“Dammit, woman! Would you have preferred I allowed the guards a body search?”
That finally brought forth a response. “No!” she rasped, and he felt a relenting of his temper—and a new surge of curiosity.
And a surge of something else, something which had lain dormant in him a long time. Tenderness. A warming flush of emotion he didn’t want or need. He was supposed to be watching the woman, not falling for her lures—if they were lures. Her expression had been one of pure panic. Surely such a drastic physical change could not be part of an act.
Whatever, she could certainly have an effect upon the male senses. He had touched her tonight and she had felt like silk. He had felt the stirring of his blood created by the essence of her cologne, by the clean sweet fragrance of her hair. Skin and bones, he reminded himself.
He had had many women since his wife’s death; if he hadn’t been able to give emotion, he had certainly given courtesy and pleasure. But those who had attracted him to interludes of pure physical need had been extremely shapely as well as attractive and knowledgeable. Erin McCabe was more than thin … she was like lifting air.
And yet he had discovered tonight that her compact body was beguiling and seductive. The artificial light of the cabin had drawn a clear silhouette beneath the thin flannel of her gown. Clear enough for him to realize that mystically enchanting hollows lay within the surprising curves of her hips, that her breasts, though not voluptuous, were high and firm and soft.
I want her, he realized, somewhat stunned that he had reached such a point of raw desire. But desire itself was natural; it was a normal physical accompaniment to being a healthy male. He was simply startled that he had joined the throngs he thought he ridiculed and discovered that he was finding Erin McCabe not just a packaged illusion of seduction, but shockingly sensual in a way that was quietly innate, simply a part of her very feminine existence.
His desire didn’t bother him. It was physical; it was controllable. That she seemed to be able to touch his emotions was something that didn’t particularly please him. He didn’t believe he would ever love another woman—and even if all the gentler of his emotions did not lay in the past with Cara, he sure as hell didn’t believe in love—or strong liking—at first sight. No, it was merely the panic he had sensed in Erin. He hadn’t become completely inhuman; he had seen a hint of that look earlier when he had lifted her in his arms. And he had seen it fade to something like trust. Surely that was what had touched his ego, he thought wryly, and that in itself now made him feel that need to protect her. It had brought him from his cabin tonight, it had made him determined to save her from the guard.
Territorial feelings, my man, he told himself. No good. No, no good at all.
Don’t trust me, Erin. Because I don’t trust you. I can’t trust you, I can’t afford to. I still don’t know if you’re real, or one of the finest actresses ever created. And, madam, I am not a man who will be taken.
Still, he couldn’t handle the ghostly pallor that haunted her beautifully sculpted features. He retrieved the glass she had so pointedly set down and walked over to her, pressing it into cold fingers.
“Drink it!” he commanded, his tone not harsh, but one that denoted unquestionable authority.
She complied, swallowing the contents of the glass with only a small shudder. “Thank you,” she murmured. Her color began to regain a rosy hue, yet she remained very still, her only movement that of a subconscious twiddling with one of the gold bracelets she never seemed to remove.
Odd, he thought, she had been wearing them even to sleep.
“Look, Miss McCabe,” he found himself saying very gently, “this may still take some time. Relax, or you’ll wind up half asleep on your first morning in Moscow.”
Even more curious than the soothing words that seemed to be slipping out of his mouth were his actions. He noticed that she was shivering. He ripped out the neat folds of his blanket to secure it lightly around her. Did he imagine it, or did she flinch slightly, then smile as if in rueful self-chastisement.
“Thanks,” she said very huskily. “I was rather cold.”
He didn’t return her smile; he knew his expression was rather grim. But he was next handing her the pillow and gruffly telling her she might as well be comfortable. She hesitated a second, chewing her lower lip, then whispered another thanks.
Jarod restlessly moved to the window, lit another cigarette, and stared out at the thick forest in its barren winter guise—barely visible in the darkness of night. They were checking the train very thoroughly tonight. He knew the efficiency of the border guards: they were looking for something … or someone….
