Chapter 2
Talia gasped at the raw intensity she could hear in Ethan’s voice and the fire she could now see burning in the depths of those gold-rimmed hazel eyes. The tension in his body had turned predatory, ready to pounce.
“I’m wearing a thong, not panties,” she murmured.
“What?” He snapped his impatience.
“If taking me is what you need to do, then do it,” Talia said softly.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only way you’ll trust me.” And because Talia wanted him. Had, as it seemed he had known, always wanted him. Seeing and being with Ethan again told her she would always want this man. She didn’t care why he now wanted her, only that he did.
“Fucking you won’t make me trust you, Talia,” he scorned. “You could still be working for Alizoti senior.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“He’s the Albanian who wants me dead.”
“Why?”
“You already know that if you’re working for him, and if you don’t, then it’s better if I don’t tell you.”
“I told you, I don’t know him.”
His eyes narrowed to steely slits. “But maybe he knows you and offered you a deal? Bring me in and you can have your father back?”
Ethan had tried, several times, to end this thing with Alizoti, first by talking to the other man on the telephone, an occasion when Agon Alizoti had laughed in his face and basically told him to prepare to die. After that failed, Ethan had tracked the other man down to where he had his closely guarded estate in Atlanta, Georgia. The security was tight, making it impossible to get close enough to the other man to do any more than watch the toing and froing of people going into and out of the estate.
But it hadn’t been a completely wasted trip. Ethan had learned there was a pretender to Alizoti’s throne as head of the Albanian mafia in Georgia. If Talia had been even a couple of days later, she wouldn’t have found Ethan here, because he had called that pretender to the throne once he was safely back in Majorca. The other man had been much more receptive than Agon, and the two of them now had a deal. Ethan would make sure Alizoti disappeared, and the man taking over would forget the blood debt owed for the lives of Vaso and Agon.
Which would leave Ethan finally free to get on with his life.
“This man, Alizoti, didn’t offer me any sort of deal. And I have no idea where my father is, which is why I need your help.”
“So what does that make me, Talia?” he mocked. “The last in a long line of men you’ve offered your body to in exchange for their assistance to track down Ivan?”
“I told you I don’t have anyone else to ask for help.” Talia felt her own anger rising. “And you have no basis upon which to make that accusation.” There were no other men. Not in the way Ethan meant. There never had been.
Oh, she’d been out on the occasional date while at the university in England, but those dates had all seemed like boys when she compared them to Ethan. A part of her also knew she’d only accepted those dates in the hope of making Ethan jealous. Something at which she had failed when Ethan teased her about the boys she dated rather than showed any sign of jealousy.
The past three years, she’d been too afraid to get close to anyone or allow anyone to get close to her, let alone become intimate with them.
She was a twenty-four-year-old woman who had never even come close to losing her virginity. Something Ethan would know if he accepted her offer. “Do it,” she said again.
Ethan knew he was balanced on a fine edge between kicking this woman out and accepting her invitation. “Allowing me to fuck you won’t change my mind about helping you.”
Those dark blue eyes continued to meet his unflinchingly, despite his deliberate crudeness. “I don’t expect it to.”
His gaze roamed over her slowly. Noted the wild glitter in her eyes. The tightness of her jaw. The tension that was causing her body to hum with suppressed emotion. With desire?
He drew in a long and controlling breath. “I think I’ll pass.” He turned away, knowing it was too soon for him to accept what Talia was offering. He needed to deal with the Alizoti situation first. Then, and only then, would he be able to tell her what he’d done and ask if she still wanted him. “Give my brother a call at Knight Security in a couple of days, once I’ve had chance to talk to him. I’m not promising anything, but if your story checks out Gabriel might agree to help you look for him.”
Talia reached out and placed her hand on the warmth of his bare shoulder. “Ethan, I—” She broke off with a gasp as Ethan turned quickly, his expression savage.
“Don’t fucking touch me!”
Talia could see he was shaking. With rage? Or something else? “What happened to you, Ethan?” she said slowly, her hand dropping back to her side.
“Nothing happened to me,” he growled. “This is who I am.”
She shook her head. “The Ethan I knew was nice—”
“Nice!” he echoed harshly. “I’ve never been nice, Talia.”
