She chuckled throatily as she took his length fully into her mouth, hearing Ian’s groan as that laugh vibrated along the length of his cock. She slowly raised her head and released him as her other hand cupped gently beneath the tightness of his balls. “Did I do any lasting damage?”
“No,” he choked.
“I’ll kiss them better anyway.” She placed soft kisses against his sac before gently sucking each one into her mouth in turn.
Ian gave an aching groan. “If you carry on doing that, I’m going to come.”
“No, you won’t.” She returned her attention to his straining cock, her circling fingers keeping a firm hold at the base to stop that from happening. “Not until I say so.”
“God, Evie.” He groaned seconds later, his hands tightening in her hair as he lifted his hips and began to thrust into her mouth. “I need— Let me— You’re killing me!” he gasped as she ignored him and continued the remorseless torment. “Don’t stop!” he cried out seconds later as she released him from her mouth with a loud pop.
Evie licked his pre-cum from her slightly swollen lips as she looked at him from beneath lowered lashes. “I’m in no hurry. Are you?”
“No, but— Jesus. It’s been too fucking long to play games with me.”
“I’m not playing games,” she assured him.
He sat forward in the chair to grasp the tops of her arms. “Neither can you go all aggressive on me like that, take me to the edge, and then fucking stop!” His eyes were dark and wild.
She gave a slow and wicked smile. “I thought I just did.”
Ian’s breath caught in his throat as her fingers tightened about his cock once more and began a slow and tortuous stroke along its quivering length, her fingers swirling over the sensitive tip before repeating the movement. Her other hand moved to his bare chest, the tips of her fingers tracing a light and sensuous pattern from one pebbled nipple to the other. It was a barely there touch, but the dual assault was enough to cause his body to tremble and quake and his nipples to tighten in painful arousal.
“Take off your top and bra and let me see your breasts when I come,” he instructed softly.
She gave him a sideways glance. “Didn’t you forget something?”
“Please,” he bit out between clenched teeth.
Her smile was pure seductress as she rose back to her feet and peeled off the overlarge T-shirt. The bra followed, allowing her breasts to tumble free of the lace cups as she slid the straps down her arms before discarding it completely.
Ian pulled her gently forward to stand between his parted thighs, his arms going about her waist as he nuzzled his face against the dip between her breasts. “I love having your mouth on me, but I’ve missed this too.” When they were together before, he had woken on so many mornings with his head resting on the soft pillow of her breasts.
“You knew where I was,” she said huskily, her fingers threading lightly in his hair.
He had always known. He might not have seen Evie for three years, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t hired someone to reassure him on a regular basis that she was well, still living in the same apartment and working at the library.
Some people might consider that interest stalkerish, but Ian had made sure Evie never knew about it. Nor did he attempt to see her again. It was enough for him to know she was safe and continuing with her life.
None of those reports had told him about Trevor Harris. Nor had Ian had any idea how jealous he would feel about there being another man in her life until Harris buzzed up to her apartment earlier.
He had wanted to kill the guy and bury the body where no one would ever find it.
Oh, very civilized, Ian.
That wasn’t a word that ever came to mind when he thought of Evie. Primitive, wild, maybe even caveman, but never civilized.
It was also dog-in-the-manger of him. Evie was only twenty-six years old, and one day she was going to want to be married and have children of her own. Ian thought he had accepted long ago that Evie’s husband and the father of her children wasn’t going to be him.
Dismissing someone who didn’t exist yet had been easy. Tonight he had been face-to-face with the possible reality of that man. Only Evie’s presence had stopped that meeting from becoming a bloody one.
Evie leaned back to look at him. “Are you okay?”
It was the first indication Ian had that he had actually groaned out loud at that realization. “I’m fine.” He nodded abruptly. “Are you going to finish this, or shall I just chalk it up to you having become a major cock tease?”
