Untamed Billionaire's Innocent Bride

Dominik jerked his chin toward one of the heavy chairs that sat before his fire. Why there were two, he would never know, since he never had guests. But when he’d imagined the perfect cabin and the fireplace that would dominate it, he had always envisioned two cozy leather chairs, just like these. So here they were.

And he had the strangest sensation, as Lauren went and settled herself into one of them, that he had anticipated this moment. It was almost as if the chair had been waiting for her all this time.

He shook that off, not sure where such a fanciful notion had come from. But very sure that he didn’t like it. At all.

He dropped into the chair opposite hers, and lounged there, doing absolutely nothing at all to accommodate her when he let his long legs take over the space between them. He watched her swallow, as if her throat was dry, and he could have offered her a drink.

But he didn’t.

“I thought you intended to convince me to do your bidding,” he said after a moment, when the air between them seemed to get thick. Fraught. Filled with premonition and meaning, when he wanted neither. “Perhaps things are different where you’re from, but I would not begin an attempt at persuasion by insulting the very person I most wanted to come around to my way of thinking. Your mileage may vary, of course.”

She blinked at him, and it was almost as if she’d forgotten why they were there. She shrugged out of that wrap at last, then folded her hands in her lap, and Dominik let his gaze fall all over her. Greedily. As if he’d never seen a woman before in all his days.

She was sweet and stacked, curvy in all the right places. Her hair gleamed like gold in the firelight, the sleek ponytail at her nape pulled forward over one shoulder. There was a hint of real gold at her throat, precisely where he wanted to use his teeth—gently, so gently, until she shuddered. Her breasts begged for a man’s hands and his face between them, and it would take so little. He could shift forward, onto his knees, and take her in hand that easily.

He entertained a few delicious images of himself doing just that.

And she didn’t exactly help matters when she pulled that plump lower lip of hers between her teeth, the way he’d like to do.

But Dominik merely sank deeper into his chair, propped his head up with his fist, and ignored the demands of the hardest, greediest part of him as he gazed at her.

“I would be delighted to persuade you,” she said, and did he imagine a certain huskiness in her voice? He didn’t think he did. “I expected to walk in here and find you living on a pallet on the floor. But you clearly like your creature comforts. That tells me that while you might like your solitude, you aren’t exactly hiding from the world. Or not completely. So what would it take to convince you to step back into it?”

“You have yet to explain to me why that is something I should want, much less consider doing.”

“You could buy a hundred cabins and litter them about all the forests of Europe, for a start.”

He lifted one shoulder, then let it fall. “I already have a cabin.”

And properties across the globe, but he didn’t mention that.

“You could outfit this cabin in style,” she suggested brightly. “Make it modern and accessible. Imagine the opportunities!”

“I never claimed to live off the grid, did I? I believe you are the one who seems to think this cabin belongs in the Stone Age. I assure you, I have as much access to the modern world as I require.”

Not to mention his other little shack that wasn’t a shack at all, set farther up the mountainside and outfitted with the very latest in satellite technology. But that was yet another thing that could remain his little secret.

“You could buy yourself anything you wanted.”

“All you have to offer me is money,” he said after a moment. “I already told you, I have my own. But the fact that you continue to focus on it tells me a great deal about you, I think. Does this brother of mine not pay you well?”

She stiffened at that, and a crease appeared between her brows. “Mr. Combe has always been remarkably generous to me.”

He found the color on her cheeks...interesting. “I cannot tell if that means he does or does not pay you what you deserve. What’s the going rate for the kind of loyalty that would lead a woman clearly uncomfortable with the outdoors to march off into the forest primeval, deep into the very lair of a dangerous stranger?”

Her chin tipped up at that, which he should not have found as fascinating as he did. “I fail to see how my salary is your business.”

“You have made anything and everything my business by delivering yourself to my door.” And if he was overly intrigued by her, to the point his fingers itched with the need to touch her all over that curvy body until she sounded significantly less cool, that was his burden to carry. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

The color on her cheeks darkened. The crease between her brows deepened. And it shouldn’t have been possible to sit any straighter in that chair, but she managed it.

“I have already told you why I’m here, Mr. James.”

“I’m sure they told you in the village that I come in at least once a week for supplies. You could have waited for me there, surrounded by creature comforts and room service. There was no need at all to walk through the woods to find me, particularly not in those shoes.”

She looked almost smug then. As if he’d failed some kind of test.

“You don’t need to concern yourself with my shoes,” she said, and crossed her legs, which had the immediate effect of drawing his attention to the shoes in question. Just as she’d intended, he assumed. “I find them remarkably comfortable, actually.”

“That you find them comfortable, or want me to think you do, doesn’t mean they are. And it certainly doesn’t make them practical for a brisk hike on a dirt path.”

That gaze of hers was the color of a sweet, sticky dessert, and he wanted to indulge. Oh, how he wanted to indulge. Especially when her eyes flashed at him, once again letting him know that she felt superior to him.

Little did she know, he found that entertaining.

Even as it made him harder.

“In my experience, anyone who is concerned with the practicality of my footwear is casting about in desperation for some way to discount what I have to say,” she told him. “Focus on my shoes and we can make sweeping generalizations about what sort of person I am, correct? Here’s a little secret. I like pretty shoes. They don’t say anything about me except that.”

Dominik grinned, taking his time with it and enjoying it when she swallowed. Hard.

“Let me hasten to assure you that I’m in no way desperate. And I would love nothing more than to discount what you say, but you have said very little.” He held her gaze. “Make your case, if you can. Explain to me why I should leave the comfort of my home to embrace this family who have ignored me for a lifetime already. I’m assuming it would be convenient for them in some way. But you’ll understand that’s not a compelling argument for me.”

“I already told you. The paparazzi—”

He shook his head. “I think we both know that it is not I who would dislike it if your reporters found me here. I am perfectly content to deal with trespassers in my own way.” He could see by the way her lips pressed together that she was imagining exactly how he might handle trespassers, and grinned wider. “But this rich boss of yours would not care for the exposure, I imagine. Is that not why you have made your way here, after searching for me so diligently? To convince me that his sudden, surpassing concern for my privacy is a genuine display of heretofore unknown brotherly love rather than his own self-interest?”

“Mr. Combe was unaware that he had a brother until recently,” she replied, but her voice had gone cool. Careful, perhaps. “If anything should convince you about his intentions, it should be the fact that he reached out to find you as soon as he knew you existed.”

“I must remember to applaud.”

She didn’t sigh or roll her eyes at that, though the tightness of her smile suggested both nonetheless. “Mr. Combe—”

“Little red. Please. What did you imagine I meant when I asked you to convince me? I’ve already had my mouth on you. Do you really think I invited you in here for a lecture?”

He didn’t know what he expected. Outrage, perhaps. Righteous indignation, then a huffy flounce out of the cabin and out of his life. That was what he wanted, he assured himself.

Because her being here was an intrusion. He’d invited her in to make certain she’d never come back.

Of course you did, a sardonic voice inside him chimed in.

But Lauren wasn’t flouncing away in high dudgeon. Instead, she stared back at him with a dumbfounded expression on her face. Not as if she was offended by his suggestion. But more as if...such a thing had never occurred to her.

“I beg your pardon. Is this some kind of cultural divide I’m unfamiliar with? Or do you simply inject sex into conversations whenever you get bored?”

“Whenever possible.”

She laughed, and what surprised him was that it sounded real. Not part of this game at all.