Shock Waves (9 page)

“Pardon the intrusion,” came a cultured voice from behind them. They spun toward the open doorway, found a young man with white clothes and dark skin standing just inside the room. “You’ll need to come with me now.”

Ethan started toward him. “Where’s Zhukov?”

“He sends his regrets, but he’s been detained.”

Ethan stopped abruptly. “I want to see him now.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.” The young man glanced at Brenna, then Ethan. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll lead you to your quarters where you can freshen up, rest if you like.”

Brenna worked hard to keep her face expressionless, devoid of the confusion twisting through her. They were like actors, she realized, on a cardboard stage. All these fake manners and courtesies, the house staff treating them as though they were guests rather than detainees.

“Follow me,” the dark man in white said.

For a moment Brenna thought Ethan was going to refuse the offer, but then he turned to Brenna and extended his hand. A slow smile curved his lips. “Angel?”

She looked at his hand outstretched toward her, the square palm and strong fingers, the tanned flesh, and didn’t want to take it. Didn’t want to touch him again. That’s how everything had started, after all. With a simple touch between strangers. He’d yet to make the connection, yet to remember the night they’d brushed, flesh to flesh, in the vet clinic where she worked. She was nothing more than a stranger to him, and even were she to remind him, he still wouldn’t believe.

It wasn’t in his blood.

She brushed by him, toward the open doorway. “Freshening up sounds wonderful,” she said. Pointedly she turned and scorched him with her eyes, let her gaze linger on his ratty running clothes. With great effort she wrinkled her nose, pretended the masculine smell offended. “Something around here stinks more by the minute.”

* * *

The room stole her breath. Large and spacious, with a stunning wall of windows and a verandah overlooking the beach, high windows open to allow the crosswinds to feather through the tropical warmth, several wicker fans whooshing lazily from high on the ceiling. Not much furniture adorned the room, but then, not much was needed. The wood was surprisingly dark, mahogany maybe, reminiscent of that found in the old sugar plantations. A dresser, an armoire, a chest and a bed. A big, beautiful, four-poster bed with netting dangling around all four sides.

Brenna ignored the quickening deep inside and tried not to look at the white covers, pulled crisply back. At the pillows, fluffed and waiting.

“These must be for you,” Ethan said, and she spun toward him, relieved not to look at the bed, not at all prepared for the sight of him standing by the armoire with a pair of dusty rose panties and bra dangling from his fingers.

She swallowed hard. “I certainly hope they’re not for you.” He glanced toward a pile of clothing by his feet, a pair of khaki cargo shorts and black knit shirt, a pair of gray boxers. “Not unless you’d rather wear these.”

The room started to spin, but she fought the sensation, fought the odd vertigo whirring through her. It was like falling down the rabbit hole, she thought dizzily, and discovering a strange new world where nothing made sense. She’d seen the dream, after all. She knew what was coming.

The elegant room and fresh supply of clothing didn’t fit.

“Would you like to clean up first?” Ethan asked.

There was a gleam in his eyes, a gleam that matched the thickness of his voice. Pretending she noticed neither, she crossed to the armoire and looked inside, selected a simple white sundress. There was no simple underwear. It was all in sets, all provocative. There was a black combo with a lacy bra and a matching thong, a crimson set in silk. The pink set in Ethan’s hands. The most discreet was a set of pale yellow, a demicup bra and matching bikini panties.

An odd rush feathered through her as she picked up the garments under Ethan’s watchful eye. When she returned from the shower, he’d know what she had on beneath her dress, a reality that left her feeling as exposed as if she stood before him naked.

“I won’t be long,” she said with a breeziness she didn’t come close to feeling, then forced herself to walk casually to the bathroom.

She’d never seen anything like it. Sprawling, definitely. Elegant, for sure. All white marble. A sunken tub large enough for two, with blood-red rose petals sprinkled liberally, even though no water waited inside. Jacuzzi jets. A shower encased in erotic glass blocks. Dual vanities, each stocked with shampoos and lotions and powders, toothpastes, the works. An entire wall of windows, with no curtains or shutters, open and exposing tropical foliage just beyond, the beach below. The tide washed lazily against the beach of glowing white sand.

