“Which I promise you will get when we are under way.”

Worst case scenario: if I didn’t like what he had to say, I could run from him at the airport, straight into the arms of security guards.

Sevastyan crossed to stand in front of me. The soft light caressed his hard features. They were almost too masculine. His rugged jaw was wide, the bridge of his aquiline nose slightly askew, giving him a roguish look. But on the whole, he was devastatingly attractive, with that dangerous aura about him.

“You must trust me, pet,” he said as he reached forward to gently grasp my chin.

At his touch, that dizzying heat filled me once more. It was just the liquor at work, I assured myself, or exhaustion catching up with me. Or my unsuccessful bath time.

“You know my intent isn’t to harm you,” he murmured. “Otherwise, I could have led you from that bar earlier, taking you somewhere for us to be alone.” My breaths went shallow at that. “Would you not have left with me?”

In—a—heartbeat.

He leaned down to say at my ear, “That’s right, Natalya. You would have followed where I led.”

“Um . . . uh . . .” I was still recovering from the sound of my name in his raspy accent when I felt his warm breaths. Oh, God, had his lips ghosted over my ear? If his scent and heat had affected me, this grazing contact made my legs weak.

He drew back, expression inscrutable. “So why don’t you stop acting like you haven’t already made up your mind to come with me.”

“P-pardon?”

“You were decided as soon as you heard the words Russia, father, and go.” His firm lips thinned, making that razor-slice scar whiten.

“That’s not necessarily true—”

“Time’s up, pet.” He bent down to loop an arm around my ass, hoisting me over his shoulder.

Chapter 3

“PUT ME DOWN!” I screeched, wriggling over the Neanderthal’s shoulder as he strode out the front door. Cold air swept up my robe, chilling me in unfamiliar places. “You can’t do this!”

He tightened his grip on my ass. “Doing it.” His tone was casual; he wasn’t even out of breath.

Another futile round of squirming. “Please put me down. We’ll go back inside”—I’ll run away—“and then I can pack, just like you said.”

Three passersby ambled down the sidewalk, huge no-neck guys in letterman jackets. Husker football players! They stopped and gawked.

Hanging upside down, blood rushing to my head, I opened my mouth to scream for their help—then hesitated. Did I believe what Sevastyan had told me? Was I beset by an overbearing a**hole of a bodyguard—or being abducted? If I screamed, the jocks would kick Sevastyan’s ass, which wouldn’t help me get to Russia—

This decision, just like the previous one, was yanked out of my hands. Sevastyan turned to face them, slowly shaking his head. Whatever look he gave them made three massive football players hotfoot the other way.

As they vanished, I pounded on Sevastyan’s back in frustration, stunned to feel a holster. He was carrying a gun! I didn’t have time to register my shock before he was shoving me into the front passenger seat of a luxe Mercedes.

As soon as he shut the door, I lunged for the handle, but he’d already clicked the lock, holding it down with the remote.

At his door, he gave me a look of warning through the window. He knew he’d have to release the lock button to get in, giving me a chance to escape. The unlock game. I would time it perfectly, reflexes like lightning—

Shit! He’d opened his door, then jammed the lock button back down before I could open my side!

He slid his big body into the car. “Better luck with that next time.”

“This is kidnapping!”

“I told you my intentions. Gave you a countdown.” He started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “Understand me, Natalie, I do exactly what I say I’ll do. Always.” He smoothly executed turn after turn, as if he knew this town as well as I did. “And right now I’m telling you that I will get you safely to your father in Russia.”

“How do you think you’ll get me through airport security like this?” I waved my hands to indicate my robe. “I don’t even have my purse!”

“We’re going to a private airport. And by the time we land in Moscow, you’ll have all new clothes brought to the jet.”

New clothes? Jet? Was he serious?

His gaze landed on my legs, on my half-bared thighs. And with that one dark glance, my skin flushed. I couldn’t help recalling the way he’d looked down on me in the bath.

