by Fiona Brand
Gray watched, narrow-eyed, as Sam shook Farrell's hand. Her composure was unruffled, her manner pleasant, as if she had expected the detective and was quite prepared to step aside while the other woman took her place.
Gray wasn't fooled. He had watched Sam carefully as he had outlined the safe house arrangements. She hadn't so much as blinked, simply listened.
He now knew that her very lack of reaction was a worst case scenario. If she had got upset or angry, that would have been a normal response. The calmness meant she was too upset to react naturally, that she was instinctively pulling inside herself, withdrawing from the hurt inherent in this situation – the loss. It meant that she was hiding herself from him.
Concern turned to irritation as he watched her put the detective at ease, even going so far as to offer Farrell her own seat behind her desk.
Sam's eyes met his, her expression so remote he felt like shaking her. "If you'll excuse me, I need to check the damage on the top floor."
Detective Farrell rose from her seat. "And I need to familiarise myself with the building and meet the staff."
Gray let Sam go because he had no choice; Farrell needed briefing. He stepped out into the corridor and watched Sam walk away, noting the straight line of her back, the rigid set of her shoulders. He knew she was hurting, just as he knew he had to find a way to give her something back out of all of this. Although how he could give her back the Royal, he didn't know. The place was falling down around their ears.
Carter and Ben passed Sam, tool belts slung around their hips. They had ostensibly been helping with repairs. In actuality, they had installed a series of surveillance cameras around the hotel and in more remote locations outside, linking them all to a central control unit in his suite.
Their banter stopped. Two hungry male gazes settled on the gentle sway of Sam's hips. Gray's jaw tightened. He didn't need to be told what they were thinking: he knew. They were thinking the same hot, male thoughts that were crowding his brain.
"Just in case there's any confusion," he said in a low, rasping voice, "she's already taken."
There was a low exhalation of air, a sudden release of tension.
"Are you sure you want her?" Carter asked wistfully.
Gray turned a cold gaze on him. "I'm sure."
Elaine Farrell gave Gray a speculative look, then eyed Ben and Carter with weary amusement. "Don't tell me, you guys are the cavalry?" She angled her head mockingly. "The testosterone levels are about right, you must be."
Carter blinked, the lust instantly disappearing from his expression to be replaced with an entirely healthy wariness.
Gray tried not to let his amusement show as he made formal introductions. Farrell was shaping up to be a martinet.
*
Minutes later, a trim grey-haired woman button-holed Ben and Carter.
"Sadie Carson's the name," she announced briskly. "Milly said you were helping with the clean-up. Addie and I need some major muscle to move our dragon trees, and we figure you boys are bound to be in good trim."
Sadie then proceeded to eye them both as if they were prime specimens in a beefcake show and she heartily approved.
Carter cleared his throat. "Uh, what makes you think that, ma'am?'
"Oh, you're one of those elite special forces teams. Addie and I recognised that straight off."
Ben went for a blankly surprised look. "What makes you think we're special forces?"
"Well, you've got that big gun down your pants for a start. You working undercover?"
"Uh…"
"Can't say, huh? It's all right, your secret's safe with me, but if you need any help, give us a yell." She whipped a gleaming Smith & Wesson out of her rucksack.
Ben and Carter both ducked.
"It's not loaded," she said, serenely tucking the black-and-silver pistol back amongst her cuttings and plant spray. "Dropped it last week and the darn thing went off. Blew a hole clear through the wall. Addie had to do some real creative plastering to cover it up. Since then, we figured it was probably safer to leave the clip out." Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. "I see you got Leroy to cut your hair." She nodded. "You fit in a lot better than you did."
Carter eyed Sadie Carson even more warily than he had eyed Farrell.
"It really looks very nice, dear," Sadie said reassuringly, patting her own severely cropped hair. "Leroy does my hair, too, you know. But be careful what you let slip around that boy, he's a real blabbermouth. Told on that old coot Jeremiah Holden for keeping a bird in his room. Now Jeremiah has to hide Cocky in his bathroom, which, owing to Cocky's uncertain temper, isn't the safest of arrangements for a man, if you get my meaning. Follow me and I'll show you where I want these plants moved to."
Carter watched Sadie walk briskly up the stairs in her faded jeans and hiking boots. "Did you see that, Ben? I've got the same haircut as Sadie Carson."
"And it looks very nice, too, dear," Ben mimicked as they obediently trailed Sadie up the stairs.
Carter turned a considering gaze on Ben. "Laugh all you want, big guy, but next time you look in the mirror you might notice that, colouring aside, thanks to Lee-roy, we could be twins."
Chapter 9
Sam moved through the fourth floor, surveying the wreck of Belle's Palace. She had showered and changed into jeans and a white tank top that was already damp and clinging. The heat that gathered in these upper storey rooms had dewed her skin with perspiration within a matter of seconds.
In two rooms the ceiling had been taken down completely, the mess piled on tarpaulins spread on the floor. Roofers had made temporary repairs to the roof itself, but it was clear that the deterioration was widespread and that the entire roof did indeed need replacing.
