She believed him, utterly and completely. He’d done nothing but protect her since that horrible moment outside the gallery, when he’d been willing to disarm himself for her.
She looked at him, at the immense strength and power of him. They were in his home, which was essentially a fortress, surrounded by his men, who were obviously trained bodyguards and armed to boot. He had shown himself capable of violence. Violence so expert it was almost surgical in its precision. And yet Grace felt absolutely no fear. She felt shock and sadness and exhaustion, but no fear.
She wasn’t stupid. A single woman living in the city learned fast how to read situations. She’d bought all the books, had taken self-defense courses—not that anything she could do could withstand the power of this man if she was wrong.
But her instincts were sound. She trusted them.
“I think that if you meant me any harm, Drake, I’d be hurt by now,” she said softly.
“Oh God. Never.” Swallowing heavily, he picked her hand up and brought it to his lips. “I can’t bear the thought of you hurt or frightened. Today was a nightmare for me. Please, don’t fear me or anyone who works for me. You’re as safe as I can possibly make you. So put on those pajamas and have yourself a good night’s rest.”
Midnight-blue pajamas, brand new and of a heavy silk by the feel of them, lay at the foot of the bed. In the bathroom, Grace changed, turning up the sleeves and pants cuffs a couple of times. She switched off the bathroom light and, feeling shy, walked back into the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.
She walked toward the bed and then simply stopped, the artist in her rising up and crowding out the scared, exhausted, stressed woman.
The deep green curtains had been closed, shutting out the diamond-bright skyline. All the lights had been turned off, the only light a warm glow coming from the dying embers of the fire.
One side of the bed had been turned down, the smooth sheets unbearably inviting. True to his word, Drake lay on the other side of the bed, so close to the edge he would fall off if he turned in his sleep. There would be at least six feet between them. To reassure her further, he hadn’t gotten between the sheets, but rather was lying on top of the emerald-green comforter, covered by a rich, thick fur blanket, looking like something out of a Russian novel.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
He didn’t look like a character in a novel, he looked like a
legend.
A warrior out of time. Tamerlane, perhaps, or Alexander, resting in his tent after conquering the known world.
He’d taken his shirt off. Massive naked shoulders rose above the soft fur blanket. The dying embers painted his face a dusky olive, highlighting the broad, high cheekbones and square jawline, leaving his eyes in shadow. The light threw his muscles in relief—the strong cords of the neck, the deep indentation between the pectorals, the bulge of his biceps.
A magnificent wounded warrior.
That’s exactly the way she would paint him. The wounded warrior finally finding his rest in a tent, the glint of his bronze armor barely visible in the gloom, a soldier standing guard outside. The warrior’s blood-flecked helmet, with a proud pennant and nosepiece, looking like a metal skull, on the table. A man who had commanded an army that day and been bloodied, and who would command it the next to victory.
Grace rarely had an entire painting come to her at once. Usually, the pieces of it, the order and balance, the shapes and the colors, came to her gradually. But this “Portrait of a Warrior” came to her complete, in one single vision, and she knew she wouldn’t rest until her vision had become reality.
Drake’s dark eyes tracked her as she made her way to the huge bed. She slipped between the sheets quietly. The bed was as comfortable as it looked, the sheets and silk comforter a delight to the touch. A faint scent of lavender rose from the bed.
She turned in bed to find him still watching her, face drawn with exhaustion and pain. She was exhausted herself, muscles sore, the scrapes still stinging.
A log fell with a hiss in the quiet of the night. She could feel herself drifting into the welcome arms of sleep.
“Good night, Drake,” she said quietly.
“Sleep well.” His deep voice came out of the gathering darkness.
It was the noise that woke her. A strangled sound of silenced pain. She came awake in a rush, heart pounding, in a strange bed full of unfamiliar textures.
There was the faintest possible glow from the fireplace. For a second, she couldn’t place the cavernous room, the shadowy furniture, the plush bedding, until the memories exploded in a rush.
Drake’s home.
Drake’s bed.
There was that sound again. Coming from her left. She turned her head on the down pillow and saw him, lying on his back like a statue on a sarcophagus. He hadn’t budged since falling asleep. Something about his stillness told her that he always slept in stillness, perhaps had learned to do so as a child on the streets.
The sound was of a man unconsciously stifling a groan of pain. The fact that he could do this in his sleep spoke volumes of the man, of the kind of life he’d led.
