Evie felt an equally icy shiver run the length of her spine at the unmistakable threat behind those words.
But she was too happy to have Adam alive and well and leaving with them to be too concerned with how Cezar Fescaru or Gregori Markovic felt about it.
She had a feeling she was going to hear enough of that from Ian.
Chapter 13
“Not a single fucking word,” Ian warned between clenched teeth as Evie would have turned in the passenger seat of his car and spoken to him.
A warning Evie had no intention of listening to when she required answers to several questions. “Why is Adam in the car with Gregori Markovic and not us?” She kept her gaze fixed on the two limousines ahead of Ian’s car, their windows darkened so that the occupants couldn’t be seen. But she knew exactly who was in both those cars.
Gregori Markovic, Adam, and two of the bodyguards were in the first car; Nikolai, Ethan, and the other two Markovic bodyguards were in the second one. Ian hadn’t consulted Evie or anyone else before putting her in the passenger seat of his own car and getting in behind the wheel.
Ian glanced at her. “Do you ever listen to anything I or anyone else says to you?”
“Of course I listen—”
“And then go ahead and do whatever the fuck you please,” he bit out disgustedly. “Well, it stops now, Evie. All of it. Before you get yourself or someone else killed.”
“I only wanted Adam back.”
“And he was perfectly happy where he was.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No?” Ian glanced at her. “Didn’t his reluctance to leave pretty well take care of that?”
Evie’s cheeks warmed at the derision in his tone. There was no denying Adam had been reluctant to leave. In fact, he had been furious with Evie for interfering. “He owes Fescaru money. He was probably frightened there would be reprisals if he left with us.”
“Oh, there will most definitely be reprisals,” Ian assured her softly.
She eyed him warily. “Are you saying that Gregori and Nikolai intend—”
“The reprisals won’t be on Adam.”
“Then who— Me?” She eyed him warily.
“You,” Ian confirmed grimly.
“Gregori and Nikolai are going to punish me for wanting to save my brother?”
“No. I am.”
“You— Where are they taking Adam?” she demanded, turning to look at the two limousines as they took a turn to the left and Ian kept his car on the main road. “Ian?”
“Adam has to remain with Markovic for a while. It has to be this way, Evie,” he snapped as she frowned.
“Why does it? Are they going to hurt Adam?” she added anxiously.
“Gregori told Fescaru that Adam works for him. It was the only way he could request his release. Now Adam has to stay with them for a while to corroborate that claim. And no, I don’t believe Gregori has any intention of hurting your brother.”
It made a certain sense to Evie. Nevertheless… “So we got Adam away from the Romanian mafia and gave him to the Russian bratva instead.”
“You didn’t get him diddlysquat, Evie,” Ian snapped. “The two of you would still be guests of Cezar Fescaru if it had been left to you.”
That also was true. “I haven’t thanked you yet for what you did. I know you must have been responsible for involving Nikolai and Gregori.”
“You can save the thanks for later.”
“Later? But— You missed the turnoff to my apartment!” This time she turned to look at the road they should have gone down but hadn’t.
“Because you aren’t going to your apartment.”
“Why aren’t I?”
Ian sighed his impatience with her continuous questions. “Because your actions today also brought you to the attention of the head of the Romanian mafia. He only let you and Adam go because Markovic pressured him into doing so. But that doesn’t mean Fescaru has to like it. In fact, I know he didn’t.” Ian wasn’t going to forget the look of murderous rage in Fescaru’s eyes in a hurry. “Consequently, you can’t return to your apartment yet or be left unprotected either.”
“So are you taking me to a hotel?”
“You would be no safer there than in your own home.”
“So where are you taking me?”
He gave a hard smile. “For the moment, you will be staying at my apartment with me.”
“Your apartment?”
“Yes,” he bit out, hearing how surprised Evie was by his answer.
None of their nights together three years ago had been at Ian’s apartment. By his design. Ethan had been right earlier; Ian didn’t invite people to his apartment.
Evie shook her head. “In that case, I’m going to need to pack some of my personal things to take with me. If you could just—”
“No.”
“I may not have been Fescaru’s prisoner for very long, but I still need to wash the feel of that place off me and change my clothes.” She gave a shudder.
“You can take a shower at my place.”
“And wear what?”
“You can walk around fucking naked for all I care— We’ll pick up some of your stuff tomorrow,” he relented as she gasped. “For the moment, I have T-shirts, sweats, and a spare robe you can wear. After which you and I are going to discuss those reprisals I mentioned in greater detail.” Not only had Evie put her own life in jeopardy but those of everyone who had been at that warehouse today.
It was time for her to learn her actions had consequences.
Evie couldn’t deny her curiosity to see Ian’s apartment. He had never invited her there in the past. It had been as if it was some hallowed place, his own personal space, and no one was allowed to intrude. She had assumed because it would reveal too much about the man himself.
Except it was the complete opposite.
Admittedly, it was on the penthouse floor of a luxury apartment building, implying he had some serious wealth behind him. But inside, it was more like some high-class hotel suite than someone’s home.
