Intimate Strangers (3 page)

Tightening his grip on the ten inch steel blade he’d carried since becoming a man, he curved his free hand over the lower half of her face. And then, he waited.

Hannah murmured a sound of protest in her sleep. She stirred beneath the unexpected sensation of weight pressing down on her hips. She blinked, frowned as she focused on the unforgiving facial features of a man she didn’t know, and then went totally still.

She stared up at the crazy man crouched over her in the back of her van. She paled as she registered the masculine contours of his muscular body. For a terrifying moment, she wondered if anything but skin separated them.

Hannah floundered, mind going blank, muscles rendered slack, and shocked to her core. Then, she struggled for a calm she doubted she would ever feel again. As she looked into his cold, remorseless eyes, she ransacked her befuddled mind for some semblance of coherency. Instead, disbelief continued to dominate her thoughts and emotions.

The man lifted his other hand into view, exposing the weapon he gripped. A raw, panicked sound escaped her. She bucked beneath him, stilling when he shook his head and settled even more intimately against her. Hannah stiffened. Wary and alert now, she followed his lead as her heart stuttered in her chest and then began to beat again, this time so wildly that she almost blacked out.

They stared at each other for several long minutes. His body, she realized, was as lethal as the knife he held, his facial features as hard and unforgiving as granite. His eyes were the part of his face that captured her attention—glacial slate gray eyes that looked as old as time and just as weary, too old and far too weary for a man so obviously in his prime.

Hannah couldn’t recall a single one of the rules she’d learned in the self–defense course she’d taken several years earlier, so she stopped trying. A woman who tended to rely on her instincts in time of crisis, she cautioned herself to take this situation one moment at a time.

The futility of trying to fight off a man this massive, muscular, and thoroughly menacing didn’t escape her. Breathing deeply despite the fact that his hand still covered her mouth, she felt amazed by the unexpected spark of anger that ignited within her.

"You sleep like the damn dead," he said accusingly.

Despite his ludicrous comment, she recognized his voice. Stunned, her eyes widened even more, her gaze darting between his hard featured face and the knife he gripped. Hannah tried to speak, tried to move beyond her anxiety in order to reason with him, but her vocal cords felt paralyzed.

"I don’t know who or what you are, lady, but you’re too damned careless to be an assassin." He glared down at her. "Maybe this innocent act of yours is just a new spin on an old but very clever game." He lifted his hand from her face.

She sucked in air and then moistened her lips. Hannah peered up at him, bewilderment and anxiety blending with her growing anger. She cautioned herself not to challenge him, not to do anything foolish. "Are you going to hurt me?"

"Give me a good reason not to."

"Answer my question, please."

He chuckled, a darkly sensual rumble.

Hannah blinked. "Are you planning to rape me?" she demanded without really thinking through such a question.

"Not my style."

"Then I shouldn’t have to provide you with a reason to behave in a civilized manner, especially since I’ve already told you who and what I am."

He smiled, but his expression remained cold and dangerous. She sensed his capacity for retribution if he felt wronged or threatened.

"I asked you very politely to leave."

She shook her head. "No, you ordered me to leave. There’s a difference. You were rude."

Surprise flashed across his face.

She watched him, and she decided that anyone who contradicted him did so at his or her own peril. She wondered why she’d felt she could. And she wondered why and how Sean had chosen him as a friend. Certain now of his identity, she prayed he would feel reluctant to harm the sister of a friend. Hannah met his gaze and waited for Nicholas Benteen to speak.

"Why are you still here?"

Ground glass, she thought, mentally cataloging the sound of his voice for later retrieval and consideration. "I told you why earlier."

"And I’m supposed to believe that you always speak the truth. Give me a fuckin’ break, lady."

She glared at him. "Why wouldn’t you believe me? I have absolutely no reason to lie to you."

"I told you, I don’t have any information for you about Sean Cassidy, aka Sean O’Neill or Neill Cassidy."

"I didn’t believe you then, and I do not believe you now."

"You’d be well advised to believe anything I say to you, Ms. Cassidy." He settled more heavily against her, as if to punctuate his warning.

