Killer's Prey (17 page)

“Call it a hope. Anyway, I was trying to remember more about the attack.”

“Oh, God,” he said quietly. “Are you sure you should do that?”

“No. It didn’t work anyway. I still have the same bits and pieces to work with, but going through them... Well, it upset me more. Maybe not my brightest move. Regardless, I’m left with this certainty somewhere inside that the creep isn’t going to quit until I’m dead. And the conviction that I won’t be his last. I can’t tell you exactly why, except I guess that’s the impression he left me with, and it’s sticking.”

“I’m going with your gut instinct. It’s the safest position to take under the circumstances. What’s more, it’s probably right.”

She looked at him, feeling her eyes widen. Only as a professional had she experienced having her judgments accepted so unquestioningly. “How can you know that?”

“I don’t
know
it, but I suspect things you’ve forgotten have added to your evaluation of the guy. The fact that he may resemble your father in some way is probably irrelevant. Very different people do have similar traits. Say, after we eat, wanna play a game?”

He was trying to distract her, and she grasped at it. “Sure. What do you have in mind?”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “Strip poker?”

She flushed a bright red and he laughed.

“Just kidding,” he said.

“I wouldn’t play anyway,” she blurted, even though the suggestion had lit a bonfire at her very core. God, with each passing moment she wanted him more, and she was as terrified of that wanting as the creep who was probably hunting her.

His smile faded. “Shy?”

She shook her head and looked away. “Too many scars. Ugly scars. I...couldn’t.”

She didn’t see the change come over him, but knew it had happened when her table was whisked from in front of her.

“We need to have a talk.”

“Huh?” She looked up, utterly confused.

“Well, more than a talk. I already told you I wanted you back in high school. That hasn’t changed at all. I want you even more now. And if you think some lousy scars—”

He broke off suddenly and tugged her up from her seat. “There’s one thing we can deal with right now. One hang-up we can get rid of. Much as I’d like to, I won’t make love to you unless you want it, but we’re going to get rid of one bogeyman
now.
”

She stumbled a little as he tugged her toward the stairs, fear and anticipation warring within her, making her weak, filling her with so much contradiction that she didn’t know what to do. She just felt she shouldn’t do this.

But he settled the matter, sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her up the stairs, this time to his bedroom. He set her on her feet, then turned on every light and drew the curtains against the night. In the corner stood a full-length mirror.

“You know what your scars look like, right?”

She nodded. She’d looked at them often enough, hating them.

“Well, I don’t. So I’m going to look. And then we’re both going to find out how repulsed I am.”

“Jake...” Her heart began to hammer wildly. She couldn’t do this.
Couldn’t.

“No. This is something we can deal with, and while I don’t know about you, I do know that I have a desperate need to settle
something
in this mess. This is it.”

He turned her back to him. “You don’t have to look at me, you don’t have to look in the mirror, but I’m going to look at you, like it or not. Then we’ll both know.”

She wanted to protest, but the words wouldn’t come. She was certain he wouldn’t get very far, certain that he’d find her so repugnant he’d have to stop. He was right about one thing: it would be settled for both of them. Then maybe she could stop this constant mooning for him.

She couldn’t believe she was going to allow this. Panic fluttered wildly in her stomach. This was unthinkable.

But she closed her eyes anyway as she felt him begin to strip away her clothing. She didn’t want to see herself or, worse, the expressions on his face. He was going to be sickened. Absolutely sickened.

There was something else, too, something she’d never been fully able to explain. She was ashamed of those scars, as if she had somehow inflicted them on herself. They humiliated her.

Her shirt and bra vanished quickly. Chilly air met her skin, but not too chilly. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know what he saw: the curving cuts on her breasts and abdomen, some inflicted by the creep, some inflicted by the surgeons who’d helped put her back together.

Then he put her hands on her shoulders so she could steady herself while he tugged away her pants and socks. No secrets left.

Except behind the closed lids of her eyes rested secrets: secret terrors, secret embarrassment, secret shyness, secret self-loathing. She hid in her own internal darkness.

“You are beautiful,” he said. There was no hint of uncertainty in his tone.

She kept her eyes closed. “I’m ugly!” The cry felt as if it was ripped from her very soul.

“You’re beautiful. Every one of those scars is a badge of strength. Do you ever think of them that way? They show strength and determination. You should be proud.”

Proud? Proud of what that man had done to her? Proud that she looked like... “Frankenstein’s monster,” she blurted.

“Oh, sweetheart, no. Not at all. You’re a survivor. You’re determined. And you’re gorgeous.”

