INTIMATE STRANGER

by Donna Sterling

  No more. She could allow herself no more. She had to get away from him. Never had that realization been harder to face than now, while she lay in his strong, hot, muscular embrace, her body sated from their lovemaking, her every nerve glowing and pulsating from the intensity of her climax.

  Holding him, loving him, filled her with too fierce a tenderness. If she stayed for even one more kiss, she'd become hopelessly ensnared in her emotions. She'd look for excuses to stay longer. To sleep with him. Become a part of his life again. Soon she'd be striving with every fiber of her being to become the very center of his life. Trev Montgomery had always had that effect on her. But she couldn't give in to those impulses. The danger to her—and him—could not be ignored. She forced herself to remember in torturous detail the fear she'd lived with as a child; the tragedies she'd known; the deaths she'd seen; the threats made against her and everyone she loved. The lies she'd told Trev. The truths she'd concealed. The vows she'd made in exchange for protection.

  If she was seen with him, that protection could be withdrawn.

  If she was recognized, she could be killed. If he was known to be her "loved one," he could be killed, too.

  Why had she risked coming to his room? She must have been crazy! But as he nibbled at her neck and murmured something low and gruff against her skin, the depth of her reaction reminded her of why she'd abandoned all caution. She simply couldn't resist the man. That fact frightened her. She had to leave. Immediately.

  And never see him again, or speak to him. Or hear his voice. Or feel his touch. Or taste his kiss. The thought broke her heart all over again. She couldn't think about the incredible love they'd just made, or the loneliness they'd both been suffering for so many years. Or the loneliness she would continue to suffer.

  She had to leave. Focusing only on that, she pulled away from him. Or at least, tried to.

  He tightened his embrace. "Where you going?"

  She closed her eyes and prayed for strength. "Bathroom."

  He kissed her ear, then rimmed it lightly with his tongue, provoking showers of hot sensation. "Hurry back."

  Slipping out of his embrace—away from the heat and feel and scent of him—she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. You must do this. You must leave. And you can't let him stop you. She turned on the bedside lamp and searched for her clothing, which lay scattered about on the floor.

  "You won't be needing your clothes for quite some time yet," he drawled, obviously watching her. "I'm already getting my second wind."

  Her throat was too tight to offer a reply. Refusing to meet his gaze, she continued snatching up articles of her clothing on the way to the bathroom.

  "Jen?" he called after her, sounding perplexed.

  She locked the bathroom door behind her and dressed as quickly as she could, trying not to think about the man waiting in bed for her. If she gave him even a sliver of thought, she'd never be able to leave him.

  She had to think about the route she would take to leave the hotel—a side entrance, maybe, to avoid being seen by the co-workers she hadn't met in the lounge as she'd planned, or the hotel employees who might recognize her as she sneaked out of a hotel room. Paranoid she might be, but she didn't welcome questions or suspicions of any kind. Whether she liked it or not, her main goal in life had to be maintaining a low profile.

  "Jen, are you getting dressed?" Trev asked from outside the bathroom door.

  She fastened her bra, then pulled her sweater over her head. "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I, um, have to leave." Hastily she stepped into her skirt and zipped it up. Blindly, then, she stared into the mirror, until her image gradually formed and she combed trembling fingers through her tangled hair. Silence answered her.

  She'd have to face him in person, of course, before she could leave the room. Please, Trev, just let me go. Don't make this harder than it already is. She smoothed her narrow black skirt, stepped into her high-heeled shoes, and braced herself for the task ahead. She would grab her purse from wherever she'd dropped it, utter a calm "goodbye" and head for the door.

  And open that door. Walk through it. Never look back. God help me.

  "It's early," Trev was saying from just outside the bathroom. "Just past ten. Stay a while longer." In a huskier voice, he added, "We're not finished yet."

  A pang of longing pierced her. If only that could be true. "I can't stay." Again, silence.

  Swallowing a sudden rise of tears, she struggled to force a calm she didn't feel. It was imperative that she present an impersonal face to him. Only when she'd sufficiently quelled the threat of tears did she open the bathroom door.