She stopped at a window, enjoying the golden glow of the setting sun and the way the light brought a richness and warmth to rooms that had seen a lot of living and, according to legend, even more loving. It was hard to accept that soon these suites, with their echoes of the past and the people who had occupied them, would simply cease to exist. She wondered if Belle really did still haunt these rooms, or if any of her clients hung around on the off chance of a little afterlife hanky-panky. The Royal looked like it could house any number of ghosts.
The last of the warm light slid from her skin. Abruptly the room was plunged into deep shadow, presaging the night to come. Sam stared out at the anonymous office block across the road, which was responsible for blocking out the setting sun, and an odd tension gripped her, raising the fine hairs at the base of her neck. She shook her head in an attempt to dislodge the spooky sensation, caused no doubt by the sudden darkening, but the chill persisted, rippling down her spine and roughening her skin.
She backed away from the window purely on reflex, almost stumbling over a footstool with a tapestried cushion. Faint but deliberate footsteps echoed down the corridor, the sound eerie in the thickening gloom. Sam's heart began to pound. She had been thinking about ghosts, and, silly as it seemed, she had to wonder if she hadn't just conjured one up.
Tiptoeing to the door, Sam checked the corridor, feeling ridiculous as she did so. The footsteps probably belonged to one of the hotel residents who had sneaked up to look around, even though this floor had been declared off limits, or an employee who wanted to do what she was doing, survey the damage and say goodbye to a gracious old lady and the bawdy legend that was Baroness Belle.
The corridor was empty. Sam strained to hear, but the silence had an odd muffled quality, as if these rooms were somehow cut off and shrouded from the rest of the world. The suite she was in was at the far end of the corridor; she would have to pass several rooms before she reached the stairwell. Treading lightly, glad she had had the sense to wear sneakers, she passed first one door, then another. It was getting darker by the second, but the rooms closest to the stairs still contained the residual golden light that hung in the sky long after the sun had finally set. She was level with the fourth door when shadowy movement caught her eye.
Sam faltered and f
roze. The shadow moved again, resolving itself into a man dressed entirely in black and seen from behind – one hand braced on the wide architrave of the window, his head bowed, broad shoulders taut. His head came up as if he had caught the whisper of her step. He glanced over his shoulder, and his gaze collided with hers across the width of the room.
The naked torment of Gray's expression hit her like a blow, and Sam recoiled a step. A strong sense of déjà vu gripped her, although why it should be déjà vu, she couldn't fathom. The last time she had looked into Gray's eyes and seen a stranger had been barely twenty-four hours ago.
His expression grew shuttered, closing out the bleakness so swiftly that she wondered if that moment of despair had simply been a trick of the fading light.
"Sam." His voice was low and beguiling, edged with a need that altered the very quality of the air, so that it closed around her, velvety warm and so heavily laced with sensuality that in that moment she could almost believe in the possibility of a ghostly Belle lingering long after her death. This had been her suite; maybe not everything in it had belonged to her – the bed was too modern, for one thing – but the escritoire, the chaise longue and the large ornate oval mirror on a stand in one corner were vintage Belle.
Gray abandoned his leaning posture against the window frame and turned to face her. The dying light outlined the powerful width of his shoulders, throwing his face into shadow. Her stomach knotted at the blatant sexuality glittering from his dark eyes. An aching heat flooded her lower belly, and her nipples grew almost painfully hard. Gray's gaze lowered to her breasts, then fastened on her mouth. Her chin lifted. She knew it had been futile to think he wouldn't notice what was happening to her.
His shoulders moved, as if he had just taken a deep breath, then, incredibly, he turned back to his contemplation of the view. The movement was stark and lonely, his dismissal of her so complete that for long moments Sam stood transfixed, watching the brooding width of his back.
She was half-way across the room, with its intricate mouldings of vines and flowers, its air of secrecy and liaisons, before she questioned the impulse.
For the past twenty-four hours she had been running, backtracking, looking for a way out of a situation that had spun far beyond her control. She was bone-tired of simply reacting.
And she was through with running.
She wasn't quite ready to be caught yet, either. That was a whole different situation, and she would face that, too, in her own time.
Her step faltered as the reality of what she was about to do crashed in on her, but she forced herself to follow through on the impulse that had carried her this far into the room.
She could understand Gray's need for isolation, but that didn't mean she had to accept his terse dismissal. He had laid claim to her this afternoon, but she wanted and needed, too, and right now she needed to comfort Gray, to reach out and be the one who touched, who offered.
She came to a halt behind him. He didn't move, but she felt his concentrated awareness of her in his very stillness. Her hand settled on his back. She felt his shudder and flinched at the jolt of savage awareness that just touching him caused. He was hot, so hot. A wave of longing and incredulity swept her. How could she ever have imagined she could forget…?
"What do you think you're doing?"
Sam swallowed at the cold roughness of his voice and concentrated on that one pulsing point of contact, the simmering tension in his tautly held muscles.
Taking a breath, she slipped both arms around his waist. If he rejected her now, she didn't know what she would do.
He was stiff, unyielding, as if he couldn't quite believe what she had just done. She could barely believe it, herself.
"What's the matter, Lombard?" she said, her voice husky. "Hasn't anyone ever hugged you before?"
