Turbulent Sea (12 page)

His first thought was so strong he wasn't certain he had repressed it in time to hide it from her. Ilya searched his memories to give her a piece of himself that wasn't too bad. He didn't want pity. His life had been shaped by his childhood, and if he had to give up something to her, he wanted it to be something she might be able to relate to.

"I craved knowledge of every kind. Every book I could read on any subject. Every physical ability and way of fighting, and of course the use of psychic gifts—anything and everything, I soaked up like a sponge. I needed to learn all the time."

Because knowledge was power and it meant he would survive. It meant he would grow strong and invincible, that he could use his body as a weapon. That he could use his knives, guns, thin wire and anything else. That he could use his brain to stay alive. He needed to be stronger and faster and smarter than his enemies, and in the end he would see fear in their eyes instead of that little boy shivering in a corner, trying to make himself small so no one would notice him.

She caught glimpses of a small boy with dark curls huddled beneath a table. Terror consumed him, spread through her and left her close to tears. The memory was gone almost immediately.

To cover her reaction, Joley took a long drink of water, keeping her gaze above his head. What did she really know about him? Absolutely nothing. She had judged him mainly on rumors and his looks. She stole a quick glance.

His shoulders were wide, his chest thick and muscular. Dark hair made his blue eyes all the more startling. There was an innate toughness about him, and etched into his face were lines of hard experience. More than all that, danger clung to his aura, a dark, moody color and scent that felt violent and frightening, and where she might be able to ignore everything else, she couldn't ignore what her senses told her. He might be a bodyguard, but he was much, much more. That danger drew her like a magnet and yet repelled her at the same time.

"Do you have siblings?"

He shrugged his broad shoulders, a mere ripple of muscle, the movement casual, his gaze hot. "I have six brothers, but I didn't grow up with them. I've never been able to find them." And he had abundant resources all over the world—which meant they were dead—or they didn't want to be found.

"How sad for you—and for them. My family is everything to me. I can't imagine what it must be like to know you have someone but not be able to be with them."

"As I don't know them, it doesn't much matter."

She blinked. It made sense, but he wasn't telling the entire truth. He stayed close to her mind, sliding in and out at will and leaving behind impressions. He had wanted a family, and her family made the yearning all the more sharp. She didn't want to feel sympathy for him, or to picture him as a little boy with a mop of curls, scared and hungry. It made her all the more vulnerable to him.

"Why did you come here tonight?"

"You haven't been sleeping." He kept his gaze fixed on her.

She had thought his gaze cold, but the piercing blue had turned into something altogether different—glittering, hungry, almost like a very cunning animal waiting to leap and devour prey. She shivered and willed her blood not to surge so hotly in her veins. "You stopped talking to me."

"Is that why you can't sleep?"

"I wasn't sleeping when you were talking to me," she pointed out. "And I'm too exhausted to have a battle of the wits with you. What do you want?"

"I'm going to lie down with you and get you to sleep."

She nearly snorted water out her nose. "Are you crazy? I'm not getting in a bed with you. We wouldn't be sleeping."

"One of us has discipline."

"Really?" Her eyebrow shot up, and deliberately she slid her gaze over his body in a long, slow perusal. Her tongue touched her bottom lip while her fingers instinctively stroked the mark—his mark—on her hand.

He moved. It was a subtle shift, but there was no doubt in her mind he was easing the sudden tightness of his jeans. She could see the thick evidence in the front of his lap that the stroke over the mark affected more than just her. Dark lust glittered in his eyes, and the hunger grew ravenous.

"You're playing with fire," he said softly. "I came here to help you sleep, not for anything else. Don't force the issue before you're ready."

She had learned a few things about Ilya from their brief encounters, and he rarely wasted words. He wouldn't warn her again. The perverse part of her wanted to see him out of control and reap the benefits of it, but the intelligent think-of-the-consequences part of her held her in check. She dropped her hand and rubbed her palm on her thigh in a reflex action, hoping to soothe the burning.

"I'm not ready," she admitted. "You scare me."

"I'm always going to scare you. That isn't the issue."

She shook her head. "I have more than one."

"I know. It won't be so bad, belonging to me. You'll always be safe."

"Will I?" She doubted it. "It's been my experience that extreme macho men are usually jealous, possessive, tend to hit women and cheat on them."

"I've discovered I can be jealous, and there's no doubt that what belongs to me stays with me, but men who hit women and cheat have no honor, no code. They aren't men, and you should know the difference."

The low, caressing note in his voice wrapped around her like a velvet blanket. He would take her apart, and when he put her back together, the most important pieces of who she was wouldn't be hers anymore. Ilya would own her.

"What about bossy?" He would rule her life. He was dominating, and there would be no denying that; she'd touched his mind. He would want to rule every aspect of her life, and Joley guarded her independence fiercely.