  After a few determined strides into the bedroom, she stopped dead at the sight of him.

  He stood beside the rumpled bed where they'd just made love, his broad, tawny-haired chest, powerful shoulders and rippling biceps glistening by lamplight as he pulled his faded jeans up and over his lean, bare hips. His hair, cropped in short, thick layers around his somber face, gleamed in sexy disarray. His strong, square, capable hands—now occupied in zipping up his jeans—brought to mind the fires he'd so recently set in her blood. He was so damn beautiful, she had to choke back tears again.

  She'd thought she'd felt a new breadth and hardness to his chest and shoulders, but she hadn't been able to see him in the dark. He looked, if possible, even better than he had seven years ago. His body, still lean and deeply tanned from his work outdoors, was certainly more muscular. He'd apparently been laboring hard, alongside his construction crews.

  How she longed to hold him. Just one more time. A brief hug before she left. She couldn't, of course. Or she'd never go. Find your purse. Get the hell out of here.

  She spotted her purse on the bedside table behind him. A mild sense of surprise nipped at her. Had she set it there? She didn't believe so. She thought she'd dropped it on the floor near the door.

  Regardless of how her handbag had come to be sitting on that bedside table, she had to retrieve it. Stealing herself to venture near him as he reached for his sweater that lay draped over the bed, she held her breath and moved past him. His heated male scent assailed her, went to her head like the finest brandy. She bit down on her cheek in her struggle to remain aloof.

  One kiss goodbye. Just one last kiss…

  She looped the purse strap over her shoulder, tucked the leather handbag beneath her arm and resolutely headed for the door.

  He shifted into her path, still shirtless, shoeless and heart-stoppingly male. "If you have to go, I'll walk you to your car." His voice was gruff and intimate, his gaze direct, as he held his sweater between his hands. "Just give me a minute to finish getting dressed."

  Her heart turned over. He was such a caring man. A good, decent, caring man … whom she loved beyond all reason. "Thank you, but that won't be necessary."

  "I insist."

  Her knees went weak at the intensity again simmering in his keen, amber-eyed stare. The man had a way of letting a woman know he wanted her—even without a touch or a word. She'd never been able to resist his silent beckoning.

  One night. Just one full night. The temptation called to her with devastating pull. His gaze lowered to her mouth. She drifted closer, hungering.

  But, no! She had to resist.

  She jerked back and smothered an anguished cry.

  "Tell me what's wrong, Jen," he implored. "What did I say, what did I do—"

  "It's nothing like that. It's not you." She squeezed both her hands around the purse strap, feeling sick with frustration and anguish. "You were … everything good. Everything wonderful." She choked on the last word and wrenched her gaze away from him, needing to put an end to the torment.

  He trailed her to the door, pulling his sweater over his head and shoulders as he walked.

  She halted with her hand on the doorknob. "No, please, don't follow me." The misery was seeping into her heart, making it difficult to think clearly. She had to stop him from wanting her. It was then that she remembere
d the role she played. "You don't have to walk me to my car. I won't be leaving the hotel just yet." How she hated the lie she was about to tell! "I … I have another appointment."

  He drew his brows together as if he didn't quite understand. "Another appointment?"

  Had he forgotten that she was, allegedly, a prostitute? She herself had forgotten for a while. Compressing her lips to stop their trembling, she held his questioning gaze. "Another client." The rest of her words eeked out on a whisper. "He's been waiting."

  Incredulity gathered on Trev's face as the meaning of her words sank in. Clearly he didn't believe her. Or rather, didn't want to believe her.

  For both their sakes, she had to make him believe. "Which reminds me." She swallowed a great swelling in her throat and forced a stiff smile. "You, um, owe me." Her heart thudded so loudly she could barely hear her own words. How much to ask for? Twenty? Fifty? A hundred? Having no idea how much a prostitute would charge, she strove for moderation. "That will be fifty bucks."

