Night of the Hawk (LS 767)

by Victoria Leigh

  "Who is this guy Blackthorne?"

  "Someone I worked with a few years back. He's not a cop, but that's all for the better in this case. He'll know what to do with you."

  "If he's so good, why aren't you coming too?"

  "I've got other things to do."

  Angela opened her mouth to ask another question—she had a couple dozen, minimum—but he interrupted before she could get started.

  "I'm going to grab a nap, Angel. Try to keep your curiosity corralled for another few hours." He didn't wait to see if she agreed, just levered the seat into a semireclining position and lay back.

  By the time Angela could take her eyes off the traffic to look at him, his eyes were closed. She couldn't resist one last question, though, maybe two. "What about San Rafael? Are you going back there?"

  "Right after I put you on that plane," he said, without opening his eyes.

  "It sounds to me like a particularly stupid thing to do," she muttered. "You're just asking for trouble."

  "Stupid was picking up that gun the other night," Hawk said matter-of-factly. "I'm taking a calculated risk."

  "It's that important?"

  "It is."

  "Then why did you leave it—whatever it is—behind in the first place?" She knew she sounded more than a little peeved. "You carry everything else in that bag of yours. I can't see where one more thing would matter."

  He opened his eyes and rolled his head on the seat to look at her. "You're not going to let me get any sleep, are you?"

  "I just can't see why you take risks when you don't have to—and that includes coming back for me this morning." She hung on tighter to the wheel and shifted in the seat until she found a more comfortable position. "You should have checked for lumbar support before you bought this. I've been driving twenty minutes and already my back aches."

  "Pull over, Angel."

  She looked at him in surprise. "I wasn't really complaining. . . . Well, maybe I was, but I didn't mean to. I can still drive, Hawk, so long as I remember to keep my back straight. You go ahead and sleep. I'll be fine."

  "Pull over anyway," he said quietly. "Please."

  She did a mental shrug and did as he asked, or perhaps commanded. With Hawk, the distinction was moot. Courtesy tags like please and thank you were a device he used to soften his orders, but they were still orders. Traffic was sparse in the falling twilight, and she was able to find a spot just off the road in the deep shadows of towering evergreens. Braking to a stop and shutting off the engine, she looked aside to find Hawk watching her from the reclining seat.

  "What?" she asked after a long, silent minute.

  "You still don't get it, do you?"

  "Get what?"

  "This." He reached out one hand and cupped the side of her face before she realized what he was about. When he began stroking her cheek with his thumb, any protests— whether valid or not—died unsaid. The confusion that had plagued her regarding her own responses to Hawk lost importance beneath the gentleness of his caress, and she leaned into his hand because it seemed the most natural thing to do.

  "I've spent eight months planning how I was going to hit back at Constantine," he said evenly, "but suddenly you waltz into the picture with your smart mouth and gold-dusted eyes, and I discover I'm not quite so willing to die for the pleasure of putting Constantine in his grave."

  "You're not going after him anymore?" she asked, and her heart missed a beat as things she had taken for granted began to change.

  "I don't know what I'm going to do. Right now, though, I just want to kiss you." His gaze focused on her mouth, where his thumb was testing the suppleness of her bottom lip. He exerted an almost imperceptible pressure there, and was rewarded when her lips parted slightly.

  "That's all?" she asked on a whisper of sound. "You want to kiss me?"

  "For starters, Angel. Like I did before, but better. This morning, I didn't give you a choice. I snuck up on your blind side and kissed you before you knew what I was about." Hawk smiled crookedly, then sat up and flipped the lever to right the seat without taking his hand from her face. "I want to do it again, Angel. There's something about the way you responded to me that's been tormenting me all day."

  "Tormenting?"

  "Mmm. Those few seconds before you remembered you shouldn't be kissing me at all weren't enough to tell."

  "Tell what?"

  "Whether you're going to melt in my arms ... or burn. Either one is fine, Angel, but not knowing which it's going to be is driving me right out of my mind."

