chapter one
Four years later Outside Boulder, Colorado
This was dangerous.
Journey Taite, now known as Crimsyn Delaney, stared around the guest room as she rubbed her hands over her arms, wishing she could chase away the chill spreading through her.
The Resnova estate was smaller than many she’d stayed on, but she had to admit it had an understated elegance rarely seen. She liked that. The rooms were warm, a gas fireplace gracing this one, and a small sitting area across from the bed.
Rugs were scattered over the hardwood floors; the beds were sinfully comfortable, the blankets that covered them downy soft and inviting rest.
It wasn’t what she expected from a crime lord, especially a Russian crime lord. She expected flash, very little class, and found something she admired instead. Unfortunately, it was probably the most dangerous place she could be.
If there was a single place on the face of this earth that drew together all the forces she considered a threat to her life, then this was the place. And here the concentration of individuals most likely to realize exactly who she was, was the highest.
Noah Blake and Riordan Malone and Ivan Resnova. Though, thankfully, the first two had left the day before, along with Ivan’s daughter, Amara. She was stuck here for the moment because Amara had made her swear to wait until her father made arrangements for her to return to New York before leaving the estate.
This was what she got for trying to help a friend, she told herself, pacing the room. Sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. She should have learned better years ago. But had she?
Evidently, she hadn’t.
The only good thing to have happened was Amara’s safety. With the death of the Resnova servant who seemed to have masterminded the problems Ivan’s daughter, Amara, had faced, that part of the problem was taken care of.
Now to find her way out of the estate without anyone learning her true identity.
It had been four years, she told herself. She was no longer a fresh-faced twenty-two-year-old though she still looked younger than her twenty-six years. At twenty-two she’d looked like a teenager. A naïve, rather stupid teenager. Not that she was displaying more common sense now than she had then.
Noah Blake and Riordan Malone hadn’t realized who she was though; that was a plus. At least they hadn’t seemed to. And from what she knew of those two, if they even suspected her name was something other than Crimsyn, then they’d have called her on it before they left the estate that morning. Ivan was suspicious of everyone from what her friend Amara had told her over the past year that they’d worked together, but she was confident the identity she’d paid so much for would hold up.
She’d have to disappear after she left here though. Perhaps use some of the carefully hoarded funds she’d hidden away when she ran four years ago to buy another name, another past. Honestly, she’d begun to like this identity though.
She liked the way Ivan Resnova called her Syn. The dark quality of his voice, the way his gaze seemed to flicker with hunger.
Stupid, Journey. Stupid, she told herself as she paced back to the balcony doors and stared out onto the snow-packed grounds.
She should have never come to Boulder. No matter the danger to Amara or the danger to herself because of their friendship, she should have remembered how little Lady Luck cared for her.
That mercurial bitch hated her.
She was so screwed if she didn’t get out of here. If there was one man in the world who had a reason to hate her the most, it was Amara’s father. Because of her family and her father’s and grandfather’s involvement with Ivan’s father decades ago, Ivan had nearly lost his own daughter, as well as his life.
Because of her father, Craig Taite, Amara had nearly been taken from him as a child and given to a white slaver known as Sorrel. Simply because she’d been born a girl rather than a boy.
Because of her father, Ivan had been forced to kill his own father and countless men he’d been raised with as well as those he had counted as friends before the betrayal.
Because of the Taite family, he had nearly lost everything he’d held dear, and he’d spent countless years working to destroy a family that always seemed one step ahead of him.
Until four years ago.
Her stomach roiled at the memory of that night as she fought to push it back. She didn’t want to remember the night she’d learned the evil that ran in her bloodline. Not that she could forget it for long. News stories still ran about the remaining family. Her brother, her sister, and her cousins.
The Taite wealth was all but nonexistent now from what she read, the Queen’s support stripped, their titles taken.
Not that she cared about the wealth or the titles. She’d cared about the sense of family, and learning it was no more than an illusion had nearly broken her.
Watching the thick, heavy fall of snow that had begun once again, she drew in a deep breath and tried to reassure herself she would make it out of there before she was discovered. That was all she had to do: make it out of there, get a bus ticket, and then disappear.
Maybe she’d go someplace warm. Florida or California. She liked the idea of California; it was warmer there. Maybe it would be easier to find a job and to hide.
A quiet knock at the door had her turning quickly, barely controlling her response to the sight of Ivan standing in the doorway.
He shouldn’t look so good. He should look like a father, dammit. Maybe some gray hair, at least an ounce or two of fat on his leanly muscled frame. But oh no, the jeans he wore, cinched at those lean hips with a leather belt and paired with a black silk shirt, sleeves rolled partway up his forearms, emphasized the power of his six-two frame. Thick black hair brushed rakishly back from his face, deep midnight blue eyes, and a face that wasn’t classically handsome but rugged and wickedly sensual.
