In Their Footsteps & Thief of Hearts (44 page)

Thief of Hearts

409

“Clea, wait.”

“Go home, Jordan. Go back to being a gentleman.”

“Can you keep on running?”

“Damn right I can! I’m getting as far away as possible.

I yanked on the tiger’s tail. I was lucky to live through it.”

“You think Van Weldon will let you go? He’ll hunt you down, Clea. Wherever you run, you’ll be looking over your shoulder. You’re a constant threat to him. The one person who could destroy him. Unless he destroys you first.”

She turned. In the darkness of the field his face was a black oval against the silver of the night clouds. “What do you want me to do? Fight back? Surrender?” She gave a sob of desperation. “Either way, Jordan, I’m lost. And I’m scared.” She hugged herself in the rain. “And I’m freezing to death.”

At once his arms came around her, pulling her into his embrace. They were both damp and shivering, yet even through their soaked clothes she felt his warmth seep toward her. He took her face in his hands, and the kiss he pressed to her lips was enough to sweep away, just for a moment, her discomfort. Her fear. As the rain began to beat down on the fields and the clouds swept across the moon, she was aware only of him, the salty heat of his mouth, the way his body molded itself around hers.

When at last she’d caught her breath again, and they stood gazing at each other in the darkness, she found she was no longer shaking from fear, but from longing.

For him.

He said softly, “I know a place we can go tonight. It’s a long walk. But it will be warm there, and dry.”

“And safe?”

410

Tess Gerritsen

“And safe.” Again he framed her face in his hands and kissed her. “Trust me.”

I have no choice,
she thought.
I’m too tired to think of
what I should do. Where I should go.

He took her hand. “We cross this field, then follow the roads,” he said. “On pavement, so they won’t be able to track our footprints.”

“And then?”

“It’s a three-, four-mile walk. Think you can make it?” She thought about the men in the car, waiting outside the Munstead Inn. She wondered if somewhere, in the cylinder of one of their guns, there lurked a bullet with her name on it.

“I can make it,” she said, her pace quickening. “I’ll do anything,” she added under her breath, “to stay alive.”
Nine

A few taps of a rock and the window shattered.

Jordan broke away the jagged edges and climbed in. A moment later he reappeared at the cottage’s front door and motioned for Clea to enter.

She stepped inside and found herself standing in a quaint room furnished with rough-hewn antiques and pewter lamps. Massive ceiling beams, centuries old, ran the length of the room, and all around her, burnished wain-scoting gleamed against the whitewashed walls. It would have been a cozy room were it not so cold and drafty. The English, thought Clea, must have thermally insulated hides.

Jordan, soaked as he was, looked scarcely discomfited as he moved about the room, closing shutters. “I’ll have to make it up to old Monty, that broken window. He’ll understand. Doesn’t much use this cottage except in the summer. In fact, I believe he’s in Moritz at the moment.

Trying to land the next Mrs. Montgomery Dearborn.”
How many Mrs. Dearborns are there?
Clea wanted to 412

Tess Gerritsen

ask, but she couldn’t get out the question; her teeth were chattering too hard. What feeling she had left in her limbs was quickly fading to numbness. She knew she should strip off her wet clothes, should try to start a fire in the hearth, but she couldn’t seem to make her body move. She could only stand there, water dripping from her clothes onto the wood floor.

Jordan turned on a lamp. By the light’s glow he caught his first real look at her. “Good Lord,” he said, touching her face. “You’re like an ice cube.”

“Fire,” she whispered. “Please, start a fire.”

“That’ll take too long. You need to get warmed up now.” He pulled her down a hall and into the bathroom. Quickly he turned on the shower spigot. As water hissed out in a sputtering stream he began to peel off her sopping wool jacket.

“Electric coil heater,” said Jordan. “It’ll warm up in a minute.” He tossed her jacket aside and unzipped her skirt.

She was too cold to care about anything so trivial as modesty; she let him pull her skirt off, let the fabric drop in a pile on the floor. The water was steaming now; he tested the tem-perature, then thrust her, underwear and all, into the shower.

