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Hold Me Tight
Cait London


Powerful. Dangerous. Male. Alexi Stepanov was everything that painful experience had taught Jessica Sterling to fear. Which was why he made the perfect protector for her dearest friend. What made better sense than to counter a threat with maximum threat? Keep your enemies closer…wasn't that the general wisdom?Only, Alexi was too close for comfort….In honoring a vow, Jessica had resigned herself to a cold, lonely life as a wealthy widow, but Alexi warmed her world with his large, loving family…and a heat he alone stirred. Once, a man's touch had meant taking, but Alexi's touch was giving. And deceiving. For Alexi knew her friend had never been in danger.Jessica was.









“Alexi…” She Whispered

In Her Sleep, “I Need You….”


Bracing himself against the dangerous need rocketing through his body, Alexi bent and eased Jessica, complete with pillow and blanket, into his arms.

She snuggled against his chest and Alexi didn’t move, forcing his breath to slow. With her defenses down, Jessica looked young and sweet and innocent.

An involvement with this woman would only bring frustration and pain.

Wanting to rid himself of the danger of this woman, Alexi carried her back to his bed, lowered her slightly and let her fall the last inch. He did not want to touch her in his bed.

He could not touch her.

Alexi clenched his fists and closed his eyes. He sat in the chair and brooded the curse of Chief Kamakani over Amoteh.

Because it was surely the chieftain’s curse that had brought Jessica Sterling anywhere near Alexi.


Dear Reader,

Welcome to another passion-filled month at Silhouette Desire—where we guarantee powerful and provocative love stories you are sure to enjoy. We continue our fabulous DYNASTIES: THE DANFORTHS series with Kristi Gold’s Challenged by the Sheikh—her intensely ardent hero will put your senses on overload. More hot heroes are on the horizon when USA TODAY bestselling author Ann Major returns to Silhouette Desire with the dramatic story of The Bride Tamer.

Ever wonder what it would be like to be a man’s mistress—even just for pretend? Well, the heroine of Katherine Garbera’s Mistress Minded finds herself just in that predicament when she agrees to help out her sexy-as-sin boss in the next KING OF HEARTS title. Jennifer Greene brings us the second story in THE SCENT OF LAVENDER, her compelling series about the Campbell sisters, with Wild In the Moonlight—and this is one hero to go wild for! If it’s a heartbreaker you’re looking for, look no farther than Hold Me Tight by Cait London as she continues her HEARTBREAKERS miniseries with this tale of one sexy male specimen on the loose. And looking for a little Hot Contact himself is the hero of Susan Crosby’s latest book in her BEHIND CLOSED DOORS series; this sinfully seductive police investigator always gets his woman! Thank goodness.

And thank you for coming back to Silhouette Desire every month. Be sure to join us next month for New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson’s Best-Kept Lies, the highly anticipated conclusion to her wildly popular series THE MCCAFFERTYS.

Keep on reading!






Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire




Hold Me Tight

Cait London







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CAIT LONDON


is an avid reader and an artist who plays with computers and maintains her Web site, http://caitlondon.com. Her books reflect her many interests, including herbs, driving cross-country and photography. A national bestselling and award-winning author of category romance and romantic suspense, Cait has also written historical romances under another pseudonym. Three is her lucky number; she has three daughters, and her life events have been in threes. Cait says, “One of the best perks about this hard work is the thrilling reader response.”




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten




One


A lexi Stepanov decided to let his stalker catch him. At thirty-three years old, he was tuned to his senses and used to hunting in Wyoming mountains. A slight chill penetrated the tinted glass window to touch his skin—or was that chill running up his nape because someone was watching him?

He stood inside the sprawling Amoteh Resort. The luxury hotel’s massive windows faced the night and southern Washington’s Pacific Ocean.

At one o’clock, the resort lay hushed, the social area’s massive pool reflecting the water waves upon the ceiling. In January, only a few guests were vacationing at the resort. Kitchen facilities had been cut to an informal buffet style, a far cry from the elegant dinners served during the busy season.

Outside, the night brewed a winter storm, predicted to bring a mix of rain, sleet and possibly snow. Like a beast, hungry for land, the storm was moving in over the huge, black wind-tossed waves toward shore. Intermittent lightning skimmed over the tops of the churning clouds and the only sound in the huge room was the sound of water lapping at the sides of the pool.

After a day of remodeling the old house where Alexi’s father would retire, the Amoteh suite provided the welcome comforts of a luxury bathroom and television. Courtesy of Mikhail Stepanov, manager of the resort and Alexi’s cousin, Alexi was temporarily using the manager’s private suite; Mikhail was at home with his wife and daughter.

Could he find peace in this small oceanside community?

Alexi inhaled sharply. On previous visits to his aunt and uncle, and his cousins, Mikhail and Jarek, Alexi had found that he enjoyed the town, also called Amoteh. In Wyoming, there were too many reminders of how his dreams—and his pride—had been strangled—by a woman who wanted more, always more.

As Alexi waited for whomever had been following him to come nearer, a ripple of danger seemed to move through the huge potted tropical plants at his side. He nudged aside a child’s forgotten ball with his boot. If he were attacked, the ball could cause him to lose his balance.

The person who had been stealthily following him could be dangerous. His shearling coat was more suited to the mountains than to this more moderate climate and it could encumber him in a tussle. The thick padding could also protect him from a man Alexi and his brother, Danya, had forcibly removed from this small oceanfront town—a very dangerous man with a grudge against the Stepanovs….

A flash of lightning lit the grotesque masks on the totem poles outside the resort—a reflection of the Northwest Pacific’s Native American heritage—and Alexi thought about the past week.

Someone was riffling through the details of his life; a woman’s voice had queried several people in Venus, Wyoming, about her old boyfriend, Alexi. The name the woman had used when speaking to his father and his brother didn’t really matter; it was probably false. She had supposedly reached the wrong number—striking up a conversation with the new owners of Alexi’s ranch. The innocent pretext led to a seemingly friendly conversation that released too much of Alexi’s personal information.

She had asked if he was seeing anyone. Was he seeing anyone? Not likely, not after a woman had taken everything she could from a man, including his pride.

Alexi frowned slightly as a light, cold rain began to hit the ceiling-to-floor windows in the resort’s pool and social area room. Like tiny snakes flowing to join others, the rain slid down the glass as he thought about his ex-fiancée, now another man’s wife. A model bent on a runway career, Heather Pell had moved on to bigger opportunities provided by her millionaire husband.

Three years ago Heather had returned Alexi’s ring and his dreams in a cold note that said she didn’t “want to be stuck on a godforsaken ranch for the rest of my life.”

He’d put almost everything he’d saved into building the home she wanted, into the ranch he wanted. Did he love her? Alexi didn’t know now. Looking back, he hadn’t been thinking about love that much at the time. Maybe he was so entranced with his pictured dreams of marriage, home and children that he hadn’t seen the reality of what their relationship was missing—a love like his parents.

In the end he’d sold the ranch at a loss and was glad to be rid of the house his ex-fiancée had designed. Unable to settle into new goals and dreams, Alexi had taken the opportunity to remodel a home for his father and to visit his cousins in Amoteh.

Burned by his ex-fiancée, Alexi had decided to leave attachments of the heart to other men; he wasn’t stepping into that cow pile again, asking for more pain.

Restless with his thoughts and more comfortable in nature’s elements, Alexi opened the resort’s door and stepped out into the night. He decided to lead his stalker away from the Amoteh Resort; he wanted no trouble within his cousin’s luxurious domain.

As Alexi moved through the dormant but manicured gardens, he took the wooden steps downward. They led toward Amoteh the town, which was fed by tourists in warmer weather. Walking slowly, making certain that he could be followed easily, Alexi moved away from the resort. The resort’s exterior lighting framed the huge painted totem poles and Alexi glanced at the eerie shadows thrown against their masks—and the person moving through them, following him.

His stalker was small and quick, agile, too.

Alexi’s senses tightened as rain, changing to a mix of sleet and snow, lashed his face. He left the resort’s steps and moved onto a footpath, which led to his father’s retirement home.

Home? Not yet. In the process of gutting the old house, Alexi wanted it livable by late spring. His father could relocate, enjoy the summer fishing and spend the winter sharing the Stepanov immigrant brothers’ stories with Fadey—next to a blazing fire.

The storm hit Amoteh’s brown sandy beach in a furious crash of waves. Snow fell steadily now, topping the piles of driftwood and tall beach grass. The path led half a mile northward over sand and brush and ended with wooden steps that had to be replaced, a sprawling back porch that was rotting and cluttered with old discarded cabinets, doors and windows. But the house overlooking the Pacific Ocean was sound and, despite cosmetic problems, the skeleton was based on sturdy cedar beams.

