Читать книгу Shannon McKenna Bundle: Ultimate Weapon, Extreme Danger, Behind Closed Doors, Hot Night, & Return to Me - Shannon McKenna - Страница 21

Tam sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the blank wall, eyes frozen wide. It made no difference if they were open or closed. She could not block out the images from inside her head. Nor the sounds. She had tried, but rifle fire kept cracking endlessly in the distance. Harrowing screams kept floating up from the dreaded basement cells of Sremska Mitrovica. The cells where the torturers did their work.

She wanted to clap her hands over her ears, but that was problematic, since the sound issued from inside her own head. She kept her hands wound tight, white-knuckled, into the bed covers. Hanging on to her present reality. This expensive, clean, safe hotel room. She was at the Huxley, with her daughter, surrounded by friends. She was not jammed in a moaning crowd of sweating bodies. The misery, the stench, the lice. Packed together too tightly even to lie down on the floor.

Rachel slept, finally, in the bed behind her. Coaxing the over-stimulated little girl to go down after she’d played with Sveti and the other little kids all evening and then overdosed on the chocolate wedding cake had been the usual three-ring circus. Even so, tonight, Tam was not grateful to be left alone with the contents of her own mind.

Amazingly, tonight she would have gladly traded the quiet for noise and distraction. Even a howling tantrum. Just to block it out.

Tough shit for her. Rachel needed the sleep, and Tam was on her own, eyes burning, stomach cramping. Watching the shovelfuls of dirt showering down on Mamma and Irina’s wide open eyes.

The memories gave her a crazy sense of double vision. Two realities, superimposed upon each other, one hardly more or less real than the other. The room was warm, but goosebumps prickled over her skin from the cold of that other room, in Titograd, sixteen years ago.

She’d sat on the sagging bed, the faded brocade counterpane cold against her bottom. Wearing only a whorish red silk chemise. All she needed, for his purposes, Stengl had said. She had nothing else to wear. No shoes, no coat. Her breath misted before her rhythmically. The frigid air froze the inside of her nose with each breath.

She wished she knew how to stop breathing. She had tried.

The window of the hotel room was wide open. She’d opened it herself. Snow blew in.

Seconds ticked by on the gold-plated travel clock by the bed. The room was locked, the windows covered by wrought iron bars she could not dislodge. Her fingertips were raw from trying. Snowflakes fluttered and swirled down onto the carpet. They did not melt. Tick, tick, tick.

She sat, and shuddered, waiting for Stengl to come back and want…what he always wanted.

Wondering if she’d have time to freeze to death first.

Tam pulled herself forcibly back into awareness of her present surroundings, shaking with remembered cold. Vaguely angry at herself for falling so deep into the bottomless pit of memory. Irresponsible and stupid, whether it was involuntary or not. She got up, padded over to the thermostat and turned it up. Fuck the cold.

Tam lay down and pulled the blanket over herself. She laid her hand on Rachel’s bony little back, feeling the soft rise and fall of breathing.

Comforted by the heat, the life vibrating from the little girl.

She was not looking forward to explaining to Rachel that she had to go away for a few days. Thank God for Erin, who had agreed to look after her, and Sveti, too, who had offered to stick around and help, bless her. But it was going to be a bad scene no matter what.

She was exhausted, but still buzzing. Probably the fallout from that drug.

Janos’s final offer had rattled her. How did he pull it off? Her most closely guarded, painful secrets, and hey, presto—he just plucked them right out of her head and dangled them in her face. So casually.

Scenes from the past had been playing in her head ever since Janos had pronounced Stengl’s name. Complete with full sensory detail.

She was fifteen again, a grief-stricken victim. A helpless toy for anyone who wanted to play with her. And they had. Oh, they had, back in the bad old days. Before she’d learned to turn the tables on them.

She’d had feelers out over the globe, searching for Stengl, that sociopathic son of a bitch, for years. She wanted to snag him before he reached the relative safe haven of the war crimes tribunal.

Oh, yes. She wanted to kill him herself, by hand, at close range. One last attempt to appease the restless ghosts that haunted her sleep.

Revenge. The one lure she absolutely could not resist.

She wondered where Janos was. She’d deliberately refrained from looking to the right or left as she left the ballroom. She didn’t want to risk catching his eye and start blushing like an idiot. Or worse yet, sobbing, or screaming. The messed-up hair, the wild stare, the smeared makeup, that was enough fuel for gossip among her friends as it was.

He had not left. Of that, she was sure. He was near, watching her.

