She made sure the tears were no longer in evidence before turning back to Ian. “How much money does Adam owe these other men?”
Ian gave a shake of his head. “You really don’t want to know.”
She winced. “That much?”
“And then some.” Ian’s investigation into Adam Bishop had been thorough. Very much so. He now knew exactly how much money the other man owed, and to whom, and there was no way Adam Bishop was going to be able to pay any of those men what he owed them. “You do realize there’s a possibility your brother has chosen to disappear? At least for a while. Until he feels it’s safe to return to London.”
“Without telling me?” She shook her head. “He wouldn’t do that to me.”
Ian wished he had the same confidence in Bishop as she did. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. He had never liked the other man, or the way he took advantage of Evie’s love for him, and that opinion had only been confirmed by the things Ian had learned about Adam earlier today.
“Are you satisfied I was telling you the truth now?” he prompted fifteen minutes later as they left Adam Bishop’s empty apartment.
Evie was too numb to know what she felt.
Adam wasn’t at his apartment, and his neighbors said they hadn’t seen him for several days.
Donna, one of the other computer programmers at the company where Adam worked, and someone Evie knew slightly from the calls she occasionally made to her brother’s workplace, also confirmed he hadn’t been into work for three days.
Ian had told her the complete truth.
Which meant she now had to accept he had also been telling her the truth about the money Adam owed.
She had never really doubted him. Ian wasn’t a man who felt the necessity to lie. About anything.
She frowned. “Why did you leave without saying good-bye to me three years ago?”
“What?”
She almost laughed out loud at the hunted look that had appeared in those dark brown eyes. Almost. Because it hadn’t been funny at the time, and it wasn’t funny now, to wake up one morning and realize the man you had fallen in love with had walked out of your life without saying good-bye or giving an explanation as to why he was going.
Evie had gone over the last twenty-four hours she had spent with Ian over and over again. Dissected every word spoken, every kiss and caress, and in none of it had she found the reason for his having left her life so abruptly.
The not knowing why had almost been worse than the fact he had disappeared out of her life so suddenly and completely.
For days, weeks, Evie had hoped, prayed, that he had simply been called away on an assignment for Knight Security, one that he couldn’t tell her about. But as those weeks became months, and there was still no word from him, she’d had no choice but to accept he had gone because he simply hadn’t wanted to be with her anymore. That he hadn’t wanted her.
Something, after feeling the press of Ian’s arousal against her last night as he pinned her to the wall, and seeing the desire that had darkened his eyes to that fathomless black, Evie now knew not to be true either.
And if he thought that by pretending he hadn’t heard her the first time, and pride would hold her back from repeating the question, then he really didn’t know her at all.
Her chin rose, and she looked him straight in the eye. “I asked why you left three years ago without saying good-bye.”
Chapter 4
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Ian should have known, guessed, when Evie went to Utopia alone last night that she was no longer that soft and willing lover he had known three years ago. He should also have realized this harder, tougher Evie was going to demand answers from him in regard to the abrupt end of their past relationship.
He should have known.
And maybe he had.
He just hadn’t expected it to be this soon.
“Well?” she demanded.
Ian frowned his irritation with her determination to get an answer out of him. “Do you really think now is the time or place for this conversation?” They were still standing outside her brother’s apartment building.
She arched challenging brows. “I think it’s a conversation that’s three years overdue, so yes, here and now suits me just fine.”
Stubborn bloody woman.
Ian scowled. “Most women would have avoided the subject like the bloody plague.”
“I’m glad to say I’m nothing like the other women you’ve had in your life.”
No, she wasn’t. She never had been. Ian had known that from the moment he first looked at her.
They should never have met at all, of course. Under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t have. Their worlds were too far apart, Evie’s in books and academia, Ian having served in the army and then worked as a bodyguard in his cousins’ security company the past five years. There was no reason why two such dissimilar people’s paths should ever have crossed.
Except Ian had been one of two bodyguards protecting an author who had written a book certain radical factions had taken exception to, and Evie had been one of the people in the London auditorium attending a lecture given by that author.
Panic and screams had ensued when the first shots rang out, Ian and Liam moving quickly to protect and cover the author as the audience all stampeded toward the door. Including the shooter. Once the pandemonium had stopped, there had been one lone woman still seated in the auditorium.
Evie.
She hadn’t remained seated for long but had quickly stood and made her way to the front of the auditorium, anxious to know if the author she so admired was unharmed.
Liam had already taken their client to the safety of the back of the building, ready for transportation to his home. The police had arrived on the scene minutes later, of course, and taken statements. Evie’s too, as she had chosen to remain behind when everyone else scattered.
Ian had decided, considering it was dark outside and they couldn’t be sure the shooter had left the area, that it would be safer for Evie Bishop if she left with them by the back door rather than the front entrance.
He had been lying, to himself as well as her.
The attraction he felt for her had been immediate. Almost like an electric shock arcing in the air that separated them.