Grace knew it was insane to feel sorry for a man like this. He was clearly very rich, immensely strong. He commanded enormous resources, including what appeared to be an army of men and staff. There wasn’t anything in the waking man that would make you feel sorry for him.
But the sleeping man, ah, that was a different story.
There was just enough light from the embers to see his face, its lines of pain drawn deep, jaws clenched to stifle any sounds. And yet, a soft noise sounded from deep in his throat, however he fought against it.
The anesthesia had long since worn off. Ben hadn’t offered painkillers and Drake didn’t seem to her to be the kind of man who would take them unless he absolutely had to. But right now, his body was contending with the minor surgery of the removal of a bullet and the stitches taken in his shoulder, without anything to dull the pain.
Had he sent himself to that place he’d gone to in the surgery? It seemed so. He looked utterly gone, eyes still behind the closed lids, body rigid. Feeling pain at some level but refusing to give in to it.
Grace listened to his labored breathing for another couple of minutes and then couldn’t stand it any more. Moving softly, she slid across the enormous bed until she was close enough to touch him.
Another stifled moan. She touched his hand, intending to see if she could wake him up, ask him if he needed anything.
But when she touched him, amazingly, he stilled. The tense muscles went lax, the frown smoothed out, his breathing slowed. His hand grasped hers tightly, his grip warm and unbreakable.
He seemed to have found instant peace, the grooves in his face gone, breathing calm and shallow.
Quiet reigned in the room and as the last light from the fire waned, Grace felt the dark mantle of sleep fold over her once more.
November 18
Drake had often woken up after being wounded. Less often, he had woken up beside a woman, though he never liked it. Usually, he dismissed the woman after sex, preferring to sleep alone. But he’d never woken up next to a woman after being wounded.
Never fuck while vulnerable.
One of Drake’s hard-and-fast rules.
His women had no loyalty to him, and he had no reason to trust them while he was in a state of weakness. So when he woke up with the familiar feeling of having been wounded, he couldn’t factor in the softness on his arm.
Even the way he came out of sleep was unusual. Drake was used to waking instantly, rising up out of sleep in a flash, combat-ready. It was the only way he could have survived his boyhood. Coming awake instantly was second nature, whether he was in a dangerous situation or not.
Yet now, he came up out of sleep in long, languorous swoops, aware of someone beside him who wasn’t a threat. Aware of a certain warmth in the air and softness touching his skin. Rising, rising slowly until his eyes finally opened. His wounded shoulder ached, but that was nothing. What was astonishing was what was on his other shoulder. A mass of soft, reddish brown hair, pale skin showing from the too-large pajama top; long, lush eyelashes; a full mouth that begged for kisses.
Grace. Grace Larsen. Migrated, by some miracle, from her side of the bed.
No, not migrated. The nighttime memory came up from his subconscious like a cork bobbing up from a dark sea. He must have shown signs of distress in the night. The shoulder had been painful. Not the greatest pain he’d ever known, not by a long shot, but enough to pull him out of sleep. And she’d come to him, touched him, given him comfort.
He swallowed heavily, dry mouthed.
She had offered comfort.
He looked down at the beautiful woman whose head lay so trustingly on his shoulder, barely breathing so as not to disturb her.
He tried really hard to concentrate on his gratitude to her in order to take his mind off the erection that had sprung to life. What the Americans called a blue-steeler. If he needed any sign that he was going to live, it was right there, under his pajama pants, between his legs.
Having a hard-on was good, of course. He was going to have to seduce Grace to bind her to him. So fucking Grace was a really good next step—necessary even. And of course he’d have to have an erection for that; it went without saying.
Only…not quite such a
big
erection. He wasn’t supposed to feel as if he’d die if he didn’t enter her. This tightness throughout his body, culminating in his cock, stiff and straining to be in her, wasn’t really necessary.
Drake kept his cool, always. Even under fire. He was always totally in control of himself in bed with a woman. He liked sex. He liked the release of tension, he liked the feel of the softness of a woman. He’d started young on the streets. Sex was a source of solace for the street rats he ran with, girls and boys.
As he grew in power and wealth, for a while sex with beautiful women was a way to keep count, to establish his place in the hierarchy, to get back at the world. A spectacularly beautiful woman on a man’s arm was the perfect status symbol, and he’d had some real beauties in his day. It had pleased him to enter a room and have eyes widen at the sight of the eye candy on his arm.