Alexi glanced at the ocean, the winds catching the waves, sending sprays from the whitecaps. Violent, elemental, the water called to him, perhaps to his dark, brooding side that few people had ever seen.

If he decided to buy the Seagull’s Perch, a local tavern, he might settle permanently in Amoteh….

Alexi opened the weathered door and stepped inside the house’s sunroom. The plastic he had installed over the open windows rattled, protesting the rising wind.

He waited in the cold darkness; the creak of the wooden porch told him the stalker didn’t match his weight. His visitor might be trained for other work—

When the door creaked and opened, Alexi held his breath. The stalker stepped inside the open door and Alexi kicked it shut. “Looking for something?”

“Alexi?”

He’d recognize that soft, husky female voice anywhere…and that scent amid a storm of other ones. At the resort’s New Year’s Eve dance one week ago, held for locals and for guests, he’d danced with Jessica Sterling, a guest at the Amoteh.

At around thirty, Mrs. Jessica Sterling—widow of the Sterling Stops magnate—had a feline grace, gliding and sensuous. She had walked slowly through a crowd of people to find him at the seafood buffet. Her face had been in shadow, her silhouette framed by the light behind her. Her hair had been pinned into a neat chignon and that long, slender neck led to gleaming bare shoulders. The black dress had been long and formfitting, clinging to her hips. Her long emerald-chandelier earrings had caught the light, glittering and swaying along her throat as she’d moved toward him.

As she had moved closer, the thigh-high slit in her dress had revealed a gleaming smooth leg before it fell to those well-kept, polished toes in her strappy high-heeled sandals. As Alexi’s gaze had moved upward, he’d found a neat waist and only two tiny straps holding up the low-cut bodice and the smooth-flowing softness within.

In contrast to her sophisticated look, Mrs. Jessica Sterling had carried the scent of soap and fresh air, not Parisian perfume. But her unique scent had disturbed Alexi on a level he didn’t want—her scent was that of a woman, exotic and feminine.

Just two feet from him, she’d stopped and slowly looked him up and down. Inches shorter than his six-foot-three height, her high heels lessened the distance between those slanted, mysterious green eyes and his own. “Alexi Stepanov? I’m Jessica Sterling. Would you like to dance?”

The next day she’d come to the Seagull’s Perch, where he’d been filling in for the vacationing bartender. The owner would soon be retiring and Alexi was working to get the feel of the tavern—balancing his past life against a new one—and the money it would take to make a start in Amoteh. Jessica Sterling wasn’t the barroom type; her long, all-weather raincoat had covered an expensive woolen sweater and slacks. In her brief visit she’d ordered an expensive white wine from Rita, the waitress—but Alexi knew Jessica was studying him as he worked behind the massive walnut bar.

He’d thought at the time that a woman like her—one who would walk through the night alone to a tavern filled mostly with men—would do nothing but cause trouble.

Now, in the cluttered sunroom amid the scents of freshly cut wood, he caught the fragrance of a woman—

“Alexi Stepanov?” Jessica asked in that same husky voice she’d used to invite him to dance—like the rasp of silk falling, gliding along that curved body to pool at the floor. Tonight her hair was covered by the light designer jacket’s hood, her legs by slacks that probably cost far more than a good bull calf.

Alexi picked up a flashlight and she winced when the beam hit her face. Her emerald stud earrings caught the light and flashed back at him. “Well, Mrs. Sterling? Did you lose something?”

“Turn that flashlight off.” The command came quick and hard, issued by a woman who ran a corporation and who was used to having her orders followed.

Alexi deliberately took his time as she shielded her eyes with her slender pale hand, and an enormous set of emerald wedding rings shot off sparks. Below that hand lay creamy skin and lush full lips, perfectly outlined and gleaming with gloss, but tightened now with anger.

She’d had green eyes, shadowed and mysterious. They had a slow, seductive way of looking at a man—appraising him—that told him that she knew her appeal and how to use it….

Alexi hooked a finger into her hood and tugged it back. A heavy fall of waving hair framed her face and shoulders. A reddish curl caught momentarily on his finger—vibrant, fragrant, seductive, fragrant, soft—like the woman.

Jessica Sterling was exactly the kind of woman his ex-fiancée had been—a pretty, expensive package with a self-satisfying cash register for a heart….

Jessica had danced silently in his arms, looking away from him, her expression unreadable.

But yet, Alexi had sensed that she was circling him, her body yielding to his direction, her waist small and unbound.

There had been no mistaking that genuine softness against his chest and his instincts had told him to press her closer…to take in the rich feel of this woman with a slow sweep of his open hand slightly downward to feel the movement of her hips flowing beneath his touch….

The touch of her had haunted him—

Alexi clicked off the flashlight. He had only glimpsed her face before he moved to click on the battery-driven lantern, but the unsettling impact remained. Beneath the flattering tints and the mascara, her green eyes had flashed up at him, filled with the hot burn of temper.

She didn’t know Alexi. Why would she already dislike him?

Jessica stayed in the shadows of the gutted sunroom, taking in the table saw, the generator, rough workbench and the massive toolbox. Alexi sensed that she was studying him carefully, circling him—

A rich widow out for fun with a Wyoming cowboy wasn’t on his agenda. “Let’s have it,” he said briskly. “Why did you follow me here?”

In the dim light of the unfinished sunroom, her shadow moved on the rough walls stripped of damaged drywall panels. Outside, the mix of weather had changed again, as restless as the woman. Lightning outside the plastic-covered windows lit her face. Her lids were lowered, the length of her dark lashes creating fringe shadows down her cheeks. She ran her manicured hand along a smooth pine board and lifted her face to him. “You’re going to be difficult, aren’t you?”

“Depends. You’ve been researching me for this past week. Why?”

Those green eyes caught fire and then slid downward, shielding her expression. Alexi reached out to capture her chin and lift it. “I asked you a question.”

Beneath his thumb, her skin was creamy and cool with mist. The scent of rain clung to her, fresh and even more alluring than perfume. But he felt the heat beneath the surface, the nick of anger as she tensed, her eyes slowly opening to his, boldly holding his. He didn’t intend to stroke that flawless cheek, surprised as his thumb moved, contrasting the texture and color of this woman’s fine skin.

“I’m not ready to answer,” Jessica said slowly, huskily, as she raised her hand to push his away from her face. She stepped back as though she disliked being too close and, taking her time, circled the room. Rooms without doors led off the main room. A damp, chilly draft lifted a curl beside her cheek and she impatiently brushed it away.

She walked around the buckets that caught rain dripping from the ceiling. “Nice. You’re remodeling this for your father. He’ll probably want some kind of little shed, some livestock in the few acres attached to this place…maybe a garden. A man from the country usually wants those things. Why are you remodeling this place, and not your brother? Didn’t Danya want to come? Or did you need to get away from Venus and a love gone wrong? Your fiancée married someone else, didn’t she? That must have been difficult for you. Is that really the reason you’re in Amoteh, remodeling this place and tending bar? Changing your life?”

Alexi resented her prowling through his life, his emotions, and pinpointing his plans. “You tell me. You’re the one who’s been researching. You called some friends, pretending we’d been involved. If I checked the resort’s records, your outgoing calls would probably coincide with the calls to Wyoming. You should have tried my cousins, Jarek or Mikhail—they live right here. But then, you didn’t want them to know that you were asking questions, did you? It was safer to use another name…what was it? Mimi Julian, wasn’t it?”

Jessica shrugged away his question and turned to him. “I wanted to see if you were the right man for what I have in mind. I know that you’ll be staying here, working on this until you have it livable. From the looks of it, you’ll be a while.”

She shivered slightly, but stepped over a mound of odd wood pieces and walked toward a doorway leading into the kitchen and pantry area. She lifted aside the temporary plastic and looked inside the darkness. Though still without plumbing and cabinets, the room overlooked the ocean. There Viktor, Alexi’s widowed father, could sip his Russian tea and watch the waves, feeling as if he had a little bit of his homeland.

Alexi watched her move back toward him, graceful, purposeful, taking her time before she hit her target. What did she want?

He shrugged mentally, and thought of other times that women on the prowl who were fascinated with the Western male image had approached him. What did she want, other than the obvious—a rich widow wanting a little playtime, a little physical diversion before she went back to the suit-clad corporate world?

The wind pushed at the plastic he’d tacked over the sunroom’s old windows, howling around the corners of the house as Jessica came to stand in front of him.

She tilted her head and a long waving length of chestnut hair slid to her throat.

Alexi resisted the urge to ease that gleaming strand away from the pale smooth length, and met her searching look.

Those dark green eyes studied him coolly as she tapped her finger on a length of board. “You think I want you for a lover, don’t you?” she asked quietly. “Well, I don’t. I’m not in the market. This is business.”

