“Do you honestly think I’d put up with an overbearing ogre? I’m not built that way. I think enough of myself to refuse to be mistreated in any way. And now I’ve got four children—if they’ll have me—and I have to set an example for them.”
He sighed. There would be no talking her out of those traumatized children. Truthfully, he would have found a home for them, provided for them and watched over them—without them knowing, of course. Airiana was the hands-on type.
“Honey, you do realize that the oldest girl is only a few years younger than you.” He chose his words carefully. “She may be too troubled for someone so young.”
“I’m a good ten years older, Maxim, and I have you.” She gave him a brilliant smile and pressed kisses along his jaw. “You’re old enough and intimidating enough for them to respect anything you say.”
“What if they don’t want to stay? They’re from Italy. They may want to go home.”
“Then we’ll see to it that they find a good home there. I think we’re the right people to help them, but of course I’d never make them stay with us if they didn’t want to. Our farm is a magical place—a place of healing. You wait and see.”
“We’ve been gone a few days. They may have forgotten all about us.” He didn’t know if he was hoping for that or not. Sometimes when he closed his eyes he could see all four of the children staring at him, and they’d looked at him as if he was a hero—a savior—which he was not.
“Right now, my sisters have taken those children under their wing. Judith has probably made each of them their own healing kaleidoscope—she’s amazing and can sense just what a person needs. Lexi’s got them working the farm with her and Lissa’s cooking up a storm with them. Who knows? Rikki might even have given them a ride on her boat. And she doesn’t let anyone on her boat.”
“Counting you, that’s five out of six. What’s the sixth one doing for them?”
She closed her eyes and snuggled close to his throat. “Blythe. She’ll mother them, just like she does all of us. She’ll be the one to call a counselor and persuade them to go. She’ll make certain they have clothes and everything else they need.”
“Benito will be in his element with five women and his sisters doting on him,” Maxim said. “He’ll definitely need a firm hand. He’s got a temper, that boy. And guts.”
“He’s like you were when you were young, isn’t he?” Airiana asked softly. “He reminds you of yourself.”
Knots formed deep in his gut. He refused to give into the temptation to throw his hand over his eyes and shield himself from her brilliant blue gaze. Sometimes she saw too much. Looked too deep.
He didn’t reply. Couldn’t. He just lay still, waiting for the moment to pass.
“Maxim?” She bent her head to press a series of kisses along his chest as if she knew imparting personal information was nearly impossible for him at times. “Benito is special, just as you are. He’s got your generous, protective heart and he’ll want to guard it, just the way you do.”
“He’ll want to kill, Airiana. Don’t kid yourself. He’s burning up with rage. Rage at what they did to his family and rage at what they did to him. There’s so much rage inside you don’t dare let it out.”
“You’re a good man, Maxim,” she whispered against his throat. “Benito will be like you and that’s just fine.”
He shook his head, unable to believe she didn’t see that side of him when she saw so much, the cold-blooded rage that allowed him to move in darkness, in the shadows and exist where depravity, greed and perverted sickness lived. “I don’t want him to become a killer, or a man afraid of ever having a family and someone to love.”
“That’s why it’s so important that he stay with me . . .”
“With us,” he corrected. He’d taken the step out of the shadows by binding his life with hers and he wasn’t going back. “It’s important he stay with us.”
Her blue gaze collided with his. “With us,” she corrected. “On the farm. Sea Haven has a special quality about it. You’ll see, Maxim. Unless you’re bored out of your mind. I don’t know how exciting life there will be for you.”
“With four children? With you?” He gave her a small smile, his hands cupping her firm buttocks. “I think I’ll be just fine. Let’s get you into a bathtub. I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off you much longer and I don’t want you sore.”
“I thought I’d just go to sleep right here,” she announced, a lazy, slumberous note in her voice.
His body tightened all over again. It didn’t take much. She was soft and warm and melting into him. “I know. A bath first though, and then food. I thought we’d get a message to your sisters and let them know we’re coming in.”
She lifted her head, her face lighting up. “Talk to them? I’d love that.”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be safe to talk to them yet. Evan is going to have his people monitoring the phones.”
She frowned. “Can he do that?”
“He’s a billionaire. He can do anything.” Cradling her in his arms, he sat up. “Listening in on conversations is easy enough. Private investigators do it all the time. For someone like Evan Shackler-Gratsos, it would be a piece of cake.”
He set her on the bed and padded into the bathroom barefoot, pausing to study the outside around them with care. He’d left the windows open, using the wind to sound the alarm if anyone came close, but still, he always checked visually. He stayed alive because he never took anything for granted.
He started the bathwater, making it hot. She thought getting home was going to end their problem, but he knew Evan would never give up. It was possible Uri Sorbacov, in Russia, would continue to try to acquire Airiana as well. He had no idea if she was capable of re-creating the project she’d started as a young girl, but everyone else seemed to think she could, and that made her a target.
He weighed the pros and cons of bringing her back to the farm as the tub filled. The children had been through enough trauma, but he couldn’t make a decision based on what was best for them when he had no idea if they were even still there or would want to stay.