The beach soon to be drenched in red.

Blocking the images, the memories and visions she wanted no part of, she stripped out of the stifling black clothes and stepped into the shower, welcomed the blast of lukewarm water washing away the dirt and grime from the night before. Arching her back, she turned up to the rainlike spray, let it run down her head and face, trickle over her chest and slide down her body.

“Feel better?”

The roughly masculine voice jolted through her, prompting her to draw her arms across her chest. Through the glass blocks she could see the outline of his body, tall, broad, but no detail. Pray to God he saw the same.

“I’d feel better if you left me alone,” she said, and like so many other times, he treated her to one of those slow, dark laughs. Predatory, almost. The sound swirled around her, much like the warm water against her naked flesh, but quietly he turned and walked out the door.

For a few minutes Brenna didn’t move, just stood beneath the spray, waiting, not at all convinced he wouldn’t be back. She didn’t take him for the kind of man to force himself on a woman, but nothing was as it seemed in the rabbit hole, and too well she knew men with their backs against the wall knew no limits. She’d walked into some kind of odd chess game, and if she wasn’t careful, she could easily get caught in the crossfire.

Cautiously she reached for the bottle of liquid soap. Hibiscus scented, she noted, squeezing a blob into her palm. Trying not to think about Ethan, or the fact that she stood naked and all that separated them was a door and his honor, she slid her hands along her body.

The flash froze her. The heat electrified. It was only her hands splayed against her body, but too easily she felt those square palms and strong fingers, the calluses that made no sense for a polished city lawyer.

Not a premonition, she told herself. Dear heaven, not a premonition.

She let the water wash away the lather, the unwanted images, and quickly shampooed and conditioned her hair. She kept her mind blank, refusing to allow thoughts of Ethan Carrington and those fascinating hands of his seep through. She didn’t need to imagine them on her body, tangled in her hair. Even if he didn’t believe she was on Jorak Zhukov’s payroll, there was no room for a man like him in her life. She’d learned the price of loving, the price of letting herself care. She’d felt the sting of betrayal, cried the tears, attended the funerals.

Ethan Carrington would be no different.

Abruptly she turned off the water and glanced through the thick glass blocks to make sure he’d not slipped back into the bathroom. When she saw nothing, she opened the door and reached for a thick peach towel, wrapped it around her body, secured her wet hair in a smaller towel. Through the foggy bathroom mirror she caught sight of her face, noted the deep flush to her cheeks, the darkness to her normally pale eyes and damned her body for betraying her.

Brenna wasn’t a woman for primping and pampering, but she couldn’t resist squeezing rich, hibiscus-scented lotion into her palm and smoothing it over arms and legs, her chest and stomach. Then she brushed her teeth and dried her hair, stepped into the lemon-yellow panties and secured the bra, pulled on the soft cotton sundress.

A wide assortment of makeup lay scattered on a mirrored tray, but she ignored it all, reminding herself she was not here to look good for Ethan Carrington.

“It’s all yours,” she said, opening the bathroom door and letting the steam roll into the surprisingly cool room.

Nothing prepared her for the sight of him sprawled on the big bed, his deep tan and raven hair a stark contrast to the crisp white linens and netting. He looked even more imposing lying down than he did standing up, with his chest and shoulders dominating a ridiculous display of frilly pillows, his long legs bent and crooked open.

Slowly his lips curved into a breathtakingly sensuous smile. “Angel, I’ve heard people compared to a breath of fresh air before, but until this moment I’ve never seen it with my own eyes.”

The words rushed through her, softening the hard edges she’d tacked into place while showering. “Maybe I should slip back into the black.”

“Can’t,” he said with a devilish grin, and Brenna abruptly swung toward the bathroom, where her jeans and top no longer lay in a heap on the floor. “Don’t look so upset, angel. It’s just clothes.”

She grabbed the edges of her control and knotted them together. “I’m beginning to wonder why I saved hot water for you.”

