After Midnight (10 page)

The code caught his attention. “All right, I get the message, you're in trouble and you can't talk. Is it Chris?” he added, because he'd taught her Morse.

One tap. He frowned. “One for no, two for yes. Try again.”

One tap.

He hesitated. Who could be doing this? Jake? “Can you give your name in Morse?” he asked.

There was a pause and a cough, and the cough made his breath catch.
“Nikki?
Nikki, is it you?”

Two taps. Two taps. “I'll be there in two minutes.”

He put the receiver down and ran out the door.

Nikki lay back on the pillow, weak tears of gratitude rolling down her pale cheeks onto her dry,
cracked lips. She hadn't thought he'd understand, but he had. And at least his voice had sounded concerned. That could have been an illusion. At the moment, she didn't care. She only wanted to sleep.

N
ikki heard him at the door, but she was too weak and sick to know or care how he was going to get in. She only knew that he would. He was the sort who got things done even in an emergency. Nikki recognized that trait because she had it herself. She might go to pieces later, but she was always cool when it mattered most.

Kane discovered an unlocked window and went in through it. He found Nikki on the bed, feverish and sick, sounding as if she were breathing water in and out of her lungs.

“My God,” he said quietly.

Her eyes opened, dark green with pain and illness in a face like rice paper. “Kane,” she whispered, but her voice made no sound.

He didn't waste a minute. He wrapped her up in
the cover and carried her out the door to his waiting car. Ten incredibly fast minutes later, he walked into the nearest emergency room carrying her in his arms.

Time seemed to blur after that. She remembered voices and needles and the coldness of metal against her bare skin. Then she slept, very deeply, and the pain mercifully went away.

When she woke, it was dark and she was lying in an unfamiliar bed. It was king-size, with a white and brown and green color scheme that was repeated in the curtains and the bedclothes. The furniture was dark Mediterranean and as sturdy-looking as the man who obviously lived here.

She stirred, trying to raise herself, but it was just too much of an effort.

Kane opened the door and came in, wearing a black-and-white-toweling robe and nothing else. His dark hair was damp, if neat. He smelled of soap.

“Need something?” he asked quietly.

“I need to get to the bathroom,” she whispered hoarsely.

“No problem there.” He pulled back the covers, revealing Nikki in a pale blue silk gown, and lifted her gently free. “Silk. Does he buy them for you?” he asked as he carried her toward the bathroom.

“I buy them…for myself. Why am I here?” she croaked.

“Because I didn't fancy trying to sleep on that damned bed in your guest room again,” he said bluntly. “How can I reach your lover to tell him where you are?”

“He's abroad,” she lied shakily. “And I don't know where he is exactly.”

He sighed. “Well, that solves one problem, at least. Here.” He put her down. “If you need help, don't stand on modesty.”

“I won't.”

Several minutes later, her face washed, she opened the door and he returned her to bed.

He sat down beside her, disturbing the tie of his robe to reveal a portion of his broad, hairy chest. “Here, swallow this,” he said, producing a pill from a small vial. “Doctor's orders,” he added when she hesitated.

She took it from his big hand and managed to swallow it past her sore, tight throat. She grimaced as she handed back the glass of water he'd given her. Her eyes lingered on what she could see of his bare skin and as she dragged them away, he glanced down and chuckled at his state of undress.

“Was I giving you a floor show?” he mused. “Does it matter? You know what I look like. You stood in the doorway and stared at me that first morning after I washed up on your beach.”

She flushed uncomfortably. “I didn't know you saw me.”

“Oh, I was flattered,” he remarked dryly, refastening the robe. “But I've already got a lover.”

“Yes, so you've said.”

He reached down and touched her skin at the collarbone, feeling the heat and dampness of her skin, her involuntary withdrawal from his fingertips.

“I said some harsh things,” he said quietly. “You can't forget them. Probably it's a good thing. I have too many complications in my life right now.”

