“Just breathe,” he murmurs, his mouth close to my ear.
Okay, so he’s not asleep. And he obviously felt all the muscles in my body clench when I realized he was lying beside me.
I inhale a deep breath, but it isn’t calming. How could it be? It draws his heady masculine scent through my nose and deep down into my lungs, where it settles, making me dizzy.
My ovaries wake up from a dead sleep and start shrieking like zoo monkeys.
A million things I could say run through my mind, but what comes out of my mouth is a strangled, “Oh. Hi. This is new.”
He chuckles. “Don’t panic.”
“Who, me? Psh. I’m not panicking. I’m totally cool. I’m the coolest.”
He slides his hand from my belly to my wrist. He presses his thumb against the pulse point there. I know he can feel it throbbing wildly, because that’s what my heart is doing, too.
After a moment, he chuckles again.
“Don’t gloat. It makes me want to stab you.”
He doesn’t respond to that. He does hold onto my wrist, however, wrapping his big hand around it and folding my arm across my chest so I’m cocooned in a hug, safe in the delicious weight and warmth of him.
I close my eyes and try hard not to tremble.
“You twitch in your sleep like a puppy.”
His voice is low and warm. My ovaries have stopped shrieking, but now they’re busy running around lighting everything in my lower body on fire.
I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything.
“I have to go to work today.” He pauses. “I’ll be back late.”
I suspect there’s more he wants to say. The pause felt significant. I wait, my heartbeat going even faster.
After a while, he speaks again. This time his tone has changed. It’s grown dark.
“Don’t try to run away.”
I whisper, “I won’t.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Oh, god, the sex in his voice. The raw, hot, dirty sex he put into those words has me hyperventilating. I can’t help it now: I start to tremble.
It does something to him. Brings out a feral animal he’s been keeping under tight control, leashed behind his tense silences and watchful eyes.
He drags me onto my side and back against his chest, pinning me there with his arms and legs, his heat and bulk all around me.
Into my ear, he says gruffly, “You know exactly what I want from you, don’t you? Or you think you know. But if you really did, you’d run as fast and as far away from me as you could, malyutka. You’d run away screaming.”
I blurt, “I know you’re not going to hurt me.”
“I want to.”
“No, you don’t.”
His voice turns into a wolf’s growl. “Oh, yes, I do. I want to hold you down and bite you and fuck you until you’re sobbing. I want to come deep inside your pussy, your mouth, and that perfect little ass. I want to see my teeth marks on your tits and my fingerprints on your thighs and the tears in your eyes when I put you on your knees and make you gag on my cock. Don’t get it wrong, sweet girl. I want to fucking devour you.”
Breathing erratically behind me, he seems out on the far edge of his control, as if he might snap at any moment and tear me to pieces.
Long and rock hard, his erection digs into my bottom.
I lie there wide-eyed and shaking, aroused and breathless, expecting at any moment to feel his teeth sink into my neck and his hands rip off my clothing.
What happens instead is that he grips my jaw in his hand, turns my head, and kisses me.
It’s deep and searching. Raw and ravenous. Passionate and scorching hot. Everything he wants from me is in it, as if he’s allowing himself this one moment of release to show me the depths of his desire.
The moment is over as quickly as it came.
He releases me, springs from the bed, and strides out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
A few seconds later, another door slams, and he’s gone.
I spend the day in a daze, shuffling from room to room like a zombie. I can’t concentrate. Without a television or computer, I feel like time is standing still. I’m confused, restless, and emotional, unsure what I’m supposed to do about what happened, nervous about what will happen when he comes back.
By the time Mal comes home late that night, I’m a mess.
I needn’t have worried, though, because he’s returned to pensive caretaker mode.
The animal is back in its cage.
“You’re still awake,” he says, standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
I’m sitting in the big leather chair, thumbing through a book I can’t read because it’s in Russian. I set it aside and look at him. “I couldn’t sleep.”
He’s holding several large white paper bags with handles, like the ones from a department store. He sets them on the floor and removes his coat, throwing it onto the desk chair.
“I brought you some clothes. Shoes. Other things, too.”
He gestures to the bags. Hopefully my sanity is in there somewhere.
“Thank you.”
I’m stiff and uncomfortable, unsure what to say.
He stands still for a moment, watching me, then unexpectedly kneels in front of my chair. Grasping my wrists in his hands, he pulls me toward him.
When my face is inches from his, he searches my eyes. Then he murmurs, “Now you’re afraid of me. Good.”
