Somewhere I'll Find You (25 page)

Damn him, Daniel thought.  Damn Erik and any man that throws love away – for whatever the reason.

* * * *

When Daniel arrived that evening, Jenny, pale and withdrawn, stood watching by the window.  He reminds me of a winter storm, she mused, watching him enter.  Sudden, strong, and totally powerful.

“Jenny,” Daniel began, his voice booming in the small room.  “Erik is in deep trouble.  Do you have any reason to question his loyalty?  A war is brewing and there are some that have become terribly suspicious of him.  Would you have any idea why?
”
  He didn’t bother with preliminaries; he simply dropped the words
into the air and waited
, allowing her to comprehend them.

“You know more about his past than I do,” she began painfully.  “He always glossed over certain parts
,
but given his marriage
to Lilly,
I suspected he was being –
prudent
.”

Moving with surprising speed for a
tall
man, Daniel’s hands reached out for her slender shoulders.  “For his sake – for the sake of two nations – you must tell me everything.”  Shaking his head as he moved back, he gathered his wits.  “Did he ever mention someone called the Wraith?”

She wanted to scream, to
turn,
and run, but
she
couldn’t.  Not if Erik’s life was in danger.  “He told me once about a friend of his with a name like that – a simple example of boyhood bravado.” For a moment, Jenny didn’t move.  A man’s honor and
his
very life flashed before her.  “What will you do with the information, if I tell you?”

“Do?”  Daniel smiled, gesturing to the door.

Men appeared silently, all
muscular,
and unforgiving,
their
black coats protecting them from the impending storm.

“He’ll be followed until he leads us to a double agent.  With Erik having nothing more than alien status, he could be shipped back to England to be tried for treason.”

“No,” she whispered as she
reached
out
for Argo.

Viciously, Daniel grabbed her by the arm, ignoring Argo’s snarling protest.  “We have to know the truth, Jenny.”  A look of disgust passed his craggy face.  “You can’t protect him from himself.  He was wild and out of control before he met you and he’s gotten worse, if that’s possible.  You may be the only one that can reach him – the only one who can save him.  If you pick up that phone – you can get him back.”  Grimly he handed her the heavy dark receiver, his eyes speaking volumes.

Daniel was right.

All it had taken was her whispered voice o
ver
the telephone, erasing Erik’s resolve.  He had muttered a low, vicious curse that faded into a groan.  “Jenny,” he whispered.  “Don’t ask me – for God’s sake, don’t ask me to come.”

But she did.  She whispered his name, the sound as soft as a gentle breeze.  There was no answer as he returned the receiver to its cradle.  There was no need for one.

It was only then that Daniel and the men vanished into a downpour of rain.

She waited for him in the firelight, her hair
glowing
a burnished gold in the reflection. 
Standing there
,
Jenny barely flinched
when he burst through her door.  Erik stood there, his full-sleeved shirt billowing behind him.  A diamond stickpin glittered from his cravat, a winking gem of icy fire that pulsed with every beat of his heart.

Searching her face, he captured her eyes with his.  “Do you know what this could mean?  Of the danger that you could be in?  I warned you what would happen if I came back – that you could be used to get to me.  Do you have any idea of the danger you could be in?”

With a half-choked sob, she shook her head.  “I don’t care!  I can’t give you up – I can’t give up on us.  All I need to know is that you love me.”

“You will care,” he said lowly.  “I have fought with every shred of my being and failed.  God help me.”  His voice hardened.  “God help us both.”

She felt the tension of his hard hands braced at her shoulders, painfully aware of his fingers easing beneath her gown.

“I will hold you all of my life. Perhaps even longer than this mortal coil.”  When he spoke, Erik felt a chill at his neck.

But he had no time for chills or warnings, not with Jenny in his arms.  “I’ll set a brand on you to prove it.  A brand of love that carries all the joy you’ve given me.”  Slowly, slowly his head bent over hers.

And she leaned into him, leaned into the unyielding strength of his body; into the mystery of his arms and the unbearable
pleasure,
he was making her feel.

All of his intentions crumbled.  All the protests fled.

