Safe Harbor (39 page)

Downstairs she could hear her sisters moving around and she squared her shoulders. Today was going to be different. Today she was going to act normal and make good decisions based on what she wanted to do, not what she thought everyone wanted from her. Today was going to be the start of the new Hannah Drake.

HANNAH spent the better part of the morning and afternoon assuring her sisters she was capable of doing housework and cooking. She found that Libby was right in that she seemed to have less energy and often had to rest, but as soon as she could, she got back up and did normal household chores, interacting with her sisters as much as possible.

She planned dinner for her siblings, even though she knew Jonas was taking her on an evening picnic. Most of the day she managed to keep from thinking constantly about the attack. Before it had consumed her every waking thought, but she was happy that she managed to replace the dread and fear with anticipation of seeing Jonas and the idea that she might actually be brave enough to seduce him.

All the while, she was aware the reporters and the crowd hadn't gone away. It was a little thinner, she thought, but she could hear Reverend RJ shouting and once, when she glanced out the window, she saw that he'd climbed on a small step stool and was waving his arms around as he delivered his sermon in his theatrical voice.

"Hey, woman, you're mooning around again," Joley said. "You're looking lovesick and that's just wrong. I can't take it, Hannah." She made a face at the contents of the refrigerator. "If you actually fall madly in love with Jonas, what's going to happen to me? And Elle? You said you weren't about to fall like our older sisters. We made a pact, remember?"

"Get out of the fridge. I'm making you dinner." Hannah closed the heavy door and leaned against it. "I did make the pact with you and Elle, but I didn't think I had a chance with Jonas. I didn't think he was interested."

Joley rolled her eyes. "I love you, Hannah, but when it comes to men, you don't know a thing."

"And you do?"

"I know enough to stay away from them. What in the heck is all that racket outside?" She was already heading for the living room, where she could peer out the large picture window.

Sarah glanced up from the magazine she was reading. "Come away from there, you don't want to give any of them the satisfaction."

"That horrible man, the Reverend something, is out there in front of the cameras again, Sarah," Joley hissed, her teeth clenched. "Can't Jonas have him arrested?"

"For what? Preaching? That would look lovely on the news. He'd lose his job, the Reverend would sue and get even more publicity. Right now he's just soaking up the press and they're so bored out there they'll do anything at all for a story."

Joley's eyebrow shot up. "You think?"

"I know." Sarah lowered her magazine when Joley's tone got through to her. "What are you thinking, Joley? Don't do anything crazy." When Joley ignored her and continued to look out the window, Sarah put the magazine on the table beside her tea, really alarmed. "Hannah," she called, sticking her head in the kitchen. "Joley's up to something and you're going to have to stop her. She never listens to anyone else."

Hannah dried her hands on a towel and followed Sarah. "What's wrong, hon? And come away from the window before a photographer gets a picture of you."

Joley shrugged. "What's one more photograph? At least this time it will be for a good cause. That idiot Reverend is out there using the attack on you to preach to everyone about the consequences of sin."

Hannah went still. "He's talking about me? Are you sure? Where's Jonas?"

Sarah wrapped her arm around Hannah's slender waist. "There's no need to worry. He doesn't appear to be interested in coming in here to talk to any of us. He wants his moment in the sun with the television cameras and the press."

Hannah moistened her lower lip with her tongue. "He's slime, Joley, not a real preacher. He started his own church for the purpose of conning people out of their money and sleeping with every woman in his sick little flock. He's disgusting. I know, because I touched him. I felt dirty for a week. You stay away from him, Joley."

"Is Jonas aware of what the Reverend is like?" Sarah asked.

"Yes, we've had a couple of conversations about him."

"And the Reverend, is he aware of your knowledge, Hannah?" Sarah asked, suspicion in her voice.

Hannah crossed to the window and, standing to one side, took a quick look out. The Reverend was surrounded and he was booming out his sermon, his voice thundering over the crowd extolling the merits of seeking forgiveness on one's knees and avoiding the harlots of the world.

"He's so clichéd," she hissed. "I should just go out there and tell the world what he's really like."

