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“That’s my way of saying if you feel you haven’t done enough to earn that money, I’m sure we can sort that out. I didn’t mean to offend you.” Somehow, he was inside the cabin, and there were only inches to spare between him, the bed, and the door, and with Amber in the mix, that was really tight.
“Alexei! No.” She glared at him when he slipped the
dress straps from her shoulders.
“Positively no?”
She narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t move, and her eyes were darkening a little more with every passing second. “You know I can’t,” she said.
“Can’t what?” he asked, backing away.
“Can’t resist you—fuck it!” she hissed on a thwarted breath.
He laughed with relief. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“For you, maybe,” she said as she stepped out of the dress.
“This…thing we have is inconvenient for both of us, I know. Unfortunately, I feel the same way about you,” he admitted, “so why fight it?” His mouth tugged in a faint smile as he kissed her, and within moments, her fingers were laced through his hair.
“Perhaps if I knew the first thing about you,” Amber said later when they were lying entwined on her far too narrow bunk, “I could understand you better, and be more sympathetic.”
“More sympathetic? I’d like to experience that.”
“I don’t just mean sex,” she said.
“What do you want to know?”
She looked at him with surprise. “Seriously?”
He kissed her again, tasting her lips, lingering, and loving being close to her. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to let her a little way in. She was in the space-saver position, lying on top of him, with her chin resting on her folded arms. Her gaze was serious as it steadied on his face. “Tell me everything,” she said.
He laughed softly. “That’s a lot of talking.”
“Okay, so start with your first memory.”
He didn’t have to think hard to recall that, because it was still so vivid. “Sitting in a basket saddle on the back of a horse with nothing around me but space. I was alarmed to start with, but my grandfather was riding next to me, talking to me all the time, so it was okay.”
“On the steppes of Russia,” she said. Inhaling deeply, she closed her eyes as if trying to picture the scene. “Where were your parents?”
“Dead,” he said flatly.
“How?”
Amber met his warning stare steadily and with determination. “Yes, how?” she repeated.
“Rival gangs. My father was a petty criminal.” He paused and exhaled heavily. “When things heated up, my mother smuggled me out of the city and took me to my grandfather’s in the country. But then she went back to my father and paid with her life.”
“She must have loved your father very much, and you,” she said.
“Much good it did her,” he remembered bitterly.
“So that’s why your life of horses and justice is all intertwined?” Her eyes sparked as she fit another piece of the jigsaw into place.
“Maybe,” he agreed. He didn’t want to say any more, but she was still curious.
“And your grandfather?” she pressed.
“Was the most wonderful man—he shaped my life. He was a good man, a widower, but an old man when I was orphaned. That didn’t stop him taking me in and raising me like a son. He worked on my homework each night with me after a long day’s work in the fields, and he lived long enough to see me join the forces. I only wish he’d lived long enough to see the multinational corporation that grew from the oil that was discovered on his land.”