An attraction the fevered glitter in Evie’s eyes, and the sweet aroma of her arousal, showed she reciprocated.
It was unprecedented. Inexplicable.
Ian was in complete bodyguard mode that evening, tense, alert to danger, and ready to take on any threat, with violence if necessary. The complete opposite of what a woman like Evie should find attractive in a man.
Evie was wearing a gray suit and white blouse, with her hair secured at her nape, giving her the look of a schoolmarm. He had learned later that she’d come to the lecture straight from her job at the library. She was the complete opposite of the women Ian was usually attracted to.
All of those things should have meant the two of them didn’t even like each other, let alone feel a fierce and instant desire for each other.
Once the author was safely stashed away in a safe house with Liam that night, Ian had escorted Evie home, and he hadn’t left until the following morning. He had been waiting outside the library for her the following night when she left work. And the one after that. In fact, he had spent every night of the next month with Evie at her apartment.
Being with Evie became an addiction for Ian.
Waiting for her every night outside the library, with her looking so prim and proper in one of those suits when she finally emerged, her whole face lighting up in a smile the moment she saw him. The two of them eating dinner together, talking of everything and nothing. Then they would go back to Evie’s apartment, barely waiting until they were inside and had closed the door on the world before they were ripping their clothes off and falling on each other like ravenous beasts. On the weekends, they hadn’t gotten out of bed at all.
All thos
e things made up Ian’s obsession with her.
He couldn’t remember a time in his life when anyone had been that pleased to see him.
Or any other woman who had actually listened to him and been interested in what he had to say. Most of them just wanted inside his jeans.
As for the desire… No one looking at Evie would ever guess at the amazing body beneath those unbecoming suits, or the raging passion contained in a woman who looked anything but.
Evie wanted to know why he had left without saying good-bye?
Because if he hadn’t walked away when he did, he wouldn’t have been able to leave at all.
“It really shouldn’t take you this long to come up with an answer, Ian.” She mocked his lengthy silence.
Coming up with an answer wasn’t the problem. Giving Evie one she would find acceptable was.
Three years ago, Ian had been a jaded and cynical thirty-two years old. He had been shot at by enemy soldiers, terrorists, kidnappers, and even the occasional disgruntled spouse of a couple of the people being protected by Knight Security. He had faced them all without fear.
And yet the tiny woman standing in front of him had scared the shit out of him.
For no other reason than Evie had managed to worm her way into his emotions.
The moment he realized that, he knew their relationship was over.
He looked at her coldly now. “I didn’t want you anymore.”
Evie felt those coldly spoken words to the depths of her being. Guessing that was the answer and being told it was were two different things. Besides… “You wanted me last night,” she challenged. “When you pushed me up against that wall, I could feel exactly how much you wanted me.”
“The natural reaction of any man to the feel and perfume of an aroused woman,” he dismissed.
Her eyes widened. “I was not aroused.”
“Now who’s lying?” he taunted. “Why can’t you accept it was fun while it lasted, but the attraction had run its course? On my side, at least, it had all become predictable and boring.”
Evie felt every hurtful word as if Ian had stuck a knife into her flesh.
He had found their relationship predictable and boring.
Found her predictable and boring.
Wasn’t that what she had wanted people to think of her, why she had deliberately perfected the art of never drawing attention to herself with her drab clothes and severe hairstyle?
Maybe. But not to Ian. Never to Ian.
Outwardly, she had always done her job to the best of her ability and had never minded working late or covering shifts for other people. She had nothing else in her life anyway, so it hadn’t mattered. She attended the occasional academic lecture. Had dinner with Adam when he wasn’t too busy.
The only time she’d stepped out of that safe zone had been for the month she’d spent falling in love with Ian Knight.
She’d only had to look at him, with those saturnine dark looks and devil’s eyes, to know he was dangerous. An air of danger Evie felt drawn to, like the poor moth to the flame.
She had burned just like that moth too. Inside and outside. Being with Ian had been like being consumed in a hot furnace of desire and passion.
It still was.
“What was it for, Ian?” she challenged bitterly. “Was it a bet between you and your colleague that night at the auditorium? As in, I bet you can’t bed the straitlaced virgin.”
Ian knew how much he had hurt Evie with his words, could see it in the dark depths of her eyes and the pallor of her cheeks. A pain that gnawed at his insides.
That voice inside him—obviously not his conscience—cried out for him to tell her the truth. To admit to his fears, and why they existed.
But he wouldn’t do it.
Because nothing had changed. He hadn’t changed.
“Don’t we have something more important to talk about than the past?” he bit out harshly. “I thought the idea was to try to save that worthless brother of— Don’t.” He grasped her wrist before her hand could make contact with his cheek. “You should never have asked me the question,” he snarled.
“Leave the past where it belongs, you mean?” She was breathing hard.
“Yes!”
“Don’t flatter yourself it was ever anything else. I only asked because I wanted to tie up loose ends and close the door on you for good,” she sneered. “Now let go of my arm and get out of my way.”
