Twisted Shadows (28 page)

Yet he didn't move his hand from her shoulder, and his fingers—almost of their own accord—moved against her skin at the back of her neck. Her dark hair curled around them and she leaned toward him …

Need. She needed something to hold on to. Nothing more. He would be kidding himself to think otherwise.

He was astonished at the intensity of his feelings, feelings he had thought dead. He wanted her, and he wanted her more than he had thought it was possible to want a woman.

He also wanted to erase the fear and the bewilderment and the abandonment he saw in her eyes.

Their lips met. Explored. The electricity between them intensified. It sparked, then caught, and roared into flames. Even their clothes didn't protect them from the heat that flared between them.

His mouth played with hers, feeling her lips open to his, and his tongue reached greedily for hers. To his surprise, she responded with an equal quest, her tongue meeting his and engaging in a dance that sent all his senses reeling.

Her passion met his, and that was an aphrodisiac that put any lingering reservations to rest.

His lips caressed with a possessiveness that jolted him at the same time her body pressed against his. God, how he wanted her. How he wanted something warm and alive in his life rather than the constant frost of hatred.

Once again his mind warned him. He knew this meant disaster. How would she feel when she knew why he had been pursuing the Merrittas? But at this particular moment, he didn't care. His heart seemed to beat outside his chest, and tenderness was an aching thing growing inside him. He realized he'd been waiting for this for a long time. This caring. This gentle, yearning link to another person.

He'd believed these feelings beyond him, that they came only to someone with a heart, but now he knew that his heart was not as dead as he'd thought it was. Something had become more important than the Merrittas. Than his job. Than his childish vow that had become a man's obsession.

He looked in Samantha's eyes and saw the question there. Then it was replaced by a kind of desperation. He couldn't even begin to comprehend what she had gone through these past few days. He could, though, comprehend the loss of a mother.

The thought should have made him back away. Instead he tightened his arms around her with a compelling need of his own. Merritta wasn't going to take someone else from him. Even dead, Merritta seemed to have power. No longer, dammit. No longer.

Somehow Nate was going to free them both from him.

He felt her hand on his face, exploring the angles. Then it moved to the back of his neck, stroking the sensitive skin, plunging him into waves of sensation.

He was no longer aware of anything but her. His hands instinctively went to her T-shirt and reluctantly he forced his lips away long enough to slip the shirt over her head, then her bra.

Damn, but she was beautiful. The spirit was back. Her eyes glistened, and her body responded to his as if they'd both been made for each other. He leaned down, and his tongue ran lightly over one of her breasts, then the other.

She gasped. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, then madness overtook both of them and they were pulling off the other's clothes even as they stood and moved toward the hall and, he suspected, her bedroom.

He knew it would change the dynamics between them forever. The complications could ruin everything he'd worked for. But he couldn't stop. The expression in her face had been too raw, too anguished.

He cared only about easing the fear he saw in her eyes. Not fear for herself but for someone she loved. He longed to erase that fear. He longed to touch her and be touched by her. She lit the darkness that had invaded his life until nearly everything decent in him had begun to shrivel.

Samantha closed her eyes. He felt as if he belonged with her. She'd known attraction. She'd even thought herself in love. But it had never felt so natural before. As if it was meant to be.

Sam knew what she was doing would cause even more complications in her life, yet she couldn't stop. She wanted him so badly, she ached.

Her arm had hurt all day, but now she barely felt it as they reached the bedroom and she undid his belt while he pulled down the zipper of her jeans. Their lips met again as they wrested the last of their clothes off each other, and flesh met flesh.

His hands moved up and down her body, igniting fires. Her world had always been full of colors, but never had she felt this kind of physical intensity when a touch made her ache and a breath against her skin made her quiver with delicious sensations.

All the weariness of the past few days faded in the magic of his kiss. His mouth held her, his arms squeezing her so tightly to him that she felt they were already one. Her body was consumed with him, with the need of him.

He slid his mouth down her body, teasing, making it glow. She heard herself murmur little sighs of pleasure.

He touched the small of her back, turning her and guiding her down on the bed. He sank down with her, their lips meeting in a maelstrom of need, of expectation that had been building since he'd first walked into the house. Even when she'd thought she'd been in love before, she'd never felt this physical yearning, this exquisite need.

He rose above her, his body teasing hers until she arched upward to meet him. He entered her with tantalizing slowness. She responded, moving her body in concert with his in a primitive, sensuous dance that sent ripples of sensation through her until she thought she would go mad with wanting.

The tempo of his movement quickened, and she felt as if she were disintegrating into white-hot heat and bellowing waves of pleasure. Their bodies arched together and seemed to burst in a fireball of sensations. Convulsive spasms rocked both of them.

Then he cradled her as they both fell back to earth, their bodies still rippling from the aftershocks of love-making.

Neither of them spoke as their bodies remained connected in the most intimate of ways as an occasional spasm continued to echo the wonder she'd just experienced.

twenty-one

Nate woke first, content to lie quietly and watch her sleep. Dark lashes shielded her eyes, her hair was a mop of short curls and a slight smile made her face look relaxed. She'd been both emotionally and physically exhausted. God only knew when she'd last slept.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been still like this, without the restlessness that charged him. He enjoyed watching her, even as he agonized over the conflict between job and crusade and the woman who filled a need he hadn't known existed in him until now.

She was a woman who valued truth and honesty. He had not been honest with her, not completely. She deserved to know the whole story. How could he expect her to be completely candid with him when he hadn't been candid with her?

