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Alexi tipped back on his chair, rocking slightly on the back two legs. Willow had worn arty, flowing clothes, her head covered with black curling hair cut in a bob with a center part. Her tiny glasses were usually at the end of her nose. At the dance, Willow had seemed open and happy, delighted to be with her friends, and he’d enjoyed her company.
The women seemed unlikely friends; Willow’s open warmth contrasted with Jessica Sterling’s cool, sleek, almost hard businesslike persona.
Yet she cared enough to investigate a man who might protect her friend. Alexi suspected that Jessica hid many secrets about herself, including that fine edge of her temper.
He resented his need to nudge that temper and reveal the woman she hid….
Jessica stood and went to stare at the fire in the grate. Her voice was soft and reflective. “I don’t want anything to happen to her—Willow is special. Just name your price and protect her. But don’t let her know—and don’t…don’t get involved with her. You’re not a match. I’ll pay whatever you want. Just take care of whomever is bothering her. She won’t tell me exactly what’s happening, but several incidents have happened that I think indicate someone is threatening her. And she’s distracted. Something is very wrong. She’s innocent and men like you—I can handle someone as difficult as you, but she’s—Do not get romantically involved with her, and that’s an order—”
The ringing of a cell phone caused Jessica to stop; she impatiently reached for her jacket, taking a tiny upscale phone from her pocket. She answered in a curt businesslike tone. “Sterling.”
She frowned and turned from Alexi, then walked to the huge windows facing the ocean and spoke quietly, “Howard, I told you not to call me.”
After a silence Jessica said, “Don’t you dare come here. I am on personal leave that has nothing to do with the corporation. I am only to be reached for business emergencies, not because you are lonesome. You have a wife, remember?”
Alexi stared at the crackling fire. It wasn’t his business if Jessica Sterling had impatient lovers—
“Don’t you dare speak to me that way. I loved your father very much and Robert married me because he loved me. And you are nothing like him. It’s only been two years since he passed away and I think about him every day…. Listen, Howard, I was not…am not a trophy wife. Robert taught me how to run the company and I’m doing it. Don’t call back… Don’t you threaten me, Howard.”
Alexi frowned. Jessica’s husband was reportedly twice her age and “Junior” was old enough to have a wife. He seemed to want Jessica. She didn’t want to play and some jerk was trying to bully her—Impatiently, Alexi stood, walked to Jessica and took the cell phone from her.
“You heard the lady. Stop calling her. She’s with me…. I am Alexi Stepanov,” he said into the phone. He didn’t wait for the man sputtering at the other end of the line to recover before turning off the phone. Alexi handed it back to her—her eyes were wide and stunned, and he raised his fingertip to her chin, lifted slightly to close her slightly parted lips.
At that moment she looked young and unguarded and sweet. It seemed only right to follow his instincts and nuzzle her cheek with his, to then inhale the delicate floral and rain scent of her hair.
She stood tensed and still. The air around her seemed to quiver delicately, fascinating him, and Alexi could not resist brushing his lips across hers.
The slight lifting of her lips, the trembling response that he’d sensed rather than felt, ricocheted inside Alexi, his need to kiss her vibrating within him.
Innocent, his senses warned as color started to move up those smooth, creamy cheeks.
The air seemed to quiver, shifting and changing around Jessica again, and Alexi tuned into what he felt coming from her—awareness of him as a man…and fear.
Someone had hurt her.
As a Stepanov male, Alexi brooded about men who would hurt women. Was it the man who had just called?
“I turned my cell phone off while following you. I have to leave it on for business purposes in case I’m needed,” she said furiously, and punched the On button.
When the cell phone rang furiously in her hand, Alexi said quietly, “If you want to talk with me, turn that thing off. You have choices. Make them.”
Alexi wasn’t sparing time on a married man harassing a woman who didn’t want him. As though she disliked taking orders, Jessica’s green eyes narrowed up at him and she stepped a few feet away. Without looking at the cell phone, she punched a button and placed the unit on the table. “It’s off. You’re arrogant, Mr. Stepanov.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment. I handle my own affairs. It’s Willow who needs your protection and help. I’m willing to pay for that service.”
Alexi weighed Jessica’s proposal. This woman asked nothing for herself and resented his interference in her life.
