“Perhaps I can solve your problem,” Sergei said. He waved a hand in the air and a maid Erin hadn’t even noticed in the room before disappeared to put in an almost immediate reappearance with a small velvet jewel case in her hand. Sergei flicked the case open with a deft hand, rose, and walked over to Jarod. Again she sensed something between the two men, and when she twisted to view the contents of the box, it was all she could do to withhold a gasp.
The ring was exquisite. Nestled in an oxidized antique setting, it was composed of one perfect pear-shaped diamond of a minimum of two dazzling carats. The prisms, caught by the light, were blinding, seeming to pick up every color of the rainbow with exceptionally brilliant blues and golds. Drawing her eyes from the box to Jarod’s with confusion, Erin was further baffled to make an extraordinary discovery: Jarod had seen the ring before. He was not at all surprised by its appearance.
There was an anticipation in the room. All eyes were focused on Jarod. It seemed as if everyone held their breath while waiting for Jarod’s reply.
Tell him, Erin thought desperately. Tell him the truth. Let’s stop this before it gets any further out of hand.
Jarod, apparently oblivious to the air of strain, slowly removed the ring from its case and slid it onto Erin’s damp and limp finger. It was just a shade loose.
“It’s perfect, Sergei. Erin has the long slender fingers to be able to wear it,” Jarod said casually. “Thank you, Sergei.”
Erin had to speak, up. “Yes, thank you, it’s very lovely, but I really can’t accept—”
Jarod’s fingers dug into her shoulder just as Sergei interrupted her. “Don’t worry, Miss McCabe. The ring rightfully belongs to Jarod.”
Belongs to Jarod? What kind of a game were they playing? But if she opened her mouth in protest again, her only sound would be a scream. Jarod’s warning viselike grip was becoming painful.
I’m going to go home a cripple, she thought mournfully. First he half shattered her collarbone; now he was working on her shoulder…. And she could feel the terrible weight of the ring.
Sergei suddenly stood, putting an end to the conversation. “Come. We shall all play tour guide and take Miss McCabe via the metro to Red Square. She really must see it by night.”
“I would enjoy that,” Erin murmured, “but it’s really not necessary for you all to ruin your evening. You work all day. I know my way from the hotel to Red Square. I was intending to go to the square to see the changing of the guard at midnight anyway.”
Suddenly she felt the strangest tension. Nothing was said, nothing was done. But this time she was sure an exchange passed peculiarly between Jarod and Sergei. It was subtle; it was controlled. But it was there. Did Gil, too, look strange? She was imagining things. Mahoney even looked as if he waited for something, someone to speak.
It was Jarod who spoke. “Erin and I had been intending to see the square tonight, Sergei; it will be pleasant to go together.”
No, Erin thought, we hadn’t been intending to see the square; I had intended to be alone.
“Lovely,” Sergei intoned. “Let us go.”
The metro was beautiful. Not a gum wrapper or cigarette butt marred the floor. Exquisite chandeliers hung from the arched ceilings, and fine art adorned the walls. A speck of graffiti or garbage could not be found. “Art,” Sergei explained, “belongs to the people. And we solve the welfare problem here by making a man work for the income he receives from the government. That is how we keep such cleanliness.”
Erin nodded with a vague smile. They did seem to have an answer for welfare. But she would take the smut and grime of New York City any day over the microphones and cameras in her room.
Red Square was magnificent at night. With the glow of lights, it truly earned its name. Bunted against the cold and held tight against Jarod’s side, Erin viewed the bubbled steeples of St. Basil’s, magical and fanciful in the red glow. Snow lay on the ground and small flurries fell. She had never felt quite so strange.
Nor quite so imprisoned. Since the ring incident at Sergei’s, Jarod had barely released his hold on her. Bars, she thought. His fingers, hands, and arms were bars … bars of steel. She was almost hysterical. His determination to keep her close to him was fantastic, and she was powerless to stop it.