  In the fading light, gold pricks of light in her eyes shone out at him from twin emerald skies. The pink tip of her tongue slid between her lips, slicing a wet path across the pad of his thumb. He sucked in a deep, sharp breath and let it out with a rough groan. Then, because he couldn't not do it, he closed his hands around her waist and lifted her clean across the center console. He settled her in his lap with her shoulders in the crook of his arm and her legs draped across the console.

  She didn't feign outrage or struggle or even look too surprised. In fact, there was a little smile on her mouth that told him she'd expected as much. Hawk even suspected that she wondered what had taken him so long. Blood pooled in his groin as her slight weight rested in his lap, and he knew just by looking into her eyes that she was fully aware of his hard arousal pressing against her hip.

  She did surprise him, though, when she lifted a hand to his face and stroked the area on either side of the "shaving accident" scratch. "I shouldn't have hurt you."

  "You didn't. It was my own fault for not giving you more credit."

  "But it was just yesterday," she murmured. "It seems so long ago."

  "What are you thinking?" he asked when her expression turned thoughtful.

  "You're not the only one whose plan has changed over the last two days," she said after a short hesitation. "Before I met you, the most urgent goal in my life was to get away for some quality solitude. Now the idea of being alone, widiout you, makes me feel empty inside. When I first realized how you make me feel, I was uneasy and a little ashamed, because it didn't seem right that I should be attracted to you. The situation was too bizarre, too intense."

  "And now?"

  "Now I realize I was trying to judge my reactions by normal standards, and they simply don't apply. There hasn't been anything normal or ordinary about this situation from the beginning." A look that was part shy, part daring flickered across her face as she lifted her hands and wrapped them around his neck. "The intensity probably accelerated the course of events, but it didn't create them. I might not have a lot of experience in recognizing my body's responses, but I can't believe I'd feel what I feel now if I really wasn't attracted to you, regardless of the circumstances."

  She wrinkled her nose and looked earnestly at him. "Does that make sense?"

  "Some." He cocked his head. "Are you trying to justify why you feel good sitting on my lap?"

  "No," she said, and her smile looked a little embarrassed. "I'm trying to tell you that if you came back to Sammy's because the idea of sex with me was too good to miss, then you're in for a major disappointment. My experience in that field is limited to a couple of unmemorable affairs when I was just starting out on my own, followed by one live-in boyfriend named Frank who confined his sexual repertoire to a single uninteresting position and wasn't open to suggestions."

  Hawk wasn't sure how they'd come to be talking about her sexual experience, but he didn't really mind. Discovering she'd had just one lover of any consequence, and an inept one to boot, kept him from being too annoyed by the subject of other men.

  Showing her that there was more to lovemaking, however, would have to wait at least until he'd finished the job in San Rafael. Until then, talking was all they could do about it—unless he counted kissing, but she was stalling for some reason and the last thing he wanted to do was rush her.

  When they kissed, all he wanted to see in her eyes was desire, not reluctance.

  "I'm surprised you sta
yed with him," he said.

  "He stayed with me. By the time I realized that sex wasn't Frank's only dull facet, it took more time than I could spare to convince him to move out. I probably wouldn't even have noticed when he finally did leave, except that he took the cat he'd bought me for my birthday."

  She let out a long sigh that warmed his chest through his shirt. "I wouldn't have told you all this, but you've hinted you came back for me for reasons other than a sense of responsibility, and it wouldn't be honest to lead you on. I'm not good at what I think you want from me."

  Hawk kept a straight face, although how he did it was a mystery. It was so endearing, the way she matter-of-factly laid open her imagined shortcomings. The only appropriate response, he decided, was to reply with corresponding frankness.

  "Sex with you will be good," he said simply, "although in your case, I'd rather refer to it as making love."

  "I just told you I wasn't—"

  He touched a finger to her lips, and her words were lost. "You'll have to trust me on this one, Angel. If you were more experienced, you'd know that by the way we respond to each other."