Jessica walked around the room, clearly keeping her distance from him. Those sidelong glances said she was mentally circling him. “Will you see to Willow’s safety? I want an answer. Now. I’m ready to negotiate a price.”
“There is no answer yet. I’ll want to talk with Willow.” Concentrating on her offer was difficult when the firelight outlined those lush curves and she stood in front of his bed, and his mind was picturing all those soft, pale curves lying in his arms—
Suddenly too warm, Alexi impatiently removed his sweatshirt and tossed it aside. He opened a door onto a remodeled wooden deck facing the ocean and stepped out into the snow. He focused on letting his skin—and his hard, pounding sexual desire cool.
He frowned when the door scraped and Jessica stood at his side, overlooking the ocean. “You can’t run away from me, Mr. Stepanov. I want an answer.”
“Get inside.” His voice was too rough, his control slipping.
She didn’t move or speak, but stood at his side.
Jessica might be wealthy and spoiled, but she wanted her friend protected.
He sensed that she would stand, stubbornly freezing, before moving. “I’m cold,” he said softly. “Let’s go inside.”
He turned, placed one arm around her and drew her to his side. With his other hand, he opened the door to his living quarters. Jessica resisted his light touch directing her inside momentarily, then she lifted her head and walked into the room.
He’d allowed his hand to open on that neat waist, to fit just slightly onto the curve of her hip. He resented the instinctive hardening of his body, the need burning low in his gut. But she felt so right, soft and feminine…. And for him, sex was along time ago…he simply wanted to take her and lose himself in her…to forget another woman….
His hunger was natural, considering his abstinence for over three years. No woman had seemed right—until now. With the door closed, Jessica moved toward the fire, her arms crossed.
Drops of water glistened in her hair, beautiful against the dark reddish tones highlighted by the firelight. She seemed deep in thought, and then she turned suddenly to study him. Those eyes were dark and mysterious, tracing his body down, then upward. His jeans were already tight across his hips. “Do you always arouse so easily, Mr. Stepanov?”
She had felt what ran between them and had met the problem immediately. No flirtation, no games, just facts. Alexi smiled; Mrs. Sterling was getting more interesting all the time. “No. But it has been a long time for me, and you are here, very close, in my home.”
“You should take care of your problem—somehow, before talking with Willow.” The order came soft and guarded, and she turned away suddenly, but not before he caught the flush moving up her cheeks, the downward shy look, avoiding his.
“Did the man who called you…was he the one who hurt you?”
Her defenses shot up, those green eyes flashing. Magnificent, Alexi thought, fierce, proud, loyal, protective, passionate in her anger. Her veneer had been breached and the woman beneath it fascinated him.
“We’re negotiating a business deal here, Stepanov. There is no reason to get into my personal profile, other than—please do not go to Willow in that…that condition.”
Now Alexi was amused, enjoying playing with her, teasing her even more. All the little colorful pieces inside her seemed to shift, presenting the woman he wanted to know better, and one she wanted to hide.
“It happens,” he said, diving straight for the woman beneath that polished surface. “You’re a woman. I’m a man. I can sense an excitement in you, a scent. It triggers a natural response…. Willow seems like an understanding, helpful woman,” he added, just to stir Jessica once more.
“Willow is wonderful and an innocent. Just do what men do to relieve whatever—”
“And just what do men do?”
She waved her hand airily and the emeralds on it sparkled, reminding him that she had been married—married, and still shy of a man in close quarters. “You know. Whatever men do. Get a magazine or watch a movie—or find some woman—but not Willow.”
“Don’t you think that Willow would want to choose for herself what she wants?”
“No. Not in this instance,” she stated curtly.
He had to come closer, to catch every nuance of her expression. “Why not me? What is wrong with me?”
She bit her lip and studied the overlong socks on her feet. “Well,” she stated briskly as her toes wiggled within the socks. “You’re potent. And I suppose if you tried, you could charm the pants off Willow in a very short time. She’s just not up to you. You have the advantage, and that just isn’t fair, is it?”
Jessica knew how to speak clearly to men, defining just what she wanted, defining the rules.
Alexi had never been good at following rules.
