Angel Face

by Suzanne Forster

  “Come over here,” he said.

  Another blink of those enormous eyes. He couldn’t help but think about how vulnerable she looked at that moment. He liked her better in shock.

  “I want you to hold your forehead against my cheek, so I can check your temperature and your pulse. You look feverish, and I’m concerned about your blood pressure.”

  She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “I’m fine,” she said, dismissing his concern with a waggle of her fingers.

  He almost believed her, but then she winked at him. The woman who came to his house and sobbed over Birdy’s broken body? Wink?

  “Come here,” he instructed.

  She rose to her feet with an exasperated sigh and dropped down right beside him. Her flushed face was pressed against his before he could prepare himself for such intimate contact. And then suddenly his whole body was alert for it. Contact. The more intimate the better.

  His poor biceps twitched like a hungry dog’s tail.

  “Your forehead,” he reminded her. “We’re not here to dance.”

  She actually laughed, but she was a hurricane lamp of radiant heat. The fever was coming back with a vengeance, but she couldn’t feel its effects. Or her racing pulse. She was running on adrenaline from the shock and exhausting all her resources. When the adrenaline stopped pumping, she would collapse.

  There was an opportunity here, but his training wouldn’t let him take advantage of it. Idiot, he told himself. This is the jungle. You’re a hostage. She’s a serial killer, possibly of the lust murderer variety.

  “Look at me,” he told her. “I want to see your eyes.”

  She murmured, “Okay,” but kept rubbing her face against his, and then he felt her breath at his throat and his heart began trying to stage another jailbreak. God, what she did to his crazed vital signs.

  “Let me go,” he urged. “Angela, untie me now.”

  “I can’t let you go. I need you,” she whispered, still nuzzling. She’d tucked her face into the hollow of his neck in the way of a child seeking comfort.

  “Need me?” It was hard not to like the sound of that.

  “I need you to believe me, I need you to help me . . .”

  Maybe he’d hoped for a slightly different conjugation of the verb to need, but there was promise in the way she sighed out the words. Not that he was looking for fulfillment. Getting fulfilled by this woman would be suicidal. It rhymed with killed.

  Several low-pitched howls caught his attention, followed by a medley of throaty snarling, snapping, and mewling. It sounded like cats in love. Big cats. Anguish gripped his soul as he realized that the jungle was a metaphor for everything that was secret and libidinal in civilized life. Humans had the same urges and desires but didn’t dare to whisper them. The jungle screamed them. Mating calls. Hungers at every level. An orgy.

  And guess who was trapped in the middle of it with a woman who refused to put her clothes on. Who didn’t even seem to know she was naked.

  “Listen to me,” he said sharply. “You’re sick. What you need is medical help.” There was a doctor’s bag in his truck, but he was reluctant to tell her because he’d hidden something in there.

  “I’ll be all right,” she insisted. “All I need is to rest for a minute and your body is so cool and lovely.”

  His body was a potter’s kiln. What man’s wouldn’t be with an achingly beautiful creature melting and running all over him? Her voice was as delicately soft and fiery as her translucent skin. He could see the blue veins in her closed eyelids, in her gently rising breasts, and in the hand that had fallen across his bunched thighs.

  God, just get it over with, woman. Murder me now and put me out of my misery.

  Another crescendo of howling and hissing echoed his sentiments. The mating animals were at it again. But Angela was as unaware of the primal noise as she was of his turmoil. After a few moments, she drowsily lifted her head and looked at him.

  “I’m fine now,” she said.

  Her expression was sleepy and rather sweet, but she wasn’t fine. Hot red spots the size of silver dollars dominated each of her pale cheeks, and there was a tranced quality to her eyes that made her look like an antique porcelain doll. God, how he wished she would cover herself or that he could get his damn hands free.

  “Angela,” he said with what he hoped was enough conviction to break through her lethargy, “you must untie me. Get me out of these ropes, and I’ll help you. I will help you.”