On impulse, she slid out of bed and padded barefoot over to the door. She left her hand on the handle for minutes, trying to identify this bright, buzzing feeling. Fear…or anticipation.

She opened the door, and was unsurprised to see him there. A sorcerer like him could see right through the walls. He’d seen through the ones in her mind, after all. And they were thicker.

They stared at each other. She was incapable of speech.

He broke the silence. “It’s cold,” he said, glancing past her to the tiny lump Rachel made on the king sized bed. “Let me come in. You can close the door, to keep the room warm for the child. We must talk.”

Tam suppressed the impulse to say something cutting. She let him in, closed the door after him and positioned herself with her back to the narrow blade of light that came out the bathroom door to study his face and still remain an enigmatic silhouette herself.

The attempt was useless. She couldn’t read him. His face was a hard, chiseled mask highlighted by sharp-cut shadows.

She gestured for him to follow her into the bathroom. “Keep your voice down,” she whispered. “Rachel’s a light sleeper. She’s exhausted from staying up hours past her bedtime, but she’s capable of screaming for an hour if she wakes up. And I just can’t face it right now.”

He nodded, and followed her into the small, luxurious black marble bathroom. They stared at each other, immobile, but the energy between them was dynamic, swirling. Like the wary circling of duelers.

She could smell his scent. Feel his heat.

“You’ll go with me,” he said. It was not a question.

She shut her eyes, swallowed. “Congratulations, Janos,” she said. “You found the right string to yank. I’ll go on one condition, though.”

“Name it.”

“We take care of Stengl first,” she said.

She saw the no in his eyes, and shook her head. “This point is not negotiable, Janos. We do Stengl first, or you can try hauling me in to Novak to do the trade directly. I promise I’ll put up a good fight.”

He shook his head grimly. “No. We can hunt down Stengl at any time, but the timing is crucial for Imre. I am already desperate. Novak established a schedule for when he cuts off—”

“I’m very sorry for Imre, and for you, but that is not my problem.” Tam cut through him. Her voice was not loud, but crystal sharp. “My chances of dying in your crazy scheme are too high. I can face that if Stengl is dead. But I do not intend to leave this world before he does. No fucking way, and that is final. Understand?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. His nostrils flared as he let out a long, audible sigh. He muttered what sounded like an obscenity, in a language she didn’t know, and nodded. “Done.”

She turned and stared into the mirror, into his eyes. It was easier to meet their reflection than look into them directly. One tiny level of removal from his charisma. Just enough so she could breathe.

She thought of what had happened in the kitchen. The searing pleasure. He was powerful enough, intense enough to anchor her in the here and now, at least while he was fucking her. She could lose herself in him. She wouldn’t see that decaying hotel room, the shabby red chemise. Or Stengl leering down at her. Licking his lips.

Her stomach did a nasty, squirming roll. She squeezed her eyes shut, leaned on the sink. Splashed her face with icy water.

When she came up for air, her face numb with cold, he held out one of the fluffy hand towels for her. She patted her face dry, still leaving smears of mascara, despite how often she’d wiped the stuff off.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was ashen but for that hot blush branded across both cheekbones. He loomed behind her, unsmiling. Anger, frustration, desire pulsing off him in great waves.

He wanted her. The intensity of his dark gaze scorched her skin. She could feel the heat, the burn, the pull. That part, at least, was not feigned, no matter what else he wanted from her. The lust was real.

She was used to that vibe from men, but not from a man so completely in command of himself—and so unafraid of her.

His inner power was vast, unfathomable. It pulled, lured her.

He had abandoned the seductive, teasing charm. It was irrelevant. The time for banter was past. She dragged in a shaky breath, listening to the thudding of her own heart in her ears and her own shrill internal monologue. You can’t afford it. You couldn’t before. You still can’t, idiot.

But something hungry and jazzed inside her wanted to just grab him. Shove him around. Provoke him, fight with him, kick him, hit him. Engage with him in a very specific, heated way.

The sex in the air between them had gotten so heavy and hot, she could feel it pressing against her skin, like a palpable force. She felt breathless, panicky at its inexorable rise.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she flung at him. “The drug’s worn off.”

“Of course,” he said. “I am glad.”

“Are you? But I imagine you had the duration of its effects calculated down to a fraction of a second,” she said.

“No, not that precisely,” he admitted. “There were too many variables. I had more like a fifteen-minute window. But you ate more food than I expected. That flattened out the effect.”

“That’s probably why it took me so long to figure it out,” she said.

“Probably.”

His easy agreement pissed her off. Was he trying to make her feel better about having been so easily managed? Condescending bastard.

