Dangerous Passion

Twelve

November 23

A huge, complex mechanism was being set in motion.

There was some pain. Less than Drake would have thought, but still. After all, he was destroying a lifetime of work, everything he had built since he was a homeless boy on the streets of Odessa.

Drake had spent the past twenty-five years becoming stronger, faster, bigger and more powerful than anyone else. He’d sweated for his empire, bled for it, killed for it. And now it was going to crumble like sand and disappear down a hole.

Drake had turned it over and over in his mind, wondering whether what he was doing was too drastic, but in the end it came down to a stark truth. He could keep his life as it was, or he could keep Grace, but not both.

As long as he headed his empire, there would be men wanting to kill him. Once word got out that he had a weak spot, Grace’s days were over. It wouldn’t even be a quick kill, oh no.

It was the most terrifying thought in the world.

Long ago, Drake had made his peace with the thought of his own violent death. It seemed to him to be the only way he could die. The only question was when. To a certain extent, the thought didn’t even bother him that much, he’d been used to it since childhood.

But the thought of Grace in the hands of mobsters who would use her to exact revenge against him—it drove him insane. He could scarcely stay in the same place as the thought. It hurt him constantly, a painful jolt to the chest, as bad as a bullet wound.

Most of his enemies had grown up in places where women were treated like cattle.

The images came to him in sharp, slicing flashes that were physically painful. Grace—tied to a chair while they pulled her fingernails out. Grace—hanging from her arms while they cut her to ribbons. Grace—bound to a table, gang-raped for weeks, dispatched with a knife across the throat.

As far as he knew, Drake didn’t have a neurotic bone in his body. He was a cold realist, through and through. Those weren’t hallucinations. Those images in his head terrified him so much because they were a possible reality. They weren’t horror images from some nightmare you wake up from, but images from this world, his world, one mistake away.

What stood between these images of a broken and bleeding Grace and a healthy, laughing Grace was him. His strength and power. If he did this right, Grace would live. If he did it wrong, she’d die a screaming death, begging for it.

Entering the library silently in late afternoon, Drake stopped. Grace was resting on the couch, eyes closed, perhaps asleep. She’d been working nonstop these past days, producing remarkable work. Every once in a while she’d catnap on the couch in the library.

Coming in and seeing her on his couch made a sharp pain pierce his chest. For one terrifying moment, it felt like his chest was splitting open.

She was just so damned beautiful. All the other beautiful women he’d known and fucked—they vanished from his head like a cloud dispersing in a high wind.

Just look at her, he thought. Curled up on the couch, eyes closed, head tilted back.

The leaping fire loved her face. It washed the pearly skin with a pink glow, highlighted the high cheekbones, outlined the lush, full mouth. In the open vee of the sweater, the delicate collarbones cast tiny horizontal slashes of shadow. Her hair came alive in the glow from the hearth, the fire finding licks of flame in the shiny depths.

Everything about her was so delicate, even fragile. Those narrow, elegant artist’s hands were folded calmly on her lap.

Drake had once seen an Afghan warlord take a hammer to the small hands of a female servant who had spilled a little hot lamb stew, qorma, on his lap. Drake had been unable to stop him since they were in a room full of the warlord’s armed guards.

Later, it had been Drake’s distinct pleasure to find that warlord’s gross, misshapen head between the clean crosshairs of his rifle and gently pull the trigger.

He sat next to Grace, carefully, not wanting to disturb her slumber.

She wasn’t sleeping. She turned her head toward him, then opened her eyes. They gleamed like fragments of the sea in the penumbra.

He touched her face lightly. “Did I disturb you? I didn’t mean to.”

“No.” Her lips curved slightly. “I wasn’t asleep. I was just—thinking.”

His heart gave another painful hammer blow in his chest, only this time not with longing.

“What—” His voice was slightly hoarse. At some point, she was going to come to the realization that he had ruined her life. “What were you thinking about?”

“About the situation,” she said softly. Her eyes never left his. “I guess we’ll be here for some time, won’t we? I mean, this situation isn’t going to resolve itself anytime soon, is it?”

Never, Drake thought.

“I’m sorry,” he said, wanting to say more, but nothing came out. Sorry was a ridiculous word for what she’d lost. A nothing word, totally unable to cover the damage he’d done to this beautiful woman. He’d put her life in danger, deprived her of her home; because of him a good friend of hers had died.

Sorry was nothing, but it was the only word he had.

She nodded gravely, as if understanding everything that the word conveyed. There was no censure in her gaze, no anger, no rage.

Indeed, there was something there that angered him almost as much as the sons of bitches who had attacked them.

Resignation. That was what he saw. Resignation. Sadness. Acceptance.

It made him angry. Beyond angry.

This woman was magic. How could it be that there was no man in her life, protecting her from the shit that was all around? What the fuck was wrong with the men in Manhattan?

Well, she had a man in her life now, by God. Him. And he would sure as hell make certain she was kept safe and happy.

Grace lifted her hand, that long, graceful artist’s hand, and cupped his jaw. Her fingers were right on where the long scar had been. If she probed with her sensitive fingertips, she’d feel where the underlying tissue was still rent. Her hand traced where the scar had been as she watched him, frowning.

“What—” she began, but he covered her mouth with his. Ah, she tasted so good. Sweet and fresh. In a moment, her mouth opened to his. When he lifted his mouth for a second, she took in a deep shaky breath.

He tilted his head slightly and she did, too. The fit was perfect. So incredibly perfect. The heat of her mouth, the way she curved into him, the way his arm fit around her narrow back, the way her hair fell in a warm wash over his hand cupping her head, cascading over his arm.

Without breaking the kiss, he lifted her until she was on his lap, arms clinging to his neck.

Drake moved his mouth to her neck, to the sensitive place behind her ear that made her shiver.

His hand slid under the sweater, wide palm covering her stomach. Every time his mouth moved, her stomach muscles contracted.

He kept his hand on her belly and moved his mouth to her ear.

“Are you still obeying my orders, hmmm?” he whispered.

He loved it that she’d left all that expensive underwear in the boxes, so that his hands were only one layer of material away from her skin.

It excited him to see her in clothes he’d bought, looking so elegant and classy, and knowing that underneath she was bare because he’d asked her to be. He could barely keep his hands off her. Even when they weren’t making love, it was so luscious to slip a hand under her sweater and briefly stroke her breasts, just long enough to tighten her nipples. Know that he could easily touch her in that secret soft spot between her legs, feeling her growing instantly damp for him.

Each time he touched her, it took less time for her body to get ready for him. Now at times it only took the briefest of touches. Of course, the downside was that in her presence he was almost always semi-erect, just thinking of her naked beneath the clothes.

Like now. Only it wasn’t a semi-erection, it was the real thing, hard and aching.

Goose bumps broke out on her forearms when he licked her ear and she shivered. Thank God her body was on his side. No matter what her head might be telling her, her body was clear on what it wanted. “No underwear?” He prodded. “Hmm?”

Her eyes, heavy lidded, opened, blue-green slivers glowing in the darkness. “No underwear,” she whispered.

