Brutally Beautiful (13 page)

He plunged harder, dislodging her hands, but by then they were both on fire, their bodies burning, and they clung to each other. Her head went back against the pillows, her breath coming in short gasps, unable to do anything but let him take her to oblivion and beyond.

His cry sounded like triumph.

* * * *

After he’d gone to the bathroom and cleaned up, he returned to the bed just as she was about to join him and suggest a shower. “Not yet,” he said, easing her back against the sheets. “I want to hold you for a while. Just be with you.”

“Wow. Unexpectedly romantic.”

He laughed. “Straightforward. I tell it how it is.” He traced one finger around her nipple, then down to the crease under her breast. “Soft, gorgeous skin,” he said as if discovering her for the first time.

Tonight the drapes were open, revealing the city in all its early-evening glory. He leaned over and switched on one of the bedside lights, and as he moved, she saw it. His skin was a gorgeous shade, bronzed as if permanently tanned, but as he turned she caught sight of a mark on his shoulder. And another, on his chest. She hadn’t realized he had so many scars. “Were you hurt?”

He glanced down, grimaced. “I’ve had an interesting life.” He tapped his shoulder. “And a few appalling tattoos. I had them removed.”

Fear clutched her, and her eyes went wide. She blurted the first thing that came into her head. “Gangs?”

“Does every tattoo have to be a gangland one?” His expression turned cool, distant, and she realized she’d stepped over a mark. He wasn’t ready to tell her everything. She didn’t want to trespass where she wasn’t wanted.

He cupped her cheek, his face relaxing. “Sorry. A painful memory. I told you I had a rough childhood, didn’t I? So you assumed that about the tats. Yes, kind of gangland but not how you’re thinking. Some of them were just plain ugly. My football team, for instance. Stupid thing to have done.” She touched a faint line on his chest, and he covered her hand with his. “I survived. I’m here.”

She caressed his cock, which was already half-erect. “So you are.”

Laughing, he rolled onto his back, taking her with him. “So I’m just me now. No ink, no piercings.” Immediately she glanced at his ear and saw a faint dimple.

“I’d have liked you with an earring. Kind of pirate-y.”

“Fashions change, and if I’d gone into poetry classes with a ring in my ear, they’d have called me Byron. See, nearly every male student had an ear piercing, so I thought I’d be different and not have one.” His hair clung to the pillow, so silky she wanted to bury her face in it. But she wanted to watch him as well. Blue eyes, near-black hair, bronzed body. He reminded her of the heroes of old.

“Hungry now?” he suggested.

She should tell him what she did, what her boss had said, but she couldn’t. Not now, when he’d let her further into his life. “Yes. Somehow I’ve worked up an appetite.” She might be able to confess once they were dressed. Already she was falling, in far too deep.

* * * *

Like Jim had said, Nick should just ask her. But he couldn’t ask her like this, when they were naked in bed together, so he found robes for both of them. He wrapped her in his spare bathrobe, the white one, and kept the navy for himself. She looked adorable swamped in the fabric, the belt cinched tightly around her waist. It came down to the middle of her calves. Well, he didn’t want her to get cold.

He slapped a couple of steaks in a pan, and she prepared a salad in a big glass bowl. The domesticity felt natural, and he craved it as much as he’d craved her body as soon as she’d stepped out of that elevator.

He’d have something for her too. While he couldn’t tell her everything, not yet, he could inform her that he’d applied for citizenship, and he wanted to stay in this country as long as he could. What had started from necessity had ended with a genuine love for this place and the people he met on a daily basis. There really was no place quite like New York, and it suited him better than anywhere else he’d ever lived. He loved the big windows in his apartment, loved the views. Sometimes he’d stand at the windows and just watch. Unlike Gen, he preferred the glass room with no rug, and he’d stand on the floor, staring down at the ground and the people passing under him. Just as well that glass was privacy, because one of the things he liked most of all was to stand there naked, hiding nothing. It gave him a kick to put himself on display like that, even though it was fake. Because he never took unnecessary chances. Except that one time in the library.

With Gen.