She didn’t believe him. The man she had met five years ago had been self-confident, maybe even a little cocky, but he had also been laidback and teasing. The man in front of her didn’t look as if he knew the meaning of either of those words. As for his reaction to being touched…
“What’s the matter, Talia?” he mocked. “A little less confident now you’ve seen the real me? Not sure whether I might pounce and take that hot little body of yours after all?”
Strange he should use the same word to describe his behavior as she had inside her head only minutes ago. Although the fact he’d said her body was hot was… Was what? Encouraging? Or scary as hell? “You wouldn’t hurt me,” she said confidently.
“I assure you I’m perfectly capable of hurting. Of killing,” he added grimly.
“You were in the army—”
“Since then.”
“Then I’m sure they deserved it.”
He gave a choked laugh. “Does that make it right?”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“Are you speaking from personal experience?”
“I’ve never killed anyone!”
“But I’m betting your father has. Or, at least, he’s had his bodyguards do so on his instruction.”
“I…think so, yes,” she confirmed quietly, her face pale, eyes haunted. “People who got too close to realizing who we were.”
Ethan gave a shake of his head. “People you knew?”
Her gaze lowered. “Yes.”
“And you still want me to help you find him?”
“I keep telling you, I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
He tried to fight hearing her say she needed him, and the dangerous combination of knowing he couldn’t go anywhere near Talia, not yet, and the desire for her that had consumed him for years.
He tried to fight it.
He failed.
Talia didn’t resist when he reached out and pulled her in tight against his body. His hands gripped her ass as he rubbed the hard length of his cock against her and his mouth came crashing down on hers, his tongue parting her lips before plunging inside, taking complete possession.
He was instantly aware of molten heat, like being in the center of an erupting volcano. She also tasted delicious. That combination of hot, heady spices and summer flowers.
Too much. It was far, far too much even for his self-control.
Ethan gave a groan as he broke the kiss to move his lips to the slender arch of her throat. Her hands were flat against his bare chest. Palms hot, fingers caressing up to his shoulders before becoming entangled in the thick dark hair at his nape.
His own hands moved higher, the fingers of one hand splayed over the silky smoothness of her bare back as his other hand moved to the two buttons fastening the front of her leather waistcoat.
The black lace bra beneath cupped the swell of her breasts.
Talia gave a gasp as Ethan easily snapped the central ribbon of her bra before folding back the lace and baring her breasts completely. That gasp turned to a groan as he bent her back over his arm before lowering his head to suck an engorged nipple into the dark cavern of his mouth. His tongue was a moist rasp over that aching nubbin, his teeth biting just short of pain. The dark stubble on his chin was a pleasurable rasp.
She clung to his shoulders as pleasure coursed hotly through her body, resulting in a gush of juices between her nether lips. She pressed closer against him, rubbing her mound up and down the hard length of his cock, silently asking, begging for him to take her.
Ethan’s fingers were hot against her bared skin as he unfastened the button on her jeans and slid the zip down before his hand slipped inside. “Fuck, you are wearing a thong,” he groaned again as his fingers pushed aside that scrap of material to find and stroke the hard throb of her clit.
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Ethan,” she breathed shakily, back arching as he pressed one long finger into her channel at the same time as the soft pad of his thumb pressed down and around her clit.
“Everything about you has been one lie after another since I met you,” he dismissed harshly.
“No—”
“This is the only thing that doesn’t lie, Talia.” His lips moved to the sensitive skin at the base of her throat.
Talia’s face burned as she heard the moist sound of her channel sucking on his finger as it continued to slide in and out of her, her clit an aching throb she wanted to press and rub against that tormenting thumb.
She mewled—oh God, she actually mewled, like a cat in heat—her protest as he removed that hand, leaving her feeling empty and aching.
He gave her a hard grin as his hands once again cupped her bottom. Her legs automatically went about his waist as he lifted her before carrying her across the room to sit her down on the sofa. “Lift up.” He pulled her jeans and the thong down to her ankles as she instantly obeyed that command. “Part your legs for me,” he instructed as he sank down onto his knees in front of her.
