by Anne Stuart
“It’s going to rain,” he said. He must have felt her eyes on him. A faint smile played around his mouth.
“It never rains in California,” she said firmly. “Besides, there isn’t a cloud in the sky.”
He said nothing as the first bolt of lightning split the sky, followed by earthshaking thunder. He’d turned the windshield wipers on before the first torrent slapped the window, and he slowed his dangerous pace just slightly.
The weather wasn’t improving things. The darkness and heavy rain made the interior of the car feel smaller, closer, more intimate, and intimacy was the last thing she needed from the stranger beside her. Who didn’t feel like a stranger at all.
“Did you do that?” she asked suspiciously, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.
“Do what? Control the weather? I get enough rain up in Washington that I wouldn’t be looking for more.” It was coming down in sheets of water, washing across the road.
“It’s dangerous when it rains down here. All the oil on the road gets very slick.”
“I have no intention of getting into an accident. We’re on a rescue mission, remember? What good would we do Jasmine if we ended up in a ditch?”
She bit her lip to keep silent. Never in her life had she been jealous of another woman, but even bringing up Jasmine’s name might encourage him to…to try to prove his lack of interest. And she didn’t want that to be the reason he kissed her.
She didn’t want him to have any reason at all to kiss her, she reminded herself. None at all.
“You never did tell me where you disappeared to last night,” he said after a while.
“I went to the Animal Emergency Center with the chef. He was almost as traumatized as poor Choux-fleur, and he needed moral support.”
“And since you hate dogs you decided to go with him.”
“I don’t hate dogs,” she admitted. “I usually have five or six roaming around the place. I’m part of a rescue network.”
“In your spare time?”
“Hey, standing around and looking beautiful isn’t that onerous a job,” she said in a flippant voice. “And we already agreed that I drink alcohol, eat red meat, like dogs and have a thousand other sins.”
“Do you? Name one.”
“I get easily irritated by strange men asking me rude questions.”
“I’m not that strange.” Another bolt of lightning snaked down from the sky, uncomfortably close. “You want to tell me exactly where we’re going?”
“It’s a glorified cabin up in the mountains. Aaron uses it for sex.”
“Really? When did you have sex with Aaron?”
“I didn’t!” She shivered at the very thought of his meaty, thick-fingered hands touching her. “I came up with Jasmine for a Fourth of July picnic last year.”
“And you still remember the way?”
“I’ve got a good sense of direction. I’m not about to get lost with you in the back end of beyond.”
He said nothing. It was dark in the interior of the car, and he’d taken off his sunglasses, but his eyes were trained on the road ahead. Which was just as well—his eyes were almost as unnerving as his mouth.
The rain was beating down in a steady rhythm and the hum of the tires on the wet road vibrated beneath her. She could feel her eyelids begin to droop, and she tried to force herself into alertness. But she’d had a long, long night, and Rags had woken her early this morning, and right now all she wanted to do was sink down further in the soft cocoon of darkness and sleep.
“Go ahead,” he murmured. “This stuff is going to slow us down—we won’t get there for another couple of hours. You may as well sleep.”
She wanted to ask him how he knew how long it would take them to get to the cabin. How he knew how long it would rain. But she was too tired to summon the effort, too tired to keep her arms clasped so tightly around her body. “All right,” she said sleepily, leaning her head against the door. “I hope I don’t snore.”
“Don’t you know? One of your lovers would have told you if you did.”
One of her lovers. She wasn’t so sleepy that she was going to let the truth slip. He wouldn’t believe her anyway. “My lovers have all been much too polite to say anything.” She yawned, snuggling down lower in the seat.
“Glad to hear it. There’s nothing more desirable in a lover than proper manners.”
She should have responded, but she was on the verge of sleep. Knowing she’d dream of dangerous kisses.
CHAPTER FIVE
“IT DOESN’T LOOK like anyone’s home. That, or I took a wrong turn somewhere.”
Sam woke with a start. Gideon had pulled the Mercedes to a stop, and the headlights speared through the darkness and the driving rain to illuminate the outlines of a sprawling log cabin.
“This is the right place,” she said, opening the car door. She sprinted through the heavy rain, thoroughly drenched by the time she made it the short distance to the house. The door was unlocked, and the headlights provided enough illumination for her to find the light switch. She pushed it, but the cavernous house remained dark.
“The power’s off,” she called over her shoulder, but Gideon was already directly behind her, the car still running.
“Well, find Jasmine and let’s get the hell out of here,” he said. “The road was beginning to wash out, and this place looks like it’s at a dead end.”
“It is.” The headlights provided enough light for her to see the notepad propped on the wooden counter.
“Hell and damnation,” she said, scanning Jasmine’s scrawl. “We’re too late. She’s gone. Apparently she patched it up with Aaron and the two of them are off to Cancun to get married!” She dropped the note back down on the counter. “How could she be so gullible?”
