"Please, Sasha, at least get to know him. Give me this chance with someone I love. My leopard can hear lies. She knows he's telling the truth when he says he loves me. I feel it every time I'm in the room with him. Please just give us this chance. All of us. You, me and Joshua."
Joshua felt it was a very good time to announce his presence. He couldn't take much more of her quiet declarations of her love and belief in him. Or her pleas. They sure as fuck didn't need the Russian's permission to be together and he intended to make that perfectly clear.
"I think that would be a very good idea." He spoke quietly, his gaze on the Russian, waiting to see if the man was going to live or die.
Both spun around, Sonia's breath catching in her throat as she stared at him. Sasha went for the gun in the holster beneath his shoulder.
Joshua shook his head. "You'd be dead before you got it out."
Sasha slowly dropped his hand to his side and regarded the intruder with a sour look on his face. "Joshua Tregre, I presume."
"I came for my woman." Joshua was making that perfectly clear from the get-go. "Sonia, come here to me. Give him a wide berth."
"He wouldn't hurt me," she protested.
"Sonia, don't you dare move from that chair," Sasha commanded.
Rage burst through Joshua's normal calm, reminding him Zen went out the window when he dealt with anything having to do with his woman. "You have no fuckin' right to tell her to do anything. I should blow your head off for planting a bomb in her car."
"He didn't," Sonia said, jumping to her feet and flinging her body in front of Sasha's. Her arms were spread wide to cover as much of the man as possible.
"Just so you know, baby," Joshua hissed through clenched teeth, "I can take the wings of a fly. No problem finding a body part on him you can't cover. Get your ass over here before I take him out so I know you're safe."
He held out his hand to her, and if she didn't get over to him in the next thirty seconds, he was blowing the Russian's head off. That was the one target she couldn't cover.
"Sonia, you are not to shield me," Sasha hissed.
"Don't need you tellin' my woman what to do. I'm capable of handling her on my own."
She stomped over to Joshua, glaring with every step. He caught her wrist and thrust her behind him. "What do you mean, he didn't plant the bomb?"
"It's a long story, but he was trying to save me from Nikita. I'll tell you the entire thing at home, but right now, you two have to be friends."
"That isn't likely, baby." He dismissed her decree out of hand. He didn't take his eyes from the Russian. From the moment he'd suspected Sasha Bogomolov had been Sonia's husband, legal or otherwise, and there was nothing to prove the marriage legal, he had collected as much information as possible on him.
Sasha was a shrewd businessman, much more so than his father, who tended to rely on brute force. He didn't shrink from violence if it was called for, but viciousness wasn't Sasha's first choice.
"She needs to be safe," Sasha said. "Nikita is wholly focused on killing her, then me and finally, you. He's bringing a shitload of men with him."
"They'll all die here."
"You didn't look like you had an army built up," Sasha said. "Do you have even ten men you know are loyal to you? Ten that will stick when it gets ugly, because it will."
"I have a few friends I've reached out to," Joshua said. "They're on the way." He backed up a couple of steps and indicated the front door. "You go out there and call off your men. Sonia and I are going to walk out of your house and get into the truck one of my men is bringing around. There had better not be any mistakes. You'll be the first to die if you make one wrong move. Your friend Dmitri is next."
"Joshua, no," she protested. "Sasha is family to me."
"The man fucked you, Sonia," he snarled before he could stop the words from roaring out of his mouth. "Just for that alone I want him dead."
"Are you going to give me a list of every woman you've ever fucked so I can kill all of them? I'm betting there's a long list."
She was magnificent. Beautiful. Her hair looked wild. Her eyes held a fury only a female leopard could manage. Her chin was up defiantly. Those lips of hers, plump and soft and perfect to stretch around his cock, were pressed together in a line that made him want to push his tongue right through to all that moist heat. She'd stepped around him and both hands were fisted on her hips.
"Not certain I remember names, Sonia."
"Too long a list?"
"That and didn't spend more than a couple of hours with them. They weren't memorable. You, on the other hand . . . Evan." He raised his voice slightly.
