Into the Fire

by Anne Stuart

  Damn, she hurt! A hot soak in the claw-footed bathtub would do wonders, though. Since she’d been in Wisconsin she’d taken the fastest possible showers she could, just to make sure she didn’t run into Dillon. At this point, if he walked in on her in the tub, it could prove…interesting.

  The bathroom was warm, heat pouring from the air duct on the floor. For once there seemed to be enough hot water, and she filled the tub as full as she could before dropping the sheet and slipping into the blissfully hot water. She let out a little moan of pleasure. How could she feel so battered and so good at the same time?

  But she did. She rested her head against the cool edge of the cast-iron tub and closed her eyes, and she could feel a smile forming on her face. He’d told her he could make her scream, and he was right. He hadn’t told her he could make her smile.

  When she was ready to get out, she looked around. There was only one towel in the bathroom, and it was still damp. His. She brought it to her face, and she could smell the soap he used, the shampoo. She breathed it in, like a drug, and for the first time she understood why he’d kept her dress. If he sent her away, if she ran away, she’d steal this towel and take it with her. And sleep with it, like the lovesick adolescent she’d always been. And still was.

  She wrapped the sheet around her again and headed back to her room. He’d brought her suitcase upstairs at some point, and she dressed quickly, in her jeans and an old cotton sweater. She kept listening for him, wondering if he was going to come back upstairs, wondering if she really wanted to get dressed, after all, when she heard a noise overhead. Just a faint creaking noise, like a ghost walking.

  She froze, listening intently. And then another sound, like something being dragged across the floor. Dillon must be up there, though she couldn’t imagine why.

  If she had any brains at all she’d go downstairs and find something to eat and keep her distance from Dillon for as long as she could bear to. Her body needed time to recover, because if he put his hands on her she wouldn’t be able to say no. Wouldn’t want to.

  But right then she didn’t seem to have any brains at all. She was going up to the third floor to see what Dillon was doing, and if they ended up doing something else she’d manage to survive. Besides, there were other things she was interested in trying. In having him show her.

  The stairs were cloaked in shadows—if there was a light anywhere it had burned out. The top of the stairs was dark, unwelcoming, and if she had an overactive imagination she’d think there were monsters up there, waiting for her. But she was a practical woman. Except where Dillon Gaynor was concerned.

  The stairs creaked beneath her feet. But she stepped carefully, not willing to make contact with another mangled rodent. She had the oddest sense that someone, something was watching her. But it was too dark—she could barely see in front of her. Nothing on this earth would be able to see her in this darkness.

  The hall at the top of the stairs was identical to the one beneath it. All the doors were tightly shut except one, halfway down on the left side. The place must have been some kind of boarding house, long ago. The room with the open door would have been two rooms down from her own austere cell.

  The only light was coming from that room, the stark gray of snowlit daylight.

  “Dillon?” she called out. Her voice was swallowed up by the darkness, and there was no answer. Just the sound of something moving in that room.

  It wasn’t the scrabbling feet of rats. It was something bigger, more forceful. She walked down the hall, the ancient wood beneath her creaking loudly, announcing her approach. “Dillon?” she called again. Still no answer.

  She reached the door, but it was only partway open, just letting out a sliver of light into the hallway. She pushed it the rest of the way, but the room was empty. Not a living soul in sight.

  She stood motionless as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. The room was a twin to her own, except there was nothing inside—no mattress on the floor, no light. The walls and bare wood floor were covered with dark stains, and the plaster had been crushed in several places, as if someone had smashed something into the wall. The stains were darkest there.

  She could feel it, like an icy blanket draping around her. The pain. And the evil. And she knew this was where Nate had died. The stains were the marks of his blood soaking into the walls and the floor of this old building.

  The heat didn’t reach up to this floor. Or if it did, she was beyond feeling it. Beyond feeling anything but the pain and horror that had filled this room only three months ago. And still lived within the walls like a ghost yearning for revenge.

  She could feel him behind her, and a crawling sense of horror began to snake up her spine. There was no one there—she knew that with every practical bone in her body. She didn’t hear anyone, the air wasn’t disturbed around her, there was no body heat radiating off another soul. But she wasn’t alone any longer, and she didn’t dare turn around and look, suddenly terrified at what she might see. She simply froze, staring blindly ahead of her at the room covered in dried blood.

  In the end it didn’t matter. The push was as insubstantial as a puff of wind, as hard as an angry shove, and she fell forward, into the room. The floor gave way beneath her feet, and she went crashing through the splintering wood that seemed to dissolve beneath her feet.

  She must have screamed. She was trapped in the rotting floorboards, up to her knees, and when she twisted around to look the doorway was empty.

  The wood had collapsed around her, and every time she tried to pull free it simply crumbled beneath her. She was trapped, almost up to her hips, and she had a suddenly, irrational terror that ghostly hands would reach from underneath and pull her down, down into some inexplicable hell, and she screamed again, this time for Dillon.

  She heard the thundering sound of his footsteps, and she closed her eyes in relief. There hadn’t been time for him to have pushed her, disappeared and then come back up. There couldn’t have been.

