Drake Sisters 06 - Turbulent Sea

close enough that she could smell his cologne. It seemed absurd that he was wearing something spicy and nice smelling. 'You bitch.'
    Joley rolled her eyes. 'Can't you come up with something a little more original?'
    'Now, Paul,' RJ said in a soothing voice. 'I do want to talk with Ms. Drake. She needs our sympathy and compassion.
    You're right, Joley, I am a human male. And my body often betrays me, but I try to overcome the weaknesses of the flesh.' He spread his arms to take in the house. 'Wickedness and debauchery are taking place in this establishment and I mean to aid those who will listen.'
    'Do people actually believe you? You're here for the sex and drugs, nothing else. At least the rest of them don't lie about it.'
    'Is that why you're here?'
    The question caught her by surprise and she inwardly winced, keeping her famous smile plastered on her face. She might pretend to the rest of the world that she'd come to do a great deed, but she knew better and his question had hit a little too close to home.
    'I'm not doing this with you.' She glanced over her shoulder to try to see the young girls, but they were out of sight along with the roadies and Brian. Logan was already gone and she wasn't siccing the Reverend on him. If he knew Logan's unwed girlfriend was giving birth, he'd race to the hospital and try to grab headlines at Logan's expense.
    'I overheard you say there were teens here. If that's true, perhaps I can be of some assistance.' RJ moved closer, crowding her personal space.
    She should have shifted, stepped to the side to give herself more room, but the taller bodyguard, Paul, blocked her path. She found herself surrounded, in a tight circle.
    'Get in the car, Joley,' RJ said. 'We can discuss this without all the noise. If the young people need to be saved, I can do it. You have to believe in me. One slip only makes me human. Let my record speak for me.'
    His voice had dropped a bit, and she recognized the famous charismatic note he could produce. She nearly laughed.
    She was a Drake, and her legacy was spell-singing, the most powerful gift of sound in the world. If the Reverend wanted to engage in a battle of sound, he had chosen the wrong opponent.
    'I suppose everyone is human, RJ,' she conceded, dropping her voice into a low, sexy drawl, one designed to slide over a man's senses. She saw the Reverend's shiver of awareness, felt the rising heat in the circle of men and realized she was playing with fire. Paul crowded her even closer so that she could feel the brush of his thigh against her hip.
    That was stupid, Joley! Are you trying to get yourself raped or worse?
    The voice slid into her head. Male. Humming with a kind of sexual fury. Her heart jumped and her stomach did a small, crazy flip. She didn't dare take her eyes off of the men surrounding her, but in spite of herself, she felt relief along with absolute exhilaration.
    She tried to retreat, to get out of the circle, realizing the back door of the limo was still open and she was only a step from it. She glanced up at Paul as his arm came sweeping around her waist. Determination to toss her onto the backseat was on his face.
    She spun away from his body, shooting her elbows out as weapons, trying to gain inches so she could use her feet.
    With her body weight behind a kick to the knee, she could easily bring him down.
    Without warning, another man moved into the circle. He glided in total silence. Complete and utter confidence surrounded him. Everyone froze, including Joley.
    And just like that, Joley couldn't deny the real reason she had come in person rather than make a few phone calls.
    This was what she'd come for. Ilya Prakenskii. Russian bodyguard to Sergei Nikitin. A dangerous man with a murky past, death in his eyes and a dangerous, volatile appeal that sang to every one of her senses.
    That look on his face. Ilya Prakenskii was always in control, always cool and expressionless. His eyes ice-cold, and never, never could she just read him like she could others - unless he wanted her to, unless he opened his mind to hers deliberately and let her catch small glimpses of the real man. She had never really seen him angry other than at her.

    She had power over him whether he wanted to admit it or not - and maybe that was what made him angry. He wanted her. It was in the heat of his gaze, the set of his mouth, the hot lust when he looked at her, but most of all, in his mind-to-mind touch - possession and promise and a dark need that