His reply was low, measured. "I was giving you a chance to leave."
He turned in her hold, his hands curving around her waist. There was something bittersweet in his expression, an unexpected melancholy that tugged at her, made her lift her head and search for signs of emotion in those cool black warrior's eyes.
It was like staring at herself in a dark mirror, the terrible strength of needs and uncertainties that twisted and pulled deep inside, producing … vulnerability. It was as if he had ripped off a mask and was finally letting her see who he really was, and in that moment she knew him with an inner knowledge that startled her. He had said she belonged to him; for the first time she considered that he belonged to her.
Tears banked up behind her eyes, and grief closed in on her throat – grief for all they had lost, the years that had passed, and the certainty she hadn't been able to shake that the future held more of the same, despite the deep link she shared with Gray. Would he still look at her with such burning need if he knew she had carried his child and lost her without ever telling him?
His kiss when it came burned her with its sweetness. He whispered her name and she opened her mouth for him, taking his tongue inside her with a familiarity that pulled at the very centre of her being. Then, just as suddenly, the wispy melancholia tightened into something much fiercer, much more intense. She needed him with a power that shook her. She wanted the scent and taste and touch of him; she wanted to fit herself tightly to him, be wrapped in his strength and absorbed by him.
Grief shuddered through her again. This close to Gray, she could almost forget that he was a master at shutting her out when he chose, and that there was no guarantee that he would be any different this time. His physical passion was real; he wanted her so badly, and, God help her, she still wanted to believe in him.
His mouth slanted with increasing force over hers, demanding, giving. His hands curled around her bottom, lifting her so that his arousal pressed bluntly into the soft apex between her thighs and her breasts were flattened against his chest. The intimacy of his touch made her cry out.
The small, hot noise almost shattered the last vestiges of Gray's control. He hugged Sam to him for long minutes while he fought back his unruly hunger.
Only seconds before he had resolved to back off.
His retreat made sense on more than one level. Sam was hell on his concentration. Getting her in his bed wouldn't be enough, just as it hadn't been enough seven years ago. He wanted her until he ached, but he wasn't about to repeat the same dumb-ass mistake he had made before.
He couldn't lose her again.
It had been hard to admit his own vulnerability, that Sam was necessary to him. He had spent the last few years shedding vulnerabilities, isolating himself in order to protect those he loved.
He couldn't afford to reach for his own happiness, yet, and he didn't want to hurt Sam by taking when he wasn't in a position to give. The deeper he went with Sam, the more fractured his concentration would become. Tomorrow their pictures would be splashed over the newspapers. His past, and that of his family, would be picked over and examined.
Harper would take the bait.
Reluctantly he loosened his hold, but not entirely; the feel of her in his arms was too sweet, too damn rare. The fact that she had reached out, of her own accord, and touched him was … more than rare. That small touch had shaken and elated him. He caught the flash of movement in the mirror just off to the side of the window and was instantly transfixed by the vision of Sam wrapped in his arms.
He had resolved not to take, but desire rolled through him anyway. His jaw locked against the sweet, hot throb of arousal, and something even stronger, deeper: a need to cherish the woman in his arms, to let her know just how much he needed her, even if they couldn't be together just yet.
Sam's head lifted. "What is it?" she asked huskily.
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You should have thought about that before you came back."
He didn't miss her unspoken admission. If he could hurt her, she still cared for him. His chest expanded on a sharp intake of air. "You want me."
He turned Sam in his embrace until she was facing the mirror.
The contrast of her feminine delicacy against his much bigger, male frame had his jaw tensing again, and for a taut moment he was caught on the edge, uncertain that he could hold back long enough to give Sam pleasure without taking his.
Sam stared at her reflection, at Gray's shoulders encased in a black T-shirt, his bronzed arms caging her. She could feel his heat all down her back, feel the hard, male shape of him pressed against her, smell the clean scent of his skin as if he, too, had just stepped from the shower.
With a groan he pushed her hair aside and laid his mouth on the tender joint of neck and shoulder. His teeth fastened gently, and Sam sagged against him as sensation scythed through her like dark lightning. She felt her tank top being pulled from the waistband of her jeans and watched as his long fingers pushed up the flimsy white fabric, revealing the pale glow of her skin, the lacy cups of her bra, the swell of her breasts.
He pushed the bra up, and his hands cupped her. She gasped, arching at the shocking intimacy of his hold, the almost barbaric picture they made, with his big hands cradling her much cooler, paler flesh, making her seem fragile, utterly feminine, in comparison. Her skin burned at the contact, the callused roughness of his long fingers. She felt almost unbearably swollen and tender, her nipples stabbing into the heated centres of his palms.
His gaze locked on hers in the mirror, and when he spoke, his voice was strained. "Say that you want me."
Too much, and that scared her more than anything. If she let herself need, Murphy's law dictated that she would lose what she needed. "Yes."
His hands tightened. Sam closed her eyes.
"Don't do that," he said hoarsely.
"What?" She gasped as she watched his fingers flex again, felt the hot sensuality of his slightest touch. If she had any sense, she would push his hands away, at least until she could figure out how she could be with Gray and not break inside when he left.