As soon as he’d seen this room he’d known he wanted to share it with someone special, and as soon as she’d stepped into his apartment, he knew it was Gen he wanted to share it with. Once this clusterfuck was over, he’d see if he could persuade her.

Well, he had to start somewhere.

They cleared up in domestic harmony, scraping, rinsing, and stacking the plates, putting the leftover salad away for later. Then he took her to the big, squashy sofa in front of the TV and casually mentioned there was a game on. Not his beloved Liverpool, but a Real Madrid game; they were always worth watching. Besides, she might not like the side of him that emerged when Liverpool was losing. This was his second TV, after he’d learned to hurl his beer bottles under the set, against the wall, where he could repair it. A near miss by Gerrard in the closing minutes of a vital match had made Nick lose his cool, and his previous TV.

She happily curled up in the shelter of his arm, and he put on the match. Settled like this, he could kiss her, hold her safe, and after the scare with the poison, that was exactly where he wanted her. They murmured endearments, and he laughingly tried to explain the offside rule, something so convoluted even referees had problems understanding it, until she batted him away. The mood was right, the intimacy new and wonderful.

They broke for advertisements at half-time, and he offered her a beer. After he brought them both back a cold one, he twisted off the caps, and casually said, “You never did tell me where you work. I want to pick you up tomorrow, if that’s okay, as much for my sake as for yours. I nearly—” He broke off as he turned to look at her.

She’d frozen, her eyes fixed on the screen he knew she wasn’t seeing. He picked up the remote and muted it. Players continued without his help, fluidly passing the ball up the field. He ignored it and turned his body, crowding her so she couldn’t get away without pushing him. “What is it? I thought you had a boring office job? Wasn’t that what you told me?”

“Yes, it is. I did.” She pressed a hand over her heart and tried a watery smile. “I’m sorry. I should have said something. I shouldn’t have let you let me in like this. It’s my fault. I’ll go home if you call me a cab.”

He put his hand over hers. “You haven’t told me yet,” he said, keeping his voice gentle. From past experience with jittery females, he knew that would work best. She had a secret, and it sounded like one he needed to know. “Is it to do with where you work? You’re an FBI agent?”

Her expression made him more alarmed. “No, yes. That is, no, I’m not.” She took a deep breath. “I work for Homeland Security. Immigration to be precise.”

“I see.” He kept his voice low and steady, but even he heard the coolness absent a moment before. He’d put in his application for his citizenship last month, in anticipation of his upcoming fifth year of residency in the USA. “What do you do there?”

She shrank back, but he’d been careful to give her nowhere to go. He decided not to encroach on her space any further, at least for now, but he wouldn’t back off either. “I process applications.”

“Including mine?”

Her throat moved as she swallowed. “Yes.”

His heart seized, and cold ice ran through his veins. He had to know everything now; he couldn’t retreat. After he’d shown her this side of himself, she might never want him back. He wasn’t sure
he
wanted
her
after this. It depended on what she told him. “Spill.”

He didn’t have to say any more. “I went to Bared to observe you. That’s all I do, process the forms plus a little undercover work, which isn’t usually complicated.”

“Why not the university? Are you even a real student there?” Undercover. That would explain the fencing around her.

She tried to retreat again, so he stopped her by planting his hand by the side of her head, over her shoulder. “Yes, yes I am. That’s why they chose me. I got a promotion when I agreed, and-and I was curious.”

“About me?”

“About the club. I knew about you, of course, but I hadn’t…met you.”

He regarded her, trying to remove his involvement with her, to see her as she was. Never had he found it so hard, never had his whole body ached just to let it be, not ask any more questions. Always in the past he could withdraw himself from friends or lovers to do what he deemed necessary. Even his brother, when he’d sent Larry away to university, and he’d gone from Larry O’Donnell to Lawrence Cavendish. But not this woman.

“I need to keep you close,” he said. “I might as well use you while you’re here.” He tried to ignore her flinch and failed miserably. “I need to know why they’re interested in me. And who is ‘they’?”

“My boss, Nolan Bennick,” she said, faltering now. “I should have told you.”

