Midnight Alpha (13 page)

She crossed the room to begin searching through the well-stocked cupboards. Unfortunately the first few she looked in didn’t have any medicine, only food—and if Gaia didn’t get something for this pain soon, then she was either going to start screaming or just lay down on the polished wooden floor and cry.

Self-pity was not an option. Losing her mother and then Angela had shown Gaia that feeling sorry for herself achieved nothing, except to make her feel more miserable. She was a doer rather than a wallower—

“Like to tell me what the hell it is you’re looking for in those cupboards so passionately?”

Gaia turned around so fast at the harsh sound of Gregori’s voice that it made her head spin, forcing her to reach out and grasp the back of one of the chairs set under the table in the middle of the room as a way to stop herself from falling.

Her head spun all over again when she took in the sight of Gregori standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing only a pair of black cotton sweatpants that rested low down on the leanness of his hips, revealing every defined muscle—even the two going down to his groin—and sinew of his bare upper torso.

Chapter 9

Gaia couldn’t do anything else but stand there and gape at him. Those suits really did hide the most amazing body.

It seemed to be becoming an occupational hazard around this man, but once again Gaia’s mouth had gone dry and she was finding it difficult to breathe.

Her aching cheek no longer seemed of such paramount importance either.

Probably because she was totally distracted by the way those sweats rested so low on Gregori’s hips. So low they revealed the defined bulge pressing against the softness of the black fabric. Indicating he wasn’t wearing anything beneath them? Whatever, that bulge was definitely semi-erect, and seemed to be becoming more so with every tick of the kitchen clock in the otherwise silent room.

It took tremendous effort of will for Gaia to drag her gaze up from staring at that revealing bulge and instead look at Gregori’s face. “I thought you were going back to Utopia?” His state of undress, tousled hair, and the light dusting of dark stubble on his jaw looked as if he had just gotten out of bed.

“It was so late once I’d finished talking to Nikolai that I didn’t bother,” he dismissed lightly as he stepped further into the kitchen.

Gaia would have worried about how ominous that statement sounded if it wasn’t taking all of her concentration not to drool at the sight of all his tanned and naked flesh. And if Gregori’s presence alone hadn’t just made the room seem so much smaller and—and intimate.

“Gaia?”

Ah yes, he’d asked her a question. Something about what she was doing in the kitchen. What was she doing in here? Damned if Gaia knew anymore.

It wasn’t helping her thinking processes that Gregori was now stalking towards her, muscles rippling as he walked lightly on bared feet—what was it about a man’s bare feet that was so damned sexy? She had no idea, but Gregori definitely had sexy feet. Sexy everything. Sexy hair. Sexy eyes. Sexy mouth. Sexy shoulders. Sexy chest. Sexy—

“I should have given you one of my T-shirts to wear.” Gregori came to a halt just in front of her, dark eyes glittering with appreciation as his gaze swept over her—slowly—from head to toe and then back up to her face.

The huskiness of his voice wrapped itself about Gaia’s senses before settling deep inside her, making it impossible for her to think of anything but the man standing in front of her. Gregori was standing so close she could smell the lemon and sandalwood of his aftershave, and the hot male musk of his body. A body that her fingers ached to reach out and touch.

He obviously felt the same physical pull, his breathing ragged as his gaze slid down again, lingering on the fullness of her breasts beneath the too-small nightshirt, instantly causing her nipples to tingle and swell to hard, aroused pebbles.

Gregori’s nostrils flared as he drew in the scent of her arousal. “You seemed to be looking for something when I came in?” The huskiness of his voice held none of its previous harshness.

“Painkillers,” the word came in a rush as she finally remembered what she was doing down here. “I woke up because my cheek hurts.” Did she sound whiny? God, she hoped she didn’t sound whiny. She couldn’t stand women who sounded whiny. As if they were too delicate to even peel themselves a grape—

Was she becoming feverish? If she was then it owed nothing to the graze on her cheek and everything to the man who had just moved past her to open one of the cupboards behind her, the heat of his body brushing against hers and causing her to shiver in reaction.

Gregori turned to hand her two white tablets before going to the sink and getting her a glass of cold water. “I should have thought to give you some of these earlier.” He stood over her as she took the tablets before depositing the empty glass in the sink.

Gaia turned to watch him—she couldn’t help herself—and thoroughly enjoyed the view. Gregori looked so much younger out of those formal suits he favored, and with his hair tousled over his brow.

“How did you know I was down here?” she prompted curiously as he seemed to be keeping his physical distance, only that telltale bulge in his sweatpants to show he wasn’t as unaffected by this situation as he wished to appear.

He leaned back against the sink unit, arms folded across that beautifully muscled chest. “Motion sensors.”

Motion sensors?

As in it was possible for him to know if someone was moving about in the house? Those sort of motion sensors?

“They come on in the rest of the house once my bedroom door is closed at night, and I’m alerted if there’s an intruder,” it was only when Gregori answered her question that she realized she must have spoken it out loud.

Bulletproof windows. Motion sensors inside the house. Guards outside protecting the grounds. Bodyguards wherever he went.

How did Gregori live like this? It was so—so claustrophobic. So limiting. No wonder he was so controlled all the time: there was simply no room for spontaneity in his life.

Apart from when he made love to her earlier. And then again when he followed her after she left Utopia.

She was pretty sure that neither of those had been planned.

Yes, and look how well that had turned out. Oh not the making love part, but following her. One random act of spontaneity and someone had shot at him. Or her. It didn’t really matter which, someone had taken advantage of Gregori being without his usual bodyguards to shoot at them. Which meant there must be someone watching his every move.

“Is it always like this?” Gaia tried to infuse some lightness into her tone. “Or did you do something extra special recently to piss someone off?” She knew she failed miserably as her voice lowered with apprehension.