Evie drew her breath in sharply, her troubled gaze searching the hard lines of Ian’s face. His eyes were once again those glittering dark devil’s eyes. “I think you may have just killed the mood.”
“I think it had already died.” He stood up to move away and straighten and refasten his clothing. “I’m going to watch the end of the movie.” He strode off without looking at her again, and the volume on the TV turned up seconds later.
Leaving a half-naked—and humiliated—Evie kneeling on the floor.
Chapter 8
“If that’s your boyfriend again, I may not be as polite as I was last night.”
Evie felt totally disorientated, both by the hot, naked body curled intimately behind and against hers in the bed, the bare arm thrown about her waist, and the buzz of the intercom for the outer door of the apartment building.
She didn’t know which to answer first.
For one thing, Ian certainly hadn’t been in bed with her when she fell asleep last night. In fact, he hadn’t even glanced her way but continued to watch the movie, after muttering “’Night” in response to her announcement she was going to bed and there were clean sheets and blankets in the cupboard in the hallway.
Nor did she normally receive visitors on a Sunday at the uncivilized time of seven thirty in the morning the digital clock on top of her bedside cabinet said it was. Unless—
“Maybe it’s Adam?” Ian suggested sleepily.
That had been Evie’s own thought.
Until she remembered that Adam had his own key. They had keys to each other’s apartment.
“Are you going to answer that, or shall I?” Ian prompted as the buzzer sounded a second time.
“I am.” Evie threw back the bedclothes before scooting over to the side of the bed and standing. “You might want to put some clothes on while I’m gone,” she advised. “And maybe come up with an explanation as to what you’re doing in my bed.” She left the bedroom without having looked at him.
Looking at Ian first thing in the morning was just too much after their disagreement last night. Besides, she already knew how he would look. Dark hair tousled. Dark eyes drowsily sexy. His cock hard and ready for morning sex.
She’d been there, done that. Had the T-shirt and the commemorative mug to prove it.
Making love to him last night had been a mistake. She wasn’t about to make it worse by repeating the experience this morning.
Ian watched beneath lowered lids as Evie left the bedroom before getting himself out of bed. He pulled on and zipped his jeans before following her. If this was Harris, having thought about the situation overnight and come back this morning to demand an explanation for Ian’s presence in Evie’s apartment last night, then Ian wanted the other man to know he was still here.
He found Evie making coffee in the kitchen area in the nightshirt he had discovered she was wearing in bed last night when he crawled beneath the bedcovers next to her.
She glanced at him before taking a third mug from the overhead cupboard, the nightshirt riding up the bareness of her thighs as she raised her arm. “I’ve folded and put away the sheets and blankets from the sitting room, and your friend Nikolai is on his way up.”
Ian came to an abrupt halt on the other side of the breakfast bar. “Volkov?”
She raised mocking brows. “Do you know another Nikolai?”
No, he didn’t. But he didn’t know this one well enough either
for the other man to be paying him early morning visits. How the hell had Nikolai even known to find him here in the first place?
Evie turned to lean back against the kitchen unit as the coffee started to percolate, filling the kitchen with its ambrosial smell. “I don’t appreciate you telling a man like Nikolai Volkov where I live.”
Ian frowned at the accusation in her tone. Last night, things had quickly gone to hell between the two of them, and he accepted he was to blame for most of that. But he wasn’t about to accept responsibility for something he didn’t do. “I—” He broke off as the doorbell rang. “For the record, I’m not responsible for Nikolai being here. The man is a fucking law unto himself. And for God’s sake, go and put some clothes on while I answer the door,” he snarled.
She raised taunting brows. “For whose sake?”
“Just do it, Evie,” he snapped before marching down the hallway.
Evie didn’t move. She couldn’t move, her legs seeming to be locked in place. And not just because the powerful Nikolai Volkov would very shortly be inside her apartment.