  "We'll be good, you think?"

  "Very good."

  Her partially lowered lashes hid her expression, but her body signaled in other ways that she took pleasure from his assurance. First, there was the barely perceptible quickening in the pulse at her throat, and her breaths came out shallow and fast. Then her nipples hardened to thrust against her knitted sweater, and a moan escaped her lips as he slid his hand from her waist to the firm curve of her hip.

  Her fingers tightened at his nape, and she lifted her face until their mouths almost touched. "I seem to remember you telling me you weren't going to do anything about, um, how you felt," she murmured.

  "That was before I realized I didn't have a choice," he said thickly. "When I kissed you this morning, when your lips trembled under mine, I knew everything had changed."

  "You changed?"

  "No, Angel," he said as he lowered his head another millimeter. "You did. You discovered you wanted me too."

  "Your confidence overwhelms me."

  He froze and narrowed his gaze on hers, and it wasn't until he saw that her eyes were dancing and her mouth curved with laughter that he realized she was teasing. He wasn't used to that. "What are you doing on my lap if that isn't the case?"

  "You put me here."

  "So I did." He felt the beginnings of his own smile. "I did not, however, put your hands around my neck. You did that on your own."

  She nodded in agreement. "That was back when I thought you were going to kiss me. If I'd known you were going to talk me to death, I wouldn't have bothered."

  It wasn't a fair assessment of the situation, Angela realized, because she'd been the one doing the talking. But it had seemed so important to say those things, and despite the rather rambling way they'd come out, she felt better because her conclusions were sound.

  She was attracted to Hawk in a way that transcended logic. As she looked into his eyes and saw the desire that was as unmistakable as it was fierce, she realized that all the talking in the world couldn't explain the sense of lightness she felt in his arms.

  It was just there, right and strong.

  She didn't have a chance to take another breath before his mouth was on hers and he was doing exactly what they both wanted, kissing her. And she was kissing him, opening her mouth for the thrust of his tongue because she knew instinctively that he wanted her like that, fast and hot and without barriers.

  It was the kind of kiss she'd learned the mechanics of back in high school and never enjoyed much. With Hawk, everything changed, up to and including her perception of pleasure. It began in her lips as they moved against his, a tingling awareness of pressure and friction that was exciting in itself but only part of the whole. His tongue evoked even stronger sensations, stroking across hers, curling around and doing it again, teasing her into following his lead until she took him up on it and ran the tip of her tongue across his smooth, even teeth, and then deeper.

  Someone groaned. She thought it was Hawk, but it might have been her, because the heat of their kiss was beginning to affect her all over, in her breasts—especially the crests where they brushed against his chest—and in the place between her legs that was just inches from where his hand gripped her hip.

  Hawk thrust his tongue into her mouth, slowly withdrew, then did it again. And again, until a rhythm was established. Angela responded by moving her hips, riding under the gentle guidance of his hand until she brushed against his erection in the same rhythm. He slipped his hand under her sweater, debated a moment when he encountered her silk camisole, then went under that, too, pushing it up and away until his hand was curved around her breast and her hard velvety nipple was between his fingers.

  He hadn't meant to take it this far, the kiss he'd been waiting for so long, all day ... an aeon, what was the difference? But her response was so intense, so alive, he couldn't resist touching, enjoying her heat. Her breast was full and heavy in his hand, and he thought about what she must be feeling between her legs, the moisture that had to be gathering there. He wondered what she'd do if he unzipped her jeans and slid his fingers inside her panties.

  She moaned, or maybe he did. It didn't matter, because the pleasure was exquisite and he wanted more of it. He moved his hand across her hip to her belly, then down, pushing into the vee between her legs, parting them so he could cup her there and feel her heat. The sound came again, and Hawk realized she was trying to say something and couldn't do that very well with his tongue in her mouth.

