Out of Bounds (15 page)

“That explains the ice wine.”

A little glimmer of satisfaction flickered in his eyes. “Liluye’s grandfather wanted me to leave, so Liluye could settle into her marriage. He claimed I was upsetting her and she was pregnant. I could have told him to go to hell, the reservation was my home too, but I remembered his tales about this mine.” Tarak sent her a bemused look. “I should have been suspicious at how quickly he agreed to sign this claim over to me.”

He marched on toward the steps. He took a moment to test each step before putting his full weight on it. One creaked but it held, so she followed him up. The door wasn’t locked, but the knob was stiff.

“Rule of the wilderness is to leave stuff unlocked in case someone is caught out in the elements. Shelter means the difference between life and death.” He had to duck beneath the doorframe and took a good look around before allowing her inside. “I cooked more than one fresh kill over that fire.”

The fireplace in question was a small one. There was an iron spike running through the center of it, and the bricks it was made of were black with soot.

“So Nartan and I came up here, drunk on childhood stories of getting rich easy.”

“Are you saying you made your money in gold?” she asked incredulously.

“Fate has a crooked sense of humor at times.” He kicked a stump that was sitting on the floor by a rough-looking table. The top of the stump was worn smooth, proving it had served as a seat. The cabin itself was only twenty feet by twenty feet. There was a kitchen in one corner, if you were generous enough to call a stove and three-foot-long counter space a kitchen. A single cabinet hung on the wall over the counter, and it was made of plywood with only holes for handles. Across the bare board floor there were two bunks built into the wall, the mattresses wrapped in huge plastic bags.

It was a far cry from the magnificent cabin she’d spent the night in.

“We worked this claim for three years. Two other boyhood friends came with Nartan and me. They chewed me out more than once for my stubborn refusal to throw in the towel. The truth was, I didn’t want to go back home, back to being the overthrown fiancé. An Indian reservation is a tight-knit community. I wasn’t going back until I’d made something of myself.”

He turned his back on the cabin and walked back outside. She joined him as he surveyed the rest of the ghost town. He lifted a hand and pointed at the earthmover.

“I spent endless hours in that thing over those three years. The moment the snow melted enough for us to mine pay dirt, we were digging.”

“I guess I can see how you got in shape.”

He grinned at her. “One thing Alaska has lots of is fish. You need water to run the wash plant… that thing over there. It shakes the dirt, separating the heavier gold and washing the dirt away. When we weren’t mining, we were fishing.”

“I guess the original owner was pretty upset when you pulled a haul out of this claim.”

“He laughed at us,” Tarak replied. “At Nartan and me for sticking it out past the first year. For the first two years, we pulled out just enough to buy fuel for the machines. It was a battle every month to see if we had the money to buy fuel for the next month. Those were mighty long years. We lived off the land completely. Our clothing wore off us. I understand we became the town joke.”

“I think they misjudged your tenacity.”

He shrugged and went down the steps. “I think I developed a lot of it right here. That outhouse was sure a test of character in the middle of winter, but I preferred it to returning to the reservation.”

She looked up the way and saw the small building in question. It was uphill and a good thirty feet from the cabin. “I bet that is a long walk in the snow—a
really
long walk.”

He nodded. “The seat is mighty cold too.”

She shivered, earning a chuckle from him. He jerked his head in the direction of the far side of the camp. They trudged through the snow and, where the snow was gone, through patches of mud. He offered her a hand and tugged her up to what looked like the very edge of camp. When she made it to the top, she could look down on a massive dug-out pit. It was full of snow and looked like a giant’s cereal bowl.

“There is where I pulled my future out of the ground.” His voice was full of accomplishment. He was staring at the pit, locked into the memory. “We found what had once been the base of a waterfall. It’s what every prospector dreams of coming across, but there is no way to predict where they will be. It’s fate.”

“And the reward for the tenacious.”

He turned to look at her. For a moment, need shone in his eyes, but this was a far different type of need than what she was accustomed to seeing in the black orbs. He craved her approval, wanted to hear the praise in her voice. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him truly happy before, but at that moment, he was.

And he was sharing it with her.

