Hold Me Tight: Heartbreakers (5 page)

An involvement with this woman would only bring frustration and pain.

He studied that pale face, where the chestnut strands flowed across her cheek and onto his shoulder, a fragile silky web joining their bodies—

Alexi’s indrawn breath hissed in the silence of the room. Wanting to rid himself of the danger of this woman, Alexi carried her back to his bed, lowered her slightly and let her fall the last inch. He did not want to touch her in his bed.

He could not touch her; his sexual need ran too fiercely, primitively, through him.

He stood, hands on hips, looking down at the woman who was cuddling his pillow. Her hair spilled waves across the white pillowcase as she turned on her side. “Alexi…” she murmured softly, and drew the pillow down beneath the blanket.

Alexi frowned as, beneath the heavy blanket, her legs moved as if accepting the pillow, cradling it.

He’d begun to perspire, his body rock-hard.

Alexi clenched his fists and closed his eyes, shaking his head. He jerked on his jeans and pulled on a sweatshirt and socks. He sat in the chair and brooded about the curse of Chief Kamakani over Amoteh.

Because it was surely the chieftain’s curse that had brought Jessica Sterling anywhere near Alexi.

J
essica awoke to the sound of male voices arguing.

She preferred to sleep late and the Amoteh’s housekeeping staff shouldn’t be in her suite—

“No. You are not coming in,” a man stated sharply from somewhere outside her room.

Jessica recognized that deep voice, the command and the slight accent wrapped in it. Alexi Stepanov!

She opened her eyes to a slice of brilliant sunlight and closed them as she realized she was in Alexi’s bed!

She struggled against the heavy weight of the blankets tangled around her and promptly slid onto the floor. She sat, huddled in the blankets, listening to the male voices outside the comfortably warm room.

Jessica clutched the pillow against her. Alexi’s scent—dark, brooding, male—wafted around her.

Alexi—arrogant, disdainful of her—sexy, aroused….

She slid up her sweater sleeve to reveal her watch; the emerald-encrusted designer timepiece read eight o’clock. Jessica braced herself for the first wave of frustration—an early riser,
she was usually at her desk by this time. But then, Alexi wasn’t making her life easy. He needed a lesson in handling business and keeping it out of the sensual lane.

Jessica pushed the pillow away and scrambled to her feet. She was still wearing one of his socks and bent to tug it away.

Another man’s voice rumbled with just that tinge of accent. “Why can’t we come in? It’s cold out here. We only want to warm up before heading back for Mom’s blueberry pancakes. We’re supposed to unload this truckload of lumber and bring you back for a family breakfast.”

Alexi’s reply was hurried. “Let’s unload it now. I’m hungry.”

Jessica recognized Mikhail’s voice. “You’ll need a coat, Alexi. It’s freezing out there.”

“I’m fine. Please thank your parents, but I have work to do. I will see Aunt Mary Jo later and help Uncle Fadey load that order of furniture in the shipping van.”

“Alexi, you just woke up. You don’t have on your boots, and you look like you had a bad night. If you’re sick, we can unload that lumber and you can go back to bed.”

“Yes. I have a cold. Please go. No, I do not need soup. I have aspirin.”

“Jarek, we’re in trouble. If Mom knows that Alexi is sick because he’s staying here and not at their house, she won’t be happy,” Mikhail said thoughtfully as if Alexi wasn’t there. “We’ve got to get him to the house—now.”

“You’re not moving me. I am fine where I am.”

“Oh, no?” the other two male voices challenged.

Jessica smiled coldly. Alexi clearly did not want the men inside his living quarters. He wanted to hide her, did he?

After last night, after Alexi had deliberately drawn her out into the weather, had treated her so arrogantly—
and put her in his bed without her permission
—Jessica intended Alexi to have a very bad day. He would either help root out whomever was causing Willow fear and distress, or he wouldn’t. But Alexi would pay for tormenting Jessica.

She walked to the line where her jacket hung and drew it on, firmly zipping it to her throat. She slipped into her ruined
shoes and lamented their destruction, due to Alexi drawing her into his lair. Whatever she did to him today, he deserved. She tore away the damaged strap with a temper that she pushed down as she smoothed her clothing and her hair.

Jessica picked up Alexi’s boots and his coat and the leather work gloves she found on the table, and walked to the door.

She opened it slowly to the three tall men standing in the cluttered, cold sunroom. “Hi,” she said softly, drowsily, and hoped she sounded as if she’d just come from Alexi’s bed—which she had. She eased around Alexi, who was blocking the doorway and her stage entrance to make his life hell—at least for a short time.

Obviously, Alexi did not want his cousins to know that Jessica had stayed the night. What he didn’t want was perfect to expose…

Jarek and Mikhail Stepanov, in heavy jackets and work clothes stared at her—then at Alexi.