She looked down at her fisted hands. “You’re here because you want some more, right? You think you’ve won? You’ve found my weak point, and that entitles you to fuck me into submission?”

His expression did not change. “I’m here because you want me here,” he said. “Even though you hate yourself for it. Otherwise you would never let me near you.”

That blunt, uninflected statement said both too much and too little. Her face heated with humiliation. “You flatter yourself.”

“No,” he said. “I do not need to.”

“You think you can make my fantasies come true even without the benefit of drugs? Good luck, buddy boy. I’m on to your dirty tricks.”

“I did it at the club,” he reminded her. “The circumstances were difficult. You were flat on the ground, you had just held a poisoned knife to my throat. You had bodyguards outside the door poised to kill for you. And I never even got your clothes off.”

She sniffed. “Listen to you congratulating yourself. Bastard.”

He shrugged. “If you say so.”

His laconic refusal to be baited was driving her mad. She had to shut up. Pride dictated that she not drop her gaze, and maintaining that much contact was challenge enough.

His dark eyes saw so much. She felt transparent.

“You cannot bear the way you feel right now,” he said very softly. “I could make you forget. For a little while, at least.”

“With what?” she demanded. “Do you have some other pharmaceutical nightstick in your pocket?”

“You know with what.”

Her jaw dropped, at the hugeness of his vanity. “Oh! Here comes Janos, and his wonder dick! You mean to grant me a moment of blessed oblivion as a reward for helping with your crazy plan? How generous of you. A mercy fuck. Wow, what a prince. I am overwhelmed.”

He was shaking his head before she finished. “You know how much I want you,” he reproved her. “I couldn’t hide it if I wanted to.”

“Bullshit. You can hide and show anything you choose to,” she said. “Don’t try to persuade me otherwise. I can, too. I’ve had the same training you have.”

“I won’t try to persuade you,” he said. “The truth is the truth.”

“Don’t talk about truth,” she snapped. “It’s a big turnoff coming from a professional liar.”

He inclined his head. “Fair enough. If you do not want to hear it.”

She wrenched her gaze away from his, feeling fluttery and stupid, and felt them dragged back to his by force. Damn him. That had never happened to her before.

“I want you,” he said quietly. “You want me. Why is it so shameful to you to acknowledge this? Why must you always fight it so hard?”

Her hands flew up to cover her hot cheeks, a hatefully femmy gesture that she regretted instantly. “Because you’re using me,” she said, her voice raw. “It’s shameful to let myself be used.”

He did not deny it. He was silent for a very long moment. “I am sorry,” he said finally. His voice was muted. “I wish that I was not.”

Well. Miracle of miracles. At least he was honest about that.

She couldn’t say anything snide about it, though. Her voice was stuck behind a stone wall in her throat. Her lips shook. Heat rose in her face. He moved closer, so slowly it was almost imperceptible, but all at once he was right behind her. She craved the heat his body generated.

Needed it, to warm the bone-deep cold inside her. Against the icy room, the red chemise. The snowflakes fluttering down onto the carpet.

She choreographed the words carefully. “Do not…wake up…Rachel. Understand?”

A brief smile touched his lips. “Try not to make so much noise this time, then.”

He shrugged off his jacket, hung it on the door behind him. Stripped off the tight black T-shirt underneath.

She would not let herself gasp or ogle. He thought well enough of himself as it was. But oh, God, it was difficult not to. Wow.

His body was startling. Big, broad, but every muscle sinewy and cut. From hard practical use, not from pumping iron. She’d felt coiled power vibrating when she touched him, she’d experienced the incredible reflexes when he wrestled her in Shibumi. Intelligent muscles, flexible and ready. They knew what to do without being asked twice.

She liked muscles like that. She liked power like that.

A triangle of dark hair on his chest arrowed toward his groin, lost in the low waistband of his jeans. He stood patiently, giving her time to check him out at her leisure. The thick, uptilted slash of his eyebrows, the sharp hollow of his cheekbones. The olive tinge of his skin, the thick bulge of his shoulders. Tendons snaked over his sinewy forearms. Blue veins formed subtle, pleasing patterns beneath his golden skin. She wanted to trace them with her fingertips. Memorize them.

And scars, more than she had imagined. He’d seen some rough use, and recently, too. He had scabs, scrapes. Green and yellow bruises. The bloodstained bandage on his upper arm. A reminder of the injury he’d sustained that morning, fighting to save them. His face was stark in the harsh glare from the lamp embedded in the bathroom mirror. It showed every mark. In this profound silence, the masks had fallen: the smooth businessman, the slick gigolo. He was all warrior now, hard and battered and deadly dangerous.