  He continued to simply stare. Oh, but the quality of that stare gradually changed, and her very heart flinched at the difference. Gone was the heat, the longing, the determination—even the astonishment. It seemed that a shield had lowered to conceal whatever it was he now felt. A cool, hard shield that effectively shut her out.

  In the cold. The bitter cold. The pain was too great. She had to leave.

  It wasn't until she opened the door and turned to leave that she realized he'd extended his hand. At first, she thought he had reached for her, and some of the pain abated. Impossible though it was, she longed for him to somehow stop her from leaving. A wound gaped in her heart that only he could heal.

  But then she realized he wasn't reaching for her. He was merely handing her something. Money. Crisp, green bills.

  She took them. Crinkling them into her fist, she turned sharply away from him. He didn't stop her, or follow her, or utter a single word. She strode from the room with seriously clouded vision. Step after purposeful step, she kept on until she'd reached a widening in the corridor—the elevator bay. Blindly she punched the down button.

  Only when she stood in the elevator safely alone did she allow herself to breathe—a loud, gulping breath, then another. She'd done it. She'd left him again. Slipped out of his life, into the night, to meld with the darkness like a shadow. Which, indeed, she was. A faceless, nameless shadow. A void.

  She hoped he hadn't seen the tears.

  * * *

  3

  « ^ »

  Trev kept himself brutally busy all weekend.

  Saturday morning he met with his attorney to tie up details of the land purchase, then worked through lunch with his project foreman. He interviewed subcontractors until late afternoon, when he stopped to tour the property with his landscape consultant. That evening, he dined with business associates at a reception held on their behalf by his real estate agent.

  He spent Sunday with the same real estate agent, Melinda Gregory, in search of a house to rent until he'd built his own. Melinda, a buxom brunette with large, dark, bedroom eyes, left no doubt that she'd welcome his personal attention. He gave it serious thought as she drove him back to his hotel that Sunday evening. Why shouldn't he take her up on her unspoken offer? He was officially a single man now, and she was an attractive woman with an earthy sophistication that appealed to him. Best of all, she wasn't a prostitute.

  A prostitute.

  The thought jarred him with an unpleasant rush—and sent his mind veering down the very path he'd been trying to avoid all weekend. He didn't want to think about prostitutes, or the woman he'd foolishly taken to his bed Friday night.

  He had no excuse for his behavior. He'd bought sex. Guilt swamped him at the memory of handing her money. He didn't approve of women selling their bodies or men exploiting them. What the hell had he been thinking, then, when he'd asked her to his room? He hadn't been thinking at all.

  He'd been too busy feeling, and reacting to her resemblance to Diana. His emotions had blinded him. Duped him.

  Despite her claims, he hadn't believed she was a prostitute. He'd gone by his gut reaction that she was, for some unknown reason, lying. He'd actually believed that she had come to his room because of a profound need for him. He'd wanted to understand that need, as well as assuage his own. How could he have been so green?

  She'd simply been doing her job.

  My God, he'd actually compared her in bed to Diana. The very idea now seemed sacrilegious. As arousing as the sex had been, a bought-and-paid-for coupling couldn't possibly have compared to lovemaking with his wife.

  It couldn't possibly.

  Yet, for the last two days, he hadn't stopped thinking about it. While he'd signed forms presented by his attorney, the sight of his own hand moving across the paper reminded him of when it had moved along warm, lush curves. While he'd sipped coffee at the meeting table, he'd flashed back to the taste and heat of her mouth, silky and sweet. During his tour of the property, the dark, ash-gold sand of the beach and the smoky-blue of the ocean had brought to mind her hair and eyes.

  And now, as Melinda Gregory allowed her dress to ride high on her thighs while she guided her Mercedes along a scenic stretch of highway, he thought about another pair of legs, wickedly long and shapely. Legs he'd folded around his hips while he thrust hard and deep…

  He shifted his unseeing gaze away from Melinda. He couldn't keep doing this—operating in a daze, reliving the heat of that illicit lovemaking. His body still felt sexually charged, as if a beast within him had been sleeping for seven years, but was now awake and voraciously hungry. Sex was on his mind, in his blood.

