Trust (15 page)

Alistair signaled for the waiter and handed his credit card.

Sophia immediately grabbed her purse, “Don’t, please.”

His hand flew to prevent her from opening her purse and closed around her bruised wrist. She flinched.

Jesus Christ!
“I’m sorry,” he murmured and tenderly kissed the inside of her black-and-blue wrist.

A thrill coursed through Sophia’s spine.

“Is the driver waiting for you?”

“Not yet.” She shook her head. “I have to call him.”

“I’ll drive you back.” He stated as he signed the credit card slip with a swift movement of his left hand.

Another ride? What is my problem? Do I have a flashing sign of my forehead ‘I’m lost. Rescue me?’

Sophia felt utterly dominated by the sheer maleness beside her. “That would be lovely,” she heard herself replying. Why she bothered she didn’t understand, because he hadn’t asked.

Sophia relaxed on the seat of the Imperial Blue Metallic BMW 760Li, listening attentively to Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto in C minor playing on the stereo. But when Alistair entered the car, she tensed up.

It had one-way tinted glass windows and, as he sat, he closed the specially made privacy divider. She immediately regretted having accepted the ride to her office.
Too tall, too broad, too much. He needs a stretch limo, not a car
.

Alistair’s sexual magnetism and potent energy in the enclosed car heightened Sophia’s tension.

“Do you know the address?” She bit her lip and crossed her long legs, tightening the desire inside her.

He chuckled, a deep sound that made Sophia’s stomach constrict with a flaming need to jump him. He shifted and drew a knee onto the seat, facing her. She eyed his legs and warred with the desire to fling herself between them and to run her hands over them. He leaned toward her and his green gaze swirled. “Of course,” he said, huskily, “how could I not know?” An arm rested lightly on the back of the seat.

What is that supposed to mean?
Sophia put her bag on her lap and her hand clutched the door handle. “I love this concerto. Rachmaninoff is so-”

“Profound, dark?” He moved closer, searching her eyes, studying her features.

Sophia breathed in and his smell hit her with full force.
Sublime Vanille and a touch of oak somewhere. Sublimely male
. He had been silently manipulating her, exuding strength and a powerful command on her will during the entire lunch. Her head lifted without her consent; she was too turned on to care anymore. She licked her lips, her breathing already altered.

Alistair saw when she lost control and took charge. Something withered inside his chest but he shoved the feeling deeper down.
Enjoy it, Alistair. This one has resisted a bit more but in the end she’s just like all the others. A slut
. He was too busy dealing with his bubbling lust to notice his shy and lonely sun ray hiding behind his darkness.

An arm under her knees and another behind her back did the job of transferring her onto his lap as his tongue licked the seam of her lips and she opened to him.
Honey. She tastes of honey and coffee and chocolate
. He didn’t wait and dipped in for more. Her lips were everything he had imagined, full and soft.

He kissed her lustfully.

Mindlessly.

Senselessly.

His mouth closed over hers and his passion blindsided her. His kiss was bold and passionate. His lips coached her desire and his tongue tasted her in leisurely licks, no hurry, taking all her will from her and demanding more, requesting all. One of her hands dived into his luscious hair, the other gripped his hard biceps, and her breath quickened.

He felt her nails raking his nape and his erection hardened even more. He shifted to better press her thigh to it. The hand behind her knees moved under her dress, caressing her leg encased in silky tights and finding her garter.

Fuck!
His fingers looked for and found velvet skin. His hand cupped her upper-thigh massaging the lean but toned and muscled thigh while his mouth ravaged the column of her neck, kissing and nipping. He gripped her hair and gently yanked her head back, baring her throat to have better access. He inhaled her intoxicating scent.
Sweet petals of white roses in bloom. I could lick her forever
. He bit her earlobe softly and she moaned.

“Sophia,” his lust filled whisper shook Sophia out of her dream-state and she pushed hard at his chest.

Have I gone utterly insane? I’m going out with a man and making out with another? In a car in the middle of The City?
“Stop. Now,” she struggled to command, but she could barely stutter a whisper.

His thumb brushed her lacy panties and her hand flew to his wrist before he did any more damage to her sanity.

