Page 66 of Beautiful Vengeance
He jerked his hand away, though he could still feel her against his fingers, the barest barrier of lace between them.“I am taking you home.”
She frowned.“I never pegged you for a liar.Murderer, yes.Torturer, most definitely, but not a liar.”
“I don’t lie.”
Her gaze cleared and he realized for the first time that she was startlingly close to sober.“It’s a power play.You’re going to dump me on my family’s doorstep to make a point that you can get to their dearest baby sister whenever you want to.”She crossed her legs.“Are you going to rough me up a bit first?Or—”
“No.”He shouldn’t have let her take his hand.It was a mistake.Now all he could think about was how close she sat and how few barriers there were between them.He glanced out the window, checking their progress.Not fast enough.
“Some criminal mastermind you are.”
He turned and pinned her with a look.“I would think you’d be relieved that you’ll be left unharmed.”It was the memory of her on his fingertips that had more words escaping, words he had no intention of giving voice to.“Or would you rather I rip off that pathetic excuse for panties and take what you’ve been waving in front of me since we met?”
Her eyes went wide and her breathing picked up.“You’ve said that you wouldn’t.”
“And you’ve pointed out that my primary defense is inaccurate.”He touched her knee, the barest of pressure causing her thighs to spread.She watched him the way a deer watches a hunter, all wide-eyed and frozen with indecision on whether she should run or fight or welcome him.
Dmitri shifted, sliding his hand higher.“I could stroke you like this and have you coming on my hand before you decided if you wanted it or not.”He cupped her, not bypassing the lace, his entire being focused on her reactions.Her quick breaths, her gaze focused on his mouth, her hips subtly arching up to meet his touch…All of it indicated desire.
I’d be a right bastard to take what she’s offering.
He didn’t care in the least.
He leaned in, his lips touching the shell of her ear with each word.“Or I could hold perfectly still and let you ride my fingers.Would you like that, Keira?The control you desperately crave would be in your hands and your hands alone.”
Her hand closed around his wrist, holding him in place.“Dmitri, I—”
The sound of his name on her lips broke the spell.“But unfortunately neither is an option.”He sat back, taking his hand and leaving her splayed across the backseat, blinking at him.“I don’t fuck my enemies.”
He said it to remind himself as much as to remind her.In her presence, Dmitri was having an increasingly difficult time cleaving to his own personal code.Keira might be more woman than child, and she was an asset of his enemy’s, but the true reason he couldn’t take her up on the offer she kept waving in his face was that she was a broken thing.Walking wounded.She’d fuck him and then she’d hate herself all the more for doing it, and he refused to be party to her self-destruction.
More the fool he was.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jude woke up without realizing he’d been asleep.Not asleep.Passed the fuck out.He immediately looked for Sloan, only relaxing when he saw her manning the engine of the little boat.Then he noticed that they weren’t in the inlet any longer.
“Where are we?”
He started to move, and stopped, nearly cursing at the pain that shot through his side.He checked the bandage, breathing a little sigh of relief to find that while the gauze was soaked, the bleeding had slowed to a mere trickle.Won’t be bleeding out today.
“Getting help.”
He twisted enough to see that they’d left Orcas Island behind.He couldn’t immediately place the island looming a few hundred yards away, though.“How long was I out?”
“Long enough for me to worry.”She was paler than normal and shivering in her shirt and panties.
Goddamn it.It had been morning when they left and now it was twilight, so he’d been out a hell of a long time, leaving her to her own devices.Goddamn it again.
He kicked the bag closer to her.“I have some shorts in there and a sweatshirt.”
He should have told her before.Hell, he shouldn’t have let himself slip into unconsciousness until he knew she was taken care of.He’d fucked up across the board today, and it didn’t look like that was going to be changing anytime soon.
Sloan let go of the throttle long enough to pull the sweatshirt from the top of the bag.“I think you need this more than I do.You’re half-naked and you’ve lost too much blood.”
He was fucking freezing, but he’d suffer that and worse before he sat here while she was shivering like a damn leaf.“Put on the goddamn sweatshirt.”
She leveled a look at him, but pulled it on.“You’re being stubborn.”