His eyes were black, his mouth a flat line. No dimples, no grin. He appeared to be taking this seriously. As well he should, considering what he risked, being intimate with someone like her.

He gathered her hair into a thick bunch, lifting it up to bury his nose in it. He kissed the back of her neck. His lips were so hot. So soft.

The contact made her flinch and shudder. Too much.

He hesitated and pressed his scorching heat against her to melt the ice. She had to squeeze her eyes shut, breathe slowly. Deliberately relaxing, accepting his energy into herself.

He did not move, his breath hot against her shoulder, his hands clasped around her upper arms. Minutes crawled by. Time was measured by her frantic heartbeats.

Then he hooked the shoulders of her dress and tugged the stretchy fabric downward, until the edge snagged against the jut of her nipples. He stared at that intently for a long moment, and wrenched the thing down. It dropped around her ankles.

She was naked but for the whorish garter belt and stockings. She was not a short woman, but she looked so small, so delicate, in front of him. She hated feeling delicate. Ghost pale, too, and too young, somehow with all that tangled hair hanging down. A big-eyed innocent. Tarted up in slutty, inappropriate lingerie.

His hands slid up to cup her breasts, and her body rippled in his hands. She stifled a whimper. Her skin almost hurt, it was so sensitive to every tiny touch. Vulnerable.

“Why did you do that to me?” she asked, her voice muted.

He nuzzled her shoulder, toying with her nipples with his thumbs. “Do what? The drug, you mean?”

She twisted in his grasp to meet his eyes. “What else?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You dare to be indignant, after what you did to me in the hotel room?”

She waved her hand, irritated. “That’s different. I asked nicely for you to fuck off. Then I asked not nicely. You didn’t respond, so I had to put you down. Too bad. Very simple. Nothing personal. But drugging me to seduce me is completely different. That’s extremely personal.”

His hands dropped from her breasts and gripped her waist, stroking the curve of her belly. His eyes slid away from hers.

“I needed to get close to you,” he admitted. “And your defenses are so strong. It is practically impossible to get through them. I think that I could have done so, given time—”

“You think very well of yourself,” she cut in, stung.

“Given time,” he repeated firmly, “I could have done so. I did, at Shibumi. But Imre does not have time, and I do not have time.”

“So it was all about Imre, then? Just as I thought.” She felt an irrational urge to weep, scream, shove him away. “Not about me.”

“No.” His face contracted. His arms circled her, wrapping around her and dragging her close against his chest. She felt the bulge of his erection, prodding her buttocks. “God, no. I want you. Do not doubt it.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Of course, he had to say that. She would be a boneheaded bimbo to let herself believe it. But still, she stood there, wrapped in his warmth, her mind melting down.

He felt so good. Every cell of her body was thirstily sucking up his hot energy. There was so much of it. So much of him. He was delicious.

“It still doesn’t track,” she said stubbornly. “What does sex have to do with Imre? We won’t be fucking our way into Novak’s stronghold.”

He dropped his face to her shoulder and started kissing her again. “You found me out,” he said. “I wanted you, I could not melt you, and I could not bear to wait. Forgive me. I am a filthy porcone. The truth is out.”

“Stop using that word,” she snapped.

He lifted his head, eyes narrowed. “What word?”

“Truth,” she clarified, her voice cutting. “It bugs me.”

His face went somber. “Of course it does. It is the thing you need, above all else, no? The thing you long for, whether you know it or not.”

She snorted. “And how do you know this secret longing?”

“Because I need it as well,” he said. “We are two of a kind.”

The low, gentle vibration of his voice was the magic touch that slid through her defenses. She stopped fighting him, and herself. Her body ached for contact. Her nails dug into his forearms and her breath hitched with each slow, skillful stroke over her skin.

He slid his hand down between her legs, stroking the damp seam of her labia with a fingertip, in no hurry to penetrate. It was just an invitation, a gentle call to all her nerves to get ready, to work themselves into tingling awareness. He rubbed her clit, a lazy, undemanding swirl around…around. Reminding her that he was thinking about it, that he had big plans for it…and oh…

God. A shudder arced through her body. The accumulated tension of years, violently unwound by his light touch, throbbing through her.

Tears shimmered in her eyes. She squeezed them shut.

“I barely touch you, and you come apart,” he murmured. “Beautiful.”

But it didn’t make her feel beautiful. It made her feel like she had no skin. Foolish and needy. And so goddamn stupid.

She couldn’t bear to play the fool again so soon. She couldn’t push him away, either.