She felt the flex of his powerful thigh muscles and the hard, thick length of his sex. She realized that she’d never known a man who emanated such barely leashed strength or who was so unashamed of his aroused body as he glared down at her. Unbanked anger blazed in his eyes.

An ancient battle—one whose rules were divined solely by the participants—ensued as they stared at one another. Neither spoke. Neither moved a muscle.

Hannah experienced a profound awareness of her own physical vulnerability, something that had never happened to her before, not even as a teacher in the inner city of St. Louis, where crime ran rampant and people struggled to survive from one day to the next.

She also felt a subtle and unexpected change taking place deep inside herself, a peculiar kind of heated tension she automatically credited to the situation, not the man. A heartbeat later, she knew she was kidding herself. Nicholas Benteen was a throwback to a time when a man demanded and attained control over his world, his destiny, and his woman.

Although horrified that she could respond sexually to him, she understood and then tried to rationalize his appeal. She failed, because she knew that he wasn’t just some guy on a par with Neanderthal cave dwellers. He was complicated, ruthless, and capable of scaring her to the point of witlessness. And she couldn’t dismiss him as unimportant. She couldn’t dismiss him at all, and that realization gave her pause.

Hannah breathed shallowly, her courage flagging but not totally lost to her. She decided to take her chances and roll the dice. "You’re Nicholas Benteen."

"Do tell."

She glanced at his knife once more, recalling a story Sean had shared in one of his letters from somewhere on the other side of the world. Hannah tried to quell the shudder that rippled through her as she dragged her eyes from the sharp blade and back to his face. "Something my brother said about you in one of his letters," she finally admitted.

His gaze pierced as he studied her, giving her the feeling that he was caressing her with his eyes. The sensation, both terrifying and seductive, rocked her to her soul. Hannah sucked in a breath, held it, and tried to read his expression. It was akin to trying to read a book in the dark.

"Why are you staring at me?" she whispered.

He continued to probe her features, saying nothing.

She didn’t feel violated, just extremely vulnerable. "Please move the knife," she breathed. "I swear I’m not a threat to you or your privacy. And I’m definitely not a threat to my big brother."

He moved the deadly knife tip back a few inches. Hannah exhaled, but only a fraction of her tension departed.

He searched her face once more. Then, he frowned.

She asked, "You see the family resemblance, don’t you?"

He shrugged, his broad shoulders shifting with unexpected grace. "Perhaps once, a very long time ago, but not any longer. He’s changed. We’ve all changed," he added, an after–thought that seemed to surprise even him.

"I imagine he’s gotten older, but everyone does. He remembers me as an awkward teenager with a mouthful of braces."  She attempted a smile. She couldn’t make it happen, so she stopped trying to display her even white teeth. "You’ve seen him recently, haven’t you?"

He narrowed those slate–colored eyes. "I didn’t say that."

"You didn’t need to say anything. I can see the truth in your eyes." Hannah tried to free her arms, which were still trapped by the sleeping bag and his position atop her. "Give me a break, please. I’m starting to feel like a sardine in a tightly packed tin. I think it should be obvious to you by now that I’m not dangerous. I’ve never harmed anyone in my life, so you don’t need your knife."

He laughed, the sound short, hard, and filled with disdain. "Sean is not here. As a result, you do not belong here. I want you off my property by dawn."

She shook her head, too intent on her determination to have the facts about her brother to be driven off by the commando–style raid on her van by Nicholas Benteen. "Why are you lying to me?"

His jaw went so tight, a muscle twitched.

A painful possibility entered her mind, and she thought of what it would do to her mother. "He isn’t dead. Please tell me that Sean is not dead. Please."

Nicholas narrowed his gaze. "That’s an odd thing to say."

"Why?"

"You seemed convinced he was alive this afternoon when you were hammering on my front door."

"I haven’t seen him since my fifteenth birthday, and I’m thirty now. It’s been years since his last letter." She swallowed against the emotion threatening to choke her. "I need to believe he’s alive."

"He’s alive," Nicholas said sharply. "Leave the man in peace. He’s not prepared to deal with people who think they can fix everything with a strong dose of TLC."