“So do I,” she whispered. “I only wanted to be friends. I never said I wanted to be your lover.”

“That's true,” he said lazily. “But your eyes say it all the time.” He lifted his hand and softly traced around a taut nipple, watching her reaction to the blatant intimacy. Her body shivered and she caught her breath. “What a fierce reaction for such an innocent little caress, Nikki,” he said, his voice deep and seductive. His big hand flattened over her breast, feeling its firm, hot contour while his thumb and forefinger worked tenderly at the hard nub that crowned it. She was gasping now, even if her hand did raise to catch his wrist in a token protest.

His eyes were steady and speculative on her face. She wasn't accustomed to this kind of intimacy. Like a rank innocent, she was torn between the need to protest and the longing to submit. The
pleasure she was feeling was all too evident. So was an odd fear.

“Doesn't he make love to you at all?” he asked quietly. “You're starved for a man's touch.”

“Please…don't,” she said, shaken.

His dark eyes slid down to the clinging fabric. Only spaghetti straps held the bodice in place, and he'd already dislodged one. His hand moved, slowly tugging it the rest of the way down until he bared her breast to the mauve rise of her nipple. Her eyes widened on his face, as if she couldn't believe what was happening.

“You let me touch it. Now, are you going to let me see it?” he whispered deeply.

Her nails bit into his wrist. This couldn't be happening! She was sick, she was helpless, perhaps it was the medicine…

“Yes,” he murmured, completing the slow descent of the silk, and his eyes found her, enjoyed her, took pleasure from the exquisite creamy firmness of her breast in the sudden silence of the room.

No one had ever made her feel that she might die if he didn't do more than look. Not even in her younger days, before Mosby destroyed her confidence in her femininity, had she known such a primitive need.

“You have a little fever, still,” he said, letting his fingertips touch her, trace her, worship her.
“Your skin is hot to the touch. Especially here, Nikki, where it's hardest. It makes you tremble when I caress it, doesn't it? It makes you want to pull me down and wrap your legs around my hips and pull me into you, because you know that's the only thing that's going to make the aching stop.”

“Damn…you!” she choked.

“You don't want it any less than I do,” he whispered. “Look, Nikki. Let me show you.”

He stood up, his body vibrating with the same fever that held her captive. His hands loosened the single knot that held his robe in place. He pushed it aside and dropped it, and stood before her with magnificent pride in his aroused masculinity, in the perfection of his tall, hard-muscled body without a single white line to mar the even tan that covered it.

Nikki's face colored, but she couldn't look away. He was beautiful. Her eyes traced him with the same rapt fascination an artist would bend on a work of art. He was a work of art.

“You are utter perfection,” she whispered.

“So are you.” His legs held a faint tremor as he looked and wanted her just short of the point of madness.

“Oh, Kane,” she bit off, too weak and shaky to do anything at all about the anguish of her need.

“It's been a very long time since I've been this
aroused,” he said matter-of-factly. “But you're hardly in any condition to satisfy me.”

With sheer force of will, he picked up his robe and shouldered back into it. Nikki lay watching him, helpless, submissive as she never would have been if she'd been completely well.

“That could become addictive,” he mused, watching her pull up the loosened spaghetti strap to stay the confusion his dark eyes were causing.

“What?”

“Letting you look at me,” he said, smiling faintly. “I can never remember wanting the lights on before, when I was aroused like this. Have you ever made love in the light, Nikki?”

She couldn't stop shaking. “I feel ill,” she whispered.

“You are ill, little one,” he said, contrite as he realized how ill she'd been. “And I'm a brute for behaving like this. The sight of you in that gown has made me mindless, I suppose. You need rest, not sexual innuendoes.”

“Were they only that?” she asked unguardedly, watching his face close up at the question.

“I wish I could tell you that they were,” he replied curtly. “But the fact remains that a relationship between you and me wouldn't work.”

“Are you sure?” she asked hesitantly.