Women like Jessica Sterling were usually motivated by business. It ruled their lives. Alexi nodded and said, “I’m listening.”

“You’re wondering why I’m here. I’ll answer—I need someone exactly like you, and you’re on site, so to speak. You know the people in Amoteh and they like you. Last year you and your brother, Danya, came into town to visit Mikhail and, gee whiz, when you left, so did a real mean troublemaker, Lars Anders. I think there is a connection between your departure and his. His removal from Amoteh was quiet and neat and Lars hasn’t been back since. Then there was the little girl who was kidnapped and saved by you, the publicity kept at a minimum to safeguard her privacy. There were one or two incidents in your local newspaper’s archives, including your support of an abused women’s shelter—and I’d say that was more than financial support. It probably included a little muscle.”

She stuck her hands in her pockets and shivered. “It’s freezing in here…. I think you’d be perfect for what I need done. You can be discreet, quiet—and if you take the job, well-paid. Are you interested?”



Alexi Stepanov would be perfect to safeguard Willow, Jessica’s friend.

Like the other Stepanov males Jessica had met, Alexi was absolutely trustworthy, an ethical man, one with old-fashioned values.

But Alexi had bitter edges encircling him and she sensed his immediate distrust. Why?

Towering over her five-foot-eight inches, Alexi’s lean muscular body was sheathed in a shearling coat, worn jeans and well-worn laced workman’s boots. In a hard-weathered face, those narrowed cold, gray eyes, locked jaw and firmly pressed lips said he didn’t like her.

He didn’t have to; he just had to do the job she needed—to protect Willow.

The wind howled and Jessica tried to forget her chilled body; she hadn’t expected he’d lead her so far—“You intended me to follow you, didn’t you?”

He nodded, his dark brown waving hair gleaming in the lamplight. The shaggy length just touched his shoulders, a contrast to his neatly clipped cousin, Mikhail. The waves did nothing to soften his jutting facial bones, those fiercely drawn dark brows.

Alexi’s hard expression now revealed none of his other cousin, Jarek’s, easygoing qualities. According to Amoteh gossip, Mikhail and Jarek doted on their wives and children and loved their parents, Mary Jo and Fadey Stepanov. From what Jessica had seen of Alexi playing with the children and laughing with his relatives, he was also a family man.

In contrast, his defenses had definitely been raised when they had danced, a silent cold shield seeming to drop between them.

His eyes had caught her. In the brighter light between the New Year’s Eve dances, they were a cold, brilliant blue. But in the shadows, the shade had become silvery, almost like ice—or steel.

At the tavern he’d moved expertly behind the massive bar, the variety of bottles glittering on the shelf behind him, the mirror reflecting that hard face—the stare directly into her shaded corner, penetrating the privacy she wished while observing him….

She’d almost felt the waves of his dislike across the music of the jukebox, the ocean churning outside, the men talking quietly.

But that didn’t concern Jessica, only the need to protect her friend Willow. “If you knew enough to lead me here, you knew I wanted to talk with you. We could have had this conversation at the resort, but instead, you had me follow you. You prefer your terms, you like to be in control, and you’re perverse, Mr. Stepanov.”

“No, just careful.”

“You’re more than that. You don’t trust me, do you?”

His nod was curt, those blue-gray eyes cutting at her in the dim light, appraising her. His disdaining gaze ran down, then up her body. She knew what he saw—expensive clothes, a woman used to spas and wealth and getting what she wanted.

And she wanted him.

“You could say that,” he said in that deep careful drawl that spoke of his Western roots, though she knew that as the child of Russian immigrants, he was fluent in that language.

Jessica didn’t care what he thought of her. She’d battled for her position as head of Sterling Stops, a quick-shop chain, dismissing gossip that she’d married her second husband for his fortune. Her first husband had been the result of an impetuous teenage marriage, and from him she’d learned to stay away from very physical men—like Alexi.

In business, she knew how to fight above and below the board table. She knew how to cut short taunts and how to ignore them. In life, she knew how rough a frustrated young husband could be with a teenage bride—and yet a second, older husband could love her so much she could almost forget her desperate past, that everyday struggle to survive. “Then do. Please do. Say that you don’t trust me.”

“What do you want?” The question shot at her like a bullet.

Jessica tried not to shiver, but the dampness and freezing chill had seeped into her flesh. “I need your services.”

A corner of his hard mouth lifted and there was a flicker of disdain in his silver eyes. “Do you?”

“Stop playing games. Are you available or not?”

This time, warmth slid into his eyes, his mouth softening just that bit. “You must be determined to go the distance in this bad weather. You’re freezing, soaked through and shivering in that expensive, too-light jacket. You’re expecting me to take off my coat and offer it to you, aren’t you? That would be the thing for a gentleman to do, wouldn’t it, Mrs. Sterling? But then, I’m only a bartender, aren’t I? A man for hire?”

Those hard blue-gray eyes slid down then up her body once more. Alexi’s temporary warmth shifted suddenly into a cold, hard statement. “Take off that coat. It’s wet and you’re freezing.”

“No, thanks. I can manage.”

He studied her comfortable but light leather shoes, one tiny strap torn free. “You weren’t planning to come after me tonight, were you? Why did you?”

Jessica had been coming from the kitchen, carrying a filled plate to her suite; she’d intended to eat while she watched a favorite movie. Then she’d seen Alexi move down the corridor. He’d been wearing that heavy coat—how she envied him now—but her curiosity had kept her in the shadows. A man with a lover wouldn’t do. Pillow talk with another woman could endanger Willow. If he was seeing a woman, involved with someone, Jessica wanted to know and she’d decided to follow him.

She should have waited. Dressed in a light sweater, lounging jacket and pants, she hadn’t been prepared to do anything other than walk through the luxurious hallways to the kitchen.

Then, unexpectedly, Alexi Stepanov had swept through the hallway—tall, brooding, dangerous, and perfect to protect Willow.

He had deliberately led Jessica through a freezing night and a rough path. Her usual chignon had torn free beneath the hood and she’d impatiently ripped away the pins. Few people saw her with her hair unconfined or mussed; she resented that Alexi had studied her hair, inspecting it on his finger.

A man who caught the smallest detail, who noticed everything, was exactly what she wanted. But not this close and not her.

“I didn’t expect that—no. I was hoping for a quiet corner for a discussion.”

“You’ve got that now.”

Her feet were freezing! A shiver ran through her before she could hide it.

Alexi inhaled impatiently and then his hand was at her chest, tugging down the zipper. Once free, he tugged the jacket off of her and tossed it aside.

In the next instant she was inside his coat and pressed against him. “Okay, now talk,” he ordered briskly.

Panic gripped her and before she could retrieve her composure, Alexi had caught her fear, studying her.

“I’m only sharing body warmth, Mrs. Sterling,” he said gently, without the sarcasm she’d expected. Those silvery eyes slid down to her throat, where she was certain her racing pulse could be seen. His voice was husky and soft. “Don’t be afraid.”

She’d been a teenager on her first wedding night and trapped by a man who—who wasn’t her gentle second husband. Jessica pushed back the fear that could leap through the years, pursuing her if a man came too close. “I…of course I’m not. You’re mistaken. I’m only a little cold.”

“That admission must have cost you.” Was that a little humor in those cold eyes, the slight softening of those hard lips?

Dangerous. Quick. A hunter tuned to his senses. Sleek. Powerful. Male. The words danced through her mind, but Jessica forced herself to stand rigidly within his arms, her hands at her sides.

He was looking too closely at her, invading that tight secret core she held very private and safe.

Within inches of her face, Alexi’s was even harder. He was scented of soap and man, of the elements outside, of a predator circling her, setting her on edge.

Intent on relaxing in front of her suite’s television set, Jessica hadn’t bothered with a bra beneath her light sweater. Neither the light sweater or his black sweatshirt softened his body’s hard impact against hers.

“Settle down, Mrs. Sterling,” he whispered, and the rumble of his deep voice vibrated against her body.

This man knew exactly what to do with a woman in his arms. He knew how to hold, to look, how to be gentle…. Jessica forced herself to look up at him and tried to push aside her fear of a man holding her. Alexi was too close, too strong, too masculine. “I think we should confer at another time.”

He lifted that black eyebrow, challenging her. “I’m a busy man. Now is good.”

If she told the wrong man, she could endanger Willow, the only friend she really trusted.

The wind howled outside and, without looking, Alexi said, “It’s changed back to snow. The ground will be covered soon—ice beneath the snow.”

“If you knew that I wanted to talk with you, you could have made this easier.”

“I wanted to know your limits—how badly you wanted me. You do want me, don’t you, Mrs. Sterling?”

She resented the sexual inference and anger ripped at her senses. “You’re toying with me. I don’t like it.”

