To Catch a Thief (21 page)

Nell stopped in the middle of the hall. Dakota was pulling off his shirt, his chest sculpted with lean muscle. He had an unforgettable body, taut and powerful. She smiled crookedly as she saw the tattoo on his left shoulder.

A tiger, black and red, coiled along one shoulder. Beneath the sleek body were three characters that appeared to be Chinese, though Nell couldn't be sure of that.

As Dakota moved, the tiger seemed to move too, muscles shifting as if sensing danger. It was an arresting sight. Then Nell's smile faded. She saw the old cuts on his back, the welts along his ribs and pale silver scars from old bullet wounds. There were also newer marks, including a bruise on his elbow and one just above his waist. She guessed those had come when he threw the motorcycle to one side to avoid hitting her.

He had looked angry and haunted that night. She didn't know why and probably never would. The man was a walking book of secrets. And their time was nearly gone.

He stretched, rubbing his neck. Opening the nylon bag on the dresser, he pulled out a white tube and applied gel on the cuts at his neck. There was no name on the tube and the heavy blue gel looked unfamiliar. More secrets from the book of Dakota Smith.

Nell didn't care about his shadows as long as he came back alive and brought her father with him.

As Dakota turned, she felt a hot stab of awareness. He wore only a pair of jeans, riding low at his hips. The first button was undone, the denim pulled tight against his stomach. The sight stirred melting memories.

But logic won out over desire. Silently, Nell headed back to bed. The man had to rest.

White curtains danced at the gatehouse windows, and the sudden grip of a hand made her gasp.

“What's wrong, Nell?”

“Nothing—I couldn't sleep. Sorry if I disturbed you.”

His eyes were cool and distant. Nell knew he was preparing for the challenges to come.

But she thought of the ways she'd dodged honesty and avoided trust for so many years. So she took a deep breath, choosing honesty over safety. “I want my life back, Dakota. No more shadows and evasions. So here's the rest. I wanted you in Scotland, and I want you now. I can't stop thinking about us. About you inside me.”

A muscle tightened at his jaw. “I'd have to say that's a bad idea, honey.”

“No kidding.” Nell looked away. She'd told him how she felt.

“You
don't
understand.” Dakota moved, blocking her way. “Something about this house is wrong. I'm seeing colors I shouldn't see. Movements at the edge of my vision. It's off, and my vision is never off. And then there's the problem with
you
.” He cradled her face, his eyes unreadable. “You are doing what no woman has ever done, Nell. I don't like it.”

She started to pull away, but his hand slid to the small of her back, driving her flat against his hard, aroused body.

“That's what you do to me. That's how you split my focus. It's never happened to me before. Not even close,” he said grimly.

She took a breath. “So what are you going to do about it?”

He edged her back until she was trapped against the wall, then framed her body with his arms. “My first choice? Strip away that robe and take you right here, and then on every other flat surface we can find. Even then I wouldn't have enough of your body, which means that this is out of control. You're going to get hurt if this goes any further, Nell. We both are.”

Awareness snapped between them. Nell saw the pulse that beat at his neck, felt the clear pressure of his erection. Yet he didn't move.

She touched his cheek, feeling the locked tension of his arms.
Go forward
. “So what's a little pain? I'm all for the flat surfaces part.”

“What about the getting-hurt part?” Dakota was staring at her mouth, looking hungry—and angry about it. “It's a given, damn it.”

“I'm a big girl. Let me deal with that.”

“I want you to walk away with the feel of my skin, turned inside out with pleasure. Doesn't that frighten you?” Clear in his anger now. Voice rough. Eyes like cold steel.

“Not a bit.”

“It
should
.” His fingers fisted in her hair, tugging her down, angling her face toward his. “Fast, impersonal sex doesn't come close to what I want with you. I want hot and noisy and all night. I want to make you scream when you come.”

Her hand brushed his cheek, soothing what could never be soothed. “Why are you trying to frighten me, Dakota?”

“Because…”

He swallowed air, scowling.

For all Nell's experience, she knew nothing of the world's darkest places and the ways that people could hurt each other.

There were so many things Dakota could never tell her. His job could never be discussed. When it was important and the order was given, he'd used sex as part of his missions. It hadn't ever made a difference to him one way or another. A different weapon, a practical tool to learn the truth, nothing more. He forgot all about the woman the minute the door was closed.

But now, with Nell, he wanted to remember, not forget. And that wanting left them both at risk. Never before had he wanted to undress a woman and taste her as he did now, leaving a mark so they would both carry the weight of memories.

