Chapter 10
Kian
She tasted like sunlight, like warmth captured in a fleeting moment, and beneath it, the subtle tang of her shampoo: citrus mingling with something sweet, intoxicating, a scent that rooted me to her. My head spun, my thoughts scattering like leaves in a storm.
I should pull back.
Danger pressed in around me, and the gun I still held was a prime example of it. But I simply couldn’t, and that was a first for me. The feeling of her pressed against me was too raw, too urgent.
Thank God for Amir, watching my back, letting me lose myself without consequence.
Dr. Sophie Baldwin didn’t know it, but she’d saved the life of her attacker. For now.
She was audacious. Reckless. Bold. Simply distracting me with her body and lips, and that was something no other woman had ever succeeded to do. She ignited something primal inside me.
Truthfully, she surprised me, and it should have been impossible. And yet here she was, daring me to surrender, daring me to want her.
Too late. I already did, even before I saw her in her bikini.
Jesus Christ, her body was something worth worshiping. Soft, rounded curves, creamy skin, and an ass that had plenty to grab. Combined with her humor and fearless attitude, she was the full package.
I traced the line of her spine, pulling her closer. Every nerve ending screamed with the heat between us.
I couldn’t think; I could barely breathe.
I pulled back, just enough to steal a breath, and reason finally clawed its way back through the haze. My hands lingered on her neck and hip, refusing to let her go.
I met her gaze with measured calm, letting the controlled facade settle over me like armor.
Her eyes widened and something raw and unfamiliar cut through me. It was desire tangled with caution.
Fuck, of all the women… Why this one?
“I… uh,” she murmured, her pupils dilated and lips trembling. Good. Maybe she felt it too—maybe she was as unsettled as I was. She should be. She had started this. “Remember, I’m a doctor,” she breathed. “You can’t hurt anyone in front of me.”
The world slowly came into focus. The faint scrape of a shoe against the floor. The gun at my side, my bodyguards at the door, and Amir five feet away.
My instincts flared and I stepped back sharply.
“Who are you?” she whispered, her eyes locked on the gun I was gripping.
For fuck’s sake, if she’d forgotten my name already, I would have to try much harder with this woman.
“We’ve already been introduced,” I reminded her.
“I know.” She rolled her eyes exasperatedly. “I meant, who or what are you?” She jutted her chin at my gun.
“I’m dangerous,” I growled, letting the warning hang in the air.
“Yet here you are… saving me,” she said, her gaze softening. In that look, I caught a spark that could match my own: a reckless thrill that might ignite me or destroy me.
“I’ll have someone see you to your hotel safely,” I said, masking the pull I felt toward her.
A flicker of disappointment crossed her face.
“And why wouldn’t that be you…” She hesitated, then with a teasing lilt in her voice, added, “Husband?”
I let out a sardonic breath. “You like to play with fire, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Not really,” she said, her eyes flicking to the empty space where her attacker had previously stood, “but I’m trying something new.”
My men had dragged the prick away, probably out back, and were waiting for my orders.
She tilted her head. “Want to grab dinner?”
I arched an eyebrow, skeptical. Was she really asking me out to dinner after everything that had just happened?
“But fair warning, you’ll have to ditch that gun.
Regardless of how attractive you are, I’m not going to an Albanian prison,” she continued with a spark of challenge dancing in her eyes as she extended her hand, but all my brain could focus on was that she found me attractive.
“Now I can’t wait to learn more about you, Mr. Cortes. ”
“Call me Kian,” I corrected her automatically. “After all, I’m your husband.”
She chuckled.
“You’re right. Mr. Cortes is too formal.” She tapped her chin pensively. “You did just have your tongue inside my mouth.”
Jesus H. Christ.
Kristoff Baldwin hadn’t mentioned this reckless side of his cousin.
And as every instinct I had sounded the alarm, I chose to ignore them all.