A Perilous Eden (2 page)

She didn't keep quiet to obey him; she did so because she was practically suffocating. He spoke harshly in a foreign language again. She thought it might be Arabic, but she wasn't certain. The man he had dragged off her rose, eyeing Michael warily as he did so. He stood beside the railing, apparently following instructions, and motioned to someone below. He was answered by a beam of light slashing through the darkness.

Every man had a scent. Even freshly showered and shaved and wearing cologne, he had his own unique scent. She knew Michael Adams's. She knew it very well. She had lain beside him, and she had breathed in that scent again and again.…

Michael Adams pulled Amber close against him again, whispering harshly, “This is my party, Miss Larkspur. You weren't invited, but you're here.” His words didn't really matter, she thought, because any minute she was going to pass out. She couldn't speak; she could only inhale the scent of him.

Every man had a scent. Even freshly showered and shaved and wearing cologne, he had his own unique scent. She knew Michael Adams's. She knew it very well. She had lain beside him, and she had breathed in that scent again and again.…

Again the sense of betrayal knifed into her. He had made love to her. He had touched her as no other man had touched her before, in ways that went beyond the senses and reached into the soul.

Now he was touching her again—and threatening her life.

She was probably about to die, she thought. Should her life be flashing before her eyes? She had lived a good life. An army brat, she'd grown up all over the world. And now she was part of the best of Washington society. She'd gone to the best schools, had the most fascinating opportunities. She'd learned what pain was, too. Losing her mother ten years ago had been anguish. And she'd learned about facing reality, because admitting that she could not change Peter had been like admitting she had wasted five years of her life, that dreams could never come true. She was young and privileged and well educated, and she had even been told that she was beautiful, but none of it had meant anything, because she had been unable to help Peter. She had finally let him go it on his own, and she had known that she would be okay when she had met Michael, when she had heard his whisper, felt his hands, his passion. In his arms she had learned how dearly, how sweetly, she loved life.…

She didn't want to die. She could beg; she could plead. She could ask him to remember what they had shared.

No. He was a traitor. She would never bow before him. She was her father's child. And if there was anything that Ted Larkspur's daughter had learned through the years, it was courage.

When Michael Adams began to release his hold on her mouth, Amber inhaled deeply, then screamed again.

“Damn you!” he swore, and for once his confident demeanor was ruffled. His fingers clamped over her mouth again in a punishing vise. “Stop it!” he hissed. “Amber, I'll give you one warning—”

She bit him. She sank her teeth into his index finger, but he didn't cry out. Instead, calmly, he hit her. The knuckles of his free hand came up and caught her jaw. It didn't seem so terribly hard. It didn't even seem really painful.

But her mind began to spin, and brilliant stars seemed to explode across the heavens. Then the stars faded, and she saw no more.

She awoke with a dull headache. Nothing of what had happened came to her at first; she was aware only of the sound of water lapping against the hull of a ship. She didn't open her eyes; she just listened to the sound of the water.

Then she became aware of voices. Men were speaking, arguing, in Spanish, she thought.

Her fingers curled into the cushions. These men would kill her without blinking an eye. It wouldn't matter that she was young, that she was a woman. They had come for the senator, and she had gotten in the way. But she was still alive. For how long, though?

Finally Amber opened her eyes, quickly closing them against the pain of the sudden light, then slowly opening them again.

She had surmised quickly that she was still at sea. Now she saw that she was on a couch in the salon area of a cabin cruiser.

It was probably about a sixty-footer, she thought, and a nice piece of workmanship at that. She was across from a large table where ten or twelve people could be comfortably seated for a meal. To her right was a galley, complete with a counter, refrigerator, stove, washer and dryer, and endless wood cabinets. There was a door to her right, leading to cabins, she assumed. She thought the vessel might easily sleep twelve or fourteen in comfort.

She slid her legs over the side of the couch. Her shoes were gone, and her stockings were torn and stained. She shivered. Her scarf was gone, too, and it was cold in the cabin. Her jaw was sore. She moved it carefully. Nothing seemed to be broken.

