Seducing Ethan (Knight Security 6)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedications
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
BONUS novella Resisting Alexandre
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
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About The Author
Other books by Carole Mortimer
Knight Security Series 6
Seducing Ethan
By
Carole Mortimer
USA Today Bestselling Author
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2017 Carole Mortimer
Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper Designs
Editor: Linda Ingmanson
Formatter: Matthew Mortimer
ISBN: 978-1-910597-50-7 mobi
ISBN: 978-1-910597-51-4 epub
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved.
DEDICATIONS
Peter
As Always
Chapter 1
“So this is what you look like without your clothes on!”
Naked, Ethan froze silhouetted in the doorway of his Majorcan finca, every one of his inner alarm bells ringing at the sound of that female voice. Which was a damn sight more than the alarm system surrounding these ten acres of paradise had done when this woman made her way in here.
What was with that? He had installed the security himself. High-end tech. An alarmed fence around the whole area. Cameras. Motion sensors. The finca was also in a remote part of the Tramuntana range of mountains in Majorca. He should have been able to hear the sound of a car engine from miles away. All he’d heard was the usual nighttime clicking of the cicadas. But here she was, standing in the shadows inside his finca.
She was lucky she’d spoken before he realized she was there; otherwise, she might not be talking at all right now. Act first, ask questions later had been Ethan’s credo for some time now. It was the only thing that had kept him alive for the past six months.
“Your cock is impressive,” she added mockingly.
“You should see it when it’s fully aroused,” he taunted back, aware that cock was stirring in recognition and was semihard now that he was over his initial shock at the identity of the intruder.
“Another time, perhaps,” she drawled.
Ethan wanted to shock that mockery right out of her. “What are you doing here, Talia?” His vision had adjusted to the darkness inside the finca now, and he knew he’d scored a direct hit when saw Talia’s body tense.
She answered him several heartbeats later. “You know who I am…?”
Fuck, yeah, Ethan knew who she was. He might not have seen or heard a word from this woman for a little over three years—three years, one month, and six days, to be exact—but that sexily husky voice wasn’t something Ethan was likely to forget.
She was at least a foot shorter than his own six two, and looked as slender as he remembered. Her clothes were all dark. Her golden hair had been short when he knew her last, a pale halo about her beautiful face. It still looked fair but had grown long and now cascaded in loose curls down her back.
This woman had featured in a lot of his nighttime fantasies. Daytime ones too, if he was honest. And nowadays, Ethan made a point of being brutally honest with himself.
His eyes narrowed. “Natalya Krechenko. Twenty-four years old. Daughter of Ivan Krechenko and the late—”
“I’m Talia Morris, daughter of Ivor Morris,” she corrected.
“Aka, Teresa Kenton, daughter of Ian Kenton. Aka, Tonia Keys, daughter of Isaac Keys. Aka, Tilda Kent, daughter of Irving Kent. You should maybe have dyed your hair occasionally and mixed up the initials on the names a bit,” Ethan taunted, having named three of the aliases he knew she and her father had gone under for the last year of their disappearance. “All basically Natalya Krechenko,” he repeated remorselessly. “Twenty-four-year-old daughter of Ivan Krechenko and—”
“My father went missing ten days ago.”
“As in, he’s taken a trip without telling you where he’s gone?” he continued without missing a beat. “Or has someone from his past finally caught up with him, and he’s rotting at the bottom of a concrete pillar on some anonymous building site?”
“You bastard—”
Ethan moved so quickly, he doubted Talia even saw him coming. An expert in half a dozen martial arts, Ethan had her flat on her back on the cold tiled floor in three seconds. Both her hands were captured above her head by one of his, his naked thighs straddling hers as he easily pinned her down.
A move he instantly recognized as being a mistake when his cock immediately sprang from semihard to totally engorged the moment it came into contact with the silky skin at her bare midriff.
What the fuck was she wearing?
A glance down the length of her body revealed a dark, probably black leather waistcoat, then that eight inches of bare abdomen, and skintight black low-rider jeans.
Close to her like this, Ethan could see she was thinner than he remembered, her body now all sleek and defined lines. She also smelled fucking amazing. A heady mixture of coconut, flowers, and a female musk that caused his cock to throb.
Ethan’s gaze had completely adjusted to the darkness now, allowing him to see that long, curly golden hair. He was instantly beset with an image of entangling one of his hands in that hair, the other on her hip as he held her captive, on the bed, over the bed, on the floor, any-fucking-where, while he pounded his cock into her pussy.
He leaned forward until his face was only inches above the pale oval of hers. “Word of advice, sweetheart. Never allow the enemy to anger you enough to drop your defenses,” he said softly.