So she chose another path.

Instinctively, she threw a switch inside her brain. A technique she’d learned when she was very young, and it had served her well. Her seductive siren persona, the part of her that could drive men mad with pleasure while mentally composing a grocery list. A part of herself she had never intended to use again after the Novak debacle. It was ready to do its job, though, and it was a blessed relief to feel that power rise, bolstered by her confidence in her own beauty, her practiced skill at giving pleasure.

It had never failed her, except with Kurt Novak. And he’d been a special case, being something both less and more than human.

But Janos was wonderfully human. It would flatten him to the ground, just as he had done to her. Yes. She couldn’t wait.

She turned and shoved him back against the wall. He looked startled by her sudden aggression. She splayed her hands over his hot, hard chest. Her palms crackled with the hot polarity between them.

His eyes narrowed at the change in her. She sought out every tiny detail of him with her fingertips, then her lips. She trailed hot, moist kisses down his chest, feeling him shiver and gasp as she kissed and tongued the tight, dark nubs of his nipples, perched on the flat, hard shelf of his pecs. Tasting his sharp salt flavor. She slid her hands down over the rippled belly muscles, the silken grain of dark hair arrowing down to his waistband. She wrenched the buttons of his jeans open, yanked them down his thighs, combed that arrow of hair with her fingertips down to where it swelled again to a springy tuft at his groin.

And his cock. So thick and broad, filling her hand. The slit at the tip was gleaming with slippery pre-come. She anointed her hand with it and stroked, pulled, gripped, milked him. His eyes closed, and he flung his head back. His breath rasped harshly.

Ah, yes. This was much better. She was in control. Disposed to make his wildest dreams come true, to be his nympho siren, blow his mind, rock his world. She sank to her knees with theatrical slowness, breathing in the salt tang of his skin, the hot musk of his groin.

His cock jutted out so far she had to scoot back to accommodate him. She stroked the whole throbbing, empurpled length of his broad, veined stalk with her tongue, swirling it all around the crimson head. She took him into her mouth, creating the wet, silken suction that all men dreamed of with her lips and her tongue, varying it with luscious lapping, teasing flutters, deep and bold and hungry. She caressed the dips and swells and hollows of his naked hips.

She deepened the strokes, pulling him as far as she could into her throat, suckling hard, fluttering her fingers under his heavy balls. He wound his fingers into her hair, urging her on with pleading tugs, now and again holding her still and drawing back to climax without ejaculating. Three times. The man had astonishing self-control.

She would make him lose his control, goddamnit. She would punish him for demolishing her life, for making her want him so badly. For being so strong, so difficult, so persistent. She would make him explode and weep and beg. She would show him who was boss.

He cupped her face in his hands and pulled it gently away from his body. “No,” he said unsteadily.

She looked up, confused, and wiped her mouth. “No, what? No, not yet? No, not in my mouth? Be specific.”

“Not with a sex toy,” he said. “I prefer the real woman.”

The rejection was a slap. Soul deep. Entirely unexpected. She stared, shocked to immobility, then rose and backed as far away as the small room would allow. “If you hate it, just fuck off.”

He winced. “No. I did not hate it. You misunderstand me.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s for sure. Ungrateful prick. I’ve never had any complaints before.”

“I am sure that you have not.” His eyes sharpened to that penetrating look she was beginning to dread. It made her feel too fragile. “You went to your comfort zone, no? I do not want to go there, where you have entertained all your other lovers.”

She gasped, at his outrageous nerve. “All my other…oh! Am I not good enough for you?”

“Do not be ridiculous,” he said. “It is only that I prefer you as you are.”

Yeah. As vulnerable and raw as the grief-stricken girl she had been. No.

“I can’t.” She was horrified to hear her voice breaking.

He reached out, brushed her hair off her face. “You can trust me,” he urged gently. “I will not hurt you.”

She flinched away from his touch and covered her shaking mouth. “You have,” she said. “If you don’t want me, then go.”

He blew out a fierce, frustrated breath. “I knew you would be like this. Sooner or later, something inside you would run away and hide, and I would be left with a beautiful doll in my arms.”

“Whore, you mean, not doll,” she hissed. “Go ahead, say it. It’s how you make me feel.”

He lifted a lock of her hair and pressed his lips to it, stroking it against his cheek. “I would be the last one to judge a whore,” he said quietly. “I know what it means to do what you must to survive.”

She jerked her hair back out of his grasp. “How could you know? Do you know how it feels to be used like a thing and tossed aside afterward like garbage? What you have to turn yourself into, just to survive?”

