His movements speeded up, not so controlled now, his hands pulling her down on him. The sensations magnified, ballooning with heat and friction, Drake moving so fast the huge bed beat hard against the wall.
Grace began that long freefall into orgasm, like jumping out of an airplane, stomach swooping with the absence of gravity. Usually, it lasted only a second before she climaxed, but there was something about this that prolonged it, kept her hovering on the edge for long minutes, as she hung above him, shaking, barely breathing…
Her entire body went ballistic, shaking, shuddering as an electric line of pleasure ran from the top of her head to her toes, centering on her loins, where she clenched strongly around Drake’s penis.
It set him off, too. With a low moan, he bucked strongly under her, swelled, and started spurting all over his stomach, a hard shudder accompanying each spurt. His teeth were clenched, hands hard at her hips, groaning as his hips moved wildly under her, completely out of control.
He was sweating all over, the short dark hair turning black with sweat. His head fell back against the pillows, strong neck arched, eyes slitted with pleasure, jaw muscles bunching. He looked in pain, but if he felt anything like what Grace had felt, it wasn’t pain. It was pleasure on an almost unimaginable scale.
Grace collapsed onto Drake’s chest, panting, wiped out, still shaking with the force of the orgasm. They lay there a moment, breathing heavily, eyes closed, creatures of their bodies.
After a moment, Drake’s arms went around her, one big hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapped around her waist, the way he always held her. She was surrounded by hard man, utterly safe.
Feeling safe was a mistake. Intellectually, she knew that. There was nothing safe about the situation at all. Hard men were gunning for Drake and, by extension, for her. Drake himself was an extremely dangerous man, not at all the kind of man you thought of as “safe.”
And yet she’d never felt safer in her life than right now, because she knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he would fight to the death for her.
There had never been anyone to defend her, ever. Her father had skipped out with all the family’s money when she was nine years old, and even before that, he hadn’t been much of a father. Her mother had been wrapped up in her father and, after his abandonment, in her own misery, with no time or thought to her daughter. There had been no aunts or uncles or cousins to form a loving layer of protection around her.
Grace had never had a protective boyfriend. Her lovers had been few and far between and the affairs never lasted more than a couple of weeks, often less. She’d been a passing fancy in their lives. By some twisted turn of fate or maybe by some twist in her psyche, the men she’d been with had been obsessed with their careers or their bank accounts, or often, both. Grace Larsen never figured very highly in their lives. She was there and then she wasn’t, and they didn’t much notice the difference.
The closest she’d felt to being special to someone had been with Harold. It had been a lovely feeling, but knowing that this charming, elderly man had her best interests at heart in the art world wasn’t the same as having someone as strong as Drake solidly on her side in all things.
Like now.
Grace let herself lay on Drake, draped over him, knowing in some deep recess of her mind that, somehow, she was precious to him. That he felt something strong for her and that it was real.
The sharp smell of sex was in the air, a compound of her arousal and the semen that had jetted all over his stomach and that now glued her to him. Her head had fallen to his hard shoulder, nose against his neck. She barely had the energy to open her eyes. Through slitted eyes, she could see about four square inches of his skin, even this small patch of him beautiful and intriguing.
Golden-brown skin, corded muscles so pronounced they cast shadows, even here sleek and strong. With her nose so close to her skin she could smell the essence of him above the keen smell of sex—a dark, fragrant spicy scent, redolent of musk, unlike anything she had ever smelled before in her life.
In a dark, crowded room full of men, she would be able to pick him out blindfolded, by scent alone.
And certainly by touch. No other man she’d ever seen had his deeply muscled physique. One brush of her fingers and she’d know him. No other man on earth could feel like that.
He reached over and punched a button. With a gentle whir, the curtains started sliding open.
It took her a minute to find the strength to turn her head toward the window. By the time she did, the curtains had opened all the way, letting the morning and New York come into the bedroom.
It was still snowing. Not a storm like last night, just gentle flakes hovering in the air more than falling out of the sky. Clouds hung so low over the city they hid the tops of many of the skyscrapers. This high up, it looked like the sky was close enough to touch.
“It’s still snowing,” she said dreamily, turning her head back into his neck, one hand over his heart.
Drake sighed, the huge deep chest filling with air, lifting her up. “Yes, love. Everything becomes more difficult in the snow.”
True, but the world wasn’t made for ease. “And everything becomes more beautiful in the snow.”
She could actually hear his smile. “Yes, duschka. Very beautiful. I never noticed that before you.”
She smiled against his neck, happy to have given him something, if only an appreciation of the beauty of snow.
She drifted, thinking of nothing at all, feeling warm and safe in his arms. She was beginning the luscious slide back into sleep when Drake said quietly, “Duschka.”
“Mm.” If he wanted to talk, he was going to have to do it to a semi-comatose woman, because she was way too comfortable to pay attention to whatever he wanted to say. Something serious, from the sound of it.
No, she didn’t want to talk about anything serious, not right now. Now was her time out of time.
Another enormous sigh as Drake’s big hands shifted to cup her shoulders. He lifted her torso slightly so he could look her in the eyes. “I need to tell you something, something you won’t want to hear. It is time for you to know, because we need to be making plans.”
It
was
serious. Any hint of a smile had gone, and his face was drawn in tight lines, as if in pain. Grace dropped the smile. Whatever it was, it had him worried, so it worried her.
She folded her hands on his chest and rested her chin on them. Whatever the bad news was, she wanted to be touching as much of him as possible while hearing it. “All right,” she said quietly. “Shoot. I’m ready.”