She realized her mistake too late. A gleam moved into his eyes, darkened them into a primeval glow. “Trust me, angel,” he said, swinging to the side of the bed. His bare feet came down on the white tile floor. “I don’t need to be any hotter than I am.” He crossed toward her with an easy masculine grace, a man clearly comfortable with his own body, even though he wore loose-fitting running shorts and a torn and dirty VMI T-shirt. “I’m thinking a cold shower will do just the trick.”

Pausing beside her, close enough to touch, he took in first her eyes, then let his gaze slide
lower,
down along the scoop neck of the sundress, along the bodice, to her legs and bare feet. He didn’t touch her this time, not physically, not with his hands, and yet everywhere his gaze skimmed, her body burned. “Your toes aren’t painted.”

Her throat tightened. “Why would they be?”
          

“I’ve never known a woman who didn’t paint her toenails.”

At that, Brenna found she could smile. “And I’ve never seen the point.” Almost never, that was. There’d been a brief period there, a couple of shattering weeks, when she’d put pink on her toes and black around her eyes, mauve on her lips. She’d wanted to feel womanly, had thought it would make a difference.

“Christ,” Ethan swore softly, but sounded more fascinated than angered. “Another time, another place, another circumstance, and who the hell knows?”

She did. She knew. No matter the time, the place, the circumstance, she could have no relationship, no future, with this man. She’d left that part of her life behind. She trusted her dreams, her visions of what would come to pass in other people’s lives, but her mind went dark when it came to her own emotions. Her own future.

With one last heated look, Ethan strolled past her and into the opulent bathroom but didn’t shut the door. Instinctively she looked after him, stood frozen when he pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it to the ground.

She’d seen a man naked before. She’d seen a muscular, well-built man without clothes. But then she’d wanted to run. Then she’d scrambled back across the bed, grabbed a gun.

Now she just wanted to stare. The deep bronze of his arms extended across his shoulders and down his chest, lower still to a stomach of finely corded muscle. Dark gold hair curled along his pecs and swirled around flat mauve nipples, trickled like an arrow down toward his shorts…

…
which he was reaching for.

Brenna spun away, refused to watch, to stare, to wonder. She didn’t understand what kind of game he was playing. She knew he didn’t trust her, that he thought she was on Zhukov’s payroll.

How far are you willing to take this, angel?

The shower came on, and fleetingly she wondered if he was really going to take it cold. Didn’t matter, she told herself. All that mattered was staying alert. Surviving. She had no allies on this island. If she was going to make it off alive, she had no one to trust but herself.

The temptation to turn toward the open bathroom door was strong, but she resisted, wandering instead to the wall of windows overlooking the beach below. The sun glimmered on the sugary sand, the waves, gentle now, swishing against the shore.

“All better?”

The voice, deep and slightly rough, rushed through her, like the warm breeze rustling the palms lining the beach. She turned to find Ethan striding toward her, wearing the khaki shorts she’d seen on the floor, but nothing else. His closely cut hair was damp, the whiskers still darkened his jaw.

Because her heart beat much too fast, she wrinkled her nose, drew in the unmistakable scent of man and soap. “Much,” she said.

“Do you have any idea?” he asked, and the words sounded rough, torn from some place deep inside. He strolled closer, not stopping until he’d invaded her personal space. “Any idea at all, what it does to a man to stand in a shower and know that only a few minutes before a beautiful woman stood in that very same place, naked, running her hands along her body?”

Brenna’s mouth went dry. She tried to swallow, couldn’t. To breathe, couldn’t. To think, understand, prepare … couldn’t. “Ethan—”

His eyes heated, slid to the enormous poster bed, with both the netting and crisp white sheets pulled back. “Now that we’re all fresh and clean, why don’t we put each other out of our misery?” He lifted a hand and gently slid the hair behind her ear. Then his fingers feathered over the swirl of purple and green left by Zhukov’s men. “Who knows what this evening will bring? Maybe we should make the most of the time we do have.” He paused, let his thumb slide to her lower lip. “I’ve always found a little afternoon delight an unbeatable distraction.”