She didn’t believe him, but then she felt the most incredible thing: something warm on one of the scars tracing her breast. Warm and moist. Her eyes popped open and she saw the reflection in the mirror.

She saw the full length of herself. The worming red scars, the straighter surgical scars, all of it looking as if she had been tattooed over most of her torso and upper thighs by a madman. But she also saw something else: Jake bent to kiss the scars on her breasts.

He didn’t shy from them, just sprinkled them with kisses as if to say they didn’t repulse him at all. As if he wished his kisses could heal.

Terror eased a bit, just a bit, and warmth slowly began to take its place. She could tell he wasn’t even closing his eyes, but looking straight at the scars he kissed.

A kind of amazement filled her when she realized how far she had come. She was letting a man touch her again, unlike when she first arrived here and was leery of the merest touch.

What’s more, she was naked with one and allowing him to kiss her body. She was healing, and God, it felt so good to realize that creep’s hold on her was slowly letting go. Not entirely, not yet, but it was easing, or by now she would have fled out into the frigid night.

Maybe someday she could be whole again. As whole as possible anyway.

Hope flickered in her heart with each touch of his lips. Warmth and need began to seep into cold places that she’d thought would never be warm again. Could she trust this much? Yet she was doing exactly that, and with a man who had once wounded her so deeply that she had been reluctant to ever seriously try another relationship.

It seemed to come suddenly, but perhaps it didn’t. She was entering a hazy land of warring need and fear, and then she felt his lips on her belly, her abdomen. Her eyes snapped open, meeting her ugliness in the mirror, but she barely saw it as she realized that Jake was now kneeling in front of her.

She felt his hands cradle her hips as he leaned toward her, still sprinkling kisses on each and every wound. Making them as memorable to him in a different way than they were memorable to her. Changing her perception kiss by kiss.

Oddly, a kind of magic began to envelop her. Something she had never experienced before. But it was as if each simple, gentle touch of his mouth was healing something within her far beyond the reach of any surgeon, touching upon deeper wounds left by her attacker.

It wouldn’t last, she told herself. In a few minutes he would stop, and all the old wounds would ache again. But for now...for now...

Daringly, as warmth began to turn hotter, she lifted a hand and touched the top of his head. His hair was soft, welcoming the tentative touch of her fingers. He was kissing the hideousness of her body and seeming to rain mercy where there had been none before.

He was kind. Kind beyond belief. But that’s all it was...kindness. But a kindness she desperately needed. Her head fell back a bit, her eyes still closed, as the sprinkling kisses moved down to her thighs, deepening the sense of healing.

And the sense of yearning. Longing. Desire for things she thought she would never have.

Illusory? Maybe. But she accepted what he was offering because she was so desperate for it. Reassurance when she had been able to find none for herself. A forgiveness she wasn’t supposed to need but still needed desperately.

When he reached the last scar, she almost cried out as she felt him stand. She never wanted it to end.

But then he was behind her again.

“Look,” he murmured in her ear. “Look in the mirror.”

She feared what she would see, but she already knew what was there. Battling her own cowardice, she opened her eyes to view her hideous tattoos of scarring again, but this time she saw more than herself. She saw him standing right behind her, eyes wide-open, looking at the same image in the mirror that she saw.

But his eyes were alight, and not with horror or dismay or scorn. Something hot was there, reaching out to her. She felt her insides quiver with painful need.

“You are beautiful,” he said, staring straight at her reflection. “Absolutely beautiful. I see you and you are beautiful.”

He did see her, and he wasn’t recoiling. Far from it. The magic he had woven around her deepened. Then, to her dismay, he drew away and reached for her clothes.

“You’re getting cold,” he said quietly. “And I made a promise to you.”

“But...” The protest died because she couldn’t find the courage to say it.

He tilted her chin toward him as he tugged the shirt over her shoulders. “You’re not ready for what I want to do to you, all the ways I want to love you. And I do want to make love to you. But not yet. It wouldn’t be right.”

Disappointment filled her even as she recognized the justice of his decision. She wasn’t ready. And for him to have given her such a healing experience and then taken advantage of it to make love to her might have undone some of the beauty he had just given her. She might have felt that he’d kissed her that way simply to get what he wanted.

So she finished dressing herself, remaining mute, battling down needs that would go unsatisfied. At least for now.

Because he was right. To do more might distort the magic of what he had just given her.