She wanted to clench her thighs against the response she had to him. She’d never, at any time, responded to a man as she did to this one. Her body sensitized, her breasts felt achy and tight, and between her thighs she could feel herself growing damp. Never, at any time, had she so wanted a man to touch her.
“Yes?” She cleared her throat as he stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind him with deliberate care.
Her heart was racing now, nerves gathering in her stomach as she fought back an instinctive fear of what was to come.
“Tell me, Ms. Delaney, what are your plans now that this is over?” he asked; the low pitch of his voice only made her nerves worse.
This. The deaths of the men attempting to kill his daughter. Yeah, fate hated her. They hadn’t even been tied to the Taite family. She’d simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time with his daughter.
She shrugged at the question. “Return to my job,” she lied. “My life. Why?”
Stepping farther into the room, he stalked to the fireplace, where he leaned against the surrounding brick, arms folding over his chest as he watched her closely.
How many times had she dreamed of him? Dreamed of him holding her, his strength supporting her. So many years, she knew, and now, rather than reaching out her only choice was to run again. Because she couldn’t bear to have him know who she was. “You’ve lost six months of your life,” he pointed out. “The apartment you had is no longer available, your belongings disposed of by the apartment manager, and your position at the DA’s office has been filled.”
She frowned, her fingers tightening as she linked them in front of her.
“There are other apartments, other jobs, and things can be replaced,” she told him, keeping her voice calm.
Hell, she knew better. Nothing was ever easy but it sure as hell beat a forced marriage to a man she had no desire for.
“Where will you live?” he asked then as though simply curious.
Ivan Resnova was never simply curious. According to his daughter, he was at his most dangerous when he pretended to be.
“I have friends…”
“Family?” The question was asked so smoothly she nearly stuttered over her response.
“A few cousins.” She finally shrugged, remembering the identity she’d paid so much money for and fighting to contain her growing frustration. “I’ll be fine.”
It was as though he were rubbing her nose in the fact that the obstacles she faced were rather difficult.
“Hmm.” The murmured response had her lips tightening as she fought to hold on to the temper he seemed to ignite without trying.
“Is there a point to this interrogation?” she snapped before she could stop the words.
Dammit. She didn’t need to piss him off further. Amara wasn’t here right now; he could kill her, have her body disposed of, and simply tell his daughter she’d left the estate.
His brow arched, mocking amusement touching his lips.
And still, he was so handsome. The deep, dark blue eyes, thick black hair. His features were that of a fallen angel’s, dark skinned, savage lines, and determined angles.
“Doesn’t every interrogation have a point?” he mused lazily.
He was dangerous, she reminded herself, far too dangerous to allow herself to be comfortable with him. She had to remember this man could destroy her.
“Then get to it so we can be done with it,” she demanded, steeling herself to pretend unconcern. “I’m sure I have better things to do than stand here and be questioned by you.”
“Like what?” That amusement filled his voice now. “We’re in the middle of another snowstorm at the moment, and other than minimal security and staff, we’re pretty much alone. Humor me.”
Yeah, she’d get right on that.
“Humor me and get to the point.” She sniffed irritably.
Taking an attitude with a crime lord wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but he just pissed her off. She wasn’t a twenty-two-year-old child anymore. The four years she’d been running from her past had taught her a few things at least.
He pissed her off now though, and made her wet. A hell of a combination, wasn’t it?
“What do you want to compensate you for the past six months and to ensure I don’t have to kill you to keep you from running your mouth about it?” His demeanor went from amusement to icy control.
She stared back at him for long moments, knowing he’d said exactly what she thought he said, but unable to explain why it hurt so bad to hear the words.
“Wow. Just call me a money-grubbing whore and have it done with,” she told him with far more calm than she felt. “Honestly, I thought I’d consider myself lucky if I just got out of here while I was still breathing.”
Bastard.
She could feel her temper burning now, and though she was certain it would be far better to push it back, she found it impossible to do so.
“As if there was any other option,” he snorted as though disgusted by that fact. “Amara would no doubt check on you from time to time, just because she’s nice like that. I’d never let my daughter suspect I’d killed a friend.”
Of course not. He loved his daughter, didn’t he? How could she have forgotten that? That didn’t mean she was safe by any means.
“If I’d wanted anything in compensation, I would have asked your daughter,” she pointed out with a haughty little sneer she’d learned from her mother. “Keep your money, Resnova. I don’t need it, nor your insults. And I damned sure don’t want my life and my safety further inconvenienced by my running my mouth, as you so crudely put it.”