“Why do you want me to be afraid of you?”
His answer is gentle. “Because you should be. Because it will keep you alive.”
“These whiplash mood changes of yours are all very exhausting. By the way, I’ve been thinking.”
“Now I should be afraid.”
“That’s not funny. I asked you how long you were going to keep me here. Your answer was ‘As long as it takes.’ As long as what takes?”
A small shake of his head is my only answer. His refusal makes me angry.
“I deserve an explanation.”
A muscle in his jaw slides. His green eyes flash. “I’ll decide what you deserve. And when you get it.”
Oh, the innuendo there is hair-raising. I don’t let it distract me. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you save me? Why have you bothered doing anything you’ve done since we met? What’s the plan, Mal?”
“The plan is none of your business.”
“This is my life we’re talking about!”
In his wolfish growl, he says, “Your life was forfeited when Declan killed my brother. Your life belongs to me now.”
Our gazes are locked, unblinking, and furious. Electricity crackles through the air.
Refusing to be intimidated by him, I keep my voice cool and even. “So I’m your slave. You own me. Is that what you’re telling me?”
His eyes grow hot. He licks his lips.
He likes the idea.
“I’m not telling you anything one way or another except this: you’ll stay here with me as long as I want you to.”
He stands abruptly, looking down at me with hot, half-lidded eyes. “As for the question of ownership, you might want to ask yourself why you still haven’t begged me to take you home.”
He turns on his heel and leaves the room.
I shout after him, “I’ve been kidnapped! It’s implied that I want to go home!”
That low, satisfied chuckle I hear from the other room tells me he doesn’t believe me, either.
I don’t speak to him for two days. I can’t. I’m too angry.
I’m not sure which one of us I’m more angry with, however, him or me.
He’s right: I should have begged him to take me home by now. I should’ve done it the first time I opened my eyes. But I haven’t, and that means something.
Something disturbing I haven’t quite figured out.
Or maybe I don’t want to figure it out. The implications aren’t good.
Or maybe I don’t want to know what he’d do if I asked him to take me home.
Maybe he would, and I don’t want him to.
And maybe my brain just needs a vacation from all the maybes, because not a single thing makes sense anymore. I hardly know which way is up.
On the third day, he takes me outside for the first time.
Bundled in a heavy wool blanket and a sweater and sweatpants he brought me, my feet snug in a pair of nubby cotton socks, I stand blinking on the porch in the bright light, leaning a hip against the wood railing and holding a hand up to shield my eyes from the sun. My breath steams out in front of my face in billowing white clouds.
It’s icy cold. The air is still. The sky is a clear, brilliant blue. All around the cabin, for as far as the eye can see, a pristine alpine meadow glitters under a dusting of snow. The tall fir trees surrounding the meadow are dusted, too, their powdered-sugar branches arching gracefully.
Other than the occasional chirp of a bird, it’s utterly silent.
I feel like we’re the only people in the world. In a make-believe, fairy tale world of our own design, where no one exists but the two of us.
Standing beside me, looking out at the endless view, Mal says quietly, “Mikhail and I grew up here. The Antonovs have lived in this house for four generations.” He pauses. “Well, not this house. The original cabin my great-grandfather built burned down. Hit by lightning. Mik and I rebuilt it from the ground up.”
I look at his profile, so handsome and hard.
He belongs here, in this silent wilderness. Belongs the same as the wolves, the elk, and his friend, the arrogant crow. He’s as untamed as all the wild creatures who inhabit this place, and he lives the same kind of life as theirs.
Savage.
“I grew up in a cabin, too.”
When he glances at me, his eyes are so piercing, I have to look away.
“In Lake Tahoe. It was smaller than this place. My great-grandfather didn’t build it. But it reminds me of there. The smell. The pines. The wildness around everything, how being so close to nature reminds you that you’re part of it, too. In my apartment in the city, I always felt separate from things. Like real life was somewhere else, out there. It couldn’t get to me. But in the woods, I feel more…”
I stop, searching for a word, until Malek provides it.
“Alive.”
I nod. “And unsafe.”
“Which is why I like it.”
“It suits you.”
After a short pause, he says, “I have a place in the city, too. Moscow. I stay there when work requires it. But this is where I’d rather be.”
“How far is it to Moscow from here?”
“An hour by car to the nearest town then a two-hour flight.”
That startles me. “Oh.”
“What?”
“You can take care of your business in a one day round trip that includes six hours of travel?”
He says quietly, “I’m very good at what I do.”