She ran her tongue nervously across her lips before answering. “You appear to be more vulnerable than me at the moment.” She glanced down at the thick length of his cock resting on her abdomen before looking up again. “Are you my enemy?”
“Depends on whether or not you’re mine.” Ethan looked at her through narrowed lids. Apart from his family and a few close friends, he had no idea who he could trust anymore. “Who sent you here, Talia?”
“No one sent me.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I told you, my father is missing.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Why would I make something like that up?” she shot straight back.
“How did you know where to find me?” Ethan had bought the finca and surrounding land on the west coast of Majorca eighteen months ago, having discovered this wild and mountainous part of the island two years ago while searching for his kidnapped nephew. There was no phone, no neighbors; even his three brothers and sister didn’t know Ethan owned this place. It was where he came whenever he wanted to be alone.
He’d had no idea how much in need of that anonymity he was going to become six months ago.
And yet Talia had still found him
here.
“On second thought, I’m not interested in your explanations.” He released Talia before standing up. “Just get the fuck away from me, and don’t ever come looking for me again.” He would dismantle all the security in the morning before using his own camouflaged helo to leave the island. His security was breached. It didn’t matter how or by whom when he was never coming back here.
It was no longer safe.
Not for him or anyone with him.
If Talia being here was as innocent as she claimed it was—and he had no real reason to suppose it wasn’t—then it wasn’t safe for her to be anywhere near him. If anything, he was currently as toxic, if not more so, than her father.
Ethan crossed the room to where he had left his clothes earlier before going down for his usual nighttime swim in his private cove. It was the height of summer, the temperatures at night almost as high as during the day. There was also less chance of his being seen if he went for a swim once it was dark.
When he turned back from pulling on and fastening his faded jeans, it was to find Talia still lying on the floor where he’d left her. “I said—”
“I heard you.” Talia rose slowly to her feet, still slightly winded from being thrown onto her back as much as by finding a naked Ethan on top of her. “Could we possibly have some lights on in here?” She needed to be able to see Ethan’s expressions when—if—they continued this conversation.
There was a click, followed by a small flame, and then a larger flame as Ethan lit a candle rather than turning on the overhead light Talia knew was run by the generator outside.
But the candlelight was enough for her to see Ethan in all his half-naked glory.
His damp dark hair was shorter than it had been three years ago, cut in more of a military style, and there was a day or so of dark stubble on the squareness of his jaw. Hazel eyes were narrowed and cold. The rest of Ethan’s features were just as imposing: high cheekbones, straight nose, with sculpted lips above a stern and uncompromising jaw.
That sternness was new, making him appear different from the too-good-looking-for-his-own-good and teasing man she remembered from three years ago. Remembered? The image of this man had haunted her days and her nights since the last time she’d seen him.
Ethan’s shoulders seemed wider, with droplets of water still beading his tanned skin. His chest and waist were all hard muscle and covered in a misting of dark hair across his nipples before veeing down those washboard abs and disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans. He stood with his bare feet slightly apart, his hips and thighs lean and muscular. His body was tensed, as if ready to attack.
Talia felt a shiver of awareness down her spine as she recalled those same powerful thighs had been wrapped about her own only seconds ago. The length of his engorged and velvet-skinned cock had rested against her bare midriff, an arousal that was still visible in the bulge at the front of his jeans. The overwhelming smell of him had wrapped itself about her senses, salty and sharp from his swim in the sea, with an underlying seductive male musk that was all Ethan.
She closed her lids briefly as she firmly shut down those thoughts, willing her gaze to be as steady and unemotional as his, when she opened them again. “I need your help to find my father,” she maintained stubbornly.
Ethan’s brows rose. “You mean the Russian scumbag who raped his own country of its wealth for years before bailing to the west to be reunited with his billions of dollars?”
Talia winced, knowing her father deserved Ethan’s scorn. Ivan had done those things, and more. As a member of the Russian government, her father had known exactly how to remove the wealth, and exactly when to leave Russia several years after it had fractured into dozens of smaller, self-governing countries.
Ivan wasn’t the only one, of course, but her father’s crimes had gone undetected for many years before anyone realized, allowing him to continue to remove and accumulate that wealth in several banks around the world.
Talia had been only five when they finally left Russia, shortly after the death of her mother. She’d grown up as an American called Talia Morris, quickly forgetting her early years in Russia. Nor had she had any idea the lavish lifestyle she lived in the States with her father was being paid for with the wealth that rightly belonged to the Russian people.
“Yes, that’s exactly who I mean,” she confirmed huskily.