  “I know,” she said softly, “I know you will, but there’s something else I have to do first.”

  “What?”

  “This.” She covered herself with crossed arms and settled back to look at him, regarding him with such complete and total absorption, he found it hard to breathe normally.

  He followed her gaze as it skimmed upward and lingered on his hair. Was she imagining how it would feel to slide her fingers through the iron waves? The softness would surprise her, he knew. His scalp prickled in anticipation, and deep in the pit of his belly something moved. It was a sensation primitive enough to make him think of the snakes that slithered over the jungle floor.

  Her gaze dropped to his eyes, and the sensation intensified. He wasn’t controlling the responses anymore; she was. With a flick of her focus, she could make his gut quiver. Whether she knew it or not, she wielded a fantastic amount of power, enough to make him wonder if he’d misdiagnosed her. Maybe this wasn’t shock; maybe there was something else going on here.

  As if reading his thoughts, she pressed a knuckle to her lower lip, dragging on its fullness as she moved her head back and forth, up and down. She murmured something he couldn’t hear. A breast had been bared, and God, how he wanted to look, but her mouth had just come open and he was riveted by the erotic possibilities. Something needed to be inside that wet, beautiful mouth—now.

  A cool breath of air brought his head up instantly. “What are you doing?”

  He thought she’d blown on his lips, but it was her fingers. She was exploring his mouth with her fingertips. She’d barely touched him and yet she’d drawn sparks. It was the shower of gold when a blowtorch touched metal. Every damn thing she did drew sparks.

  Jordan had a flash of her rising above him and dangling one of her luscious breasts over his face, dipping down just enough that he could suckle a moment before she pulled up. Once again, heat surged into his groin. Heat and wild desire. If she didn’t drive him mad, his own fantasies would.

  “Get me out of these ropes—”

  “I can’t, not yet. There’s something I need.”

  Something she needed. Sweet Jesus. There was only one thing he needed.

  Her fingers fell away, and her lips replaced them. She kissed him with breathless ardor, but this time, he didn’t respond. Despite the fact that her mouth was as sweetly agitated as his gut, he wouldn’t allow himself to feel any part of it. He held back. He held on. He had to.

  “You can stop now,” he told her with a low groan. “I said I’d help.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t really mean it.”

  “I did—”

  She cut off his protest with another kiss, and he was helpless to stop her. He couldn’t stop himself. His responses zinged back like rubber bands, stronger for having been stretched taut.

  “I meant it,” he told her.

  “No, you didn’t,” she whispered through the chaos ringing in his ears, “but you will.”

  It was all starting to blur. He couldn’t separate the feelings, they were so intense, and yet he knew exactly what was happening the instant she began to touch him. He was going over the side. He was headed for a wipeout.

  Her first touch raised the hair all over his body. Her second sent him sighing and tumbling. It didn’t matter where she touched him, just that she did. Her fingers were plumes, the velvet of rose petals. It was impossible to describe the softness, but they were all over him and yet barely made contact. They feathered and flurried and sprinkled the sharpest kind of e
cstasy. His body loved every breath and caress.

  Yes, God, yes, that was nice. He let out a moan, flinching as she tickled his belly. She fluttered her fingers down his torso, and his muscles knotted. It was unbearable, but he wanted more. Contact. Intimate contact.

  Touch me everywhere, even there. Yes, there!

  The breath surged out of him, and electricity rocketed through his groin. God, how he wanted her to relieve the pressure. He was going to blow out like a tire.

  “What the hell do you want from me?” he demanded harshly.

  “I want you on my side, but there’s something I have to know first.”

  “What is it? Ask me. Anything.”

  “I have to know that you won’t ever betray me.”

  She rose above him with an urgency that took him by surprise. Her dark eyes bored into his, spiraling into depths he hadn’t known were there. What in God’s name? She was deadly serious about this. He half expected her to produce a stingray spine and a ceremonial bowl.

