Dark Desire by Lauren Smith (an ebook reader txt) 📗

That would have been nine years ago. It felt more like a century.

“She’s been braver than I could have been had I gone through what she’s been through,” he admitted.

“You know, she should talk to Cody Larson, Emery Lockwood’s tech man.”

“Yes? I remember him. He was the one who helped give you a way to escape Vadym’s car in Mongolia.”

“Well, you recall when I told you about Emery’s kidnapping? Finding his twin brother after twenty-five years?”

“Yes . . .”

“Well, when that all went down, Cody was abducted and tortured by the man behind Emery’s childhood kidnapping. The bastard shattered one of his hands with an iron mallet. He isn’t the same, physically or emotionally, but he survived, you know? It might be good for her to talk to him.”

“I agree. Would you send him my number? Tell him why I’m asking for it?”

“Will do.” Royce hesitated. “So if you left Malibu, you’re somewhere . . .”

“Sinful,” Dimitri replied with a grin, knowing Royce would get the reference.

“Sinful indeed.” Royce chuckled. “Well, whatever you do, no drive-through weddings. Kenzie would be pissed if she missed it.”

Dimitri rolled his eyes.

“Where will you end up?”

“New Orleans, I’m thinking,” Dimitri replied, again using a code to see if Royce would get his meaning.

“I guess you packed your snow gear, then?” Royce said. “I hear it’s cold in New Orleans this time of year.” He pronounced New Orleans as Nawlins.

“We did.” Dimitri relaxed. The code had worked.

“Travel safe.”

“We will.” Dimitri ended the call.

“I thought we were going to Colorado?” Elena spoke up from behind him. He turned on the edge of the bed to face her.

“We are.”

“But you said New Orleans.”

“That was code.”

“Code for what?” Elena sat up a little in the bed.

“Royce told me about a place in Colorado he loves called Steamboat Springs, and he talked about how Colorado isn’t a place suited to having steamboats, so we both wondered how the town got the name. I said New Orleans because it’s famous for steamboats.”

“So you really are Royce’s good friend.”

“Yes, kiska.” He smiled and leaned toward her. “Now go back to sleep.”

“Will you . . .” She swallowed hard enough that he heard the sound. “Will you hold me? I seem to sleep better when you do.”

“As you wish.” He put his gun by the nightstand, stripped down to his briefs, and turned off the light. She cuddled up against his side, and he pulled the blankets around them. His heart tightened as he held her in his arms. She was soft, small, and so perfectly feminine in all the right ways. She let out a sigh, her warm breath covering his chest, and he had to quell the rising desire in his body. Anything that happened between them must be at her request, not his.

He brushed her hair back from her face and admired her features. She was truly the loveliest woman he had ever seen. She was free of worry lines, and her petal-soft lips curved slightly, as though whatever dreams now captivated her were good ones. For that he was glad. This woman deserved no tears caused by pain. He would kill to protect her and give her the future she deserved. He only wished he knew what his role in that future would be.

10

Elena was dreaming. She had to be, because in her dream, she was bound and gagged, helpless, trapped in the dark, barely able to breathe.

Wake up! she tried to shout, but the gag prevented anything but a muffled sound from escaping. A door suddenly opened, and bright light illuminated a tall, intimidating form. She cowered, the chains rattling as she tried to curl in on herself and make herself a smaller target. The man came toward her, stepping into the darkness and crouching beside her.

“Kiska, you need never be in the dark again,” a voice soothed her. Soon, his hands were at her wrists, unbinding the shackles and removing the gag.

“Dimitri?” She threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him. He was the only thing keeping her afloat in a black sea of despair.

She burrowed her face in the crook of his neck as he lifted her up in the cradle of his arms. “Please, never leave me.”

As they stepped into the light, the Dimitri in her dreams gazed down at her. “Why are you special?”

“I’m not.”

She bit her lip, and tears filled her eyes as everything, even the warm light, began to fade around her.

“I’m not special. I’m not!”

Elena jerked awake with a gasp and then a groan as her head pounded with a headache. She was back in the dark . . . No, she wasn’t. It took her a moment to process her surroundings. She was lying in a hotel bed, the curtains pulled tight on the windows. Everything was calm and quiet. The shower running in the bathroom explained Dimitri’s absence from the bed. She sat up and took in a deep breath, but she winced as pain clamped down around her throat. She touched the tender spot where the man had tried to strangle her. She had to be bruised there.

Had that all really happened last night? A Russian agent broke into her room and tried to kill her? Demanded to know why she was important? She remembered Dimitri firing his gun, bringing the man down. She should be more traumatized, but she wasn’t, at least not as much as she thought she should be. Being Vadym’s plaything, she had seen much worse. He had killed dozens of people in the two months she had been his captive, most of them so close in front of her that blood had splattered her face and she had been unable to wash it away for hours at a time. It had amused Vadym to see her suffer like that.

But Vadym was gone. She had to stop thinking about him. Her life was moving forward, not backward, even if people were trying to kill her. That was something she hadn’t yet processed, the insane idea that she was somehow special enough that the