“Ah.” His hand moved up over the flat planes of her belly and cupped a breast. He had to be so careful here. His hands were strong, he didn’t want to hurt her in any way. Right now the biggest crime in the world would be causing her any pain at all. So he kept his touch softer than air, just a bare grazing of the satiny skin with his forefinger, around and around. When the back of his finger brushed over her nipple, she jumped. He nipped at her earlobe, loving the soft jolt. She was so incredibly responsive.

His finger ran over the nipple again, just a little harder. “Do you like that?” he whispered in her ear.

He could almost hear her smile. “If I said no, you’d know I was lying, wouldn’t you? You can feel what my body is telling you.”

Oh yeah, her body was shouting. The nipple under his finger had turned from a soft bud into a small, hard point.

His hand moved to her left breast, where he could feel the fast beating of her heart under his fingertips.

“Yes, your body is talking to me, Grace. I can hear it, feel it in my hands.” Another gentle rasp of his thumb over her nipple, followed immediately by a little shudder. “You like that. You like my hand on your breasts.” He pulled back, looking her in the face, hand gently cupping her breast.

She was flushed, the blood rising to her skin, warming it, puffing out a rich aroma of his soap and her woman-scent. Wonderful. It was all he could do to keep from putting his nose to her skin and sniffing like a dog.

“I like everything you do to me, Drake,” she replied simply.

Her mouth was flushed red, lips swollen and wet. When she spoke, he didn’t even hear her at first, he was following the movements of those lush lips so closely, fantasizing about them closing over his cock.

He felt an almost violent need to crush her to him.

Careful now, he told himself and nearly laughed. The fact that he had to tell himself to be careful was so alien it was as if he were talking to someone else.

Drake was always careful, always. He never got carried away, never got out of control, never had to worry about hurting anyone unless he wanted them hurt.

He never hurt women, though, ever. It wasn’t in him.

He was always controlled during sex, always made sure the woman was wet enough to take him, always made sure his strong hands never bruised.

It had never been difficult. He’d learned to control his emotions and his body at an age so young he didn’t remember learning the lesson. Control was as deeply ingrained in him as his bones or blood. A part of him for as long as he could remember.

That control was now simply…gone.

He just looked at Grace, perhaps the most beautiful woman he’d ever had in his arms. And not just beautiful—an immensely talented artist. So gifted he couldn’t even imagine now having a home where her paintings wouldn’t have pride of place. So gifted, the little peace he’d had in the past year had been thanks to her. Amazingly, too, this woman with the gift of the gods in her hands had a good heart, as well. Was gentle and kind, instinctively so.

This was a woman in a million. He should treat her like porcelain, like glass that would shatter at his touch. He should get down on the floor on his knees as if before an angel.

Instead, crazily, his predator’s blood was up. He had to clench his teeth against a growl rising in his throat, a growl of possession, almost violent, like a war cry. His hands itched to grab her, hold her so tightly his fingers would be imprinted on her skin.

He wanted to rip those clothes off her right now, not even take the trouble to slide them off, but simply hook his finger in the collar of the sweater and pull. Put his hands on the pants and rip them off her. It would be ridiculously easy to do. He could kill a man with one blow of his hands; ripping material was nothing.

He could picture it, rending her clothes with a snarl of impatience, pulling her down on the rug in front of the fire, pulling her legs apart and up and slamming into her, whether she was ready or not.

He’d fuck her as hard as he’d ever fucked anyone, like a mindless beast, with the full strength of his body, pounding into her. He was so aroused, he would never stop at the first climax. He’d spurt into her, happy that it would make her wet, and then just continue slamming into her, for hours.

Oh God, he could feel that, taste it. He shook with the images that blossomed in his head. He’d fuck her until she was sore, then fuck her some more. Every cell in his body was screaming to have at her, with all the strength of his body, for as long as he could.

He’d hurt her.

If he did what he was shaking to do, he’d fucking hurt her. Hurt Grace.

It didn’t bear thinking of.

He’d controlled himself with hundreds of women who didn’t mean a thing to him. It had been easy, ingrained. This one woman, who meant everything, tested his control.

Drake threw his head back and breathed the desire back down. Such a strange, unusual feeling, this grappling for control with his arms full of warm woman. She shifted, moving her hip right over his erection and froze, like a deer in the hunter’s sights. Her eyes met his, wide open and startled, as if she’d never felt a man’s erection before.

A log fell heavily in the hearth and she jumped a little in his arms.

Her nervousness made him force himself into a little calm. They’d made love several times in the night, and this morning. He had to learn how to be with her without tipping over into mindless lust.

He leaned back and relaxed, content even with just the warm feel of her skin next to his.

When she realized he was relaxing, she did, too, leaning forward to rest against him with a soft sigh, one finger idly stroking his jaw, lips close enough to his neck to kiss him softly. His body relaxed further and so did hers, until they almost melted into each other. As the minutes ticked into an hour, they started breathing in unison, as if they were one creature, with two heads, four arms, but only one heart.

There was the sound of the fire, their breaths, and nothing else. Drake felt his mind drifting.

He was hard as stone, but there was just something about the moment that felt right exactly as it was, something fine and rare. He couldn’t quite pin it down, until he realized it wasn’t something, it was a lack of something.

His mind was quiet and still, a deep pool, so deep it could not be fathomed.

Remarkable.

Drake was used to the continual background hum of calculations in his head, there since before he could remember. When he was a homeless child on the streets, the noise was a constant lookout for food and shelter, while avoiding the many men who preyed on the helpless youngsters infesting the streets of Odessa like rats. His mind had been like a lighthouse beacon, constantly surveying surroundings in a 360-degree sweep. He’d taught himself to remain alert even while sleeping, when he wasn’t in secure surroundings, which had been always, until he started earning good money.

Drake had lived like this his entire life, constantly alert, calculating the odds, working to make sure they were always in his favor.

True, his concerns now were not finding food and shelter, and they hadn’t been for a long time. Now he ran an empire, single-handedly. He kept vast amounts of information in his head at all times, an enormous array of data that kept shifting and recombining. In his world, things moved fast and so did he.

Nothing like that, now. Now his head was filled with peace, a still, golden, calm pond of it, a welcome silence that allowed him to savor this moment, a moment so rare as to be almost incomprehensible. No busy buzz of business, harsh hum of calculations, whirr of thoughts. Just silence and warmth.

He looked down. Grace was watching him with calm blue-green eyes, lips slightly uptilted at the corners. As if wanting to smile, but uncertain of his mood.

His mood was great. He smiled down at her, feeling unused muscles moving in his face, delighted to see her smile fully in return.

He’d never had this before—this slow calm moment, skin to skin, heart to heart. If he held a woman in his arms, he was fucking her. The other moments were undressing or dressing. He rarely lingered after sex.

Why not? Why had he always been in such a rush? There was something so delicious about this, calm yet exciting at the same time. Not better than sex, not worse, just…different. And good.

She wiggled slightly, right over his enormous hard-on. “You, um, you seem to be—”

“Yes, I am.” His smile broadened. It felt so odd to be smiling. “But it’s okay. We’ll make love soon, you can count on it.” She turned pink. Such a pretty color, like a rosy dawn over a white mountaintop. He leaned down to kiss her jawline, then put his lips against her ear. “Once I get in you, I’m not going to stop for a long, long time.”