There was no resisting a kneeling Ethan, no denying him as she allowed her legs to fall apart. “They won’t go any farther.” She was hobbled, held in place by the material about her ankles.
Ethan wasn’t willing to allow Talia’s legs any more freedom of movement by taking off her jeans completely, instead pushing her thighs as far apart as they would go before moving his hand so that his fingers could part the blonde curls, exposing swollen and glistening pussy lips and her erect clit. “So fucking beautiful,” he murmured before lowering his head and taking that clit into his mouth.
He heard Talia’s keening cry as he sucked rhythmically on that nubbin, her legs trembling as she sank lower down the sofa. Ethan pulled her down farther still, until her ass was balanced on the edge of the sofa. This new position allowed him greater access as he took his mouth from her clit and licked his way down those glistening pussy lips, greedily lapping up the flow of juices as they gushed onto his stroking tongue.
“Mustn’t neglect these.” He lifted his head, giving a brief smile of satisfaction. He watched for several minutes as Talia’s back arched into his fingers while they tugged on one erect nipple, before he returned his mouth to her pussy. “You like that,” he murmured his satisfaction as his tongue was instantly coated in another gush of the nectar between her thighs. “Don’t you?” he prompted darkly as a second finger joined the first.
“Yes, I…I like that.”
“You fucking love this.” The way the walls of her pussy contracted and grasped onto the thrust of his fingers, her back arching up to meet each of those thrusts, the erratic hitching of her breath as her hands entangled in his hair to hold him against her, all left him in no doubt as to how much Talia was enjoying what he was doing to her.
“Ethan—”
“Come for me, Talia,” he instructed harshly, increasing the speed of those thrusts, his mouth once again taking possession of her clit as his fingers twisted her nipple.
Talia screamed as the pleasure hit. Not in a gentle way, but with the force of a tornado ripping through her body.
All she could see was a white haze. All she could feel was heat and pulsing pleasure as she continued to grind against Ethan’s mouth and the sensuous rasp of his stubble, her breasts pressing into the almost painful tugging on her nipple.
“No more,” she finally pleaded, her body so over-sensitized it hurt to have him touch her. “No more, Ethan,” she begged as he removed his mouth from her clit, her juices glistening on his chin as he looked at her through narrowed lids.
A glance down showed her swollen clit was no longer beneath its protective hood but fully exposed and red. Her nipples were full and elongated from where Ethan’s fingers had pulled and twisted them.
It was pleasure-pain as Ethan’s mouth returned to her mound, his thumb stroking her clit, his other hand moving to cup and then tweak her nipples.
“Ethan, I can’t—”
“For me you can,” he growled.
She gasped as a second climax instantly tore through her already wrecked body, her breathing becoming a sob as she quivered and shook beneath the onslaught of pleasure that was almost but not quite too much to bear.
Ethan finally released her to sit back on his heels. “Still think I’m nice?” he taunted.
No, he wasn’t nice, Talia decided as she looked at him. But the glitter of his eyes, that unsmiling mouth, the tension in his jaw, were all indications of inner turmoil, not coldness or cruelty. Of a wound he carried inside him, festering and gaping, no matter what he did or how much time passed.
Something had happened to Ethan since she last saw him. Something bad.
She reached out a hand toward him. “Talk to me, Ethan. Tell me—” She broke off as the sound of an explosion shattered the silence of the night. Her eyes widened. “What was that?”
“I’m guessing it might be some of your friends letting you know they’re on their way.”
“I don’t have any friends.”
“Ah, poor little Talia,” Ethan bit out unsympathetically as he stood and moved to open the laptop on a side table before pounding away on the keys. “Well, someone is making their way here. Four someones.”
She was still too befuddled from the force of her climaxes to be able to take in what Ethan was saying to her.
“How long did your device keep my security disabled?” he demanded.
“I—” She gave a pained frown. “It’s still down…”
He gave an impatient shake of his head. “Then, intentionally or otherwise, you’re responsible for us having company.”
“I told you, whoever those men are, they’re nothing to do with me.”
He closed the laptop with a snap. “If I give you the benefit of the doubt and you’re lying to me—”
“I’m not.”