He sat down beside her, his expression one of reluctant resignation. “Nikki, a year ago my wife
and son were killed in an explosion,” he said bluntly. “I'm not coping very well, despite the lover I told you about. Sometimes nightmares keep me awake. I don't know how I feel, because I've tried so hard not to. It's too soon,” he concluded roughly.

“I'm very sorry,” she said gently. “You must miss them terribly.”

“I do.” He put his head in his hands and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I miss them every day of my life. God, I'm so tired.”

“Am I contagious?” she asked after a minute.

“I don't know. Some types of pneumonia are. Some aren't.”

“If you don't mind the risk, you might climb in here with me,” she said, croaking with every word.

He looked down at her cold-eyed. “Why?”

She managed a weak smile. “Because you look very much as if you need someone to hold you.” She pulled her arms free of the covers and held them up to him.

He was still wondering two hours later why he'd gone so eagerly into those outstretched arms. It hadn't been sex, because what he'd felt in her embrace was nothing if it wasn't tenderness. He'd rolled over with her, cradling the length of her overwarm body to his, holding her as he tried to cope with the nightmare his life had become.

She'd smoothed his dark hair, whispering soft
incoherences, and after a time, the edge of the pain had been dulled and he felt a sigh of peace ease out of his broad chest.

“It's all right to be alive, even if they can't be,” she whispered at his ear. “They love you, too, and miss you, and know where you are. In some sense or other, they know.”

His big hands flattened on her back, feeling the warmth of her seep into him, making him stronger. It was an incredible sensation, as if they were touching inside somehow, mind and heart and spirit. He wasn't sure he wanted to. On the other hand, the wonder of it overshadowed his doubts and fears, and suddenly all he could think about was how sweet it was to hold her. But it wasn't close enough.

“No,” he whispered when she softly protested the sweep of his hands carrying away her gown. “No, let me. I want to be close to you all night. I won't take you. Let me hold you like this.”

While he spoke, he shouldered out of his robe, and seconds later she was lying nude against his equally bare body. She shivered at the unfamiliar contact and tried to pull away, but he wouldn't permit it.

“You're afraid,” he whispered, and his voice was both surprised and tender. “There's no reason to be. You're an invalid and I have too much conscience to take advantage of it.”

“Are you sure?” she asked nervously.

His hands swept down her spine and he groaned pleasurably as he felt her silky skin in exquisite detail, her breasts on his chest, her belly against the helpless thrust of his body.

“No, I'm not sure, but I can't let you go,” he murmured roughly. His hands pressed gently at the base of her spine and moved her, his long leg trespassing between her thighs.

“No,” she said quickly, staying his hip. “No, don't.”

He lifted his head and looked into her frightened eyes. None of this made sense. He moved back, but his hand slowly eased down and, containing her shocked jerk, he whispered her name softly and kissed her frightened eyes closed. The caresses weakened her resolve. He was touching her…!

She caught his arm, but it didn't stop him. He was slow and tender, but relentless. When she felt the sudden twinge of pain, she was unprepared for his shocked roar.

“My God!”

She swallowed. Her legs were trembling from the pleasure of his intimate testing of her, but her hand pulled at his invading one.

“You can't know,” she said weakly. “A man can't know…”

He threw himself over onto his back, his eyes wide-open on the shadows that played against the
ceiling. His body throbbed, his mind throbbed. He lay on top of the covers with moonlight streaming in the window and outlining him. He couldn't believe what he'd just found out.

“Kane?” she murmured. Her voice sounded rusty.

“Is he gay?”

She swallowed. “He doesn't want to sleep with me,” she said, avoiding the implication.

“Why?” he persisted.

“It…isn't what you think.”

He felt her move and his head turned. She was reaching for the cover, but he stayed her hand.

His eyes looked at her in a new way. The same boldness was there, but now there was curiosity and wonder.

“Haven't you ever wanted to, with someone?” he asked.