“You should have seen Nartan and my faces when we dumped that first load of pay dirt on the wash station. Prior to that, we’d been pulling in flecks of gold that we carefully collected in a jar. This time though, once the water took the dirt away, we had nuggets the size of jelly beans. This single hole gave me everything I needed to start Nektosha. Nartan wanted out of the wilderness and used his share to open his restaurants. He said something about never eating a blackened rabbit again.”

“And you?” she asked quietly. “You discovered that money couldn’t buy peace.”

His expression tightened. “I think you are the only person besides Nartan that I’d put up with hearing that from.”

He’d closed himself off again. She felt the wall going up and witnessed the guarded look entering his eyes. He turned and walked back through the camp without another word.

It was devastating to see because she realized there was no hope for anything more between them so long as he held on to the bitter past.

His heart was still broken.

That was why he had it on ice.

***

Tarak drove straight to the Alaskan office and disappeared after he gave her a quick introduction to her new workplace. It was a long row of window offices that overlooked the test track and airfield. The entire building was curved, built into the granite cauldron the site sat in. It was a huge U-shaped valley a glacier had carved out in centuries past. Here and there, a massive boulder sat where the melting ice flow had dropped it.

When she looked up the hill to the mountains surrounding them, there were faint glimpses of more glaciers.

It was a kick-ass view. Maybe not the one she’d been coveting on the sixteenth floor of the West Coast towers, but it was definitely breathtaking.

The office manager took one look at Tarak’s closed office door before turning around to deal with her.

“Let’s find you a desk,” Kurt Thompson muttered. “We’re as posh as the West Coast towers in an Alaskan sort of way.”

“Does that mean there isn’t an outhouse?” she asked hopefully.

Kurt laughed. “You’re going to fit right in. You know, it’s the permafrost that causes the problem with putting in a sewer system. The ground is frozen year round, about three feet down in a lot of places. That’s why the cabin and many of the buildings are on pillars. The heat from the house would melt the permafrost and sink the structure.”

He led her to an empty office. “All your passwords will work on the system, but I’ll be changing your projects over to ones we’re handling here. It’s nearly impossible to get a female up here, and I’ve got a mountain of things I need your perspective on. I’m going to need you over in design and development to do some hands-on with everything from steering wheels to seat cushions.”

“Sounds good.” She slid into the chair behind the desk.

“Along with the lack of female office staff goes a lack of secretaries. Kitchen is down on the right for coffee. The cook will make whatever you want because there is nothing in the way of restaurants nearby.”

Self-contained.

Tarak’s words rose from her memory.

I built this house out of a sense of revenge.

At least he was honest about his demons, but boy did the man have them. It was almost overwhelming. A sense of defeat threatened to flatten her beneath its weight.

No.

Nope.

She was not going to let it trample her. She’d understood the odds of any sort of relationship working out between them. So the choices were to let him keep his ghosts or to do something to break through the ice holding his heart captive.

She realized exactly what it needed to be too. Since the sex appeal was what had brought them together, she’d have to remove it to see if there was anything else for them to do. She knew one thing for sure and that was that she didn’t need to be involved in another relationship that was merely convenient. Tarak wasn’t the only one whose happiness counted. She was in it for her own too. She just wished the odds weren’t stacked so high against her, but the look in his eyes up at the mine hadn’t been promising.

Yet the fact that he’d taken her there was a hopeful sign.

It was a bold risk, but hell, Alaska was the place for risks paying off.

She sighed, pulling her chair closer to her desk and ordering herself to focus on the daily grind. Tarak Nektosha was just as mysterious as the day she’d met him.

It was just possible that was what drew her to him.

***

His calendar was full.

Brimming, in fact. If he needed to take a leak, he’d fall behind.

There were IMs stacking up along the lower part of his screen as the top of the hour approached, and with it the promise of another critical conference call.

All he wanted to do was check in on Sabra.

It was a nagging little impulse that made him smile even as he felt the burn of frustration. The testing site was his private playground. In ten years, he’d never invited a single female onto the site. Anastasia had whined to her billionaire father about it for months.

Three minutes to call time.

He sat down and moved his mouse over the IM menu.

***

How’s the office?

Sabra jumped when the IM popped up on her screen with a soft chime. Her lips split with a wide smile that she quickly mastered before looking around for a webcam, but there didn’t seem to be one.

It’s great.