"Hannah, don't you dare. For one thing, you have no proof. He could sue you for making those kinds of allegations."

"They're true."

"True or not, you have to have proof."

"So he likes women, does he?" Joley ventured and turned away before Hannah could say anything else. She raced up the stairs.

"Hannah," Sarah persisted, before she could follow Joley. "Did you confront the Reverend? You did, didn't you?"

"He was protesting at every single shoot I went on. If not the Reverend personally, he has four or five men who travel with him and they protested. It wasn't directed at a designer, or even furs, but at me personally. My agent was afraid we'd lose assignments if he kept causing negative publicity. So yes, I went to see him with the idea that once he met me, he'd see I wasn't the devil's daughter."

"And?" Sarah prompted, pressing her lips together tightly.

Hannah sighed. The lip thing was always a bad sign with
Sarah. "Well, in the end I think I just proved to him I was the devil's daughter, by reading his mind and letting him know I was disgusted by him." She glanced up as Joley came running back down the stairs and went straight to the front door. "Oh, no. Sarah. Stop her."

Joley was dressed in slim vintage blue jeans, riding low on her hips and highlighting the shape of her butt very lovingly. Her tight pink tank top hugged the full curve of her breasts and stopped short of her waist, showing an intriguing strip of her flat belly. A golden chain glittered just below her waist and above her jeans. The way she moved screamed sex. Her hair was wild, her full, pouting lips a dark siren red. She didn't just walk, she flowed, all soft lush curves and windblown hair. She was temptation wrapped in casual elegance.

The crowd at the fence went crazy, yelling and waving. Cameras turned away from the Reverend and focused on her.

Joley waved and sauntered down toward them, her every step an answer to the wickedest erotic dreams.

Hannah clutched Sarah's hand. "She's going to start a riot out there. Where are the security people? Matt isn't here and neither is Aleksandr or Damon."

"Joley can handle a crowd," Sarah reassured her, silently praying it was true.

The Reverend RJ, realizing he was losing his audience, lifted his hands to the sky and called louder for the Lord to forgive the sins of Hannah Drake, parading her body, strutting around deliberately tempting men to be sinners and leading other women to wear the clothes of the temptress.

Joley went right up to him, looking every inch of sex and sin, her fragrance enveloping him in deliberate enticement. She flashed her perfect white teeth and batted her long lashes. "Reverend RJ? I'm Joley, Hannah's sister." She offered her hand, her voice pitched low, the rhythm hypnotic—mesmerizing even. It dropped another octave so that she sounded sultry and tempting. "It's so sweet of you to pray for her soul."

The Reverend opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Joley often had that effect on men. He slipped his hand into hers and she ran the pad of her thumb over the back of his hand, reading him, reading his perverted thoughts and his darkest secrets, even as she gave him a thrill.

Joley ignored the rush of memories and concentrated on his perverted thoughts. He couldn't stop thinking about her breasts and he loved the chain. Mostly his thoughts were all about what he'd like to do to her. She gave him a slow, seductive smile that had his body reacting and his mind racing.

"You're so caring to worry about my sister's soul." She moved, a soft undulation of her body, enough to show off her lush curves without seeming to do a thing. It was easy enough to boost the microphones when the Reverend talked, and interfere when she did so the broadcast would only hear him—the lust and excitement in his voice.

She smiled at him, her sultry come-on smile. "It's too bad you don't like women, you're a good-looking man and we could…" She shrugged, letting her body just barely slide against his, her fingers slipping away from his almost reluctantly. Before he could respond to her allegation, she stepped even closer so that her breath warmed his ear. "You look like you could save even me."

He reacted visibly, a shiver of excitement going through his body. She tilted her head, her gaze holding his so for a moment they were the only two people there. Her voice was a soft whisper. "I like games, do you?" He was imagining her at his mercy, tied up and taking whatever he gave her, while he preached that it was for her own good. She heightened his imagination, letting him taste the power he'd have over her.

He licked his lips and the bulge in his trousers grew. "We could explore possibilities if you want to be saved."

