Night Moves (2 page)

"I will not!"

"You will too--and fast!" he whispered, rolling her indignant form beside his so that he could tug at the other half of the bedding and pull it back up over the two of them."Damn it, woman!" His voice was as insubstantial as the air, but she heard the angry, warning timbre. "No one will believe we're sleeping soundly after a torrid session of lovemaking if you're in bed with your clothes on! This is your game you've drawn me into, sweetheart, not mine, but now you'll damn well play by my rules!"

She hesitated, but his hands, long-fingered, broad-backed, powerful, were upon her, tugging at what was left of the sweater.

"Stop!" she whispered, and quickly shed the garment herself, then started to ease down under the covers, her heart thumping madly.

"The bra, too!" he snapped. "What's the matter with you? Haven't you ever made love?"

She was shaking with outrage and humiliation, but she sensed that he knew what he was doing. Still, her fingers trembled too badly to release the hook. He touched her back, sending ripples that chilled and then burned all along the length of her spine. The hood gave in to his practiced flick of the thumb, and she clutched at the front of the lacy garment then shoved it beneath the covers before he could.

It didn't help her much. She almost cried out when she felt his arm come around her, his hand comfortably upon her ribs, his fingers splayed so that they teased the curve beneath her breast. He pulled her close until the supple length of her spine was pressed against the heat of his chest, his long legs curled intimately about her. She could hear the whisper of his breath against her neck, against the lobe of her ear...

To an observer, they might easily have just made love. They might have been sleeping, comfortably, intimately, as lovers did...

But she knew he was far from asleep.Far from comfortably at ease. She felt the vitality, the heat, exuding from him. She knew that his ears were keenly attuned to the slightestsound, that his entire being was acutely aware, that he could spring like a panther at a split second's notice. Even as he lay still, she felt the ripple of perfectly toned muscle, the vibrant, primal male power that was his essence...

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And she was frightened. Frightened of the danger she had brought; frightened of the footsteps that kept coming, slowly... so slowly and carefully...up the stairway.

And beyond that fear was something else.Something that reached inside of her. Despite it all, she was achingly aware of him. Of the fingers that brushed her bare breasts; of the hot male flesh pressed so tightly to her own. She felt vulnerable, and yet she felt protected. To feel his touch, to let him in, would be to become completely possessed on the most elemental of levels. He was a man who would take a woman body and soul. She would be completely his. And in return he would give her something as old as time, as staunch and firm as the mountains. His shielding strength; his sword against the world...

If he wanted her.

She was afraid of him.Had been from the beginning. Had sensed that if she gave in to the slightest weakness--

The footsteps were coming closer. His arm moved, drawing her even more tightly to him, fingers inadvertently teasing higher over her breast. Sensation rippled through her like lightning, mingling and joining with the rapid-fire gusts of terror.."Keep your eyes closed!"

How had he known they were open to the darkness? His were,she was certain. Yet heavy-lidded, so no one would see that piercing gleam of night gold.

The footsteps halted at the open door. She caught her breath, paralyzed with the terror of knowing that she was being watched--and not even able to watch back....

Creak... A telltale floorboard was giving. This intruder, now satisfied with the whereabouts of the house's occupants, turned away again, starting back down the stairs.

The man beside her was up like a flash, tearing toward the door. Ready now to attack, with surprise on his side. He started down the stairs. "What the bloody hell are you doing in my house?"

An explosion of gunfire, ripping through the darkness in an instant of blood red and sun yellow, was his only answer.

He ducked and heard the bullet whiz by his ear, then sink into the wood of the doorframe.

The intruder ran, clattering now, down the stairway.

He tried to follow, ducking again behind the banister when another shot was fired. The bolts were blown out of the door, and the intruder was swallowed into the night.

He followed, but to no avail. The roar of a car engine could already be heard; tires spat out gravel and grass, and the light-less vehicle was gone.

He turned and pelted hurriedly back up the stairway.