It grew old quickly, of course. Drake soon realized that it was much better—certainly more efficient—to be feared than envied. So he made sure his revenge was public and his sex life private.
Sex was useful for releasing tension, pleasant for what it was, and nothing more.
But right now his entire body was drawn tight with anticipation. There was a huge band around his chest that had nothing to do with the bandages over his wound. As he reached out a hand to touch a lock of her hair that had spilled over his chest, Drake realized that his hand was trembling.
He hoped like hell it was a side effect of the bullet he’d taken yesterday, because if it wasn’t, if his hand was trembling because of Grace, he was in a shitload of trouble. If he and Grace were to get out of this mess, he’d have to keep a cool head and a steady hand.
Since when had his hands trembled? Never. He’d been a sharpshooter since he was fourteen. He made his fucking
living
selling arms. He was expected to be a better shot than anyone he sold to, and he was. It went with the territory. The hands of a marksman didn’t tremble. Not if the marksman wanted to live.
He touched the button next to the bed that opened the curtains. Judging by the light coming in through the windows, it must be around eight.
His finger touched her hair. The clear morning light picked out the highlights in her hair. Such an astonishing range of colors, from pale blonde to chestnut and everything in between. She was so right not to color her hair. There wasn’t a salon in the world that could duplicate that range of colors, that sheen. He carefully fit his finger under the lock and lifted it. As if it were alive, it curled around his finger. He shifted, turning into her, watching her.
The cuts and scrapes and bruises only enhanced the delicacy of her skin. He winced at the round scab at her temple, knowing precisely what a bullet planted right there would have done.
It would have wiped this beautiful woman right off the face of the planet in a spray of brain and blood.
He’d have woken up all alone on his huge bed, aching and sore, with nothing to look forward to, save plans for revenge. Plans he’d made and executed many, many times before.
Instead, by some miracle, he had this woman next to him, bearing the gift of kindness and beauty. In her person and in her hands.
How much better to contemplate that lovely face rather than watch the walls in the rising light, listening to his own breathing. If she weren’t here, he’d have been up at dawn, spreading his net to capture the fish of information.
And of course there was the business to run. He ran an empire, alone, and it required his constant attention, fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. Today, for example, there was a shipment to Yaounde to arrange, two new armorers to interview, the maintenance records of his helicopter fleet to check and the deputy premier of Montenegro to talk to on a secure video conference line.
None of these things held even a remote appeal. He let himself sink further into the bed, where he wanted to stay forever.
So be it. He wiped his mind of everything but the fascinating woman next to him.
He watched her face in sleep, the long lashes lying on her cheekbones. She was a quiet sleeper, the covers barely rising and falling with her breaths. He could stay here forever and simply watch her.
Grace’s eyes opened suddenly, with no warning. She was fast asleep one moment, eyes wide open the next. She stared straight up at him, disoriented. He watched her take in their position, close to him. A faint rosy blush rose in her cheeks.
“You, ah, you were restless and in pain—”
“And you comforted me,” he said softly. “Thank you. How are you feeling?”
“I don’t really know,” she confessed. “Better, I think. But sore.” She stretched her muscles a bit, moving her head. She was brought up short by his hand in her hair. The stretching had brought her closer to him. Watching her eyes, he rolled in her direction. Inches separated them.
Her breathing had speeded up, the slight flush along her cheekbones grew deeper. The blush warmed her skin, puffing out her natural fragrance like a cloud.
If Drake didn’t touch her, he would die. He finally gave in to temptation and ran the back of his finger over her cheekbone, marveling at the softness. She didn’t blink, she didn’t even breathe.
There was utter quiet, as if even the room were waiting for something.
This was the moment when Drake should start his seduction, that elegant dance between a man and a woman he was so familiar with. He knew all the moves, knew that he should touch her here and kiss her there.
But the music was off. Instead of a series of practiced moves, he found himself trembling with excitement, ready to burst out of his skin. He wanted to hold her so tightly her skin would be imprinted on his, he wanted to touch every inch of her, hold her breasts in his hands, suckle hard at her breasts, run his hand over her smooth, pale stomach. He wanted to roll on top of her, mount her, open her with his fingers and thrust inside, hard. Start fucking with all the strength of his body…
Whoa.
He was big and right now he was as excited as he’d ever been in his life. His size was a problem even for women who fucked constantly. The heated images in his head—holding her down with his hands while he fucked her as hard as he could—were crazy. He couldn’t do that with Grace. He’d scare her, maybe hurt her. God.