"Do you think you could save me? I've—done things." Her voice was pitched low and implied all sorts of sinful, wicked and very sexual things.

The Reverend swallowed several times. "I could save you, child."

This time when she stepped close, her breasts brushed his chest and then she slid away again, her lips in a seductive pout. "What would you do? Tell me. Tell me right now." Her hand slid down his chest and belly, stopped just short of the front of his trousers, her fingers tapping and then sliding away.

He swallowed hard, the images in his head overcoming everything else. He reached for her, his hands settling around her arms, fingers digging deep. "I would have to tie you down to keep the devil from getting you. He'll fight me for you. You see how necessary it is."

She blinked up at him, her face innocent, her eyes hot with desire—for him. He could taste her, feel her already. The Reverend was oblivious to his men, trying to pull him away from the cameras. There was assent in her eyes, need. She would let him because he had the power.

"Flogging is beautiful on a woman and sometimes it's the only way."

"I have a lot of sins," she said. Her hand trailed up his chest, eyes still locked with his. "Will I feel you deep inside me?" She ignored his bodyguards just as he did.

"Oh yes." He nodded, barely able to breathe with wanting her. "I'll fuck you blind. I'll make you scream. You'll be lovely with blood running down your back and breasts and buttocks." He was so mesmerized, he was completely unaware of speaking out loud.

Joley chose that moment to step aside so the cameras could pick up the perfect image of a very perverted man lusting after a woman. "You talk a lot of crap, Rev, but inside you're a sick bastard. So basically, you're saying to save my soul, you have to strip me naked, tie me up, flog me and then do me? Wow. Kinky. But no thanks."

Still half under the spell of her voice and body, the Reverend looked up at the cameras blinking, his hand reaching for her as she stepped away.

Joley brushed him off, rubbing her hands down her thighs. "You disgust me. You're after sex, pure and simple, and you like to hurt women. You get off on that, don't you? Hurting women? You know why? You can't get it up any other way."

The tallest bodyguard slammed her back with a hand to her chest as they grabbed the Reverend, pulling him away from her mesmerizing voice, protectively shoving him behind them.

Joley staggered and nearly went down, but she caught herself. Deliberately running her tongue along her lips, she sent the Reverend another seductive smile. "You think my sister is the devil? You got the wrong one."

"You bitch." The tallest of the Reverend's bodyguards came at her again. Joley waited, on the balls of her feet, for the blow. She wanted the man to assault her. It would look so wonderful for the cameras and do even more harm to the Reverend's already severely damaged reputation.

Before his fist could land, Ilya Prakenskii stepped between them, a flow of muscle and coordination, his hand catching the fist in midair and stopping the forward momentum. The man went to his knees, agony on his face.

Joley stepped back, one hand going to her throat in a defensive gesture as she felt the buildup of energy—red-hot and black with anger, pulsing in the air. "Don't kill him," she whispered. "Ilya. Don't."

The Russian turned his head, his smoldering gaze meeting hers. "Go into the house now." He bit the command out between clenched teeth.

Every vestige of color drained from Joley's face, but she turned and hurried back into the house, straight into Hannah's arms.

"It's all right, baby, I'm here," Hannah assured.

"I feel so dirty. That man is so sick and then Ilya came. I didn't know he was there. I didn't feel him, and he saw the whole thing—what I did." Joley, who never cried, burst into tears. "Someone had to stop that horrible man."

The door burst open and Ilya Prakenskii stood framed there, his wide shoulders filling the space. The room pulsed with black rage. He took two long strides in and waved his hand behind him. The door slammed closed.

"Are you deliberately trying to get yourself killed?" Ignoring Hannah and Sarah, he yanked Joley out of Hannah's arms and spun her around to face him. "Because that man isn't just a pervert, he's dangerous, and you must have known that the moment you touched him. You just destroyed him on live television. What the hell were you thinking?"

Joley bit her lip hard to try to stop crying. It was humiliating to have Prakenskii catch her in such a weak moment. He punctuated each word with a hard shake and she wanted to break free and spit in his face, but he was right. He was so right and she had touched a monster and it sickened her.