* * *

Five or six hundred miles left. Langdon had to take a room, and it infuriated him, but the snow was blowing so badly that he knew better than to drive through it. It wouldn’t get him there any faster if he went into a ditch, and he might wind up with some explaining to do. He’d been able to change vehicles and plates, but not his driver’s license. At least he could find fleabags along the road that didn’t ask for anything other than cash up front, and little enough of that.

A year ago he wouldn’t have believed that he would ever stay in a room so repulsive that he was afraid to remove his clothes, but here he was, settled on a bed he wouldn’t pull the spread down on, his jacket covering a pillow he didn’t trust, staring at a ceiling and trying to focus on his plans for Nora.

Except she kept slipping away. The impulse was growing stronger, and a few miles back up the road there’d been this waitress he would have loved to snatch when she came off shift. She was a little uppity, a little less than great at her job, making him feel like a nobody. She needed to learn a lesson.

But he’d forced himself to pass on her, because he’d give away his whereabouts. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. What if he didn’t get to Nora before they found out he’d been through this part of the country?

But hanging on to his self-control was getting harder with each day. He had a desperate thirst he needed to quench, and the number of miles remaining between him and Nora had become a mantra that held him in check.

He just hoped the reminder would continue to control him because getting Nora, teaching her a lesson, had to be more important than satisfying his need on just the next handy victim.

That could come later. Nora. He had to think of Nora. Once this storm blew through, he could make it in two days. He wasn’t going to shoot for one because he didn’t want to get sloppy, maybe get a ticket.

So two days, then maybe part of a day to find her, and part of a day to snatch her.

He could hold on that long. He
had
to.

He reached out for the bottle of whiskey on the bedside table and took a couple of swigs. It would ease the pressure a little bit.

He had to remain in control. That was the whole point, wasn’t it: that
he
be the one in control.

Chapter 11

D
ownstairs, Jake reheated their dinners, remarking that Rosa would probably not be happy about her cooking being wounded in the microwave.

Nora was surprised by her own trill of laughter. Her mood had begun to shift so rapidly and radically that she wondered if she should worry. “We won’t tell her.”

“Damn straight. She swears the microwave ruins food. Not sure I always agree, but I’m not going to argue with the woman who makes me fabulous meals three times a day.”

“Smart move.”

She wandered over to the window and was glad to see in what little light poured from the house that the whiteout was complete. “How long will this last?”

“Probably most of tomorrow, according to the latest weather.”

“It makes me feel safe.”

“I imagine so.” She saw his reflection in the glass, then felt his arms wind around her waist. His chin rested on the top of her head. “Let’s pretend we’re on another planet. Out of time, in a different world. Imaginary escape, I know, but it might be a fun way to take advantage of the safety the storm is giving you.”

“How should we do that?”

“We start by finishing dinner. Then we can play games, watch a movie or just gab. Up to you.”

The storm outside was indeed freeing her from the web of fear she’d been living with for so long now. It would come back, but not until that snow had settled enough to provide visibility again.

Might as well enjoy it, she thought. In whatever way enjoyment presented itself. She’d known little enough pleasure in months. Even simple ones seem to be denied to her most of the time.

“God,” she whispered.

Behind her, the microwave dinged.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m just wondering if I’m ever going to be able to put the shattered pieces back together again. It seems like forever since I’ve enjoyed almost anything. Even food tastes flat most of the time. I’ve been afraid to go out, afraid to... Well, I barely even read anymore because the memories get in the way.”

“I think you enjoyed our little exercise in front of the mirror, or was I mistaken?”

Her cheeks flushed. “I loved it,” she admitted, her voice thickening. Just thinking of it made her glow with wonder and heavy desire.

“Good. That’s a start. I think the rest will come, Nora. Honestly. It’s just taking time.”

“I enjoy riding the horses,” she said after a moment. “Okay, that makes something else.”

“See?”

She turned within the circle of his arms. “I’m enjoying the work I do with Emma.”

“That’s three.”

Then he bent and kissed her lips, a slightly deeper kiss, demanding nothing, but almost seeming to make a promise. “Now we’ll spend the evening finding something else for you to enjoy.”

He turned to pull the food out of the microwave and she was astonished at how bereft she felt. Going rapidly over the cliff edge for this man wouldn’t be wise, but it seemed to be happening anyway. She wanted him. She wondered how long it would be before he felt he wouldn’t hurt her in some way. Or if he’d ever get to that point. Or even, come to that, if
she
would.

Or if he even really wanted her, despite what he said. Words from the past still burned a bit, engraved on her mind forever, despite his explanation and apology.

