired her as a child,” Journey said then. “For a few months, we attended the same boarding school in England. We didn’t really meet while there, but I remember seeing her around. She was always smiling, and so proud of her poppa.”
He grimaced at that. “I try often to forget you’re closer to her age than you are mine. Only two years separate you and Amara.”
She shrugged again, and the expression that crossed her face had his dick throbbing. Sensual, a little teasing, feminine and mysterious.
“That ball, where you asked me to dance?” she said softly. “I was quite smitten with you afterwards. I watched for you at each ball after that.”
“And I noticed you watching me,” he admitted, leaning closer, one hand bracing on the mattress at her hip, the other stroking up her bare arm. Skin as soft as silk, warm, and so incredibly soft. “What you didn’t see was the way I watched you, love. The year you turned eighteen, I found myself unable to not watch you. To want you.”
Journey stared back at Ivan, uncertain if she’d heard what she knew she’d heard.
“You don’t have to lie to me,” she whispered. “I don’t need fairy tales, I told you.”
His hand cupped her neck, his fingers callused, warm against her flesh as he leaned closer, his lips touching hers as he whispered, “We all need a little illusion in our lives sometimes, my sweet Syn. The fact that my dick stays hard for you is no illusion though.”
Her breath caught, her lips parting as he pulled her to him, his tongue slipping past to stroke against hers, to stoke the need for his touch, his possession, higher. Reaching for him, her hands met the fine cotton of his shirt, the heat of his body diffused by the material. She needed that heat. The warmth of his body. His touch.
She felt as though she’d been cold forever, and when he held her, heat flushed through her, flames raced over her. And she loved it. She needed it.
She ached for it.
Her hands pushed beneath the parted edge of his shirt, her fingertips meeting hot, male flesh as his lips slid from hers to caress her neck.
The sensations … Oh God. It was like his lips awakened nerve endings she hadn’t known existed. The pleasure raked from the point his lips caressed to echo through her body, tightened her nipples and sent heated moisture spilling from her vagina. The sheer eroticism and carnal hunger in each touch, each stroke of his lips and tongue, mesmerized her, pulling her deeper into the chaotic tempest he was building inside her.
As her head tipped back, allowing him greater access to the sensitive flesh, the jarring ring of his cell phone had a moan of denial slipping past her lips.
“Fuck!” Ivan’s curse was rough, a broken growl as he pulled back from h
er, their gazes meeting as she opened her eyes and stared up into the stark hunger in his gaze.
“Goddamn it,” he snapped, moving back from her. “I’ll be right there.”
Flipping the phone closed, he shoved it into the pocket of his slacks and blew out a hard breath as his expression turned rueful. “This will take a while, baby…”
She quickly shook her head. “Go…” She gave a restless little wave of her hand. “I need to sleep.”
She needed to think. She needed to decide what she had to do without sex complicating the issue. Because she couldn’t say no to the pleasure, to the pure ecstasy of his touch.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” he promised, rising from the bed. “We have to discuss this.”
“I know.” Her hand clenched in the blanket that had pooled along her waist. “In the morning.”
His expression turned somber, determined with a hint of the pure arrogant nature of the man himself.
“Get some sleep, love,” he said softly. “We’ll figure it all out quickly, I promise.”
With that, he strode to the door, slipped from her bedroom. Dropping her gaze to her hands, she realized she was once again running her thumb over the scar on the opposite hand. The cigarette burn had been deep, the embers held to her skin for long moments as her father stared at her with cruel purpose as her grandfather held her hand still with bruising force.
Because as a sixteen-year-old, she’d been unable to hide her complete fascination with the tall, dark Russian who had spoken to her, had invited her to dance and teased her gently. Not sexually, but with a mature man’s knowledge of a young girl’s complete discomfort. He’d felt sorry for her, she’d told herself over the years. But in those moments he’d stolen a part of a young girl’s heart. And over the years, he’d sealed her fascination of him.
Once, she’d dreamed of having a moment in time, a chance to know his touch, his laughter and strength. She’d never dreamed of happily-ever-afters, but she had dreamed of stolen moments, stolen kisses, and passion exploding out of control.