“Just testing that temper, and you’ve got one for sure. It might keep you warm on the trip back, but you won’t get a second chance at me. Simmer down.”

“And just stand here? Next to you?” she demanded.

He shrugged lightly. “You have choices. If you don’t want what I have to offer—leave.”

“Mikhail wouldn’t like for you not to help a guest in need.”

His expression hardened. “Or a woman looking for—entertainment?”



Wasn’t that what Heather, his ex-fiancée, had called him—“Entertainment until better things came along?”

Alexi didn’t like what his senses were telling him—that Jessica Sterling was soft and fragrant and all woman. His senses told him that he liked her in his arms—that soft, curved body against his—that he wanted to taste those lush lips.

He wanted to burn away the years of abstinence, to move with her, in her, slick and hot and—

And his body was hardening, a physical reaction to her body against his—

Oh, no. Not that again. His mind flashed big warning signals at him. He’d been burned by another woman, just like this one—perfectly painted and groomed and expensive and spoiled. He’d jumped through hoops, been almost stripped of his savings and resources to please a woman like this, and past the momentary sexual gratification, there was no satisfying Heather’s whims—

And he’d lost a measure of his pride, a commodity the Stepanov men held dear.

Alexi stepped back and stared at Jessica, fighting the hard throb of his body and the knowledge that women like this knew how to strip a man of everything—including his pride. He’d almost given in to that helpless, terrified look—like a little wounded bird needing help and comfort.

He’d felt the tremor of her body, her panic as he held her. That soft, female body—

With a contemptuous sidelong look, Jessica turned away, her arms tight around herself. “You really don’t like me, do you?” she asked quietly, the wind’s howl almost swallowing her words.

“Does it matter?” Alexi removed his coat and placed it over her shoulders. Before he could stop his hand, he reached to lift that heavy silky hair up and over the collar. His fingers crushed the strands momentarily, possessively, but he forced them open and away.

Jessica eased her arms into the sleeves and allowed him to turn her and button the coat. “Thank you,” she said tightly, as if the courtesy grated. “I’ll return it to you in just a moment.”

He turned the collar up around her face, needing to touch her hair, her cheek, just once more. She looked like a child, huddled into his too-large coat. A very expensive, spoiled and angry child who didn’t trust him.

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” she asked, and moved away from him, staring out into the snowflakes sliding down the window’s plastic coverings.

“Are your feet cold?” he asked, while his mind prowled around why this woman would leave the warmth, security and luxury of the Amoteh Resort to follow him on a winter night as bitter and treacherous as this one.

Jessica pivoted to him, a myriad of color—reddish hair, flashing green eyes and flushed face. The emeralds on her hand glittered as she swept it out, a gesture that dismissed his question. “You need money. I have it. I need a job done and you’re the first on my list to do it. My late husband always said, pick the right man for the job. I think that’s you.”

That grated, and Alexi leaned against the wall, folded his arms over his chest and waited. “What brings you to any conclusion about my needs?”

“You may be remodeling this now, but you’re making tentative probes on property—probably to start a new life away from Wyoming. You sometimes tend bar at the Seagull’s Perch…the owner is getting ready to retire. Two and two say you’re looking at buying—if you can. I just might be able to help you do that.”

“That’s a lot of information. Did you hire someone for all that? Or did you just dig it up yourself?”

“Give me credit. I have resources and I don’t like to fence. Either you’re interested or you’re not.” She picked up a towel between her hands and studied it. As if satisfied, she sat on a low bench, kicked off her shoes and wrapped the towel around her bare feet. She chafed them briskly and watched him. “It’s freezing in here. Make up your mind.”

“I’m listening.”

She shivered and huddled within his coat. “I haven’t gotten any assurances that you won’t tell what you know, or that you will do the job.”

Interesting, Alexi thought. A determined woman, not asking for relief from the cold; she stood her ground, demanding an answer. “One of us has to go first and lay something on the bargaining table. That’s you. And while we’re at it, I don’t like people prying into my business. Tell me just what you know.”

She seemed to simmer, her eyes lashing at him, her lips compressed. “Okay. I ran a search on the newspaper archives online. You bought an old ranch, started a home on it, and your engagement picture to Heather Pell wasn’t followed by a wedding article. I tracked her to another marriage, quite a wealthy one, near the same wedding date as yours should have been. That must have hurt, because that was three years ago and you’re still guarding yourself. I saw that at the dance last week. No friendly conversation, no polite manners past dancing that one time with me. You tended bar, giving the staff a break, danced with your cousins and their mothers, your aunt and Georgia, the cook, some guests and a few of the staff. You seemed to enjoy dancing with the woman who supplies soap for the Amoteh. Willow? Wasn’t that her name?”

Jessica seemed to be watching him for a reaction to her question. A sweet, gentle and happy woman, Willow Longstreet supplied the resort with soap, fashioned like a strawberry, from her shop. The Native American word for strawberry was Amoteh, a name used by the town and several of the shops. A strawberry design was used by the resort as a logo on all its bathroom and other amenities.

Alexi had instantly liked Willow. But he decided to let Jessica take the lead, and he remained silent.

When he didn’t answer, temper flashed in those green eyes. “At the dance, there was a woman hunting you, and you could have had her. Instead you snubbed her. She loved it, of course, and it only made her game more fun. But you like to do the hunting, don’t you? Men like you do. They enjoy the macho role.”

“You’ve moved past a job you wanted done into the personal lane, Red. I’d watch that.”

He thought of Marcella, a frequent guest at the Amoteh and always on the lookout for a new bedroom thrill. Marcella had been chasing Jarek and Mikhail before they married, and now she’d blatantly turned her attention to Alexi. He’d had to peel her off him more than once during his stay and still she managed to waylay him.

But the woman who had moved against him just moments ago was all natural flowing softness, the kind his hands ached to cup. He could still feel her body in his arms, that tight waist, just the flare of those swaying hips—

Alexi pushed away from the wall. He was too restless with his emotions, his need to know more about the wealthy Mrs. Jessica Sterling. He watched her shiver again, that lush bottom lip quiver as if her teeth were chattering, but her eyes never left him.

“You must want me bad, lady,” he said slowly, and instinctively knew those words would set her off.

Then Alexi opened the door to the living room, stepped inside and closed it behind him.

He smiled briefly, enjoying Jessica’s furious expression.

She wasn’t a woman to back down.

And just maybe he needed to know more about her.




Two


J essica sat, hunched in Alexi’s big, warm coat, her bare feet wrapped in a towel that provided no warmth in the chilly, gutted sunroom. Wind rattled the plastic that covered the windows and a draft lifted the tendrils beside her face.

She shivered; at two-thirty in the morning she could have been snuggled in the resort’s massive bed created by Stepanov’s Furniture. If she’d been unable to sleep, she could be sitting in front of her suite’s blazing fire, working on the corporation business or watching her favorite old black-and-white movie. She could be in a luxurious aromatherapy bath, a rejuvenating mask on her face, and listening to relaxing music.

Alexi Stepanov had tugged her against him, held her easily. An irritating, arrogant—

Jessica rubbed her bare toes with both hands, willing warmth into them. If she left now, she might not get him to help protect Willow.

She inhaled the scent of freshly cut wood. The flapping of the plastic on the windows irritated her, just like the man. A draft on the floor stirred sawdust that had been swept into a pile; bits of it tumbled across the rough board floor toward her.

She stood abruptly, slipped into her wet shoes and grabbed her jacket, then she pushed open the door Alexi had just entered. “I’m not through with you—”

“Shut the door.” Alexi was crouched in front of a woodstove, adding kindling to a growing flame. The new stovepipe said it had been recently installed. Alexi glanced at her as he added a chunk of wood from an old galvanized tub.

She’d taken baths in a tub just like that back in rural Arkansas….

Jessica studied the rough but large room, the large windows facing the Pacific Ocean. An electric skillet, toaster and coffeemaker sat on a door, propped between two sawhorses. A wooden deck chair, walnut in a sturdy design typical of Fadey Stepanov’s furniture, sat in front of the windows; hand-loomed cushions matched the dark brown and maroon blanket thrown over the back. Jessica stared at the massive walnut bed, covered with a down blanket in dark green with crimson strips, a very masculine design. A square of commercial beige carpet covered the floor. A battery lantern sat next to a stack of magazines on a gleaming, chunky table. Resting on a wooden box, a battered suitcase held neatly folded clothing. More folded clothing was in a laundry basket on the floor. A mirror hung on the wall over another table. An enamel basin with soap and neatly folded towels rested on it.

Alexi had deliberately drawn her into a bald confrontation, preventing an easy retreat. He had played the game, set the rules and had won. Her temper rising, Jessica slammed the door.