Everything was minimalist, from color to furnishings. The color scheme was gray and white throughout, the furniture square and modern, with impressionist paintings on the walls. There were no ornaments or photographs anywhere. The kitchen was equally as impersonal, everything gray or white again, with chrome appliances. Everything was neatly in its place, as if no one lived here. Certainly not Ian.
It was all a characterless blur of blah, and totally unlike Ian, who she knew to be a mass of surging and extreme emotions beneath his often silent exterior.
“You can use the bedroom second door on the right,” he told her. “It has an adjoining bathroom if you would like to take that shower now. I’ll make sure there’s some clothes in the bedroom for you to wear when you come out.”
Evie needed something to eat and drink as much as she needed to shower. It seemed like a very long time ago since the coffee and toast she’d had for breakfast this morning after Ian left her apartment. She’d had nothing to eat or drink since then, just a lot of adrenaline surging through her bloodstream.
“I’ll make coffee and something to eat while you’re gone.” Ian seemed to read her thoughts. “You’ll find soap and shampoo in the cupboard under the vanity unit.”
Evie eyed him warily, finding his attitude too pleasantly reasonable after his threat in the car. It made her feel uneasy, as if there was a storm brewing on the horizon but it wouldn’t break until Ian was ready to let it do so.
Even so, she couldn’t resist looking into the other rooms as she walked down the hallway to the bedroom and bathroom Ian had said she could use. The first room on the right was a study, but again it had modern furniture and very little character, and the top of the pine desk was completely bare.
The first open door on the left was obviously Ian’s bedroom.
Well, maybe not so obviously, as the décor was still that gray and white, but unlike the other rooms, there were a few things in there that ma
rked it as being inhabited. A shirt lying over the back of the bedroom chair, and a pair of black shoes tucked beneath it, and a pair of gold cuff links on the dresser.
There was also a photograph on Ian’s bedside cabinet.
The rest of the apartment was so noticeably bare of all photographs, this one and the placement of it marked it as being significant.
She could only see the back of the photo frame, so she had no idea what or who it was a photograph of. But obviously there was someone or something he wanted to be the last thing he saw at night and the first he would see in the morning.
Ian had kissed and made love to her several times in the past three days, and Evie had assumed he wasn’t involved with someone. But what if he was? What if she had been falling in love all over again with a man who was involved with someone else?
“What the hell are you doing?”
She turned in the doorway with a guilty start, her heart pounding as she saw the coldness of Ian’s expression at finding her literally gawping into the privacy of his bedroom. “I— Er, so much has happened today, I forgot which bedroom you said I could use.”
“Really?”
Evie winced at the lack of conviction in his tone. Deservedly so. She had known exactly which bedroom she was supposed to use but had allowed herself to be tempted by the open door of what she had realized was Ian’s bedroom.
In the expectation of perhaps being given some insight into a man who seemed even more of an enigma to her now than he had in the past. Today was an example of that. Ian was obviously responsible for Gregori Markovic’s intervention with Cezar Fescaru, and yet there was no gladness in him for that rescue having been successful. Only that burning anger that threatened to spiral out of control if she said or did the wrong thing.
Such as invading the privacy of his bedroom…
“Really,” she confirmed evenly.
Ian put him arm across the doorway, blocking her way as she would have continued down the hallway. “If you would rather share my bedroom, then just say so.”
Evie cheeks heated as she looked into challenging and mocking dark eyes. “No, thank you,” she answered primly. “But I would appreciate the loan of the clothes and robe.” And to have him move out of her way.
Because the heat of him and that spicy male musk were having their usual effect on her senses. Her heart was beating far too rapidly, and she could feel a nerve pulsing in her throat. Her cheeks also felt far too warm, her gaze feverish.
He stepped aside. “Coffee and food in fifteen minutes.”
“Fine.” Evie kept her head down as she walked past him and down the hallway to the guest bedroom on trembling legs. She closed the door behind her before leaning thankfully back against it, breathing out a sigh of relief at being away from all that brooding male intensity.
How was she supposed to stay here, no matter what the reason, when Ian’s anger was a living, breathing vortex of emotion?
He wasn’t giving her a choice, had told her she was staying here. End of subject. Well, they would see about that, but first she needed to wash away the feel and memory of being at Cezar Fescaru’s uncertain mercy, even if it had been only for a few hours.
She at least felt cleaner after the shower and washing her hair, emerging from the bathroom to find a black T-shirt and gray sweats plus a black toweling robe lying on the bed. Evidence that Ian had been into the bedroom while she was in the adjoining bathroom.
Not that she imagined he’d been sent into a haze of lust at the thought of her naked in the shower. Ian’s attitude toward her since this morning had been far from lover-like.
The T-shirt reached halfway down her thighs, but she didn’t bother wearing the sweats after discovering they were far too big, even tied tightly about her waist and with the bottoms of the legs turned up three or four times. The robe also swamped her and reached almost down to her ankles. She had to turn the sleeves back half a dozen times before her hands became visible. But the robe was warm, and she wasn’t about to join Ian in the kitchen wearing only the T-shirt.