“My name is Erin.”
Jarod jolted back to the present at the sound of her soft, drowsy voice. “What?” he murmured.
Her eyes were cold, her head rested upon the bunched pillow as if she could remain awake by keeping her body folded in an upright position. “Erin,” she repeated, and he smiled a little as he realized the gulped vodka and the late hour were combining to soften her defenses. “You keep calling me Miss McCabe. Since I’m sitting in your couchette in a nightgown, I think we could consider it proper to be on a first-name basis.”
Jarod inhaled and exhaled, his smile increasing. She still hadn’t opened her eyes; she was mumbling and half asleep. Like a web of spun gold her hair fluttered in disarray over her shoulders and forehead; her lips were slightly parted, slightly curled.
He left the window to glance down at her at closer range. The rise and fall of her breathing was slow and even.
“All right,” he murmured softly. “Good-night … Erin.”
She didn’t reply. Jarod walked back to the window pensively, finished his cigarette, glanced back at his sleeping companion, then mumbled, “Oh, what the hell!” and poured himself another shot of the vodka. It had worked for her.
He yawned and stretched, then reached upward to pull the top bunk down to a sleeping position. He automatically started to cast off his robe, remembered what he wore—or rather didn’t wear—beneath it, and resecured the tie around his midriff. He gripped the bunk to swing himself upward, then paused again, glancing at the woman. She was going to wake up with one hell of a pain in the neck.
Gingerly he touched her, swinging the pillow beneath her head as he slowly lowered her frame until she was recumbent on the sheets. Remembering how she had curled her feet beneath her, he carefully tucked the blanket warmly around them. She barely stirred the entire time; only one hand, slender and elegant and beautifully manicured, lifted slightly, then fell back to the sheets. Again Jarod noticed the gold bracelets and he frowned as he pulled himself up to the top bunk.
Why the bracelets? he wondered, forcing himself to think back to all the occasions when he had seen her in either magazines or commercials. Had she always worn them? No, he didn’t think so. It would be something to look into. Very, very curious….
No more curious than tonight, he thought with irritation. Invite the enemy in—set them by the fire, pour them a drink. Great going, Steele, really great.
She couldn’t be the enemy. Not the slender creature sleeping so peacefully on the bunk below, while he was lying up here, unable to sleep because she was sleeping down there.
Idiot, he charged himself. Hell. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so beguiled, so tempted to discover just how silken skin fitted over well-formed bones.
Jarod shifted, staring sightlessly up at the paneled ceiling of the couchette. He stretched his fingers, clenched them, stretched them again.
It was going to be a long, long night.
As he lay there, eyes open, a whistle sounded. The deep green train hissed back into action and treaded her way across the Russian border.
IV
AS ERIN’S EYES FLICKERED to open, she became immediately aware that bright sunlight was streaming through the opened window. The train, she realized gratefully, was still chugging; she hadn’t slept through her actual arrival in Moscow!
&nbs
p; She knew where she was without the rustle of Jarod’s movements to remind her of the evening. Damn, she must have gone out like a light! But then she had been so nervous and frightened, it was easily understandable that she had been extremely exhausted.
She blinked the fuzziness of waking from her eyes and covertly turned her gaze to her host. He stood before the mirror and sink, cursing softly as he shaved against the continual lurch of the train. He wore only a pair of well-pressed black trousers, and she was treated to her first view of the supple corded back, the trim waist, and—reflected in the mirror—the full curly-haired broad chest she had only caught a hint of the night before. He really wasn’t thin at all, she found herself thinking. He only appeared so because of his height, because his form was so very toned and trim.
He turned to her then, shaving foam still flecking his face. “Good morning, Miss McCabe … Erin.” He corrected with a small smile. “I was about to wake you. We reach Moscow in thirty minutes.”
“Oh!” Erin murmured, swinging her feet over the bunk. “I’d better get ready.”