She felt like a teenager with her first texting privileges.

Got a conference call in one minute.

Okay.

She stared at the single word reply and realized how little it revealed.

Thanks for the chat.

It wasn’t much of a chat, unless she recalled that he’d already blown off a good portion of the day with her. He was Nektosha after all. It was touching in a way she’d never thought possible. The time on her computer changed to show the top of the hour. She stared at the open chat bubble for a full five minutes before closing it.

Celeste was right. Tarak was a dangerous man but the true threat he posed was to her heart.

***

Tarak was distracted.

The first few minutes of his call passed in a blur as he watched the chat bubble. He tried to focus on business but held off from closing the link. The lack of self-control annoyed him, but he still couldn’t bring himself to close the link. When Sabra cut the line, he noted the time and discovered himself grinning, an insane rush of giddiness pulling him out of the workday and suspending him in the moment with Sabra.

But the conference call was in full swing.

“Yes, I’m listening…”

But later, well later, he’d be free to explore his fascination with Sabra.

Kurt knocked on her wall just after five.

“Boss man told me to give you a lift back to the cabin.”

He leaned in the open door and grinned at her. The lack of formality was refreshing. She suddenly realized how formal and stale the West Coast office really was. Sure she wanted her career, but she didn’t want to pay the price of losing herself and forgetting why she worked so hard in the first place.

She wanted to enjoy the things she liked.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Kurt waited for her to get her jacket. He was a middle-aged man, and he smiled at her jovially.

Alaska. Population male.

Kurt drove her back up to the cabin. “Don’t go walking without a rifle. The bears are starting to wake up. And they’re hungry.”

“Thanks for the warning.” She did appreciate it, but she wasn’t going anywhere.

If she wanted more from her relationship with Tarak, she was realizing she’d have to give more too. The man ran a multi-trillion dollar empire; there was no way he cleared the office door at five sharp.

***

The kitchen was stocked with everything a gourmet cook needed. There were top-of-the-line pans and knives. Opening the cabinets revealed an impressive stock of ingredients spanning from the basics, like flour, to the most exotic spices on the face of the planet.

The freezer was stocked with meat, and the refrigerator had all the fresh ingredients she could wish for. She started the microwave on a defrost cycle to thaw some meat and pulled out the other things she wanted. On impulse she reached for her private cell phone and sent Tarak a text message.

You may have built this kitchen out of revenge but I’m going to show you how to use it correctly. Dinner is on in an hour.

The pans heated up quickly and soon the sound and smell of onions sautéing in butter filled the kitchen. She hummed as she added things to the pan, learning her way around the kitchen as she kept on top of three burners at the same time.

“You’re sexy when you cook.”

She turned to find Tarak leaning against the doorway. His cell phone was in his hand and his expression was guarded. The office dress code was far more rustic here. He had on a pair of jeans that suited his nature better.

A long-sleeved, button-down shirt was the only attempt he made at dressing up. Most of the other office staff wore turtlenecks or jersey-type shirts that were practical for the weather. Tarak’s button-down had been pressed and set him just a little above the rest of the crowd. It even had cuff links.

That suited him too.

But he had left his boots behind in the entry room, giving her a peek at his socks. Somehow, those socks drove home the fact that she was in his private domain. The idea unleashed a little shiver that went down her back, and instead of being shocked, she savored the sensation. She was exactly where she wanted to be.

“I think I like your idea of what this kitchen is for better than my motivation for building it,” he informed her.

She wiped her hands on a dish towel and went to him. He watched her as he might a snake, but she grabbed the cell phone and used her hold on his hand to pull him down for a quick kiss.

“Yes, you do,” she whispered before moving back to check dinner. “Lucky for you I don’t scare off so easily.”

She could feel him watching her. It made her nervous, but she pulled in a deep breath to steady her nerves.

No guts, no glory.

“Wash up.”

It was tempting to look over her shoulder to see what he was making of her taking control, but she resisted.

Be
the
rock, girl.

There was only one way to earn the respect of a man like Tarak and that was to face him head on. It might end in a fiery crash, but they always found a way to use that heat too.

She heard him snort before he stomped across the floor and disappeared inside the small powder room next to the entryway.

“Can I look forward to this kind of summons every night?”

