Sight Unseen

by Gayle Wilson

  Ethan pulled back, raising his head slightly to break the kiss. She opened her eyes to find him looking down into her face. Questioning.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, stretching upward to reestablish contact with his lips.

  Without his muscled warmth against her bare skin, the air from the climate-controlled suite was uncomfortably cool. As she tried to move back into his embrace, his hands found her shoulders, holding her away from him a little.

  “If this is intended to be some form of thanks…”

  “I don’t pay my debts like this.” Her use of the phrase was deliberate, and it stopped him, just as she’d intended.

  “I didn’t mean to imply that I thought this was some kind of payment. It’s natural after an experience like tonight’s—”

  “That I’d throw myself into your arms and suggest we make mad, passionate love?”

  Another hesitation as he examined what she’d said.

  “Is that what you’re doing?”

  “Well, it’s certainly what I’m trying to do. I don’t seem to be having much success.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re stubborn?” she suggested. “Or too noble for your own good maybe.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant why are you doing this?”

  “Because I want you to make love to me,” she said patiently, as if she were explaining this to a child.

  “You barely know me.”

  She smiled, thinking how shocked he’d be to realize how very well she did know him.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t sense this was inevitable.”

  Again her words gave him pause. But at least he answered them truthfully.

  “I knew there was something between us.”

  “But you’d rather play it out. Do you need to be courted, Mr. Snow?”

  “Not usually.”

  “Then why in the world would you—? Oh,” she said, finally understanding his reluctance.

  She tried to think if she’d ever made love to another man who knew as much about her as this one did. Not that there had been such a number of intimate encounters in her past. There were, after all, distinct drawbacks in being able to gauge intentions and to discern the truth behind what people said.

  “You’re afraid I’m going to read your mind.”

  “Are you?”

  “Not if you don’t want me to. But…there could be advantages to that. Something you might want to think about.”

  Again his head tilted—questioning—but she could tell his discomfort with the idea had begun to fade. He had known this was inevitable.

  She stepped forward, finding the button that held the waistband of his pants. She slipped it free of the buttonhole and then slid the zipper down. Held up by the black sus penders, the pants didn’t move. Not that she’d intended them to.

  She untucked the tail of the evening shirt and began removing the studs that fastened it. At least he was no longer asking questions, she thought as she worked with single-minded determination.

  When she reached the last of them, she glanced up and found his eyes on her face. In the dimness of the hallway, their gray was so dark it was almost black.

  For an instant, a flutter of fear brushed through her mind. At some point tonight she had looked up into another pair of eyes, blacker even than these. Those had been cold, however. Cold and black, just like the pond in her vision.

  Her hand hesitated as she tried to recapture the fleeting memory. It was no use. Whatever she had almost remembered had again disappeared from her mind.

  And since she had other memories to make—far more inviting than the bone-chilling sensation that one produced—she let go of the small, worrisome recollection. She didn’t want to think about anything that had ever happened before this moment. This encounter.

  When she had removed the last stud, she pushed the shirt down over Ethan’s shoulders, revealing the sleeveless undershirt he wore beneath it. In comparison to the long elegance of his torso, his shoulders and upper arms seemed heavily muscled.

  Thank God, she thought, remembering the endless strain they’d endured until he had been able to pull her to safety.

  She bent forward, putting her lips against the semicircle of tanned skin revealed by the low neck of the undershirt. At the same time she pushed the evening shirt further down his arms until it fell onto the dark, patterned carpet.

  Ethan stepped back, ripping the undershirt off over his head in a single motion. Balling it in one hand, he lobbed it toward the couch in the living room of the suite.

  Before it landed, he had stepped forward again, pulling her back into his arms. This time there was no barrier between her breasts and the hair-roughened skin of his chest. Her breath caught in her throat as his hands closed over her hips, lifting her once more against his erection.

  “There’s a bed,” she whispered.

  “I never figured you for conventional.”

  His lips were pressed against her ear. A jolt of pure sensation shot through her body as his tongue slipped inside to rim the outer shell.

  “It isn’t where you make love that determines if you’re conventional,” she said. “It’s how.”

  “I have a few ideas about that.”

  His breath stirred against the moisture his tongue had left, causing her to shiver. In response, his arms tightened around her, holding her close.

  “I know,” she said.

  He raised his head, looking down into her eyes, the unspoken question in his. Instead of answering it, she smiled at him.

  “Exactly what is it that you know?” he asked.

  “That it’s going to be incredible,” she said truthfully.

  THE BED HAD BEEN TURNED DOWN. And although the lamps on either side of the headboard were on, the light they provided was very dim. From somewhere came the soft sound of good jazz.

  All the elements of seduction were in place, Ethan noted. Including her nudity under the hotel bathrobe.

  Of course, she had made no secret of her intent from the first. How she had known he’d come knocking on her door, however…

  “Ethan?”

