Kill Me Again (22 page)

Twenty minutes later Freddy came loping through the door and right up to the bed, where he paused, staring at them. He lifted one paw, set it on the mattress and waited, a question in his eyes, brows crooked as if he were human.

“Go lie down, Freddy,” Olivia said, pointing toward the second room as she grabbed a pillow and threw it at the back door. It connected, and the door closed with a bang. Freddy jumped, barked once at the noise, then
calmed again. With a giant sigh, he plodded into the adjoining room, and a moment later Adam heard the bedsprings creak beneath his weight.

About ten seconds after that, the sound of his chain-sawlike snoring filled both rooms.

Adam laughed in midkiss. She was laughing, too, and he realized this was something he was sure he'd never done before, even without his memory. Laughing while making love. They'd laughed the first time, too. It felt different. More intimate, somehow, than the sex act itself.

The outside door was closed now, the dog settled. No more reason to extend the pre-game show, although he had to admit he was enjoying the hell out of it. But already she was squirming out of her clothes and tugging at his. So he helped, and with a bit more wiggling they were both naked and twined around each other again. He found her wet and eager, and sliding inside her, he felt a rush of sensation that was almost beyond endurance. And it was more than physical, dammit—though he told himself that realization would have to wait until later to scare the hell out of him.

And it would. He knew damn well it would.

But right at that moment, he didn't particularly care.

S
he lay curled in his arms, her head on his chest, his heartbeat thrumming in her ear. And she felt things she didn't think she ought to be feeling. She'd only known him such a short time. And to be honest, she'd been experiencing this onslaught of tenderness toward him from the beginning. But she'd written it off to empathy for his plight, to identifying with his situation—feeling hunted, having to hide. Those were things she understood all too well. Anything beyond that…she'd written off those emotions, as well. She'd told herself it was normal to feel so close to the man who wrote the novels that had fed her lonely soul for so long.

But none of those things explained the level to which her feelings had soared tonight. She knew he wasn't the author of the books she loved. She knew he might very well be more perpetrator than victim in whatever had befallen him. And yet there was this softness in the very center of her heart—a place that had been, she was certain, hard and numb before. What had been like the
pit of a barely ripe peach had become the soft, warm, gooey middle of a fine chocolate truffle, and she could tell there would be no going back ever again.

She lay there on his chest feeling warm all over, one leg over his so she could rub her smooth calf over his hairy shin and enjoy the delicious contact.

He squeezed her a little closer, his arm around her shoulders, and she sighed. Then the sigh formed words, and the words were,
“I love you.”

She bit her lip, and her eyes popped open wide. She felt him tense beneath her and wished she could suck the words back, but there was no way. She'd said it. She didn't even know for sure if she meant it, but she'd said it. There was no taking it back now.

“You know that's not really possible, right?” he asked, after a moment of what had to be stunned silence.

“I didn't mean to say it. Really, I didn't. It was some kind of a…a…tic. A spasm.”

“A spasm,” he repeated.

“Like when you get a muscle twitch.”

“Right, or a hiccup.”

“Exactly. Just treat it like a hiccup and forget it.”

“Not such an easy thing to forget. But like I said, pretty much impossible. I mean, you don't know me. Hell,
I
don't know me.”

She swallowed hard and lifted her head to stare into his eyes. “I know you,” she whispered.

He held her gaze for a long moment, but she said nothing more. It was the truth. She
did
know him. Not
the minutiae of his life. Not the stats, the history, the details.
Him
.

He was a good man. An honest man. A brave one, and yes, perhaps a violent one, too, when it was called for. And skilled at it. But she didn't think he was the kind who would wield that skill against an innocent. He certainly hadn't done anything but watch out for and protect her.

And Freddy loved him.

Really, that said it all. He couldn't be dangerous to her, not in any way, or Freddy would know and wouldn't have tolerated him coming anywhere near her.

Then again, she thought with a little chill, Freddy wouldn't know if he posed a threat to her heart. That kind of danger wouldn't be so easy for her best friend to sense. And it wasn't the kind of thing he could protect her from, either.

She snuggled closer. Adam hadn't bolted from the bed at her impulsive declaration, and she took that as a good sign. She hadn't scared him too badly. Then again, he didn't scare easily.

“Get some sleep, if you can,” he said at length.

