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25
He watched her for a long time as the morning light slanted through the windows in her room, casting her in a column of gold. She was still asleep in the crook of his arm, her hair falling like honey down her back.
This was bad.
Not the sex. That part he’d expected. They were married, and although he knew Kira had her own agenda, he’d known from the moment he’d danced with her on their wedding night that they would end up naked and fucking.
Except that hadn’t felt like fucking. Or it had felt like more than fucking.
Or it had felt both like more than fucking and the best fucking he’d ever had in his life.
She was inexperienced. That much he could tell. Not a virgin, but not used to being attended to by a man, to having someone stroke the hidden gardens of her body until she came hard and fast.
His cock lurched back to life at the thought. She’d come alive under his hands, the ice princess melting like lava, and in the process, he’d seen something else, something she’d tried to hide from him in the weeks since their marriage.
Passion. Fire. Worst of all, most troubling of all, a vulnerability that made him want to protect her, not because she belonged to him, but because the thought of anyone hurting her made him want to burn down the world.
Lyon…
The sound of her finally saying his name, not with disdain but with pleasure, with passion, had nearly undone him.
He eased out from under her arm and off the bed. He didn’t want to leave her, didn’t want to re-enter the real world, the one where they danced around each other like boxers defending their corners.
But Rurik would arrive at some point in the day. Lyon had to prepare for the moment when he would break the news to Kira that she was staying at the lake under guard while he went back to Chicago to deal with Musa.
That would require coffee. A lot of coffee.
He hunted for his jeans on the floor and slipped them on with no underwear, then headed downstairs. He’d started brewing the coffee and was pulling two cups down from the cupboard when his cell phone rang from the counter where he’d left it the night before.
It was Alek.
“Tell me,” Lyon said into the phone.
“It’s done,” Alek said. “Paid a couple of dispatchers to reroute the cargo and lose the paperwork. Then paid a maintenance and repair manager to close down the dock the cargo was assigned to. It’s not permanent, but there will be a back up at the Port. It’ll take a long while to sort it all out and get the cargo a new dock date.”
“Good,” Lyon said, pouring a cup of coffee. “What’s the word on the street?”
“All hell is breaking loose.” Alek hesitated. “You sure about this, boss?”
Lyon thought about his meeting with Ivan. “I’m sure. Musa needs to know his actions have consequences, and the men need to know I can do something besides swing my fists.”
“Okay,” Alek said. “When are you coming back?”
Lyon carried his coffee out onto the deck. “Tonight. As soon as Rurik gets here.” The sun had begun its climb. It cast a net of diamonds onto the lake, which appeared all the more blue for the trees, dressed in full autumn splendor, that lined its shores. He almost wished he could stay, hole up with Kira, stay in bed until he knew every inch of her satiny skin, every freckle, every dimple. “Let me know if anything changes."
“Will do,” Alek said.
“Why is Rurik coming?”
The voice caught him by surprise and he turned to find Kira standing in the sweater he’d worn the night before and nothing else.
Lyon slipped the phone into his jeans. “He’s coming to keep an eye on things while I go back to Chicago.”
He wasn’t one to hedge around the facts, not even with his beautiful and volatile wife.
“I’m not staying here alone,” she said.
He walked toward her. “You won’t be alone.” He stopped and reached out to tuck a strand of her hair, blowing in the breeze off the lake, behind one delicate ear. “Rurik will be here.”
