Wild Men of Alaska Collection - By Helmer, Tiffinie Page 0,120

her sweater,” he muttered before slicing the cable knit from her body.

She lay there on the bed in her black bra. She’d gotten her breath back, but couldn’t draw air to save her life. His fingers grabbed a shoulder strap and sliced through it and the other, then he carefully slid the knife between the valley of her breast and cut through the middle of her bra, baring her breasts. They received a courtesy glance as though he couldn’t help himself, but it was the bra itself he was focused on. She squirmed underneath him and he squatted farther on his haunches, anchoring her lower body to the mattress.

He turned the modified bra over in his hands, his fingers searching and finding the other kerambit she’d hidden in place of the underwire. He arched a brow at her. “Ingenious. I don’t believe this is standard issue.”

She refused to speak. Not that he cared as he investigated further, mutilating the bra with the switchblade. He suddenly went very still, and she knew he’d found the tracking device.

He held up the small round disc the size of a quarter that had been in place of a nipple cover. “Who is monitoring your movements, Katja?” he asked, his voice more deadly than she’d ever heard it.

A chill skittered over her skin and it had nothing to do with being bare from the waist up.

“I need you to answer me,” he said.

She met his eyes. “Go to hell.”

He stared at her for a very long time. She glared silently back at him. Finally, he dismounted her hips and got off the bed. Crushing the homing device with the blunt end of his switchblade on the end table, he slipped the knife back in his pocket, and examined the remains, making sure they were no longer in working order.

Slowly he turned back to her, his hot gaze traveling over her body, her nipples hardened because of the cool air, not because of the intense scrutiny of his eyes.

“Vhat else are you hiding?”

He smoothed his hand over her knee, down to her calf to her ankle. Her muscles jerked in her legs as one by one he rolled down her socks and inspected them. He tossed the socks to the floor, and then leaned over her and released the button to her jeans.

“Don’t,” she said, the word more of a dare than a warning.

He met her eyes for a moment, and then they flicked down to her waist as he lowered her zipper.

“Sergei.” She hated the want laced within his whispered name and prayed he hadn’t heard it.

He shut his eyes, and then tossed his tousled black hair out of them. Both of his hands fisted around the fabric at her hips, and he yanked off her jeans in one hard move.

She’d gone commando.

He cursed. It didn’t matter what language he’d sworn in, she knew that word, but somehow he made it sound more dark and seductive than it should have been.

Heart pulsing in her throat, she’d never felt as naked as having this man strip her bare.

CHAPTER TEN

For one glorious night two long years ago, Sergei had worshipped her body, labored over her for many hours, until she responded with just the slightest touch, look, a mere whisper of words.

She lay naked before him again, yet tied to his bed. Defiant.

Bozhe moi, how he loved her. And she’d hate him for what he had to do next. By the green fire shooting at him from her eyes, she already hated him. She’d come to kill him, but she hadn’t. There’d been a couple times she could have, and for whatever reason she hadn’t taken the kill. Did he dare hope that she didn’t hate him as much as she wanted to?

Guess he was about to find out.

When he finished his search, she’d surely hate him afterward. He’d be violating her, but then she’d attacked him time and time again, and the latest attack had been her last. The tracking device had him returning to the bed after stripping off her jeans.

She could have another device hidden anywhere.

The act of touching her naked skin again had blood boiling through his veins and hardening the region of his body he didn’t think could get any harder.

He sat beside her on the bed and started with her arms. Slowly he smoothed his palms from her tied wrists up to her shoulders, feeling for anything taped to her skin and examining her for injection sites were a micro chip