“Yes,” he said.

She stopped, mesmerized by his aura of tightly leashed power and his battered, inscrutably beautiful face. “You?” Her voice cracked. “Oh, please. Give me a fucking break. Your job experience as a professional gigolo is irrelevant, Janos. Look at you. You’re a man, you’re six foot four, you’re at least two hundred and fifty pounds. No one could use you and toss you. You have no clue.”

“You are wrong.” He glanced down at his own body, and gave her an odd, lopsided smile that struck her as heartbreakingly sad. “You hate men too much to imagine that they could ever be vulnerable, no? I was not always this big.”

She closed her mouth and chewed her lip. “Oh,” she murmured.

“I was young when I…when it happened,” he said. “But it is not something that you forget.”

An awkward silence lengthened between them. He had cut her anger off neatly at the knees. He had a frightening talent for that.

It could be a lie. But something about the spareness of his words, the look on his face made her think that perhaps it was the truth.

Truth. There it was again. That volatile, changeable, dangerous word. Dogging her at every turn. At the center of everything.

“So…now you’re fine?” she asked. “You’re all over it?”

He shrugged. “You find ways to take your power back.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it. Taking my power back,” she muttered. “That’s exactly what I was trying to do.”

He frowned. “I don’t want to play games with you.”

“So what the fuck do you want? I was giving you the benefit of everything I have to give a man, everything I know, and you reject it, you ungrateful son of a bitch. So what do you want? Spell it out for me!”

He opened his hands, looking bewildered. “It is…a feeling. I do not know how to explain it. I never felt it before. It is like seeing without eyes. Something beyond the senses. But it was amazing.”

The desire to believe every word he said, to fall into this honey-baited trap, was so strong, it almost swept her away. But he was too damn smart. Sharp enough to read her mind, to know exactly what would tempt her, what would melt her.

She wiped angry tears away. Gave him a hollow laugh. “You want something that doesn’t exist, Janos. Or something that’s long dead.”

His face turned obstinate. “I felt it before you took me in your mouth. You were there with me, and suddenly you were not, and I was being fellated by a beautiful cortigiana, her mind and heart a million miles away from me. I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt your feelings. But it made me feel lonely.” He gave her a rueful shrug.

Tam rolled her eyes. “Oh, crap. I’m doing the one man in the whole world who gets depressed and lonely when a woman blows him.”

“Yes, yes. I know. There are worse things,” he cut in impatiently. “I have no reason to complain. You almost killed me with pleasure. But it is not enough, after feeling the other.”

“Keep in mind, the last time you screwed me, I was high, remember? I won’t let you do that to me again. What you felt was not real. It was just a chemical fantasy.”

“I did not take the drug, so the drug could not have created it,” he said stubbornly. “It only removed your barrier to it.”

“Same difference,” she informed him. “My barrier is up and it’s staying up. So put your clothes back on and get your high standards and your tight ass out of my hotel room before I—”

“No,” he said.

“What do you mean, no?”

“Me putting on my clothes and leaving you alone tonight is not one of the options you have right now,” he announced. “In fact, you have no options. There is only one outcome possible. Resign yourself.”

His implacable tone infuriated her. “Don’t you dare throw your weight around, Janos. I know you’re strong, but no one compels me. Trust me, it’s not worth the price I would make you pay.”

His eyes gleamed. “Is it not?”

“Want to die?” she asked. “I am not speaking figuratively, Janos.”

His face brightened. “Excellent!” he encouraged. “I prefer you murderous and for real to smiling and false.”

“Oh, you are nuts.” She lunged for the door. He yanked her up off her feet from behind, his hard arm clamped under her ribcage, holding her against his hot body. She tried hooking his ankles, elbowing his ribs, twisting like an eel, but his strength was enormous. “Goddamn you,” she whispered furiously. “Put me down.”

“Shhh,” he murmured. “You’ll wake the child.”

She started to feel panicked. “Put me down! This is where you get back at me for the necklace, right?”

“Shhh. Not at all,” he soothed. “I do not hold a grudge. That was my fault for letting down my guard. I will not make that mistake again.”

His cool, controlled tone drove her mad. “Oh, no,” she said, breathlessly. “You’re not angry. While you won’t let me go and threaten me with forced sex. Not angry at all. Right.”

He kissed the side of her neck. “Don’t be foolish,” he said. “You need me to be strong for you. Gently now. Or you’ll hurt yourself.”

“No,” she snarled, writhing. “I’ll hurt you.”