The men were still arguing.

Amber stood up carefully, stretching, gaining her balance. Perhaps she could find a life jacket and jump into the sea. She would rather take her chances with sharks than fanatics.

Where was the senator? she wondered sickly. Had they killed him already? Or had he been taken for ransom?

There was a scurry of noise from above. Amber sat down quickly, determined to pretend that she was asleep. But she was too late. The man whose mask she had stripped away was hurrying down a short flight of stairs into the galley. He met her eyes and smiled.

She realized then that he spoke English, at least one word of it. “Up,” he told her.

He reached to touch her, and she moved quickly. “I'm up.”

She stood up again, but he touched her anyway, pushing her ahead of him. They came to the little flight of steps, and he shoved her forward. She pushed open a half-closed doorway and nearly stumbled over the step that led to the outer deck, still cloaked in night's darkness.

High above her head was the helm, covered by a canopy. Before her, lounging in an assortment of deck chairs, was an array of men. She hadn't been unconscious very long, she determined. Several of them were still clad in wet suits.

There was a swarthy older man there, cloaked in a burnoose from head to toe. He gave Michael his full attention, as did the five younger men—subordinates, or so it seemed.

Michael was leaning against the rail. When Amber appeared, barefoot and indignant, her chin high while her heart trembled, he allowed his gaze to sweep over her, but his attention remained on the older man. He spoke slowly in Spanish—switching into another language on occasion to press a point.

The man behind Amber exploded in fury. Then Michael spoke a sentence in English, insistently.

“She is my concern. Mine.”

A spate of Spanish broke out again.

Michael interrupted sharply, speaking briefly before he gave a harsh laugh, which all the men shared.

“What the hell is going on?” Amber demanded, narrowing her eyes. Maybe they were trying to decide whether to just throw her overboard or slit her throat and
then
throw her overboard. She was certain that at least half of these men wanted her dead. “None of you has any rights where I'm concerned! You're criminals! You let me go—and the senator—this instant or I swear I shall—”

Michael interrupted her, turning from her as he spoke to the older man as if nothing she said mattered, as if she hadn't even spoken. He kept speaking to the older man—the only other man whose opinion seemed to count.

“Where is the senator?” Amber demanded.

They all stopped then, staring at her.

“Shut up,” Michael Adams told her flatly.

She couldn't let him turn away again. They were probably going to kill her one way or the other, so it really didn't matter what she said anymore.

“They'll hang you, Michael Adams. They'll get you, you bastard, one way or the other. Maybe they'll shoot you for treason. It's a pity they don't draw and quarter men anymore. It would be a fitting way for you to go.”

His ice-blue eyes fell on her with complete disdain. “Shut up, Amber.”

“The hell I will—” she began.

Three quick strides brought him to her before she could even attempt to back away. He struck her again, open-handed, his palm cracking loudly against her cheek. Tears rose instantly to her eyes, and she tasted blood where her teeth had caught the vulnerable flesh of her inner lip. She swore silently that she would not go down without a fight, that she would not be a pathetic victim, refusing to battle. She struck him with swift venom, startling him when her fingers connected with his face.

A roar of laughter went up.

Someone shouted out to Michael, and the sentence contained a word she understood.
Puta
. Whore. They were calling her Michael's whore, she realized, and laughing because the man who held sway over all of them didn't seem to be able to handle his whore. They all wanted to have something on him, she realized. They were afraid of him.

At the moment she was afraid of him herself. She forgot that his intervention had saved her life. That it was still the only thing standing between her and death.

“No!” she shrilled furiously. “I am nothing to this man! Listen to me—”

“Shut up!” Michael ground out savagely. He grabbed her, wrenching her off her feet, and tossed her over his shoulder. His voice rose with rage, and he snapped out something in Spanish.

There was laughter again. They weren't laughing at Michael anymore; they were laughing at her.

