Aequitas, Hope Anika [android pdf ebook reader .TXT] 📗

For a long moment, she only watched him, her hand warm in his. Finally, she nodded. “Okay.”

A small victory and a good beginning. Cian took it as a sign of things to come.

Even though he knew better.

“What about my name?” she asked quietly.

“That proves a problem,” Cian told her. “Seeing as how you’re dead.”

“We look alike,” she replied, a faint frown appearing between her brows. “If Hannah and I stand next to each other, it will be obvious we’re family.”

Family. Cian didn’t miss the faint yearning in her voice when she said the word; he knew the feeling too well. Being alone in the world was hard. He didn’t blame her for wanting her sister back, especially considering the circumstances which had separated them. But reality rarely matched memory. Or hope.

His hand tightened on hers. “I created an identity in the name of Elena Morris.”

Her glance flew to his. Elena was her middle name, Morris her mother’s maiden name. “Who am I?”

“A librarian from Virginia. We met when I was researching a rare text of Thomas Jefferson’s writings.”

She eyed him dubiously. “That’s not hokey at all.”

“Nay, it’s quite plausible. It’s well known that I collect the musings of early American politicians. Franklin, Jefferson, Washington. No one who knows me would be surprised.”

But she clearly was. “Seriously?”

He arched a brow.

Color touched her cheeks. She tugged at her hand, and he reluctantly released it. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

She shrugged. “For making assumptions.”

Cian leaned toward her, and her scent filled his head. “What kind of assumptions, then?”

The flush spread from her cheeks down into the vee of pale skin revealed by her dress, and Cian told himself following that wave of color with his mouth would be inappropriate.

But so bloody enjoyable.

“It’s easy to assume you’re all…brawn.” Her gaze met his. “But you’re really quite intelligent.”

Something his adversaries never realized until it was too late. “And you don’t like that?”

“I don’t like that you found me,” she said bluntly.

That truth pierced him. “Nay?”

“I thought I was safe,” she muttered. “And now…you’ve made me question everything.”

He gave in to the need to touch her, rubbing his knuckles gently over the sharp edge of her cheekbone, and she let him. “Good.”

“No.” She pulled away. “Not good at all.”

“Because you’ve finally flown from your gilded cage?” he demanded softly. “Because now—in this moment—you must live?”

“I like my cage,” she snarled.

“Because you feel safe there.”

“Yes!”

“But you aren’t,” he pointed out. “You never were.”

She stared at him, her eyes glittering like sunlit stones. “I was. Until you.”

He shook his head, his voice hard. “An illusion.”

“No.”

“Aye. And well you know it.”

“No one came close,” she growled. “No one but you.”

“Another illusion. The price on your head is too high for that to be true.”

She jerked as if he’d slapped her, taking a step back, and Cian had to stop himself from wrapping his hands around her hips and halting her.

“No,” she whispered, the color leeching from her cheeks, but when she met his gaze again, it was clear she understood that he was right.

“Best that it was me,” he told her, and the shaken look on her face had his hands on her again before he could stop them, cupping the strong, stubborn line of her jaw, his calluses rasping her silken skin. “But have no doubt there are others.”

“Good to know,” she muttered.

His hold tightened. “I’ll not let you disappear again.”

She only watched him silently, her pulse a delicate, furious beat in the hollow of her throat.

“It’s time for you to fly, a rứnsearc,” he whispered, and because he couldn’t help himself, he pressed a sweet, gentle kiss to her mouth. She gasped, and those luscious lips brushed his, and he barely stopped himself from filling her mouth with his tongue. Not fucking yet. No. But he was hard and aching, and she’d lifted her hands to tangle them in the lapels of his tux, and her fingers were digging into him, and her body—those beautiful breasts—were a hairsbreadth from touching him.

“What if I fall?” she asked, her breath catching, and he kissed her again, unable to temper the need.

“Then I’ll catch you,” he promised, and in spite of his intentions, his tongue flickered out to lick delicately at her upper lip.

“You don’t fight fair,” she accused, but her hands tightened on his coat, and she leaned into him, as if seeking another kiss.

“Nay,” he agreed roughly and acquiesced, pressing his mouth to hers, his tongue nudging her bottom lip. “I play to win.”

“Is that what this is?” she murmured. “A game?”

“No,” he growled and nipped her, and she gasped. Only the sharp clearing of a throat stopped Cian from taking her mouth as he wanted to.

“The car is waiting,” Akachi said from behind them, his tone deadpan.

Honor started and tried to pull away, but Cian only kissed her again, because he didn’t want to stop, a hard, possessive press of his mouth against hers. When her gaze met his, he let her see his desire, his need. His intent.

And then he took her hand in his and led her to the car.

If Cian Lazarus’ ability to find her no matter where she hid, and his devastating, seductive kisses weren’t enough to scare the hell out of Honor, watching him work the glittering crowd of beautiful people that filled Andrei Petrov’s home was.

Cian was charismatic and self-deprecating, mysterious but charming, and while most seemed to view him with respect, Honor saw more than a little wariness. Fear. That he was a powerful man was obvious, no matter the edge of self-mockery that honed him; that people both revered and cowed from that power was abruptly and painfully sobering.

Because Honor had compartmentalized him. Even though she knew only someone truly extraordinary would have been able to find her; even though she knew through her own research that Cian Lazarus was a highly intelligent and dangerous man, one many underestimated—sometimes fatally. That she’d been so stupid as to think she could take what she wanted from him—and leave the rest—only spoke to her own desperation to find Hannah, no matter the cost.

Foolish. And far worse, because Cian had not pretended to be anything other than what he was: a predator. No, she was the one who’d chosen to overlook that truth. Who ignorantly believed she could somehow control this man who ran his own small empire.

A man who was brutally honest and spared her nothing.

Best that it was me. But have no doubt there are others.

He was right, of course. That knowledge had been eating at her ever since his words had first scrolled across her computer screen, intrusive and unwelcome. Because no matter how good Cian was, he wasn’t alone. Her name had occupied the FBI’s Most Wanted list for the past two years, and beyond that, she’d taken down more than one powerful crime syndicate. Many, many enemies. Any number of who were working—at this very moment—to unmask and destroy her. That Cian had found her meant she was discoverable—stupid to pretend different, when she knew better than anyone that nothing was fail-proof—and that was not something she could continue to ignore and survive.

“You’re scowling, a rứnsearc.” Cian’s mouth brushed her temple, his arm tight around her waist, his hand possessive on her hip. Since the moment they’d stepped foot into Petrov’s elegant, understated home, he hadn’t taken his hands off of her, his manner both protective and affectionate. Loving. He played the role of doting fiancé to such an extreme, Honor found herself torn between running for her life and racing him to an imaginary altar. She knew it was an act, and yet he appeared so…genuine that it made her heart hurt. What would it be like, she wondered, to truly be his?

To belong to someone.

Which he no doubt wanted her to think, since he’d made no bones about his own feelings on the subject.

I’ll not let you disappear again.

But that was not his choice; it was hers. And up until that moment, she would have made it easily, without hesitation. But his kisses…her first…those had changed her. On some heretofore unknown fundamental level. They had awakened her. Not just sexually, but…to life itself.

To possibilities and