Now You See Him(75)

She looked dazed, wary, but not ready to give up fighting. "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice husky.

He found to his complete amazement, after all they'd been through in the last bloody hour, that he could smile. "That was supposed to be a kiss. If you didn't recognize it, I must not have been doing it right."

For a moment she didn't say anything. "Then maybe you'd better try it again."

He caught her face in his hands, and when his mouth touched hers this time, he was lost. She kissed him back, sliding her arms up his back, clinging to him, her fingers digging into the loose cotton shirt.

He had to get back to town. Things were moving quickly; he needed to stash Francey and get back to the others. He needed to shove her away from him, get in the car and drive away without looking back.

But he couldn't. He lifted his head to look down at her, knowing he should say something, anything, to get her away from him.

"What's the matter?" she whispered huskily. "You only like drugged women?"

She was turning feisty in her old age. "Were you drugged that night? I thought you were normally that passive."

Withdrawing her arms from around him, she slid her hands up the front of his shirt to the open neck. And then she yanked, hard, ripping his shirt open. "I think I've been passive long enough."

He caught her hands in his, knowing he should put her away from him. Instead he hauled her into his arms, picking her up and starting into the cool dark interior of the half-ruined villa.

He slept at the end of the house, on a king-size bed surrounded by paneless windows. The breeze from the ocean blew night and day, and the place was clean, bare, stark. He set her down on a mattress covered only by a white sheet, and he knew he should turn and run.

She didn't move, just watched him, her eyes huge in her pale face. Her mouth was red and damp from his own mouth, and it made him hard just looking at it.

How many times had he justified his actions by telling himself it was the last time? He would never see her again, so this once was all right? He was telling himself that same thing once more. In a few hours he might be dead. If he wasn't, the Cadre would be, and there would never be another reason for their paths to cross. She would be free of him. It might take her a while—he was pragmatic enough to realize that—but sooner or later the sheer normalcy of life would take over. She would find someone to love, to marry, to have babies with.

She would get over him a lot faster if he turned and walked away right now, without a backward glance. He'd tried so damned hard to be noble; if he gave in now, all that effort would have been wasted.

"No," she said clearly, not moving from the bed.

So she was going to make it easier for him. "No?" he echoed quizzically, unable to resist. "Then why did you rip off my shirt?"

She rose from the bed, and he knew he was in trouble. The bed was huge, white, pristine, behind her, and she was small, frail, wounded. And far too determined. She slid her hands up under his ripped shirt, her skin hot against his flesh, and he groaned quietly.

"I mean, no, you're not leaving," she said, low and determined. "You're not disappearing again, leaving some soulless bureaucrat to pick up the pieces. You're staying here with me."

If her hands reached his nipples he would be lost. "I'm a soulless bureaucrat," he said, trying to back away.

"No, you're not. You're the man who loves me. And you're not going to leave me again."

He'd known the words would come back to haunt him. He knew he should deny them, dismiss them. But her hands slid up, covering him, and he needed her out of that bloodstained dress, he needed her naked, stretched out on his big white bed that had been so empty for so long, and there was no way he could fight them both.

"Take off your dress," he said.

She smiled then. Not a look of triumph, more an expression of relief. And mischief. "Make me."

It came apart easily under his big hands, far more easily than his alter ego Charlie's custom-tailored linen shirt. In a moment she was standing naked in front of him, her head thrown back in defiance as she waited for him to touch her.

And then she didn't wait. Moving closer, she pushed his ruined shirt off his shoulders and onto the floor. She reached for his leather belt, unfastening it deftly and pulling it from the loops with a tiny whispered sound. He let her do it, holding himself perfectly still, giving her control.

He waited, wondering whether she was going to have the nerve to unfasten his trousers. It took her a moment, and then she swayed against him, reaching out to touch him through the linen trousers.

He wondered whether the extent of his arousal would shock her. And then he no longer wondered anything, as her deft, curious fingertips traced the rigid outline of him behind the row of buttons.