She just couldn’t imagine living like this. Unable to go for a walk, or to the shops, without it becoming the big production of having to alert someone to follow and guard her. But maybe Gregori had always lived this way? Maybe to him this was normal?

The fact that she was still aroused, and totally physically aware of this man in spite of all that, had to be totally screwed up. Didn’t it? If nothing else, it was ridiculous under the circumstances.

But maybe their lovemaking earlier was the reason for that telling bulge in the front of his sweatpants? Gregori had given her orgasm after orgasm earlier, but hadn’t taken a single one himself. He had even gotten as far as putting a condom on that beautiful cock of his but hadn’t gotten any further before she came to her senses and they ended up having an argument before she walked—ran—out.

Surely she wasn’t feeling guilty because Gregori hadn’t come earlier?

Or maybe she was just projecting onto him what she now wanted? Him. Inside her, as he had threatened, fucking her.

“Someone
thinks
I’ve done something to piss him off,” he now answered her guardedly.

Orlov, Gaia guessed easily. Not that she could admit to knowing that, because she was supposed to have been unconscious when she listened in on his conversation with Nikolai. “And have you?” she prompted casually.

“No,” he bit out tersely, running a hand through his already tousled hair—maybe the reason it was tousled in the first place? He didn’t look as if he could have been asleep when those motion sensors alerted him to the fact that someone was moving about in the house: his eyes were dark with fatigue, his cheeks slightly pale.

“Why does he think you have?”

Gregori shrugged, muscles flexing as he watched her intently. “His name is Ivan Orlov. His son Sergei is dead, and he needs someone to blame for that death.”

Gaia drew her breath in sharply. Orlov’s son was dead and he believed Gregori was responsible? In the same way her sister was dead and she had no idea as yet
who
was responsible?

Angela, unlike Gaia, had grown up the only child in a family where she was cherished and loved and provided for, whereas Gaia and her mother often had to go without because they simply didn’t have the money. Then had come the two hard years of her mother’s illness. All of those things had toughened Gaia in a way Angela could never have been.

She knew Angela, and she was convinced now the man she was looking for was neither Gregori nor Nikolai Volkov; they simply weren’t the sort of men Angela would ever have fallen in love with.

Which was something, she supposed. At least she had eliminated two men from the thirty or so working at or within Utopia. She couldn’t disregard the rest of Gregori’s bodyguards in the same way she had Nikolai, or the other men working in Utopia.

Gregori frowned as he saw Gaia shiver. Because she was cold? Although he couldn’t see how she could be in the warmth of the kitchen. Something else then? Perhaps a guilty conscience?

“Perhaps you should go back to bed now and try to get some more rest?” he suggested abruptly, knowing that if one of them didn’t leave the kitchen soon, he was in danger of embarrassing himself when the top of his swollen and aching cock popped out of the top of his sweats.

He should have taken care of the problem himself in the shower earlier, as he had been doing for months. But he had never particularly cared for relieving himself that way, was always left with a feeling of dissatisfaction in the act. Even more so when he knew the cause of that arousal was actually in the same house at him.

There were always willing women at Utopia, of course. Beautiful, sophisticated woman who would think nothing of spending an hour or two in Gregori’s bed. Gregori had lost his taste for those encounters, and those vacuous women some time ago.

Only for that interest to have now narrowed down to a single woman.

A woman who wasn’t in the least vacuous.

A woman who wasn’t sophisticated.

A woman with secrets to hide.

Secrets he should know before taking this any further.

Secrets Gregori found he really didn’t give a fuck about as he looked down at Gaia.

He hadn’t been able to get the feel and taste of her out of his head, no matter how much he had tried by taking a shower and brushing his teeth. He could still taste her. Salty and sweet combined, a taste he could become addicted to.

That he was already addicted to?

An addiction that certainly wasn’t going to go away when she looked the way she did right now!

What the hell had he been thinking earlier, giving her one of Katya’s old nightshirts to wear? His sister’s nightshirt was far too small on her, causing it to ride upwards, so that the red curls between Gaia’s thighs and the cheeks of her delicious ass were barely covered.

Gregori knew she wasn’t wearing any panties either, because he had ripped them off her earlier, and the bag Nikolai had brought from her apartment was still sitting on the desk in his locked study.

Locked because the photographs Nikolai had brought with him earlier were now in a drawer of Gregori’s desk.

Photographs that raised more questions than they answered. Photographs that really should have succeeded in dampening Gregori’s desire for this woman.

Except they didn’t. His cock wanted what it wanted, and what it wanted right now was Gaia, and to hell with whom or what she may or may not be involved with.

Gregori’s knuckles turned white as his hands clasped the edge of the sink behind him in an effort to stop himself from crossing the room and taking her in his arms. A move guaranteed to put an end to his already tenuous control.

“Are you feeling any better?” he prompted gruffly.

Her hand moved up instinctively to touch the gauze on her cheek. “I’m fine. Thank you,” she added belatedly, her gaze now avoiding meeting his.

“Perhaps I should take another look, just to make sure the wound hasn’t become inflamed.” Gregori pushed away from the sink, unable to stop himself from moving towards her. “I put some strips on it earlier, but maybe it wasn’t enough?”

Her eyes widened the closer he got. “I’m sure it’s okay—”

“Sit,” he instructed abruptly as he pulled out a chair from beneath the kitchen table for her.

Even though he knew this was a bad idea.

A very bad idea.

After frowning at Gregori for several long seconds, she finally sat.

None of the men Gaia had been involved with had ever ordered her around in the arrogant way that Gregori did. Nor was she sure she would have responded if they had. It was different with Gregori.
He
was different.