I breathe in the clean, cold air, letting it clear my head and calm me. “Killing people.”
He spends a while staring at my profile, then says, “It’s interesting to me that you don’t seem bothered by it.”
“Of course I’m bothered by it.” I think for a moment. “Though, to be honest, I’d be a lot more bothered if you were killing kittens. People in general are overrated. And you’re probably just offing other bad guys, mafia guys and whatnot, so part of me thinks you’re doing something beneficial for society. And yes, I’m aware that’s ridiculous, and I have no way of knowing if you’re out raping nuns and burning down orphanages and blowing up kindergarten classes, but there’s just this dumb little voice inside my head that tells me that for a bad guy, you’re actually pretty good.”
My sigh is heavy. “But I’m not in my right mind, so take all that with a grain of salt.”
Minutes of silence pass. Then he says in a low voice, “Of all the people I’ve met who know what I do, you’re the only one who’s ever treated me like I’m human.”
We stand in silence, looking out at the meadow and the trees. There’s an ache inside my chest that’s growing rapidly.
“Mal?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about your brother.”
He stiffens.
“I’m not saying that because I don’t want you to kill Declan. I mean, I don’t want you to kill Declan, but that’s a separate thing. I just…I’m sorry for your loss. Even though we’re not that close, if my sister died, part of me would, too.”
After a moment of thought, I admit reluctantly, “Maybe the best part.”
I glance at him. He inhales slowly, his nostrils flared and his lips flattened.
I turn my attention back to the view, unsure what else to say. We stand side by side for a long time, listening to the silence, until he exhales.
“Your bodyguard. Kieran.”
My breath catches. “Did you find out something?”
“He’s alive. Spent a while in ICU, but he’ll make it.”
Pressing a hand over my pounding heart, I exhale a shaky breath. “Thank god.”
“The other one. The blond.”
The tone of his voice makes me nervous. “Spider? Is he okay?”
He nods, then says thoughtfully, “I have to give it to your Irishmen, they’re a persistent bunch. Dumb, but persistent.”
“What do you mean?”
He turns his head and gazes down at me with dark, emotionless eyes. “Spider’s in Moscow. He came to search for you.”
That leaves me breathless. With shock, but also with fear, because I know what Mal will do next.
And it isn’t bring Spider a welcome basket.
Panicking, I turn to him and grab his arm. “Please don’t—”
“Save your breath,” he interrupts. “I won’t kill him.”
I collapse against the porch railing, closing my eyes and inhaling a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“You seem particularly fond of that one.”
His tone is even, but there’s an undercurrent there. An edge. When I look at him, he’s gazing at me with half-lidded eyes.
It’s a smoldering look. An intense one.
And obviously possessive.
My mouth goes dry. I moisten my lips before I speak. “I am. He’s my friend.”
“Friend.”
He draws the word out, repeating it like it tastes bad in his mouth.
“Yes. A friend. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept.”
His jaw tightens. He stares down his nose at me, all swaggering machismo and snorting bull. “I don’t have friends.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do, you stubborn ass.”
“Name one.”
“Me.”
He looks at me like I’m certifiably insane and should be locked away forever for the safety of humanity.
I sigh heavily. “Oh, shut up. I know it doesn’t make any sense. It’s still true.”
His hands clench. A vein stands out in the side of his neck. He steps closer to me, eyes blazing.
Before he can shout insults into my face, I say loudly, “I don’t care if you don’t like it.”
“I kidnapped you!”
“You saved me from dying of a gunshot wound.”
“A shot that was meant for me!”
“Yes, and since then, you’ve been pampering me and worrying yourself sick over my every little cough and sparing people you’d normally kill because I asked you to. Unless that thing about Spider was a lie, but I don’t think it was, because I know you don’t like to disappoint me.”
When he does his growling-bristling-macho-man routine, I wave my hand at him dismissively. I’m not done talking.
“Also, you’ve kept your hands to yourself and your dick in your pants, though we both know you don’t want to, and there’s not a thing I could do to make you stop if you decided to have your way with me.”
Through gritted teeth, the cords in his neck standing out, he says incredulously, “Have my way with you?”
“You know what I mean. The point I’m making is that people who aren’t family and aren’t sleeping together but who look out for each other and take care of each other and make sacrifices for each other they wouldn’t normally make are called friends. Deal with it.”
He glares at me. Judging by the way his eyes bulge, his head will explode any second.
Instead, he stalks off the porch and into the trees.
I don’t see him again until the next morning.
