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Wait.
I caught myself.
Checking my thoughts of concern about her, I tried to remember why I’d come here.
I came here not to rescue her but to escape the stress for a night and enjoy her company. I hadn’t set out to get involved further than another quick, hard fuck, but I couldn’t help it. Something about seeing her down and targeted awakened the beast within me.
I knew she wasn’t mine to be this possessive and concerned about, but I couldn’t stop it.
Perhaps I pushed myself too far in trying to be overly patient with the investigation of my father being poisoned. Iwason edge, wishing for this blonde to tame me in this dark mood.
Maybe I had bottled too much anger inside me from the audacity of an enemy trying to take out the leader of my family. I was at risk of holding in too many violent urges.
It didn’t matter. I could explain it a million different ways. All that stayed the same was that seeing Sloane like this answered to a need to protect her. This obsession to possess her and grant her security took over me.
Inexplicably but stubbornly, I had to have her and know she was all right.
A woman scurried down the hall, slowing as she spotted me. I was hunched over, but cautiousness lined this dancer’s face as she probably wondered how I’d gotten back here.
“Hold on.” My voice came out gruffer than I intended. I held my hand up as if to ward her back, but it was too late. She spotted this asshole on the ground, unmoving, and she freaked out. Crying out in alarm, she skidded backward and bolted.
Fuck.
It was only a matter of time before more people would come back here, and I’d be damned if I was deprived of the chance to know if Sloane was all right. I’d trespassed in here and they would try to kick me out, but that wouldn’t do.
Questions pinged me too fast. Warnings flagged in my mind too. But I moved with the need to get her out of here.
I called my driver and ordered him to send the soldier in here to clean this up. Before he came, I frowned at Sloane again, watching her to make sure she was breathing. She hadn’t hit her head. The mark of red on her cheek infuriated me, a suggestion that she’d been slapped. But she had been with it and alert enough to make eye contact with me before she fainted.
Recognition had shone in her emerald eyes before she simply passed out. Still, I watched her chest rise and fall. The skimpy outfit accentuated her luscious tits, her cleavage exaggerated for her job, but all I cared about right now as I dragged this man to the side was that she was breathing.
“Boss?” The soldier showed up, and I let him take over hiding the man.
“I’m taking her out to the car.” I didn’t wait for his reply, knowing he wouldn’t waste time with stupid questions. Stooping low, I gathered Sloane into my arms and carried her outside to where my driver waited in the alley behind the club.
He also knew better than to ask questions. The Ivanov men would stay loyal to their last breath. Opening the back door for me, he had my back and looked out for trouble as I carried Sloane into the back with me. As soon as I got her settled on my lap, the soldier came out with the dead man slung over his shoulder. A few more jerks and bumps of motion throughout the car told me he’d opened the trunk and dropped the corpse in. Then once he got in, we were off.
Silence filled the car. No one spoke, and I wouldn’t have to. Sloane was far from the first person I’d kidnapped, but they had to be curious why I was bringing her home. Ineverbrought a woman home, deeming my family’s residence too private to share with a random fuck.
But she’s not.
Watching Sloane breathe steadily, her lids closed and her lips parted slightly, I had to admit she was no longer a random woman I’d happened to fuck at a club. She wasn’t just some stripper. She alone had the honor of staying in my mind for too damn long. As I directed the driver to go to the house, I assigned another rarity to her.
She was the one woman I would kill to protect and take as I pleased.
Sloane was the one I wanted.
Obsessed with the memory I had of her, I wondered if it could be this simple.
Grandmother had been nagging me to produce an heir. So why not her? I stared at her sleeping, stroking her soft golden locks back from her face. Why not Sloane? She could be the one to give me a child.
I didn’thaveto marry her. I could knock her up, keep her as a mistress, and get a damn heir once and for all. Marriage would be preferred. I understood that, but I wasn’t ready to lock a woman to me for anything more yet.
But if Grandmother was getting this nervous about securing a future line of the Ivanov legacy…
Why not her?
It wouldn’t make sense for me to waste any more time or energy looking for another woman to breed. I had this one with me—and I wasn’t in any mood to let her go.