"You have to trust me with you, Joley. You don't trust anyone, you never have."

"That's not true. I trust my family."

He shook his head. "You don't trust them to see inside you and love you anyway. You guard yourself from them because you don't think they would understand your needs or what drives you."

Horror blossomed, and she pressed her hand to her suddenly churning stomach. He had been in her mind. She hadn't kept him out the way she thought she had, and Ilya was a ruthless man. He would be relentless in his pursuit of her, and now, having been in her mind, discovering her darkest secrets, he would use them against her. He had psychic gifts, and she could never forget, not for one moment, that he could use them against her.

She nearly groaned aloud. She could see his melody. She could see his aura. Could he see hers? The darkness in her? Not just shadows, but actual darkness?

"Joley." He said her name in a low caress. "There's no reason to be so afraid of me. I really did come here to help you get some sleep."

"How?" Because she couldn't imagine closing her eyes when he was in her bus. It was intimate—and it would make her far too vulnerable.

"There's always hypnotism."

She knew that utter distaste showed on her face. He laughed, and immediately her complete attention was riveted on him. The sound was husky, sexy, so low and brief it was more of an impression than reality, but all the more captivating because of that. He turned her inside out, and if he kept it up, she would melt into a puddle at his feet.

"Somehow I was fairly certain you wouldn't like that idea. We'll go back to the very simple way. You're going to lie down and close your eyes and I'm going to guard you, watch over you so you can rest."

"I'm afraid of you. And I don't trust anyone enough to sleep in front of them."

"I'm giving you my word nothing will happen, and my word is gold all over the world."

Joley took a breath. She was tired, but she couldn't imagine really falling asleep with Ilya in the close confines of her bus. "I don't know…"

He tapped the table beside him. "Just try for me, Joley. I'm not asking you to give yourself to me."

"In a way you are. You're asking me to trust you."

"Just to keep you safe. It is my job after all."

Chapter 5

ILYA stood up, his gaze dropping to the small end table as he pushed himself up. He picked up the photograph. "Who is this?"

Joley braced herself against the sway of the bus as she stood up to view the photograph. Lights from oncoming cars flashed through the interior and illuminated Ilya's profile. His face could have been carved in stone. She tried not to fixate on his all too mesmerizing mouth by examining his eyes. He had long lashes. She'd never noticed that before, when she thought she'd noticed everything about him. She took the photo from his hand and studied the young face as if that could give her a clue to the girl's whereabouts.

"She's missing. She went missing at the New York concert. Not the concert, but the party—Nikitin's party. I saw her there."

Ilya shifted, drawing her immediate attention. It wasn't a movement so much as the rippling of his muscles, the sudden focus of a predatory animal watching her with cunning intelligence. His expression didn't change, he looked
exactly
the same, but he was entirely different. Joley had wanted color in his aura, but not like this. Never like this. Blood-red poured into the edges of the black, mixed and swirled, darkening the shadows and turning the color to violent death.

The musical notes representing him clashed and burned with passion and darkness, feeding on violence and swirling with the need to destroy. She wanted to press her fingertips to her eyes, to keep the images from her mind, but there was no escaping the sound and sight.

Breath strangled in her throat, and her heart slammed hard in her chest. Knots formed in her churning stomach. She was looking at the grim reaper. She'd had a brush or two with the death collector, but at that moment, watching the way the colors around him changed, she recognized with a sinking heart what she was seeing.

Ilya could smell her fear. Hell, he could see it on her face. She took two steps away from him, never taking her eyes off of him. Foolish Joley, thinking those meager steps would make her safe. She turned to run toward the front of the bus and what she clearly thought was the safe harbor of her driver's presence. Ilya caught her when the bus lurched, and she almost went down. Drawing her against him, he caged her between his much larger frame and the door of the closet. He could feel tremors running through her body.

He stood for a moment in silence, absorbing the satin heat of her skin, the silk of her hair and the soft feminine curves molded against him. He inhaled her, the scent feminine and clean, yet holding a hint of spice and more than enough sultriness for ten women. She kept her head down, holding herself still, like a cornered mouse, though he knew she was a tigress when riled.

"Why are you suddenly so afraid of me, Joley?" His hand cupped the nape of her neck, his fingers sliding in the thick wealth of her hair. "What do you see in me that frightens you?" His other hand held her wrist loosely, keeping the palm of her left hand—the one he had marked—pressed against his hip.

For a moment he thought she wouldn't answer, but Joley wasn't timid. Even afraid, she would face him. He felt her steel herself, that tremor that ran through her body, and she straightened, her back stiff, shoulders rigid. Respect and admiration rose in him. He tightened his fingers around her wrist and pressed her palm hard against his thigh. He felt his mark on her like a burning brand, right through the denim of his jeans.