“Thirty minutes worth of makeup?” he inquired, swinging around to splash his face clean over the sink. Grabbing a hand towel he ruggedly dried his face and tossed back the silver-streaked jet lock that fell over his forehead. “Come, come, Miss McCabe, don’t you want to disillusion me again? Aren’t you going to tell me you can be ready in less than ten minutes?”
“Look who’s talking!” Erin charged. “You’ve obviously been getting ready yourself for a while!”
“The curse of being male!” he groaned. “Believe me, if I didn’t have to go through this torture every morning, I wouldn’t.”
“Grow a beard,” Erin advised.
“I did once,” he laughed, “but it was solid silver. Very depressing!”
Erin smiled in return, somewhat surprised by his good humor. “I hadn’t thought you the type to worry much about age,” she murmured. She really should be moving, but she was enjoying the light banter with him, feeling both comfortable and pleasantly scintillated as he unself-consciously went about the act of dressing.
“I don’t worry about age,” he replied, reaching for an immaculately pressed blue shirt and sliding it over nicely curved biceps. “I simply don’t encourage anything before its time!” A tie was next stripped from a hanger. Jarod Steele had no difficulty dealing with it. He was a man accustomed to caring for himself with no-nonsense expertise. His was not a practiced perfection; it was natural to him, something of which he probably wasn’t even aware. “I ordered you some tea,” he said, smiling still to take away the sting of his next half-serious, half-ribbing words, “but will you mind keeping your distance? I’m running out of suits.”
Erin flushed and shot him a glance of reproach. “Yes, Mr. Steele,” she replied with her own lips curving slightly, “I’ll keep my distance.” She stood with a half bounce, retrieved the tea in its filigreed holder from the sink side shelf, and carefully—actually gracefully—sidled past him to the door of the couchette. “I’ll keep a big distance—that of a door away! If I don’t get moving, I won’t even have ten minutes!” Erin paused at the door, her smile turning to a frown. “Oh—what do I do now?” she queried. “You’re Russian friend took my visa and passport last night.”
“I have both,” he assured her.
“You do?”
“The porter brought them to me this morning.”
“Oh.” Despite herself, Erin was flushing again. She barely knew the porter; she would probably never see him again. Why should she care what he thought about her sleeping arrangements?
Jarod obviously ascertained far more from her simple “oh” than she had intended. Cryptic amusement shone freely in his eyes.
“What a lovely flush from a divorcée!” he chuckled. “But don’t worry, Erin, the Soviets are also living in the twentieth century. They believe in love and sex and all that stuff. I sincerely doubt a soul would think a thing about your spending a night with your … ah … fiancé.”
“But you’re not my fiancé, Mr. Steele,” Erin said softly. “And like you, I certainly intend never, never to marry again.”
Her words, Erin knew, held a strange timbre, but she couldn’t help that. She slid out the door and closed it behind her, rushing quickly into her own couchette. She was running out of time; she hurriedly scrubbed her face, brushed her teeth, and dressed in a warm wool outfit, Whatever time she had left would have to do for her makeup!
But as she sipped her tea—cold now but at least something for the morning!—and brushed some shadow on her lids and mascara on her lashes, she found the time to again ponder her recent companion. She kept thinking of the wonderful very clean and yet very masculine smell of him, a scent that was as ruggedly pleasant as the feel of his suits, as the feel of the strong smooth palms that had so tenderly grazed her face for those fleeting moments last night.
“I don’t dislike you, Miss McCabe.” She could hear the strange echo of his words, recall the magnetic touch of fire and ice when he gazed upon her. He had mentioned he would never marry again; obviously he had been married at one time. Good, bright conclusion, Erin! she told herself. Was he also divorced? she wondered. Or a widower? Something had left him capable of being very, very cold.
And yet he wasn’t cold. He was as searing as a tempest flame. One had only to stand near him, to see his sharply chiseled face across a room, feel the dagger pierce of his gaze, to know that.
He knows I’m divorced, Erin thought. Yet that meant little. Her divorce had been shamefully capitalized upon by more than just the trade media. But he doesn’t know why, she thought morosely to herself.