He shut his eyes briefly, then opened them, gaze fierce as an eagle’s. “These…problems we’re having. They’re not going away. Ever.”
She said nothing, just watched him.
“The people who are after me are not going to quit, love.” His hands on her back clenched lightly, as if reasserting ownership. “Particularly not now, not when they have you as a bargaining chip and when they know what you mean to me.”
She spoke through a suddenly tight throat. “And just what do I mean to you, Drake?”
“Everything,” he said promptly, eyes never leaving hers. “You’re everything to me.”
He lifted himself slightly to her, hard stomach muscles clenching, so strong they actually lifted her up as he brought his mouth to hers for a hot, biting kiss that went on and on. She’d just climaxed but her body started waking up, bit by bit, each time his tongue touched hers.
His body was already awake. His penis had only softened a little after his climax, but with the kiss he surged into a full erection, lengthening and hardening in powerful pulses that sent shivers through her.
Grace melted.
Drake broke the kiss, easing back down. The pupils of his eyes had expanded so much the irises looked black. A deep flush rode his high cheekbones and his jaw muscles bunched.
“Later,” he growled. “We’ll have all the time we want later. But now we need to make plans. I told you my enemies aren’t going to give up and I will not give you up.”
Grace’s heart gave a huge thump in her chest. Something big, something dangerous was coming. “So—what’s the answer?”
“We disappear,” he said simply, his eyes never leaving hers.
At first Grace didn’t understand. The words garbled in her head.
Dis a tear?
Or was it
we’d appear?
Appear where?
And then it struck her.
She frowned. “You mean—go away for a while? Hide out in some sunny resort until the situation resolves itself?”
“No, love.” Drake fingered a lock of her hair, brought it to his nose, then gently tucked it back behind her ear. “I mean disappear completely. Disappear forever. Leave our lives behind and make new ones far away where no one can ever find us.”
Grace blinked. “You mean—just walk away? Forever?” Wow. It was almost impossible to even contemplate the thought. It was one thing to hole up somewhere for a while. It could even be…well, if not fun, then certainly interesting, as long as Drake was with her. A little time out of time. But he wasn’t talking about that. He was talking about a new life, a new identity, like those people in the Witness Protection Program. And even then, as far as she knew, when the danger was over, the people went back to their lives.
He was searching for something in her face. “Yes,” he said simply. “Forever. Stop being Grace Larsen and Viktor Drakovich and become someone else, far away. And stay that someone else for the rest of our lives.”
Grace let out a slow breath, mind whirling.
“And we’re going to have to be really clever about disappearing, too, because if my enemies find us, we’re dead. There will be no statute of limitations on this, Grace. No going back, ever. You’ll never be Grace Larsen again, never see New York again. Never see the United States again. Everything you have and are will have to go.”
“I—is that possible? I thought only governments can do that kind of thing.”
He allowed himself a small smile. “It is indeed possible, and I can do that kind of thing much better than a government can, if I have the time to plan it right. The question is—are you all right with this? Can you stand the thought of leaving everything and everyone behind? Because it will make my task difficult if not impossible to create new lives for us if you can’t let go. If you contact any of your old friends, if you resubscribe to a favorite magazine, if you get in touch with old clients, that would be a huge door for my enemies to walk through, Grace. It could get us killed. You must be able to walk away and never look back. I know how much I’m asking of you and I know this is all my fault. But there is no way to undo what is done, and now I must ask you—can you do it?”
She thought it was typical of him that he wasn’t wheedling or coaxing her. He wasn’t even seducing her, though he must realize by now that sex was his most potent weapon. If he started kissing her, making love to her, she would melt and acquiesce to anything he said. Disappear to the North Pole or to darkest Africa? Yes, of course, darling Drake. Kiss me again.
No, he wasn’t using any weapons at his disposal. His body under hers was very still. He wasn’t trying to smile or charm her in any way. He’d made his apology and she imagined it would be the last. Drake was a realist above all, and this was now their new reality. It wasn’t really his fault and it certainly wasn’t hers, it just was.
She was at a crossroads, and the decision she took right now, in this very instant, would color the rest of her days. She looked down at him, at this man who, in a storm of violence, had someone become more dear to her than any other human on earth.
It would be easy to say that she had bad taste in men, but she knew it wasn’t true. The lovers she’d had had been vain children, wanting in important ways. She’d known that and she’d been with them anyway, because at times she’d just been so damned
lonely.
So she’d closed her eyes to their defects, trying to pretend that this time, this relationship would work, all the while knowing it wouldn’t. All the while knowing that they didn’t really care for
her,
Grace Larsen. They wanted some eye candy on their arm, and the fact that she was an artist made for fun cocktail party conversation until they got bored with it, and with her.
Nothing had ever worked out and with the kind of men she met, nothing ever would. She’d resigned herself to being alone.
Fine, upstanding, successful American men—and they had all been morally weak, even fragile, inside. Take away their money and their jobs and their status, and they were nothing.
Drake was the opposite. He’d had a hard life. She could feel the strength of him down to his core. She was important to him, she could see it, she could feel it. Every cell in her body told her this.
This was such an important moment. She had to get it just right.
Grace leaned down slightly, right hand resting lightly over his heart. She could feel the faint rasp of his chest hairs against her breasts, his nipple centered against her palm, the steely muscles under her hand striated with muscle and deep down, the solid, regular, calm beats of his heart.
She bent her head until her nose almost touched his, her hair a curtain around them, as if shielding them from a world that meant them terrible harm.