Like a hungry predator eyeing tender prey.

Like I was already a caught thing, his to enjoy. I shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked. “You look . . . chilled.”

Chilled? Oh. Because my ni**les were still jutting. Yes, I was cold, but my body was also suffering the aftereffects of my foiled mast**bation attempt. To be so close, drawing in on myself . . .

In some ways, I felt the same now. Tense, drawn, my skin prickling with awareness each time he looked at me.

When I didn’t answer him, Sevastyan turned on the heater, and hot air blasted against my chest, over the hypersensitive tips of my br**sts. I nearly yelped when I felt the seat warmer toasting the cleft of my ass. In the close confines of the car, I got another hit of his mind-numbing scent.

So much stimulation. Could he see me trembling?

Once we were on the main highway heading out of town, the car purring along at eighty miles per hour, he commanded, “Put on your seat belt.”

I didn’t like this tone at all, heard it constantly at my server jobs. “Or what?” I narrowed my eyes. “And did you really call me pet earlier?”

“When I tell you to do something, it’s in your best interest to do it, pet.” Without warning, he reached over to yank my seat belt into place, roughly grazing my br**sts with his forearm, filling my head with his scent. I squirmed on the hot seat, feeling dazed by this arrogant man.

I remembered one time when I’d been written up for public intoxication after a football game; I’d been mentally yelling at myself to sober up, willing myself to recover my wits so I could talk the cop out of the expensive citation. Stop chuckling, Nat, and answer the nice officer! Not OSSIFER, dumbass! Do NOT touch his shiny, shiny badge, do not—DAMN IT, NAT!

I felt like that now: under the influence.

Sevastyan affected me in a way I couldn’t shake. I was experiencing a bewildering attraction to him, some inexplicable connection.

And no matter how bad an idea it was, I kept wanting—metaphorically—to touch his badge.

No, no, no—I needed to concentrate on getting information out of him. “Do you keep your promises, Sevastyan?”

“To you and your father alone.”

“You promised me answers.”

His hands tightened on the wheel, those sexy rings of his digging into the leather. “Once we are on the plane.”

“Why not now? I need to know more about my parents.”

He didn’t deign to respond, just monitored the rearview mirror with that wary alertness.

I remembered his earlier demeanor, checking the street through my bedroom blinds. “What’s up with this paranoia? We’re in Lincoln, Nebraska; the most dangerous thing that’s ever happened here was when this Russian a**hole kidnapped an unwitting co-ed—in her robe.”

The speedometer hit triple digits.

“Are we . . . are we being followed?”

Another glance into the rearview. “Not at present.”

“Which indicates we might have been in the past—or perhaps could be in the future?” This was too bizarre. “Am I in some kind of danger?” Questions about my parents and past faded as dread about my immediate future surfaced.

With reluctance, he said, “Kidnapping for ransom is always a fear.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t buy that. What you just described sounds like a chronic problem, or a theoretical one. Yet you broke into my house and demanded that we leave in five minutes, which sounds like an acute problem. So what happened between the time I saw you in the bar and the time you entered my home?”

Sidelong glance. “I think you have your father’s cunning.”

“Answer me. What happened?”

“Kovalev called and gave me the order to get you on a plane. Which means it’s as good as done.”

A sudden thought struck me. “How long have you been my bodyguard, Sevastyan?”

“Not long,” he hedged.

“How—long?”

He hiked his broad shoulders. “A little over a month.”

And I’d never known. “Have you been following me around? Watching me all this time?”

A muscle ticked in his wide jaw. “I’ve been watching over you.”

Then he would know me better than I could even imagine. So what would a man like him think of me?

When he turned off the highway at an obscure exit, I cried, “Wait! Where are we going? There’s no airport out this way. Not even an executive one.”

“I had to arrange an alternative departure point.”

Alternative? I’d promised myself that if I didn’t like his answers, I’d flee into the arms of a security guard. I’d gotten few answers, and now had serious doubts about running into any guards.