  He lifted his head an inch, then squeezed her nipple, wanting to hear how much she liked it. A cry of pleasure was his reward, and he hugged her tighter against his groin, stilling the rhythm that was driving him wild, but keeping his hand between her legs. He stroked her there, rubbing his fingers hard against the soft jeans, and stole a kiss when another cry escaped her lips. She unlocked her hands from his neck and grabbed his wrist through her sweater as though to pull him away. He almost took his hand from her breast right then until he realized she was holding him closer, harder against her heated flesh.

  "We can't," she finally said, and he agreed, but couldn't resist teasing her nipple some more.

  "Don't worry, Angel. We're not going any further with this, not now," he said roughly, his voice stuck somewhere beneath the lump in his throat. "Just let me hold you a little longer, touch you."

  He covered her mouth again, and this time matched the rhythm of his tongue to that of his hand between her legs. She writhed against him with such sweet, uninhibited passion that it was increasingly difficult not to say the hell with his scruples and take her right there in the truck.

  He didn't, though. He couldn't. Instead, he continued giving her pleasure in the only way he dared. Besides being awkward, anything more was out of the question, his own fulfillment included. It wasn't possible to make love to her the way he wanted to, with her naked in his arms as he thrust himself inside her again and again. . . . Impossible, because after he put her on that plane for Denver, there was a good chance he'd never see her again.

  Precautions weren't one hundred percent guaranteed, and he was damned if he'd let her fly out of his life if there was even one chance that she carried his child. His future.

  He couldn't do that to either of them, not when it was almost certain he didn't have a future.

  Her soft moan nearly broke his resolve, and it took a mighty effort to shift her a safe distance down his thighs so he could continue his caresses without the enticing weight of her body against his erection. He devoured her mouth in another long, wet kiss, then spread her legs a bit more to allow his hand freer access.

  "Don't, Angel," he said when she tried to recover the gap between their bodies. "Just lie back and let me—"

  "Let you what, Hawk?" she demanded, pushing his hands away and wriggling as close to upright as she could manage. "Let you show me how far gone I am that I don't even care how
selfish I'm being?"

  "Don't be ridiculous. This seat's too small for anything else."

  "In which case, we should get back on the road." She smoothed her sweater down, leaving her nipples clearly outlined in the process.

  Hawk couldn't help reaching out to pluck at one of the beaded nubs, and was rewarded by the sharp hiss of air between her teeth. He rolled the nipple between his fingers and luxuriated in the look of pure passion on her face.

  "That's right, Angel. It feels good, doesn't it? Just lie back against my arm and—"

  "And nothing!" She swatted his hand away and glared at him, her eyes shooting golden sparks as the color rose high in her cheeks. "Look here, Hawksworth, I've been there, done it, got the T-shirt, and I'm telling you now, I've had enough!"

  "What are you babbling about?" he asked. "Enough of what?"

  "The way you always have to be in control," she said heatedly. "It's always 'do this,' 'don't do that,' 'hush,' 'shut up,' or something just as obnoxious. I can't decide whether I feel more like a toddler or a dog." With that, she used his stomach and shoulders for leverage and began to clamber back over to the driver's seat.

  Hawk tried to help, but she elbowed his hands aside and he clucked back out of her way because a black eye or worse wasn't what he had in mind when he'd started kissing her. He waited until she was settled behind the wheel and deigned to look at him before speaking.

  "I'm sorry, Angel," he said quietly. "I wasn't trying to control you. I wanted to give you pleasure."

  "I know that, Hawk. It's just that I didn't want . . ." Her gaze softened. She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment, then finally said, "I didn't want it to be like that."

  "With me in control?"

  "You have to admit you've got a habit of taking charge of every little thing." She looked down to where her hands were clasped tightly in her lap.

  Hawk reached out to lift her chin with the tip of his index finger. "You're overreacting, Angela. At no point since I pulled you onto my lap were you without control. You could have stopped me at any time."