Even with hot water streaming over her body, it seemed to take forever for her to stop shaking. She huddled, dazed, under the spigot. Slowly the heat penetrated her numbness and she could feel her blood start to circulate again, could feel the flush of warmth at last seeping toward her core.

“Clea?” she heard Jordan say.

She didn’t answer. She was too caught up in the pleasure of being warm again. Sighing, she shifted around to let the stream roll down her back. Vaguely, through the rattle of water, she heard Jordan call.

Thief of Hearts

413

“Are you all right?”

Before she could answer, the shower curtain was abruptly pushed aside. She found herself gazing up at Jordan’s face.

As he was gazing at hers.

For a moment they said nothing. The only sound was the pounding of the shower. And the pulsing of her heartbeat in her ears. Though she was barely clothed, though her transparent undergarments clung to her skin, Jordan’s gaze never wavered from her face. He seemed mesmerized by what he saw there. Drawn by the longing he surely recognized in her eyes.

She reached out and touched his face. His cheek felt rough and chilled under her hot fingertips. Just that one contact, that brush of her skin against his, seemed to melt all the barriers between them. She felt another kind of heat ignite within her. She pulled his face down to hers and met his lips in a kiss.

At once they were both clinging to each other. Whimpering. Hot water streamed across their shoulders, hers bare, his still clothed in the shirt. Through the curls of steam, she saw in his face the long-suppressed desire that had been throbbing between them since the night they’d met.

She pressed even more eagerly against him and gave a soft sigh of pleasure, of triumph, at the burgeoning response of his body.

“Your clothes,” she murmured, and reached up feverishly to pull off his shirt. He shrugged it off onto the bathroom floor, baring his chest, so recently bandaged. The golden hairs were damp and matted from the shower. They were both breathing in gasps now, both working frantically at his belt.

414

Tess Gerritsen

Somehow they got the water shut off. Somehow they managed to find their way out of the shower, out of the bathroom with its obstacle course of wet clothes littering the tiles. They left a trail of still more wet clothes, lying where they’d dropped, his trousers near the bathroom door, her bra in the hallway, his undershorts at the threshold of the bedroom. By the time they reached the bed, there were no more clothes to shed. There was only damp flesh and murmurs and the yearning to be joined.

The bedroom was cold and they slid, shivering, beneath the goose-down duvet. As they lay with limbs intertwined, mouths exploring, tasting, the heat of their bodies warmed the bed. Her shivering ceased. The room’s chill was forgotten in the rush of sensations now flooding through her, the sweet ache between her thighs, the sharp darts of pleasure as his mouth found her breasts, drawing her nipples to almost agonizing tautness.

She rose above him and returned the torment with a vengeance. Her mouth traced down the plane of his chest, grazed his belly, seeking ever more sensitive flesh.

Groaning, he gripped her shoulders, and his body twisted off the mattress, rolling her onto the pillow. Suddenly she was lying beneath him, his body hard atop hers, his hands cupping her face.

Their gazes met, held. They never stopped looking at each other, even as he slid inside her, filled her. Even as she cried out with the pleasure of his penetration.

He moved slowly, gently. Their gazes held.

His breaths came faster, his hands clutching more tightly at her face. Still they looked at each other, joined in a bond that went deeper than flesh.

Only when she felt that exquisite ache build to the first
Thief of Hearts

415

ripples of release did she close her eyes and surrender to the sensations flooding through her. A soft cry floated from her throat, a sound both foreign and wonderful. It was matched, seconds later, by his groan. Through the ebbing waves of her own pleasure she felt his last frantic thrusts, and then he pulsed deep within her. With a shuddering sigh his spent body came to rest and fell still.

She cradled his head against her shoulder. As she pressed a kiss to his damp hair, she felt a wave of tender-ness so overpowering it frightened her.

We made love. What does it mean?

They’d enjoyed each other’s bodies. They’d given each other satisfaction and, for a few moments, even happiness.

But what does it mean?

She pressed another kiss to the damp tendrils and felt again that twinge of affection, so intense this time it brought tears to her eyes. Blinking them away, she turned her face from him, only to feel his hand cradle her cheek and nudge her gaze back to his.

“You are the most surprising woman I’ve ever met,” he said.