She scrambled back on the seat, rearranging her dress. “I’m sorry.” She combed her hair with her fingers and lowered her eyelids. “I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

Alistair glared at her and down at his pants where one of his biggest erections strained his fly.
But she, fuck, she looks absolutely composed
.

He looked at her unwrinkled dress and her hair barely out of place. Only her mouth showed any indication of his passionate kisses. That drove him mad. She completely unsettled him.
How is she in such control?
“Why?” he almost barked.

She startled and stared at him, biting her lip.

Christ! Her eyes had changed color again
.

“It’s none of your business, Mr. MacCraig.”

“Davidoff?” he growled.

“I’ve already apologized for my behavior. It was unacceptable,” she snapped. “Ask your driver to stop the car. I’m getting out.” She was angry with herself. She needed fresh air.

“The hell you are.” He raked his fingers through his silky hair, taking note that her eyes were changing color again. “You came to have lunch with me. I’ll see that you’re safely dropped back at your office.” He crossed his arms over the wide expanse of his chest, ending the argument.

Well, so you think
. Sophia waited until the car slowed down after entering Fleet Street and opened the door, jumping out of the car, almost in front of The Royal Courts of Justice. People stopped to look at her.
Great, Sophia! Way to do it
. She grabbed her iPhone and dialed Edward, while dodging her way through the crowd with hurried steps.

“Christ!” Alistair said, her actions paralyzing him for a few seconds.
The woman’s utterly insane. But hot! So hot!

Garrick must have noticed that the door had been opened because the car stopped. Alistair threw himself out of the car after her, banging the door loudly behind him. She was ahead of him but his strides were longer.

“Stop, Sophia!” He ordered but she didn’t even look back.
Hmm. Not so submissive
. She hadn’t even bothered to put on her overcoat and it remained draped over her arm.
Fuck, it’s bloody freezing. She’s going to catch a cold, damn woman
. When she slowed her pace because of the flow of barristers, solicitors, and the throng of people going in and out of the court, he gripped her shoulders and whipped her roughly around, caging her in his arms.
Gently, Alistair Connor, or she’ll bruise
. “Where do you suppose you’re going, Sophia?”

“Back to my office, which I should have never left,” she retorted in a low, enraged voice. “It seems to me,
Mr. MacCraig
, that you just repeated the same behavior you condemned in Mr. Wales.”

“That’s not true. You encouraged me, allowed it to happen.”

“Oh, that is rich,” she leered at him. “It’s always that way. Women are to blame.” Her eyes flicked toward the entrance of the Royal Courts and she blanched so unexpectedly that Alistair was alarmed. Her hand shot to her throat, her coat fell to the ground and she swayed on her feet.

Somewhere to flee, somewhere to hide
. She looked around, desperate.

“Sophia?” He narrowed his arms around her, enveloping her, and bringing her to his chest, giving support. “What’s wrong?”

“Get me out of here, please.” Her voice was barely a wisp. “Now.”

The BMW was right beside them, Garrick slowly accompanying their crazy run. Alistair opened the door for her and helped her in. She trembled so much she could barely walk.

“Stay here,” he ordered, picked up her coat from the ground and rounded the car to enter on the other side. She was already on the phone. He sat facing her.

“-please, Sarah. It’s urgent.” She bit her lip, hard. “Edward. Oh, Edward,” she whimpered. Tears welled in her eyes. “
He
’s here. Albe-. I’m sure. I’ve just seen. Leaving the Royal Courts.” She spoke in nervous, incomplete sentences. “He will. What are you going to say? What am I going to do?” She closed her eyes. “With Alistair MacCraig. In his car.” She turned to Alistair and held her iPhone to him. “It’s Edward. Err, Davidoff.”

He eyed her with a calm expression he wasn’t feeling and took the phone.

“Tell me, Davidoff,” he sighed while he listened to Edward’s cryptic explanation.
Why I am always involved with complicated women?
However, he was more concerned with the pale woman in the car with him.

Sophia was looking down at her wringing hands.