“Midnight approaches,” Sergei said with a smile.
And then, as the clock struck and the guards began their chilling goose steps before Lenin’s tomb, Erin felt herself swept back behind the others, spun into Jarod’s arms in a strange grip, both tender and fierce. She caught one look at the blue intensity of the stormfire in his eyes, and then his lips came down upon hers hard, encompassing, overwhelming.
Erin brought her hands against his chest to push him away. She automatically went rigid against him, but her efforts were futile against the tide of his lashing wave. Her lips were parted, joined, melded to his; the brandishing sear of his tongue was a ravishment of sensual demand, a flame of heat so intense she lost all will, all thought.
The slender hands that had clawed against his chest clung to it now merely to keep her from falling. Only the hand that spanned over the small of her back and that which held her at her nape kept her upright. She was held so close that despite their heavy winter coats she could feel the grinding bone of his hips, the hard muscles of his thighs, all that was unmistakably masculine about him. Her system went to war.
With the red glow of the square bathing them, the night became ethereal. Despite the rigid hold of the fingers that confined her, they moved, caressing, massaging, sending those electric laps of quivering heat along her spine. Jarod’s scent swirled around her and around her. She could barely breathe, but each breath was him. Her body buckled; her mind seemed to explode until it was riddled by the wildfire of the red glowing midnight. His lips seemed to move and move and move … drawing away her soul … turning her blood into something that was alive and hot and racing to a deep secret core of her stomach to knot it with a burning need. And yet the defenses were there, tearing her apart … making the flame of desire even more agonizing.
Yet, as if from far away, she realized that with this man she simply responded. Her fingers began to move in little ripples over his chest. Her lips were parted of their own accord; she was seeking to know his mouth, the heady recesses, as he knew hers. She found the opening of his coat … of his black velvet jacket, and as flakes of snow fell upon her, she began to know what it was like to feel like a furnace of craving flesh and blood.
And it was a simple kiss in the red glow of midnight.
Midnight madness….
She was oblivious to those around them, oblivious to everything. Beneath only the thin fabric of his shirt she could feel the taut muscles of his chest, and they were alive and vibrant and giving to her touch. She could feel a rampant pounding, and it wasn’t just the surge of her heart but his too. A guttural moan sounded, and it had come from him.
“Lord,” someone laughed. “If this was an engagement party, I can bet the wedding is going to be something!”
The kiss broke; Jarod seemed just fine, grinning at the taunt from Gil. Erin felt her face flush as red as the square. She wanted to kill him.
Sergei laughed next. “Ahh, Miss McCabe! Please! No embarrassment. Love is universal. Many a woman has found herself caught within the glow of the square. It is not all pageantry and severity, Miss McCabe.”
Erin tried smiling, but she was still only standing because of Jarod’s support. And she didn’t want his support; more than anything, she simply wanted to be away from him, from the responses he elicited, from the panic that would surely come if things went any further.
For once, he seemed attuned to her desires. In a daze she heard him thanking Sergei for the evening, and then she, too, was saying good-bye and expressing her thank yous. A certain amount of strength was returning to her watery legs. She replied graciously to Sergei’s comment that they would meet again, accepted a kiss on the cheek from Joe Mahoney and a firm, enveloping handshake from Gil Saye
r. His light blue gaze upon her was very kind and very gentle … and envious. His voice was a bit throaty. “If you ever need anything, Erin, anything at all, and Jarod isn’t available, I’ll be there. Call me. For anything.”
Erin thanked him and nodded.
“You can pick up the car for me,” Jarod interrupted dryly. “I’ll just walk Erin to her room and take the metro home. You and Joe came together, right?”
With transportation disposed of, Jarod and Erin began a silent trek for the Rossia. This time, Erin didn’t let his long-legged stride keep her quiet long—she knew there would be no talking later. She had to forget that she still quivered from what had transpired between them and had to create a shell as tough as his.
“Jarod—I really can’t wear this ring. It simply isn’t right. What did Sergei mean that it was yours anyway?”