  Only when she said his name did he realize that he’d come to a stop just across the threshold. She took his hand, smiling at him again. He allowed her to draw him closer to the center of the room, dominated by the king-size bed.

  Despite the time they’d spent talking in the doorway, a hint of steam lingered in the air from what must have been a very recent shower. It was redolent of bath oil or soap, which had been scented with the same perfume she’d worn tonight.

  The fragrance produced a mental picture of Raine, holding her hair off her neck with one hand as she turned under those powerful jets, allowing them to ease the tension in her neck and shoulders. And then allowing them to play over her breasts as she lathered her body, leaving behind the subtle aroma that was driving him wild.

  Apparently she isn’t the only one who has visions.

  Visions. Clairvoyance. CIA.

  The progression was natural. And it stopped the one he’d been making across her bedroom.

  When it did, she turned back. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

  Griff was right. Becoming emotionally involved in any case was dangerous. It was exactly what had led to his leaving the agency, only in that case he had been in emotional overload because of the death of a fellow agent. Not just his death, he amended, but the manner of his dying.

  Given his background, becoming emotionally involved with a woman he was supposed to be protecting was more than dangerous. It was foolish. Especially with a woman who was essential to their understanding of the connection between those CIA experiments and The Covenant.

  “What can I do to convince you?” Still holding his hand, Raine moved closer, smiling into his eyes.

  “I’m here to protect you. Not to sleep with you.”

  The stiff-necked bureaucratic jerk was back. With a vengeance.

&n
bsp; “Because you’ll have to report it to Griff if you do?”

  “Because it blurs the lines between personal and professional.”

  “Yes, it would,” she said, her smile widening.

  “I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with that. I’m not sure you should be, either.”

  “We’re both adults. Consenting adults, I assume. And I also assume you wouldn’t be the first of Cabot’s agents to become personally involved with a client.”

  The last agent who had done so had lost his position with the Phoenix. It wasn’t really that Ethan was afraid of losing his. It was more a matter of trust. Griff had entrusted him with Raine’s safety. To be her bodyguard, not her lover.

  Even the word as it formed in his mind was tempting. Almost as much so as the sight of her nude body, partially revealed by the unbelted robe.

  “I wouldn’t be the first,” he conceded. “Despite that, I owe Griff a greater debt than some of the others. That means I don’t betray his trust.”

  “Because he accepted you into the Phoenix.”

  “After I left the CIA. Something he tried to talk me out of.”

  “If anyone could understand your reasons for leaving, I would think it would be Cabot.”

  Although he hadn’t told her his reasons, this was the second time she had acted as if she knew them. Even if she did, they were not something he wanted to get into tonight.

  Just as he didn’t want to be having this conversion. All he wanted—

  All he wanted, he realized, was to carry her over to the big bed and make love all night. A hell of an admission for a man who had just been arguing the opposite point of view for the past five minutes.

  “It’s up to you,” she said, her tone carefully neutral. “I should warn you, though, that even if it doesn’t happen tonight, it will eventually.”

  “But you thought it would tonight.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that mean the things you foresee don’t always come to pass?”

  “I don’t ‘foresee’ that many things,” she said carefully. “Occasionally, however, the sense that something is about to happen is so strong it’s just there.”

  “Like this?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t know about the other.”

  “The ledge? I had no inkling about that. And I know what you’re thinking.”

  He doubted it. All he seemed capable of thinking about right now was that wide expanse of bed behind her.

  “I have no explanation for why I didn’t,” she went on. “All I can tell you is that when I was dressing tonight, I knew you were going to make love to me. The other…”

  She shrugged. The movement lifted her shoulders beneath the robe, causing the opening to separate. Almost unconsciously she pulled the two sides together again, looping one end of the belt through the other.

  Ethan’s hands closed over hers. Surprised, she looked up, her eyes wide.

  “Don’t,” he said. She had asked if he needed to let this play out. Apparently, she didn’t.

  She didn’t try to be coy or to tease him about the fact that he couldn’t seem to make his emotions align with his intellect. Instead, she loosened the loop she’d just made, allowing the robe to fall open again.

  This time he reached up, and as she had with his shirt, he pushed the garment off her shoulders. It fell, but she made no attempt to cover herself.

  Reality matched to perfection the image of Raine in the shower that the hint of her perfume had conjured up a moment ago. And he’d even been right about the tan. It definitely hadn’t been acquired while wearing a swimsuit.

  Taking his time, he examined the smooth shoulders and the small, perfect globes of her breasts. Then his gaze slowly trailed lower. Across a flat stomach with a small teardrop-shaped naval. Down long, slender legs, toned from swimming or running on the beach. Bare, high-arched feet.

  Attempting to regain some control, he looked up again, meeting her eyes. Tonight they were pure blue, shining like the heat in the heart of a flame.