“At the moment that’s the least of our worries. Let’s get out of here as well. We’ll get dinner on the way back, and this time you can eat all the steak and drink all the beer you want.”
“That’s what you think,” she said. “This perfect body requires upkeep. I can only afford one beer a week and I’ve met my quota. And steak is fattening.”
“Perfect body, eh? That’s a matter of opinion. You could use some fattening up, if you ask me.”
“You sure know the way to a girl’s heart,” she drawled. “And I don’t remember asking you. This body is a tool, nothing more, and I keep it in good working order.”
“Nothing more than a tool? Where does pleasure factor in?”
“I limit it. Pleasure’s too fattening. There’ll be time enough when my fifteen minutes of fame is over.”
“I wasn’t talking about food. Sex isn’t fattening.”
It was too shadowy for him to appreciate the full force of her glare, so she made do with ignoring his comment. “We can argue about dinner once we’re on the road again,” she said, suppressing a shiver. The room was cold.
“We weren’t talking about food,” he said, following her out into the rain.
He turned on the heat full-blast in the car before putting it in reverse and heading back down the narrow road, deftly avoiding potholes. Waves of blessed warmth enveloped her, almost enough to stop her shivering, when the car slammed to a halt.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded, though she immediately saw for herself. The road ahead of them was covered with wide expanse of rushing water.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
She stared at what had once been the road. “Why can’t you be like everyone else in Los Angeles and drive a huge SUV?” she asked bitterly.
“I wouldn’t drive through that in anything less than a tank,” he said, putting the car in reverse. “And neither should you. Don’t you know you shouldn’t drive though water like that? You never know what’s underneath. I’m not about to get you killed.”
“Aren’t you worried about your own skin?”
He smiled his enigmatic smile. “Not particularly.”
“You think you have some kind of guardian angel keeping you safe
?”
He laughed then. “You could say so. His name’s Ralph.”
“Who would name their guardian angel Ralph?”
He pulled back in front of the house, not answering. “You stay in the car while I try to find some candles.”
She wasn’t in the best of moods. The thought of spending the night in Aaron’s rustic love pad with Gideon Hyde was filling her with an odd foreboding that seemed centered in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t think so,” she said, leaping out ahead of him.
By the time he’d followed her into the house she’d managed to go through most of the drawers beneath the hardwood counter, and she’d come up with nothing. He followed her into the kitchen area, silhouetted by the headlights still shining in the windows. The whole thing felt odd, otherworldly. Especially when the lights from the car went off, plunging them into darkness.
“Damn,” his disembodied voice floated in her direction in the darkness. “I thought the delay on the lights would last a little bit longer. Have you found any candles?”
His voice was coming closer, and she panicked, trying to move past him, away from him, only to collide against his hard body.
His hands caught her arms, and in the darkness she froze, close enough to feel the heat coming from his skin, close enough to feel his breath on her face.
She could feel her heart beating in the darkness, feel the blood pulsing in her veins, throbbing. It had to be fear rushing through her body, and yet she knew she had nothing to be afraid of. He wasn’t going to hurt her.
She broke away, stumbling back, and he let her go without a word. “I can’t believe Aaron wouldn’t have candles all over the place,” she said nervously, feeling her way out of the kitchen area, away from her. “This is his little love nest—last time I was here the place was equipped for seduction.” The moment the words were out of her mouth she could have kicked herself. All she could think about was sex.
“Then maybe we’re looking in the wrong place,” he said calmly. She heard the snick of a lighter, and a small flame appeared in his hand. “Why don’t we look over by the living area?”
“Do you smoke?”
“Not anymore,” he said, that note of amusement in his voice, the one she found both annoying and appealing. At that point she wasn’t sure whether she liked him or should put him in the jerk category with most of the men she’d dated. No, he was beyond that point. Whatever she felt for him was a great deal more complicated. And she wasn’t in the mood for complications.
He found the candles before she did, a veritable treasure trove on every available surface in the living area. By the time he’d lit every one the center of the room was filled with warm light, though the corners were still shrouded in darkness.
“There,” he said, turning back to look at her. “All equipped for seduction.”
“I don’t think so,” she said sharply.
“You’re cold. Much as I hate to suggest it, you should probably find something dry to put on while I start a fire. There’s a lot to be said for the wet T-shirt look, but you’re shivering.”
She looked down at her body in horror. Even in the dim light she could see her small breasts outlined quite clearly against the thin wet cotton. She might as well be wearing nothing at all.
She followed her first instinct, crossing her arms over her chest. Her second, totally insane, impulse had been to drag the shirt over her head and toss it to him. It wouldn’t have given him much more of a view than he’d already gotten though the thin wet cotton, and the thought of his shocked reaction was definitely appealing. She hadn’t a trace of real modesty, not after the years of modeling, but stripping in front of an interested male was a different matter altogether.
And he was interested, there was no doubt about that. Not after the bone-shaking kiss in the car. He hadn’t lied—it wasn’t Jasmine he wanted.
