Enticing the Dragon

by Jane Godman

  She ended the call with that familiar feeling of guilt tugging at the center of her chest. It didn’t matter how often she told herself Dalton was a grown man—he’s five years older than me—with a successful career, and a wide circle of friends. He always managed to make her feel as if she had blighted his life.

  Six months. That’s how long we were together. It was fun, but it didn’t set my world on fire. Speaking of which...

  She turned her head as Torque walked into the kitchen carrying a variety of bags. He wore a sweatshirt she had seen him wearing in dozens of photographs. It was copied by fans around the world. Black and red, with an oversize hood, it had an image of a burning guitar on the back.

  “I have food and clothes.” He nodded at the phone in her hand. “Was your overprotective friend reassured?”

  “I couldn’t get in touch with her.”

  He stepped onto the terrace. “What will you do now?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice sounded hollow as she tilted her head to look up at him. She had come here to investigate him, had known him barely a day, so why did keeping secrets from him suddenly feel all wrong? And why did the thought of leaving him feel worse?

  “In a few days, I need to join the rest of the band for the start of our tour.”

  Hollie bit her lip. “I understand—”

  “I don’t think you do.” His lips curved into a smile, the one that warmed her insides and left her feeling slightly breathless. “How would you like to come with me?”

  Chapter 4

  Hollie looked tired and confused as she sat at the kitchen counter sipping coffee and nibbling at a pastry. She had showered and her blond hair was still slightly damp. Torque had done a good job of estimating her size, so at least she now wore sweatpants that stayed up and a pale gray sweater that suited her coloring and clung deliciously to her curves. Despite her pallor and the dark circles under her eyes, he couldn’t drag his gaze away from her face.

  “I can’t just tag along on your tour.” Ever since he had made the offer, there had been an underlying emotion about her that he didn’t understand. It was like she was being torn in two different directions. He wished she’d just tell him the truth about who she was.

  “Why not?” He leaned against the counter, just close enough to breathe in her warm, soapy scent.

  “Because...” She flapped a helpless hand. “What would people think? They would assume I was a groupie, or something.”

  “But you’re not. Anyway, why does it matter what other people think?”

  She laughed. “That’s so you.”

  He shrugged. “Can’t help being me.”

  “Torque, I don’t want to seem ungrateful—”

  He cut abruptly across her protests. “Where else will you go?”

  Hollie hesitated and he got the feeling there was a lot she wasn’t telling him. He wanted to explain to her that he didn’t care. No matter what secrets she was keeping from him, he would fulfill his duty. She was his mate and that meant he had an obligation to keep her safe. But if he told her that, he would have to reveal a whole lot more. Like how he knew she wasn’t safe. And how he had the ability to protect her. From anything.

  “I don’t know.” The words were barely a whisper...and clearly a lie.

  “Would you feel better if you had a job to do?”

  “What do you mean?” Her brow furrowed, but he could see a glimmer of interest in the green depths of her eyes.

  “My manager is forever telling me to get myself a personal assistant. I’m offering you the position.”

  “But you don’t know if I’m qualified.” Hollie appeared torn between laughter and incredulity. “And do all your bandmates take their PAs on tour? Because that sounds to me like one crowded tour bus...if that’s still how you get around.”

  “My job offer, my rules. And yes. We use a bus. It gets a bit crazy, but I’ll be there to look after you. Do you want the position or not?” He leaned over and took one of the pastries, biting into it as he watched her face.

  Laughter shook her slender body as she gazed up at him. “I’ll take the job. Although I can’t help thinking you made it up just to give me something to do.”

  “You won’t say that when you see my emails and letters.”

  Hollie shook her head. “Touring with Beast? This was my wildest fantasy when I was in college.”

  Before Torque could answer, the intercom for the electronic gates buzzed and he went to answer it. He pressed a button and an image of a man in uniform filled the screen. “Yes?”

  “Jackson Kirk, Fire Investigation. I was told by the paramedics who treated Ms. Brown that she was here. I’d like to speak with her.”

  “She is here. But the decision about whether she’s ready to speak with you is hers.” He looked over his shoulder at Hollie, who sat up straighter, nodding her agreement.

  Torque pressed the release button on the gates. When he opened the front door, Kirk was striding up the path. Torque got the impression the guy’s shrewd, dark eyes were assessing him, the house and the grounds as he approached. Kirk held out an ID badge and Torque stepped aside to let him pass. He led Kirk through to the kitchen and introduced him to Hollie.

  “The fire was started deliberately.” It wasn’t a question. She calmly stated it as a fact.

  “How did you reach that conclusion?” Kirk asked.

  “Because you’re here.”

  Torque watched Hollie carefully as he made more coffee. Where she was concerned, his senses were finely tuned and his protective instincts were razor-sharp. He didn’t need intuition to tell him her behavior was...unexpected. Until now, he’d had no dealings with victims of fire, but he didn’t imagine they were the ones who usually led the conversation with a fire investigator.

  “Was the point of ignition at the turn on the staircase?”

