Page 68 of Dangerous Passion

And then it struck her.

She frowned. “You mean—go away for a while? Hide out in some sunny resort until the situation resolves itself?”

“No, love.” Drake fingered a lock of her hair, brought it to his nose, then gently tucked it back behind her ear. “I mean disappear completely. Disappear forever. Leave our lives behind and make new ones far away where no one can ever find us.”

Grace blinked. “You mean—just walk away? Forever?” Wow. It was almost impossible to even contemplate the thought. It was one thing to hole up somewhere for a while. It could even be … well, if not fun, then certainly interesting, as long as Drake was with her. A little time out of time. But he wasn’t talking about that. He was talking about a new life, a new identity, like those people in the Witness Protection Program. And even then, as far as she knew, when the danger was over, the people went back to their lives.

He was searching for something in her face. “Yes,” he said simply. “Forever. Stop being Grace Larsen and Viktor Drakovich and become someone else, far away. And stay that someone else for the rest of our lives.”

Grace let out a slow breath, mind whirling.

“And we’re going to have to be really clever about disappearing, too, because if my enemies find us, we’re dead. There will be no statute of limitations on this, Grace. No going back, ever. You’ll never be Grace Larsen again, never see New York again. Never see the United States again. Everything you have and are will have to go.”

“I—is that possible? I thought only governments can do that kind of thing.”

He allowed himself a small smile. “It is indeed possible, and I can do that kind of thing much better than a government can, if I have the time to plan it right. The question is—are you all right with this? Can you stand the thought of leaving everything and everyone behind? Because it will make my task difficult if not impossible to create new lives for us if you can’t let go. If you contact any of your old friends, if you resubscribe to a favorite magazine, if you get in touch with old clients, that would be a huge door for my enemies to walk through, Grace. It could get us killed. You must be able to walk away and never look back. I know how much I’m asking of you and I know this is all my fault. But there is no way to undo what is done, and now I must to ask you—can you do it?”

She thought it was typical of him that he wasn’t wheedling or coaxing her. He wasn’t even seducing her, though he must realize by now that sex was his most potent weapon. If he started kissing her, making love to her, she would melt and acquiesce to anything he said. Disappear to the North Pole or to darkest Africa? Yes, of course, darling Drake. Kiss me again.

No, he wasn’t using any weapons at his disposal. His body under hers was very still. He wasn’t trying to smile or charm her in any way. He’d made his apology and she imagined it would be the last. Drake was a realist above all, and this was now their new reality. It wasn’t really his fault and it certainly wasn’t hers, it just was.

She was at a crossroads, and the decision she took right now, in this very instant, would color the rest of her days. She looked down at him, at this man who, in a storm ofviolence, had somehow become more dear to her than any other human on earth.

It would be easy to say that she had bad taste in men, but she knew it wasn’t true. The lovers she’d had had been vain children, wanting in important ways. She’d known that and she’d been with them anyway, because at times she’d just been so damnedlonely. So she’d closed her eyes to their defects, trying to pretend that this time, this relationship would work, all the while knowing it wouldn’t. All the while knowing that they didn’t really care forher, Grace Larsen. They wanted some eye candy on their arm, and the fact that she was an artist made for fun cocktail party conversation until they got bored with it, and with her.

Nothing had ever worked out and with the kind of men she met, nothing ever would. She’d resigned herself to being alone.

Fine, upstanding, successful American men—and they had all been morally weak, even fragile, inside. Take away their money and their job and their status and they were nothing.

Drake was the opposite. He’d had a hard life. She could feel the strength of him down to his core. She was important to him, she could see it, she could feel it. Every cell in her body told her this.

This was such an important moment. She had to get it just right.

Grace leaned down slightly, right hand resting lightly over his heart. She could feel the faint rasp of his chest hairs against her breasts, his nipple centered against her palm, the steely muscles under her hand striated with muscle and deep down, the solid, regular, calm beats of his heart.

She bent her head until her nose almost touched his, herhair a curtain around them, as if shielding them from a world that meant them terrible harm.

He kept his hands light, barely touching her.

He was now highly aroused, she could feel him, hard and hot, between the lips of her sex. Each time she moved, it seemed to trigger a surge of blood through him, and he thickened and lengthened. Each movement of his penis was mirrored by an answering movement of her inner muscles, which he felt, too. She was growing wetter by the second.

But what she wanted to say had to be said without sex clouding the issue.

She looked him straight in the eyes, his question still echoing in the room.

Can you do it?

“I can do it,” she said softly. “I know you think I’m giving up a lot, but really, I’m not. I don’t have that many friends and their lives will go on without me. I have no family. My connection with the working world was exclusively through Harold and that is now severed. And I’ve been painting only for you for the past year, anyway. But there’s one more reason why I can do it.”

She paused, breathed slowly, trying to find a way to say words she had never said to another human being in her life.

“I can do it for another reason, not just because I’m not leaving much behind. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, Drake, but there is a connection between us. I have been dreaming of you for a long time, without even knowing you existed. I hardly know you … and yet I know you down to your soul. To an outside person, I probably sound insane, but Drake—I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth … because I love you.”

He jolted under her, his eyes slitted, muscles clenched. A sound escaped him, a hissing moan, almost as if in pain. He brought her to his mouth again, big hands cupping her head and kissed her deeply, wildly, as if he would never get a chance to kiss again in this lifetime. It called up an answering wildness in her as she opened everything wide to him—mouth, sex, heart.

His hips beneath her began pumping up and down, sliding along her. She was so wet, his penis slid easily between the lips of her sex, as exciting as if he had penetrated. Clinging to Drake’s shoulders to keep her balance, Grace kissed him as if she would die if they were separated. His movements were fast and rough, creating a hot friction against her vulva, her breasts rubbing against the hard planes of his chest. Heat blossomed, welling up fast and it was impossible to resist. With a wild cry, she began coming, clenching against him, feeling the surge of blood in his penis with each contraction.

He wasn’t slowing down, keeping her climax going for what felt like forever, while another orgasm, riding hard on the waves of the first, caught her by surprise.

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