"Got him in my sights, boss," Evan replied.
Joshua stepped right into her. Crowding her body. Letting the tips of her breasts nuzzle his chest right through the thin tee she wore. He caught the back of her neck in his palm and brought her to him, taking her upturned mouth. The moment his lips touched hers, need exploded through him. He took his time kissing her, licking at her lips, using his teeth on her bottom lip until she parted for him.
His tongue swept in, claiming her. Part of him knew it was a dick move. He wanted there to be no question in the other man's mind just who she belonged to. The biggest part of him couldn't resist her, was totally lost the moment she'd gone all wild woman on him. He poured everything into that kiss--from love to ownership--and hoped she got each separate message.
She kissed him back. There was never holding back with Sonia, she just gave him everything she was. No one kissed like her. She wiped out everything that had ever come before her, good or bad. His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her closer.
"I know you don't want me to kill him, babe, but he's bound to come after you."
She pressed her forehead to his chest, looking down at her feet rather than into his eyes. "Then we take him with us. It isn't safe for him here, not with his father looking for him."
He frowned, catching her chin. The pad of his thumb slid over her soft skin as he forced her head up so he could look into her eyes. "Sonia. What is it? Talk to me."
"He's family. I'm sorry you're upset that we had . . . sex." She whispered the last word. "He is too. He didn't want that for me, but I insisted. I was afraid I wasn't a very good wife to him and I . . ."
"Stop, baby. That was me being a jackass. I love you. Whatever happened between you isn't my business. It never will be. You say he's a good man and isn't trying to kill you. That's good, but it isn't good enough for me. I have to know for myself. We'll talk it out, man to man, but not here. Sooner or later his men are going to get restless and then we'll have to start killing. Both sides lose. We're leaving. Now. You're going out the door with me and until we're safe at home, you're going to do everything I say the moment I say it. If you don't, there will be consequences. That's if we make it out of this alive."
Sasha had been standing to the side of the couch, watching them intently. "I'll take into consideration what you've said to me, Sonia." He looked at Joshua over her head. "You keep her safe or you're a dead man."
Joshua might have admired the man under other circumstances. He wrapped his arm around Sonia. "Walk right behind me, baby. Evan and Kai will be behind you."
She nodded. "I'm going to say good-bye to him," she announced, stepping away from Joshua toward Sasha.
He caught her by the pocket of her jeans, yanking her back to him. "No, you're not. You'll do all that after I talk to him and make my own assessment about what kind of danger he poses to you."
Sasha turned his back on them and went to the front door, calling out to his men with a soft two-way note indicative of the black-bellied whistling duck. His men came out of the shadows, looking a little perplexed.
"Let them through," he ordered.
The men looked shocked as first Joshua emerged, Sonia behind him, and then the two bodyguards, Evan and Kai, walking backward in perfect synchronization. Their leopards allowed them to know when the ground changed and to feel for any objects close.
They moved in silence to the road and as they did, one by one the others joined them. All but Gray.
Sonia looked around for him. "Is Gray all right, Joshua?"
He glanced down at her. In the morning light she was gorgeous, her skin flawless. Eyes dark. Lashes long. He could see her nipples pushing against the fabric of her tee, the outline of the generous curve of her breast. "Gray's just fine. He's hanging back to make sure a sniper isn't up on the roof or in the trees looking to kill you or me. You're the one who needs to start worrying whether you're all right or not."
She frowned at him. An adorable little frown. It wouldn't get her out of trouble, but it made his cock ache and he wanted to smile. He didn't.
"Why would I not be all right? Sasha didn't hurt me."
"No, Sasha took you from me. Wait, no, Sasha didn't take you, you went right out my fuckin' front door and got into his car. Then you drove away and told your girl posse to wait five minutes to give the bastard Russian a head start."
He saw the comprehension on her face, the quick glance darted his way. "Everything turned out all right. I'm alive. Did Bastien get back?"