After a few miles, he turned onto a dirt road that bisected a cornfield. We drove and drove until a clearing appeared ahead, what looked like a crop-duster airstrip. At one end, a jet awaited, beacon lights flashing, engines radiating heat in the night air.

To take me to Russia. This was all . . . real.

Sevastyan parked near the jet, but didn’t open his door. “I understand you have questions,” he said in a milder tone. “I’ll answer any I can when we’re in the air. But you must believe me, Natalie, you won’t regret taking this step. You’ll enjoy your new life very much.”

“New life?” I sputtered. “What are you talking about? I happen to enjoy my current life.”

“Do you, pet? You sought him,” Sevastyan said. “Relentlessly. Something was driving you.”

I glanced away, unable to argue with that.

“And now you’ll never have to work again, can buy anything you like. You can travel the world, see all the places on those postcards on your refrigerator.”

My dream. “This is a lot to take in, and I don’t like making big decisions under pressure.”

“Will it suffice for you to know that Kovalev is a good man, and he wants to make up for all the years he’s missed with you?”

“If our situations were reversed, could you take this step?”

He nodded easily. “When I first started working for Kovalev’s organization, I trusted that my life would be better with him in it. I’ve never regretted my decision.” He must’ve seen I was still unconvinced. Exhaling with frustration, he ordered, “Just stay here.”

He climbed out of the car and crossed to the jet with long-legged strides. The pilot—a tall, muscular blond in a uniform—met him at the bottom of the stairs, gesturing and speaking heatedly. I caught the cadences of Russian, but couldn’t make out the words over the humming engines.

Out of habit, I surveyed the man, noting that his well-worn belt was cinched tighter than its regular notch and his shoes were meticulously polished. Recent illness? Lots of downtime? Then I saw his hands, saw the same kinds of tattoos that marked Sevastyan’s fingers.

At that, my niggling suspicion couldn’t be stifled. I’d studied all aspects of the land of my birth enough to know about the Russkaya Mafiya—and how they favored tattoos like that.

And really, what were the odds that a billionaire over there wasn’t tied to organized crime in some way? Not to mention that Sevastyan had kidnapped me, with the intention to smuggle me—passportless—into the country.

Had I scrimped and toiled and searched, only to connect myself to a mobster?

The pilot continued to vent. My thoughts continued to race.

Then silent, menacing Sevastyan took one ominous step forward; the pilot backed down, hands raised.

A single step had cowed that big pilot. Maybe Sevastyan could’ve taken those three jocks. Because he was dangerous.

And he wanted to drag me into his world.

Follow the chain of logic, Nat. If Kovalev was mafiya, then no good could come of this hasty midnight jaunt to the motherland.

Did I believe I was in some kind of danger? Maybe. Did I trust Sevastyan to protect me? Not more than I trusted myself.

At that moment, I decided to decline the “new life” that some strange man on the other side of the world envisioned for me. If Kovalev wanted to talk to me, he could pick up the phone!

And Sevastyan? I still felt that bewildering attraction to him, that weird sense of connection. I forced myself to ignore it.

With him occupied, I cracked open my door and slipped outside. I drew my robe tight, stealing closer to the cornfield. Naturally the one night I needed to escape the mob, the moon was a bright ball in the sky. At least the field would provide cover. This close to harvest, the stalks were tall and dense, the leaves lush.

Almost there. My breaths smoked. Almost—

“Natalie,” Sevastyan bellowed, “do not run!”

I took off in a sprint, charging into the rows.

Chapter 4

Corn leaves slapped my face, raking my hair. My bare feet kicked up loose soil.

How much of a head start had I managed? Was he already crashing behind me?

“Stop this, Natalie!”

I gave a cry. My God, he was fast! I’d felt like prey before; now I literally was. This man was running me down, bent on capturing me! I dug deeper, sprinting even faster—