"The nightgown is a waste of time," he drawled.
"You might as well pull it off and put it back in that drawer."
Startled, Rachel looked around at him. He was standing by the bed,
his hands on the fly of his jeans, and he was watching her with the
concentrated attention with which a cat watches a mouse.
The air around her suddenly
sizzled
with tension, and her throat went dry,
forcing her to swallow.
Slowly he slid
down the zipper on his jeans, the denim spreading open in a vee to reveal
bronzed skin and the vertical line of downy hair that arrowed down his lower
abdomen into the thicker growth of hair just visible in his opened pants. The
thick bulge beneath the denim clearly demonstrated his intention.
Her body leaped into immediate response, her heart beating faster
and her breath racing in and out of her lungs. It had been like that from the
beginning, and she had no more control over it now than she'd had then. He
wanted her; that was more than obvious. But he didn't
want
to want her,
and the knowledge hurt.
She swallowed again, pushing the closet door shut and leaning
against it. "It's silly," she said, trying for a wry tone but failing
miserably. Her voice was taut and shaking. "After this afternoon you'd
think I'd be more comfortable about going to bed with you, but I'm not. I don't
know what… what we have, if anything. I thought it would be clearer, but it
isn't. What do you want from me?" She made a brief, dismissive gesture.
"Other than sex."
Silently Kell swore. He was so good at holding people away from
him that now, when he desperately wanted Rachel as close as he could get her
for what time they had left, she still thought he was pushing her away. They
had so little time together that the thought of not grabbing for every moment
with her was unbearable, and he didn't know how to make her see that. Perhaps
it was better if she didn't see it; perhaps it would be easier for her if she
never knew how tempted he was to forget all his rules and priorities. But he
had to have her, had to stockpile memories against the empty days in the future
when she wouldn't be there. Even now she wasn't playing games, wasn't trying to
hide behind lies to protect her pride.
She was so honest that she
deserved at least a fraction of the same honesty from him, no matter how
it hurt.
But the pain wasn't only hers.
He looked at her and said, "Everything. That's what I want.
But I can't have it."
She quivered, and tears welled in her eyes. "You know you can
have anything you want. All you have to do is reach out and take it."
Slowly he walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder,
sliding his fingers under the strap of her nightgown and stroking his rough
fingertips over her warm, satiny skin. "At the risk of your life?" he
asked in a low voice. "No. I couldn't live with that."
"You make it sound like a concrete fact that anyone close to
you is a target. Other agents – "
"Other agents aren't me," he interrupted quietly, his
black eyes level on hers. "There are several renegade governments and
terrorist groups that have a bounty on my head. Do you think I'd ask any woman
to share that sort of life with me?"
She managed to smile through her tears. "Don't try to tell me
you live like a monk. I know there have been women – "
"No one close. No one special. No one who could be used or
threatened in an attempt to get at me. I've tried it, honey. I was married,
years ago before it got as bad as it is now. She was wounded in an attempt on
my life. Being a smart woman, she got the hell away from me as fast as she
could."
Not so smart, Rachel thought. She knew that she never would have
let that drive her away from him. Her throat was so tight that she was almost
choking on her words as she stared up at him, the tears finally overflowing and
rolling down her cheeks. "It would be worth it, to be with you," she
whispered. "I'd take the chance."
"No," he said, shaking his head. "I won't let you.
I
won't take the chance, not with your
life." With one thumb he rubbed away the tears tracking her face.
"Isn't that my decision to make?"
He moved both his hands up to cup her face, sliding his fingers
into her thick straight hair and tilting her face closer to his. "Not when
you don't have any real idea of the danger involved. You pulled a little stint
as an investigative reporter, and you notice more than is good for you, but
you're as innocent as a baby when it comes to knowing what my work is really
like. There
are
agents who live fairly normal lives, but I'm not one of
them. I'm one of a very small minority. My existence isn't even admitted
publicly."
She had gone pale, her face very still. "I know more about
the risks involved than you think."