“The ring is mine,” Jarod said briefly. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I have to worry about it! Jarod, I don’t like any of this, and I’ve about had it! Everyone behaves as if they’ve seen a ghost when I mention the word midnight, and then when the hour actually comes along, it’s as if a full moon came up and you became a werewolf in seconds.”
“Werewolf! Miss McCabe, a flatterer you’re not.”
“Yes, but an animal you are,” Erin muttered beneath her breath.
He heard her, and surprisingly, she had struck a chord. He stopped dead, wrenching her around before him. She saw the glistening of crystal fire in his eyes and heard the grate of his teeth as his jawline tightened. An apology formed on her lips; she hadn’t really meant it, he simply scared her so that she was compelled to reinforce her wall of defenses.
I should be grateful, Erin thought. I should accept what he has given me, a knowledge that I can respond, will someday respond. Like him, I should be able to take this for what it is, blink, and forget about it. A simple physical draw between two adults compounded by whatever game it is he’s playing.
But she felt somehow terribly, terribly used. Because she knew now that he loved a dead woman, that she was nothing more than a body he had discovered he could enjoy. She was a substitute taken with no more thought than a—
“Animal?” Apparently control had won out over temper. His query was sardonic, his half grin touched his lips. “Perhaps, Miss McCabe. Biologically, we’re all animals, aren’t we? And I might add, my darling, that if the vixen in you continues to respond to the fox in me, we just might discover how animalistic we both might be.”
She felt as if she were sinking again. The world appeared to blacken. His words, spoken with amusement in husky velvet, were somehow a threat.
She had to fight to surface before the panic became engulfing. “I think, Mr. Steele,” she enunciated, “that I requested no repeats of that type of performance.” Drawing her dignity about her like a cloak, she stepped past him. “Besides,” she added over her shoulder, not at all sure where the rush of words came from, “I called you a wolf, not a fox.”
His laughter followed her, but didn’t ease her nervousness as he caught up in a step and slipped an arm around her waist.
“What was that for, anyway?” Erin demanded, afraid of silence.
“What was what for?”
“You know damned well what I’m talking about. Midnight. As soon as the first strike of the clock sounded …”
He was staring at her as they walked and she broke off, unable to continue. But her eyes didn’t falter, they challenged his with silver demand.
“You tell me, Erin.”
“Oh, Lord,” she moaned. “I never do know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?”
“Oh, please, don’t start that!”
He shrugged, and she could read nothing in the rugged contours of the face of the tall, powerful man beside her.
“Chalk it up to midnight, then,” he murmured, and then conversation between them ceased as they reached the hotel.
As they neared her room Erin began to twist at the ring on her finger. “Listen, Steele,” she muttered as he unlocked her door and stepped aside, “I don’t understand what the story is with this thing, and I really don’t care. But I can’t accept it or wear it.” Damn! Of all things, the ring wouldn’t come off her finger. When Jarod had slipped it on, it had been loose. Now it wouldn’t slide over her knuckle.
“Leave the damned thing alone!” Jarod snapped irritably. “It really is mine and it really isn’t important.” None too graciously, he prodded her inside the open door. For a terrified moment Erin believed he meant to follow her. But he didn’t. He handed her the key, and then his voice rose. “Listen, darling, this is all so ridiculous, this hotel bit. Pack tonight and check out in the morning. It will be much more convenient if you simply stay at my place.”
Erin opened her mouth in stunned protest, but the narrowing of his eyes reminded her that every word she said would be heard. Why should I play his game, she wondered. But she remained silent and slowly closed her mouth. His fingers feathered over her cheek, leaving shivering, molten flame in their wake, and then he turned to leave her.
Erin watched as his fur-clad broad shoulders disappeared; despite herself she remembered how marvelously trim and sleekly male his body appeared in the well-tailored velvet jacket under his overcoat.
Then she closed the door, and when she would have leaned against it trembling, she reminded herself she could be seen.