“I will not allow you to hurt me,” he said calmly. “You got the better of me today with your necklace, but I have you now and I will not let you go until I get what I want.”

Tears of pure frustration pricked and burned in her eyes. “I told you already, stronzo. What you want doesn’t exist!”

“No?” He turned her until they both looked into the mirror. “Look at you,” he said. “Finally, color in your face. Your eyes are shining. You are on fire.”

“Of course,” she snapped. “I’m furious with you!”

“Good, then. It works,” he said. “I know what you want. You like strength. You must have been so disappointed in me this afternoon, going down so easily, like a slaughtered pig. But I will make it up to you. I will not let you win again. You are safe this time. Trust me.”

Trust him. Hah. What a joke. He bent her forward, so her trapped arms rested on the cold marble countertop. Her eyes met his in the mirror. Her breath was shortened by rage—and excitement.

He knocked her legs wider with his knee.

She bit her lip as his hand slid between her legs, touching the lips of her pussy. Slipping between them, a slow, tender glide. Up and down, and up…and tenderly around her clit. Over and over. Her breath caught. “You’re with me now,” he said roughly. “That is the feeling I want.”

“Sure, I am. I’m helpless and immobilized, you prick,” she said sharply. “Is that how you like it?”

“Helpless? You?” He bit her earlobe. “You are the furthest thing from helpless I have ever met. You are a man-eating female tiger in the jungle. Perhaps you will rip out my throat afterward, but it will be worth it.” He dragged his teeth tenderly down the side of her neck, as he prodded two fingers between her slick folds and thrust them slowly, deeply inside.

She gasped silently and clenched around the intrusion.

“I would love to lick your clit, make you come with my mouth,” he murmured against her skin. “But you are so tense, so electric. I would have to restrain you hand and foot to do it properly. Someday I will do it. If we ever have the privacy. If we ever have a chance to use a bed.”

One hand. Oh my.

His delving fingers found a marvelous, melting hot spot inside her, shocking a whimper out of her. He leaned into it as soon as he perceived it and lavished it with attention, stroking the pad of his finger over it and over it, until the deep, throbbing flush of pleasure rose, sharpened and then pulsed heavily through every nerve.

She relaxed over his strong arm, panting. Thighs wet, tangled hair falling in thick swirls to the marble sink. She licked sweat off her upper lip and felt him ripping open the condom with his teeth.

Was this her chance, while he was busy with that? She could probably do some surprise damage—

She didn’t. She was shaking. And famished for what she knew would come next.

She shut her eyes and almost keened with delight when she felt it. The thick, blunt head of his cock nudging and prodding. Insisting. And then the long, impossibly tight slide of total penetration.

She shoved back against him, clamping every muscle around the huge, throbbing presence inside her. She felt so hot, so taut. So full.

Just a few slow strokes to find the rhythm they needed, and they were off on a wild, violent ride. Their eyes were locked in the mirror, their bodies locked into a jarring, headlong rhythm. His arms circled her, his hands clasping with hers on the cold marble, a straining tangle of white-knuckled fingers. Her breasts jiggled with each thrust.

They gasped for air. Choked back the noises. She bit her lip until she tasted blood to keep from gasping, moaning. The impossible things he had said were true. They had gone over to the edge to someplace new. Someplace beautiful.

The danger zone.

She’d never let anyone so close. He could destroy her so easily from in there. But in his strong grip, she felt safe enough to let go and let the pleasure drive her toward that thundering oblivion that awaited them. Maybe it was a mistake. A lie, an illusion, a deadly trap.

She didn’t care. She gave in, let go, and he followed her.

They exploded together.

They stared at each other afterward for panting, speechless minutes. Finally, he withdrew from her body and disposed of the condom. He lifted her until she stood upright and smoothed the hair away from her damp face.

She stood there, arms at her sides, head flung back onto his shoulder. She stared at her naked self, at the flush over her chest, her neck, her face. Her lips were crimson. When his arms circled her, a ripple of acceptance welcomed the wonderful heat of him. Her body welcomed the warm, tender kisses he dropped on her shoulder, her back. Craved the slow, hot stroke of his big hands caressing her waist, her belly. No resistance. Such an odd sensation.

She could get used to this. Come to need it, even. Long for it. Dream of it when she didn’t have it.

Which would be soon enough.

“So? Am I condemned to death for my insolence?” he asked.

She licked her lips and considered her reply. “Your sentence is remanded for now,” she said lazily. “I’m too tired to kill you tonight. But I can’t speak for later. So stay sharp.”

His grin flashed. He kissed her throat. “Shower with me?”