She interpreted. “You mean you don't want to talk about emotional stuff anymore tonight. That it was just sex, and I shouldn't read anything more into it. And that you need a whole lot more time to process that stupid declaration I just made before you can even begin to know how to respond.”

He rolled onto his side and stared into her eyes for
one long, silent moment. “No. I meant what I said. You should get some sleep if you can. We have a big day tomorrow, and we can't stay here long before we need to get going again.”

She blinked at him. “So you really don't want to talk about…this?”

“I don't know what there is to talk about. We had sex. It was great. Aside from that—”

“Oh, is that how it is?”

“Is
what
how it is? What do you want me to say? I don't even know who I am, Liv. Or what I do, or where I live, or if I'm married with six kids, for God's sake.”

“What does any of that have to do with how you feel?”

“It has to do with where I'm coming from.”

“But how do you
feel?
”

She was pushing, she knew it, and she didn't like it, and yet something was driving her. Some irrational part of her she felt she barely knew was pushing her to push him.

He shook his head. “I feel good. Satisfied. Relaxed.”

“About me,” she persisted.

He drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I like you. I think you're beautiful and smart and very brave. And I think you've been hiding in a self-created shell for a long time, and that this is the first time you've allowed yourself to be coaxed out of it. I think you're living for the first time in a long time—really living. And parts of
it aren't so good. Guns and killers and shootouts. And other parts are very good. Attraction and sex and excitement. And I think that this is like a thrill ride to you, and I think you're going to want to settle back down into the mundane life of a college professor in a small New England town when it's over.”

She listened, nodding slowly, and when he finished, she said, “But how do
you
feel about
me?
”

He rolled his eyes. “Go to sleep, Olivia. And hold off on being too sure about those feelings of yours, at least until we find out who and what I really am. For your own good. Okay?”

“I'm not sure I have much of a choice in the matter, to be completely frank. I mean, it's not like I analyzed the situation and
decided
to fall in love with you, you know.”

He frowned at her as if she were speaking some unknown dialect, then shook his head as if giving up on her completely and rolled onto his side, facing her. He hooked an arm around her and closed his eyes.

Ten minutes later he was snoring almost as heavily as Freddy was. And she lay there wondering if any of what she'd said tonight had made any sense at all. Because he didn't seem to think it did. And she wasn't so sure herself.

 

At 5:00 a.m. he was still awake. He hadn't really slept, only pretended to, so she would stop with the talk about
feelings.
Once Olivia had finally fallen asleep, he'd
alternated between lying on his back, staring through the darkness at the ceiling, and lying on his side, staring at her face. Both objects of his attention gave him equal amounts of clarity. Zip.

How did a woman swear off men for sixteen years to keep herself safe, then fall in love with a complete stranger? How did she hold everyone she knew at arm's length, and fall for the first guy she let herself get close to? How did she stop trusting males so completely, only to give her trust to the guy who was probably less deserving of it than anyone she knew?

Was she that self-destructive?

And why was it bothering him so much? He ought to just write it off to female insanity and let it go. If she was fool enough to think she loved a man she didn't know, then she deserved whatever she got, right? Including a broken heart.

So then why was he so damn nervous about what they were going to find in Philadelphia? It wasn't that he was afraid of learning the truth. Whatever it was, he would deal with it. It would be better than not knowing.

He was actually obsessing, he realized, about what
her
reaction to the truth about him would be.

And as much as the potential outcomes wanted to take turns racing through his mind, he knew there was only one way to find out, and that was to get on with it. They'd solved her biggest problem: Tommy Skinner. Maybe someone else was after her, and maybe not, but he knew he could keep her safe as long as she was with
him. So now it was time to solve his biggest problem—he just hoped it wasn't going to unleash a whole passel of new ones.

He slid out of bed, careful not to wake her, and she rolled onto her side, stretching one arm and one leg out from beneath the covers in a pose worthy of a centerfold before settling more deeply into sleep again. He stood beside the bed looking down at her and thinking he wanted to climb right back in, kiss her awake and have another round of incredible sex.

Unfortunately, that would likely result in her wanting him to talk about his feelings some more, and he didn't want to hear it. Not now, not when he still thought he might be a hired gun sent to kill her.

Freddy bumped him in the hip with his giant head, and he looked down to see the dog staring at him with a look of impatience in his eyes. He could have been thinking Adam was an idiot not to declare his undying love just to keep this smart, beautiful, sexy woman by his side for as long as possible. But it was more likely, Adam thought, that the dog just needed to go outside.