“Too fucking right you should. So all this is an act? You set out to get in here?” He waved a hand, indicating the apartment, a vicious desire for revenge taking hold of him. She had no idea what he could do to her. Like she said, she hadn’t met him. “Have you done your search yet?”

“What search?”

“Wasn’t that why you came here?”

Tears misted her eyes, made the depths into crystal, but they didn’t fall. He watched her determination, her attempt to harden herself. “No, it wasn’t. I came here because you asked me to. I didn’t want to, but you asked.” She blinked, and a single drop tipped out of the outer corner of her left eye and trickled down her cheek.

What the fuck was happening to him? When had he gone so soft? He needed to get away from this woman before he did something really stupid. Pain lanced through him, agonizing and unexpected. Women had betrayed him before. Hell, he’d expected it and acted accordingly once upon a time. Never told them anything, never let them into his life.

He wanted to punish her. Women did as he wanted, or they used to, and although he’d spent the last five years relearning how to treat people, old habits still remained. Even when they shouldn’t, even when they meant hurting a woman he cared for more than any other. Instinct drove him to make her tell him. But she’d end up hating herself. Which was kind of the idea, wasn’t it?

Trouble was, these days he’d hate himself more. Letting other people in meant caring about them. He wasn’t a natural psychopath. He’d learned how to not care the hard way, by caring too much and knowing he had to conquer it if he was to live and take care of Larry. He’d made the decision to drop it five years ago, and now here it was, roaring back, the urge to cut himself off and close down.

For tonight, it was the right decision.

Pushing away, he got to his feet in one smooth motion, deliberately demonstrating his power. She blinked, and her tears melted away to leave her staring at him, as expressionless as he. He could counter that. He could break her, and it wouldn’t take long, but he wouldn’t.

That was one reason he’d found it hard to sleep at night before he met her. Memories flooded back after the sun went down. Pacing the streets and visiting strip clubs and nighttime cafes were far preferable to tossing and turning in bed, seeing faces he barely remembered, reliving scenes he wanted desperately to forget. Reading poetry, the only thing that delved into the turgid depths of his filthy soul.

He wouldn’t blacken it further by breaking this woman, but his temper and anguish rose together and he didn’t know if he could stay in control of what he did next. “I can’t handle this. I can’t handle you.”

Thank Christ, she went.

He watched her hurry away, knowing he’d scared her and despising himself for making her feel that way.

* * * *

Nick spent the night fighting his demons, and by the time the sun crept over the horizon, he was back to being Nick Taylor, doctoral student and poetry teacher. Almost, because he wasn’t schizophrenic. He was Nick and Mick and all the beings in between, incorporated into one person. He gathered up the books he’d collected and got to his feet, ready as he ever would be for the day ahead.

As he left his room, he met Gen coming out of hers, dressed and ready for work. Instantly, wariness shaded her eyes. Pain lanced through him when he realized he’d hurt her. One of the drawbacks of being his size, but he’d threatened her last night, let her see the uncivilized thug, the part of him he’d been systematically killing for the last five, nearly six, years. He had no doubt that if he hadn’t been out here pacing the large room all night, she might have left. And put herself in danger. What a shit he was.

“Good morning,” he said. He’d dressed in his university clothes, loose T-shirt, even looser overshirt, worn jeans, and he carried his canvas backpack. True, his notebook computer was state-of-the-art, but he’d hidden it inside a worn holder and covered it with student-style stickers. But he still rocked Mick, because she looked at him like he was wearing a muscle shirt and black leather pants. And still had a ton of gold bling strung and hooked about his person.

“Listen.” He rubbed the back of his neck, knowing what he had to say, but not how to say it. Better to get it over with. “I owe you an apology for last night.”

“Yes, you do.” She glared at him but shifted her gaze quickly. “I don’t expect anyone to talk to me that way, or threaten me, directly or by-by looming.”

He suppressed a smile. That was his feisty Gen. “I lost it, I admit it, but maybe you should have told me where you worked earlier.”

She shrugged and made her way to the kitchen area. “Maybe I should, but I couldn’t find the right moment. It still doesn’t entitle you to talk to me that way.”

He shrugged. “Fine. Got to do your job. What will you tell them about me?”