She shook her head. “Not a chance, with Rachel asleep outside. I go first, and you stand by the door and let me know if she wakes up. And do not, under any circumstances, go out there naked, got it? She’s still asleep but just in case—she doesn’t need a lesson in human anatomy at the tender age of three.”

He nodded, docile enough. Tam stepped into the shower, knotting her hair on top of her head, and soaped herself up.

Her body felt unrecognizable. Her skin was still so sensitive, her private parts throbbing. Sore, from hard use. Flushed with continuing pleasure. All she had to do was contract her thigh muscles, and mini-orgasms throbbed down her thighs, through her knees and calves, tingling right down to the tips of her toes.

Janos stood at the ready with a big, fluffy towel when she got out. She allowed him to dry her, lifting her limbs and turning with the regal grace of a queen accepting the ministrations of her body servant. He’d be in for a rude surprise if he expected her to return the favor, though.

She left him in the bathroom and went out, rummaging through the shopping bags until she found the nightshirt she’d ordered on his credit card. She ripped off the tags and slipped it on. Nice. Then she slid into bed next to Rachel, and reached out, keeping a little distance, but wanting to feel the comforting rise and fall of Rachel’s little back.

Soundly sleeping. Good.

A few minutes later, the bathroom door opened. Val’s magnificent body was silhouetted in the door frame. Steam billowed out. He’d put his jeans back on and was carefully taping a fresh bandage onto the wound on his shoulder.

He switched off the bathroom light, and became just a denser, deeper shadow amongst shadows.

“I want to stay here tonight,” he said. “To guard you.”

Of course. To make sure she didn’t panic and bolt was more like it. It irritated her to have another life-or-death decision to make when she was so damned tired. But what was the point in splitting hairs? He’d already breached every barrier she had, physical or psychological.

It wasn’t in his best interests to hurt them as far as she could tell. If it was, he would have taken care of it already.

What the hell. She didn’t have the juice to throw him out.

“Sleep on the floor if you like,” she offered coolly. “There’s a pillow and more blankets in the closet, I believe. Help yourself.”

She could barely make out his silent shadow in the dark, but she had a feeling he was smiling. She rose up onto her elbow. “Don’t even think about the bed,” she said in a forceful whisper. “I may have let you into my body, but I just met you a day ago, and I watched you do in three men today. And you are, by God, not sleeping next to my baby girl.”

“Of course not.” His deep voice vibrated with suppressed amusement. “It is already an honor that you let me stay in the same room with her. I am moved.”

She snorted. “Pfft. Don’t overdo it, Janos.”

He glided to the closet, took out blankets and pillows, and lay one of them down across the doorway. He tossed the pillow on it, swathed the other blanket around himself, and stretched out without a word.

She had expected to slide directly into sleep, but her overloaded nerves had pushed her beyond sleep into another place. Thoughts and worries jostled in her head. She was too rattled to sort them out.

But one thing kept circling back. Nudging at her and making her queasy and wakeful. One random, irrelevant detail.

“Janos?” she whispered.

He yawned. “We’ve been through so much together,” he said sleepily. “And we’ve made love twice. Can you not call me Val?”

“That wasn’t love that we made, and if I knew your real name, I’d use it.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Val is as real as any other name, Tamar Zadro.”

Her childhood name sent a cold shiver through her. “Call me Tam Steele, please,” she said tightly. “Tell me something, Janos.”

“If I can,” he said. “But only if you will call me Val.”

“How old were you?” she asked. “When it happened to you?”

He didn’t feign incomprehension, but he was silent for so long she finally concluded he wasn’t going to answer at all.

“The first time?” he said, at last. “Eleven.”

She winced in the dark. “Oh.”

Silent minutes went by. Finally, Janos sat up, huffing out a sharp, irritated breath. “Stop thinking about it,” he said gruffly.

She was startled. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“I can hear you thinking about it. Please stop. I think about it myself as little as possible.”

Her chest jerked with involuntary laughter. “I’ll try not to.”

After a moment, he spoke again. “And you? How old were you?”

“Fifteen,” she admitted.

“Ah.”

A few more moments of that, and she was the one to snap at him. “Would you stop thinking about it, goddamnit?”

He laughed softly. “Hypocritical bitch.”

“Yes, that would be me,” she said crabbily. “And now, would you kindly stop your chattering and let me get some goddamn sleep?”

“You started it,” he pointed out logically enough.

“Shut up, Janos.”

“Call me Val, for the love of God,” he said wearily, and rolled over so that his back was to her.

She stared into the dark for a very long time, trying not to think about anything.