  Kirk blinked. “Uh...yeah. Looks that way.” He reached into his top pocket, drawing out a small notebook. “Although there were two other ignition points. One inside the bar and one in the storeroom. That’s not always an indication of arson, but there were signs of a break-in.”

  Hollie appeared to be storing that information away. “How did he get in?”

  That was it? That was her calm, collected question when faced with the information that a guy had broken in and set light to the staircase that led to her room? Who are you, Hollie Brown?

  “Pried open a window at the back.” Kirk nodded his thanks as Torque placed a coffee cup in front of him, indicating the cream and sugar. “The guy must have checked the place out in daylight, or risked using a powerful flashlight. That window was the only one large enough for him to climb through.”

  “You won’t know what accelerant he used until you’ve run tests, but he would only have had what he could carry. I don’t imagine there was anything in the bar he could use?”

  Kirk flipped through his notes. He looked like a man who had come unprepared to an interview. “No. The staircase burned ferociously and it’s been difficult to establish what happened there. My initial investigation suggests he stacked an absorbent, flammable substance—probably something he found in the bar, such as newspaper—at each ignition point before pouring his accelerant over it. He doesn’t seem to have made any attempt to make it look like an accident.”

  Hollie nodded. “A professional torch.”

  Torque’s lips twitched. A professional torch? Oh, Hollie. Are you seriously proposing we keep up the pretense that you arrived in my local bar by chance?

  Kirk appeared not to notice the slip. “Looks that way. Which means we have to consider whether you were the target.”

  “Is there any question about that?” Torque asked. “If that fire was deliberately started on the staircase when Hollie was upstairs, it seems obvious that she was the intended target.”

  “We’re right at the start
of the investigation. It looks likely a crime was committed. We don’t yet know whether that crime was arson or attempted murder. Which is why I’m here.” Kirk turned back to Hollie. “Can you think of any reason why someone might do this?”

  The hesitation was infinitesimal. If Torque hadn’t been observing her so closely, he would have missed it. Or maybe it was because he was already so disconcertingly in tune with her emotions. “No.”

  “No recent breakup?” She shook her head. “Stalker? You haven’t noticed anyone following you? No one who calls and then hangs up?” A shake of the head followed each question. “Nothing at all you can think of that has been out of the ordinary?”

  “None of those things.” It was just the wrong side of evasive. “Will you report this fire to anyone?”

  Kirk frowned. “I’m the investigator. Who would I report it to?”

  Hollie reached for another pastry, but seemed more intent on crumbling it into pieces on her plate than eating it. “I wondered if there was a database—” she waved a vague hand “—or something.”

  “Don’t worry. I know how to do my job.” Kirk finished his coffee. “Will you be staying here? With Mr.—?” He raised an inquiring brow.

  “It’s just Torque.”

  Kirk’s glance managed to convey his disapproval of rock stars with long hair, big houses and unconventional names.

  Hollie drew his attention back to her. “I’ll be traveling and I lost my cell phone in the fire.”

  “You can reach us both on this number.” Torque might not be the most organized person in the world, but he had succumbed to Ged’s insistence and always carried a supply of his manager’s business cards. He handed one of these to Kirk.

  Kirk made a note of his own number on a page of his notebook and tore it out. He handed it to Hollie. “If you think of anything—”

  “I’ll be sure to get in touch.”

  Torque escorted Kirk to the door. “She seems to be taking it well.” The investigator jerked his head back in the direction of the kitchen. “Most people would be shaken up after an experience like that.”

  “Shock affects people in different ways.” Privately, he agreed with Kirk. Hollie seemed more intent on conducting her own investigation than on providing Kirk with answers.

  He watched Kirk walk away, making sure the electric gates were closed behind him. His steps were uncharacteristically slow and deliberate as he returned to the kitchen. Hollie turned her head to look at him, smiling as he approached, and his heart lurched.

  Everything about her enthralled him. The tendrils of gold hair blowing about her face in the breeze from the open window. The faint blush on her cheeks as his gaze lingered on her face. Her scent, the aroma of her that he could smell beneath the vanilla and pine tones of the soap, made his inner dragon growl with lust. She was his mate. He wanted to sweep her up into his arms, take her off to a cave somewhere and show her what that meant.

  The big green eyes scanning his face brought him crashing back down to earth. They were big green human eyes. Nothing about wanting Hollie made sense. Yet, from the moment he first saw her, she had become the most important thing in his life. Wanting her was something he would just have to fight. Not easy when all he wanted to do was grab her and growl out the truth. Mine.

  Even so, it was torture. Exquisite but agonizing. How was he going to cope in even closer proximity to his mate?

  “You look fierce.” Hollie’s smile wavered.

  He laughed. “You have no idea.”

  * * *

  Hollie was annoyed that she’d allowed her professional instincts to show through in the meeting with Jackson Kirk. She wasn’t very good at this undercover thing. Her real self kept fighting to be let out.

  She decided to tackle the subject head-on with Torque. “I suppose you’re wondering what that was all about.”