He turned from the hob when she entered the kitchen a few minutes later, his gaze sweeping over her from her head to her bare toes before he turned back to whatever it was he was cooking. “Help yourself to juice and coffee. The omelet and toast will be ready in a few minutes.”
Evie continued to watch him as she sat down gingerly on one of the chairs around a table that was already laid with cutlery and napkins for two people. There was also the promised pot of coffee, along with a jug of fresh orange juice. Evie poured some of the latter into her glass before drinking it down in one thirsty swallow. After which she filled both glasses, and then the coffee cups, before glancing back to where Ian was still working in front of the hob.
This was the second time he had cooked for her, and the half a huge stuffed omelet he turned onto a plate before placing it in front of her and then bringing over a rack of toast and some butter looked and smelled as delicious as the spaghetti Bolognese he had made the previous evening.
Ian wished he could say that his temper had cooled while Evie took a shower. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. He had only to think of the what-ifs and what could have happened earlier for his rage to build to epic proportions.
He couldn’t even look at Evie right now without wanting to pick her up and shake her for having behaved so recklessly, despite his warnings. She needed a lesson in how to start listening, to accept that he knew what he was talking about when it came to men like Cezar Fescaru.
It would have been better if she didn’t look so much like a child playing grown up in his overlarge clothing. But ultimately it made no difference to what had to happen once they had eaten.
“Eat,” he instructed tersely as he brought over his own plate with the second half of the omelet on it and sat down opposite her at the table.
“Ian—”
“I said eat,” he rasped, picking up his own fork and cutting into the steaming-hot omelet.
The two of them ate in silence for several minutes before Evie attempted to speak again. “Ian, I just want—”
“For some strange reason, I really don’t give a damn what you want,” he taunted. “Now eat the rest of your damned omelet before it gets cold.”
Evie placed her fork carefully down on the side of the plate, having eaten only half the omelet. The churning of her stomach told her she wasn’t going to be able to eat any more until they had gotten this promised conversation over with. “I can’t eat with you sitting there quietly fuming at me.”
He eyed her coldly. “Would you rather I fumed loudly?”
“Yes.” She pushed her chair back noisily as she stood up. “I know what I did was wrong. I know it could so easily have had a different outcome. But you sitting there punishing me with your silence isn’t making it any better.”
He gave a hard and derisive laugh. “I haven’t even begun your punishment yet.”
Evie stilled, her knuckles showing white as her hands tightly gripped the back of her chair. “What do you mean?”
Ian finished the last two bites of his omelet and took a drink of coffee before answering her. “I get that your mother died when you were young, that your father was an alcoholic, and your brother was too weak a character to take on the role as head of the family. I get all that and the reasons for it. But it’s given you too big a sense of your own capabilities. The belief that you can reason or charm your way out of any situation or difficulty.”
She shook her head. “That isn’t true. I’ve never thought that.”
“Yeah, you have,” he confirmed wearily. “There’s nothing wrong with either self-confidence or independence.” He stood up to clear the plates and condiments off the table. “Until one or both of them almost gets you killed.” He straightened. “So, table or chair?”
Evie blinked at this sudden and illogical change of subject. “Sorry?”
“Table or chair,” he repeated grimly. “Because in a few seconds, I assure you you’re going
to be bent over one of them while I spank your ass for you as a physical reminder to never put your life recklessly in danger ever again.”
Chapter 14
Evie gaped at him. “You have got to be kidding me!”
Ian met her outraged gaze unblinkingly. “Do I look as if I’m kidding?”
The grim intent in his expression told her that was the last thing he was doing. But he couldn’t seriously expect her to bend over the table or a chair while he—
This was not happening. She didn’t care how angry Ian was, or that he had been proven correct as to what might happen to her if she went looking for the Fescarus. She had no intention of suffering the indignity of having her ass spanked as if she were a disobedient child rather than a grown woman who had been making decisions for herself and her family for more years than she wanted to think about.
“Okay, table it is.” Ian nodded. “Lift up the back of the robe and bend over the table.”
“I’ll do no such thing!” She took a step back, not forward.
He narrowed his eyes. “The quicker we get this out of the way, the sooner we can move forward.”
“I’m not bending over any— Ian!” Her protest came out as a surprised squeak as she suddenly found herself bent over the kitchen table with her bottom bared as Ian threw up the back of her robe and T-shirt to her waist. He’d moved so fast, Evie hadn’t had chance to stop him. “Let me up this instant.” Her voice shook with anger as she pushed against the table and tried to straighten. Something she failed to do with Ian’s hand placed firmly in the middle of her back. “You fucking bast—” Oh my God…
The hard smack of Ian’s hand against her bared flesh stung like the devil. Until it didn’t. What came after that sting owed nothing to pain and everything to a deluge of pleasurable sensations such as Evie had never experienced before.
She— No, not her, her body was actually aroused by being spanked?
Heat radiated from between her thighs.
Her nether lips had become slick and open.
Her clit felt swollen.
Enticing Ian (Knight Security 5) Page 13