"No. You know the movie versions, the cleaned up,
romanticized, glamorized crap."
Rachel suddenly jerked her head away from his touch, her hands
clenched into fists. "You think so?" she rasped, her voice rough with
pain. "My husband was killed by a car bomb meant for me. There was nothing
cleaned up, romanticized, or glamorous about that. He died in my place! Ask me
what I know about someone else paying the price for a risk I chose to
take!" Tears began falling again, and she dashed them away, glaring
fiercely at him. "Damn you, Kell Sabin! Do you think I
want
to love
you? But at least I'm willing to take the chance, rather than run away from it
the way you do!"
She was crying, and it was like
taking a punch in the gut to watch her. Rachel simply wasn't a weepy person,
and she was trying hard not to cry, but the tears kept rolling down her face as
she faced him, and she kept angrily dashing them away.
Slowly Kell reached out and brushed her hair away from her damp
face, then eased her into his arms and pressed her head against his uninjured
shoulder. "Whatever happens, I can't risk you," he said in a low,
tortured voice.
Hearing the finality in his voice, she knew that there was no
convincing him otherwise. He would go, and when he did it would be forever.
Desperately she clung to him,
inhaling deeply to draw the scent of him into her body, her hands trying to
memorize the way it felt to touch him.
All she
had was this.
He tilted her chin up and bent his head then slanted his mouth
over hers, the pressure hard and hungry, even a little angry, because they had
so little time when forever wouldn't suffice. She sighed and opened her mouth
to his probing tongue, her fingers flexing on his muscular back, and as always
there was that strong, immediate response to him that tightened her breasts and
sent twinges of pleasure through her loins. He sensed it, cupping her bottom in
his rough hands and lifting her into grinding contact with his own throbbing
flesh while his mouth continued to take hers.
He wanted to wipe out the pain
he'd seen in her eyes; he wanted to savor her, take his time with her, as he'd
been unable to do that afternoon.
Sabin couldn't
remember ever before losing control like that, not even when he'd been a young
boy on the prowl, driven by a rapacious sexuality. But with Rachel his
responses were so extreme that he'd exploded only moments after entering her;
she had reached her peak, too, but he knew that he'd rushed her, hurt her with
his too-powerful penetration. She was so tight that accommodating him hadn't
been easy for her. He wasn't going to let it be that way again; he was going to
take his time with her, until she was truly ready for him and trembling on the
brink.
She was trembling in his arms, the salty taste of her tears on his
tongue. Silently he led her to the bed, leaving the light on because he wanted
to see every nuance of her expression while he made love to her. He paused to
push his jeans off, and Rachel watched him, her hands automatically lifting to
her nightgown.
Quickly he stayed them. "No, leave your gown on for
now." Perhaps it would be easier for him if he couldn't see her stretched
out naked and waiting for him. He was caught in his own delicious dilemma,
wanting to watch her as he made love to her, as he made her ready to receive
him, yet knowing that the sight of her naked body would push him closer to the
edge than he wanted to be right now. Just thinking about her was torture
enough. His loins were heavy and throbbing, his all-too-accurate memory
reminding him just how it had felt to be sheathed inside her.
"Why?" Rachel asked huskily when they were lying on the
bed and he was leaning over her with an expression on his face that would have
frightened her if she hadn't trusted him completely.
He smoothed his hand over her
breasts, the motion deliberately slow as the thin cotton slid across her
nipples, bringing them to tingling prominence.
"Why the gown?" he clarified. It was hard to talk when
her breath kept catching.
"Yes."
"Because I'm inciting myself to riot."
No, it was she who was being incited, tantalized.
Everywhere his lightly trailing
fingers went they left behind a delicious tingle as her aroused nerve endings
pleaded for more.