Ian’s hair had been as tousled as she had known it would be. There was also a morning shadow darkening his jaw. But his eyes were hard and glittering rather than warm and inviting. He also appeared to be wearing only his jeans, the zip fastened but the top button left undone, and giving her a tantalizing and mouthwatering glimpse of the top of his engorged and only-just confined cock.
The only thing that finally allowed her to move was that she really didn’t want to still be in her nightgown when she met Nikolai Volkov for the first time.
Ian fastened the top button on his jeans before wrenching the apartment door open to glare at the other man. “What could you possibly want at seven thirty on a Sunday morning, Nikolai?”
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed at Ian’s aggression. The Russian was only an inch or so shorter than Ian, his frame as muscular. His stillness, as he continued to look at Ian with icy-gray eyes—killer’s eyes?—was as unnerving as the predatory grace with which he moved. Ian had only ever seen the Russian in one of the expensively tailored dark suits he favored before today, but the other man appeared no less intimidating in a fitted black T-shirt, black jeans, and heavy black boots.
Ian deliberately placed one of his hands on the doorframe and the other on the door, his message very clear as he filled the space in between. Nikolai wasn’t getting inside until he had stated his reason for being here.
“I advise that you moderate your tone when talking to me, Knight,” the Russian warned softly. “You were the one who came to me for help, remember.”
Of course Ian remembered. Nikolai had been one of several phone calls he had made the previous evening while Evie was taking a bath. “Do you have some information for me?”
Those gray eyes became glacial. “I have some information for Miss Bishop.”
“Anything you have to say to Evie—”
“You can come in and say to me,” Evie spoke from behind him. “Please come in, Mr. Volkov. I’ve just made some fresh coffee. Ian,” she prompted sharply as he still blocked the doorway.
Ian gave the other man a warning glance as he stepped aside and allowed him entry.
“Mr. Knight and I will join you very shortly, Miss Bishop,” Nikolai said evenly once he was inside the apartment.
Ian winced as he saw the angry flush in Evie’s cheeks at the other man’s dismissal in her own apartment. Justified, perhaps, but Nikolai was not the man for her to lose her temper with.
“I’ll go and pour the coffee.” Thankfully, she wisely only shot Ian a baleful glare—what the hell did he do?—before stomping back off to the kitchen.
Nikolai’s expression lightened fractionally as he took in Ian’s bare-chested appearance. “Did I interrupt something?”
“Not quite,” Ian rasped. “But I had high hopes.”
The other man nodded. “I had no idea Adam Bishop’s sister was so beautiful.”
Ian just as wisely didn’t rise to what he was sure was a comment meant to deliberately annoy him. Nikolai was totally in love with and devoted to his wife, Daisy. “You know Adam?”
The Russian’s top lip turned back with distaste. “Unfortunately, I have had reason to…speak with him on occasion at Utopia, yes.” He glanced toward the kitchen. “From the little I have seen of Miss Bishop, it would seem that of the two, she was the one to receive all the balls when they were together in the womb.”
Ian didn’t remember ever telling the other man that Evie and Adam were twins. Which meant, despite being on paternity leave, Nikolai had been doing some investigating of his own since Ian’s phone call the previous day. “I hope you aren’t here to tell her something has happened to her brother.”
The Russian arched blond brows. “As I only intend to have this conversation once, I suggest we join Miss Bishop in the kitchen.”
Ian placed a hand on Nikolai’s arm, refusing to remove it when the other man glanced pointedly down at that hand. “Just tell me Bishop is still alive.” Ian might think Adam was a little shit, but it would break Evie’s heart if anything were to happen to her brother.
Nikolai nodded abruptly. “He is still alive.”
Ian released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He also removed his hand from Nikolai’s arm. “Let’s go and have that coffee before Evie comes looking for us and we both feel the sharp edge of her tongue.”
Nikolai gave a wolfish grin. “She has you pussy-whipped already, my friend.”
Ian’s grimace was self-derisive. “Never think it to look at her, would you.”