  “I won’t.” He would have promised anything, and she knew it.

  “That isn’t enough, Jordan. I have to be sure, and there’s only one way I can do that.”

  Her voice raised goose bumps on the back of his neck. Her mouth was moving, but the eerie proclamation seemed to come from somewhere else, from above him, behind him, whispering and echoing, like the jungle. She was every one of its libidinal urges personified, and he couldn’t resist her, even if it meant this was the last thing he ever did.

  “What do you need? Tell me what you need.”

  She arched over him so precariously he thought she was going to tumble into him and knock them both over. She was surreal, unreal, hovering like a dream, and her breasts dangled just above his face. God, let this be a hallucination, he prayed. Let me wake up from this agonizing dream.

  “Your soul, Jordan . . . your mortal soul, as naked and trembling as the day you were conceived . . .”

  It was a dream. It had to be. Who said things like that?

  Her voice was everywhere, surrounding him again. Her breasts brushed his face, and each caress made him throbbingly harder. Her voice, her breasts, her nakedness, they all whispered of a journey unlike anything he’d ever taken. His mouth watered. His throat ached.

  Somewhere an animal cried out, squealing a warning, and something inside Jordan echoed the haunting sound. The soul was a man’s last refuge, but she already had everything else, why not that? And yet if he believed it was the life source and the only link to a higher power, then without it he would cease to exist. Was that too high a price to pay for the nirvana she promised?

  He was completely caught up in her spell. Completely. He didn’t know dream from reality, real from surreal. He didn’t know himself. Once he had doubted whether this woman could hurt someone. Now he knew she could do anything. The jaguar had been safe compared to her.

  “This is insane,” he got out, but she was at him again.

  His jaw clenched against the riot of sensation she elicited. Her lips and fingers were exquisite and deadly. They brushed his body like charged air, sizzling with static electricity. Pleasure wasn’t meant to be this strong. He was already a netted animal, a circus beast, but she wanted him cooperative at any cost.

  She was part seductress, part waif, part avenging angel, and by the time she was done with him, she’d brought him to a throbbing pitch. He looked down only once—the instant she stopped—and saw his own bursting need. He was hot and swollen, hungry for conquest. He was engorged and glistening from excitement he couldn’t control. She saw it, too. Gazing up at him, she spread his own moisture all over him with her fingers, as if preparing him for what was to come.

  Her mouth was slack and beautiful. Her lips were wet from her tongue, and her head rocked forward. He watched in awe as her eyelids quivered. She was in a trance, too, he realized. This ritual had completely taken over her body. Her throat convulsed, and he saw the future. She was going to deliver him with her mouth.

  He recoiled as she bent toward him, but her ministrations were so gentle, he couldn’t hold out. She caressed the length of his shaft with her cheek and showered it with little kisses. At the first stroke of her tongue, he felt the truth of what she could do to him. Her lips slid over him, and he let out a groan as their sweet, terrible heat closed on his shaft. She sucked and drew on him with such exquisite care he cried out her name, the name of his captor, his tormentor.

  “Give me what I want,” she whispered.

  He was close to releasing, and he knew that was her goal. She wanted power over everything, including his bodily responses, but he wouldn’t give her that. To the extent that he could control anything, he would control that. If he were to give in to this excruciating pleasure, then she would own his soul.

  “Give me what I want!” she cried.

  “Is this how you do it?” he snarled at her. “You humiliate your victims and rip away their control, then kill them? This is your sick ritual, isn’t it?”

  Her head reared up. Her body was slick with perspiration and white as the moon. While Jordan watched, she rose without a word and went over to the cane basket where the knife was stuck. She pulled it free, and when she turned around, there was no doubt in Jordan’s mind that she intended to use it.

  He braced himself. He had only one option left. One weapon. His mind.