She was stoplight red now.

He shifted her gently so she could lie against him more comfortably, pleased when she moved with him, into him. She rested her head on his uninjured shoulder and looped an arm around his neck, careful of the wound. Every time she touched him, she was careful, he’d noted.

What an odd sensation, a woman looking after him.

Drake tucked a lock of bronze hair behind her ear and bent until his mouth touched her ear. “Are you cold, love? Do you want a blanket?”

He could feel her lips curve up. “No, you’re a furnace. And the fire is still burning high, so no, I don’t feel cold at all.” She sighed. “Drake…how long is this going to last?”

He didn’t have to ask what “this” was. Men gunning for him, the danger spilling over onto her.

The rest of our lives. That was how long this was going to last. But she wasn’t ready to hear it yet.

His arms tightened. “Are you so very eager to get away from here, then? Are you not comfortable? Is there anything you need?”

Silence. He looked down at her, expecting…he didn’t know what he was expecting. Anger, maybe. Impatience. Sorrow. But she only looked thoughtful.

“I’m fine, Drake. And thanks to your generosity, I have everything I need and more.”

He waved away the thanks, watching her carefully. “But?”

Her narrow shoulders lifted on a sigh. “But…however huge your home is, however comfortable, we can’t stay holed up here forever, can we? When do you think we can venture out? If only to get some fresh air.”

He was tempted to say that he’d take her up on the roof if she wanted fresh air. Maybe tomorrow, if he could get rid of the helo. His pilots had been making noises lately about taking the helo away for a day of maintenance. Maybe tomorrow would be a good day. If he took Grace up on the rooftop, she might not be ready to know he kept an evacuation helicopter at the ready at all times.

But the rooftop wouldn’t be enough. She was asking when she could walk the streets freely.

The answer was never. Not the streets of Manhattan, anyway. She wasn’t ready for that info yet.

“As soon as I have a handle on the situation, I promise I’ll find a way out. You’ll be free to walk around at some point. You have my word.” She’d be free to walk around, just not in New York. And not in the United States.

For the moment, Drake wasn’t setting foot outside this building—and more important, wasn’t going to let her set foot outside—until he had finalized his plans and knew where they were going and how.

Grace watched his eyes carefully. “And you always keep your word, don’t you?” she asked quietly. “That’s important to you, to be a man of your word.”

She could read him so well. It was frightening.

It was true, he was a man of his word. Even in the business he was in, his word was his bond. There’d been a goodly chunk of his life in which the only thing he had in this world was his personal dignity. His word. He’d die before he let that go.

“Yes, I keep my promises. So you’ll see the day again. And when you do, where do you want to go? What do you want to do?”

“Take a walk in Central Park,” she said promptly. “Go down to the farmers’ market. See some new galleries.”

Shit, how tied was she to Manhattan? Was she going to suffer if she never saw it again? The thought lay there, heavy in his chest.

“What about outside New York? What do you want to see outside the city?”

She looked up at him. “The world,” she said simply. “I’ve always wanted to travel. I told you, my dream is to see Rome. Paris, London. And the East. I love reading travel guides and imagining myself in a Tibetan temple or a Hindu mandir. I never had the money before.”

“I hate to say it, but I’m glad you didn’t take off this past year.” He nodded his head at the overspill of her paintings from his study, simply glowing on the library’s walls. Just like she glowed in his arms. He ran the back of his fingers down the side of her face, slowly, just enjoying the feel of her. “I’m the richer for it.”

She moved into his hand, smiling. “I hate to contradict you, but I’m the richer for it. You paid me an almost obscene amount of money. I made more last year, thanks to you, than I did in the last ten years.”

“Worth it,” he said.

“Do you know, you could have had my paintings for half of what you paid?”

“Worth it,” he repeated.

She turned in his arms, smiling, then settled with her face against his neck, breasts brushing full against his chest.

His cock pulsed hopefully. Maybe now…

“I’m glad you—” she began, then her eyes opened, fixed on something over his shoulder. “Oh! Just look at that!”

Drake stiffened, ready to push her to the floor and whirl to face a new danger, when he saw her face. Relaxed. Smiling. Whatever it was she was seeing, it wasn’t a danger to them. He followed her gaze, turning his head.

Snow.

Night had fallen while he’d held her in his arms. He hadn’t thought to pull the curtains and the entire wall showed a nighttime Manhattan skyline softened by falling snow.

He factored that into the equation of how to make the next few days work. Snow made everything slower. People arrived later for work, some didn’t arrive at all. His master forger, Yannick Zigo, was scheduled to deliver new passports tomorrow, together with backup documents. He traveled from Upstate New York. If there was a big snowstorm, he wouldn’t venture out. He often complained that his bones were too brittle for bad weather.

Grace rolled off Drake’s lap and walked toward the windows, keeping well back from the glass itself. Drake watched her every step of the way, admiring the look of her back, the slim line of her glowing in the penumbra, that glorious multicolored hair that fell past her shoulders swaying gently with each step. She’d only just left him and his hands already missed her, missed the soft skin, the deep indentation of her waist, missed cupping her breasts and touching her where she was soft and wet, just for him.

He stood up and followed, like a chunk of iron to a lodestone.

She’d stopped halfway to the window, watching, a half smile on her face.

Drake put his arm around her waist.

“You can go right up to the window, you know. The outside is coated with a strong, reflective surface.” Not to mention a thick polycarbonate film. “There is absolutely no chance of anyone seeing you. None.”

“No one can see me?” Her head whipped up to him so fast a fall of hair lashed across his chest. She blinked. “Are you sure?”

“Come with me.” He tucked a lock of shiny hair behind her ear and walked forward, his arm around her waist. After a second’s hesitation, she followed his lead.

He walked her right up to the window, inches from the pane. The lights behind them were low, the ambient light outside brighter. They had all Manhattan before them.

Drake placed himself right behind her, left hand holding her breast, the other arm angled downward, cupping her. He felt her tremble once as his fingers touched the soft labia, then settle against him.

“Look out across the street. What do you see?”

“A—a building,” she said hesitantly. He could feel her heartbeat against his hand, quickening at his touch. “A few stories taller than this one.”

“Uh-huh. Now look carefully at the windows of that building. They’re reflective, too.”

She nestled the back of her head against his shoulder. “I don’t see what you—”

And then she saw it.

The entire building across the street had slightly reflective windows. Drake’s building didn’t, except for the top floor. Mirrored across the street, he could see a number of offices still open in his building, people moving around, a cleaning crew in one, a late evening meeting in another, twenty people around a long oval desk. The traffic of a busy commercial building.

Except on the top floor, his. Nothing was visible of what was inside. The top floor was like one long mirror. You couldn’t even see if the lights were on or off.

“See?” he said softly into her ear. “You’re completely invisible.”

They were so close to the floor-to-ceiling window that he could feel the cold coming off it. “Are you cold?” he asked.

