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He stares at me, his eyes searching my face. “Are you sharpening any wooden stakes in that bedroom of yours?”
I blink at him. Did Shane Ryan just attempt a joke? “No. Besides, I wouldn’t need to. You have a perfectly suitable set of titanium knives in the kitchen.”
A grin flickers across his face. “You can stay for now. As long as my brothers are okay with your deceit. Conor has a particular hatred of the Russians.” He flashes an eyebrow at me. “He might just kill you himself, anyway. But, I guess that’s the chance you’ll have to take.”
I ignore his attempt to rile me further. “So, I can stay?”
“For now. My brothers are much better behaved when you’re around. But, if you lie to me again…”
“I won’t,” I say before he can finish his sentence. “Aren’t you worried the Wolf will find me eventually? I don’t want to put any of you in danger.”
“Me and my brothers are always in danger. But, no,” he shakes his head, “I don’t fear the Wolf. He might have been one of the most feared assassins of his generation, but now he hides in the shadows, no doubt pining for the girl who almost killed him.”
I sit forward in my seat. “You know the Wolf? Do you know where he is?”
“No. I don’t have any answers for you. Like you said, he’s disappeared. I think you might have done your job when you put that stake in his neck. He might not be dead, but he isn’t alive either.”
“I won’t rest until the last breath leaves his body.” I spit out the words, surprised by how easily the hatred and venom I hold for him bubbles to the surface. I’ve kept it hidden for so long.
“I can understand that,” he says and for a second, it seems like we have a connection in something, although I can’t figure out what or why.
“Thank you for allowing me to stay, Shane,” I say, suddenly overcome with gratitude. He may act like a heartless bastard, but there must be one in there somewhere.
“Your brothers were twins too?” he asks.
“Yes.” I blink, the question taking me by surprise. “Identical.”
“Like Liam and Mikey?”
“Yes. And full of mischief like them too.” Tears spring to my eyes and I look down and quickly wipe them away.
“I’m sorry about your family, Hacker,” he says quietly.
“Thank you.” I look up at him again and my eyes lock with his. My pulse quickens, and something in him calls me, deep in my soul. My breathing becomes harder and faster and I wonder if he feels anything too. But he breaks eye contact, and the moment vanishes. I shake my head. Reliving the past has made me emotional and over-sensitive. Desperate for human connection, I’m seeing meaning in things where there is none.
Shane clears his throat. “You should go tell Conor and the twins who you really are. If they don’t kill you, I’ll see you at dinner,” he says as he stands up.
I stand too. “See you at dinner then,” I say with a smile and a confidence I don’t feel.
He nods and stuffs his hands in his suit pants as I walk out of his office.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
SHANE
Iwatch her as she walks out of my office and my throat constricts. My cock twitches at the sight of her curvy ass swaying in those skintight jeans, and my veins pulse with need. I consider calling her back in here, bending her over my desk and fucking her until she screams my name louder than she’s ever screamed out one of my brothers’.
I close my eyes and imagine slipping my fingers inside her cunt. Tasting her. Filling her with my cock. I lie in bed at night, listening to my brothers making her come over and over again. Sometimes, I imagine what she looks like when she’s losing control as I jerk off to the sound of her moaning their names.
Although this is about so much more than the desire to fuck her. I feel her in every fiber of my being. I can’t look her in the eye because she sees into my soul. When I was a kid growing up in Ireland, my mother used to warn me of the dangers of witches and fairies who might sneak into my bedroom and cast a spell on me. My father told her she was crazy, and it was the only thing I ever agreed with him on, although I never told her that. But perhaps there was more truth to her fairytales than I ever gave her credit for?
Jessie Romanov has put a fucking spell on me. Even though she lied to me, to all of us, I still want her so badly it fucking hurts. She fills my every waking thought. From the moment she crawled out from beneath that desk in Nikolai Semenov’s office and looked me in the eye, I knew she was a warrior. And now I know who she really is, and what she must have endured at the hands of the Wolf, my admiration for her and her strength has grown tenfold. My brothers and I know of monsters and demons, of running from a past that is determined to keep pace with you no matter how far or how high you climb.
Jessie is just like us—and nothing like us.
But I can’t give in to this. I can’t let her in. Because I don’t trust her, and I’m not sure I ever could. I would enjoy nothing more than to walk down that hallway after her and take her to my bed. But how would I ever be sure that she wasn’t using that incredible body of hers just to get close to me, to all of us, and then take us down when we’re at our weakest?