“And you are? Up to me?” He wondered what those pale, slender feet would feel like against his own, rubbing her insole up and down his calf while he buried himself in her—
She frowned fiercely up at him and laid out the facts like bullets shooting at him. “I’m wealthy and single. Men want me. They don’t get me. You may be a sex magnet, but don’t you dare play with Willow.”
He’d found the live heat she hid inside that veneer and went for it again. “It is possible that she might not be able to resist me. After all, you have said that I am potent, have you not? What is this ‘potent’? As a man? As a conversationalist? How do you define—”
Jessica stood; her hand lifted and her finger tapped his bare chest with each word. “Leave Willow alone—that way.”
Alexi didn’t miss the light sweep of her hand across his chest to his shoulder, that little tremble before it lifted. He wanted her hands on him—everywhere. Without the brand of another man’s ring.
To keep himself from reaching for her, Alexi stepped back and crouched to feed the stove with wood and carefully bank it for the hours that remained until morning.
His hands needed to be busy, because they ached to touch this woman, to claim her. He closed the door as firmly as he wanted his sensual interest in this woman to die. “We have talked enough,” he stated, recognizing his accent in the husky words. “Please make yourself comfortable in my home. Or you may leave, though I advise against it. Morning will be here in a few hours. I will speak to Willow tomorrow. Then I will give my decision to you.”
Jessica watched Alexi yawn and stretch, and his hands went to his jeans’ snap. His eyebrows lifted, his eyes silvery beneath his heavy lashes. “You may turn away or you may watch.”
She turned quickly, heat moving up her throat. She never blushed, and yet Alexi drew something from her—“I’m leaving.”
His body pressed lightly against her back and then his cheek was against hers. He nuzzled aside her hair and whispered in her ear, “If you do, I shall have to follow you in the cold, making certain that you are safe. Here, we are warm and safe…. You have just trembled. Why are you nervous of me? Because I have been obviously aroused?”
“I don’t know why, but you like to torment me, Mr. Stepanov.”
“Of course. Because you are so delightful to watch. All that fire leaps to life so easily.” His smile curved along her cheek. “You are hot now. I think you are blushing. I like that—that you react to me. Do you think it’s true? That women think of me as a sex magnet?”
“Jerk.”
Jessica hadn’t been teased in her lifetime, and Alexi Stepanov was unrelenting. A moment later he said, “My jeans are off and I’m in my bed. You may turn around now.”
“Jerk,” she repeated as she walked toward the window to study the storm outside and a slash of sleet hit the glass. Jessica weighed that half-mile back to the resort and the longer walk to Willow’s shop and apartment. But then how could Jessica explain to Willow why she was out walking at three o’clock in the morning?
Jessica turned back to Alexi, whose bare back above the blankets—those warm, heavy blankets—was turned to her. His skin gleamed, covering a wide expanse of muscles.
With a sigh loud enough for him to hear, she pushed and shoved the heavy lawn chair closer to the stove. She settled into the chair and briskly wrapped the softly woven gray-green throw over her. She breathed Alexi’s scent—masculine, soap, smoke, and dark with layers. First came arrogance, a man who liked control and setting his terms. Then, he’d obviously been wounded in the past, his pride showing when his ex-fiancée was mentioned. Protective? Too much for an independent woman, especially when he took away the cell phone, dismissing Howard.
Alexi liked to torment her. Why? Definitely sensual, he’d picked up on her awareness of him—who wouldn’t be aware of a man like that, all of six foot three and in lean, perfect condition, almost animalistic grace? Snuggling down into the soft crocheted throw, Jessica brooded about the man who was apparently asleep and very comfortable.
Jessica shifted on the chair and pulled the throw up to her chin. “‘Body warmth,”’ she muttered. Alexi had wanted to hold her against him, gauge her, study her. He’d promptly dismissed any courtesy between them.
She glanced at him and let the warmth of the fire sink into her flesh. Alexi was determined to make her play his game. Jessica preferred to play her own.
She threw back the throw and came to her feet. She crossed the length of the room quickly and jabbed a finger against his shoulder. He grunted and Jessica tapped his shoulder. “Hey. Wake up. I’m not done talking to you.”
“I need sleep,” Alexi said drowsily. “You are a pest, I think.”
“I can be your nightmare, bud—”
Alexi moved too quickly, grabbing her wrist and holding it as he turned. He scowled at her. “You can sleep tomorrow. I work. I wouldn’t advise you to irritate me more, not if you want me to help Willow.”