She shook her hair, soft, warm waves of it swishing across his chest. “No, how can I be cold with you at my back? You’re like a furnace. And it’s sort of…exciting to look out over the city through a window like this and know that no one can see me.”

“Except me,” he growled in her ear.

It was true. They were lightly reflected against the window, the merest ghosts of themselves. She was like a slim line against his breadth, pale skin glowing against his darker tones.

In the window, she smiled, eyes on his. “Except you,” she agreed warmly. Then her gaze shifted to the scene outside.

The snow was still relatively light, just small icy flakes so light the wind sometimes blew them up. Every once in a while the snow fell in soft drifts. Drake had no idea what the weather forecast was, which was just one more sign of how out of synch his life was at the moment. He always knew the weather forecast. It was an integral part of him, to know what the weather would be, what the Dow Jones was doing, to be one of the first to know of any shifts in the geopolitical situation, to know where his men were at all times. To be taken by surprise by snow was unheard of.

Many a time his life had depended on whether it would rain or snow.

Grace’s eyes were tracking the light drifts. “So beautiful,” she murmured.

“Hmm.” He’d buried his face in her hair, nose next to the soft skin behind her ear. Why look outside when he could watch her in the dark glass? It was just snow, for fuck’s sake. He’d once nearly died from exposure in a snowstorm when he was still living on the streets. Snow was cold and wet.

Better to be warm and dry.

She shook his arm a little. “Look, Drake. Look out.” He reluctantly dragged his ghost eyes from her ghost eyes to focus on the scene outside.

She held her hands out, as if to encompass the entire scene. “I want to paint it, just like this. All silver and midnight black, the buildings gleaming mysteriously in the darkness. Look down, Drake. See the fog rising? It makes the buildings look like islands in the sky, doesn’t it? I’ll paint it with the contrast between the billowing fog and the slanting snow with a monochrome palette. You’ll love it, I promise.”

Drake froze.

For a second, something terrifying happened. All those hours over the past year simply staring at her paintings caused a shift in his perception. For a second, he saw the scene through her eyes. Not merely snow, which he hated and considered a nuisance at best, even life-threatening at times. He’d seen past his hatred of snow to the landscape beyond.

It was magical, this landscape, seen through her eyes. A rich fantasyland of silvery darkness. Her eyes were tracking the snow and he followed her gaze in the reflection of the dark glass. She was imprinting what she was seeing, and sometime in the future—maybe tomorrow or next month or next year—a masterpiece would form beneath her clever hands and he would look at it forever. Only this time, he would look at it and remember the exact instant she got the inspiration.

By some mysterious alchemy, she was changing him. Opening his heart to the beauty of the world. It was frightening and he wasn’t altogether certain he liked the thought, but there it was.

He was looking at the black and silver shapes, the misty fog, the slanting snow and finding them fascinating instead of calculating how much the bad weather would impact his business.

The world was vastly more mysterious and beautiful than even he knew.

For the past fifteen years, he’d lived in locked-down conditions in his homes, traveling only under the tightest security he could devise, from car to plane to hotel and back. His life was work and sleep, with little in between; he lived in sterile and controlled surroundings. His world had narrowed to walls, whether of a hotel room or a car or a plane didn’t make any difference. The outside world had become an abstraction, a mere construct to include in his calculations.

She met his eyes again in the glass, a small smile on her lips, as if she understood what she’d done to him.

She’d fucking changed him, that’s what she’d done.

This woman had reached down inside him, with her art and her beauty and her kindness, and pulled him inside out. He didn’t much like it, but he couldn’t deny it. He was changing, feeling the ground beneath him shifting in a terrifying and exhilarating dance.

His hands moved fast and in a moment she was naked.

“Lean forward,” he said, his voice suddenly guttural. “Brace yourself against the window.”

Startled, Grace watched him in the window as she leaned forward. He felt her narrow rib cage arch as she placed both hands on the pane. He put a foot between hers and forced her to open her legs, fitting himself more snugly against her.

He’d been erect the whole time, but now she could feel him surging against her, his cock swelling as he pulled her tightly against him.

He couldn’t wait one second more. She was in his head. He had to be in her body.

He watched her carefully in the window. She was pressed against the pane. Her breasts would be cold, but he was keeping her warm from behind. And his cock would warm her up.

He undid his loose cargo pants, grabbed a condom from a side pocket, then kicked them away when they fell to the floor. He whipped his sweater up and off, eyes never leaving hers in the reflection.

“Open your legs more, Grace,” he whispered.

She obeyed immediately, kicking his excitement up, making his blood flow hot and thick through his veins.

It was going to be rough.

Oh God. It was going to be rough.

Grace watched her lover’s face in the dark window, the image more ghostly than if it were a mirror, as if he were insubstantial. Yet Drake wasn’t insubstantial at all. He was male power and male muscle, treading this earth more heavily than most.

She could feel him hot and heavy at her back, his hands holding her tightly. He opened her legs with his and fitted himself against her.

Each time they made love, there was this startled moment when she realized just how big he was, long and thick and as hard as steel. In the beginning he had been so careful with her, entering her slowly, by degrees.

Lately, though, he let his excitement get the better of him, understanding that her arousal grew each time they made love.

His control was paper-thin now. Grace knew this moment was coming, but now that it was here, fear tempered her excitement. Up until now, though he’d brought her to orgasm over and over again, Drake had been in utter control of himself.

Now the reflection in the window showed a man straining for control. The cords in his strong neck stood out, his jaw was tight with tension, muscles bunching along the jawline.

His power struck her anew. Though he didn’t tower over her, his shoulders were almost twice the width of hers. Looking down at his hand cupping her, she saw the taut, thick, sinewy muscles of his forearm, wildly erotic against her belly. He slid his hand further, fingers stroking her labia, his hand rocking back and forth in a silent request for better access.

Of course. She didn’t even think twice, merely widened her legs further. Whatever Drake wanted, she’d give him.

He fit himself to her, big, blunt, hot. She braced herself because that first entry was always slightly painful, no matter how aroused she was.

He was watching her face carefully in the dark glass. He must have seen her slight wince. He didn’t move forward as she expected he would. He merely waited, poised at the mouth of her sheath, breathing so heavily against her that she could see her hair sway in the dark pane.

His jaw muscles worked. “Not yet,” he muttered, watching her eyes. “Press up against the window.”

Grace could barely understand his guttural tones. “What?”

“Lean against the window. Now.”

His voice was low, utter male command. She obeyed instinctively.

She sharply drew in a breath as the entire front of her body met the cold window, hands splayed, breasts, hips, legs meeting the icy pane. He crowded right behind her, like a huge hairy man-furnace. The two extremes of temperature somehow excited her, her nipples puckering with the cold.

Shockingly, he reached down and opened her with his fingers, nudging her forward with his hips. His fingers had exposed her clitoris, which was pressed against the freezing window. She registered the chill against her sensitive flesh in exactly the same second as he entered her, his penis a huge, hot column heating her up from the inside out. Her entire body went into overdrive.

She gave a cry as he started moving, hot and hard inside her, pressing her against the freezing window, a raging furnace at her back and inside her. His movements were hard, almost harsh, on the edge of being painful but…not.