Smothering a sigh, she accepted her plate and walked into the living room. She hoped he came up with something sufficiently distracting, because right now it would be easy to spiral into places she didn’t want to go, places that had nothing to do with the creep and everything to do with Jake.

“Will the animals be okay in this?” she asked as they resumed dinner.

“We’ve got windbreaks for them. Al and I took care of everything else this afternoon. Come morning, though, we’ll probably have to break the ice in troughs and ponds so they can drink. But they’re okay for the night.”

“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to be out in this.”

“It’s not going to get too cold, so as long as they shelter from the wind, they’ll make it. They’re better suited to this climate than we are.”

“That’s not hard to believe.”

“If they weren’t,” he said wryly, “I wouldn’t have any animals at all.”

“And the dogs?”

“They’ll bed down in the midst of the crowd. They’ll probably be warmest of all.”

At that she laughed again, feeling her mood rise once again. “What about cats? Don’t you need mousers?”

“The dogs take care of that, too, believe it or not. We’re surprisingly vermin-free.”

Distractions. She knew next to nothing about how all of this worked, despite having been here for so long now. She’d expressed little interest, hadn’t really asked him to open up about ranching. Had she lost her native curiosity, too?

“Do you like card games?” he asked. “I’m not talking strip poker here.”

“We already did the strip part,” she said a trifle tartly, even as her cheeks heated again. God, what a memory! She wondered if it would embarrass her for years to come or always remain a secret delight. The man had literally worshipped her with his mouth, despite her scars. Amazingly, given the condition she had been in so recently, she had let him. And she was glad she had. The warmth, the glow, the sweet honey of need that filled her didn’t approach the sense that something previously broken had just been mended. At least as far as he was concerned.

“You did anyway. The thing with cards is most games are better with more than two players. We can find something, though. I have word games you might like. And a collection of movies if that suits your mood.”

“Let me think about it.” What she wanted was just to be with him, talking. About what she wasn’t sure, but she had come to love the sound of his voice, no matter what he talked about, and the animation he brought to most subjects once he got going. The boy had truly become an enticing, intriguing man. Yet she still knew so little about him, really.

Kind of astonishing when she thought about it. She’d grown up with him, moved away for twelve years, and yet she’d never really known him in any meaningful way. He must have hopes and dreams like most people. Things he wanted to do.

A thought occurred to her. “How about we play Twenty Questions or something like that?”

“Meaning?”

“I ask a question about you, you answer. Then you ask me one.”

He hesitated. “I think I’m an open book, but what about you, Nora? What if I ask the wrong question? Not that I would want to, but I might not know.”

He had a point there. She pushed some food around on her plate. Finally she said, “I’m game. If it’s something bad, I’ll just say so.”

Again he hesitated. “Okay, but let’s try to keep it light.”

“Fair enough. If you could go anyplace in the world on a vacation, where would it be?” Safe. Very safe. And not what she wanted to know at all.

“That’s a tough one,” he admitted. “I’m pretty well nailed here because of the ranch.”

“You have Al and Rosa. So say you could get away for a week.”

“Well, that opens up the entire world. I used to dream of traveling, even though I knew I probably never would. I wanted to see damn near everything.”

“Have you gotten more selective?”

He laughed. “I’ve had to. So a one-week vacation anywhere in the world?”

“Yeah. No limits. This is pretend, after all.”

He tilted his head a little, staring into space. “Dang. Only
one
place?”

She giggled. “You’re the one who limited yourself by remembering the ranch. You can take off your own restrictions. Say you didn’t own a thing in the world, but had all the money you wanted and could go anywhere.”

“Now, that boggles my mind. In the first place, I’ve never been able to imagine having so much money. Like everyone else around here, my means have limits and they’re so ingrained I can’t imagine being without them.”

“Now, that’s interesting.” And it was, because it said something about the way they had grown up, and their expectations of life. Reality always limited dreams. “I guess I’m the same way. My goals were always small ones. Get to college, get a job, have a little place of my own. I never dreamed any bigger.”

“Isn’t that big enough?” he asked, surprising her. A smile seemed to dance around the corners of his mouth. “Who needs more?”

“We’re not talking about need here.”

“I am. Maybe I can’t dream like a billionaire because it’s pointless. I think about what I want, and what I want is to keep this ranch going, making it break even if it can’t be profitable, having a family eventually, hoping maybe I’ll have one kid at least who’d like to take over from me....” He stopped and his eyes seemed to twinkle. “Those are actually some pretty big dreams. No travel.”

“How about a trip to Yellowstone?” she suggested, still smiling.

“That I might be able to fit in. Now your turn. Where would you travel?”

