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She swatted at his hand. “I don’t want to stay here with Rurik.”
He smirked. “Does that mean you’d want to stay here with me?”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s a trick question. You’ve already said you’re not staying.”
He walked past her. “Let me get you a cup of coffee.”
“Coffee won’t solve this problem,” she said, following him into the house.
“No, but it will make it more bearable.”
He poured her a cup and handed it to her.
She looked down at it. “How do you know I don’t take cream and sugar?”
“Do you?” She didn’t. He knew she didn’t because he’d made it his business to know as much about her as possible, right down to the way she took her coffee.
“No,” she admitted grudgingly.
He leaned against the counter and studied her. “I’ve had to make an aggressive move against Musa in answer to the fire at Samara. It’s not safe for you in the city now.”
“If it’s not safe for me, it’s not safe for you.”
He stared at her, remembering the way she’d looked up at him when he moved inside her the night before. “Careful. I might begin to think you’re worried about me.”
She blushed, as if she could read his mind. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to be at home where I can visit my father, where I can take care of Odette and Dimitri.”
“I’ll have someone look in on your father,” he said gently. “And Zoya has promised to take care of the birds while you’re away.”
She glared at him over her coffee. “You tricked me.”
“I didn’t. I told you we had to leave the city.”
“I didn’t know it would be indefinitely,” she said. “What about my father?”
He longed to go to her, to put his arms around her and pull her into his arms even though he knew the impulse alone was a sign that his plan had gone sideways — the plan being to bring her to heel and then use her for her name.
He’d known bringing her to heel would be difficult — the signs had all been there — but he’d had no way of knowing he would come to want her.
“Your father has entrusted me with your safety,” he said. “Do you think he would want you in Chicago if it meant you were in danger?”
“Don’t use my father against me,” she snapped.
“A convenient way to ignore the question,” he said, his patience waning.
“I could refuse to stay.” She had that shine in her eyes, the one he was beginning to recognize as a sign she was digging in her heels, that soon she would refuse to do what he wanted on principle alone.
He drew in a breath. He needed to work her like he would work any adversary — patiently, strategically, with an eye toward her motivations and desires.
He walked toward her and took the coffee cup from her hand. He set it aside and tipped her chin to force her to look at him. Her body was so close he could feel the brush of the sweater against his bare chest, the warmth of her naked thighs against his jeans. Now he knew how she would feel under him, how it felt to be inside her, like being cradled in the darkest, quietest depths of a tumultuous sea.
His body responded, the blood starting to simmer in his veins, his cock jumping to attention. He wanted her again. Was afraid she’d stoked a hunger in him that would never be satiated.
But he had to be smart.
Uncertainty flashed in her eyes in the moment before he kissed her. He meant for it to be gentle, tender. To be a message that he cared what happened to her, that he was only trying to protect her by making her stay at the lake house.
But the moment their tongues met, the kiss exploded into a torrent of lust. She moaned into his mouth and slid her hands around his waist, pressing her body against his as he took the kiss deeper.