She lifted her eyes to look at their reflection, his face grim as he moved in and out of her, the thrusts fast and hard. Their eyes met and she was shocked at her expression, eyes unfocused, mouth open, throat arching back against him. The very picture of a woman in sexual ecstasy, reduced to her animal nature.

A keening sound filled the room and it took her seconds to recognize it as her own voice. It was unlike any sound she’d ever heard herself make, an animal cry. She wasn’t even feeling the cold of the window any more, her entire body was suffused with heat, she was burning up alive.

With a thrust that drove her to her toes, Drake grunted and started coming, swelling even larger, his thrusts irregular and fast as his breath huffed in and out. It felt like he wanted to punch her right through the window. She looked down at the shops and people and cars, the busy street of a great metropolis.

Grace came with a cry, every hair on her body standing up, shaking with pleasure. Suddenly, her senses expanded. As she looked down, it was as if the window had disappeared and she had become one with the people she could see hurrying along the streets, one with the snow drifting down from the sky, one with the energy of the city, pulsing in her fingertips.

She was no longer Grace Larsen, separate and alone and somehow always apart. In one electric pulse, she became one with everything around her, as her body convulsed and shook.

Across the seventy-five feet of a Manhattan street and slightly to the north, giving him an oblique shot, Rutskoi watched the two figures through his thermal scope.

Drake and the woman. It could only be them. One slender, the other not much taller but much broader.

Naked.

Fucking.

He watched the fiery red-and-blue bodies writhing in the small circle of his scope, completely unmoved.

Rutskoi liked sex just as much as the next man, maybe more. He’d blown half his first paycheck as a newly minted lieutenant on whores in Grozny, celebrating staying alive for one whole month by staying drunk and with his dick in a prostitute for days at a time. But on the job, it all went away. He felt nothing on the job—not lust, nor hunger nor thirst nor exhaustion. All he felt now was the deep sniper’s calm, a oneness with the ground and the rifle and the scope.

The woman was now flattened against the window by the weight of Drake’s body and Rutskoi’s finger tightened slightly. Christ, she was in his sights. Right there, in the crosshairs.

A 4-kilogram pull on the trigger, double the pull on a beer can, and his.50 caliber bullet would travel at 2500 kilometers per hour toward the red and green and yellow outlines shimmering through the thermal imager.

But he had no way of knowing how thick Drake’s windows were and at this angle of inflection, he had no guarantee that it would penetrate or, if it penetrated, whether it would pass through the woman to Drake.

So he watched the fiery figures writhe and told himself to hold his fire, watched the woman’s hands outstretched on the glass like five-fingered flames as Drake fucked her from behind.

They would be in his sights at a straighter angle soon enough.

He could wait.

For 10 million dollars, he could wait for as long as it took.

November 24

Early morning

Blood. Blood and the bleak darkness of violence. Blood was everywhere. It came up to her ankles, deep red, glistening in the darkness. So dense it dragged at her feet.

Her heart beat fast, like a trapped animal’s. Danger was close, she could feel it, she could almost smell it. In the distance was a faint light. Not the white light of hope, but merely a slight lifting of the penumbral gloom. She could barely see. The darkness was oppressive, close and dank.

Her skin prickled in animal warning. Something was there. Something alive, something ferocious. There was cruelty here, vast cruelty and a love of death. Death was a thick pall in the air.

She looked down at where she was walking. Under the lake of blood, her feet bumped against obstacles, odd shapes. It was hard to keep her balance, though she knew she had to move quickly. The menace was close, coming closer. Her muscles screamed at her to run, but she couldn’t, it was like walking over stones barefoot. She tripped and almost fell. At her feet something rose to the surface, bobbing. As it rose, small pale points appeared, like a mountain rising up from the primordial mud. A white tip, then smooth waxen surfaces that resolved themselves in nose, lips, cheeks, eyes. Black blood-streaked hair flowed from the smooth pale forehead.

A severed woman’s head, bobbing in the red blood.

She tried to scream, but there was no breath in her lungs, no air to be found in this airless, soulless place.

He was coming. She didn’t know who he was, but she knew what he was. He was cruelty, he was death, with a vast gaping hole where his heart should be. And he was coming for her.

The blood at her feet stirred, started moving like a sluggish river. Whatever was coming was big—big enough to sweep everything before it.

There was no place to hide. The lake of blood stretched out to infinity. Now she could see broken bits of bodies rising to the surface. A hand, outstretched, as if asking for help for a body that was no longer there. A foot, still clad in a shoe. Another head, popping up like a balloon, then subsiding.

She was walking through a bloody river of death.

The blood was flowing faster now. Darkness fell suddenly, as if something behind her was covering the feeble light on the horizon. Whatever was coming for her was huge.

She tried to hurry, but kept tripping over parts of people, like offal in a slaughterhouse. The faster she tried to move, it seemed, the denser the parts became, until there was an interlocked puzzle of human pieces blocking her path.

She chanced a look backward, breathing fast. There was something there, huge and dark on the horizon, dressed in a long coat. Moving forward in giant strides, unperturbed by the bodies.

She could hear a faint crackling that grew louder. The cracking of human bones as the monster carelessly stepped on them. She turned her head forward, blindly seeking a hiding place, and tripped. Her hand fell out to break her fall and she pushed a head down under the surface. Snatching her hand away, the head bobbed back up. A child’s head, small features looking puzzled.

Oh God, oh God, coming closer…

A frigid wind rose at her back. What was coming for her was cold, with no human warmth at all. Something grazed her back. His huge hand. He’d almost caught her.

Faster! Faster! Sobbing, she bent to push the cadavers away so she could run faster. A cold wind came and went, the monster breathing.

She was tiring and he was tireless. He would never waver, never renounce. It wasn’t in his nature.

She tripped, then tripped again. Oh God, he was almost upon her!

A head rose to the surface just before her. It took her exhausted, terrified mind a second to realize that the head was rising vertically, up up up. Broad, naked shoulders emerged, dripping red. A man, a hugely strong man. He lifted his hands, muscles rippling with tension and strength. Huge hands held a sword, glinting in the uneven light. He lifted the sword to his shoulder, ready for the cutting blow.

He had fully emerged now, an immensely powerful man standing on the blood, sword at the ready. He lifted one hand from the sword and beckoned to her, fingers curled in a universal message.

Come to me.

He was aware of her but wasn’t looking at her. He was looking behind her, at the danger close on her heels.

Safety. He was safety and protection. Every line of his strong body was a wall she could hide behind if only she could reach him. But it was so hard to move, as she tripped and slipped in the blood, stumbling over the bones of men and women and children, terrified of the icy cold at her back.

She cried out as something cut across her back in a fiery line of pain. The creature had claws, fully out, and slashed her again across her back. She was bleeding, her blood mingling with that of the uncounted dead.

The pain was unbearable, the creature had slashed across muscle, down to bone. She slipped, fell to one knee. The creature’s claws snapped over her head.

The man with the sword was striding forward, eyes still fixed on the monster behind her, face hard, determined. He’d been caught by the monster, too, some time ago. A broad white scar ran down the side of his face, gleaming in the gathering darkness.