No one knew why, just she and Marc—and that one other party. Not even Mary knew completely. Anger and humiliation had kept her silent. Marc had never intended her harm, and it was doubtful he had ever realized just how much harm he had caused her.
“Oh, Mr. Steele,” she murmured to her mirror. “I think I’m very glad you seem to consider me an overrated toothpick! You must be some kind of sorcerer. You compel me, you hypnotize me. You make me feel things I never thought I would feel … that I didn’t believe really existed.
“And of all people, Mr. Steele, you are one man before whom I don’t care to make a fool of myself … before whom I couldn’t bear humiliation. Yes, Mr. Steele, I’m glad you have no expectations to have shattered.”
Erin brought her lipstick line halfway across her cheek as the train suddenly shrieked out a long low whistle and began its steady screech to a stop. Grimacing, she rubbed her cheek clean and hurried to the window, clapping her hands together with pleasure. A light snow was falling; even the train station looked magical.
“Imagining scenes from Dr. Zhivago?”
Erin spun around at the sound of Jarod’s voice but didn’t bother to dignify his taunt with a reply. She lifted a wry brow in his direction as she shrugged into her new coat and gathered her belongings.
“I’ll take your bag,” he informed her.
“I can manage,” Erin murmured” in protest. “Remember, Mr. Steele—I’m the lady who is as fragile as a boa constrictor.”
“But the key word is lady, isn’t it?” he inquired with a slight smile. “I want to see you safely in the hands of your Intourist agent.”
Erin shrugged. He already had her suitcase in hand. There wasn’t much she could do, since she doubted her ability to wrest it from his grasp.
The railway station was very busy, and Erin found herself, as usual, fascinated by the industry going on around her. Her ears were filled by the sound of the Russian language; her eyes were constantly flitting from people to newsstands to tiny shops to people again.
“Miss McCabe!”
Startled by the sharp call of her escort, Erin hurried along. Mary had told her that an agent from Intourist—the government agency that handled all travel to the Soviet Union—would be there to meet her. She hadn’t thought to inquire at the time how she would actually find her agent, so at the moment she ha
d to be grateful that Jarod obviously knew where to take her.
He stopped so suddenly that she plowed into the expanse of his back, righting herself as he turned to her with a lifted brow and a deep sigh of patience and resignation. “Well, you stopped!” she murmured, only to fall silent as she realized they were before a third party.
“Ivan Shirmanov,” Jarod greeted the young man. He said something in Russian, from which Erin recognized only her own name.
The young man nodded, then turned to Erin. “Welcome to the U.S.S.R., Miss McCabe. If you are ready, I will take you to your hotel.”
“Thank you, and yes, I’m ready,” Erin said, accepting the hand offered her. The Russian’s grip was brisk but firm and warm. His pronunciation was perfect, English-accented rather than American. She would learn later that the King’s English was taught in the majority of the schools.
Jarod was turning Erin’s suitcase over to Ivan. His sharp gaze suddenly turned to her. “Enjoy your stay, Erin,” he said quietly. “The embassy is on Chaikovsky Street should you need anything.”
To Erin’s vast surprise he took her hand in his and lightly touched it to his lips. His eyes, as they rose to meet hers, were more enigmatic than ever. They were crystal, they were ice. They were that incredible and intangible imprisonment of blue fire.
“Thank you,” Erin mumbled, nervously retrieving her hand. She adjusted the shoulder strap of her handbag over her shoulder and fought to dispel the hold of his eyes, then turned to follow Ivan, who was already briskly leaving the station.
“Oh, Miss McCabe?”
Erin turned back. With his customary half grin of irritating amusement, Jarod Steele was reaching out to hand her something. Luckily, she noticed from the corner of her eye that Ivan had paused to wait for her.
Somewhat warily, Erin reapproached Jarod. “Your passport and visa,” he told her wryly. “You’ll need them when you check in at the hotel.”
“Thank you,” Erin said crisply, accepting her papers.
“Not at all,” he murmured dryly. “Do sveedah nyah.”
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