She was sitting up in the bed, the covers pulled chastely to her breast. Her hair spilled about her now parchment-white features and shoulders like an aura of sunset. Her eyes, those pools of green that had enchanted and beguiled him, were wide.Tipped slightly at the corners. Adding allure to the beauty of her fragile features and striking coloring.

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They still held fear within their depths.

He smiled grimly as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.

She jumped at the sound of the door clicking, and his dangerous smile broadened.

She damned well better be a little bit afraid of him. She had broken into his home, rifled through his belongings and brought another intruder in her wake to riddle his walls with bullets.

"All right, Bryn.Out with it. What's going on?"

She moistened her lips nervously with the tip of her tongue, and her eyes darted to the floor, where her sweater had fallen. She clutched the sheet more tightly to her and leaned over awkwardly to reach for her garment, but a flash of silent movement stopped her.

He was sitting on the bed beside her, still smiling. But his left sneaker was planted firmly over her sweater.

"No more defenses of any kind, Bryn. The only way to reach you is to make you as vulnerable as possible, and if that means half naked, well..."

He lifted his hands casually in a resigned manner,then allowed them to fall back to his knees. She sank back against the pillow, biting her lip, and suddenly wishing she had never made him an enemy.

He wanted vulnerable. Oh,God, was she vulnerable!

"Bryn!"His voice was a threat.

"I...I...can't tell you," she began.

"You'd better. Or else I can give a call to the police."

"No! Oh, please, Lee! Please, don't--"

"Then tell me why my house was broken into last night-- and the night before. And why I was shot at by some thug. And what you're doing here now."

"All right, all right!But please, you must swear not to go to the police!" Her lime-green eyes, capable of being brilliant and innocent, sultry and seductive, proud and sometimes haughty, but never, never opaque with naked humility and pleading, were brimming with the glitter of tears.Tears that she held back with the greatest strength of will. Her lips quivered. "Look, Lee, I know I haven't been especially decent to you, but I had some legitimate, personal reasons. I realize I haven't the right now, but I have to ask you to help me. Please, Lee! Promise me that you won't involve the police! The...the people involved with this...they...they have Adam!"

His brows shot up with surprise and grim commitment. "Okay, Bryn," he said quietly. "I'm not going to call the police--not yet, anyway. I promise."

"It's the pictures!" she blurted out.

"The pictures?" he replied with a frown of puzzlement. "The ones you took last Thursday?"

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"Yes."

He leaned over and flicked on the bedside light, then stood and walked over to his closet, pulling it open and searching through it absently. Then he tossed a long sleeved pin-striped shirt to her and ordered briefly, "Put that on. Your sweater has about had it. I'm going downstairs to make some coffee. Be in the kitchen in five minutes flat, and be prepared to tell me this whole story--with no holes."

He walked out the door, and Bryn closed her eyes in bleak misery. Whywas this all happening, she wondered bleakly.If she had only aimed her lens in a different direction... Adam would still be at home.

And she wouldn't be forced now to rely upon a man to whom she had shown nothing but hostility and antagonism since they had first met.

A man she had misjudged--and sadly underestimated. And who scared her silly, even as he drew her to him. Who could play upon her senses with a whisperedword, make her shiver with a mere touch...

And yet could easily use her,then toss her over like windswept driftwood upon a white-sand shore of emptiness.

She was lying in his bed now. Had lain beside him in it, had felt his touch almost as a lover might...

She wrenched the sheets from her and leaped to her feet, fingers trembling as she slipped her arms into the shirt-sleeves,then labored quickly with the buttons.

She had come to know him fairly well. He didn't make idle threats, or hand out orders he didn't expect to be obeyed. If she didn't appear in the kitchen in five minutes, he would be back up the stairs, soundlessly, swiftly--determinedly--to drag her down. She might resent the idea, but she wasn't about to take any more chances.

Because if he touched her again tonight, she might break into a thousand tiny pieces and be forever lost.