She used a pot holder to pull the rolls from the oven and carried them to the table. “Only if you’re lucky. I cook for people I care about and that’s it. Never for Mr. Nektosha.”

He snapped his jaw shut and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m being a control jerk.”

“Elephant size,” she confirmed on her way back to the range. The skillet had browned their dinner to golden perfection and she dished it up. “The sex is not what needs figuring out between us. That means we need to spend time doing something other than being naked.”

She sat down and felt her confidence waver. She’d played her hand. All she could do was wait for him to decide how to respond.

He pulled his chair back and sat down. “You’re right. That’s why I took you up to the mine.”

“I noticed.”

“But I do like you naked.”

She rolled her eyes.

He drew in a deep breath and his stern expression cracked a little. “This smells good.”

“You’ve got a mean kitchen setup, so if it doesn’t taste good, the fault is all mine.” She cut into hers and tasted it.

Tarak made a little smacking sound with his lips before she finished swallowing. “That’s good. Really good.”

She agreed but put another forkful in her mouth to keep herself from asking him again. Damned confidence needed to stick by her side.

“You know how to make bread?”

He was pulling apart a roll, steam rising from it.

“We were always on a budget, Dad and me. So we’d play restaurant Donovan. Gold stars were awarded to only the best creations. Although the gold star was often made of tinfoil wrapped over cardboard, but a star is a star.” She fended off another wave of shyness. “I used to keep those stars in a shoebox. My dad just might still have that box too.”

“I only made cookies when one of my brothers or sister brought home a one hundred percent on a test. An A didn’t cut it. I demanded perfection because too many people were telling them they couldn’t achieve it.”

“Did it work?”

“I put every last one of them through college.”

She lifted her gaze to lock with his. They were more alike than she’d imagined. Locked inside each of them was a kid who had struggled against the odds and still wondered if he had made it. She could see the reflection of her own demons in his eyes, and it made her shiver.

“Can we get naked now?” he asked roughly, emotion making his tone gravelly.

Her lips went dry and she nodded. “I thought you’d never ask.”

A familiar flash of anticipation went through her as he stood and scooped her up. He carried her off to the bedroom, and she happily forgot about every detail of reality.

They ended up in a tangled mess, the bedding pulled loose and shoved onto the floor. Tarak sprawled on his back, but he wasn’t sleeping. He stroked her. His fingers played through her hair, along her collarbone, and over her shoulder as his breathing returned to normal.

“You waited five minutes to close the IM.”

Sabra turned to look at him. “You noticed?”

He nodded, the flicker of the master bedroom fireplace dancing off his eyes. The orange and red light bathed his body, giving her a fine view of his magnificent form. The glow of satisfaction was still warming her insides, but the sight of him began to turn her on again.

“You distracted me from a conference call.”

She shrugged. “Write me up.”

He rolled over and propped his head on his hand, his elbow resting beside her head. She reached up and slipped her hands into his hair. With a gentle tug, she pulled his head down to rest on her chest. She toyed with his hair, threading her fingers through the strands. The firelight felt like a time vortex, taking them back a century.

He cupped her breast, massaging it gently. Sabra closed her eyes and drifted off with his scent filling her senses.

***

He hadn’t realized his life was missing anything.

Sabra’s heartbeat filled his head, and he realized he was fighting the urge to cry.

He rolled over, rebelling against the idea that he needed anyone.

But the mattress felt cold and he scooped Sabra up, pulling her close. A sense of completeness filled him. It was so great, he marveled at the fact that he’d overlooked how empty he’d felt before.

He smoothed Sabra’s hair back from her face before surrendering to sleep.

***

“Master Lee wants to know where you are,” Celeste informed her the next morning. “You did make a promise not to quit.”

“My job circumstances changed,” Sabra defended herself as she took a sip of her morning tea. “Stop hiding behind him—and my dad for that matter.”

Celeste clicked her tongue. “I’m not sorry about that. Plan on numerous calls and guilt-inducing voice mails if you stop picking up. You are in a dangerous situation.”

“Only if you count the damage that might be done to my heart,” Sabra admitted.

Celeste drew in a harsh breath. “Sabra, you cannot be falling for him.”

“Since when do emotions obey the rules of common sense?” she demanded, but the truth was, she was trying to get to an understanding herself. “I don’t know what I feel, just that I’m happier here than I was back home.”