"I will not leave him in peace!" Hannah exclaimed. "And I will not leave you in peace, Mr. Benteen. Sean has a family, and I’m part of that family. We love him, and we miss him."

"Then he’s a fortunate man, isn’t he? The real question is… does his family love him enough to honor the choices he’s made?" He grabbed her chin when she looked away, forcing her to meet his gaze. "Do you love him enough to allow him the luxury of being himself? Or will you track him like a hunter who feels compelled to run an animal to ground just for the sport of it? Sean Cassidy is doing what’s right for him. Can you and your family respect his choices and decisions? Can you and your family move beyond your own self–interest and just leave him the hell alone? Because…" He broke off, making an obvious effort to tamp down his emotions and lower his voice. "… because that’s what he needs from you."

She heard pain and anguish, and she sensed that he’d spoken of himself, not just her brother. She wondered what had happened to him. She also feared that Sean might feel the same way, perhaps even behave in the same hostile manner once she found him.

Why? she wondered. Why had Sean avoided all contact with his family for so many years? Shaken by her own thoughts and by Nicholas Benteen’s intensity, Hannah felt the sudden urge to reach out and offer comfort. She resisted the impulse. He was not, she decided, the kind of man who would welcome empathy or compassion. It would translate to weakness, a quality he wouldn’t be able to tolerate in himself.

"Sean needs us," Hannah insisted.

"How can you possibly know what Sean needs?"

She looked away for a moment, then met his hard gaze. "I just know. I can feel it."

She blinked in surprise as he set aside his knife, leaned forward, and placed his hands on either side of her head. Hannah exhaled an uneven breath, but she remained focused on his unyielding features.

Something unexpected and wild stirred inside her as she stared up at him. Shocked by the currents of desire and anger mingling within her, she told herself that the close confines of the van, his overt sexuality, and her simmering anxiety were just making her a little crazy.

"You feel need? You think you understand need, Hannah Cassidy? You don’t even know the definition of need."

His low, rough voice sent a shiver up her spine. He shifted his hips forward, his arousal even more blatant now. His body heat encompassed her, scorching her even as he bracketed her head with his hands.

"I know when the people I care about need my love," she whispered.

"Lucky them."

"You’re trying to intimidate me," she accused.

He smiled, but it was a predator’s smile. "Are you intimidated yet?"

"Absolutely not, since I refuse to give you that kind of power over me." She glared into the wintery depths of those eyes of his. "There’s no reason for you to behave this way."

"Cause and effect," he said. "Deal with it."

"Because you can’t?" She exhaled, angry and frustrated. "Get off of me. Right now."

Grudging respect sparked in his gaze, but he didn’t budge. If anything, he seemed amused.

Hannah throttled back her temper. "Alright, I’ll admit that people who know me really well think I’m too persistent for my own good, but that’s the way I am. It’s too late to change, so I won’t apologize for being assertive. It serves me well in my personal life and in my work."

He went utterly still. "Work?"

Hannah made a disgusted sound. "I told you before, I teach first grade in St. Louis. Sometimes I have to fight for the children," she explained, passion rising in her voice. "Especially if they’ve been harmed by people who are supposed to love them or by a system that’s designed to meet their needs and that seems destined to fail them. They have no one else."

"Great. A crusader."

She heard his contempt and instantly bristled. "No, damn it, just a woman who believes in right and wrong. I have standards. Don’t you?" she challenged, her green eyes filled with the fire of the fiercely committed.

Nicholas straightened and reclaimed his knife, but he didn’t answer her question.

"Why are you so suspicious of me? I want to understand."

"You’ve invaded my property, you’re demanding to be given information I do not have, and you refuse to leave. I consider your behavior aggressive and intrusive."

She laughed, pure disbelief in the sound. "What do you call what you’ve been doing to me for the last half hour?"

"Protecting what is mine. Like any territorial animal."

"You’re a man, not an animal." And you’ve been wounded one too many times, she realized with the insight of a woman who’d spent most of her free time during the last ten years dealing with battered children.