“I have learned it is the quiet ones we should be most wary of.” Nikolai’s tone was affectionate as he obviously referred to his wife.
Ian was far from pleased when the two men entered the kitchen area and he saw exactly what Evie was wearing and immediately reversed his previous opinion of her. She did do sexy, after all.
The jeans she was wearing today fit snugly to her hips and legs. The pink vest-top was also figure-hugging and emphasized the curve of her breasts. He scowled his displeasure.
Evie had no idea what the two men had talked about during the few minutes they had remained in the hallway, but the tension had obviously lessened between them by the time they joined her in the kitchen. The focus of Ian’s scowl now seemed to be directed at her.
Nikolai Volkov was as scary as she had imagined he would be. He possessed a predatory stillness that matched the wolf his surname translated to. She also had no doubt his pale gray eyes could turn to ice when he was displeased. But there were also laughter lines beside those cool gray eyes and grooved into the hardness of his cheeks.
“Ian tells me you and your wife recently had a daughter, Mr. Volkov?” she prompted politely as she ignored Ian’s glowering demeanor to hand the Russian a mug of strong coffee, putting cream and sugar on the breakfast bar for him to help himself. She poured coffee into two more mugs and placed one of them on the breakfast bar for Ian.
“Natasha.” The Russian’s expression instantly softened. “She is a month old and the reason for the early hour of my visit. Tasha has her days and nights confused at the moment, and last night it was my turn to stay up with her while my wife slept. Daisy is now awake and rested and has taken over.” He ignored the cream and sugar, as did Ian, both men sipping the black coffee with obvious relish.
Even so, Evie sensed the restlessness coming off Ian in hostile waves as he watched the other man through narrowed lids. Unfortunately, Volkov also sensed that impatience, and he was obviously enjoying himself at Ian’s expense.
“Why don’t you go and put the rest of your clothes on?” She was finding a bare-chested Ian totally unnerving.
“I’m fine as I am, thanks,” he bit out tersely.
“So, Miss Bishop.” The Russian turned to her and ignored the glowering Ian. “It would seem that your brother is currently working for the Romanian mafia. Cezar Fescaru, to be exact.”
“What?” Evie felt her face pale
as she reached out blindly to grasp the edge of the breakfast bar for support.
Volkov nodded. “Your brother is an expert at computer hacking, is he not?”
“He works as a troubleshooter for an online gaming company,” she defended.
The Russian’s expression softened slightly. “He is now using that ability to aid the Fescaru family with their lucrative online scamming business.”
Adam had always been amazing with numbers, and that gift had served him very well when he took a degree in computer science. But what Nikolai Volkov was suggesting was way out of the realm of writing and implementing the computer software for the online games specialized in by the company Adam worked for.
She gave a shake of her head. “I think you have him confused with someone else. Adam isn’t always sensible, but he would never do anything illegal.”
Evie made the statement firmly enough, but was she absolutely sure about that?
Much as Evie loved her brother, she hadn’t thought him capable of putting himself thousands of pounds in debt to the Russian mafia either. Was it so far a stretch to accept he might be doing something illegal to get himself out of that debt?
The scathing expression now on Ian’s face said he could easily believe Adam capable of doing exactly that.
“Fescaru must be forcing Adam to work for him,” she insisted stubbornly.
The Russian gave a shrug of his wide shoulders. “My information says he is…giving his assistance in exchange for the money they loaned him and he is unable to pay back.”
Which, Evie guessed, was Nikolai’s polite way of saying Adam wasn’t being coerced.
Adam asking for Evie’s help had obviously been the very last resort, and the first time, she had refused to help him pay off his debts. To teach him a lesson. Hah. The only lesson Adam seemed to have learned was how to work for the Romanian mafia.
“Where is he now?” she asked.
“I believe Cezar Fescaru operates from a warehouse a mile or so from Canary Wharf.”
“You believe, or you know?”
Enticing Ian (Knight Security 5) Page 8