Something of what he was feeling must have communicated itself to her. Her color rose, her beautiful blue-green eyes shiny, watchful.
He had to go slowly. Be careful. Be in control.
For a second the notion that he had to tell himself to be in control was so alien, he nearly snorted. He was nothing
but
control.
His finger moved down her cheek, over the delicate jawline, running along the vein pulsing in her neck. He lifted his eyes to hers, finger poised to go lower.
“I want to touch you,” he whispered. “So badly.”
“I know,” she whispered back.
The finger hovered over her collarbone. He kept it steady only by applying the full force of his will, but the cost of that was that his entire body trembled, vibrated like a tuning fork.
He touched the soft silk of the pajama top. It was much too large for her and he could see pale skin bared where the material ballooned out. His eyes asked the question.
In answer, Grace arched, bringing her breasts close to his hand, baring that long, slender white neck.
Which to touch first? Both intriguing, impossible to resist.
Drake’s mouth settled on her neck while his hand slipped under the soft silk to her even softer, silkier breast. Grace let out a long, shaky breath.
Drake would have, too, but he was too excited to breathe. Too excited to do anything but cup her breast as he licked her, feeling the pounding pulse of her blood on his tongue, speeding up when he circled her nipple with his thumb. Ah God. Giving into temptation, he scraped his teeth along that smooth, smooth skin, then gave a little nip, of excitement, of ownership.
Grace jumped.
He hadn’t hurt her, but he lifted his head to check just the same. No, he hadn’t hurt her, but he had excited her. Color bloomed in her cheeks, along her neck.
Down to her breasts? He had to know.
His hand hovered over her and touched the top button of her pajamas. Moving his arm hurt his shoulder a little and he welcomed the pain, the bite of it. It grounded him, just a little, helped to keep his excitement from raging out of control.
“I want to see you, Grace. Will you let me?”
She let out a little huff of air. “I—ah, I seem to be having some trouble in saying no to you.”
He felt a slow smile well up from somewhere inside him, though he wasn’t normally a smiler. “Well the answer to that is obvious. Don’t say no.”
“That could get a little dangerous.”
“No, never.” The smile disappeared. “I don’t want you frightened of me, in any way. You can say no anytime you want, though I’m hoping you won’t.”
Grace shook her head, hair rasping on the pillow. “I mean dangerous in that you—you make me feel things I haven’t felt before. I don’t feel in control of myself.”
That makes two of us,
he thought.
He unbuttoned the top button. “Tell me,” he urged. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
To his astonishment, she did. Eyes wide, voice halting, she told him exactly what she was feeling, with an honesty that stole his breath.
“Where you touch me—I burn, Drake. Only burning isn’t really the right word because it’s not painful, not at all. It’s pure pleasure.”
The top button came undone, the second, the third…finally he had the pajama top open, revealing a strip of pale skin that was rapidly turning rosy. Drake wanted to watch her eyes, but he wanted to watch his hand touching her more. “And this?” he breathed as he folded back the heavy silk, revealing a pale, perfect breast. The back of his hand had touched her chest as he unbuttoned the top, but now he turned his hand to cup her. She fit in the palm of his hand, perfectly.
Perfect. She was just perfect. And real. What he was cupping was pure woman, not some artificial sac of liquid just under the skin. He hated that so much he ended up passing on the women who’d had their breasts enhanced surgically.
And why should she want to enhance something already perfect, anyway? His eyes greedily drank in every detail. The tender undercurve, the milky blue veins barely visible under the skin, the pale pink aureole, the nipples turning harder as he watched, a bright red cherry color.
“You’re perfect here,” he said, his thumb circling the nipple slowly.
“You certainly make me feel perfect. Ah…” She exhaled shakily as he gently pinched her.
“What else?” he asked urgently. “What else do I make you feel?”
“Warmth. No, heat. Your hand is hot on my skin. I noticed that yesterday. Even in the wet and cold, your skin emanates warmth. Only now…”
“Now, duschka?” he murmured. The endearment came from somewhere deep inside of him. Russian wasn’t even his first language, though to tell the truth, he had no idea what his first language had been. He’d spoken a bastard medley until he was around eleven. But somewhere he’d heard this word murmured with love, man to woman, the tone unmistakeable, and the word came up out of him from somewhere deep in his chest, certainly not his head. “Now, what?”