Angel of Desire (9 page)

The idea of taking the little spy to bed was suddenly infinitely appealing. After he'd searched for hidden weapons, of course.

Since he'd not given her permission to remove them, her hands were still atop her blond head. The position, which he'd had her assume for safety's sake, proved to have an added benefit, lifting her breasts and thrusting them appealingly against the thin cotton bodice of her nightgown.

His fingers clasped around one of her wrists. He felt her pulse treble its beat, but the only sign of her fear was a slight dampening of her palms and a white line around her lush lips.

Oh yes, Shade considered wryly, Rachel Parrish was proving quite an interesting challenge.

"Your pulse is beating like a rabbit's. I wonder if that's from fear." Without taking his gaze from her wary one, he lifted her wrist to his own harshly cut lips. "Or something else."

"Really, Mr. Blackstone, I think…oh!" As he treated the other wrist to a feathery kiss, as well, words momentality deserted her. A breath she'd been unaware of holding shuddered out.

"You think?" Shade prompted. His hands glided up her sides, stopping just beneath her breasts.

This was not what she'd come to earth for, Rachel reminded herself through the delicious mists clouding her mind. It was vital that she regain some semblance of control.

"I think I should be returning to my room."

One hand toyed with the ribbons at the neckline of her nightgown. The other was brushing against her nipple in a tantalizing way that made her flesh tingle. "Before you get what you came here for?"

"This isn't the reason I came here tonight."

"Isn't it?" Those devilishly clever fingers had slipped inside her now-open gown and were tracing a seductive pattern on her heated flesh.

Rachel heard a distant moan and realized through her swirling senses that it had escaped her own lips. She shook her head.

"No," she insisted on something perilously close to a sob. The sensations she was experiencing were too new. Too raw. "It's not."

She was trembling like a leaf in gale-force winds. As her bemused eyes brimmed with moisture, Shade felt another unwilling tug of sympathy. This time he found her discomfort impossible to resist.

He retted the white satin ribbons. "Go back to your own room, Sister Rachel. We'll talk in the morning."

His fingers, no longer gentle, tightened painfully around her shoulders as he marched her toward the bedroom door, then out into the hallway.

She felt his unblinking, intense gaze on her as she returned to the room next door. It took an effort, but she kept her head high, her spine straight. It was only after she was in the safety of Marianne and Conlan O'Donahue's bedroom, only after she'd closed and locked the door, that Rachel gave in to her distress.

On legs that felt like water, she staggered to the bed and sank down onto the mattress. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips against the lids, so tightly that the pressure created a dancing display of spinning, golden lights.

Rachel knew she was lucky to have gotten off so easily. Some men—men without consciences, men of the immoral type Shade so often pretended to be—would not have released her without first taking their pound of female flesh.

She lay in the bed—a double bed, made for two—staring up at the swirls on the plaster ceiling. She could hear Shade in the next room, pacing like a caged tiger. Or a sleek, dangerous panther.

Allowing Shade to touch her in such a forbidden, intimate fashion had been wrong. But it had also been surprisingly exciting. Too exciting.

With a muffled groan, Rachel rolled onto her stomach and pulled the down pillow over her head.

Dear Lord, whatever was she going to do?

THE DAY DAWNED BRIGHT and clear. Unfortunately, the sunny morning did not come close to matching Rachel's depressed mood.

Last night's intimate encounter haunted her as she showered and dressed and worked up her nerve to face Shade again. How on earth was she going to make him understand that although she still intended to accompany him to Yaznovia, she would not, could not, permit such forbidden behavior?

Then again, she tried to assure herself as she checked her reflection in Marianne's dressing table mirror, perhaps once he viewed her in the clear light of day, he would no longer find her appealing. She was, after all, far different from the glamorous women Shade usually preferred to take to his bed.

The dress she was wearing today was a drab shade of brown, every bit as sedate as yesterday's black garb. As she buttoned her long cuffs, Rachel was vaguely surprised that the skin on her wrists hadn't been branded by his hot lips.

Shaking off the evocative, too-perilous memory, she tied her hair back into its neat coil at the nape of her neck. She took another quick glance at herself in the mirror. Her eyes, unhighlighted by any cosmetic magic, seemed oddly different to her today.

She leaned closer, studied her reflection judiciously and groaned as she realized the difference was a certain awareness in their depths that had not been there the last time she looked. Awareness and an undeniable eagerness to see Shade again.

She turned to leave the bedroom, then, on impulse, pinched her cheeks. Hard, until they glowed a healthy pink. Not wanting to consider the implications of such behavior, she followed the enticing scent of coffee down the stairs to the kitchen.

Marianne was sitting at the table, reading the International section of
The Washington Post
and drinking from an earthenware mug. She looked up and smiled when Rachel entered.

"Good morning. Would you like some coffee?"

"Good morning. I think I would, thank you."

Rachel studied the pregnant woman with a professional eye. The first trimester of pregnancy was never easy; from the smudged circles beneath Marianne O'Donahue's eyes and her unhealthy pallor, Rachel discerned that hers was proving exceedingly difficult. Which wasn't a surprise, considering how worried she must be about her husband.

"Don't get up." Rachel poured a cup of the fragrant black beverage from the carafe of the electric coffee-maker, and took a tentative taste of the drink that during her time on earth had been declared a forbidden, sinful drink of infidels.

Later, she recalled, Pope Clement, a convert of the bracing brew, had given coffee official Christian status by actually baptizing it.

"I hope I didn't keep you awake last night," Marianne said. "I couldn't sleep, so I turned on CNN."