  After Kirk left, they were seated on a bench in the garden, overlooking the wide sweep of the bay.

  “I guess you’ll tell me when you want me to know.”

  His gaze was steady on hers and she suddenly felt guilty. This man had saved her life, taken her into his home, bought her new clothes, offered her a job...and she was deceiving him. She was as convinced as she could be that he wasn’t the Incinerator, that she could trust him, but her training told her instinct wasn’t enough. Proof. That was what she needed. Until she had it, she should probably be wary of him. Instead of constantly wanting to get nearer to him.

  “Torque...”

  “Hollie.” That glittering gaze held hers. “It doesn’t matter.”

  The words jolted her, the sincerity in his tone almost knocking her off her seat. The message was clear. He understood that she was keeping secrets from him...but he didn’t care. What was this? Everything about the situation she was in felt bizarre, yet she wasn’t unnerved. It was somehow right. More right than anything she had ever known.

  Needing to lighten the mood, she turned her attention to the job she would be doing. “Tell me about the tour.”

  “We’re touring east to west, starting in New York, which is our base.”

  When Torque started to explain who the individual members of the group were, Hollie laughed. “You are talking to the girl who bought your first album and was hooked from day one.”

  “So you know all about us?”

  Although Hollie still felt tired, the events of the previous day had receded. It was almost like a bad dream that had happened to someone else. There were things about the fire that nagged at the edge of her consciousness. Jackson Kirk had appeared unaware of the FBI database, but maybe he didn’t feel it was necessary to discuss it with her. As far as he was concerned, she was a member of the public, not an expert. He didn’t know she was the person who had devised the complex information system. It was the means by which the Bureau collated information about all fires and cross-referenced it with their existing records.

  It frustrated her that she knew so much more than Kirk did. Although it appeared Hollie herself was the target of the fire at the Pleasant Bay Bar, she was even more convinced that Torque was the key. If she could discover why that was, she would be able to find her way to the Incinerator.

  Then, of course, there was the issue of McLain’s absence. That worried her most of all. But she had to have faith that her boss knew what she was doing. In the meantime, Hollie would continue to do her own job. She had decided to do that, even though every professional instinct told her she was wrong to remain undercover. Although the Incinerator had turned his attention to her, she felt safe with Torque. Safer than she’d ever felt in her life.

  She was aware of him watching her, and pulled her attention back to his question. “Does anyone know all about you? For one of the most famous bands in the world, you guys have been incredibly successful at keeping yourselves private.”

  He was partly turned away from her and she studied his profile as he looked across the bay toward a small island. His gaze lingered there for long, silent moments before he turned back to her. Those unusual eyes glowed as he smiled. “I guess we just enjoy being enigmatic.”

  “How did you meet?” It was one of the things that had always interested her. The band kept their biographical details to a minimum. “I know Diablo is Native American, Khan is from India, Dev comes from Nepal, Finglas is Irish and you...you like to be mysterious.”

  Torque held a hand over his heart in mock hurt. “I’m a child of the world. Wherever I lay my well-worn beanie, that’s my home. As for how we met... Ged brought us together.”

  Ged Taverner was the mystery man of rock. Beast’s hugely successful manager, he was the puppet master, the Svengali, behind the legend. The thought that she would soon be meeting him, and the members of the band, seemed unreal. Everything since she had arrived in Addison seemed unreal.

  Except Torque. He was her new reality. Since they weren’t touching, it mus
t be her imagination that made her think she could feel the heat of his body warming her through her clothing. His eyes had a hypnotic effect on her. Once she stared at them, she couldn’t turn away. And his lips... Oh, dear Lord. Don’t get me started on those lips.

  “Don’t look at me that way.” His voice was low. Not quite a whisper, almost a growl.

  “What way?” She could no longer blame the smoke for the huskiness in her own tone.

  “Probably the same way I look at you.”

  She edged closer. “Like you want me? Because that’s how I feel about you.”

  “Hollie...” Although he said her name like it was made for his lips, he remained still, his hands splayed on his thighs.

  “Oh.” She let out a shaky sigh, slumping down in her seat. How could she have got this so wrong? “I see.”

  “No.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “No, you don’t see. Hollie, this can’t happen.”

  “Torque, the only reason I can see why nothing can happen between us is that you don’t want me.” When he turned to look at her, the raw agony on his face told her everything she needed to know. Her desire for him—her craving for him—wasn’t one-sided. “Or if there’s someone else in your life?”

  He leaned forward, placing his head in his hands. When he started to laugh, there was no humor in the sound.

  “What did I say that was so funny? Is there someone else in your life?”

  Torque straightened, and the desolation in his eyes tugged at her heart. “I suppose there is, but not in the way you think.” He caught hold of her hand and raised it to his lips. “Trust me. This way is better.”

  He got to his feet and Hollie watched him as he walked away. Better for whom?

  * * *

  Two days later, Hollie opened her eyes wide as she reached the rooftop terrace of Torque’s New York apartment. Turning in a full circle, she took in the iconic views, the private pool, the sauna and the hot tub.