  She smiled at him, her lips curving in what could only be an invitation. One that, God help him, he didn’t have the strength to refuse.

  She held out her hand, palm flattened. Before the thought of why this was wrong could intrude again, he placed his fingers on top of hers, his thumb curling around them tightly.

  Then, because just as she had, he had known this was inevitable, he allowed her to lead him to the bed that had beckoned since he’d entered the room. Right or wrong, he was totally incapable of turning back now.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Here. And here.”

  He closed his eyes again, trying to regain some shred of control. Some vestige of sanity. He would ultimately lose this battle—just as he had earlier—but his pride refused to let him surrender without a fight.

  He had intended to make love to Raine. Of course, there was an old axiom about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. In this case it had proven to be the road to Heaven instead.

  He eased a breath, trying to still the growing clamor in his body. To stem the rising tide of molten heat that was flooding his veins, filling them with a demand that knew only one release.

  He had lost count of the number of times she had brought him to climax. Found it impossible to catalogue the methods she had used.

  With her hands, with her lips, teeth and tongue, she had shown him things about his own body and its responses that no other woman had ever evoked.

  No other woman…

  He was almost mindless with sensation. Drowning in it. And yet every second of every intimacy, he was aware of her. As if, while she physically touched him, she was also infusing her feelings within him.

  “And this,” she whispered.

  In response to what she had just done, the fingers of his right hand closed over the sheet, clenching it. A jolt of sensation lifted his hips off the mattress.

  The fingers of his left hand, tangled through the long, silken strands of her hair, had also tightened reflexively before he realized he might be hurting her. With the last ounce of willpower he possessed, he forced them to loosen.

  As they did, the flood of sensation he’d fought gained ground against his determination. He knew then that there was no longer anything he could do to prevent what was about to happen.

  Nothing except to give in and ride out another incredible experience.

  The urge to do so was almost irresistible. Instead, he took another breath, rebuilding control over his body atom by atom. Nerve ending by nerve ending. Inch by inch.

  This time… This time…

  She touched him again, and the gains he had counted in millimeters were wiped out by a pleasure so intense it literally took his breath. He wasn’t even certain what she’d done. He supposed it didn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things.

  Whatever it was had destroyed the last glimmer of restraint. Feeling flared along nerve pathways so sensitized that pleasure verged on pain.

  His hips lifted again. His back arched, every muscle stretched hard and tight. His head fell back, the tendons in his neck corded with strain. His mouth opened, trying to pull a breath into aching lungs as the air thinned and darkened around him. Consciousness of the present spiraled away into a void, riding the crest of sensation.

  When it was finally over, he could do nothing but lie, limp and exhausted, as the sweat-drenched sheets beneath him grew cold. After an eternity, he opened his eyes to find that Raine was propped above him on one elbow, looking down into his face.

  At some point during the night she had turned out the lamps on either side of the bed. The only light in the room was moonlight, which painted one cheek and half her forehead with silver, leaving the other side in shadow. Her eyes were luminous, dark and wide.

  “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

  Her lips curved at his question before she leaned forward to place them gently over his. They were cool against his heated skin. Smooth and s
lightly moist.

  “I’m making love to you,” she whispered as she straightened. “Do you like it?”

  He couldn’t conjure up words that would adequately answer that question, so he decided not to try. “I’m supposed to make love to you,” he said instead.

  “Is that a rule?”

  “I always thought so,” he admitted, allowing his lips to relax into an answering smile.

  He was relieved that she didn’t seem disappointed with what was happening between them. After all, she had taken the initiative from the beginning. He’d let her, of course, assuming that their lovemaking would eventually become something more normal.

  Normal…

  Like an earthquake? Or a nuclear explosion?

  She had promised him incredible, and she’d been right. It was just that this was nothing like he’d anticipated. Nothing he could have anticipated.

  “I’ve never played by the rules,” she said. “Maybe because I never understood them.”

  “You understand enough.”

  The corner of her mouth that was visible moved again. “This has nothing to do with rules.”

  “Maybe with breaking them.”

  “And you’ve never been comfortable with that.”

  Another instance when she seemed to know more about him than she should. He was becoming used to those.

  Because she was right, of course. A lot of Griff’s operatives had been mavericks and loners, men comfortable with chaos and disorder who, if it hadn’t been for Cabot, would have preferred to operate outside the parameters of a team.

  He had always been more disciplined, once even believing he could impose order not only upon himself, but also on the world around him. And that by working with Griff’s elite counterterrorism team, he could bring justice and freedom to those who had never known it.

  He had found instead an international community indifferent to human suffering and to the madmen who caused it. Despite Cabot’s efforts, the CIA had eventually restricted the team’s actions so much that it was as if they were forced to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. Because of that, good men had died, some in ways he still had nightmares about.