She struggled to push down that passionate, fighting side of her that few people had experienced. The fire blazed now and Alexi turned to walk toward a small kitchen table with two wooden chairs. He poured coffee from a thermos into a mug marked with the Amoteh Resort’s strawberry logo. He sipped the steaming brew slowly and watched her.

Water dripped steadily from the ceiling, plopping into two buckets, and the fire crackled while Jessica struggled to retain her composure and the image she wanted to project—the businesswoman making deals. She inhaled slowly; she’d handled problem people before.

“You’re playing games. I do not like games, or surprises. We could have talked in here,” Jessica said tightly, finishing the static silence that scratched her nerves like fingernails on a blackboard. “And I do not want you badly.”

“Are your feet cold?” he asked casually, and that easy drawl set her temper climbing again.

“Of course they are. You made me follow you through ice and snow. Talk—if that’s what you call it—in a freezing room when all the while we could have talked where it is warm—and I do not want you badly.”

He poured another cup of coffee and lifted it. “Come and get it, Mrs. Sterling.”

She tensed, weighing his “Come and get it.” Was that a sexual invitation? Or a challenge to start a war?

“This is from the Amoteh. They make better coffee than I do.” The man was unreadable, his eyes cool upon her, slits of silver between those heavy black lashes, shadowed by his brows.

Her senses told her that there was a savage ruthlessness about this man that only a few had seen. If he decided to help protect Willow, and if whoever was bothering her was capable of physical violence, Alexi’s primitive instinct would be needed.

Jessica hesitated on a heartbeat, then walked to him, taking the metal cup. “Thank you.”

“That must have cost you,” he murmured, and humor lit those silvery eyes.

She turned and walked to the stove. The hot coffee warmed her slightly, and she kicked off her shoes, placing them near the fire to dry. Without turning, she stared at the fire in the stove’s open door and sipped the coffee. A soft blow hit her back and a ball of heavy workmen’s socks bounced at her feet. “Put those on.”

She turned to find Alexi seated in one of the wooden chairs, which had been turned toward the fire. He stripped off his work boots and sprawled backward, long legs outstretched. A mug of coffee rested on his flat stomach, his eyes slits of silver in his hard, shadowed face.

Irritated by his cool testing of her, Jessica spoke slowly. She wanted him to know exactly what she thought of him. “There’s a curse on Amoteh, placed on it by Kamakani, that Hawaiian chieftain captured and enslaved by whalers in another century. He died on Strawberry Hill, not far from here, cursing this place. I truly believe you might be a part of that curse, Mr. Stepanov. At least for me. And I know that it’s said that his curse can only be lifted by a woman who knows her own heart, dancing in front of his grave…. Don’t count on any dancing from me, Stepanov. Play any more games with me and you’re in for your own curse.”

He lifted his mug in a toast and nodded, acknowledging her accusation.

“This is what you’re really like, isn’t it? Not the easygoing guy everyone thinks you are. This…this retreat is where you come to be as you really are—dark, moody, deliberately obtuse and difficult.”

“And you want me.”

The statement, driven home once again, irritated; just that slightly foreign inflection had slipped into Alexi’s deep Western drawl, just the nip to remind her that Alexi’s father, mother and uncles had emigrated from Russia.

At the dance, Alexi with his cousins, Jarek and Mikhail, had circulated in the filled ballroom, obviously enjoying their family, the guests and friends of the close-knit community. Tall, dark, almost sleek, despite rugged looks and broad shoulders, they’d caused more than one woman to stare.

Jarek and Mikhail had held their wives close and tender, loving intimacy flowing between them with a touch, a look.

“That’s Alexi, their cousin,” Willow had whispered to Jessica. “He’s unmarried and gorgeous. He’s sweet, too. I dare you to dance with him.”

“You’re on,” Jessica had said, and had moved toward Alexi. While dancing with him, she had not sensed “sweet,” only brooding and dangerous.

And Willow might need that.

Jessica decided to skip negotiations and go straight for what she wanted. While framing her negotiation package, she scooped to pick up the ball of socks and went to sit on the cot, placing her coffee on the table beside it. She jammed on the socks, rolled the extra length into thick cuffs and, as an afterthought, stood and removed the shearling coat. She arranged her damp light jacket over the cord stretched near the stove. Jessica walked back to his sprawling bed, determined to regain her poise and have her say with Mr. Alexi Stepanov.

Alexi watched that sensual, gliding walk, elegant even with the large heavy socks rolled upon her feet. He could have told her that her light tan sweater did nothing to hide the peaks of her nipples, but he wouldn’t.

He wouldn’t let her know that earlier, that softness had caused his hands to open possessively upon the coat over her back. That her curves had branded his body with an unwanted need. That the scent of her caused him to want to nuzzle her hair, to feel that silkiness against his skin. That the need to taste her lips had almost driven him to—

That stir of sensual interest irritated Alexi, the ramrod-straight way she’d marched back to the bed and plopped herself onto it—all that soft flesh beneath her clothing had bounced and quivered as she settled in to stare at him coldly. As if she were sitting at the head of a corporate boardroom table, Jessica Sterling had crossed her long, sleek legs that disappeared into his overlarge socks and stared at him.

She pushed a thick wave back from her cheek and inhaled, which served to push her breasts against that thin sweater.

Alexi inhaled sharply; that sweater seemed to have nothing beneath it but creamy soft curves. When she crossed her arms and looked at him, her breasts lifted and bulged against the material.

His body had locked on to several facts at once: a very sensuous woman was sitting on his bed, he hadn’t been sexually aroused in a long time, and Jessica Sterling—rich, determined, selfish, spoiled—was definitely not the woman he wanted to arouse him.

“I have a friend whom I think is in trouble. I want you to investigate and take care of whomever is troubling her—quietly. If the police are called in, that person could go underground easily, only to surface when least expected. I prefer to keep my friend out of any problems. She’s really sweet and kind, and—and I want her protected. I want whatever is bothering her to be—removed discreetly. My friend lives here in Amoteh.”

Alexi frowned slightly; as a Stepanov male, his protective instincts had raised instantly. “Tell me who she is.”

“You’ve met her—Willow Longstreet. She makes soap with the Amoteh strawberry logo for the resort? She has a shop on the street by the waterfront—Willow’s Soaps? You danced with her?”

Alexi tipped back on his chair, rocking slightly on the back two legs. Willow had worn arty, flowing clothes, her head covered with black curling hair cut in a bob with a center part. Her tiny glasses were usually at the end of her nose. At the dance, Willow had seemed open and happy, delighted to be with her friends, and he’d enjoyed her company.

The women seemed unlikely friends; Willow’s open warmth contrasted with Jessica Sterling’s cool, sleek, almost hard businesslike persona.

Yet she cared enough to investigate a man who might protect her friend. Alexi suspected that Jessica hid many secrets about herself, including that fine edge of her temper.

He resented his need to nudge that temper and reveal the woman she hid….

Jessica stood and went to stare at the fire in the grate. Her voice was soft and reflective. “I don’t want anything to happen to her—Willow is special. Just name your price and protect her. But don’t let her know—and don’t…don’t get involved with her. You’re not a match. I’ll pay whatever you want. Just take care of whomever is bothering her. She won’t tell me exactly what’s happening, but several incidents have happened that I think indicate someone is threatening her. And she’s distracted. Something is very wrong. She’s innocent and men like you—I can handle someone as difficult as you, but she’s—Do not get romantically involved with her, and that’s an order—”

The ringing of a cell phone caused Jessica to stop; she impatiently reached for her jacket, taking a tiny upscale phone from her pocket. She answered in a curt businesslike tone. “Sterling.”

She frowned and turned from Alexi, then walked to the huge windows facing the ocean and spoke quietly, “Howard, I told you not to call me.”

After a silence Jessica said, “Don’t you dare come here. I am on personal leave that has nothing to do with the corporation. I am only to be reached for business emergencies, not because you are lonesome. You have a wife, remember?”

Alexi stared at the crackling fire. It wasn’t his business if Jessica Sterling had impatient lovers—

“Don’t you dare speak to me that way. I loved your father very much and Robert married me because he loved me. And you are nothing like him. It’s only been two years since he passed away and I think about him every day…. Listen, Howard, I was not…am not a trophy wife. Robert taught me how to run the company and I’m doing it. Don’t call back… Don’t you threaten me, Howard.”

Alexi frowned. Jessica’s husband was reportedly twice her age and “Junior” was old enough to have a wife. He seemed to want Jessica. She didn’t want to play and some jerk was trying to bully her—Impatiently, Alexi stood, walked to Jessica and took the cell phone from her.