He wanted to love her.

Dakota went very still.

Love.

When had this deepest of emotions come sneaking in? Love was for movies, pets and children. Love made money for actors and musicians who didn't know anything about how life really worked.

Dakota had seen real love. His parents had known it, the deep and silent kind with glances and fingers that touched when they thought a boy wasn't looking. They'd laughed quietly together in bed at night. He'd heard them often enough.

Then one day they were gone. He'd lost both of them, just as they'd lost each other. So what good had love done them?

But the feeling wouldn't leave. It worked into his chest and locked down hard.
Love
wasn't anywhere in the rule book he had for life.

And yet here it was, a ten-ton gorilla that wasn't going away. Dakota closed his eyes.

“You okay?” Nell's fingers were slow and a little rough, scraped from climbing. She was exhilarating, stubborn and exciting, a woman who gave orders and feared nothing. The woman he wanted to marry and protect and drive to blind, screaming climax.

So little time.

He wasn't close to okay. He was confused, angry, restless. And above everything else Dakota felt invincible, as if he could walk on water. Nell did that, with her glance and her touch.

Nell.

Her breast touched his wrist. He felt the slam of her heart where his hand cradled her ribs. Awareness snapped, like lightning across a summer sky. The next move was going to change everything, and Dakota knew there would be no going back, but he felt as if his whole life had been leading him straight to this moment.

To this woman. To her hands on his face and her body warm against him.

“Sure you don't want to walk away?”

For answer, she opened his palm and slowly bit the callused center. Then she feathered her way slowly over the small bite, using her wet tongue.

When his palm was wet, she guided his hand down over her throat, inside the open collar of her robe.

Across the hot, aroused swell of her breasts, one and then the other, until all he heard was her husky breath and the hammer of his own heart.

Her belt slid free. The robe opened, fell. “Does that feel like I'm going to walk away, or that I'm going to let
you
walk away? Not even close.”

S
HE SHOULD HAVE
been terrified, but she wasn't.

Her heart was pounding and her hands shook. Anxious, yes. But also exhilarated.

When Dakota looked at her, she saw wanting and reverence. No man had ever looked at her that way, and she was sure no man would ever look at her that way again.

So only tonight.

Whatever, however, wherever. And when it was done, no looking back.

MacInnes rules.

Only this
now
mattered
.

She felt his hand feather through her hair, the slow slide of his tongue along her neck and her ribs. He moved lower, making slow passes over one tight nipple and the other. Heat keened. Sleep was forgotten as carried her back to his room.

Nell didn't want care. She wanted speed, his hunger driving hers. She bit his shoulder, sliding into his arms as he leaned over her on the bed. A question filled his eyes.

She answered by opening the band of his jeans and finding his erection. The heat and weight of him filled her hand. With any other man she might have hesitated, but not with this one.

Dakota took a harsh breath. “Nell.”

She draped one leg around his waist and shoved off his jeans with her toes. One good climbing skill. Her feet were agile and she used them, pressing higher, meeting the hot wedge of skin.

His hand opened, gripping her shoulders. She wanted him inside her, driving deep, but he took his time finding and arousing. His lips were on her forehead when his hand slid between her thighs.

Taking.

Giving.

Nell pushed higher, fitting him against her in reckless welcome, and Dakota cut off her protest with a hungry kiss. She couldn't wait, couldn't think, lost in wanting him.

Blindly she wrapped her legs around his waist, open to him, her hands twisting in his hair, her teeth nipping at his chest. This time Dakota shuddered and held her, just held her.

Unmoving, while sweat skimmed their bodies and need hammered, unappeased.

She was mad with impatience when he drove inside her.

He took her in a long slide of pleasure that blurred her vision and made her heart skip. The only sound in the room came from the curtains shifting in the wind, and then the big duvet toppled onto the floor as Dakota drove her across the bed, thrust by long thrust, carrying her body beneath him with the force of every movement.

Her nails dug into his shoulders.

She felt his skin, slick against hers. Then she tensed, tossed over the edge toward a wall of silver, her legs locked around him, his hands like steel as he held her. Nell bit his neck, muttered his name, wanting more.

Even if it was only for one night.

Her hands pulled at his hair, rough with urgency. She needed the quick heat, the dark loss of reason, and he gave it to her, pushing her across the cool sheets while shock and delight fought through every hard stroke, every low moan.