All that was left was heat, hunger, and a hundred kinds of need.  Lips, light and hot, feathering her skin.  Her heart racing.

“Erik, I can’t . . . breathe.  It’s not supposed to feel like this.”

“Like what?” His voice was a whisper in her ear as his tongue traced a pattern on her lobe.

Trembling, her fingers inched into his hair.  “Like . . . forever.”

“Says who?”  For a moment, there was the briefest flash of a smile, and then there was only heat.

She made an uncertain sound.  Her hands slid deeper into his hair.  Dimly
,
she realized that she was pulling him closer.

And Jenny didn’t care.  She wanted him close.  She wanted their bodies joined, with only sweat and skin between them.
  Black-coated men and whispers of treason and double agents fled completely from her mind; only desire was left.

She wanted him.

With all
of
his demons and fears.  With all of his arrogance and his own brand of honor.

And her skin was aflame as he caught her mouth with his.  Lips hard, they slid across hers, shaped her to his passion.

No fear.  No room for fear.  There was too much need.

He made a low, rough sound.  A sound of pain that left her totally possessed.

“Please hurry. Don’t think of anything.  For tonight,
t
here is only us.”  Her voice was muffled in his shoulder.

Silently, he moved behind her.  Hands across her waist, he pulled her to him.  “Sorry, Jenny,” he whispered roughly.  “Tonight, hurrying is the last thing on my mind.”  He found the hungry little hollow behind her ear and planted slow kisses down to the bend in her shoulder.  There, he nudged aside the soft gown.

She gave an anguished cry, and her hands closed in his hair.
“Can’t you go . . . a little faster?”

His low chuckle drifted across her naked skin.  “Not a chance in hell.  I’ve got whole continents to explore.”  His voice darkened.  “And paradise to claim.”

She hitched a breath
; the pause in their activities had allowed some sense to return to her, and she knew she could not allow such pleasure to continue
while the words she knew she had to share with him burned blackly in the back of her mind.
  “Erik, there is something else.  Daniel told me
…
”

Silence.

“About you aiding the war effort in England.”

More silence.

“What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry.  You’re doing wonderful things for both of our countries and I know I’m making it more difficult for you.”  Her hands tightened.  “I’m sorry that I forced your hand.”

More silence . . . thicker now.

“Erik?”

There
w
as a raspy breath.  “Not now.  Only this now.”  He turned her face with gentle fingers before his tongue swept hers. “Only the heat to stop the nightmares.”  Lace shifted, linen rose.

Then there was only her heat, melted against his.  Only her soft, muffled breath as he carried her to her room and lay her on the chintz settee beside the window.  Moonlight pooled against her skin
, below curtains that drifted like ghostly fingers.  The air carried the perfume of a thousand roses mixed with the scent of gardenias.

He was confident in this as in all else, his hands sure of their possession.  Jenny watched his face, one side silver in the moonlight and the other cast into darkness.  She wanted to be the one that pulled him from those shadowed dangers.  She wanted to be the one who made laughter brighten his eyes and smiles crinkle his hard mouth.

She wanted.  Oh, how she wanted. 
But he was moving too fast, spinning his dark enchantment over a body that was fast turning into a stranger. 
Wanting struck her, and a hot, sweet melting.

“Erik, I . . .”

“Not now, beautiful.  I’m busy.”  He bent his mouth to her throat, her collarbone, to the high, sweet arch of her breast.

“Erik, why?”

“
Must
you always talk so much?”

Then his mouth coaxed the warm skin of her shoulder and she forgot her fears.

She felt the slide of his fingers, firing her heat, wooing her silently until she arched with restless abandon.  “Now, Jenny. While the moonlight plays around you.  Let me take you beyond dawn and darkness.”

A low groan.  Maybe his, maybe hers, or maybe it belonged to both of them. She tightened around him, head flung back, mind and spirit shimmering in a wave of breathless pleasure.

But it didn’t end.  He wouldn’t let her pleasure end.  Some instinct told him exactly where to touch her, just how to move, where to skim his fingers over her shivering skin until she lay helpless.  Her breath swelled in a choked cry of discovery
.