Standing in the Shadows (25 page)

A woman like her could not afford to have a heart. It could get her killed, and she still wanted to live. She was not yet that far gone.

All too soon he tired of her efforts. He wrenched her head away from his groin. His eyes were lit up with a phosphorescent glow, a look that always portended danger. "I miss him from time to time, you know."

She wiped her mouth, blinked innocently. "Who?"

"Victor. It's sad, to lose a friend. I have so few, the world being what it is. But he crossed the line, Tamara. He crossed me."

She smiled demurely, still pumping his stiff penis with her hands. "And when have I ever crossed you, boss?"

He stroked her cheek with the stubs of his fingers. A surreal parody of tenderness. "Never, I hope."

He wrenched her up by the hair and flung her facedown onto the bed. He shoved her legs open and drove inside her, so hard and so suddenly that she slid up the bed and hit her head against the headboard before she had a chance to brace herself. She saw stars, put her hand out to cushion her head, and thought about killing him.

Usually, it helped. This time it only maddened her. His defenses were so smooth and impenetrable. She was seldom alone with him, only when she was naked in bed, and he was far more physically powerful than she. He always had whoever served him sip his drinks and taste his food before eating. He was always armed. He never slept. Never, as if he had a supernatural font of energy. Like a perpetual coke high, but he never touched drugs. Which was too bad. She was good with drugs. It would have been so much easier to kill him that way.

His arm snaked around in front of her neck, arching it back and cutting off her air. She gasped, hovering on the brink of fainting.

"So fearless," he crooned, his body pounding into hers. "Never cross me, Tamara. I would be so hurt."

"Never," she choked out. "Never."

Erin's dream was a snarl of erotic images, a volatile mix of pleasure and danger and painful longing. Male voices merged with it, and the click of the door closing pulled her to wakefulness.

A deep, sensual ache permeated her body. Her skin was strangely sensitized. The brush of the sheet against her body made her want to writhe and stretch. She opened her eyes a tiny crack and peeked.

Sure enough. It was the hotel room. Oh, God. It hadn't been a dream. It was real, all of it. Hours of it. A delicious shiver rippled through her. She took a deep breath and rolled over to face him.

Connor stood by the bed, looking down at her. He wore only his jeans, his hair waving loose over his shoulders. His eyes looked somber and shadowed. "Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," she echoed. "Did you sleep well?"

He shook his head. She thought of last night's strange, inexplicable phone call, and how badly it had upset him. Of course he hadn't slept, poor baby, but it was probably better to avoid the subject entirely. He was sure to be twitchy and defensive about it.

She sat up, pulling the sheet up to cover her breasts. "Was someone just here? I thought I heard voices."

He held up his hand. It was full of condoms. "Turns out there's a vending machine in the men's bathroom in the lobby. I was too crazed to think of it last night. The desk clerk brought them up for me."

He was so casual about it, like it was a given that they were going to make love again, again and again. Heated images from the night before raced through her mind, and liquid heat rushed and throbbed between her legs. She blushed and shrank back against the headboard.

His face hardened. He dropped the condoms onto the bedside table. "Don't give me that scared rabbit look. You don't have to be afraid of me. I would never force you."

Oh, good Lord, he was so proud and high-strung, and now she'd hurt his tender feelings. She grabbed his hand as he turned away and tugged at it. "Connor, don't. I'm just shy, and tired, and kind of overwhelmed. It would be too much, to make love again. That's all."

A slow, cautious smile curved his mouth. "That's cool with me," he said. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "They'll keep."

She stared at him, dazzled at how gorgeous he was. She finally managed to drag her eyes away, and focused on the heap of condoms. "Good heavens," she said blankly. "How many did you ask for?"

"I figured twelve would hold us until we have a chance to get to a drugstore," he said. "Based on how things went last night."

Her eyes widened. "Twelve? Connor, I have to walk past that guy when we check out of here!
Twelve? "

"Sorry." He blinked innocently. "Don't worry, Erin. We don't have to use them all this morning. I was just being, you know—prepared."

She drew her knees up to her chest and hid her face against them. "This is a big deal for me," she said. "I don't know how to be cool and casual about it. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to act."

He sank down on his knees next to the bed. "Don't act," he urged. "Just be. No masks, right? Didn't we establish that last night? I go for that, Erin. It turns me on. And this is a big deal for me, too. Believe me. Now give me a good-morning kiss."

His warm, teasing smile was magnetic. She swayed toward him, and their lips met. Soft and tentative, for the first nanosecond, anyway.

A blast of sexual energy roared through them. She found herself writhing beneath him, the sheet torn away from her naked body, both her hands buried in his thick hair. His mouth moved over hers in a savage, sensual kiss calculated to lead them straight into another bout of wild sex. He could manipulate her so effortlessly.