Michael kicked open the door and started down the steps that had brought her to the deck. Gasping, Amber saw that they were passing through the galley and the salon where she had so recently lain.

She had been afraid of death; she had never even thought about rape. Now the echo of coarse male laughter reached her, and a new terror was born within her soul.

They slammed through a hallway, then into a tiny hot cabin where the only illumination came from a pale ray of moonlight.

Amber was cast like refuse upon a narrow bunk. For a moment she lay stunned; then she twisted in panic, her heart racing. She started to rise, but she was caught and thrown back.

She couldn't really see Michael in the humid darkness. All she could see was a silhouette, dark and menacing.

Then she heard a rustle in the darkness, and the silhouette of the man began to glow. He had shed the black turtleneck, and the rippling muscles of his chest were gleaming in the pale light.

She stared at him, able to see his eyes at last, the fathomless blue-ice eyes that had once so fascinated her.

“Let me go, you son of a bitch!” she grated, her voice shaking with vehemence.

He looked at her without emotion, without deigning to reply. He unbuckled his belt, and it slipped from the loops of his jeans with a curious slithering sound. Amber's eyes widened as she saw him wrap the leather around his hand and wield the length of it like a whip. Dear God, he meant to beat her into silence.

She let out a long scream of horrified anticipation. The leather made a snakelike hissing sound as it rent the air and struck … the bedding, not her flesh.

Perhaps she was in shock. Amber couldn't grasp what was happening. Half gasping, half laughing and very near tears, she stared at him. “Dear God. Oh God …”

He took a step toward the bunk so that he could whisper in the night. She saw the white flash of his teeth and the deadly warning in his eyes. “Scream again.”

“What?”

“Scream again.”

“Michael, I don't—”

“You idiot. I said
scream
!”

His eyes met hers for a second, then fell to the white bodice of her gown. He released her shoulders and bluntly reached for the fabric between her breasts, then wrenched it apart.

Amber clawed at his hands, screaming. “Don't! Don't!” Hysteria was rising within her. Not this. Not this, not from him …

He smiled, his teeth flashing again. There seemed to be a touch of humor in his eyes. “Good scream,” he told her, and then he proceeded to rip the bodice of her white cocktail gown until it was split to her navel.

He wanted screams, she gave him a barrage of them, clawing at his hands, his face, his throat, pummeling anything she could reach.

“Good,” he murmured to her, releasing her suddenly. Amber fell against the wall, struggling to hold her clothing together, gasping for breath and completely dazed.

Michael Adams sat at the foot of the bed, untied his black sneakers and tossed them across the cabin.

“I'll kill you myself!” Amber swore, close to tears, fighting them wildly.

He reached behind him to his waistband and produced a smooth steel weapon, then set it on a bureau by the bed. Amber caught her breath, gazing at the gun longingly.

Then her eyes darted back to him. He was standing again, sliding out of the black jeans, and moonlight was dancing over the whole of his body.

He had worn nothing beneath the jeans.

“No!”

This time he replied, chuckling softly. “Amber, my love, there's nothing new here.…”

The deep husky tone of his voice nearly demolished the last of her sanity. How dare he remind her of how familiar they were to one another?

He let out a very explicit oath, then fell on top of her. She felt his flesh against her body. Her white gown fell open, and the rough hair on his chest brushed over her breasts. A scream rose in her throat again, but she didn't let it loose. His eyes were on her, piercing into her own. He brought his hand up and softly stroked her cheek. “You fool. For God's sake, give yourself a chance.”

He was going to kill her now, she thought. She could fight, but she couldn't win.

She moistened her lips. “Don't …” she whispered. She kept her eyes on his. Maybe there was mercy somewhere within him.

“Listen to me. And listen good. I am trying to keep you alive.”

She nodded. Sure. Sure he was.

He moved away, sitting at the foot of the bunk, running his fingers through his hair. He seemed to have forgotten her, but then she must have moved, or breathed, or something, and she drew his attention again.