“In that case, I hope you have a spare thong in that backpack, because we have to leave. Now.”
“I— But—” Talia stood to pull up her thong and jeans before refastening the latter, and then squirming a little with discomfort as the lace of her thong didn’t prevent the heavier material of her jeans from rubbing against her overstimulated flesh. Fastening the leather waistcoat over her ripped bra and oversensitive breasts proved just as uncomfortable. “Where are we going? How are we getting there?” She knew Ethan kept a motorbike here, had seen it parked beneath the carport outside a short time ago.
“To a friend,” Ethan answered economically as he pulled on a T-shirt. “By helo.”
Talia picked up the backpack she had brought with her and slipped the straps over her shoulders. “You have a helicopter here?” Her surveillance hadn’t picked that up.
“Yes,” he snapped. “Now shift your pretty ass, damn it!” He picked up the laptop before glancing around the finca to make sure there would be nothing left there for the intruders to find and use against him or anyone he cared about. There shouldn’t be; he had kept personal possessions to a minimum. “Let’s go,” he rasped impatiently, grabbing hold of her arm and pulling her along beside him as she once again seemed incapable of moving on her own.
If Talia really wasn’t working with the men quickly approaching the finca, then Ethan had no intention of leaving her here to face the untender mercy of the Albanians. He already had the image of one tortured and dead woman inside his head. He didn’t want another one.
He had the camouflage removed from the helo he always kept fueled and ready to leave, but he used up precious more seconds doing a quick safety check before getting inside. The engine was running within seconds, and Talia was strapped in the seat beside him, her backpack thrown in the back, when he heard her start to hyperventilate.
Shit.
If Talia was to be believed, then in the past ten days, her father had disappeared and she’d been left alone and frightened, not knowing where he was or if he would be back. Ethan would take a guess on her father’s criminal record precluding her being able to contact the police and ask for their help in finding Ivan. Even the loyalty of their bodyguards would have been questionable if, after three years of running, Ivan had somehow been taken. And when Talia came to Ethan for that help, he had first treated her with distrust and then made savage love to her.
Way to go, bro, he could hear any one of his three brothers chastise inside his head. His sister Lily would say something far less flattering.
“Put your head down between your knees,” he instructed tersely, having seen movement in the trees surrounding the finca. “We’re leaving now,” he had time to add as he heard the sound of a bullet hitting the top of the helo and realized the men were aiming for the rotor blade overhead.
More bullets hit the helo as he took off faster than he would normally have done, causing the machine to rock violently from side to side as it made a too-rapid ascent. Ethan waited only long enough to clear the tops of the trees before shifting forward away from the finca and toward the open expanse of sea ahead.
All the time hoping and praying that none of those bullets had hit anything vital in the helo’s engine; otherwise, they would be ditching in the sea sometime in the near future.
Ethan gave Talia a brief glance. Her face was deathly pale in the lights from the dashboard, but at least she was sitting up and no longer breathing so erratically.
She swallowed before speaking. “Where are we going?”
“I told you, to a friend.”
“I asked where?”
“Does it really matter?”
It could, yes. She was no longer sure if the passport she was using would pass through an airport security. Her route here had been haphazard, three flights and two boat trips, but she was as desperate to avoid detection as Ethan and wasn’t sure she dare use that passport again.
“We’re going to Androcco.” Ethan seemed to guess some of her concerns, seeming slightly more relaxed now that they had left the island and were out over the sea.
“Androcco?”
“It’s a small principality in the Med.”
“I know what and where it is.” By now, Talia knew the geography of the world well enough to get a degree in the subject without even trying. The island of Androcco seemed a strange choice if, as she suspected, Ethan’s movements were as much under the radar as her own were. “I just don’t understand why you would choose to go there.”
Ethan gave her a long, narrow-eyed stare before answering her. “We’re going there because my brother Asher has been friends with Prince Alexandre since their university days, and consequently so has the rest of our family. The prince is also married to the best friend of Asher’s wife, Lissa.”
“Princess Anastazia?”
“That’s the one,” he confirmed.
The grimness of his expression told Talia that he wasn’t particularly happy about going to Androcco.
That he wasn’t happy with a lot of things, most especially with having her back in his life.