Jessica faked a drowsy yawn and batted her lashes innocently up at Alexi. Beneath his eyebrows, and the frown line between them, his blue eyes narrowed. His lips pressed firmly, angrily, in that dark, stubble-covered jaw.

“Good morning, Alexi,” she murmured in an intimate lovers’-morning-after tone.

Mikhail’s body stiffened, but the quick movement of his lips was a smile, soon hidden. While Alexi stood, silent and forbidding, Mikhail nodded formally. “Good morning, Jessica.”

Jarek grinned widely. “Yes, good morning.”

Jessica walked to Alexi and thoroughly enjoyed his fierce scowl. “Here you go,” she said lightly, and dropped the boots intentionally close to his sock-covered feet. She handed the jacket and gloves to him, then yawned and stretched. “Did I hear something mentioned about breakfast?”

The quick narrowing of Alexi’s eyes was meant to warn, so was the slapping of the leather gloves against his hand. Instead she took the gestures as a challenge.

“You are not invited, Mrs. Sterling,” he said carefully.

“Oh, I’m disappointed. I was hoping to spend more time with you.” She feigned an apologetic half smile and batted her
lashes at him again, enjoying the waves of frustration and anger coming from Alexi. He would learn not to play games with her. “It was rude of me to invite myself.”

“Not rude at all. Our parents would love to have you,” Mikhail said briskly.

“Are you certain? Oh, that would be lovely. I would just be a minute freshening up, and I do need to make the bed.” Jessica looked up at Alexi. “But Alexi doesn’t want—”

“He’ll feel better after he eats,” Jarek stated and, with a chuckle, stepped outside the door. With a brisk nod, Mikhail followed.

Alexi jammed on his boots, laced them furiously and jerked on his coat, buttoning it. He scowled down at her, a muscle in his jaw clenching. “Now see what you have done. They think we are involved. You come out of my room, looking all soft and warm and—and you know exactly what picture you presented—as if we had spent the night making love. My family and friends have been trying to set me up with women for years. I have finally managed some peace, and now you tear it away. Once you move on, I will be left to deal with a steady flow of women wanting husbands—or lovers.”

His desperation was perfect—she’d truly scored. “You’re so arrogant. I suppose you think you are in demand, huh, Mr. Sex Magnet?” she taunted, serving his earlier label back at him.

“It would appear so.
You
want me, do you not?”

Jessica tilted her head and refused to be baited. “When you’re emotional, your accent slips out.”

“I am never emotional,” Alexi stated firmly.

“Tell that to someone else. I’ve seen you at your worst.” Jessica smiled coldly and crossed her arms. “You called this game, Stepanov. I’m just playing it. You’re not exactly a sweetheart, and neither am I. I offered you a business deal. You haven’t given me an answer yet. But you will.”

He scowled down at her, his fist wrapping in her jacket to draw her up to his face. “You do not play with me,” he ordered, spacing the words.

“I want you to take care of Willow. Will you, and how much—or won’t you?”

“Who is Howard?”

She hadn’t expected the harsh question. “Someone I know.”

“A married man who is pursuing you, just as you want.”

“I never encouraged Howard. He’s my husband’s son, and he’s in an open marriage. Just because my husband—and I loved Robert—passed away, I’m not up for grabs.” Howard had started “pursuing” her the minute that he knew his father, Robert, was interested in Jessica. When Robert and Jessica had married, Howard had been bitter, an unseated heir to the chain of Sterling Stops. As Robert’s terminal illness had progressed, he’d put Jessica at the head of the company, rather than his self-serving son.

Enraged, Howard had begun to battle her on two fronts, business and personal. When she dealt with him, Jessica was always very careful to consider that her husband had dearly loved his only son. She kept Howard involved in a minor position in Sterling Stops and monitored his work herself. He was overpaid for the position, ineffective and disinterested. As executrix of her husband’s estate, Jessica also monitored monthly payments to Howard and he resented her holding “Dad’s purse strings.”

Remembering how Alexi had interfered with Howard’s call last night, Jessica said, “And I don’t need anyone’s protection—or interference. I handle my own business.”

Alexi leveled a determined look at her. “I will not be your ‘business.’ You are to clear up any misconceptions immediately.”

“You should have thought of that before you made me ruin these shoes.” She allowed herself a smirk. “Can’t you handle it, bud?”

With a low, feral growl, he leaned closer. “I tell you again—do not play games with me.”

His forearm brushed her breast and Alexi inhaled sharply, pushing her away. His stare ripped from her face down to her breasts, and for just a moment, sensuality quivered between them. Then his hard blue eyes locked with hers. “Keep that jacket on.”