If she knew her father's family had killed his mother, would she lie in his arms so peacefully? If she knew the Merrittas had been his burning obsession since the day he'd watched his mother bleed to death on Boston streets, would she trust him to help her, or would she always wonder if he tarred her with the same brush as the Merrittas? Would she understand how he'd felt at the death of his wife?

The phone rang, and she woke with a lazy sensuality that made him ache all over again. Then alarm widened her blue eyes, and she grabbed the phone. Her face didn't change as she snagged a shirt and carried the phone into another room.

He wanted to follow. To listen. If he were caught eavesdropping, he could well lose more than he gained. Instead he made a mental note to get the phone records.

He went to the bathroom and rinsed his face and smoothed back his hair, then pulled on his slacks that had been dumped next to the bed. Coffee! He needed it after the past hours. He started toward the kitchen, then gave up any pretense at being honorable. He stepped quietly into the hallway, hoping to hear her in the living room. She wasn't there.

He wondered whether she was talking to her brother or her mother. He eyed a phone in the living room.

Sometimes he hated the restraints on his work, both judicial and those set by his own conscience. The latter had lessened over the years. Results had often become more important than observing the niceties of his profession. He was a maverick, had been for a long time, but he knew how far he could stretch the rules.

He had an instinct for that.

He couldn't force himself to pick up that phone.

He sat in a chair and waited, wondering what she would tell him. How much she trusted him.

How much he trusted himself.

Sam shook as she gently replaced the phone in its cradle.

It hadn't been her mother.

It had been a voice with a Boston accent, noting the fact that there was an FBI agent with her and warning her to get rid of him.

Or what? The threat hovered unsaid over the line.

Then the phone went dead.

He hadn't said he had her mother. Just that he knew where she was.

Which was a great deal more than she knew.

The idea that her mother disappeared voluntarily kept prickling.

She thought she knew how to find out.

The last gift her father had given her mother had been a silver brush and comb. She never went on a trip without it. If they sat on the dresser, Sam would know something was wrong. If they were gone, then her mother had probably left on her own, just as she said in the note.

And the voice? He'd presented no proof he had her mother or knew where she was. Maybe the call was made to tempt her into leading him to her mother.

She had to get to her mother's house.

She mentally went over the note again, still finding no clues that her mother had left under duress.

Had she ever really known her mother? Or her father whom she now knew had no past?

And now someone was watching her house. How else could he have known Nate was here?

Once again, she felt both fear and real anger. Not just fear. Terror mixed with disbelief. It clung to her like the remnants of a bad nightmare. What was happening was light-years from her previous life, a nightmare from which she couldn't awaken. Or a bad suspense novel. But those novels never really answered one question. How do you melt the ice that fear forms in your soul?

For a short while, she'd been warmed. She'd allowed herself to get lost in Nathan McLean's arms. She'd been consumed by their joint conflagration.

But now the icy fingers of fear ran through her again.

For a few moments, she wanted to run back to his arms. “
Get rid of him
.”

She was too aware that McLean was probably waiting impatiently for her. What should she tell him? Was his interest more in striking at the Boston Merrittas than protecting her mother? Did it matter as long as the same result was achieved? She stared out of the window. She saw no out-of-place cars or trucks or other vehicles. Had someone trailed her from Boston, or had they already been here?

Had someone taken her mother? Dear God, was she even still alive?

She brushed her hair and dressed. Added a trace of lipstick. Her hand trembled slightly.

She wanted to ask help from McLean but she couldn't completely forget Nick's warnings. Now there was the warning from whoever was on the phone. If she talked to McLean, would she be signing her mother's death warrant?

The longer she stayed up here, the more he would wonder.

She needed to return to her mother's house to see whether her mother's silver brush was in its usual place on the dresser. She should have checked it last night, but she'd been so tired, so frantic. Instead she'd checked the obvious things. Suitcase? Gone. Favorite sweater? Gone. Travel cosmetic bag? Gone.

But she hadn't checked to see whether the brush, comb and mirror set remained.

If not …

Tell McLean about your mother
.

A week ago, she wouldn't have considered withholding information from the FBI. She'd always been immensely critical of television shows and movies when the heroine did something really stupid, like trying to defeat the villain on her own instead of calling the police. Now she understood that sometimes there were circumstances.…

Someone's watching. Someone will know. And that someone may well kill my mother
.

Nick
. Patsy Carroll was his mother, too, even if he didn't want to admit it.

She would try him first.

She steeled herself, tried a smile, then went down the hall, down the stairs. Damn, she'd never been good at being led, or being subtle.

Nate McLean stood at the window. She glanced toward the phone, but knew she would have heard a click if he'd picked up the receiver.

He'd dressed and combed his hair. Even then, a shock fell over his forehead. She'd always thought FBI agents were supposed to be well groomed, but he had a casualness about him that was almost western. His tie was always untied, his sleeves usually rolled up, his hair falling over his forehead. But it was the steady green eyes that affected her in ways she knew she shouldn't, couldn't, feel.

“No need to worry,” she said. “My mother is safe.”

“Where is she?”

“She didn't tell me. She just said she was safe.”

He didn't say anything but she saw the questions in his eyes. Was she really that poor a liar?

“If you want to know where she is, I can get the phone records.”

“No.”

“Samantha …” Concern reflected in his eyes.

“
Get rid of him,
” she'd been warned by the voice on the telephone. An “or else” dangled after the warning like an ax, ready to strike.

She was suddenly aware that her fingernails were biting into her palms. She had to concentrate to relax her fists, to stand at ease, as if all were right with the world.

She wanted to hold her hand out to him and tell him she didn't know where her mother was, only that she was in terrible danger. She wanted to ask his help.