"The point is that you might have been dead. There was a fifty-fifty chance he'd kill you. You were the one who thought he put a bomb in your car, yet you go straight to him when he tells you to. Do you ask your man for help? Hell, no. You just run off with your murderous ex-husband."
"We were never married."
Joshua caught her hand and trotted the rest of the way to their vehicle. He yanked open the door and as she climbed into the passenger seat, he slapped her ass hard. She yelped and glared at him. He indicated her seat belt and she snapped it in place. He shut the door with controlled violence. Every time he thought of that moment when Molly came running into the kitchen to tell him that his woman had delivered herself into the hands of her ex-husband, the man who had tried to kill her, it made him sick all over again.
Everything in him had gone still. Frozen solid. Ice had run in his veins then because it had to. He had to find her and then get to her. The rage would come after, but he had to be fully functioning while he hunted for her. He yanked open the driver-side door and set the car in motion.
"Is Bastien back yet?" she asked in a small voice.
"How the hell should I know?" He knew he sounded irritated with her and he needed to take a breath, but it was there again, that feeling that he'd lost her. That the one decent thing he had was gone. He'd let her down, let those maniacs get to her. "All that mattered to me, Sonia, was finding you. For all I knew they were taking a blowtorch to you."
She winced. "I'm sorry. I knew you'd come."
"It doesn't take long for someone to hurt you. Less even to kill you. Five minutes is too long. He had you a hell of a lot longer than that."
"I know. I'm sorry, Joshua. I didn't think beyond saving Bastien, and I knew you'd come." She repeated it a second time.
He glanced at her. "I'm not beating the hell out of you, babe, if that's what's putting that scared look on your face. Spanking maybe."
"Your spankings tend to turn me on, not make me cry," she pointed out. "I'm not afraid you'll beat me or spank me. I'm afraid for Bastien. I should have insisted Sasha tell me where he is. What if he can't get free on his own?"
"We'll find him. Let me get you home. Security is already beefed up. We've got a few surprises if we're attacked. And this time, Sonia, don't you move without telling me first."
She nodded. He could feel her gaze on him. "I really am sorry I worried you, Joshua. I was so scared for Bastien. If Nikita had him . . ."
"You fuckin' knew he was already dead if Nikita had him." He glanced sideways at her, letting her know he wasn't about to listen to bullshit.
They drove in silence, and then he suddenly pounded on the steering wheel with his fist in an explosion of violence. She jumped, her heart accelerating. She glanced at his stony features and then out the window. He knew he was scaring her and he had to stop, but he'd never experienced such fear. Terror.
His world had nearly ended. Every dream he'd ever had--given up--and then felt he got back when she came to him, was gone. He'd been sick. Since that moment in Borneo, when he'd gone berserk and annihilated the five men who had taken those three young girls from the villagers, he had managed to convince himself that monster was gone. Subdued. He was one hundred percent in control. He would never repeat that shameful act. When Molly told him his woman was gone, the monster was back instantly and roaring for blood. A leopard's killing blood.
What was the point of allowing her to try to explain anything to him right at that moment? He wasn't willing to listen. Or he couldn't. Either way, she had zero chance of making him understand why she drew Sasha's crew away from his home. Maybe she didn't know why she'd done it.
Silence filled the car and he glanced over at her. She stared out the window, but he saw the tears tracking down her face. She was quiet about it, crying in silence, not trying to use tears to get her way. The sight twisted his heart. He wanted to pound the steering wheel again, because the monster was loose and it was still afraid it had lost her. Lost her to the man who had claimed her.
He had no right, Shadow snarled. None. She wasn't his. She was never his. She belongs to us.
She did. Sonia belonged to them, but she wasn't property. You heard her. She told him she chose us. She had. He'd heard every word she'd said. He glanced over again, and she had turned her face even more from him and had pressed her fingers tightly against her lips. He couldn't take it. She was his, and he wasn't doing a very good job of taking care of her. She had to have been terrified to walk out to the SUV and put herself into the hands of someone she was certain had tried to kill her. She'd been incredibly brave--not thinking straight, but brave.