“No, thanks,” Ethan scorned. “Discovering we were working for Ivan Krechenko isn’t something Knight Security cares to advertise in the brochure.”
Talia could understand that too. Once she was old enough to go to college, but still in complete ignorance as to how her father had accumulated his wealth, Talia had informed her father she wanted to go to England to study economics. To her surprise, her father, who had never denied her anything she’d asked for up to that point, had said no. He claimed it wasn’t safe for her to live away from home, that she would be too vulnerable to his enemies. It was the first Talia had heard of her father having any enemies.
She’d grown up on an enclosed and guarded estate in New England, attending a local private school as a day student. Bodyguards had been such a part of her life for so long, she no longer even saw them, certainly hadn’t ever questioned why they were there.
At the age of eighteen, she still hadn’t appreciated how serious the situation was, wheedling and pouting for the next year until she got her way. But her father had only agreed to her going to England that September with the proviso Talia had her own detail of bodyguards with her at all times. He had hired an English company, Knight Security, owned by Ethan’s family, to provide that security.
Talia could still remember how hard and how fast her heart had begun to beat the first time she’d seen Ethan. Ten or twelve years her senior, he was a couple of inches over six feet tall, with a lean and yet muscular body beneath a formal black suit. Overlong dark hair rested on the collar of his gray shirt. His eyes were hazel but primarily green with a gold circle about the iris, and glittering with intent in a handsome face which could have graced the pages of any of the glossy fashion magazines she bought each month.
Her nineteen-year-old self had an instant crush on him.
Not that he’d ever returned her interest. No matter how hard she flirted with him, Ethan treated her with the same offhand affection as he would an annoying little sister, which he apparently had, rather than the grown woman Talia wanted him to see.
Her bodyguards from Knight Security worked on a rotation basis, so she only saw Ethan three times a week. But she had lived for the days Ethan would be on duty, always making sure to wear her sexiest outfits on those days. For all the notice Ethan took of her, she might as well have been wearing a sack and a paper bag over her head.
It had continued in that way for almost two years, and then there had been an attempt on her father’s life. A bomb had gone off beneath the SUV as he was driven home along the private road to their estate after attending a business meeting.
Her father had survived, but the two bodyguards in the front of the vehicle had been killed. The bombing had made news headlines all around the world as questions were asked as to why and what terrorist group was responsible for the attack. An anonymous phone call to one of those newspapers had revealed Ivor Morris as being Ivan Krechenko, a man wanted by the Russian government after defrauding them of billions of dollars.
Talia had still been in shock and denial of the sensational accusations when her father had her removed from England so quickly, she’d had no chance to even say good-bye to the friends she had made there. Or to Ethan.
It had been over three years now, she and her father spending all of that time under half a dozen different aliases—it had been the shock of learning Ethan knew the last three of those aliases that had unnerved her earlier and so allowed him to get the upper hand—never settling in one place long enough for his enemies, and she still had no idea who they were, to find them again.
Until ten days ago.
Talia, accom
panied by two of the bodyguards Ivan had brought with him from Russia, had gone shopping in the small village near the villa they were renting in the interior of the island of Nassau in the Bahamas. When she returned, she hadn’t been able to find her father or the two men protecting him that day. Nor did any of the off-duty bodyguards or servants in the villa know where they were. Talia didn’t believe her father would ever willingly have left her on her own, which meant someone had to have taken him.
She had been frozen with fear for the next night and day, waiting to see if someone would contact her to ask her to hand over ransom money if she wanted her father back. No one had.
After twenty-four hours of doing nothing, Talia knew she had to take some sort of action. The problem was she had no idea who she could trust and who she couldn’t. Her father’s bodyguards had all been with him for years, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be bribed into betraying him if they were as tired of the nomadic life they were forced to lead as Talia was.
When the ice inside her finally melted and she could think again, Talia had known she had to get away from the Bahamas and her father’s bodyguards. There was only one person she trusted to ask for help.
Ethan Knight.
He might never have acknowledged the teenage crush she’d had on him, but he had treated her with that casual affection of a little sister. Besides, there really was no one else for Talia to turn to for help.
Evading the bodyguards hadn’t been as difficult as she’d thought. Without her father’s compelling presence, and no idea when or if he would return and consequently pay them, they seemed less inclined to hang around.
Finding Ethan to ask for his help had been another matter entirely.
The receptionist at Knight Security would only tell Talia that Ethan Knight was on extended leave. That no, she had no idea when he would be returning. Talia had abruptly ended the call when the woman offered to put her through to one of the other Knight brothers. Talia had known all four of the brothers five years ago, of course, along with half a dozen of the other Knight Security employees. But it was Ethan she trusted, and no one else.