With a twist and a rip, I yanked the rope off her ankles. She let out a small moan which tingled my ears. How could she get me to react this way to her?My own legs trembled as I rose to my feet. I clenched my hands at my sides, my body tight and aching for what I could not have. It wasn't just that I couldn't have her that drove me insane. It was her purity and complete innocence. It was the way she looked into my eyes with pure innocence and didn't react like other girls. It was her little to no efforts to impress me. I had never been around a woman who acted that way. All the women I knew did everything for me to be pleased. They didn't question my decision or make me blurt out my thoughts like Lyra did. She was made of something different and it was intoxicating. It made me want her even more but I knew I couldn't have her. “I shouldn’t have tied you up,” I said in a low voice. I wasn't used to acknowledging my fault but with her, it happened often that I ever imagined. “I sho
Catching up with her easily, I grabbed her hand and pulled her roughly all the way to the top of the dune. Then I abruptly released her. It was time to tell her the painful truth.“Look where you are, Lyra,” I raged at her. “Look around you, goddamn it!”With an intake of breath, Lyra turned in a circle, looking in every direction from the top of the dune. It was like standing in the middle of an ocean, surrounded by endless waves of sand. I saw the way her eyes were slowly filled with gleamers of sadness.“There’s a reason why I brought you here,” I said quietly. “I brought you here because you can't leave without my help. There is nowhere for you to go. You are trapped here until I am willing to let you go. And that is not happening anytime soon.”She went in circles for five minutes before the truth of his words sank in on her, and she collapsed in a heap on the sand. “I can’t stay here.” She whispered. "My sister might be in danger. I want to save her. You have to let me go. Pleas
IllyraSeven hours later, I had never felt so sweaty and filthy in my life. I had cleaned Andrei's house and I felt like a filthy maid. But I was glad.With a sigh, I squeezed my sponge over the bucket of soapy water I was using to clean his house. There was still almost no dirt—I guessed Andrei's team of servants had cleaned the place top to bottom the day before. It was the only logical reason she was cleaning the entire place with little or no dirt. But he’d still made me scrub every inch of the enormous house’s marble floor. I knew it angered him when I admitted I preferred to clean the entire house than sleep with him. He was punishing me but I didn't care. I narrowed my eyes. Tyrannical and proud man. My back ached, as did my arms and legs. Hours and hours, I had cleaned the entire house. But—and this was the part I was happy about—I’d done it all with my clothes on. He’d thought a little cleaning could humiliate me? I worked in the resort as a housekeeper, scrubbing toilets
At the sound of Andrei's husky voice from the doorway, she jumped, whirling around. “You—you knew I was sleeping?” she stammered.His gaze was intense as he came toward her. “Yes.”She felt suddenly very small as his tall body loomed over hers. She licked her lips. “So why didn’t you wake me up and start bossing me around?”Reaching out, he brushed a tendril of hair out of her eyes. “Because you looked like an angel. I couldn't wake you up. Besides, you have been working all day. You must be exhausted.”His voice was low. Sensual. Illyra’s eyes widened as she looked up—no, not at his lips! His eyes! Trembling with awareness at how they were once again alone in his bedroom, she tightened her hands at her sides. “Um. Thanks. For letting me borrow your bed.” She edged away from it. “I should probably be getting back to work....”His eyes glimmered. “Our bed.”“What?”Andrei's large hand wrapped around the post’s polished wood. “You called it my bed. It is ours.”Her lips parted. Then she
Flashes of heat went up and down her body. His hands on her shoulders were heavy, sensual, like points of light. With an intake of breath, she ripped herself away from him.“Dream on,” she said, tossing her head with every ounce of bravado she possessed. He shrugged. “Then I’ll have to find some other way to make you useful.”Illyra started to reach for the bucket and sponge, but he stopped her. “No. You are right. Enough cleaning.” He gave a sudden wicked grin. “You will cook for me.”Her jaw dropped. He must have forgotten the last time she’d cooked for him, taking a romantic date idea from a magazine. It had been romantic, all right—she’d nearly burned the cabin down, and then the firemen had been called. “You can’t be serious.”Andrea lifted a dark eyebrow. “Because you’re still a terrible cook?”She glared at him. “Because you know I would poison you!”“I know you won’t, because we will share the meal.” He leaned forward and said softly, “Tonight I am craving...something deliciou
Andrei should have known not to make her cook.He’d thought that Illyra, at age twenty-eight, might have improved her skills. No. If possible, she’d grown even more hopeless in the kitchen. The attempt had been a complete disaster, even before the raw yolks had been flung all over—perhaps a merciful end before they could be added to the burned, lumpy mess in the sauté pan.Cleaning up, he dumped it all out and started fresh. Forty minutes later, he sat at the table on the patio and tasted his finished soufflé, and gave a satisfied sigh.He would not ask Illyra to make food again.Andrei knew how to cook. He just preferred not to. When he was growing up, his family had had nothing. His father tried his best to keep up the six-hundred-acre homestead, but he’d had his head in the clouds—the kind of man who would be mulling over a book of Russian philosophy and not notice that their newborn calf had just wandered away from its mother to die in a snowdrift. Andrei's mother, a former wait
An hour later, Lyra was in the tent, bathed, comfortable and wearing clean clothes. And more determined than ever to escape.Okay, so her phone didn’t work and her impulsive escape attempt had been laughable. But she couldn’t stay here. Whatever Viktor thought, she couldn’t just be patient. She had no intention of abandoning Illyra for weeks in her ex-boyfriend’s clutches and trusting all would be well.Why had Viktor even insisted on keeping her here? There was no reason he couldn’t have her sign some kind of letter of intent or something, promising to give him the property. Something just didn’t add up. She felt as if she’d become almost as much a prisoner as Illyra was. Two prisoners for two brothers, she thought grimly. Could their lives get any worse? And yet...Lyra brushed her long brown hair until it tumbled softly over her shoulders. Somehow, he’d also made her feel free. As if she, of all people, could be daring enough to travel around the world, learn to drive on a Lambor
Lyra looked for him now, turning her head right and left. She pictured his handsome face, so intense, so ruthless. No wonder, under the magneticforce of his complete attention, she’d once felt infatuated—at least before she’d realized he was a liar and kidnapper. Her brief crush wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about. With Viktor ’s chiseled good looks, electric-blue eyes and low, husky voice—and the sensual stroke of his practiced fingertips, rough against her skin—any woman would have felt wildlyattracted. But her crush was over now. Her hands tightened. She wasn’t going to let him stop her from doing what she needed to do.But it couldn’t hurt to be fortified with dinner before her escape. Her stomach growled. Calories would give her energy, which would give her ideas. Lyra looked around for the dining tent. The sun was setting at a rapid pace.A man in an indigo turban bowed in front of her. “Princess,” he said in accented English.Princess...? She blushed. “Oh. Yes. Hello. Co