Watching for news of her husband on the twenty-four-hour news channel, Rachel supposed. That explained the voices she'd heard downstairs. The voices she thought belonged to Marianne and Shade. Obviously he'd been in bed when she entered his bedroom.

"You didn't disturb me at all." The first sip had burned her tongue. Rachel blew lightly on the coffee and tried again. "This is very good," she said, "but do you think you should be drinking it in your condition?"

"Oh, I always stick to herbal tea." Marianne raised her mug as if to back up her claim. "I've always found coffee too strong for my taste, but Shade likes it thick enough to stand a spoon upright."

"Speaking of Shade," Rachel said with feigned casualness, "has he come down yet?"

"Hours ago. He said he had some business to attend to and would be back in a while." Marianne's soft, shadowed eyes revealed her discomfort with the rest of the message. "He also told me I wasn't to let you out of my sight."

Rachel took another sip, enjoying the way the caffeine surged through her system. "I'm so pleased he trusts me."

Marianne could not miss her dry tone. She folded her hands atop the newspaper. "How much do you know about Shade?"

Rachel shrugged. "Enough."

Marianne studied her thoughtfully. Rachel knew she was censoring her words. "Life hasn't been easy for Shade. It wasn't for Conlan, either. But different people respond to life experiences in different ways."

Rachel sat down in a chair across the table from her hostess. "I know he's had a difficult life. But he certainly doesn't make things very easy."

"No." Marianne smiled at that. "Shade is not an easy man to know. And he would definitely not be an easy man to love."

"I think you've misunderstood our situation."

"Have I?" Marianne gave her another of those fond yet probing looks. "No, I don't think so." She smiled and leaned back in her chair. "Your relationship with Shade is none of my business, Rachel, but you have to understand, he means a lot to me. Next to my husband, there's not a person on earth I love more than Shade Blackstone.

"After all he's been through, he deserves some happiness. And I believe," she said firmly, "he's finally found the woman who can make him happy."

Marianne O'Donahue was so open and so honest, Rachel felt guilty at not being able to tell her the absolute truth about her mission. "I think wringing my neck might make him happy," she allowed instead.

Marianne laughed at that. "To tell you the truth, there have been times I've wanted to do the same to him."

"Nevertheless," Rachel said, wanting to set the well-meaning matchmaker straight, "my association with Shade is purely professional. I merely wish to accompany him to Yaznovia."

"Yaznovia?" Marianne's blue eyes widened with disbelief. "Why on earth would you wish to go there?"

"That's the same question I've been trying to get Sister Rachel to answer." The rough, familiar voice shattered the convivial atmosphere of the homey, sun-filled kitchen.

Both women looked up to see Shade standing in the doorway. The thunderous expression on his face was not encouraging.

Marianne pressed a hand against the front of her gray Georgetown sweatshirt. "Honestly, Shade, if you don't stop sneaking up on me that way, I'm going to have a heart attack. The man," she said in an aside to Rachel, "never makes a sound."

Rachel wasn't about to admit that she'd already discovered that disconcerting skill herself. The hard way.

Shade entered the room on long, determined strides, stalking Rachel as if he were a predator. "If you'll excuse us, Marianne," he said, taking Rachel's mug from her hand and putting it on the table, "Ms. Parrish and I are going to take a drive."

"I'll excuse you, Shade," the other woman said easily, "if you promise that you won't take whatever has you so upset out on Rachel."

Shade could have spent hours relating ail the ways the woman in question was the one responsible for his ill temper. But unwilling to upset his best friend's wife any more than she already was, he said, "I promise, I won't lay a hand on her."

"Of course you won't," Marianne agreed. "But I don't want you yelling at her, either."

He wondered idly what Marianne would say if he told her the truth. That he believed that Rachel was somehow mixed up with (Ionian's murderous captors.

"Shade." Marianne folded her arms across her chest. "I'm waiting."

Shade ruffled her hair in a fond, fraternal gesture. "Sorry, honey, you know I'd do anything for you, but that's one promise I'm afraid I'm going to have to break."

With that ominous statement ringing in Rachel's ears, he reached down and captured her wrist in a painfully tight grip. His fingers felt like manacles on her skin as he practically yanked her from the chair.

"Move it, lady. Now."

He dragged her from the room, across the small foyer, down the front steps, tossed her unceremoniously into the front seat of his rented sedan and fastened the seat belt across her chest.

Shade was angrier than she'd ever seen him; as he threw his own hard body into the driver's seat, steam was practically coming from his ears.

Knowing that he'd never respect a coward, and irritated by his bad manners, Rachel refused to flinch beneath his killing glare.

"Are you always this out of sorts in the morning?"

Hashing her a savage grin, he leaned toward her and placed his hand deliberately on her breast. "If you want a man to wake up in a good mood, Sister, you shouldn't get him all hot and bothered the night before."

His touch was meant to humiliate rather than to arouse. Even knowing that, Rachel experienced a jolt of physical awareness at the feel of those treacherous long fingers.

"You sent me back to my room."

He grimaced at that. "Don't remind me." He squeezed her flesh, felt her nipple respond beneath the ugly brown serge and cursed. "In fact, I don't want you to say a single goddamn word until we get out of town."

"We're leaving town? Where are we going? To Yaznovia? Does Marianne know?"

His eyes narrowed and glittered with dangerous masculine warning. "I said, shut up."

He pressed a button and she heard the four doors of the car automatically lock. Then he pulled the car away from the curb with a roar of the engine.

Chapter Five