She cautioned herself to be patient, not her best quality.
Ellie slid from the high bed and reached for the only softness in the room, a dull gun-metal green fringed shawl placed over a dresser. The flight of the last six months ached in her bones; exhaustion dragged and sucked at her, the warmth of the bed calling her now. Once in it, she didn’t doubt that she could sleep for a week—if Tanya were safe. In the past, Ellie would have loved pitting herself against Mikhail. Now the battle to convince him seemed overwhelming, a grudging step-by-step uphill battle to get him to commit to Tanya’s safety.
She wrapped the shawl around her waist, knotting it.
She didn’t do well at her first attempt to ask Mikhail to help; he’d set her off too easily. Just seeing him, so confident and disdainful of her, she’d felt that instinctive need to prod those cold, aloof shields.
Ellie couldn’t afford to fail a second time. She couldn’t fail Tanya; she had to be alert for Mikhail’s agile mind. Inhaling deeply, she braced herself to convince Mikhail and walked to the fireplace.
His body seemed to tense, though he hadn’t moved, and that flick of his eyes took in her bare leg, exposed by the shawl’s fringes.
Ellie tried to ignore the leap of her senses, because now she couldn’t afford her habit of nettling Mikhail. She concentrated on the mantel’s pictures, gathering as much calm as she could. The hair on her nape lifted as it always did when Mikhail was nearby, and she could almost feel him breathe, waiting for her to talk.
Not just yet. She had to be very careful this time.
From their gold frame, the immigrant Stepanov brothers, dressed in peacoats and knitted caps, stared back at her—tough, unflinching, determined, with the same wide and uncompromising jaw and slashing cheekbones as Mikhail. In another frame, softly ornate, a young Fadey beamed as he held a blissfully happy Mary Jo in her wedding dress. Then the young brothers, Mikhail and Jarek, looking wild and free as the ocean wind tossed their hair, huge fishing poles in one hand and holding aloft strings of fish in their other hands. In the photograph, the ocean waves crested behind them.
“Eat,” Mikhail said simply when she came to stand beside him, though he didn’t turn. The firelight played on his face, lighting the jutting angles and escaping the hard planes. He had set the terms already, the schedule by which she must perform, make her plea.
She’d learned terms and prices at an early age, from her father. Everything was a trade-off, wasn’t it? she thought wearily.
Ellie eased into a chair near the food and wished that her stomach hadn’t just growled. Obviously, Mikhail was not playing waiter. She opened the thermos bottle and inhaled the delicious scent of chowder, easing it into the large pottery soup bowl. She carefully unwrapped the thick slabs of dark bread, heavily slathered with butter. In another moment, she was diving into the food, forgetting about Mikhail. She was halfway through the soup before Mikhail reached to open the other thermos bottle, pouring milk into her glass.
“Thanks.” For now it was delicious food, no matter who was serving it. She crushed crackers into the soup, mixed rapidly and hurried to eat the savory creamy mix of clams and potatoes.
The impact of the hot food and the warmth of the fire had made her drowsy again. With little effort, she could lean back against the chair’s cushion and sleep—but she couldn’t; she couldn’t fail Tanya.
Mikhail sat, leaning back on the chair, his legs in front of the fire as he studied the flames. In profile, his rugged features looked too primitive, the light flickering over his chest and arms. In a suit, he looked powerful and sleek and untouched by emotion. But now, he seemed even stronger, more potent—more elemental, from his broad shoulders to the slight matting of hair on his chest that veed downward.
Ellie tensed as she remembered awakening to him, the soft beckoning of her senses to smooth his skin, to touch and hold all that male power within her hand…. He’d been aroused. A little quiver shot deep within her; it was difficult to think of Mikhail as a man with ordinary needs.
“Finished?” he asked softly.
“Yes, it was delicious. Did I thank you?” She struggled against sleep; she needed to be alert to ask Mikhail’s help.
“Of course.” There was the old-world arrogance, as if he had momentarily relaxed his shields with her. “Now tell me why you have been sleeping with the child, singing to her and holding her tight against you?”
Ellie’s drowsy senses snapped to alert. “How do you know that?”
Mikhail turned to her and said slowly, “Because it was me you held in your arms, Ellie. Me you rocked and petted and reassured in your sleep. The experience was unique, to say the least.”
While Ellie stared at him, wide-eyed, her lips parted, Mikhail dealt with his unsteady emotions. The big, chunky chair only served to make her more feminine, more vulnerable. He resented the woman in front of him, all curves and soft lips, the shawl tied around her waist opening to reveal long smooth legs. His hand flexed, remembering the jut of her hip, the curve of her waist beneath the thick comforter.
Ellie Lathrop was a disaster, his personal Kamakani curse. His instinctive need to have her wear his shirt, to claim her as his, nettled.
He was not an emotional man, yet what man would not be affected by a woman’s bare breasts pressed against his arm, those little affectionate hugs, and those soft lips kissing his shoulder and whispering in the night, “Go to sleep, baby. I’m right here and I’ll never leave you.”
“Rock-A-Bye Baby” had never been so erotic, the husky, sleepy sound of Ellie’s voice making him hard—and weak. Despite himself, he could not move when she curled so close to him, her hands stroking his skin, cuddling him, her body scent reaching inside his senses, tormenting him. Yet, as much as he knew the danger of staying, he could not leave her. Instead, he resented the fine sheen of perspiration on his skin, the sensual tension humming through him.
Mikhail scoffed at himself and was surprised at the hard, derisive snort that could only have come from himself. Him. Hard. Aching to take her. Aroused by Ellie, the spoiled, willful heiress.
What could have happened to a child that she would need such reassurance in the night?
“You will tell me now about the child and why you have come.” That his accent had slipped beyond his control also nettled. The fact that the shawl had shifted slightly, revealing an enticing thigh, golden and gleaning in the firelight, hit him like a physical blow.
He wanted to press his lips to that soft flesh. He wanted to toss her on that bed and fight out the storm brewing between them for years.
What would that solve? his logical, nonaroused side demanded. They would still be the same people, each disliking the other.
He’d battled another woman, and that experience with his ex-wife had been enough to turn his sexual needs cold.
There was no reason for Ellie to excite him, none at all, and yet she did.
He watched Ellie pull into herself, the sleepy vulnerability gone. She ran her fingers through her hair and sipped the milk, a ploy he knew that gave herself time to organize what she would say to him.
“I’m having a bit of a rough patch, Mikhail,” she said almost briskly in a get-it-over with tone. She reached gracefully to claim a black mussel shell from those in