Leathery ropes wrapped around her torso, squeezing so tightly she could barely breathe. She was lifted from the earth, her body dripping blood.

They weren’t leathery ropes, they were fingers, their grip tightening so hard she felt a rib crack. She looked up, into blood red eyes, a cruel mouth with sharp teeth. The mouth was smiling.

He had her. It was over. This was how her life would end—in pieces at the bottom of a lake of blood, dying cold and alone.

She turned for a last look at the last human she’d see. The man with the sword was running, slashing at the monster’s legs.

The monster laughed. She struggled desperately in his cruel grip, trying to free herself.

“Grace!” The man screamed. “Grace!”

She tried to call to him but there was no breath in her, the world was fading…

“Grace!”

She couldn’t breathe…

“Grace, wake up!”

She came awake on a shuddering gasp, trembling and shaking, flailing madly, as if she’d been underwater and crested the surface an instant before drowning.

Two strong arms were around her, pinning her. Oh God! He was going to kill her! She struggled, twisting wildly, but there was nothing she could do against this kind of strength. She was going to die…

“Grace, Grace, love, look at me.”

That deep voice. Not cruel, not insane. A voice she knew…

Her eyes opened and she stilled, panting, staring into steady brown eyes. A soft brush of lips across her forehead. “It’s all right. You’re safe. You had a nightmare.”

Only one word penetrated. Safe. She was safe. No drowning in blood, no horrible monster with claws gripping her. No dead bodies.

She blinked, tears springing to her eyes.

Except, of course, there was a dead body. Harold’s. It all came back, rushing in like a river whose dam had broken. The four men gunning for Drake, using her as bait. Harold’s head exploding off his shoulders, what was left of his body falling loosely to the ground like an empty sack, all the goodness and humor in him, vanished like a light being snuffed.

The monster in her dreams wasn’t real, but the monsters loose in the world were, something her unconscious had recognized. One of those monsters had killed her friend, a man known, even in the art world—a cutthroat business if ever there was one—for his gentleness and generosity. A man who had truly loved art, who had never harmed anyone, had been wiped off the face of the earth by one of the monsters who inhabited it.

She’d been strong and had tucked her grief away, shoving it into a dark corner, but now it all came rushing back. The nightmare had robbed her of her usual resilience, sapping her strength. Grief welled up, fierce and unstoppable.

She turned her head into Drake’s shoulder, inhaling his scent, sensing his strength around her like a coat of armor, clinging to it desperately. She shuddered with her sadness and pain at the loss of Harold. Her horror of the violence at the gallery. The loss of her own life, cut off abruptly; the loss of her home. It all came tumbling out in an upwelling of sorrow that she tried to breathe down, heart pounding, trembling.

“Let it out, duschka,” a deep voice said in her ear. “Cry. I’m here to catch you.”

It was all she needed. With a wild moan, she buried her head against him and let go. She wept out her grief and her rage, her sorrow and her desperation. She wept for Harold, for the violence that was still stalking her, for the loss of her freedom. While she was at it, she wept for her mother’s immense sadness at being abandoned by her father, and for her own inability to find a place in the world that felt right. She wept for sorrows past, present and future.

She wept until there were no more tears, until she ran out of breath, until her throat ached with sadness. And then she wept some more. Grace had no idea so many tears were in her, and it was only when no more came that she subsided against Drake’s wet, bare shoulder, eyes closed, dazed with the force of the tempest that had passed through her.

He’d held her all through it, without moving a muscle except for the slow beat of his heart, giving her the animal comfort of his body. She lay against him, spent, listening to his strong, steady heartbeat, feeling his even breath ruffle the hair on the top of her head. One huge hand covered the back of her head and one arm was around her waist, holding her just tightly enough to give comfort, without making her feel restrained.

Her eyes were swollen, her throat ached. She lay heavily against him, as if her skin could melt into his.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered in a soggy voice.

His hands tightened briefly. “Don’t apologize, duschka.” She had no idea what duschka meant, but the tone made it unmistakably an endearment. “You can cry all you want. It is a world made for crying. You lost your friend.”

She rolled her forehead against his shoulder. It was like rubbing it against a warm rock. “Yes,” she said simply. “I lost Harold. I miss him so much.”

“I know you do.” He nodded. “And you lost your paintings in your home. Your beautiful paintings in the gallery. They’ll be gone by now.”

It was what she’d suspected. “Yes.”

“And you lost even more than your friend and your paintings. It is no wonder you cry.”

They were both silent, because the last thing she’d lost was her life, the life she’d known.

Grace was held so tightly against Drake, felt so surrounded by him, by his utter physicality in the here and now, that her old life felt far away.

Her entire system had quietened, the crying jag like a violent tropical storm that then moved on, leaving behind silence and calm. Her breathing slowed, quieted. During the jag, she’d focused on the hot ball of grief and sadness in her chest, but now outside sensations seeped in.

The warmth of his body, like a huge heater under the covers, the feeling of being utterly surrounded by strength, the slow thud of his heart against her breast. She shifted slightly, and her hip came up against his erection, huge and ready, as always.

An electric current swept through her body at the feel of him as he surged against her at her lightest touch. She’d just cried her heart out, and yet her body was already preparing for him, softening, becoming wetter…

She lifted her head to look at him. Drake’s face was so solemn, strong features still as he watched her. As always, he made no effort to charm her. He never used words to seduce her. He was a man of action and he showed what he felt by actions, not words.

Each feature was fascinating. The dark, hooded eyes that seemed to see so much. The full, sensual mouth. The high cheekbones and beard-roughened jawline. Features becoming so dear, so…

So familiar?

Grace cocked her head, blinking. How could…? She stopped breathing for a moment, overwhelmed.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, cupping his face with her hand. How had she missed it? Why hadn’t she recognized him? She felt her eyes go wide.

He brushed his lips across the ball of her shoulder. “What is it, duschka?” he murmured.

“It—it’s you.” Grace ran her finger over his features, tracing the dark wings of his eyebrows, the slight lines fanning out from his eyes, easing down the straight bridge of his nose. Why hadn’t she seen this before?

“You’re the man of my dreams,” she whispered, then stopped, heat rushing to her face. “I mean—I dream about you, Drake. I’ve been dreaming about you for over a year now. They’re more nightmares than dreams, actually. Danger and violence, always. And always safety provided by a man. I’ve tried to paint his face but I’ve never come closer than a generic look because I never remember his face when I wake up from the nightmares. But…he’s you. Somehow, Drake, he is you. The man who saves me. Now that I can see it, it’s so clear. I have been dreaming of you.” She ran the back of a knuckle down the left side of his face. “Except…in my dreams, the man who saves me always has a big white scar here. As you must know, because you’ve bought five of those portraits.” She frowned. “I haven’t seen them hung in your study, though.”

“No.” Drake shook his head slowly. “They were too…personal. They’re in a vault, where only I can see them. Because I recognized myself right away.”

Grace shook her head, amazed. “How could you? How could you recognize yourself when I didn’t? I only now realized that I was painting and drawing variations on you. Each portrait was different, because I never saw your features clearly. The only things they had in common were dark hair and dark eyes and a—a strong look. But each portrait was different.”