Sometimes he merely brushed
her with his fingertips, while at others he stroked her with the flat of his
palm, the contact almost hard. And he kissed her: her mouth, her ears, the line
of her jaw, the arch of her throat, the exquisitely tender hollow above her
collarbones. Finally her breasts knew the warm, moist pressure of his mouth and
the probing of his tongue. It was all the more maddening because he didn't
remove her gown; even when his mouth closed hotly on her extended nipple and
sucked at it with a strength that made her cry out, it was with the thin barrier
of cotton between his mouth and her flesh. In frustration she tried to unbutton
the two buttons that closed the top of the gown, to give him access to her
bareness, but he stopped her and captured her hands, pinning them to the pillow
above her head and anchoring them there with his strong right hand.
"Kell!" she protested, writhing to escape, but he was
incredibly strong, despite his half-healed wounds, and she couldn't wrest
herself free. "You've got a cruel streak in you!"
"No," he murmured
against her breast, licking her nippie through the wet fabric.
"I only want to make you feel good. Don't you like
this?"
There was no way she could deny it; he could easily read the signs
of arousal in her body. "Yes," she admitted, panting. "But I
want to touch you, too. Let me – "
"Umm, not yet. You make me feel too much like a teenager,
ready to go off like a Fourth of July rocket. I'm going to make it good for you
this time."
"It was good before," she said, and moaned as his left
hand trailed down to the juncture of her thighs, rubbing delicately. Rachel's
breath caught, and her hips lifted blindly to his hand.
"I was too rough, too fast. I hurt you."
She couldn't deny it, but the discomfort hadn't been unexpected,
and pleasure had swiftly followed. She started to tell him that, but the words
were strangled in her throat. The gown had been pushed between her legs by his
exploring hand, stretched tightly across her femininity. With one finger he
probed the soft cleft, found and stroked her most sensitive flesh. Rachel's
body jolted with pleasure, and a low whimper came from her throat.
His touch was firm but tender, with just the right amount of
pressure. Slowly her head rolled back and forth on the pillow between the frame
of her arms, and her back arched. If he had tantalized her before, this was
torture, the sweetest torture imaginable. Hot coils wound inside her, heat
spreading throughout her body until she was flushed and damp. Her breasts were
so tight that they ached. Kell knew exactly when she couldn't stand it any
longer and bent to suck strongly at her nubbed flesh, wringing another soft,
wild sound from her throat.
Then his hand was on her bare thigh, under the nightgown, and the
relief of feeling skin on skin was so intense that she jerked again.
"Easy," he breathed, and she held herself as still as
she could while his warm, hard hand slowly moved upward, stroking her thigh.
Her legs were parted already, in aching need, and she strained toward him.
His palm barely brushed her, then
moved to her other
thigh and stroked until she
thought she would go mad.
"You just
wait!" she both threatened and promised, hissing the words through her
tightly clenched teeth.
He laughed aloud, a low, rough sound of masculine triumph. Dimly
she realized that it was the first time she'd heard him laugh. "I'm
looking forward to it," he said, his voice strained. He was hot and damp,
too, his eyes glittering with barely controlled passion, his face taut, with hectic
color on his cheekbones and his lips. "Are you ready, love? Let me
see." He touched her, and then the light, teasing touches ceased
completely. He parted her soft flesh and slid two long fingers into her. Rachel
gave a thin, high cry, her hips heaving as she trembled on the verge of
ecstasy.
"Not yet," he breathed. "Not yet. Hold on, honey.
I'm not going to let you go just yet. Not until I'm inside you."
His low, rough words washed over her shaking, twisting body.
Crying a little, tormented by those long, probing fingers as he brought her to
moist readiness, she tried again to free her hands, and this time he let them
go.
"Now," he crooned, pulling the nightgown up. Rachel
lifted herself up to aid in the removal of the frustrating garment, pulling it over
her head herself and throwing it across the room. Kell's face tightened even
more as he stared down at her naked body, at her flushed, glowing skin. Briefly
his eyes closed, and he ground his teeth together as a heavy surge in his loins
threatened his self-control.
Carefully he rolled to his back, favoring his shoulder, and guided
her astride him. "Slow and easy," he muttered, his eyes glittering
like black fire as he positioned himself for her. "Let's go easy, a little
at a time."