  In a way, it felt damn good. He'd been dead to true desire for too long, and now the vitality was back. Best of all, the object of those thoughts wasn't a ghost from his past, but a real, flesh-and-blood woman.

  He suppressed a self-derisive laugh. She was real, all right. A real prostitute.

  Maybe he should take advantage of Melinda's availability. Maybe a night with her would erase the images and sensations that had imprinted themselves too deeply on his psyche.

  When Melinda turned her Mercedes into the parking lot of the luxury hotel, however, Trev thanked her for showing him the rental houses and promised to be in touch. He then retired to his room. Alone.

  The frustrating fact was, he didn't want Melinda Gregory.

  Shaken by his inner turmoil—and the sensual memories that assailed him when he entered his hotel room—he ordered dinner from room service, poured a double shot of Jack Daniel's and turned on the television. He soon found himself ignoring both the drink and the Sunday night movie.

  He'd made love to a beautiful stranger here Friday night, in the very place he now rested. Her hair had fanned across this pillow as she'd writhed beneath him. He could almost smell her scent, feel her body heat. Taste her skin.

  Muttering an oath, he took his wallet from his pants pocket, drew out a business card and studied it. Guilt jabbed at him. He'd taken the card from her purse Friday night. When he'd realized she was dressing in the bathroom, preparing to leave, he'd been seized with an urge to somehow hold on to her. Not to let her out of his sight. Impossible, of course. As well as insane. At the very least, though, he had to know her name. Her real name—not the one she'd manufactured on the way to his room. From her driver's license and business cards, he'd been somewhat gratified to learn that she hadn't outright lied.

  Jennifer, her name was. Jennifer Hannah, Account Representative, Helping Hand Staffing Services.

  He almost snorted. Helping Hand Staffing Services. What a name. He was surprised that the card listed an actual street address rather than just a phone number, but he supposed there were hundreds of prostitution rings across the country masquerading as escort, dating or "staffing" agencies.

  He hated to think of Jennifer working for one. What had happened in her life to bring her so low? And why, if she needed money that damn much, was she charging only fifty bucks? Even he, a greenhorn when i
t came to prostitutes, knew that fifty dollars was too inexpensive for a woman of Jen's looks and elegance, especially at a luxury hotel.

  Tossing back a swallow of whiskey, he rose from the bed and paced. The money wasn't the only thing that confused him. She was obviously good at her work. She'd had him believing that only desire motivated her. She'd possessed uncanny knowledge of his likes, his needs—how to rile him into a heat greater than any he'd known since Diana. This expertise with a man she'd never met before smacked of vast experience as a prostitute.

  But other things made him doubt her experience. Not only the low price she'd asked, but also the emotion that had churned just beneath her surface. At first, he'd read it as sexual need—and an oddly passionate tenderness. When she'd been preparing to leave, her passion had turned to misery. Regret. Possibly even fear. She'd been so upset that she'd almost left without charging him.

  Another oddity was the fact that she'd lied. She'd told him that she had another client to see at this hotel. He'd been shocked and appalled to think she would leave his bed to go to another man. After she'd left, he'd wandered out onto the balcony of his room to suck in clearing draughts of cool night air, and calm himself. That's when he'd caught sight of her in the parking lot below, hurrying to her car.

  She'd obviously made up that excuse to leave him. She'd been desperate to get away. Why?

  As he mulled over the perplexities, only one reasonable explanation came to mind. Talented though she was in the bedroom, she was new to the job. The low price, her initial hesitation, the fear he'd sensed from her. And then the misery. The regret. The lie. The tears that she'd tried so hard to hold back. It all fit.

  But if she was new to the job, why had she run when she'd mistaken him for hotel security? She couldn't have been barred from the premises if she'd just begun her solicitations. Then again, an experienced prostitute probably wouldn't have panicked, while a rookie might overreact at attention from hotel authorities.

  Could he have been her first john? If so, she hadn't technically been a prostitute until he'd paid her that money. By accepting it, she'd become one.