It took a huge effort of will to turn her face away. "That's enough," she pleaded. "I have to get ready. I have to concentrate. Don't do this to me, Connor. Please."

He rocked back on his heels. "So concentrate. Be my guest."

"You're distracting me," she snapped. She scrambled out of the other side of the bed. Her nightdress was the quickest way to cover herself. She tugged it out of her suitcase with desperate haste.

"Gee, sorry." His eyes roamed over her body.

She yanked it over her head and let it drift into place. "I have to take a shower, and iron my suit. And I have to do something about your clothes, too. They're in a terrible state."

He looked suspicious. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

She pulled out her travel iron and plugged it in. "The clothes you wore yesterday are all right for the meeting, if I iron them, but you won't be going to the restaurant anyway, so it doesn't matter if—"

"Hold on." His eyes narrowed. "Back up a step. What's this about me not going to the restaurant?"

She heaved her suitcase up onto the bed and braced herself for a struggle. No way could she contemplate having a business lunch with her most valued client while Connor hovered over her, being intense and difficult. "I looked up the restaurant on the Internet before I came," she said. "It has a formal dress code. I don't see a garment bag lying around here, so I assume you didn't bring a jacket and tie."

"You're not going anywhere that I don't go, Erin." His tone was cold and flinty-hard. "I thought we had an understanding."

"Don't be silly." She laid a fresh towel against the desk for an ironing board. "I arranged this lunch with Mueller before you entered the picture. Nothing can happen to me in a crowded four-star restaurant And you promised that you wouldn't disrupt—"

"Wait a minute. Hello. Earth to Erin. Let's just set aside the fact that I'm currently your bodyguard. Let's ignore that phone call we got last night. Let's assume
that trifling detail wasn't even an issue. After what has just happened between us, you are still planning to have lunch with your goddamn millionaire while I wait out in the lobby like an asshole?"

She gaped at him, appalled. "Connor, be reasonable. I've never even met the man. There's no reason to be jealous. This is about my work. It isn't about you, or Mueller, or—"

"Like hell it isn't. You played your cards wrong, sweetheart After a night in bed with me, you can forget the romantic, private gourmet lunch with another man. Just… fucking… forget it."

The possessive fury that emanated from him was like a blast of wind in her face. He advanced on her. She backed up. The wall bumped into her back. "Stop, Connor," she said. "You're making me nervous."

"Good. Be nervous. That'll make two of us, and I wouldn't mind some company."

"Connor, I—"

"I'm not letting you out of my sight. If you so much as have to pee, I am following you into the ladies' room. That is how serious I am about this. You reading me? Are we finally communicating?"

He pinned her to the wall, crushing her breasts against his chest. She lifted her chin. "You're acting like a caveman," she informed him.

"I'm not acting," he said. "No masks, remember?"

"That's not fair!" she snapped. "I will not be bullied! Just because we spent the night together does not give you the right to—"

"I'm not bullying you, Erin. I'm just telling you how it is."

He cut off her reply with a hard, marauding kiss. She struggled, but he just swallowed her muffled protests and moved his strong hands over her body. Oh, please. How ridiculous. Trying to stake his claim by brute physical force, the rude, arrogant…

And all at once, her anger betrayed her, lending all its furious heat to the hunger that flared inside her. She shuddered in his arms.

He wrenched the wide, scooped neckline of her nightdress down over her shoulders, exposing her breasts, and trapped her arms behind her in a tight swathe of white cotton and lace. He spun her around, pinned against his chest A brief moment of fruitless struggle, legs pumping in empty space, and he sank down onto the bed with her on his lap, facing the mirror. He yanked the nightgown up over her waist.

Their eyes locked in the mirror. She went very still in his arms. She should be spitting mad. She should tell him straight out that this display of macho, he-man garbage did not impress her in the least. But the words weren't coming. She was speechless, her thighs clamped tight around an embarrassing secret. She was turned on.

No, worse than that. She was extremely turned on. She vibrated in his arms. Her face was red, her breath shallow and labored, her eyes dilated. She couldn't hide it from him. He knew it. She saw it in the triumphant glow in his eyes, the proprietary way he nuzzled her neck. So confident of his power over her.

Dear God, this was awful. She'd been kidnapped by a repressed part of her subconscious, her body taken over by a wanton nympho with no dignity who was sexually aroused by bad behavior.

She shut her eyes to block him out. "Why are you doing this to me?" she demanded. "Why are you torturing me like this?"

"There's torture and there's torture." He shoved the hair away from her neck, and ran his lips over an exquisitely sensitive spot. She jerked and quivered. "And you're torturing me, too, Erin. The virgin bride nightgown is a calculated cocktease, did you know that? I take one look at the thing and in my mind I'm ripping it down the front and throwing you onto a Victorian four-poster." He stroked the tops of her clenched thighs. She thrashed uselessly in the unrelenting circle of his arms. "Open up," he urged. "Let me in."