Her fingers curled into fists; the need to plant one of them in his face again was nearly overpowering.
“I find that rather hard to believe,” he murmured, suspicions shadowing his expression.
“I don’t give a damn how you find it!” she snapped furiously. “Amara is my friend. Helping her was helping myself. I’m alive. I can return to my life. And you can take your offer and go to hell.”
She should have expected this, she told herself. Ivan and men of his ilk only knew the power of their money. There was no such thing as friendship or loyalty that didn’t involve some type of payment.
She should have run the opposite direction of the Resnovas. When the men working with Amara’s abductors six months ago had come after her as well, she should have just headed to California then. There was nothing in New York to hold her. It was just a place to stop, to rest, nothing more. The last place her family or their investigators would think to look for her.
Ivan was watching her doubtfully now, obviously unable to believe she wanted nothing.
“How much?” he asked her again.
Her teeth clenched.
“Fine. Whatever.” She flipped her hand toward him angrily. “Just write yourself a check, whatever you think it’s worth, and give me a ride to town in the morning and you’ll never have to remember I existed. How’s that?”
She didn’t have to cash a check; she could just burn the damned thing.
She hated him.
She wanted him …
She hated herself because she wanted him to touch her, to kiss her with those sensual lips, touch her with those long-fingered, broad hands, surround her with the warmth of his body.
She wished she could find some way to shed the pain, the aching loss, for just a single moment out of time instead of having this man make it worse, intensify it. For the first time in her adult life she wanted a man to touch her, and he just wanted to pay her off and get rid of her.
She glared at him, letting the anger build instead of the hurt. Hadn’t she hurt enough yet? Hadn’t she lost enough?
He watched her silently now, his expression giving nothing away as he stared back at her. But she could feel the suspicion, the growing sense that he was playing some game, had some agenda she wanted no part of.
“This storm is expected to last through the night and now into the morning as well,” he suddenly announced. “Getting you into town will be impossible until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. Think about it and we’ll discuss it again before you leave.”
He straightened, his arms dropping from his chest as he moved closer to her.
Journey watched warily as he paused beside her, his gaze on the snow outside the balcony doors, his profile implacable.
“Was there something else you wanted?” She couldn’t help the confrontational tone.
Her father had warned her countless times that her temper was going to get her in more trouble than she could get herself out of one day. For a moment, the memory of a vicious blow to her face, her father’s cruel gaze, the icy mercilessness in his expression, and her own horror flashed through her mind.
She flinched and moved a few steps from Ivan, desperate to lock the past away again, to run from it just as hard as she was running from those searching for her.
His head turned, those dark blue eyes watching her intently.
“Who are you running from, Syn?” The question shocked her, terrified her. He asked it so gently, as though he understood her fear, as though he wanted to help her.
If she didn’t get out of this house, out of his life, then he’d end up destroying her.
* * *
Ivan watched as Syn’s face paled and her green eyes darkened in fear. She wasn’t as good as she thought she was at hiding the fact that she was running.
Oh yes, he knew who she was now, and he was rather shocked by the fact that he hadn’t recognized her. Though, in his defense, four years had wrought just enough changes in her delicate features that he could be excused for that. That added maturity, as well as the shorter hair and the thinness of her once curvier body, had allowed her to slip beneath the radar and away from those searching for her.
He was one of those searching. He’d had a team tracking her since the night she’d disappeared, though the trail had grown cold a year after they’d begun their search.
Craig Taite’s younger daughter was still a beauty though, perhaps even more so than she had been at twenty-two. And so very young. Twenty-six. It was a crime that she had to carry the weight on her shoulders that she carried, that she had the knowledge of the monster her father had become.
It was a shame that she would now face her father’s crimes in ways she’d avoided since she’d begun running. He couldn’t allow her to run farther though. As long as she was out there, undefended, knowing the things she possibly knew, then she was a liability to some dangerous people.
He turned to her, watching as she swallowed tightly, her deep green eyes meeting his before shifting, touching her lips, then dropping before she quickly turned away and pushed her fingers restlessly through her hair. But not before he saw the flush that washed through her cheeks.
His lips quirked in amused knowledge at what he knew she’d seen.
Oh yes, she could make him hard. Instantly. There was something about her fiery nature, about that shy, innocent gaze, that filled him with raw lust. Just as it had for years before she disappeared. She was his secret fantasy, his flame-haired dream lover.
He would have ignored it. He would have pushed her right out the door along with Riordan and Amara to avoid it if it hadn’t been that overriding hunger.
She wasn’t leaving the estate, but the question of how to hold her there was one he had yet to answer to his satisfaction. He had no desire to lock her in the basement but he knew from years of searching for her just how resourceful she could be.