“I said I’d pay you.”
“With you, everything comes with a bill, right? Money solves everything?”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
Those icy, silver eyes searched her face. “Right,” he said, turning her hand to glance at her heavy set of emerald wedding rings. “Everything costs something, doesn’t it?”
His bitter tone cut at her, the reason she had married and had sold herself. “You—”
With a tug Alexi brought her down to the bed and, before she could scramble free, Alexi leaned over her, his forearms braced beside her. “You are exhausted, and pushing to get what you want. I do not like to be pushed, especially by a woman who is used to getting her way—and can buy what she wants. Go to sleep now.”
Muscles bunched beneath that gleaming skin, his shoulders blocking out the room, his expression fierce and close—and there was too much of him, pressed too close, even with the layers of cloth between their bodies. Her hands were open on his chest, the textures and the warmth there, burning her palms. Beneath her fingers, powerful muscles slid and tensed.
Jessica couldn’t move, her body trembling. As he had when he’d tugged her into his coat, Alexi had moved very quickly. Her mind flashed with images of another man, in another time, holding her against her will, hurting her. She pushed hard against his chest. “Get…away…from me,” she ordered.
With a low growl and a look of disgust, Alexi flipped the blanket over her and turned his back. Jessica rolled to her feet, looked down at him and hated him at that moment. She jerked the blanket from the bed, bunched it and hauled it back to the wooden chair. She settled into the chair and briskly arranged the blanket and throw around her. Jessica looked at the pillow beneath Alexi’s head and was on her feet once more.
At the bed, she latched both hands onto the pillow and began pulling it from him. Without turning, he held it tight.
“You’re not very hospitable, Mr. Stepanov.”
“No, I am not. You are a difficult woman and you are costing me sleep.”
“Let me have this pillow.”
Alexi lifted his head and Jessica jammed the pillow beneath her arm as she walked back to her chair.
The next three hours were going to be very long…. “I’m not done with you yet, Mr. Arrogant Macho Stepanov. Otherwise, I’d already be walking back. You’ve made your opinion of me pretty clear, and I don’t like it. I still haven’t given you mine. Expect that in the morning.”
“There’s more? I can’t wait.”
Alexi turned to study the woman sleeping in the sturdy wooden lawn chair. Blue shadows rested beneath her eyes, her hand bracing her head at an odd angle.
With a resigned sigh, he eased from the bed and walked to her. Bundled in his blankets, Jessica was the perfect unwanted female invader.
Whatever man she didn’t want to accept, the married man, would probably soon be coming to press her—and because Alexi had given his name, he would be involved. His impression of Jessica Sterling had been correct—she was big trouble.
Alexi skimmed his hand lightly over her hair and its warm fire lit something he had guarded for years.
He jerked his hand back, freeing it from the lure of that silky, fragrant hair. Tenderness for this female shark wouldn’t do, and a sexual encounter wouldn’t be simple.
“Alexi…” she whispered in her sleep, and the drowsy sound locked his bare feet to the floor. “I need you…”
He closed his mind against the sensual need rocketing through his body, but it throbbed on, ignoring his wishes. Her breast lay over a heavy fold of the blanket and his hand ached to cup that perfect softness.
Bracing himself against that dangerous need, Alexi bent and eased Jessica, complete with pillow and blanket, into his arms.
She snuggled against his chest, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder, and Alexi didn’t move, forcing his breath to slow. With her defenses down, Jessica looked young and sweet and innocent.
An involvement with this woman would only bring frustration and pain.
He studied that pale face, where the chestnut strands flowed across her cheek and onto his shoulder, a fragile silky web joining their bodies—
Alexi’s indrawn breath hissed in the silence of the room. Wanting to rid himself of the danger of this woman, Alexi carried her back to his bed, lowered her slightly and let her fall the last inch. He did not want to touch her in his bed.
He could not touch her; his sexual need ran too fiercely, primitively, through him.
He stood, hands on hips, looking down at the woman who was cuddling his pillow. Her hair spilled waves across the white pillowcase as she turned on her side. “Alexi…” she murmured softly, and drew the pillow down beneath the blanket.