"Baby, don't cry." Joshua couldn't help the soft, velvet tone. She broke his heart crying like that. He reached out and brushed a tear from her cheek. "I'm angry that I nearly lost you. When she told me . . ." He broke off, the darkness in him roaring for blood.
Now that the monster in him was loose, he wasn't certain he could stay in control. It had taken those years at Jake Bannaconni's ranch to bring him back his calm center. "Just know I'm happy I've got you back for more reasons than you know." He caught her hand, brought her fingertips to his mouth to kiss them and then pressed her palm tight to his thigh.
"I'm sorry," she whispered again. "I really am. I realize now, it wasn't the smartest plan. I just didn't want them . . ." She broke off and pressed her fingers harder into her lips.
They were home and he turned off the motor, but he didn't move. He hadn't thought he could hear her explanation and really listen, but he had the feeling her motivation hadn't been entirely about Bastien.
"Sonia. Were you protecting me?" Taking into consideration the way she was with Jerry and Molly, and if what she'd told Sasha had been true and she loved him, it would be fiercely, and yes, protectively. He wanted to swear all over again and this time pound his fist into the wall, but he forced back the monster threatening to swallow him and stayed silent and still. Looking at her.
She was beautiful in her disheveled state. He loved when she was put together, because she was gorgeous, but this was best. Her hair was falling out of the braid she'd used to tame it. Her tee was stretched tight across her breasts, so he could see the outline of the curves and the way her nipples were tight little temptations. Her jeans clung to her hips and rounded ass, cupping her bottom, putting all sorts of wonderful but dirty ideas into his head. She was barefoot, and she had small, delicate feet.
"Sonia, I'm not going to go crazy and hurt you, I am just asking for the truth."
She turned her face fully toward him and his breath caught in his throat. His body stirred. He loved her so fucking much he didn't know what to do with it.
"Can we just say I did something stupid and not get into the why of it? I acted impulsively, and I won't do it again."
He shook his head. "No, we can't." He pressed her hand tighter against his thigh.
His body felt burning hot and he knew she had to recognize the rise in his heat, know the way the fire rushed through his veins. "You were brave, Sonia, be brave now. We need to make certain this will never happen again. Tell me the real reason. Were you protecting me?"
She bit down on her bottom lip, nodding as she did so. "I didn't want him to get near you. I thought if he really wanted me dead, he'd have no reason to kill you. He might Bastien, but I couldn't prevent that one way or the other."
He took a breath and then another one, forcing his lungs to work again. Forcing himself to remain still, sitting in the seat beside her. He wasn't a hearts-and-flowers kind of man. He wanted to be that for her, but it was so alien to his nature he knew those moments for her would be rare. He was more hands-on, clothes off, anything goes any time of the day or night, no matter where they were. That was him showing her he loved her. That was his way to let her know she was beautiful and so amazing he had to show her what she did to him.
He couldn't imagine waking up without her now. Not being able to turn to her in the middle of the night when nightmares sometimes took him. She had eased the migraines he often got, so that they were fewer and far between. She was . . . his everything. "You can't ever place yourself in danger to save me. I'm able to take care of myself, Sonia. It's what I do and you have to trust that I'm good at it."
"I do know that you are," she agreed. She hesitated.
Here came the but. He forced himself to remain controlled, but he needed movement. He kissed the center of her palm and then slid out of the car, indicating for her to do the same. As he walked around the vehicle to her, he took his time, determined he wouldn't yell at her. She didn't need that, but he still wanted to shake her for putting herself in danger. She stopped moving once they got to the verandah and turned to face him.
"I love you, Joshua. I know the difference between real love for my man and affection and gratitude for the only person who was good to me during a terrible time. I don't want to lose you any more than you want to lose me."
"If that means you think it's okay to do what you did, stop right there. It's not. Not. Ever. Never." He all but snarled the last word. Where the hell was his cool and calm? He knew what she was going to say, but he still reacted. "Give me your word you'll never do anything this idiotic again and you won't try to save me."