  He reached under her arms and hauled her up, the wood splintering as he pulled her through, and she let out a cry of pain. He set her down in the hallway, ungently, and she leaned against the wall, her legs weak beneath her, and watched as he slammed the door, plunging them into darkness. And then locked it, locking away the evil, locking away the truth.

  “What the fuck were you doing in there?”

  She was glad she didn’t have to see the fury in his face. Her left leg was beginning to throb, and her entire body was trembling with the aftermath of shock.

  “That was where he died, isn’t it?” Her voice was low, strained. “That’s where Nate was murdered. That’s his blood all over the place. For God’s sake, couldn’t you have at least cleaned up the blood?” she cried.

  Silence. She could barely see his shadow in the darkened hallway—his expression was beyond reading. “I didn’t expect you to go nosing around where you didn’t belong.”

  “Hell, I don’t belong here, anywhere here, and we both know it! I certainly don’t belong in your bed.”

  “Or in the back seat of my car. Or on the floor of the garage. Or on the kitchen table, or anywhere else we end up doing it. Whether you belong or not is beside the point. It’s where you want to be.”

  The pain in her leg was nothing compared to the harshness in his voice. “Go to hell,” she said. She pushed away from the wall, but her leg buckled beneath her. It should have been too dark for him to see, but she should never have underestimated the Killer.

  He picked her up, and she hit him, trying to squirm out of his arms. He was much stronger, of course, and it only took him a moment to pinion her arms between them. “Stop fighting me,” he said gruffly. “It puts me in a bad mood, and you don’t want to see me in a bad mood. You’re hurt, you can’t walk, so you might as well shut up and let me help.”

  “I could crawl,” she snapped.

  “A lovely thought, but we’ll wait till I’m not so pissed at you to play those games.”

  “You’re
disgusting.”

  “By your standards, yes.” He was totally unmoved by her struggles or her fury, and she could tell by the strength and tension in his body that he was just as angry with her.

  He carried her down the stairs. Down two flights of stairs, thank God, not stopping at the floor with the bedrooms. The kitchen was filled with warmth and light—a shocking contrast to the bleakness of the third floor, and she could smell something cooking. Something wonderful, and her empty stomach growled in sudden hunger.

  He set her down on the oak table, and she immediately tried to jump down.

  “Don’t waste your time, and don’t piss me off more than I already am,” he growled. “You screwed up your leg big time, and I don’t want you turning around and suing me. I don’t have any kind of insurance, and while I know you’d like nothing better than to take this place away from me and burn it to the ground as a tribute to your darling Nate, I’ve worked hard for it and I’m not about to let it go. So hold still and let me see how badly you’re hurt.”

  She still tried to scramble off the table, but he was stronger than she was, holding her there, and she gave up fighting.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Shit,” she echoed, looking down at the blood-matted leg of her jeans. No wonder it was throbbing.

  “Stay put,” he said, and by now she wasn’t fighting. He went to a drawer, grabbed a bunch of things and turned back, cutting her pants leg to her knee with a pair of scissors before she could protest.

  There were three gashes on her leg. At least the bleeding had stopped, though her entire foot was soaked in blood.

  “Lie back on the table.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” she said in a caustic voice.

  “Behave yourself, Jamie.” He pushed her, surprisingly gentle, and she lay back, closing her eyes. It wasn’t the same push that had sent her hurtling forward into that room. Different hands, yet who else could it be? Who else was here?

  “Did you push me?”

  He was cleaning the scrapes with infinite care, and he didn’t hesitate. “You know I did. And if you try to sit up again I’ll sit on you.”

  “I don’t mean now. I mean on the third floor. Did you push me into that room?”

  Only the slightest hesitation, so slight that most people wouldn’t have noticed it. “I didn’t want you up there,” he said finally. “Why would I have pushed you in? Especially with the floor rotting away like that. The roof over the place has leaked for years, and I just got it redone this spring. I haven’t had enough money to take care of the damage on that floor, and I assumed no one would be wandering up there or I would have warned you. What in hell made you go up there in the first place?”

  “I heard someone moving around up there. I thought you’d gone upstairs for something.”

  “I was in the garage.”

  “I didn’t hear you down there.”

  “You think I’m lying?” The question was very casual, but she didn’t miss the edge.

  “No,” she said. Hoping she meant it.

  “You know this place has rats. They’ve taken a particular affection for you. You must have heard one moving around up there. The place is probably teeming with them. No one ever goes up there.”

  She shuddered. “Why don’t you get rid of them?”

  “I told you, there’s plenty of poison lying around. That’s why they suddenly show up dead at your feet. What can I say—you and rats have a certain affinity.”

  “Are you talking about Nate or about you?”

  “Take your pick. Why don’t you find some nice banker and marry him and make your mother happy?”

  “Nothing would make my mother happy,” she said flatly.

  “Well, you’ve learned that much over the years. Sit up.”

  She actually didn’t want to. She wanted him to climb up on the table and kiss her, to wrap his arms around her and soothe her irrational fears. Because there was nothing to be afraid of, was there?

  But she sat up, looking down at her bandaged leg, looking up into his shadowed face. He had her blood on his hands.

