Raven on the Wing (11 page)

“Yes, I’m almost sure he did.”

“Almost,” Josh noted bleakly. “You can never be sure of anything in your work, can you?”

“I’m sure of myself.” Her voice was steady, though still husky. “I have to be. I spend so
much time building an image of myself for other people to believe that I’d get lost if I weren’t sure of who I really am.”

Josh leaned back, still holding her hand, looking at her. “Tell me about Raven,” he murmured. “Tell me about the life that shaped such a remarkable woman.”

Raven looked down at their clasped hands for a moment, watching his thumb brush over hers again and again, almost a compulsive movement, and she was very conscious of the intimacy between them. The quiet apartment. The darkness of night outside. The feeling that they had locked out danger for a while. Returning her gaze to his, she had to swallow suddenly, because she had never seen such a look in a man’s eyes before.

“It’s … an ordinary life, most of it,” she answered at last. “I’m a service brat; Pop was career army, stationed all over the world. I had an aptitude for languages—or maybe it was just exposure. I picked up half a dozen languages by the time I was sixteen. Tara was my older sister. We were close.”

His hand tightened on hers, and Raven shook off the dark thoughts. She managed a laugh. “My name isn’t Anderson, by the way. It’s O’Malley. I stick with my first name as often as I can; it makes things simpler.”

Josh, even though he was conscious of the danger surrounding her and aware of the urge to grab what he could because there very well might be no tomorrow for them, kept an iron rein on the demands of his desire. He had seen shadows in her eyes whenever she remembered her sister, but he didn’t have to be told this lovely woman had seen too much these last years to have escaped being scarred by other things.

Thinking of that, he said quietly, “You’ve given up a great deal for your work. A personal life. Even a secure identity. Friends who know who you are. A home. Or is there a home you go back to?”

She shook her head. “Not really. My parents live in Seattle, but they don’t know what I’m doing; I didn’t want to worry them. I had an apartment at first, but it hardly seemed worth the bother. I was rarely in it. Hagen’s team is a
small one, so we’re all—well, utilized pretty frequently. I’m out of the country more often than in.”

“The other apartment,” Josh said slowly. “Does it really belong to friends?”

Her smile was brief, mirthless. “No. The manager thinks so, of course; I had all the proper authorization. The tenants went through a reputable agency to sublet; they have no idea that their apartment is being used as a safe house. But I need that. I need a secure place to unwind.”

Josh was very still. His own life had been unusual, his childhood made hideous by his mother’s death and the cloak-and-dagger threats of Stuart’s top-secret work. And even though he’d grown up largely away from that, the wealth he’d inherited at an early age had made him something apart from other children and, later, other men. Even though he knew close friendship with the three men who were far more than employees, he also knew the loneliness of being different.

And Raven’s unconsciously stark words told
him as nothing else could that she, too, was different from other women. For years she had balanced dangerously between two worlds, snatching a moment here and there for a breath drawn without tension. Assuming roles with an expertise any Hollywood actress would have envied, and maintaining those deadly roles in the face of unspeakable pressures. She might be a woman who had learned ruthless methods of protecting and defending herself, yet she could still smile at a man with laughter in her eyes.

Josh shook his head half-consciously, unable to tear his gaze away from those incredible violet eyes. She could have had the world, he thought dimly, could have accomplished anything she had wanted, reached any pinnacle. But she had turned her back on personal goals, choosing to walk the dark side of the street and use her talents in fighting back that darkness.

“You make me feel ashamed,” he said huskily. “Everything that I have … and I’ve done so little. When I’m asked to help, I do. But I wait to be asked. You never have.”

Raven was shaken. “Josh, so many people depend on you. So many have good jobs and earn good money because you care enough to be fair.” Her laugh was unsteady. “I’ve seen
your
file, remember? Endowments for hospitals and universities, support for orphanages, endless programs designed by you and your companies to help people. You think that doesn’t matter? Well, it does. It matters a helluva lot. You do so
much
. Your companies devoted over half their profits last year to helping people.”

Josh found a small, wry smile. “Even a playboy can have a conscience.”