She swallowed. And laughed. “That’s me. Full of surprises.”

“And delights. I never know what to expect from you.

And it’s starting to drive me quite mad.” He lowered his mouth and tenderly brushed his lips against hers, tasting, nibbling. Enjoying. Already she could feel the rekindling of his arousal, could feel his heaviness stirring against her thigh.

She slid her hand between their hips and with a few silken strokes she had him hard and throbbing again.

“You’re full of surprises yourself,” she murmured.

416

Tess Gerritsen

“No, I’m quite…” he gave a sigh of delight “—conven-tional.”

“Are you?” She lowered her mouth to his nipple and traced a circle of wetness with her tongue.

“Some would even call me—” he dropped his head back and groaned “—damned predictable.”

“Sometimes,” she whispered, “predictable is good.” With her tongue she began to trace a wet line across his chest to his other nipple. He was breathing hard, struggling to check his rising tide of passion.

“Wait. Clea…” He caught her face. Gently he tilted it up toward him and looked at her. “I have to know. Why were you crying?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. A moment ago.”

She studied him, hungrily devouring every detail. The way the light played on his ruffled hair. The crescent shadows cast by his eyelashes. The way he looked at
her,
so quietly, intently. As though she was some strange, un-knowable creature.

“I was thinking,” she said, “how different you are from any man I’ve known.”

“Ah. No wonder you were crying.”

She laughed and gave him a playful slap. “No, silly.

What I meant was, the men I’ve known were always…

after something. Wanting something. Planning the next take.”

“You mean, like your uncle Walter?”

“Yes. Like my uncle Walter.”

The mention of her past, her flawed childhood, suddenly dampened her desire. She pulled away from him.

Sitting up, she hugged her knees. If only she could make
Thief of Hearts

417

that part of her life drop away. If only she could be born anew. Without shame.

“I’m embarrassed to admit he’s my relative,” she said.

He laughed. “I’m embarrassed by my relatives all the time.”

“But none of yours are in prison…are they?”

“Not as of this moment, no.”

“Uncle Walter is. So was my cousin Tony.” She paused and added softly, “So was I.”

He reached for her hand. He didn’t say anything. He just watched her, and listened.

“It was so ironic, really. For eight years I went perfectly straight. And suddenly Uncle Walter pops up outside my apartment. Bleeding all over my front porch. I couldn’t turn him in. And he wouldn’t let me take him to the hospital. So there I was, stuck with him. I burned his clothes. Tossed his lock picks in a Dumpster across town. And then the police showed up.” She gave a shrug, as though that last detail was scarcely worth mentioning. “The funny thing is,” she said,

“I don’t hate him for it. Not a bit. You can’t hate Uncle Walter. He’s so damn…” She gave a sheepish shrug.

“Lovable.”

Laughing, he pressed her palm to his lips. “You have a most unique take on life. Like no other woman I’ve known.”

“How many ex-cons have you slept with?”

“You, I must admit, are my first.”

“Yes, I imagine you’d normally prefer a proper lady.” He frowned at her. “What’s this rubbish about
proper
ladies, anyway?”

“Well, I don’t exactly qualify.”

“
Proper
is dull. And you, my dear Miss Rice, are not dull.”

418

Tess Gerritsen

She tossed her head back and laughed. “Thank you, Mr.

Tavistock, for the compliment.”

He tugged her toward him. “And as for your notorious uncle Walter,” he whispered, pulling her down on top of him, “if he’s related to you, he must have some redeem-ing features.”

She smiled down at him. “He
is
charming.” He cupped her face and kissed her. “I’m sure.”

“And clever.”

“I can imagine.”

“And the ladies say he’s quite irresistible….” Again Jordan’s mouth found hers. His kiss, deeper, harder, swept all thoughts of Uncle Walter from her mind.

“Quite irresistible,” murmured Jordan, and he slid his hand between her thighs.

At once she was lost, needing him, crying out for him.

She bared her warmth and he took it tenderly. And when it was over, when exhaustion finally claimed him, he fell asleep with his head on her breast.

She smiled down at his tousled hair. “You will remember me fondly some day, won’t you, Jordan?” she whispered.