"I love you," Rachel whispered achingly, closing her
eyes at the probing of his flesh against her. She braced her hands on his
chest, her fingers flexing in the mat of curly hair, and slid onto him.
He made a guttural sound and
arched beneath her, his hands clenching on the sheet.
"I love you," she said again, and another low animal
sound came from him as his control shattered and he grabbed for her hips,
grinding her in a rotating motion against him.
"Rachel," he groaned, shaking. His body was taut and straining
beneath her.
She moved on him, rising, sliding, falling. Now it was her turn,
and she did a primeval dance of passion, slowing whenever it seemed that her
motions would take either of them past the point of no return. She was no
longer so painfully empty; she was filled with him, an intense satisfaction in
itself. Time became elastic, expanded, then disappeared altogether. She forgot
everything but Kell, and she gave herself to him in a way she'd never known
would be possible. He had become irrevocably hers when she pulled him from the
surf, and she was irrevocably his, perhaps by the same power. For as long as
she lived, she would be his.
She was crying again, but this time she was oblivious to the tears
raining down her face. "I love you," she choked, then abruptly she
crested, surging against him while her soft inner quivering made the world
explode, then fade away and there were only the two of them, straining
together, until he cried out hoarsely and heaved beneath her. Later, as she
slept in his arms, he lay awake staring into the night, and though his face was
as blank as usual, there was a look of desperation in his eyes.
"Let's drive into town," he said the next morning after
breakfast.
She drew a deep breath, her hands stilling for a moment before she
resumed washing the last plate. She handed it to him to dry, feeling the dread
rising in her chest to choke her. "Why?"
"I need to make a phone call. I'm not going to do it from
here."
Her throat was so tight she could scarcely speak. "You're going
to call the man you think you can trust?"
"I
know I
can trust him," Kell replied briefly.
"I'm staking my life on it." Even more than that, he was staking
Rachel's life. Yes, he trusted Sullivan completely.
"I thought you were going to
wait until you had recuperated."
When she
turned to look at him, her eyes were shadowed with a stark pain that twisted
the knife inside him once more.
"I was, until Ellis came around again. It'll take Sullivan a
few days to check out some things for me and get things organized. I don't want
to push it any longer than that."
"Sullivan? That's the man?"
"Yes."
"But you just got your stitches out yesterday," she
protested urgently, lacing her fingers together to keep from wringing her
hands. "You're still weak, and you can't–" She bit her lip, halting
her own desperate flow of words. Arguing wouldn't change his mind. And how
could she tell him he was too weak, when he had made love to her twice during
the night and woken her that morning when he slid into her again? She was both
stiff and sore, and every step she took reminded her of his strength and
endurance. He wasn't at his own personal peak of strength, but even so, he was
probably stronger than most men.
She closed her eyes, hating her own weakness for trying to hold on
to him when she'd known from the first that she couldn't. "I'm
sorry," she said quietly. "Of course you can. We'll go now, if you
want."
Kell watched her silently; if there was any one moment that
revealed the strength of the woman, it was now, and it only made the leaving
harder.
He didn't
want to call Sullivan; he didn't want to hurry the day when this would have to
end.
He wanted to stretch time to its
utmost limits, to spend the hot, lazy days lying on the beach with her, getting
to know every minute facet of her personality and making love to her whenever
they wanted. And the nights…those long, warm, fragrant nights, spent tangled
together on the damp, twisted sheets. Yes, that was what he wanted. Only the
sure knowledge that she was in increasing danger could force him to make that
call to Sullivan. His instinct told him that time was running out.
He was silent so long that Rachel opened her eyes and found him
looking at her with that intent way of his. "What I want," he said
deliberately, "is to make love again."
That was all it took, just that look of his and the words, and she
felt herself growing warm and moist as her body automatically tightened, but
she knew that she wouldn't be able to comfortably accept him. She looked at him
with poignant regret. "I don't think I can."