Page 88 of An Indecent Longing

For all intents and purposes, Antonoff was legit. He owned several properties, mostly industrial, owned stock in a few legitimate businesses, and had never been convicted of a crime. Been arrested a few times but those charges had never stuck. The last time had been at least fifteen years ago.

Digging a little deeper yielded names of known associates, employees, bodyguards, and the name of his only child, a daughter, Larisa. Pure pampered princess. Long, blonde hair, cool blue eyes, and classic Russian features. He found no picture of her where she wasn’t dressed in designer clothes. Interestingly, there weren’t a lot of pictures of her to be found, and she had no social media accounts.

One photo in particular caught his eye. She’d been at a fund-raiser for the University of Pennsylvania and the photographer had caught her in a candid pose, laughing.

Something about the shape of her eyes, the curve of her mouth…

With a sigh, he rubbed his tired eyes and closed the laptop, rotating his stiff neck. He really needed to get some sleep. Maybe now—

Movement at the top of the staircase made his head snap up.

Ian stood there with a sleeping Dorrie in his arms.

Without a word, Ian walked across the room, settled Dorrie in Ben’s bed, and drew the covers over her. Then he walked over to Ben.

“What’d you find?”

His cousin knew him well. “Not much. Why didn’t you put her in your bed? I’ll go down—”

“No.” Ian shook his head. “You get some sleep. I won’t be able to sleep for a while anyway.”

Because sex had keyed him up. Ben’s jaw locked against the urge to say something about that.

Ian sighed, probably correctly reading his mind.

“I don’t know how the fuck this is going to work. I only know I don’t want her to wake up alone, and if she’s in my bed, she probably will.”

“She doesn’t have to. I can—”

“You can be here for her. I can make sure she’s safe.”

Ben knew nothing he said would make Ian change his mind about this. And it wasn’t like Ben didn’t want her in his bed.

“We’re going to need to talk about this.”

Ian nodded. “We will. But it’s not gonna be tonight.”

“And if she doesn’t want to be in my bed?”

Ian shook his head. “Do you think tonight would’ve happened if she didn’t want to be in bed with you?”

“No, but…”

“But what?”

He and Ian turned to find Dorrie staring at them. She looked exhausted but alert, waiting for an answer to her question.

Ben considered evading her question. He could lie to anyone’s face and get away with it. It’d made him a valuable asset to his team.

He didn’t want to lie to her. But if he told what he’d been thinking…

Sighing, he shook his head. “But now isn’t the time to talk about this. Not when we’re all exhausted.”

She stared at him for another few seconds before she nodded. “You’re right. It’s late and I have to be up and ready to play tomorrow. So I’m going to sleep here and you two can fight downstairs or Ben can come to bed and Ian can do…whatever he thinks he needs to be doing.”

Then she turned her head in the opposite direction and sprawled in the middle of his bed.

Ben looked at Ian, who shook his head and sighed.

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