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,