Alexi frowned as, beneath the heavy blanket, her legs moved as if accepting the pillow, cradling it.
He’d begun to perspire, his body rock-hard.
Alexi clenched his fists and closed his eyes, shaking his head. He jerked on his jeans and pulled on a sweatshirt and socks. He sat in the chair and brooded about the curse of Chief Kamakani over Amoteh.
Because it was surely the chieftain’s curse that had brought Jessica Sterling anywhere near Alexi.
Three
J essica awoke to the sound of male voices arguing.
She preferred to sleep late and the Amoteh’s housekeeping staff shouldn’t be in her suite—
“No. You are not coming in,” a man stated sharply from somewhere outside her room.
Jessica recognized that deep voice, the command and the slight accent wrapped in it. Alexi Stepanov!
She opened her eyes to a slice of brilliant sunlight and closed them as she realized she was in Alexi’s bed!
She struggled against the heavy weight of the blankets tangled around her and promptly slid onto the floor. She sat, huddled in the blankets, listening to the male voices outside the comfortably warm room.
Jessica clutched the pillow against her. Alexi’s scent—dark, brooding, male—wafted around her.
Alexi—arrogant, disdainful of her—sexy, aroused….
She slid up her sweater sleeve to reveal her watch; the emerald-encrusted designer timepiece read eight o’clock. Jessica braced herself for the first wave of frustration—an early riser, she was usually at her desk by this time. But then, Alexi wasn’t making her life easy. He needed a lesson in handling business and keeping it out of the sensual lane.
Jessica pushed the pillow away and scrambled to her feet. She was still wearing one of his socks and bent to tug it away.
Another man’s voice rumbled with just that tinge of accent. “Why can’t we come in? It’s cold out here. We only want to warm up before heading back for Mom’s blueberry pancakes. We’re supposed to unload this truckload of lumber and bring you back for a family breakfast.”
Alexi’s reply was hurried. “Let’s unload it now. I’m hungry.”
Jessica recognized Mikhail’s voice. “You’ll need a coat, Alexi. It’s freezing out there.”
“I’m fine. Please thank your parents, but I have work to do. I will see Aunt Mary Jo later and help Uncle Fadey load that order of furniture in the shipping van.”
“Alexi, you just woke up. You don’t have on your boots, and you look like you had a bad night. If you’re sick, we can unload that lumber and you can go back to bed.”
“Yes. I have a cold. Please go. No, I do not need soup. I have aspirin.”
“Jarek, we’re in trouble. If Mom knows that Alexi is sick because he’s staying here and not at their house, she won’t be happy,” Mikhail said thoughtfully as if Alexi wasn’t there. “We’ve got to get him to the house—now.”
“You’re not moving me. I am fine where I am.”
“Oh, no?” the other two male voices challenged.
Jessica smiled coldly. Alexi clearly did not want the men inside his living quarters. He wanted to hide her, did he?
After last night, after Alexi had deliberately drawn her out into the weather, had treated her so arrogantly—and put her in his bed without her permission—Jessica intended Alexi to have a very bad day. He would either help root out whomever was causing Willow fear and distress, or he wouldn’t. But Alexi would pay for tormenting Jessica.
She walked to the line where her jacket hung and drew it on, firmly zipping it to her throat. She slipped into her ruined shoes and lamented their destruction, due to Alexi drawing her into his lair. Whatever she did to him today, he deserved. She tore away the damaged strap with a temper that she pushed down as she smoothed her clothing and her hair.
Jessica picked up Alexi’s boots and his coat and the leather work gloves she found on the table, and walked to the door.
She opened it slowly to the three tall men standing in the cluttered, cold sunroom. “Hi,” she said softly, drowsily, and hoped she sounded as if she’d just come from Alexi’s bed—which she had. She eased around Alexi, who was blocking the doorway and her stage entrance to make his life hell—at least for a short time.
Obviously, Alexi did not want his cousins to know that Jessica had stayed the night. What he didn’t want was perfect to expose…
Jarek and Mikhail Stepanov, in heavy jackets and work clothes stared at her—then at Alexi.
Jessica faked a drowsy yawn and batted her lashes innocently up at Alexi. Beneath his eyebrows, and the frown line between them, his blue eyes narrowed. His lips pressed firmly, angrily, in that dark, stubble-covered jaw.