From what he'd seen of the farm, they could protect it fairly easily with enough money to buy the necessary equipment to turn it into a small fortress. He had money, and he suspected both Stefan and Lev did as well. It was never that difficult to acquire money when one stayed in the shadows and was smart about it.
If they ran together, he could protect her. She would learn how to fade into the background, how not to be seen or call attention to herself, but what kind of life was that for her? She didn't belong in his world.
"Maxim."
Airiana touched his hip and just the small brush of her hand sent his emotions spilling through him. He framed her face with his hands and looked into her eyes--those eyes could sweep him away with all that blue.
"You're a damned miracle, Airiana. You don't even know it."
She brought her hands up to curl her fingers around his wrists. "I know you're a special man, Maxim, and I want to be with you. Tell me what's wrong. I can take it. I've not let you down once. Talk to me."
He kissed her. He was best talking to her with his body. He could show her he loved her with his body much better than he could find the words a woman needed to hear. He was going to risk everything for her. He had to. There it was, the choices he always had thought were so important. He had no choice when it came to Airiana, yet she would be his choice every time.
When he lifted his head, her eyes had gone a brilliant sky blue, just the way he loved them. He swept her up again and put her in the large tub. The honeymoon tub had enough room for both of them and he slid in with her, sinking down into the hot water.
"I love the way you kiss me, Maxim," Airiana said. She leaned her head back against the porcelain, regarding him steadily. "But you still have to use your words. What are you worried about?"
He laughed. Out loud. She was priceless. She sounded like a little schoolmarm giving him a gentle lecture. "Use my words? Did you really just say that?"
"You're not getting out of this. We're a team, and we're talking about spending our lives together. We have to be able to communicate with each other."
He reached out and snagged her hand, knowing his eyes had gone flat and cold. Cold rage erupted for just one small moment, flaring through him with lethal intent. "Baby, we're well past the talking stage. We are going to spend our lives together. What the hell do you think we've been doing here, other than communicating? You made a promise to me. You're not going to back out because I'm not the prize you thought I was."
She didn't move, her gaze fixed on his face. He'd spoken in a low tone, each word distinct and biting. A slow smile curved her mouth. She gave him a look filled with so much love, her gaze soft and her smile generous, moving him like nothing else could. The anger was gone as if it had never been. Everything in him that felt wild and dangerous, settled. She was his. He saw it on her face, in her eyes, in the sweet curve of her mouth.
"Maxim, I'm not ever going to run off and leave you."
His heart turned over. He was hers forever. Always. He turned her hand over, his thumb sliding over her palm, the exact center so that the two rings came briefly to the center. So small, and yet she held him right there. In her palm. She was wrapped tightly around his heart.
"I've given myself to you. All of me. Wholly. I know how to do that, and I'm not afraid. I know you'll always be here for me," she said softly. "You have to believe the same thing of me."
17
MAXIM sighed and brought her hand to his mouth, pressing kisses into the center of her palm. "I'll get the hang of relationships, Airiana. I'm learning, it just seems I'm on the slow side."
He scraped his teeth back and forth over the two connecting rings. Hers. His. Those rings, a strange phenomenon of the Prakenskii men, had sealed their fate together. He had run like a rabbit from her in his mind for far too long. He wanted choices and felt as if that had been taken from him so he'd been a child throwing a tantrum. Now he not only accepted that Airiana was his first and only choice, but that he was a very lucky man.
"When a man who has never had anyone finds a woman like you, Airiana, he can't help but hold too tight. How could he not? Losing you would rip out what's left of my soul--and God help me--there isn't much left." He made the confession looking at her palm, at the rings, not at her face. He already knew what her expression would be.
Airiana had more compassion in her little finger than most people did in their hearts. She would understand. She probably understood him better than he did himself.
"You aren't going to lose me. I'm not the running type. If you get too far out of hand, believe me, Maxim, I'll be sitting you down and we'll be having the talk."
He kissed her open hand much more intimately, pressing his tongue into the very heart of her palm. He looked up quickly, wanting to see her eyes go wide with shock. She felt the intimate kiss deep in her very core--another wonderful phenomenon given to the Prakenskii men and their women.
Her lips parted in a little round O and she pulled her palm away from him. "That could get us in trouble."
He laughed softly. "Or keep you in line."
She examined her palm. "Does it work both ways? Can I do that to you?"
A groan escaped before he could stop it. The thought of her mouth so intimate on his body was enough to make him as hard as a rock all over again. "Yes. But please don't. Not yet. I'm really trying to be a decent man here. You need to rest and have some food. We've got all day before they come for us."
A shadow moved across her face. "Come for us? Do you think they're going to find us? Which ones? It's seems like everyone's after us."
"Evan's men? Sorbacov's men? It's all the same." He shrugged. "If they come here looking, Jorge won't point them in our direction. We're honeymooners, and he's known me for several years. No, I meant Stefan . . . Thomas and Levi," he corrected himself.
She sent him a quick, amused glance from under the sweep of her lashes, most likely remembering his first reaction to her knowing he was a Prakenskii. He had to remember to use his brothers' new identities when talking to them or referring to them.
"Thomas and Levi are going to come here?"
"If I ask, they'll come. With the two of them here, no one is going to stop us from getting home. Jorge keeps a small private airstrip for his guests and they'll be able to bring in a plane. We can take it back to the Little River Airport." He made up his mind. With his brothers, he could protect her better.
She brought up her knees and hugged them, an action he realized she did when she was nervous. "I want to go home more than anything, Maxim. You know I do, and it's all I think about . . ." She sent him a shy look. "When I'm not thinking about you. But I don't want to put the people I love in danger."
"I think they're already in danger whether you're there or not. If Evan gets his hands on any one of them, you'd attempt to give yourself up for them."
"Attempt?" She raised her eyebrow.
"I wouldn't allow you to be so foolish." He caught her chin when she would have protested and looked into her eyes, wanting her to know he meant every word he said. "I can't be anything but who I am, Airiana. I'll always protect you, even from yourself. You can't expect less of me. Sometimes you aren't going to agree with my decisions, but when it comes to your protection, you aren't going to win any arguments."
Airiana chewed on her lower lip while she turned over and over in her mind his declaration. He was obviously stating a fact to her, one she had to think about. She knew he would be dominant and a little overbearing at times, but she saw into him and knew he was a good man who would always put her first. She hadn't quite thought that part all the way through. Putting her first meant sometimes he would decide what was best for her, rather than talking it over.
She let her gaze drift over him. He would never be considered handsome, he was far too rough-looking for that, but she loved his face. He was all hard planes and angles, scars and a perpetual five-o'clock shadow. His eyes were hooded and reminded her often of a predatory bird watching prey from a lof
ty height. His shoulders were wide, his chest thick, and there wasn't a place on him that didn't ripple with muscle when he moved. He exuded absolute confidence in everything he did--except when it came to her.
Even now, on the outside he appeared calm and implacable, his expression set in stone, but she could feel him holding himself very still. He would never be as sure of her as he would want to be and that would cause him to react in ways that she might not like.
"I can see patterns in the air, in the movement of air," she said. "Just as I can see mathematical equations, I can see patterns. You're there in those patterns, Maxim. The love you feel for me runs deep and true. I can count on it, like the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. It's always going to be there. Do you see in patterns? Can you see me in them?"
He would hold too tight until he could believe she would always be his. That was inevitable.