He took her hand and placed it against his left cheek. “How could I not recognize myself? Each portrait was the same,” he protested. “Each man in the paintings had a long white scar on the left side of his face.”

He pressed her index finger into the flesh of his left cheek. “Feel, duschka. Feel what is underneath the skin.” At first Grace didn’t know what he was talking about, but then she could feel it—a line underneath the skin, following the scar of her dream saviour. “I had the best plastic surgeon in the world, but even the best plastic surgery only heals the skin. My scar ran deep and the surgeon couldn’t repair all the tissues underneath.”

She watched him, fingers on his skin, running the pad of her index finger up and down his face. The hidden scar was there, from his temple down to his chin, exactly as in her dreams.

“This is impossible,” she whispered.

“Yes, it is,” he said simply. “And yet, impossible or not, it is so.”

Grace’s head swam. She was such a…a prosaic person. She didn’t do shrinks or self-help books or group therapy. She didn’t believe in ghosts or past lives or angels. She led a quiet life, painting and reading, mainly in her own apartment, almost always alone. All she’d ever wanted was to paint and be left alone.

She’d never had a feeling of destiny or of great things in store for her. Fate had never been a factor in her life.

But here it was. Inexplicable and otherworldly.

She’d dreamed, over and over again, of this man. A man she’d never met, never even thought to meet. Somehow she’d known him, known that they were fated to be together.

Goose pimples ran up her forearms and the hair on the nape of her neck rose. She felt an inner trembling, as if she were in a frozen wasteland instead of in a warm, comfortable bed with a fire blazing in the hearth.

The chill went deep, to her core. Her icy hands shook.

She’d been touched by something she had no words for. She knew only that it was big, tapping into something that she now realized was the energy that ran the world.

At that moment, in an act of total surrender, Grace gave herself over to her destiny. She was somehow meant to be with this man.

Drake. Drake was her destiny.

“It was you,” she whispered. “Always you.”

“Yes, duschka,” he said quietly, face sober. “We are somehow linked. I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but I knew there was a connection the first time I saw your portrait of a man I recognized as myself.” He ran his hands along her side, as if shaping her. His eyes searched hers. “I knew you were important to me, but I stayed away from you for a full year. I knew I couldn’t share my life with a woman, it was much too dangerous. So I stayed away. But I couldn’t stay away completely. I was there every time you came to the gallery.”

His head shook slowly, eyes never leaving hers. He shifted her until she was on top of him, opening her legs with his until her knees flanked his sides. He was hugely erect, hard and hot. With a soft touch, he reached down to open her until the lips of her sex rode him.

The deep voice grew even more deep, the timbre rougher, the accent stronger.

“It was like you were giving me life, duschka. Your paintings, the way you talked, moved. Your very existence. There was no way I could do without seeing you, after that first time.”

He was moving his hips under her, a slow surge up and down, rubbing his penis along the oh-so-sensitive lips of her sex. Her tissues were so sensitive she could feel everything about him—the large, bulbous tip, the smooth, thick column, the dark wiry hairs at the base. She felt it all as he moved himself slowly along her. A ball of heat rose from between her legs, banishing the chill she’d felt, banishing even the thought of cold.

His eyes were so dark, so deep. She couldn’t look away from them. She was trapped by those dark eyes, those strong hands holding her hips, the powerful body moving sensuously beneath her. She was trapped, with no desire to escape.

“The first time I saw your work, I was in a car. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I got out and doubled back to the gallery, thinking to buy a few paintings, not having any idea who the artist was and not caring. And then—and then you walked in. You brought in sunlight and beauty, duschka. I could barely keep my eyes off you, but I knew I had to, for your sake.”

His voice was tuning in and out, she was finding it hard to follow him through the blossoming heat and wetness between her legs.

She looked down, mesmerized by the sight of his penis emerging from between her thighs. The enormous head, a dark plum color, already weeping at the tip, appeared, followed by the massive shaft. The semen showed how excited he was, though there was no sense of him losing control. His movements were regular, calculated for maximum stimulation. Oh God, he’d positioned himself so that each stroke rubbed against her clitoris in a long, slow, lingering slide that made her skin prickle and her vagina clench. They weren’t even technically making love and she was a hair’s breadth from a climax.

Those dark eyes were burning. “Bend down to me,” he growled. “Give me your breast.”

It didn’t occur to her to do anything but obey. She didn’t even have to exert any effort, those huge hands on her sides just brought her to him, held her still for him.

His mouth on her burned. He nibbled at her breast for a moment, then opened his mouth to suckle at her nipple in long, liquid pulls. She felt the pulls down to her loins, clenching in time to his mouth.

She drew in a shuddering breath, completely concentrating on what was happening between her legs, held up by his hands because her muscles had turned to water.

He suckled hard and her inner muscles clamped down on his penis. She was so wet and slick his back and forth movements made little sucking noises in the quiet of the room. He swelled even larger under her. Grace braced herself on his iron biceps, head down, hair forming a little curtain of privacy around them as she shook.

His movements speeded up, not so controlled now, his hands pulling her down on him. The sensations magnified, ballooning with heat and friction, Drake moving so fast the huge bed beat hard against the wall.

Grace began that long freefall into orgasm, like jumping out of an airplane, stomach swooping with the absence of gravity. Usually, it lasted only a second before she climaxed, but there was something about this that prolonged it, kept her hovering on the edge for long minutes, as she hung above him, shaking, barely breathing…

Her entire body went ballistic, shaking, shuddering as an electric line of pleasure ran from the top of her head to her toes, centering on her loins, where she clenched strongly around Drake’s penis.

It set him off, too. With a low moan, he bucked strongly under her, swelled, and started spurting all over his stomach, a hard shudder accompanying each spurt. His teeth were clenched, hands hard at her hips, groaning as his hips moved wildly under her, completely out of control.

He was sweating all over, the short dark hair turning black with sweat. His head fell back against the pillows, strong neck arched, eyes slitted with pleasure, jaw muscles bunching. He looked in pain, but if he felt anything like what Grace had felt, it wasn’t pain. It was pleasure on an almost unimaginable scale.

Grace collapsed onto Drake’s chest, panting, wiped out, still shaking with the force of the orgasm. They lay there a moment, breathing heavily, eyes closed, creatures of their bodies.

After a moment, Drake’s arms went around her, one big hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapped around her waist, the way he always held her. She was surrounded by hard man, utterly safe.

Feeling safe was a mistake. Intellectually, she knew that. There was nothing safe about the situation at all. Hard men were gunning for Drake and, by extension, for her. Drake himself was an extremely dangerous man, not at all the kind of man you thought of as “safe.”

And yet she’d never felt safer in her life than right now, because she knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he would fight to the death for her.

There had never been anyone to defend her, ever. Her father had skipped out with all the family’s money when she was nine years old, and even before that, he hadn’t been much of a father. Her mother had been wrapped up in her father and, after his abandonment, in her own misery, with no time or thought to her daughter. There had been no aunts or uncles or cousins to form a loving layer of protection around her.