She changed by slipping her nightgown over her head before shimmying from her dress. Then she turned out the lights and lay in her bed wide awake, her thoughts racing in a nightmare tempest. There were so many unanswered questions. It was a maze, one ridiculous thing leading to another. But one refrain repeated itself above all others, and it began a pounding screech in her head: I have to get away. I have to get away.
They watched her. Why did they watch her? They saw everything. But who was “they”? Why, why, why?
And she had been so blissfully ignorant. Moving about, shedding her clothing with little thought, bathing.
And then there was Jarod. Dear God, the outrage was such that even now she wanted to scream. She felt violated. How could this be happening?
It wasn’t a place to query civil rights, he had warned her. This was normal.
It wasn’t normal to her. Long ago she had walked out on humiliation. And now there was this. Things going on that she didn’t understand. Fear and humiliation and … Jarod’s strange effect upon her. Trust me, he had said. And she kept trusting him, even as he manipulated her. Even as she came back to this, lying in the dark, wondering why they watched her, wondering what midnight meant, feeling the darkness close in on her, ready, to explode.
It was simple. She had stumbled into an insane asylum, and she was taking the first exit as soon as she could.
She lay there for hours and hours without sleeping, and the panicked beat in her head became louder and louder. She tossed and turned, burned and froze all night. And became very determined to escape this nightmare she found herself caught up in.
Very very early the next morning she went down for coffee. And in her determination, she remembered Gil Sayer’s thoughtful offer of help.
With the red tape over the simplest movement in the U.S.S.R., she was going to have to be very careful how she worded her request.
Praying and crossing her fingers, she put through a call to the embassy. Relief made her giddy when Gil answered the phone.
She was never quite sure what she actually said. She managed to convince Gil that although she adored Jarod he could be just a bit overbearing (that was rather easy to get across) and that she needed to slip out to Paris. “You know Jarod,” she said cheerfully. “Anything out of line and he’s an eagle-eyed worrier! I’d just like to manage to arrange this surprise. I can’t let you in on the details yet, but I promise I will!”
It worked, it all worked. Gil came himself to see her to the airport, and she was finally sitting in a craft of the Aeroflot line listening to flight procedures in
Russian, German, Spanish, and French.
What went wrong where, she would never really understand. The humming engines suddenly ceased to growl and the plane went still.
She had settled down with a magazine; she looked up to see two grim, uniformed guards coming down the aisle.
They were coming for her. Somehow she managed not to fall apart as they forcefully escorted her off the plane. Her demands were crisp and clear and polite even as she trembled from head to toe. But if she had screamed and cried and pleaded, the results would have been no different. She was politely ignored.
Terror built inside her as she was led to an official-looking vehicle and seated beside a stone-faced guard. It continued to rise as they rode through the streets of Moscow. Where are they taking me? she wondered desperately. Why?
Visions floated through her mind. This was Russia. You weren’t necessarily innocent until proven guilty. But guilty of what? Innocent of what? Where the hell were they taking her? Jail? Oh, dear God….
Her imagination began to play havoc with her. She pictured a blindfold, a firing squad…. No, no, no, no! Don’t be ridiculous, Erin. It is a civilized country. There is just some misunderstanding.
But she felt as if her heart had permanently lodged into her throat as the seemingly never-ending drive continued. Just when she thought she would lose all control and burst into tears, they drove into the driveway of the hotel Rossia.
She thought she would faint with the relief. She wasn’t being taken to jail, they weren’t going to throw her in front of a firing squad. But neither were they just dropping her off, she realized quickly. Very politely—they really were such wonderful, stone-faced, polite people—the two uniformed men assisted her from the car—and back to her room. A man on either side.
As if I could run, she thought wryly. She felt like laughing as she imagined herself suddenly throwing them both off and bolting down the hall. Sure. Bolting down the hall—and then what? A helicopter would appear out of nowhere, as one always did in the movies, to rescue her.
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