Celeste snorted. “You should never take your self-worth from being with a man.”

“Agreed,” Sabra shot back. “I’m talking about how I
feel
, and I think I’m affecting him the same way. He and Nartan were gold prospectors up here together. They weren’t born rich.”

“Well, that’s a point in their favor, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are used to getting what they want now,” Celeste stated firmly. “Once you’ve had a taste of the good life, you’ll do a lot to maintain that standard.”

“Tarak gave me two hundred thousand dollars as insurance against losing my job.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. “That’s not enough money for him to sweat losing it.”

“But it is enough to cut through my argument of not continuing a relationship with him because I need to pay my mortgage,” Sabra explained. “You know that’s true.”

“Okay, Sabra, I guess you’ve got a point. But you’d better send me a picture of your wrists right now, because if he’s tying you up, I’m getting on a plane to come up there and kick his ass.”

“I’m fine.”

“So send me the picture and prove it.”

Celeste cut the line, leaving her ultimatum hanging in the morning air. Sabra grumbled but turned her phone over and snapped a picture of her wrist.

“What are you doing?”

She dropped the phone and stared at Tarak as he approached from the master suite. One dark eyebrow rose as he swiped the phone off the table and looked at the picture.

“Sabra?” His tone was pure determination.

She could say it was nothing, make an excuse. But then she’d have to forfeit her own demand for openness between them.

“Celeste is just wanting a little confirmation that I’m fine. She has a few trust issues, well-founded ones unfortunately, and she saw the marks on my wrist before and—”

“The what?” he cut her off, grabbed her wrist, and turned it over as he inspected it.

“It was only a few pink marks, from the tie. They faded in a day or so.”

He went deadly still. For a moment, she saw the warriors in his past who had killed to protect their people.

“It’s no big deal,” she insisted.

He pushed away from her, his face becoming a mask of self-directed fury. “It’s a major fucking big deal, Sabra!”

“No it’s not,” she countered. “I wanted it as much as you did.”

He was shaking his head, and it felt as though he were rejecting her. The pain was so intense, she lunged after him.

And he retreated.

It stunned her, freezing her in place as it felt as if the breath were being torn out of her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think beyond the look of revulsion in his eyes.

“It matters because I care about you, Sabra.” He curled his lips back. “I care.”

He took one long step and captured her. His arms closed around her and bound her against his hard body. Relief flooded her and tears eased from her eyes. He kissed each one, stroking her hair back with long motions.

“I care.”

Kurt leaned on the horn outside the cabin. Tarak drew in a shaky breath, refusing to let her loose until he’d drawn a second one and regained his composure.

“The entire development team is on the track waiting for me,” he ground out.

“Then we’re not going to keep them waiting.”

She stretched up and pressed a kiss against his chin. “I care too.”

He shuddered and released her with a muffled curse and scooped up her cell phone from the table.

“We’ll finish this tonight.” But he stopped at the door. “Choose a safe word.”

“I think that’s a little extreme.”

He stopped in the entry room doorway, blocking her exit from the house.

“You drive me crazy.” His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned in a purely sexual way. “There are moments I’m consumed by getting inside you. But leaving a mark on you is completely unacceptable.”

“It was probably my fault too.” The memory of that moment, when she’d been twisting against the tie, was branded into her memory. “I was a little past thinking myself.”

He cupped her chin, the touch gentle, but his gaze was brimming with rage. “I tied you up; the responsibility was mine.”

“You’re not going to budge on that, are you?”

“No,” he bit out as he pushed through the door and sat down to put on his boots. “Choose the word.”

“All right.”

But there was part of her that didn’t take solace in the promise. Instead, a tremor of excitement was building inside her.

***

The office was empty. Everyone had found an excuse to go over to the test track. She could see the test track from her office. The speedway-style track stretched over a half mile with different terrain styles for the Nektosha team to pit their creations against. There were huge snowblowers and rain machines. She heard the distant roar of engines revving up and watched new camouflage-painted vehicles take on the track.

The hangar doors were wide open, allowing the newest models out into the sunlight. Security was high too. Teams of armed men patrolled the entire perimeter to keep the press out. There was even a helicopter in the air.