No time now for promises or gentle questions. Only the ruthless slamming desire of hot, naked skin that left them both clinging to the far side of reason. And then even that ragged line shattered. With Dakota's harsh, erotic praise in her ears, Nell shuddered to a blinding release, dimly feeling his hands fisted in her hair.

His body tensed, driving into her one last time, shoving her against the headboard. He groaned as he claimed her, thigh to thigh. She heard his heart beat wildly against her ear as he held her, then pounded to his own release. Nell felt his heat fill her. Somehow she fell again, lost in his pleasure, every sense unraveled as her hands locked around his neck.

Dimly, she saw the tiger stir on his shoulder. The painted eyes seemed to gleam, shiny in the sweat from Dakota's skin.

S
LEEP—WHEN IT FINALLY
came, limp and boneless in Dakota's bed—was full of flying and falling. Nell drifted through the wreckage of her life's careful rules and arrived, dreamlike, at a high place where rough gray walls felt like the boundaries of her life.

The wind played through her hair as she stood watching the sea. Beneath her feet the stone shook, just a little. The castle moved as her life moved. Nothing would be the same again.

Nell accepted that, welcomed that. Turning sleepily, her hands opened to meet hard muscle, warm skin.

The body of a warrior.

She smiled sleepily at the thought of the tiger, sated but still dangerous, coiled along his shoulder.

She sighed and pushed closer, her legs tangling with his. She didn't open her eyes when Dakota slipped inside her. Slow heat, silent discoveries. No speed now as he moved deep and turned her inside out, lost in pleasure.

She felt his breath at her cheek.

Heard him whisper her name just before they both fell.

“N
ELL
.”

The hand on her shoulder was gentle but insistent. Warm fingers opened, massaging her back.

“Time to go, honey.”
Soft dreams.

A hero's callused hands
.

She made an inchoate sound, thinking of rabbit glue and vellum and antique mineral pigments. Da Vinci's strange mirror writing ran through her mind as her eyes fluttered open.

Pale light crept through the abbey's long curtains. She saw Dakota's face, all hard planes, his eyes focused, darker than the shadows at the edge of the room.

Nell sat up. “You're already dressed?”

He nodded and reached out. Their fingers twined. She squeezed hard, as hard as she'd ever touched anything in her life. With all her heart and mind she wanted to stay, wanted to find out every secret in those powerful, focused eyes.

But there was no time.

She threw back the covers and stood up. “There's nothing more I can teach you. Keep your weight centered and read the wall. You're ready for this.”

“The rules are carved into my brain.”

Nell picked up the dark climbing pants and hooded sweatshirt at the foot of the bed. “I wish there was more that I could do.”

“You've already done more than enough. Izzy will take you somewhere safe until it's over.” Dakota's fingers skimmed her face, and then he took a step back. “We need to go.”

Miles away now. The emotion faded, shoved someplace deep.

She hated the fact that she couldn't do more. As she shouldered her black bag, gathered her notes and took one last look at the beautiful room in the pink-gold light of dawn, something moved, just out of the corner of her eye.

“What was that?”

Dakota turned at the door. “What?”

Nell waited, looking from side to side. “Did you see something by the window?” She frowned, willing the faint shimmer to return. But all she saw was a bar of dawn sunlight, slanting across the abbey's old wooden floor.

“Nothing that I could see.”

Probably just her eyes adjusting to the light. Probably jet lag, too much tea and not enough sleep.

When Dakota opened the door, his fingers skimmed Nell's cheek. She thought of the hidden tiger at his shoulder, waiting to be unleashed. He picked up two gear bags and walked out into the clear morning.

Nell followed and did not look back.

T
HE ABBEY GHOST STOOD
in the shadows of the long gallery, his fingers stroking the fur of a great gray cat. Around him the past moved liked cool water. Smells and colors rippled through him, fleeting and vague.

Other lives. Other risks.

Moments torn from days of battle and pain. The stubborn lovers in the gatehouse would not remember that past, but they would remember this present, which was the abbey's gift to them.

“So little I can do,” the ghost of Draycott Abbey murmured.

He saw the danger that wrapped around them. But now the risk was overlaid by love. Though the two were only vaguely aware of what was growing between them, Adrian Draycott had intervened to give them a moment out of time, a space between the fear that had passed and the death that was yet to come. He could do no more. Even a ghost's powers were limited.

His fingers tightened on the cat's gray fur.

How damnable to feel so powerless.

Cursed by hand and tongue
.

The words seemed to echo coldly in the dawn light while the old house creaked and settled around Adrian, full of memories.

Outside, the black car vanished down the driveway.