His fingers tightened about her wrist. “Tell me where you’re going.”
“Where do you think I’m going?”
Ian glared his exasperation. Evie had always been stubborn, but this went beyond that. “I told you that you can’t just go up to a man like Gregori and accuse him of being responsible for your brother’s disappearance.”
“Oh, I think I can.”
She could, yes. And Gregori was a reasonable man, would no doubt listen to her before throwing her out. Unlike his father before him, who would have had Evie killed for her impertinence without so much as a second thought. Gregori might be less violent than his father, but he was still The Markovic, in control of the bratva of London, a title and kingdom he had been challenged for more than once. He couldn’t afford to show any sign of weakness, least of all to a troublesome librarian looking for the brother who owed Gregori money.
Ian’s fingers tightened about her wrist as he pulled her in close against him. “You’ll start doing as you’re fucking told, or I’ll have no choice but to ensure that you do.”
She stilled except for the quick rise and fall of her breasts beneath that buttoned-up blouse. “And how do you intend doing that?” It should have been a challenge; instead, it sounded like an invitation.
“Oh, I think you know how.” He lowered his head until his lips nuzzled the side of her throat and he breathed her in. “You were right, Evie. I do want you again.” He had never bloody stopped. “Carry on pushing me, and you’re going to find yourself a prisoner in a hotel bedroom for the rest of the weekend. Maybe longer.”
He couldn’t resist the temptation of allowing his lips to caress the length of her throat. Her skin was so silky soft, and she tasted and smelled so good, like sunshine and fresh air, with an underlying heady musk. The perfume of her arousal.
An arousal that was seeping into Ian’s veins and clouding his brain of anything but the need he felt to take Evie to bed and keep her there for as long as it took to rid himself of this hunger. Which he already knew he never would. Control it? Oh yes, he had proved these past three years he could do that, even though at times it had felt as if it cost him his sanity. But rid himself of the hunger completely? Never going to happen.
Evie felt weak at the knees from the torment of having Ian’s lips against her flesh. She pressed her hand against his chest to keep her balance as the heat of his breath caused delicious shivers to run the length of her spine. Her breasts swelled, the nipples tightening inside her bra. Between her thighs was becoming hot and slick with arousal.
“You can’t do this,” she groaned even as her throat arched in encouragement to the rough rasp of his tongue.
“Who’s to stop me?” He bit gently on the lobe of her ear. “It’s Saturday. I’m off duty for the rest of the weekend, and you called the library on the way here and cried off sick for the rest of the day. Your brother isn’t around. No one will even know you’re missing until Monday at the earliest. Probably longer if they think you’re still sick.”
He was right, Evie realized. “Don’t do this,” she groaned achingly. “Can’t you see I need to find my brother?”
“I’ll find your brother. You’ll do as you’re told and stay well out of it.”
He was really starting to annoy Evie with that “do as your told” stuff. She’d lived on her own since she was nineteen years old, had made the decisions for the family long before that. Her father was incapable most of the time, and Adam wasn’t interested. Consequently, she wasn’t accustomed to being told what to do. By anyone. Least of all the man who
had walked out on her three years ago because she was predictable and boring. If she gave in to Ian’s dictate now, then she would only be confirming that lack of character.
It wasn’t easy, but Evie managed to push against Ian’s chest and step back. As far as his grip on wrist would allow, at least. “Thank you for your kind offer.” She gave him an insincere smile. “But I’m sure I can manage on my own.”
“The only thing you’ll manage on your own is to annoy the hell out of someone and get yourself killed.”
“That’s a risk I’ll have to take.”
It was a risk Ian wasn’t willing to let her take.
“What are you doing?” Evie protested as Ian bent down and threw her over his shoulder, carrying her as if she were a sack of potatoes rather than a woman. He pressed the button on his keys to unlock the doors as they approached where he had parked his car earlier. “Ian!” she gasped as he opened the door before lowering her into the passenger seat and strapping her in.
His face was very close to her own. “I’m very angry right now,” he said softly. “So you might want to stop being argumentative for the next few minutes, at least.”
She licked the dryness of her lips as she saw how dark and dangerous his eyes were. “What happens if I’m not?”
He gave a hard smile. “You’ve never seen me when I’m really angry.”
“I haven’t?”
“Irritated. Impatient. Maybe mildly pissed. But angry? No.”
The grim tone of Ian’s voice and the leashed tension in his body were both enough to warn Evie his mood was balanced on a very fine edge. That it could go either way in the course of a single second. On one side lay safety in her silence. On the other lay a fury so immense, she might never recover from it.
And if I give in to him now, I’ll lose my self-respect and every ounce of credibility in his eyes.
She nodded. “I will agree to remain silent. But on one condition,” she added firmly as he would have straightened.
“Which is?”
“You take me back to my apartment, not a hotel.”
Enticing Ian (Knight Security 5) Page 4