“You heard the lady. Stop calling her. She’s with me…. I am Alexi Stepanov,” he said into the phone. He didn’t wait for the man sputtering at the other end of the line to recover before turning off the phone. Alexi handed it back to her—her eyes were wide and stunned, and he raised his fingertip to her chin, lifted slightly to close her slightly parted lips.

At that moment she looked young and unguarded and sweet. It seemed only right to follow his instincts and nuzzle her cheek with his, to then inhale the delicate floral and rain scent of her hair.

She stood tensed and still. The air around her seemed to quiver delicately, fascinating him, and Alexi could not resist brushing his lips across hers.

The slight lifting of her lips, the trembling response that he’d sensed rather than felt, ricocheted inside Alexi, his need to kiss her vibrating within him.

Innocent, his senses warned as color started to move up those smooth, creamy cheeks.

The air seemed to quiver, shifting and changing around Jessica again, and Alexi tuned into what he felt coming from her—awareness of him as a man…and fear.

Someone had hurt her.

As a Stepanov male, Alexi brooded about men who would hurt women. Was it the man who had just called?

“I turned my cell phone off while following you. I have to leave it on for business purposes in case I’m needed,” she said furiously, and punched the On button.

When the cell phone rang furiously in her hand, Alexi said quietly, “If you want to talk with me, turn that thing off. You have choices. Make them.”

Alexi wasn’t sparing time on a married man harassing a woman who didn’t want him. As though she disliked taking orders, Jessica’s green eyes narrowed up at him and she stepped a few feet away. Without looking at the cell phone, she punched a button and placed the unit on the table. “It’s off. You’re arrogant, Mr. Stepanov.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment. I handle my own affairs. It’s Willow who needs your protection and help. I’m willing to pay for that service.”

Alexi weighed Jessica’s proposal. This woman asked nothing for herself and resented his interference in her life.

Jessica walked around the room, clearly keeping her distance from him. Those sidelong glances said she was mentally circling him. “Will you see to Willow’s safety? I want an answer. Now. I’m ready to negotiate a price.”

“There is no answer yet. I’ll want to talk with Willow.” Concentrating on her offer was difficult when the firelight outlined those lush curves and she stood in front of his bed, and his mind was picturing all those soft, pale curves lying in his arms—

Suddenly too warm, Alexi impatiently removed his sweatshirt and tossed it aside. He opened a door onto a remodeled wooden deck facing the ocean and stepped out into the snow. He focused on letting his skin—and his hard, pounding sexual desire cool.

He frowned when the door scraped and Jessica stood at his side, overlooking the ocean. “You can’t run away from me, Mr. Stepanov. I want an answer.”

“Get inside.” His voice was too rough, his control slipping.

She didn’t move or speak, but stood at his side.

Jessica might be wealthy and spoiled, but she wanted her friend protected.

He sensed that she would stand, stubbornly freezing, before moving. “I’m cold,” he said softly. “Let’s go inside.”

He turned, placed one arm around her and drew her to his side. With his other hand, he opened the door to his living quarters. Jessica resisted his light touch directing her inside momentarily, then she lifted her head and walked into the room.

He’d allowed his hand to open on that neat waist, to fit just slightly onto the curve of her hip. He resented the instinctive hardening of his body, the need burning low in his gut. But she felt so right, soft and feminine…. And for him, sex was along time ago…he simply wanted to take her and lose himself in her…to forget another woman….

His hunger was natural, considering his abstinence for over three years. No woman had seemed right—until now. With the door closed, Jessica moved toward the fire, her arms crossed.

Drops of water glistened in her hair, beautiful against the dark reddish tones highlighted by the firelight. She seemed deep in thought, and then she turned suddenly to study him. Those eyes were dark and mysterious, tracing his body down, then upward. His jeans were already tight across his hips. “Do you always arouse so easily, Mr. Stepanov?”

She had felt what ran between them and had met the problem immediately. No flirtation, no games, just facts. Alexi smiled; Mrs. Sterling was getting more interesting all the time. “No. But it has been a long time for me, and you are here, very close, in my home.”

“You should take care of your problem—somehow, before talking with Willow.” The order came soft and guarded, and she turned away suddenly, but not before he caught the flush moving up her cheeks, the downward shy look, avoiding his.

“Did the man who called you…was he the one who hurt you?”

Her defenses shot up, those green eyes flashing. Magnificent, Alexi thought, fierce, proud, loyal, protective, passionate in her anger. Her veneer had been breached and the woman beneath it fascinated him.

“We’re negotiating a business deal here, Stepanov. There is no reason to get into my personal profile, other than—please do not go to Willow in that…that condition.”

Now Alexi was amused, enjoying playing with her, teasing her even more. All the little colorful pieces inside her seemed to shift, presenting the woman he wanted to know better, and one she wanted to hide.

“It happens,” he said, diving straight for the woman beneath that polished surface. “You’re a woman. I’m a man. I can sense an excitement in you, a scent. It triggers a natural response…. Willow seems like an understanding, helpful woman,” he added, just to stir Jessica once more.

“Willow is wonderful and an innocent. Just do what men do to relieve whatever—”

“And just what do men do?”

She waved her hand airily and the emeralds on it sparkled, reminding him that she had been married—married, and still shy of a man in close quarters. “You know. Whatever men do. Get a magazine or watch a movie—or find some woman—but not Willow.”

“Don’t you think that Willow would want to choose for herself what she wants?”

“No. Not in this instance,” she stated curtly.

He had to come closer, to catch every nuance of her expression. “Why not me? What is wrong with me?”

She bit her lip and studied the overlong socks on her feet. “Well,” she stated briskly as her toes wiggled within the socks. “You’re potent. And I suppose if you tried, you could charm the pants off Willow in a very short time. She’s just not up to you. You have the advantage, and that just isn’t fair, is it?”

Jessica knew how to speak clearly to men, defining just what she wanted, defining the rules.

Alexi had never been good at following rules.

“And you are? Up to me?” He wondered what those pale, slender feet would feel like against his own, rubbing her insole up and down his calf while he buried himself in her—

She frowned fiercely up at him and laid out the facts like bullets shooting at him. “I’m wealthy and single. Men want me. They don’t get me. You may be a sex magnet, but don’t you dare play with Willow.”

He’d found the live heat she hid inside that veneer and went for it again. “It is possible that she might not be able to resist me. After all, you have said that I am potent, have you not? What is this ‘potent’? As a man? As a conversationalist? How do you define—”

Jessica stood; her hand lifted and her finger tapped his bare chest with each word. “Leave Willow alone—that way.”

Alexi didn’t miss the light sweep of her hand across his chest to his shoulder, that little tremble before it lifted. He wanted her hands on him—everywhere. Without the brand of another man’s ring.

To keep himself from reaching for her, Alexi stepped back and crouched to feed the stove with wood and carefully bank it for the hours that remained until morning.

His hands needed to be busy, because they ached to touch this woman, to claim her. He closed the door as firmly as he wanted his sensual interest in this woman to die. “We have talked enough,” he stated, recognizing his accent in the husky words. “Please make yourself comfortable in my home. Or you may leave, though I advise against it. Morning will be here in a few hours. I will speak to Willow tomorrow. Then I will give my decision to you.”



Jessica watched Alexi yawn and stretch, and his hands went to his jeans’ snap. His eyebrows lifted, his eyes silvery beneath his heavy lashes. “You may turn away or you may watch.”

She turned quickly, heat moving up her throat. She never blushed, and yet Alexi drew something from her—“I’m leaving.”

His body pressed lightly against her back and then his cheek was against hers. He nuzzled aside her hair and whispered in her ear, “If you do, I shall have to follow you in the cold, making certain that you are safe. Here, we are warm and safe…. You have just trembled. Why are you nervous of me? Because I have been obviously aroused?”

“I don’t know why, but you like to torment me, Mr. Stepanov.”

“Of course. Because you are so delightful to watch. All that fire leaps to life so easily.” His smile curved along her cheek. “You are hot now. I think you are blushing. I like that—that you react to me. Do you think it’s true? That women think of me as a sex magnet?”

“Jerk.”

Jessica hadn’t been teased in her lifetime, and Alexi Stepanov was unrelenting. A moment later he said, “My jeans are off and I’m in my bed. You may turn around now.”

“Jerk,” she repeated as she walked toward the window to study the storm outside and a slash of sleet hit the glass. Jessica weighed that half-mile back to the resort and the longer walk to Willow’s shop and apartment. But then how could Jessica explain to Willow why she was out walking at three o’clock in the morning?

Jessica turned back to Alexi, whose bare back above the blankets—those warm, heavy blankets—was turned to her. His skin gleamed, covering a wide expanse of muscles.

