She glared at him. Her eyes were even bluer, a glittering sapphire, pure and natural just like the rest of her. He could have sworn sparks flew around her hair. He half expected any moment for the silky strands to flame.
He stepped closer to her. So close her breasts brushed his ribs. “If you are looking for a man, bella, I am more than happy to oblige you.” He made the offer a second time, nothing subtle about it.
Her lashes fluttered. She didn’t look away from him. She had courage, he had to admit that much, and that made him admire and respect her all the more. “Fine. Be that way. But I know. I want to go into town. I’m meeting someone,” she snapped. “You will not be coming with me.”
He slid his fingers through her hair, his palm shaping her face. He told himself it was to throw her off-balance, but he knew it was because touching her was a compulsion he couldn’t resist. “I will be coming with you, Lissa. I am assigned as your bodyguard. Where you go, I will go. Don’t try to run off, because that will only make both your uncle and me angry.”
There was no way she was slipping out from under his guard. No possible way. Especially if she had a date. Why the thought of her with another man angered him, he had no idea, but it did and she damn well wasn’t going anywhere without him.
She froze when he touched her. He felt her tremble. The reaction so slight it was almost undetectable, but he was too tuned to her to miss it.
Lissa stared up into that handsome, masculine face with the too-old eyes. It was his eyes that captured her. Not his wide shoulders or the way he moved, so silent, like a predator. So fluid like a dangerous jungle cat. Not his narrow hips or the muscles rippling beneath the shirt that was stretched so tightly across his chest. Not the strong columns of his thighs either. It was definitely his eyes.
When he looked at her, he wholly focused on her, yet at the same time, she knew he was aware of everything and everyone around him. When she looked at him so closely, she knew he was wearing tinted contacts. Colored contacts. There was no way of knowing what color his eyes really were, but they weren’t that deep brown. Still, his eyes captivated her.
His face was all angles and planes. Hard. Masculine. Strong jaw. His nose was almost aristocratic when one looked closely, and she was looking. Dangerous. There was an aura of danger surrounding him. It was in the stamp of his mouth. His jaw. Mostly, it was there in his stillness. And in his eyes.
Loneliness. He was so alone. She knew, because she was. She had to hide who she was. What she was. If, as she suspected, this man was a Prakenskii, he’d been born in Russia. He’d watched his parents die… For a moment her mind shut down to block memories from flooding in, from taking her someplace she couldn’t go.
Tomasso, or Prakenskii, took her breath away, and no man had ever succeeded in doing that. Her entire body reacted when he was near. She’d never had that happen to her either. She hadn’t lived a life conducive to inviting seduction with a man. Truthfully, she’d sacrificed that side of living willingly for her purpose. She hid on a farm, one that had unexpectedly become a home to her, surrounded by women and their men she’d eventually come to love. That had been a gift. Finding out she could respond to a man was a gift as well, but one not so welcome.
“I don’t like to be touched.” She whispered the words to him. Breathing him in. Lying, because maybe that assertion had been the truth, but it no longer was, not with him. Her heart pounded and butterflies took wing in her stomach.
Lissa didn’t move away from him even as she whispered the admission. For one moment Casimir saw behind her incredible blue eyes to the woman she hid from the world. She was every bit as alone as he was. Every bit playing a role for others. And every bit as attracted to him, but trying to hide it.
The pad of his thumb slid along her jaw of its own volition. There was no stopping it because he didn’t think about it. He needed to touch her in the way he needed to breathe. He didn’t understand it, because he was a hunter. Others were his prey. He didn’t touch them unless that got him close enough to kill. He used expert seduction to further his goals, or for relief, but it was never like this. Never a compulsion. Never a hunger. A need. This woman was under his protection. He shouldn’t need this, but he did, and that need was stronger than any compulsion he’d ever experienced.
“Who is it you’re going to meet in town? I’ll arrange your protection. And I will be there, Lissa.”
He stepped away from her because if he didn’t, he would kiss her. The idea that he could come so close to making such a huge mistake appalled him. He should contact his brother and tell him the assignment was off, to send someone else, but he knew he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t trust her life to anyone else. Not now. Not ever.