He had three brothers residing in Sea Haven—if he could count his youngest brother, Ilya. Ilya’s life had been so different from his and the others’. He’d been mostly used for legitimate work, and that had kept him—so far—off any hit list. For certain Stefan and Lev would help him keep Airiana and the others safe.
From what he’d seen of the farm, they could protect it fairly easily with enough money to buy the necessary equipment to turn it into a small fortress. He had money, and he suspected both Stefan and Lev did as well. It was never that difficult to acquire money when one stayed in the shadows and was smart about it.
If they ran together, he could protect her. She would learn how to fade into the background, how not to be seen or call attention to herself, but what kind of life was that for her? She didn’t belong in his world.
“Maxim.”
Airiana touched his hip and just the small brush of her hand sent his emotions spilling through him. He framed her face with his hands and looked into her eyes—those eyes could sweep him away with all that blue.
“You’re a damned miracle, Airiana. You don’t even know it.”
She brought her hands up to curl her fingers around his wrists. “I know you’re a special man, Maxim, and I want to be with you. Tell me what’s wrong. I can take it. I’ve not let you down once. Talk to me.”
He kissed her. He was best talking to her with his body. He could show her he loved her with his body much better than he could find the words a woman needed to hear. He was going to risk everything for her. He had to. There it was, the choices he always had thought were so important. He had no choice when it came to Airiana, yet she would be his choice every time.
When he lifted his head, her eyes had gone a brilliant sky blue, just the way he
loved them. He swept her up again and put her in the large tub. The honeymoon tub had enough room for both of them and he slid in with her, sinking down into the hot water.
“I love the way you kiss me, Maxim,” Airiana said. She leaned her head back against the porcelain, regarding him steadily. “But you still have to use your words. What are you worried about?”
He laughed. Out loud. She was priceless. She sounded like a little schoolmarm giving him a gentle lecture. “Use my words? Did you really just say that?”
“You’re not getting out of this. We’re a team, and we’re talking about spending our lives together. We have to be able to communicate with each other.”
He reached out and snagged her hand, knowing his eyes had gone flat and cold. Cold rage erupted for just one small moment, flaring through him with lethal intent. “Baby, we’re well past the talking stage. We are going to spend our lives together. What the hell do you think we’ve been doing here, other than communicating? You made a promise to me. You’re not going to back out because I’m not the prize you thought I was.”
She didn’t move, her gaze fixed on his face. He’d spoken in a low tone, each word distinct and biting. A slow smile curved her mouth. She gave him a look filled with so much love, her gaze soft and her smile generous, moving him like nothing else could. The anger was gone as if it had never been. Everything in him that felt wild and dangerous, settled. She was his. He saw it on her face, in her eyes, in the sweet curve of her mouth.
“Maxim, I’m not ever going to run off and leave you.”
His heart turned over. He was hers forever. Always. He turned her hand over, his thumb sliding over her palm, the exact center so that the two rings came briefly to the center. So small, and yet she held him right there. In her palm. She was wrapped tightly around his heart.
“I’ve given myself to you. All of me. Wholly. I know how to do that, and I’m not afraid. I know you’ll always be here for me,” she said softly. “You have to believe the same thing of me.”
17
MAXIM sighed and brought her hand to his mouth, pressing kisses into the center of her palm. “I’ll get the hang of relationships, Airiana. I’m learning, it just seems I’m on the slow side.”
He scraped his teeth back and forth over the two connecting rings. Hers. His. Those rings, a strange phenomenon of the Prakenskii men, had sealed their fate together. He had run like a rabbit from her in his mind for far too long. He wanted choices and felt as if that had been taken from him so he’d been a child throwing a tantrum. Now he not only accepted that Airiana was his first and only choice, but that he was a very lucky man.
“When a man who has never had anyone finds a woman like you, Airiana, he can’t help but hold too tight. How could he not? Losing you would rip out what’s left of my soul—and God help me—there isn’t much left.” He made the confession looking at her palm, at the rings, not at her face. He already knew what her expression would be.
Airiana had more compassion in her little finger than most people did in their hearts. She would understand. She probably understood him better than he did himself.
“You aren’t going to lose me. I’m not the running type. If you get too far out of hand, believe me, Maxim, I’ll be sitting you down and we’ll be having the talk.”
He kissed her open hand much more intimately, pressing his tongue into the very heart of her palm. He looked up quickly, wanting to see her eyes go wide with shock. She felt the intimate kiss deep in her very core—another wonderful phenomenon given to the Prakenskii men and their women.
Her lips parted in a little round O and she pulled her palm away from him. “That could get us in trouble.”
He laughed softly. “Or keep you in line.”
She examined her palm. “Does it work both ways? Can I do that to you?”
A groan escaped before he could stop it. The thought of her mouth so intimate on his body was enough to make him as hard as a rock all over again. “Yes. But please don’t. Not yet. I’m really trying to be a decent man here. You need to rest and have some food. We’ve got all day before they come for us.”