With a sigh loud enough for him to hear, she pushed and shoved the heavy lawn chair closer to the stove. She settled into the chair and briskly wrapped the softly woven gray-green throw over her. She breathed Alexi’s scent—masculine, soap, smoke, and dark with layers. First came arrogance, a man who liked control and setting his terms. Then, he’d obviously been wounded in the past, his pride showing when his ex-fiancée was mentioned. Protective? Too much for an independent woman, especially when he took away the cell phone, dismissing Howard.

Alexi liked to torment her. Why? Definitely sensual, he’d picked up on her awareness of him—who wouldn’t be aware of a man like that, all of six foot three and in lean, perfect condition, almost animalistic grace? Snuggling down into the soft crocheted throw, Jessica brooded about the man who was apparently asleep and very comfortable.

Jessica shifted on the chair and pulled the throw up to her chin. “‘Body warmth,”’ she muttered. Alexi had wanted to hold her against him, gauge her, study her. He’d promptly dismissed any courtesy between them.

She glanced at him and let the warmth of the fire sink into her flesh. Alexi was determined to make her play his game. Jessica preferred to play her own.

She threw back the throw and came to her feet. She crossed the length of the room quickly and jabbed a finger against his shoulder. He grunted and Jessica tapped his shoulder. “Hey. Wake up. I’m not done talking to you.”

“I need sleep,” Alexi said drowsily. “You are a pest, I think.”

“I can be your nightmare, bud—”

Alexi moved too quickly, grabbing her wrist and holding it as he turned. He scowled at her. “You can sleep tomorrow. I work. I wouldn’t advise you to irritate me more, not if you want me to help Willow.”

“I said I’d pay you.”

“With you, everything comes with a bill, right? Money solves everything?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

Those icy, silver eyes searched her face. “Right,” he said, turning her hand to glance at her heavy set of emerald wedding rings. “Everything costs something, doesn’t it?”

His bitter tone cut at her, the reason she had married and had sold herself. “You—”

With a tug Alexi brought her down to the bed and, before she could scramble free, Alexi leaned over her, his forearms braced beside her. “You are exhausted, and pushing to get what you want. I do not like to be pushed, especially by a woman who is used to getting her way—and can buy what she wants. Go to sleep now.”

Muscles bunched beneath that gleaming skin, his shoulders blocking out the room, his expression fierce and close—and there was too much of him, pressed too close, even with the layers of cloth between their bodies. Her hands were open on his chest, the textures and the warmth there, burning her palms. Beneath her fingers, powerful muscles slid and tensed.

Jessica couldn’t move, her body trembling. As he had when he’d tugged her into his coat, Alexi had moved very quickly. Her mind flashed with images of another man, in another time, holding her against her will, hurting her. She pushed hard against his chest. “Get…away…from me,” she ordered.

With a low growl and a look of disgust, Alexi flipped the blanket over her and turned his back. Jessica rolled to her feet, looked down at him and hated him at that moment. She jerked the blanket from the bed, bunched it and hauled it back to the wooden chair. She settled into the chair and briskly arranged the blanket and throw around her. Jessica looked at the pillow beneath Alexi’s head and was on her feet once more.

At the bed, she latched both hands onto the pillow and began pulling it from him. Without turning, he held it tight.

“You’re not very hospitable, Mr. Stepanov.”

“No, I am not. You are a difficult woman and you are costing me sleep.”

“Let me have this pillow.”

Alexi lifted his head and Jessica jammed the pillow beneath her arm as she walked back to her chair.

The next three hours were going to be very long…. “I’m not done with you yet, Mr. Arrogant Macho Stepanov. Otherwise, I’d already be walking back. You’ve made your opinion of me pretty clear, and I don’t like it. I still haven’t given you mine. Expect that in the morning.”

“There’s more? I can’t wait.”



Alexi turned to study the woman sleeping in the sturdy wooden lawn chair. Blue shadows rested beneath her eyes, her hand bracing her head at an odd angle.

With a resigned sigh, he eased from the bed and walked to her. Bundled in his blankets, Jessica was the perfect unwanted female invader.

Whatever man she didn’t want to accept, the married man, would probably soon be coming to press her—and because Alexi had given his name, he would be involved. His impression of Jessica Sterling had been correct—she was big trouble.

Alexi skimmed his hand lightly over her hair and its warm fire lit something he had guarded for years.

He jerked his hand back, freeing it from the lure of that silky, fragrant hair. Tenderness for this female shark wouldn’t do, and a sexual encounter wouldn’t be simple.

“Alexi…” she whispered in her sleep, and the drowsy sound locked his bare feet to the floor. “I need you…”

He closed his mind against the sensual need rocketing through his body, but it throbbed on, ignoring his wishes. Her breast lay over a heavy fold of the blanket and his hand ached to cup that perfect softness.

Bracing himself against that dangerous need, Alexi bent and eased Jessica, complete with pillow and blanket, into his arms.

She snuggled against his chest, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder, and Alexi didn’t move, forcing his breath to slow. With her defenses down, Jessica looked young and sweet and innocent.

An involvement with this woman would only bring frustration and pain.

He studied that pale face, where the chestnut strands flowed across her cheek and onto his shoulder, a fragile silky web joining their bodies—

Alexi’s indrawn breath hissed in the silence of the room. Wanting to rid himself of the danger of this woman, Alexi carried her back to his bed, lowered her slightly and let her fall the last inch. He did not want to touch her in his bed.

He could not touch her; his sexual need ran too fiercely, primitively, through him.

He stood, hands on hips, looking down at the woman who was cuddling his pillow. Her hair spilled waves across the white pillowcase as she turned on her side. “Alexi…” she murmured softly, and drew the pillow down beneath the blanket.

Alexi frowned as, beneath the heavy blanket, her legs moved as if accepting the pillow, cradling it.

He’d begun to perspire, his body rock-hard.

Alexi clenched his fists and closed his eyes, shaking his head. He jerked on his jeans and pulled on a sweatshirt and socks. He sat in the chair and brooded about the curse of Chief Kamakani over Amoteh.

Because it was surely the chieftain’s curse that had brought Jessica Sterling anywhere near Alexi.




Three


J essica awoke to the sound of male voices arguing.

She preferred to sleep late and the Amoteh’s housekeeping staff shouldn’t be in her suite—

“No. You are not coming in,” a man stated sharply from somewhere outside her room.

Jessica recognized that deep voice, the command and the slight accent wrapped in it. Alexi Stepanov!

She opened her eyes to a slice of brilliant sunlight and closed them as she realized she was in Alexi’s bed!

She struggled against the heavy weight of the blankets tangled around her and promptly slid onto the floor. She sat, huddled in the blankets, listening to the male voices outside the comfortably warm room.

Jessica clutched the pillow against her. Alexi’s scent—dark, brooding, male—wafted around her.

Alexi—arrogant, disdainful of her—sexy, aroused….

She slid up her sweater sleeve to reveal her watch; the emerald-encrusted designer timepiece read eight o’clock. Jessica braced herself for the first wave of frustration—an early riser, she was usually at her desk by this time. But then, Alexi wasn’t making her life easy. He needed a lesson in handling business and keeping it out of the sensual lane.

Jessica pushed the pillow away and scrambled to her feet. She was still wearing one of his socks and bent to tug it away.

Another man’s voice rumbled with just that tinge of accent. “Why can’t we come in? It’s cold out here. We only want to warm up before heading back for Mom’s blueberry pancakes. We’re supposed to unload this truckload of lumber and bring you back for a family breakfast.”

Alexi’s reply was hurried. “Let’s unload it now. I’m hungry.”

Jessica recognized Mikhail’s voice. “You’ll need a coat, Alexi. It’s freezing out there.”

“I’m fine. Please thank your parents, but I have work to do. I will see Aunt Mary Jo later and help Uncle Fadey load that order of furniture in the shipping van.”

“Alexi, you just woke up. You don’t have on your boots, and you look like you had a bad night. If you’re sick, we can unload that lumber and you can go back to bed.”

“Yes. I have a cold. Please go. No, I do not need soup. I have aspirin.”

“Jarek, we’re in trouble. If Mom knows that Alexi is sick because he’s staying here and not at their house, she won’t be happy,” Mikhail said thoughtfully as if Alexi wasn’t there. “We’ve got to get him to the house—now.”

“You’re not moving me. I am fine where I am.”

“Oh, no?” the other two male voices challenged.

Jessica smiled coldly. Alexi clearly did not want the men inside his living quarters. He wanted to hide her, did he?

After last night, after Alexi had deliberately drawn her out into the weather, had treated her so arrogantly—and put her in his bed without her permission—Jessica intended Alexi to have a very bad day. He would either help root out whomever was causing Willow fear and distress, or he wouldn’t. But Alexi would pay for tormenting Jessica.