Grace had never had a protective boyfriend. Her lovers had been few and far between and the affairs never lasted more than a couple of weeks, often less. She’d been a passing fancy in their lives. By some twisted turn of fate or maybe by some twist in her psyche, the men she’d been with had been obsessed with their careers or their bank accounts, or often, both. Grace Larsen never figured very highly in their lives. She was there and then she wasn’t, and they didn’t much notice the difference.

The closest she’d felt to being special to someone had been with Harold. It had been a lovely feeling, but knowing that this charming, elderly man had her best interests at heart in the art world wasn’t the same as having someone as strong as Drake solidly on her side in all things.

Like now.

Grace let herself lay on Drake, draped over him, knowing in some deep recess of her mind that, somehow, she was precious to him. That he felt something strong for her and that it was real.

The sharp smell of sex was in the air, a compound of her arousal and the semen that had jetted all over his stomach and that now glued her to him. Her head had fallen to his hard shoulder, nose against his neck. She barely had the energy to open her eyes. Through slitted eyes, she could see about four square inches of his skin, even this small patch of him beautiful and intriguing.

Golden-brown skin, corded muscles so pronounced they cast shadows, even here sleek and strong. With her nose so close to her skin she could smell the essence of him above the keen smell of sex—a dark, fragrant spicy scent, redolent of musk, unlike anything she had ever smelled before in her life.

In a dark, crowded room full of men, she would be able to pick him out blindfolded, by scent alone.

And certainly by touch. No other man she’d ever seen had his deeply muscled physique. One brush of her fingers and she’d know him. No other man on earth could feel like that.

He reached over and punched a button. With a gentle whir, the curtains started sliding open.

It took her a minute to find the strength to turn her head toward the window. By the time she did, the curtains had opened all the way, letting the morning and New York come into the bedroom.

It was still snowing. Not a storm like last night, just gentle flakes hovering in the air more than falling out of the sky. Clouds hung so low over the city they hid the tops of many of the skyscrapers. This high up, it looked like the sky was close enough to touch.

“It’s still snowing,” she said dreamily, turning her head back into his neck, one hand over his heart.

Drake sighed, the huge deep chest filling with air, lifting her up. “Yes, love. Everything becomes more difficult in the snow.”

True, but the world wasn’t made for ease. “And everything becomes more beautiful in the snow.”

She could actually hear his smile. “Yes, duschka. Very beautiful. I never noticed that before you.”

She smiled against his neck, happy to have given him something, if only an appreciation of the beauty of snow.

She drifted, thinking of nothing at all, feeling warm and safe in his arms. She was beginning the luscious slide back into sleep when Drake said quietly, “Duschka.”

“Mm.” If he wanted to talk, he was going to have to do it to a semi-comatose woman, because she was way too comfortable to pay attention to whatever he wanted to say. Something serious, from the sound of it.

No, she didn’t want to talk about anything serious, not right now. Now was her time out of time.

Another enormous sigh as Drake’s big hands shifted to cup her shoulders. He lifted her torso slightly so he could look her in the eyes. “I need to tell you something, something you won’t want to hear. It is time for you to know, because we need to be making plans.”

It was serious. Any hint of a smile had gone, and his face was drawn in tight lines, as if in pain. Grace dropped the smile. Whatever it was, it had him worried, so it worried her.

She folded her hands on his chest and rested her chin on them. Whatever the bad news was, she wanted to be touching as much of him as possible while hearing it. “All right,” she said quietly. “Shoot. I’m ready.”

He shut his eyes briefly, then opened them, gaze fierce as an eagle’s. “These…problems we’re having. They’re not going away. Ever.”

She said nothing, just watched him.

“The people who are after me are not going to quit, love.” His hands on her back clenched lightly, as if reasserting ownership. “Particularly not now, not when they have you as a bargaining chip and when they know what you mean to me.”

She spoke through a suddenly tight throat. “And just what do I mean to you, Drake?”

“Everything,” he said promptly, eyes never leaving hers. “You’re everything to me.”

He lifted himself slightly to her, hard stomach muscles clenching, so strong they actually lifted her up as he brought his mouth to hers for a hot, biting kiss that went on and on. She’d just climaxed but her body started waking up, bit by bit, each time his tongue touched hers.

His body was already awake. His penis had only softened a little after his climax, but with the kiss he surged into a full erection, lengthening and hardening in powerful pulses that sent shivers through her.

Grace melted.

Drake broke the kiss, easing back down. The pupils of his eyes had expanded so much the irises looked black. A deep flush rode his high cheekbones and his jaw muscles bunched.

“Later,” he growled. “We’ll have all the time we want later. But now we need to make plans. I told you my enemies aren’t going to give up and I will not give you up.”

Grace’s heart gave a huge thump in her chest. Something big, something dangerous was coming. “So—what’s the answer?”

“We disappear,” he said simply, his eyes never leaving hers.

At first Grace didn’t understand. The words garbled in her head. Dis a tear? Or was it we’d appear? Appear where?

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 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 of violence, had someone 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 damned lonely. 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 for her, 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 jobs 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, her hair 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 stiffened 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. He was keeping her climax going for what felt like forever, while another orgasm, riding hard on the waves of the first, caught her by surprise.

He was close, muscles bunched hard, movements jerky, uncontrolled. He gave a deep moan in her mouth and with one last upward thrust started coming again in hot spurts that covered his stomach and hers.

Oh God, it was so intense.

Grace felt like she was leaking emotions that came out of her as moisture. Somehow her eyes were full of tears, though she wasn’t crying. It was as if the emotion in her simply had to find a way out and had opted for her eyes. She was sweating from every pore, shaking and trembling, holding on tightly to Drake, as if she’d drifted far out to sea and he was a lifeline.

They lay together holding each other tightly for a long time, long enough for the sky outside to turn a light shade of pewter. Her trembling muscles slowly relaxed and their breathing evened out.

Grace was sliding into sleep when Drake turned his head to kiss her ear, then whispered into it, “I love you, too, Grace.”

It jolted her awake. She lifted her head to look at him, at this man who had become her lover. Who had become her beloved. Each feature of his face was exotic, fascinating, new yet familiar.

Who knew? She didn’t believe in past lives, but there had to be something that could explain the deep, intense and immediate connection with this man.

She meant what she’d said and so did he. Neither of them took love lightly.

“There’s so much to say.” Grace ran a finger over his eyebrows, down that high, broad cheekbone, over his full mouth. “I don’t know where to start.”

His head dipped in agreement. “Yes, there is much to say, my love, but we have the rest of our lives to say it. And if we want the rest of our lives to be more than a day or two, we must plan carefully. A man will be coming with new documents for you. He will be here by noon, unless all this…beautiful snow—” his hard mouth quirked upward in a smile, “slows his progress.”

On a long sigh, Grace rolled out of bed and stretched, naked. She lifted her arms to the ceiling and rose on her toes. She felt so…good.

“Where will this meeting be, Drake?”

“Good question, dushka.” One hand reached out from under the covers to stroke her hip. Grace smiled at his touch. “Not my study. That is too…personal, with all your paintings there. No, I think we will meet in the living room.”