Bryn breathed a soft sigh of resignation. It was almost a relief to have no choice but to tell all.To Lee. If she had come to him to begin with, things might not have gotten this far.

This frightening...

There might be dangerous men after her, but...

But he had to be the most damned dangerous man she had ever met.

Bryn closed her eyes tightly and breathed deeply for strength. She was going to have to go down and talk to him. Tell him everything, from the beginning.

From the beginning.

Who could have known...?

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Arggghhh!"

At the sound of the loud and piercing scream, Bryn Keller dropped the trade paper she had been industriously reading onto the comfortably stuffed love seat, sprang to her feet and rushed to the door, flinging it open.

In her year and a half of being apseudoparent , she still hadn't learned to decipher which screams were of pain, and which were of play.

Luckily, this one seemed to have been play. Brian, at the grand age of seven, the oldest of her nephews, had been the perpetrator of the sound. He met her eyes curiously as he saw her anxious stare.

"We're playing, Aunt Bryn." He puffed out his chest proudly and waved a plastic sword. "I'mGringold !

God of water and light! And I'm battling the forces of the Dark Hound."

"And I'm Tor the Magnificent!" chimed in Keith. He was six, and second-in-command among the trio.

They only owned two plastic swords, and he carried the second.

"Oh?" Bryn raised her eyebrows and suppressed a grin. She didn't have to ask who had the honor of being the Dark Hound. Her eyes traveledto little Adam. At four, he was the youngest and therefore always elected to be the bad guy. The boys were using the tops of garbage cans as shields, but just as there were only two plastic swords, there were only two can tops. Adam carried a giant plastic baseball bat and a ripped-up piece of cardboard.

Adam graced her with a beautiful smile, and she forgot that she had been about to knock all three heads together for the scare they had just given her. She laughed suddenly, narrowed her eyes at Keith and raced over to Adam, stealing his baseball bat."Tor the Magnificent, eh? Well, I'm the White Witch!" she told them all gravely. "And I'm going to get the lot of you for turning my hair gray way before its time!"

The boys squealed with delight as she chased them about the small yard, catching their little bottoms with light taps of the bat. At last they began to gang up on her, rushing her, hugging her and knocking her to the ground.

"Beg for mercy.White Witch!" Brian demanded.

"Never!" she cried in mock horror. Then she started as she heard the phone ringing in the kitchen.

"Cry for mercy!" Keith echoed Brian.

"Off! Off, you hoodlums! I'll cry for mercy later, I promise, but right now the White Witch has to answer the phone."

"Ahh, Auntie Bryn!"

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The boys grumbled but let her up. Bryn threw them a kiss as she rushed back into the house and flew to the phone.

"Bryn?"

"Barbara?"

"Yes, of course, it's Barbara. What were you doing? You didn't take up jogging, I hope? You sound absolutely breathless. I didn't interrupt anything--ordid I? I would just love for you to be doing something that I could worry about interrupting!"

Bryn gave the receiver an affectionate grimace. Barbara couldn't understand her friend's withdrawal from male society since her broken engagement.Especially since it had been Bryn who had made the final break.

"No, you didn't interrupt anything except for a wild battle between the forces of good and evil. What's up?" "I've got something for you."

"Work?Oh.great ! I'm just about to wind up those wildlife shots, and Cathy's ankle got better, so she returned to the dinner show last night. I've been worrying about finances already. What have you got, a dance gig or a shoot?"

Barbara's delighted laughter came to her over the phone."Bryn! What a card you are.And what a lucky card to have me for an agent. How many people can sell you as a photographer, and a dancer?"

"Probably not many," Bryn replied dryly. "I can see the billboard now: 'Jack of all trades--master of none.'"

"Hey, don't undersell yourself, Bryn. You do damn well at both your trades."

Bryn remained silent. She was a good dancer and a good photographer. But she had learned through life that "good" did not mean success. It meant that, if you were lucky, you could keep working.