“Orders? I don’t like that. I give them, Stepanov, not take them.”

When Alexi stormed out of the workroom, Jessica allowed herself a shaky but triumphant smile. He would do the job she asked, or she would make his life a living hell—and she thought she just might enjoy that.

Jessica studied herself in Alexi’s shaving mirror. Her carefully applied cosmetics, her everyday protective shield behind which she ran a huge corporation, were gone—only the remains of her mascara lay smudged beneath her eyes. With a deep breath she looked at her choices from the table beneath the mirror. Willow’s unscented but luxurious soap and a clean washcloth revealed the woman Jessica protected—an almost pixie-ish face with huge green eyes framed by dark brown lashes, a brief bit of a nose, high cheekbones and full lips that she carefully tried to diminish.

She used Alexi’s brush carefully, drawing back her long hair into a rubber band to create a ponytail.

She looked like little more than a shiny-faced, scrubbed-clean teenager, with all the gloss and polish she had learned to protect herself placed aside. “Game time,” she said quietly, determined to finish what Alexi had started.

Jessica studied herself in the mirror. “He could have given me a simple answer, and he didn’t. I wasted a lot of time and energy checking him out. He is the best man for the job, but if he wants a difficult game, I know how to play. Now, let’s just see what he’s got.”

She stepped out onto the porch and shaded her eyes against the brilliant daylight ricocheting off the snow. Fresh lumber had been stacked against the house and three tall men, with evident family resemblances, stood waiting.

Jarek and Mikhail nodded and walked toward the huge flatbed lumber truck.

Alexi put his hands on his hips and stared coldly at her. When she came to stand in front of him, he looked down at the sweatshirt she had placed over her light jacket. That flare of his nostrils told her that she’d scored another hit to his temper by wearing his clothes. He glared at her, then down to her shoes. “I must carry you,” he stated resentfully.

“Hey, I’ve got two feet,” she answered cheerfully. “I can walk. I take care of myself.”

“I never believed in that Hawaiian’s curse, and now I do,” Alexi stated darkly. Then, carefully and with a hint of hope, he offered, “I could carry you to the resort. Or while you wait here, I could get different shoes for you and you could walk back. This has gone far enough.”

She smiled brilliantly, thoroughly enjoying his discomfort. “I’ve opened the gate. Let the hordes of man-hungry women begin chasing you. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Alexi shook his head and closed his eyes as if wishing her far, far away. Then he bent and placed her over his shoulder, carrying her toward the truck. “You will keep that jacket zipped,” he ordered again.

Jessica braced her hands on his taut backside to keep from flopping and to retain some small part of her dignity.
Buddy, you asked for it,
she thought, and tried for an innocent tone as she asked, “But what if I get hot? I’ll have to take it off then, won’t I?”

She wouldn’t, of course, because without her minimizer bra, she was full-figured, and that didn’t suit the sleek business image she wanted to project. But Alexi didn’t know to what lengths she would go to embarrass him. At the moment, even being carried over his shoulder, Jessica knew she had the advantage.

His body tensed, but he didn’t speak.

Alexi briskly lifted her up to Mikhail who was seated in the middle of the truck; Jarek sat behind the steering wheel. Before Jessica could sit, Alexi had slid up to the seat and had tugged her onto his lap.

“I’ve just met Alexi and he’s helping me with a problem,” Jessica said when the Stepanovs were all seated around Mary Jo and Fadey’s long, sturdy kitchen table.

Alexi concentrated on the blueberry pancakes in front of him and tried to ignore Jessica’s scent. He tried to forget the way she had sat very stiffly on his lap, the blush rising up her cheeks.

His hard arousal had been painful, the warm softness of her hips riding him over the bumpy road to the Stepanovs’. Her sharp look down at him said Jessica was feeling that sturdy sexual pressure, with only layers of cloth between the warm entrance of her body—

The sight of his oversize sweatshirt on Jessica’s body had shaken him.

He wanted that emerald wedding ring off her finger, and her wearing the mark of his possession.

Alexi had partially rolled down the window despite the chill, needing fresh air to cool him. She had placed her hand on the top of the window’s glass, as if she, too, needed cooling. The huge set of emerald wedding rings had caught the light, shooting sparks and questions at him:

Why should he care about a rich widow wearing another man’s rings?

Why should he care that she asked nothing for herself, but for a friend?

Why did he want more than anything to take her to his bed and make love to her and forget about everything else?

Without ceremony, Alexi had carried her in his arms to the Stepanov house, a huge, jutting wooden-and-stone affair overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He had nodded to Fadey, his uncle, at the open doorway. Easing Jessica’s body carefully aside, Alexi had carried her into the spacious home.