“I’ve been running from your daughter’s enemies, it seems!” she snapped, shoving her hands in those cheap-assed jeans she wore. “And as you seem to be stuck with me a while longer, I’ll be sure to stay out of your way.”
She’d once had access to the finest clothes, the softest fabrics, and she was now wearing clothes he knew for a fact that she’d picked up in Boulder during her stay at the homeless shelter there.
A fucking homeless shelter.
The Taite fortunes weren’t what they once were, but her brother and her mother’s and brother-in-law’s family were slowly repairing some of the losses with her former fiancé’s help. There was even talk that the title might not be stripped from the family after all, rather than merely allowing the public to believe it had been.
“Did I ask you to stay out of my way?” he queried, keeping his voice soft as he tried to contain a fury that had twenty years to brew inside him.
And he had to balance that black fury and his daughter’s demand that he protect this woman she called her friend. Protect her. This woman whose father and grandfather would have seen his daughter sold as no more than a sex slave when she was but a child. The same two men who had murdered his mother while Ivan’s father laughed at her screams for mercy.
“Let’s say I consider it prudent to stay out of your way,” she informed him with an indignant little glare.
He found himself restraining a grin.
“I told you I wouldn’t harm you. At least not without cause.” He faced her, arching a brow as she frowned up at him. “Do you intend to give me a reason?”
She wanted to roll her eyes. He could see it in her expression.
“Trust me, Mr. Resnova, I have absolutely no intention of that.” There was a flash of disappointment in her expression that bothered him, he found.
Damn her. Her father would have destroyed Amara had he had his way. Yet Ivan’s conscience, his own child, would never allow the same to be done to Taite’s child.
This was the price of raising the sweet, loving child who stared at him with such trust. Amara believed in him and it was a belief he had worked hard to ensure.
At least that was the reason he was giving himself. He couldn’t allow lust to excuse the fact that he’d never hated this young woman. From the time she was sixteen she’d drawn his interest. At eighteen, she’d begun drawing his lust.
That didn’t mean there weren’t other ways to make certain the elder Taites suffered. They were imprisoned, but Ivan knew that imprisonment was far more comfortable than it should be. And they were far more arrogant and superior than any prisoner should be.
How superior would they be when the prisoners known to have been part of the supposed Resnova criminal organization reported that the missing Taite daughter was sleeping with their boss? When news of it was flashed through the news services and society pages?
The idea had him tensing, had the lust he fought to keep banked burning brighter, hotter.
Stephen and Craig had tried to destroy him for the better part of his life. Their hatred for him, their inability to steal his organization or bring him to heel, enraged them. He was no more than a dirty Russian thug, Craig had once sneered at him over a phone line. One far beneath his notice.
“Is there something else you wanted?” Journey asked when he said nothing more.
No, not Journey, his Syn.
His lashes lowered as he wondered what it would take to turn that innocent little blue blood into a woman whose sexual knowledge glowed in every graceful movement of her body? A woman who knew her sexual power and her ability to use it.
It took far more than just having sex. Far more than just a lover, Ivan knew that. It would take releasing that inner core of hunger he’d noticed rising each time he saw her before her disappearance. It would take ensuring she saw herself as more than just a one-night stand or a mistress.
“And if there is?” He tipped his head to the side, watching her carefully. “Would I be risking that pretty little fist again?”
She packed a punch, he thought in amusement. The night he had brought her to the estate that fist had punched into his face, busting his lips and, he swore, perhaps loosening a few teeth.
Surprise flared in her green eyes as a flush worked from her neck to her hairline and sensual awareness filled her eyes. Innocent, curious awareness.
The blood beat hard and fast in her neck, her breasts rose and fell in agitation, and she gave her head a little shake, as though suddenly uncertain.
“I d-d-don’t understand…” she said with a little stammer, her breathing jerkier, her expression less confident and confrontational than moments before.
He’d bet several of the sizable fortunes he possessed that she was a virgin. If not a virgin, then not far from one. He watched the blood beat at the vein in her neck, the way her gaze locked with his, uncertainty and innocent sensuality filling her expression. Her breathing was heavier, her breasts rising and falling as sexual excitement began pulsing through her.
In his life, he’d never seen a woman experience that first moment of pure, overriding lust. But he saw it then. He watched the flush that colored her face, the darkening of her eyes, that moment of distress when the hunger overrode caution.
“Don’t you?” he asked, moving closer, staring down at her, allowing her to see the hunger in his expression.
And her nipples were hard. They were stiff and tight beneath her too-thin T-shirt. He knew a woman’s body, knew their responses, and his little Syn was primed for a lot of sinning.
And he was just the sinner to show her the way.
Copyright © 2018 by Lora Leigh
