Drake Sisters 06 - Turbulent Sea

boneless. Her fingers slid along his thigh, up toward his rib cage, until he caught and held her hand over his heart. T don't know if I really thanked you for that. Did I?'
    'You can put that on the pro side,' he said and brought her hand to his mouth to tease the tips with his teeth. And yes, you thanked me.'
    'Hannah is special.'
    Ilya could barely hear her anymore. She was falling asleep, cuddling into him like a sleepy kitten. He kissed her knuckles and sat watching her face. She looked so young and innocent, angelic in her sleep, although her mouth promised paradise, a lush curve that kept his body hard with urgent demand.
    The first time he'd ever heard of Joley Drake had been on the radio. Her voice had come on and his world had stopped. That voice. Pure and perfect, it had slid into his mind and lifted the shadows as if sunshine had suddenly burst through heavy layers of dark clouds. His world was violence and dirt, the dregs of society. Nothing shocked him anymore, and he had long since given up all illusions of finding good in a world of debauchery and excess indulgence.
    He had stopped believing in anything, and only his personal code kept him from destroying everyone around him.
    He had spent two years investigating a child pornography ring that had taken him around the world, and the things he'd seen still haunted him -and he'd been hardened to the sins of man a long time ago. His orders had been to take the ring down, dispose of the guilty leaders and walk away without anyone ever knowing he'd been there. He followed leads from England to Brussels to Thailand. One by one he'd exterminated vermin until he'd found the man responsible for organizing the ring in the first place. The man had offered to share two little boys and a girl with him, but hurry, he was making a special video with these three.
    By the time Ilya had worked his way through the maze, he found three dead children, killed in a snuff film of indescribable sickness and depravity. His control had slipped, always a dangerous thing. He had become a rabid animal, and he still couldn't examine too closely his behavior. For a short time his mind had shut down and the trained killer had taken over.
    It was then, when he was at this darkest hour, that he heard a song on the radio. Joley's voice had given him peace for the first time in years. He hadn't believed anything could lighten his soul, but listening to her, it had been as if the sun had burst for the first time into his life and shone down on him. There was no redemption for him. He didn't expect or want it, but he craved the sun on his soul, those few moments of peace and contentment. She had saved his sanity.
    He would have left her alone, just collected her music, but their paths had crossed in the unlikeliest of chances. Now that he'd seen her, been in her presence and felt her warmth on his skin
    - on his soul - there was no going back. He needed her as a barrier between him and the unrelenting shadows of his life.

    His fingers tangled in the silk of her hair. She'd been a shock to him, when he thought himself impossible to shock.
    She wasn't a perfect angel from heaven - one he couldn't relate to - she was human. Sexy as hell. Flirty. She'd drive a man mad in seconds. She was fiercely loyal. A tigress when it came to her family, and he'd begun brooding over that trait in her, drawn to it, drawn to her capacity to protect those she loved. She knew what it was like to need to do whatever it took to protect those weaker than she was. And he desperately needed someone to save him - to love him -
    to be as fierce for him as Joley Drake was in the protection of her sisters.
    There had been a photo in a tabloid. The headline had read Joley Caught In Her Love Nest . He had been furious, not disillusioned - he knew she was no angel - that her lover hadn't protected her from that kind of exposure. Then he'd found out it hadn't been her at all, but that she'd dyed her hair and taken the blame to keep her sister from nasty gossip that might have harmed her sister's career. In that moment she'd ripped out his heart and took it into her keeping for all time.
    There was no getting around wanting Joley. His body ached when he thought of her. And when she sang - or talked -
    or just stood there in silence - he found he was more aroused than he'd ever been in his life. She brought out things in him he hadn't known were there. Tenderness. Gentleness. Emotions that had never been in his life, not even