“What’s wrong? I cannot help if I don’t-.”
What has just happened? Who is ‘he’? Who has frightened her so much?
“Don’t worry. My afternoon is free. I’ll stay with her until you arrive.” He hung up the phone and gave it back to her.

She made another phone call and she spoke quickly in a language he didn’t quite identify, “It’s me, Maria. Don’t open the door to anyone. And don’t go out with Gabriela. Keep her in her room. I’m heading home.”

Alistair froze as he realized that an urgent need to help her had wedged beneath his skin. To breathe safety into her trembling body. To whisk her into his arms and caress her until she stopped feeling threatened. He didn’t do this kind of thing anymore.
Not since Heather. Love isn’t worth the risk of betrayal, of pain, of death
.

Sophia finished the call and closed her eyes, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist as if they could protect her.

Alistair touched the intercom when she ended the call. “Garrick, please, head to…” He waited for her to supply her home address.

“74, Eaton Square,” she dutifully informed him in a small voice.

He repeated the information and sat back, watching Rachmaninoff ‘s concerto toy with her feelings.

“The
Adagio sostenuto
…” she whispered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The piano and the flute,” she murmured, her hair blocking the view of her face. He brushed it aside. “It’s the most touching part. I saw it in Lucerne, with Hélène Grimaud and Claudio Abbado, in August 2008. After…” She turned slowly to look at him. “It’s in the second movement. Listen.” Tears coursed down her face and she brushed them away with the back of her hands.

He inhaled deep, struggling to control his raging emotions. Her scent caught his senses and the need to protect her overrode his self-preservation and restraint.

Fuck the risk
. He opened his arms, ordering, “Come here.”

She pressed herself onto the door.

His arms enveloped her, pulling her into his body. “I’m not a monster, Sophia,” he breathed on her hair and handed her his soft, white handkerchief, embroidered with his initials in dark green. “Cry, if you will.”

The tender understanding and refuge that huge, rugged, and intense man gave her crumbled any of Sophia’s remaining control. It had been so long since she had felt secure like this. He felt like an unerring solid protector.
How does he make me feel like this?

The yearning to protect Sophia made Alistair narrow his embrace around her. This delicate, fragile side of her awoke in him something so male, so primitive that he had to fight the urge to tell Garrick to drive straight to his home in the Highlands. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“We’ve arrived,” Alistair said quietly.

Sophia lifted her forehead from the hollow of his neck and looked at the building. “Could your driver park in the garage, please? It’s just around the corner.”

“Sure.” He gave Garrick the instructions. “I’m going up with you.”

Not a request. More like an order
. Sophia raked her hands through her hair and rearranged her dress. “Thank you.”

Thank you? Nobody has thanked me for such a simple thing for so long. But then, when have I done something like this for a woman since Heather?
He didn’t know what to make of Sophia. He really didn’t. Alistair opened the door and held his hand to help her out.

She edged toward the lift. When the doors opened she looked over her shoulder, scanning the garage before entering it. She quickly punched in a long code on the panel. The lights flashed as they climbed up to the penthouse. When the lift jerked to a stop, Sophia almost fell, her knees weak with relief. Alistair snaked an arm around her waist supporting her as the doors opened into a private hall.

She opened the door to the apartment and turned to Alistair. “Thank you very much.”

He stood in her hall, aghast.
She’s dismissing me. Nobody dismisses me
. “I’m staying until Davidoff arrives.”

“Please,” she tried to convince him by putting her hand on his arm, “there is no need. You were kind enough to bring me here.”

He shook his head. “Until Davidoff arrives.”

“Very well,” she sighed. “Could I offer you something to drink?”

“No, thank you.” He looked around, taking in the richness of the paintings hanging on the wall. “You have a very nice apartment. You live here alone?”

“No,” she shook her head.
No point in lying about it
. “With my daughter. Please, sit. Make yourself comfortable.”

Once again, as she did on the office, Sophia masked her emotions. But he knew better. Her eyes betrayed her. They showed the fright she had been through. They were dark, not clear anymore.

He jammed his hands in his pockets and strolled through the living room. He stopped in front of her bookcase, analyzing her books, which were carefully stored in a methodic way. He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, standing next to him.