Free Shadow Alpha by Carole Mortimer Page A

anything without a reason.
    “Would you mind if I went through to the bedroom and slept for a while now?”
    Would Dair mind if Kat went through to the bedroom? What he would like would be to go into that bedroom with her, and not with any idea of sleeping. “I thought the two of us were going to talk after you’d spoken to Gregori?” he reminded hardly.
    Kat’s gaze avoided meeting his. “Could it wait until later? Neither of us is going anywhere, and I could really do with a nap right now.”
    She probably could, Dair conceded; Kat’d had a pretty eventful time since being a drugged-out zombie yesterday morning. She was probably also suffering withdrawal symptoms from not taking the medications anymore.
    “Okay,” he shrugged, settling back comfortably in his chair as Kat stood up to leave. “I’ll let you know when we’re about to land.”
    “But not where?”
    “It’s better if you don’t know our exact location.”
    “Who could I tell?” she derided.
    “No one—if you don’t know.”
    Kat lingered beside her chair. “Do I take it you’ll be staying on this island with me?”
    He eyed her mockingly. “Do you have a problem with that?”
    She didn’t even know where to start on that one!
    “Not at all,” she dismissed with a lightness she was far from feeling. “Are there any other people on the island?”
    “Nope.”
    Kat swallowed at the mere idea of being alone with Dair on a Caribbean island. “No staff as caretakers?”
    “Already gone.”
    “What about Lijah?”
    “Wheels down, wheels up again the moment we’re safely on the ground.”
    “And when he gets home he won’t tell anyone where he’s been, for however many days he’s been away?”
    “Not if his life depended upon it,” Dair assured without hesitation.
    “And what if, for some reason, we need to leave the island in a hurry?”
    “Hopefully that isn’t going to happen. I have some people watching Sergei and Ivan—”
    “More of ‘yours’?”
    “As it happens, yes,” he confirmed hardly. “If either one of the Orlovs looks as if they’re even sniffing in our direction, I’ll know about it. If we did need to leave the island,” Dair continued firmly as Kat would have spoken. “Lucien has a speed boat or a helicopter we can use.”
    Kat had no hope of flying a helicopter, but she was sure she could operate the speedboat if she decided she had to make a run for it; she and Sergei had gone to the Florida Keys for their honeymoon, and she had driven a speedboat then.
    If she decided to make a run for it.
    It would be easier, in some ways, for her to just disappear before they went back to England. But England was still home, so maybe she would be better waiting until Dair thought it was safe for them to go back there before attempting to disappear.
    In the meantime, she was going to be completely alone with Dair on this unnamed island for an unspecified time.
    Long enough to explore all the possibilities…?
    Was it wrong of her to want Dair, to want just a little bit of happiness to call her own? She had married Sergei because it was the right thing to do for her family, she had stayed married to him for the same reason, only to discover it had all been a sham.
    She wasn’t even aware of licking her lips as she wondered what it would be like to break through Dair’s steely control. To rip away all his barriers and reveal the raw and powerful man beneath. A man she was sure would know how to take a woman to the heights of pleasure, and then further still.
    The shiver Kat gave, just at the thought of that, was from anticipation, not fear.
    Damn it, she was well on her way to being infatuated with Dair again.
    Did women of thirty have crushes?
    Maybe as an adult it was called lust rather than a crush?
    If so, she was certainly in lust with Dair!
    Go to bed and get some sleep, Kat, she told herself sternly. She needed to sleep now more than she needed anything else.
    More than Dair, if he decided to join