She chuckled. “I didn’t mean that, and you know it. I was mad, that’s all. And more than a little shocked to find out you really
were
a prince.”

“No. No prince. Just a man, Raven.” He sighed raggedly, his hand tightening around hers. “I haven’t walked on the dark side like you, but I’ve seen it. And it scares the hell out of me to think of you being there.”

“Josh—”

He reached for her, caught in the overpowering hunger to hold her in his arms, to feel her against him. But she pulled back abruptly, and he froze, searching her eyes. “If you want me to leave—” He could barely get the words out, his heart pounding sickly in his chest.

She lifted her free hand to touch his cheek, her eyes very dark and a curiously shy smile on her face. “No. But whenever I’ve been with Leon, I feel … Do you mind if I take a shower? I want to wash away Leon and that person I am when I’m with him.”

Josh held her hand to his cheek, turning briefly to press a kiss into her palm. “Go ahead,” he said gently. “But remember something, Raven. He could never make you dirty. No one could ever make you dirty.”

Too restless to be still after she’d gone into the bedroom, Josh rose and began pacing slowly. The heavy drapes were drawn, but he stayed away from the windows, knowing that if there were any watching eyes, it would be dangerous to show them a male silhouette while Raven was supposed to be alone.

He paced and tried not to think of her in the shower; she needed this time alone, he knew, and he was determined to do nothing to disturb her.

But
he
was disturbed. He had no doubt at all about his own feelings, but Raven, though wonderfully responsive physically, had said nothing about her own feelings for him. He told himself it was unfair of him to expect her to love him as instantly and completely as he loved her. She was, heaven knew, occupied by other and far more dangerous matters and had been since before they’d met.

That knowledge didn’t lessen his fear. She had appeared suddenly out of her shadowy life, and he knew only too well that she could choose to return there. And with all his resources, all the wealth and power at his command, Josh knew, too, that if she vanished by choice, he would never be able to find her.

He stood motionless in the center of the room, staring blindly at the wall, nothing but bleak images filling his mind. She had the ability
to love, he knew, but would she make that choice? With everything she had seen and done these last years, what man could hope to keep her at his side unless she chose to be there? It would be like trying to cage the wind.

Even through his dark thoughts, Josh heard the distant sound of the shower stop, and he listened for a few moments until he heard a hair dryer begin to buzz.
Even her hair
, he thought somberly.
Even her hair feels dirty to her when she’s left him
.

And there was that. Raven knew herself, but Josh believed she had scars deep inside from the cruel cuts of the roles she had to play. It was impossible to walk on the dark side without garnering scars. And Raven felt dirty. What had that done to her feelings of self-worth, to her femininity? What kind of strength would it demand from a woman to rise above the shadowy corridors of a separate and ugly life?

Abruptly, Josh shrugged out of his jacket and threw it across the couch, moving swiftly and silently toward the bedroom. He went into the
softly lighted room, barely glancing at the ultra-feminine decor. She was sitting at the dressing table in the white silk robe she’d worn earlier, a brush in one hand and the dryer in the other. Her steady, rhythmic motions with the brush stopped as she caught sight of him in the mirror, but she said nothing.

Halting behind her, Josh took the brush and dryer from her hands and began using them. He was awkward at first, but his movements became rhythmic and sure before long. The heavy mass of her wet hair lightened as it dried, and deep, warm highlights glowed in the dark brunette tresses. Each stroke of the brush caused her hair to shimmer more, the silky touch of it against his hand a feather-light caress.

Absorbed in his task, Josh watched her hair become a vital, living mass of darkness. He looked up once to meet her eyes in the mirror and his hand faltered. Her gaze was fixed on his face, eyelids heavy; her lips were parted softly and the white silk covering her breasts rose and fell quickly.

Josh swallowed, his jaw tensing as he pulled his gaze from hers and concentrated on what he was doing. His fingers were white-knuckled around the handle of the dryer, but even then he couldn’t hold it steady. His chest hurt and every muscle in his body felt rigid, while the deep, slow pulse of desire given life by their first meeting grew stronger and tauter.

