Bound by Love (Russian Connection 2)

She bent down to pluck the jacket from where Stefan had tossed it onto the carpet, her heart giving a faint flutter as she felt the unmistakable bulge of his purse in an inner pocket.

If she could just manage to get her hands on his money she would have the means to flee Paris. And more importantly, the means to lure the danger away from Stefan.

“Why?” she demanded, her voice determinedly steady.

Pulling a tiny flask from yet another pocket, he handed it to her. “This should cleanse the wound as well as any sawbones could do. If you would do the honors?” He flashed a wry smile. “I assure you it will hurt like the devil.”

“Good.” She readily hid her shattered nerves behind a pretense of anger. “You deserve to suffer for putting yourself in danger.”

He winced as she splashed the spirit into the thankfully shallow wound.

“No doubt my brother would fully agree with such an uncharitable sentiment.” He pointed toward her forgotten shift at the end of the bed. “Now if you could tear off a length of linen, I believe it should work well enough to bind the wound.”

She reached for the shift, tearing off a large square. She folded it and carefully positioned it over the wound before tearing a small strip to wrap under his arm and around his shoulder to hold it in place.

“I notice that none of your precious clothing is to be sacrificed,” she muttered.

“I did promise to purchase you an entire wardrobe.” He turned his head to brush his lips over her cheek. “Of course, that promise comes with the condition that I be allowed to rip it off you.”

She straightened with a sharp jerk, unnerved by her explosive reaction to his touch.

“Mon Dieu, you have just been shot and you are thinking about ripping off my clothes?”

“When you are near that is all I think about,” he said, his expression revealing he was not entirely pleased with his desire for her. “But you are right.”

“What are you doing?” she demanded, exasperated as he rose to his feet, then, grasping the post of the bed, studied the window across the room.

“The shooter had to have climbed the tree to have a clear shot into the room.”

She shivered, her stomach twisting with sick dread at just how close Stefan had been to being killed.

Oddly, the knowledge that some criminal might have been watching as she and Stefan had made passionate love, or even the realization that the bullet had more than likely been intended for her, were forgotten beneath the tide of horror at the thought of Stefan lying dead on the shabby carpet.

“I suppose,” she muttered.

“Which means it was not simply a stray shot.” He turned to stab her with an ominous glare. “It was intended to kill one of us.”

“Yes.”

“So either someone in Paris has recognized you or I have enemies I did not even know I possessed.”

She pressed her hands to her stomach. “You should not have followed me.”

“Enough of your games, Leonida. You will tell me the truth,” he rasped, muttering a curse as there was a loud knock on her door that made both of them jump in alarm. “Ignore it.”

“Madame.” The sound of the manager’s anxious voice floated through the room. “Madame, I heard a shot. Are you injured?”

Leonida licked her dry lips, welcoming the interruption. “If I do not answer he will come in to check on me.”

His jaw tightened, his expression strained from the pain he was attempting to ignore.

“Very well. But Leonida.”

“What?”

“This is between the two of us,” he warned, his voice lethally soft. “Do not involve anyone else.”

She pursed her lips, pushing back the hair that Stefan had so recently unpinned and heading across the room.