He opened the door to let him, and then he hit the shower.

Two hours later, they were on their way.

He'd intended to be under way much sooner, but she'd had other ideas. She'd lingered in the shower, then insisted on buying fresh meat for Freddy as a special treat, and after feeding him, she'd spent forty-five minutes romping through a vacant field with him. When that was
done, she'd started chirping about needing coffee until they stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts for a vat-size mugful and a breakfast sandwich. And then,
finally,
they drove the last hundred miles into Philadelphia, the GPS directing them in its calm, steady voice. Something in Adam's mind seemed to perk up as they ate up the distance to their destination.

“It feels familiar, doesn't it?” she asked.

He nodded, barely hearing her through the rush of sensations swirling through his mind. The neat sidewalks, the buildings, the smells. He nodded. “This is where I live.” And then he felt a smile pull at his lips. “There's a bar around that corner—Paulie's Pub.”

He turned the corner, pointing, and she spotted the name on the sign. “Oh, my God, you're right,” she breathed. “You're remembering!”

“I don't know. I mean, I know it's there. And that I've been there. And I know I like it because people mind their own business there. But I don't remember anything specific.”

“No? What's it like on the inside?” she asked.

As soon as she asked the question, he could see the inside of Paulie's. The round amber globes over the low-hanging ceiling lights that gave the place a quiet ambience. He saw the bar stools, burgundy leather upholstery and antique-looking gold-toned tacks holding it in place. He saw the horseshoe-shaped bar and the mirrored wall behind it, the racks on that wall filled with bottles and glasses.

But before he could relate any of it to her, the GPS was interrupting. “You have reached your destination.”

He blinked, his eyes shooting first to the dashboard and then to the buildings around him. One stood out. It wasn't redbrick like everything else on the block. It was reddish-tinted concrete, with a pair of matching cement lions guarding the double doors. The circular drive was brick, though, curving around a giant fountain that stood between the building and the street.

“That's it,” he said. “That's where I live.”

She lifted her brows. “It looks like a hotel.”

“Condos. And I own the penthouse.”

She stared at him, blinking.

He swallowed hard. “I can almost see inside it.”

“You can
actually
see inside it,” she said. “You have the key, remember?”

He nodded, cruising slowly past the building, tearing his eyes from it to look at the other vehicles on the street. He saw no sign of surveillance. No FBI types seemed to be watching. There wasn't much traffic, and anyone parked, or just sitting or standing, nearby and trying to look inconspicuous would be easily spotted. There was no one.

“I don't see anyone suspicious,” she muttered, her eyes wide, taking in everything, watchful. Her body had gone tense.

“No, I don't, either. Nothing that looks like an unmarked car. No one pretending to read a newspaper on
the bus stop bench. No one just standing around looking bored.”

“But what if they're inside?” she asked. “In the building across the street or something?”

He looked up at the windows near the tops of the buildings but didn't see anyone looking back at him. “I don't know if there's any way we can be sure of that. But I have a feeling no one knows where I live.”

“No one?” She frowned at him. “Why would you think that?”

He shrugged. “If everyone knows where you live, you probably don't feel any pressing need to write your address down and hide it in the back of a pocket watch for ID.”

She nodded slowly. “I guess not.”

“I think it's a rule I have. Keep your home address to yourself. Tell no one.” Just like the other rule he'd remembered. Never get involved with a mark. Hell.

She watched him drive as he circled the block. “Okay, there's the underground garage. I'm not going to park in there just yet. Too vulnerable.” Instead, he pulled the oversize SUV into an open spot in front of a meter a block away from the building. He dug around in the glove compartment, found a bandana and tied it around his head. He also found a pair of sunglasses and slid them onto his face. Then he looked at her. “Ready?”

“I guess so.” She searched the console between the seats and helped herself to a handful of the quarters lying in one of the cupholders. “Let's go.”

They got out, and she went to the back to let Freddy out, as well. Adam felt as if his stomach was digesting itself. His past was right there, right at the tip of his memory, about to burst forth full-blown. He felt it, sensed it, didn't doubt it. And yet he also dreaded it as he stood there, waiting while Olivia fed the meter. Then, to his surprise, she came up beside him and closed her hand around his. Freddy trotted over to take up a position on his other side. He realized he was flanked by a woman and a dog who both loved him, and it was the most foreign thing he'd ever felt.