  CHAPTER 18

  FROM the vantage point of his glass-enclosed loft office, Peter Brandt overlooked the entire Cognitive Studies lab. He could keep watch over the various operations that way without anyone knowing he was on the premises. There were surveillance cameras, of course, but he preferred the global view. Maybe it made him feel a little like a field general surveying his troops.

  Normally, he found that relaxing.

  Tonight, however, nothing could have relaxed him.

  A softly measured voice whispered directly into his ear, “It’s too late, Peter.”

  Peter instinctively modulated his own tone as he spoke into the headset he wore, but he would never master his partner’s ability to sound sinister, especially over the phone.

  “I’ll find her,” Peter argued with urgency. “Give me some more time.”

  “You had your chance.”

  “What? A couple days?”

  “It’s out of our hands now, Peter. We have to let them handle it.”

  “Christ, you know what this means, Ron. You know what they’ll do.”

  “They’ll do what we can’t do. They’ll find her. She isn’t coming back voluntarily this time, Peter. You know that. In your heart you know that. It’s out of our hands.”

  Peter picked up a spherical crystal paperweight that was etched like a globe of the earth. Angela had given it to him last Christmas. Normally they didn’t exchange gifts, but she’d found it somewhere, and she’d known about his penchant for such things. She was thoughtful that way.

  It was an exquisite piece, this globe. The etching made him think of snowflakes and their crystalline perfection. But every time he touched it, he had a sudden and terrible fear of dropping it. His fingerpads dug into the facets, but he was convinced it was going to pop out of his hands, no matter what he did. It was going to get away from him and be destroyed.

  “What happens now?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Neither should you. Would you rather she brought down the company and everyone in it? This isn’t about you and her anymore. You can’t keep indulging your adolescent fantasies.”

  The bastard would have to bring that up. Ron had never understood that this wasn’t about some ridiculous old fart trying to recapture his youth with a young chick. This was about unlimited human potential. Peter was one of the few people who knew what Angela Lowe could do. The other was Ron Laird, and that’s what confounded Peter. How could his partner let her be sacrificed?

  Peter’s chest hurt. Dead center was the thud of a blacksmith’s hammer, and it was the only thing he could feel. The rest of his body was hollo
w. Something had to be done, but arguing with Ron would serve no purpose. There would not be a fight tonight, Peter had decided. He’d already decided several things.

  He set the globe down carefully. There was only one flat surface the size of a nickel, and if you missed, it would almost certainly roll off the edge of desk and shatter on the limestone floor of his office.

  “Peter, if she talks, it’s all over. You know that. She’s a threat to too many people.”

  “What makes you think she’ll talk? What makes you think she remembers?”

  “She ran, didn’t she? The shrink you sent her to said she was about to break. What do you need, newspaper headlines?”

  For all of about three seconds, Peter wondered how his partner knew what Dr. Fremont had said. The phones were tapped, of course. Everything was tapped around here, even brains.

  “She’s one of our people, Ron. We should be allowed to handle this.” It was a futile attempt, but Peter had to make it. “Listen, we don’t know how much she remembers, if anything. Nobody knows. I’d like to bring her back and find out.”

  “She stopped being one of our people when she became a threat to national security.”

  Don’t argue. You can’t change his mind. You can’t change anyone’s.

  “So what do we do?” Peter’s voice was as hollow as his body.

  “Nothing, that’s the beauty of it. We do nothing. It will all be taken care of . . . like she never existed.”

  The globe sparkled so brightly it was painful to look at. In his mind, Peter could see it rolling across the desk. He could hear it drop to the floor, and that’s when he had to shut the image out.

  He was about to hang up when Ron spoke up again. “You haven’t been answering your pages,” he said. “That’s not a good thing to do, unless you want me to make all the decisions myself.”

  A dial tone told Peter he was free of the patronizing SOB. He’d come to despise his partner over the years, and not just for his condescending manner. Ron was trying to make it look as if the situation with Angela was all Peter’s fault, when that was anything but the case. One day, judgment day, blame would be assigned, and everyone would know the truth.