A shadow moved across her face. “Come for us? Do you think they’re going to find us? Which ones? It’s seems like everyone’s after us.”
“Evan’s men? Sorbacov’s men? It’s all the same.” He shrugged. “If they come here looking, Jorge won’t point them in our direction. We’re honeymooners, and he’s known me for several years. No, I meant Stefan . . . Thomas and Levi,” he corrected himself.
She sent him a quick, amused glance from under the sweep of her lashes, most likely remembering his first reaction to her knowing he was a Prakenskii. He had to remember to use his brothers’ new identities when talking to them or referring to them.
“Thomas and Levi are going to come here?”
“If I ask, they’ll come. With the two of them here, no one is going to stop us from getting home. Jorge keeps a small private airstrip for his guests and they’ll be able to bring in a plane. We can take it back to the Little River Airport.” He made up his mind. With his brothers, he could protect her better.
She brought up her knees and hugged them, an action he realized she did when she was nervous. “I want to go home more than anything, Maxim. You know I do, and it’s all I think about . . .” She sent him a shy look. “When I’m not thinking about you. But I don’t want to put the people I love in danger.”
“I think they’re already in danger whether you’re there or not. If Evan gets his hands on any one of them, you’d attempt to give yourself up for them.”
“Attempt?” She raised her eyebrow.
“I wouldn’t allow you to be so foolish.” He caught her chin when she would have protested and looked into her eyes, wanting her to know he meant every word he said. “I can’t be anything but who I am, Airiana. I’ll always protect you, even from yourself. You can’t expect less of me. Sometimes you aren’t going to agree with my decisions, but when it comes to your protection, you aren’t going to win any arguments.”
Airiana chewed on her lower lip while she turned over and over in her mind his declaration. He was obviously stating a fact to her, one she had to think about. She knew he would be dominant and a little overbearing at times, but she saw into him and knew he was a good man who would always put her first. She hadn’t quite thought that part all the way through. Putting her first meant sometimes he would decide what was best for her, rather than talking it over.
She let her gaze drift over him. He would never be considered handsome, he was far too rough-looking for that, but she loved his face. He was all hard planes and angles, scars and a perpetual five-o’clock shadow. His eyes were hooded and reminded her often of a predatory bird watching prey from a lofty height. His shoulders were wide, his chest thick, and there wasn’t a place on him that didn’t ripple with muscle when he moved. He exuded absolute confidence in everything he did—except when it came to her.
Even now, on the outside he appeared calm and implacable, his expression set in stone, but she could feel him holding himself very still. He would never be as sure of her as he would want to be and that would cause him to react in ways that she might not like.
“I can see patterns in the air, in the movement of air,” she said. “Just as I can see mathematical equations, I can see patterns. You’re there in those patterns, Maxim. The love you feel for me runs deep and true. I can count on it, like the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. It’s always going to be there. Do you see in patterns? Can you see me in them?”
He would hold too tight until he could believe she would always be his. That was inevitable.
“I see them, Airiana, but this isn’t about whether or not you’re going to run off because you don’t like a decision I make. This is about you knowing I’m going to make them. You aren’t always going to be comfortable with who I am and what I need.”
She shivered, suddenly aware the water was cooling down. “I understand.” She did. She didn’t have to like it, but she understood.
Maxim wasn’t going to change because he had found love. He had been trained from childhood to prepare for danger and to expect it. He would guard what he had with ruthless implacability, and all within his household, those he loved, would listen to him when it came to matters of safety. She would be able to temper him only so much.
“I’m getting cold and I’m suddenly starving.” She stood up.
He slid his hand up her leg, unable to help himself, caressing her inner thigh. “Stay right there for just a minute, honey. I can’t get over your skin and how soft it is. Wet like this, you’re so damned sexy I’m not certain I’ll be able to wait.”
She placed one hand on his shoulder, bracing herself as he stroked her thighs, each caress taking him closer to her inner heat.
“You’re so amazingly responsive to me,” he said. “Even when I didn’t do the best job for you.” His fingers stroked her satin thighs. The air was warm and he wrapped her up in a cocoon of it, drying her body while he held her there. “I think all my training just went out the window with you. You make me feel . . . alive.”
Airiana pushed her hands into his hair, massaging his scalp and letting thick strands of hair run through her fingers. “Almost from the moment I saw you, I wanted to do this. Well, not when you were carrying me over your shoulder into the helicopter. Then I wanted to stab you through the heart,” she said, precisely honest.
He laughed. A roaring laugh. A belly laugh. A laugh he’d never thought could come out of him, and he didn’t recognize it at all. Startled, he dropped his hand and stared at her with a small accusing frown. “I don’t even recognize myself anymore. Are you capable of putting a spell on me? I have gifts, maybe you have some I didn’t know about.”
Airiana leaned down and pressed a kiss on top of his head before stepping out of the bathtub. “Of course I put a spell on you. How else do you think I could get you to fall madly in love with me?”
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