She walked to the line where her jacket hung and drew it on, firmly zipping it to her throat. She slipped into her ruined shoes and lamented their destruction, due to Alexi drawing her into his lair. Whatever she did to him today, he deserved. She tore away the damaged strap with a temper that she pushed down as she smoothed her clothing and her hair.

Jessica picked up Alexi’s boots and his coat and the leather work gloves she found on the table, and walked to the door.

She opened it slowly to the three tall men standing in the cluttered, cold sunroom. “Hi,” she said softly, drowsily, and hoped she sounded as if she’d just come from Alexi’s bed—which she had. She eased around Alexi, who was blocking the doorway and her stage entrance to make his life hell—at least for a short time.

Obviously, Alexi did not want his cousins to know that Jessica had stayed the night. What he didn’t want was perfect to expose…

Jarek and Mikhail Stepanov, in heavy jackets and work clothes stared at her—then at Alexi.

Jessica faked a drowsy yawn and batted her lashes innocently up at Alexi. Beneath his eyebrows, and the frown line between them, his blue eyes narrowed. His lips pressed firmly, angrily, in that dark, stubble-covered jaw.

“Good morning, Alexi,” she murmured in an intimate lovers’-morning-after tone.

Mikhail’s body stiffened, but the quick movement of his lips was a smile, soon hidden. While Alexi stood, silent and forbidding, Mikhail nodded formally. “Good morning, Jessica.”

Jarek grinned widely. “Yes, good morning.”

Jessica walked to Alexi and thoroughly enjoyed his fierce scowl. “Here you go,” she said lightly, and dropped the boots intentionally close to his sock-covered feet. She handed the jacket and gloves to him, then yawned and stretched. “Did I hear something mentioned about breakfast?”

The quick narrowing of Alexi’s eyes was meant to warn, so was the slapping of the leather gloves against his hand. Instead she took the gestures as a challenge.

“You are not invited, Mrs. Sterling,” he said carefully.

“Oh, I’m disappointed. I was hoping to spend more time with you.” She feigned an apologetic half smile and batted her lashes at him again, enjoying the waves of frustration and anger coming from Alexi. He would learn not to play games with her. “It was rude of me to invite myself.”

“Not rude at all. Our parents would love to have you,” Mikhail said briskly.

“Are you certain? Oh, that would be lovely. I would just be a minute freshening up, and I do need to make the bed.” Jessica looked up at Alexi. “But Alexi doesn’t want—”

“He’ll feel better after he eats,” Jarek stated and, with a chuckle, stepped outside the door. With a brisk nod, Mikhail followed.

Alexi jammed on his boots, laced them furiously and jerked on his coat, buttoning it. He scowled down at her, a muscle in his jaw clenching. “Now see what you have done. They think we are involved. You come out of my room, looking all soft and warm and—and you know exactly what picture you presented—as if we had spent the night making love. My family and friends have been trying to set me up with women for years. I have finally managed some peace, and now you tear it away. Once you move on, I will be left to deal with a steady flow of women wanting husbands—or lovers.”

His desperation was perfect—she’d truly scored. “You’re so arrogant. I suppose you think you are in demand, huh, Mr. Sex Magnet?” she taunted, serving his earlier label back at him.

“It would appear so. You want me, do you not?”

Jessica tilted her head and refused to be baited. “When you’re emotional, your accent slips out.”

“I am never emotional,” Alexi stated firmly.

“Tell that to someone else. I’ve seen you at your worst.” Jessica smiled coldly and crossed her arms. “You called this game, Stepanov. I’m just playing it. You’re not exactly a sweetheart, and neither am I. I offered you a business deal. You haven’t given me an answer yet. But you will.”

He scowled down at her, his fist wrapping in her jacket to draw her up to his face. “You do not play with me,” he ordered, spacing the words.

“I want you to take care of Willow. Will you, and how much—or won’t you?”

“Who is Howard?”

She hadn’t expected the harsh question. “Someone I know.”

“A married man who is pursuing you, just as you want.”

“I never encouraged Howard. He’s my husband’s son, and he’s in an open marriage. Just because my husband—and I loved Robert—passed away, I’m not up for grabs.” Howard had started “pursuing” her the minute that he knew his father, Robert, was interested in Jessica. When Robert and Jessica had married, Howard had been bitter, an unseated heir to the chain of Sterling Stops. As Robert’s terminal illness had progressed, he’d put Jessica at the head of the company, rather than his self-serving son.

Enraged, Howard had begun to battle her on two fronts, business and personal. When she dealt with him, Jessica was always very careful to consider that her husband had dearly loved his only son. She kept Howard involved in a minor position in Sterling Stops and monitored his work herself. He was overpaid for the position, ineffective and disinterested. As executrix of her husband’s estate, Jessica also monitored monthly payments to Howard and he resented her holding “Dad’s purse strings.”

Remembering how Alexi had interfered with Howard’s call last night, Jessica said, “And I don’t need anyone’s protection—or interference. I handle my own business.”

Alexi leveled a determined look at her. “I will not be your ‘business.’ You are to clear up any misconceptions immediately.”

“You should have thought of that before you made me ruin these shoes.” She allowed herself a smirk. “Can’t you handle it, bud?”

With a low, feral growl, he leaned closer. “I tell you again—do not play games with me.”

His forearm brushed her breast and Alexi inhaled sharply, pushing her away. His stare ripped from her face down to her breasts, and for just a moment, sensuality quivered between them. Then his hard blue eyes locked with hers. “Keep that jacket on.”

“Orders? I don’t like that. I give them, Stepanov, not take them.”

When Alexi stormed out of the workroom, Jessica allowed herself a shaky but triumphant smile. He would do the job she asked, or she would make his life a living hell—and she thought she just might enjoy that.

Jessica studied herself in Alexi’s shaving mirror. Her carefully applied cosmetics, her everyday protective shield behind which she ran a huge corporation, were gone—only the remains of her mascara lay smudged beneath her eyes. With a deep breath she looked at her choices from the table beneath the mirror. Willow’s unscented but luxurious soap and a clean washcloth revealed the woman Jessica protected—an almost pixie-ish face with huge green eyes framed by dark brown lashes, a brief bit of a nose, high cheekbones and full lips that she carefully tried to diminish.

She used Alexi’s brush carefully, drawing back her long hair into a rubber band to create a ponytail.

She looked like little more than a shiny-faced, scrubbed-clean teenager, with all the gloss and polish she had learned to protect herself placed aside. “Game time,” she said quietly, determined to finish what Alexi had started.

Jessica studied herself in the mirror. “He could have given me a simple answer, and he didn’t. I wasted a lot of time and energy checking him out. He is the best man for the job, but if he wants a difficult game, I know how to play. Now, let’s just see what he’s got.”

She stepped out onto the porch and shaded her eyes against the brilliant daylight ricocheting off the snow. Fresh lumber had been stacked against the house and three tall men, with evident family resemblances, stood waiting.

Jarek and Mikhail nodded and walked toward the huge flatbed lumber truck.

Alexi put his hands on his hips and stared coldly at her. When she came to stand in front of him, he looked down at the sweatshirt she had placed over her light jacket. That flare of his nostrils told her that she’d scored another hit to his temper by wearing his clothes. He glared at her, then down to her shoes. “I must carry you,” he stated resentfully.

“Hey, I’ve got two feet,” she answered cheerfully. “I can walk. I take care of myself.”

“I never believed in that Hawaiian’s curse, and now I do,” Alexi stated darkly. Then, carefully and with a hint of hope, he offered, “I could carry you to the resort. Or while you wait here, I could get different shoes for you and you could walk back. This has gone far enough.”

She smiled brilliantly, thoroughly enjoying his discomfort. “I’ve opened the gate. Let the hordes of man-hungry women begin chasing you. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Alexi shook his head and closed his eyes as if wishing her far, far away. Then he bent and placed her over his shoulder, carrying her toward the truck. “You will keep that jacket zipped,” he ordered again.

Jessica braced her hands on his taut backside to keep from flopping and to retain some small part of her dignity. Buddy, you asked for it, she thought, and tried for an innocent tone as she asked, “But what if I get hot? I’ll have to take it off then, won’t I?”

She wouldn’t, of course, because without her minimizer bra, she was full-figured, and that didn’t suit the sleek business image she wanted to project. But Alexi didn’t know to what lengths she would go to embarrass him. At the moment, even being carried over his shoulder, Jessica knew she had the advantage.

His body tensed, but he didn’t speak.

Alexi briskly lifted her up to Mikhail who was seated in the middle of the truck; Jarek sat behind the steering wheel. Before Jessica could sit, Alexi had slid up to the seat and had tugged her onto his lap.



“I’ve just met Alexi and he’s helping me with a problem,” Jessica said when the Stepanovs were all seated around Mary Jo and Fadey’s long, sturdy kitchen table.




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