  “Are you all right?” he asked finally, almost unwillingly. “You look as pale as a ghost.”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts, right? Nate’s dead and gone—he can’t come back.”

  “He’s dead and gone. I identified his body, Jamie. There wasn’t any doubt, despite the condition he was in.”

  “Condition?” she echoed in a faint voice.

  “Come on, Jamie, you know what shape he was in. He was beaten to a bloody pulp. The Duchess herself wouldn’t have recognized him, except for the jewelry and the clothes.”

  “So there couldn’t have been a mistake?”

  Dillon shook his head. “I was here at the time, Jamie. Nate didn’t leave.”

  The first trickle of doubt began to form in the pit of her stomach. “What do you mean, you were here? You knew what was happening?”

  He didn’t look at her. “I wasn’t Nate’s babysitter. He stayed on the third floor, remember? I work in the garage with the music cranked up.”

  It wasn’t an answer, not a real one. He’d gone to the sink, washing her blood from his hands, and she could see the tension in his tall, lean body.

  “You’re lying to me,” she said.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. “What are you accusing me of, baby girl? Killing Nate? Luring you upstairs to try to kill you? Couldn’t I have just strangled you in bed?”

  It shouldn’t have made her blush. Doubt filled her body, and she made herself slide down off the table. Her ankle hurt, but it bore her weight.

  “I don’t know what to believe. All I know is you’re lying.”

  He turned around, leaning back against the sink. “Yeah?” he said. “And do you want me to show you how much you care?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He started toward her, a slow, stalking gait, and she froze. He was threat personified, and all her instincts said “run.” And all her instincts said “stay.”

  He came right up to her, towering over her, his body brushing hers. He leaned his head down and whispered in her ear. “You don’t care whether I killed Nate or not. You don’t even care if for some crazy reason I want to kill you. All I have to do is touch you and you don’t care about anything but me.” He slid his hand between her legs, and even through the denim of her torn jeans she quivered, swaying toward him.

  He brushed his lips against the side of her neck, and she arched. “It’s called power, baby girl,” he whispered. “Sexual thrall. I own you, and it doesn’t matter what I did, what I will do. All that matters is you’ll do what I say. Won’t you?”

  He was stroking her, and she could feel herself getting damp. He moved his lips to the corner of her mouth, and he moved one leg between hers, pressing. “Won’t you?” he said again.

  She wanted to touch him. She wanted to put her arms around his waist and pull him tighter against her body, she wanted to sink down on the floor and finish what she’d started earlier. She wanted to do anything he asked of her, and more.

  But she couldn’t. She looked up into his dark eyes, and she wanted to disappear into the darkness, into the heat and power. But she couldn’t.

  “Did you have anything to do with Nate’s death?” She could barely get the words out.

  She expected him to pull away. He didn’t. He pushed his leg between hers, pulling her forward so that she rode against his hard thigh, and she moaned. “Do you trust me?”

  God, she wanted to. She wanted to empty her mind and her heart of everything but Dillon. He was going to make her come this way, and she didn’t want to. She wanted him to stop, to talk to her, to tell her there was nothing to be afraid of, nothing to worry about, that she could trust him with her life.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked again, his leg sliding against her, harder, and she felt the quivering of an incipient orgasm begin to wash over her. She was having trouble breathing, and if she weren’t supported
by the table behind her and his leg between hers she would have collapsed.

  She was almost there, and he knew it. He knew everything about her body in this short time. “Do you?” he asked, one more time, brushing his mouth against hers, and she wanted more, she wanted his tongue, she wanted everything. Everything but losing herself.

  “No,” she whimpered.

  “No? No, don’t do this, or no, you don’t trust me?”

  “I…I…” She could barely speak, she was shaking so hard. He could finish it if he wanted to, but he was holding her just on the edge, taunting her. “No, I don’t trust you,” she said. “And no, don’t stop.”

  He pulled away from her, so abruptly she fell back against the table. She looked up at him, dazed, but he’d already stepped back.

  “Sorry, baby girl. You can’t have one without the other.”

  And he walked out into the night, into the snow, without another word, slamming the door behind him.

  16

  He hadn’t taken a coat, and he didn’t give a shit. He didn’t get cold easily, an advantage in this climate, and the flannel shirt would be enough to get him away from Jamie. He should have known, of course. She’d been raised by the Duchess, side by side with Nate. There was no way she could have come through life untainted, no matter how innocent she seemed. Fucking him was all well and good—she’d do anything he wanted her to if he just touched her the right way. Anything except trust him.

  Crazy that that would bother him. Why the hell would he need her to trust him, when all he really wanted was her ass? To burn off twelve years of frustration in the shortest possible time.

  Maybe it was because she’d trusted Nate, believed in him as she’d never believe in Dillon. Nate was the most treacherous creature Dillon had ever known, including the thugs he’d met during the year and a half he’d spent in prison, and Jamie still thought he walked on water. And she looked at Dillon and saw a bad boy and a good time.

  Hell, he shouldn’t object. Isn’t that how he saw himself? Isn’t that all he wanted to be to her?