Once upon a time, long ago, she’d dreamed of travel, but she suspected a lot of it had been born of a desire to escape her father. Since she’d left home, her travel desires had narrowed for the most part, but perhaps that had been limited by her budget. But what wasn’t? “I don’t know. I used to have a hankering to seen Mayan pyramids.”

This was beginning to seem like a poor topic. Considering the vastness of the world, its many beauties and its many cultures, how could she pass up even just dreaming of visiting some exotic location? There was so much out there to see and do, and just thinking about this was beginning to make her feel parochial.

“How many pyramids could we do in a week?” he asked.

She started to laugh, then caught on a realization. He had said
we.
Surely he couldn’t mean that. “Not very many,” she said finally. “But I’d be happy to see just one.”

“That’s doable,” he said as if it were decided. “Next question?”

Just then the wind strengthened, keening around the house like a banshee, and window glass rattled behind her. She couldn’t help it. She jumped.

Keening wind
. That was all she had heard that night when she had wakened in the woods near a road. Wind keening in the treetops. Naked, cold, weak, forcing herself to crawl and inch her way to where the night seemed brighter, which turned out to be an open road.

“Nora?”

She slammed back into the present as Jake’s arms lifted her and settled her onto his lap.

“Nora?” he repeated.

“The wind,” she whispered. “That night... The wind.”

His arms tightened around her and he began to rock her as well as he could in an armchair. “I’ll put some music on. Loud.”

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

Music wouldn’t help. In an instant she had been cast back, and the memories still darkened her thoughts. Music wouldn’t wash them away now, even if she didn’t hear the wind again.

“I crawled,” she whispered. “It seemed like forever. There was a moon, I crawled toward the light. I was so cold and it was so hard...”

He didn’t speak, didn’t offer false reassurance, simply kissed her forehead and continued to hold her and rock her.

“I dragged myself. I don’t know how long it took but it seemed like forever. Inching on the ground. I seemed to fade in and out, but I knew I had to get to the light. I
had
to.”

“And you made it.” He spoke quietly. Gently.

“I should have died.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

She gave a little shake of her head, still caught in the nightmare. “No, they said I should have died. I lost so much blood....”

A shudder passed through him and she felt his muscles tighten, but he didn’t say anything.

“Sometimes...sometimes I wish I
had
died. It would have been over. All of it. Is it ever going to be over?”

“Probably not completely. Ever. But it will get better. You know that. You’re a psychologist. You know that with time things fade, even terrible things. That you still have a right to find joy and happiness, and you’ll find them again. Because you’re still alive, for which I am so thankful.”

Then he kissed her, really kissed her, a lover’s kiss, full of yearning. He ran his tongue over her lips, sending skitters of delight running throughout her, dragging her by that simple act out of the nightmare, right into the present.

She’d have missed this if she had died, and that kiss, that single kiss from lips she had so often wanted to really taste, was enough to make her grateful. At least for now.

As his tongue danced over her mouth, she eased into the moment and finally parted her lips, offering entry.

He didn’t hesitate. His warm tongue plunged into her, tracing the contours of her teeth, her cheeks, wrapping around her tongue in an ancient dance of seduction. She’d been kissed like this by her few boyfriends, but none had felt like this, none had swept her away to mindlessness. Her hand lifted and she gripped his shoulder, as if afraid he would slip away or pull back.

But he didn’t. He kept right on exploring her mouth, then began to stroke her along her side with his hand, almost petting her, but so much more arousing.

Finally, though, he did pull back. He sprinkled kisses all over her face. Her hand clutched him, trying to pull him back again, but he wouldn’t yield.

“I don’t want to be a momentary escape,” he said huskily. “Not with you, Nora. I need to be more than that.”

The justice of his words hit her hard. She turned her face into his shoulder, tears suddenly hot in her eyes. Too wounded to even make love because she might do it for the wrong reasons. Unfair to them both.

Her hand tightened until she clenched his shirt into a knot, and the tears turned into sobs. Her own brokenness overwhelmed her.

He resumed rocking her, stroking her hair. “Cry, sweetheart. Cry. Let it all out. When you’re smiling again, we’ll revisit this, I promise you. Because I want you more than I can say.”

But as her sobs eased, something else began to replace them, a need that had been with her for as long as she could remember. Her fist still clutched his shirt, and she pounded it lightly on his shoulder.

“Stop it! Stop it,” she demanded brokenly.

“Stop what?”

“Stop pulling away. I’ve had it. I don’t know if I’ll be alive next week. That creep could find me and finish the job!”