He had more or less earned the outdated sobriquet of playboy, Josh knew. His sister, Serena, had often scoffed at his efforts to keep control of his life by subsisting on “a steady diet of blondes.” And Josh was a sensual man; he had found pleasure with those blondes. But he had never before felt this vital need, this pulsing of his entire body in an ache for one woman—and only one woman.

He turned off the dryer and set the brush aside, moving slowly, his eyes again fixed on hers. She turned on the low stool and rose to face him, and Josh knew there was no scrap of lace and silk beneath the robe this time.

His hand lifted to touch her cheek, the herbal
scent of the soap she’d used making him dizzy again. Or maybe it wasn’t the soap. “When you came home,” he said hoarsely, “I didn’t dare kiss you. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop.”

Her slender hands rose to lie against his chest, and then her fingers began slowly unfastening the buttons of his shirt. Her eyes were dark, as enigmatic as those of a cat. “No interruptions tonight,” she whispered. “Let the world stop for a while. Let it all stop for a while.”

If there was desperation in her words, it was muted and neither of them really heard it.

Josh shrugged out of his shirt, biting back a groan when he felt her hands slide down over his chest and stomach until his belt buckle stopped the contact of flesh on flesh. His own hands felt the cool touch of silk when he reached for her, drawing her abruptly against him, and his mouth found her parted lips hungrily.

Raven slid her hands along his ribs and then up his back, vaguely conscious of his hands holding her, one tangled in her hair and the other at her hips. She could feel his hard body burning
her, imprinting itself on hers, and she rose on tiptoe until she fit him perfectly. Only the scant barrier of silk separated them, and she felt her breasts swell and begin to throb even as another ache grew deep inside her.

He possessed her mouth as if only that kept him from dying, as if he were starved and the touch of her sated his hunger. His tongue sought the tender sweetness of her mouth and Raven responded instantly, exploring as he did, caressing in the secret, hidden kiss of lovers. She felt her robe slide to the floor and her soft whimper was lost in his mouth as the sensual rasp of his hair-covered chest turned her nipples to fire.

The room seemed to move around them, and Raven half-opened her eyes as his mouth reluctantly left hers. She realized that he had picked her up effortlessly and was carrying her to the bed. Raven wasn’t a small woman, and the ease with which he carried her was a faint, almost instinctive shock. It disturbed her, but nothing could put out the fire he had ignited in her body.

Josh managed to strip the covers back toward the foot of the bed before lowering her onto its
softness, then straightened and rapidly discarded his remaining clothing. His eyes, wild and glittering, raked her body with an intensity Raven could feel in every nerve, and she could barely stop looking at his face long enough to absorb the powerful strength of his body as it was revealed to her.

Her breath caught in her throat and Raven knew a single fleeting moment of panic, instantly overborne by an equally strong wave of primitive desire. Clothed, he was an impressive figure, tall and broad-shouldered, with an easy, athletic grace of movement. But when the trappings of civilization fell away, he was something else, something elementary. Raw sexuality emanated from his muscled body like a primitive aura, and his desire was a vital, living force she could feel, as if electricity had been loosed in the room.

The strength of her own response to his power frightened her, and that instinctive fear quivered in her voice. “Josh …”

“Shhh.” He was with her, kissing her slowly, deeply, raised on an elbow beside her with one hand lying quietly over the sensitive flesh of her
stomach. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, his lips feathering over her face, and his voice was unsteady. “I love you, Raven.”

She found his shoulders and held on, needing … needing. Fear ebbed, and all her senses focused on his lips, on the hand still lying unmoving just beneath her breasts. Tension began winding tightly within her, as much emotional as physical, and she could feel something else inside, something still and dark. And Josh felt it as well.

He lifted his head briefly, those hot, glittering eyes looking deeply into her own, and the rough sound he made was one of pain. “Don’t … don’t hold back, darling. Don’t hide from me.”

Was she hiding? Raven didn’t know. But she had never in her life given herself up totally just to feeling, and the guards that necessity had helped her build around her emotions and her mind weren’t easily released. She
wanted
to lose herself in Josh, in the way he made her feel, but years of tense, careful living had left their mark.