She grabbed one of the scented pillar candles. “I’ll see if there’s anything upstairs. Knowing Aaron, he probably keeps a Victoria’s Secret line for his guests.”
“Promises, promises,” he murmured.
Most of the glass-and-cedar cabin was the large downstairs room, but there was a loft bedroom upstairs. It was pitch-black and icy cold, but still a fairly simple matter to find one of Aaron’s oversize T-shirts and a pair of drawstring gym shorts. She left her wet clothes on the floor for Aaron—he could fantasize about them next time he came back.
And he would be back, without Jasmine. That relationship had been doomed from the beginning, but nothing Sam had said had been able to make Jasmine see the truth.
By the time she came back downstairs Gideon had managed to get a blazing fire going in the huge fieldstone fireplace, and the added light cast a soft glow around the room.
“Did you try the telephone?” she asked, moving into the warmth.
“Not working. And there’s no signal for my cell phone. Face it, Sam, we’re trapped for the night.”
She didn’t like him calling her Sam. It made him a friend, and she needed him to be a stranger. “And tomorrow?”
“If the road’s still washed out and no one comes, we’ll hike out in the daylight. The rain can’t keep on forever.”
“Let’s hope not,” she muttered. “It’s late—we may as well try to get some sleep. There’s a bedroom upstairs if you want to use it.”
“Is that an offer?”
“In your dreams.”
He’d unfastened his black shirt, pulling it free from his pants, and she stared at his chest for a moment. He had smooth, beautiful skin, lit golden by the firelight, with dark, flat nipples, a narrow waist, framed by the black silk.
She yanked her eyes upward. “There are extra T-shirts upstairs if you’re cold.”
“Do I look cold? I come from a very hot climate—I’ll take all the coolness I can find.”
“Seattle has a hot climate?”
“Before Seattle. As a matter of fact this fire is too hot for me.”
“Then for heaven’s sake why did you start it?”
“Because, for heaven’s sake, you were freezing,” he replied, mimicking her. “Where are you sleeping?”
“Not with you.”
“I don’t recall asking,” he said calmly. He moved from the fire, and his beautiful chest was no longer illuminated. He had a brandy snifter in one hand, and he held it out to her. “There’s no food in this place, but his liquor cabinet is well stocked. This is for you.”
She made no effort to take it. “I told you, I already had my weekly limit…”
He simply reached down and picked up her wrist, placing the snifter in her hand. He was right, his skin was warm, almost hot, against her cool flesh. “You missed dinner. You’ll manage.” Too close again, and she could feel her blood stir once more. Treacherous, inexplicable.
But he stepped back without touching her again, and she forced her breathing back to normal. She even took a sip of the brandy, feeling a pleasant burn as it slid down her throat. It made her feel warm. Reckless.
“I’ll sleep down here,” she said. “The sofa is a futon. Aaron likes to be prepared for all eventualities. You can sleep wherever you want.”
An unfortunate choice of words, as she waited for him to say he wanted to sleep with her. But, of course, he didn’t want to. Or at least that’s what he’d said. Or had he simply said he hadn’t asked her…yet?
He didn’t say anything, simply picked up his own glass of brandy and sat back down in front of the fire, his skin reflecting the golden glow.
She pulled the futon flat, tossing a couple of throw pillows at the head. “I’d offer to help with that but I know what you’d say.” He sipped at his brandy. “But if there’s anything you want from me you have only to ask.”
On a cold day in hell, she thought, but kept it to herself. She should have brought a blanket down from the bedroom, but she hadn’t thought to, and the sooner she closed her eyes and shut everything out, the safer she’d feel. Besides, the fire was kicking out heat—it would fi
ll the room eventually, and at least she wasn’t shivering any longer.
She made a noncommittal noise and stretched out on the futon. She wasn’t going to think about it. Think about him. Think about the strange knot in her stomach, her tingling skin, his smooth, golden chest. She wasn’t going to think about his mouth, on hers. She was just going to sleep, and with any luck she’d snore.
She let out a deep sigh, trying to drain the tension from her body. And as she drifted into sleep, her hand drifted to her mouth, and her fingers touched her lips, touched his kiss, as she slept.
“WELL?”
Gideon looked up from his contemplation of the fire. He wasn’t sure why he was so fascinated by it—he’d been surrounded by flames and fire for as long as he could remember.
He turned and looked at Ralph. Perched on the end of the futon, right by Sam’s sleeping head, he was wearing a flame-red bishop’s outfit and thick-framed glasses. The right one was blacked out, and he had spiky blond hair and all sorts of interesting piercings.
“What do you mean?” Gideon replied, trying to keep his attention on his nemesis. Ralph’s appearance never failed to astonish, but in truth he was safer looking at him than at Sam’s sleeping figure.
“You’re here, she’s just lying there. Go for it.”
“So much for romance,” Gideon murmured. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean I’m not going to do it.”