She got silence.
“You have bigger problems than I thought,” he finally said, pushing the gate open but following right behind her so she couldn’t lock him out. “I hope you’re talking to a shrink about this messianic complex of yours.”
“Messianic?” she asked in outrage, swinging around to glare at him in the faint light from her porch lamp. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“The Messiah saves souls. You’re trying to save ours. Ain’t happening,” he said with a shrug. “Just like in the fairy tales, if Conan ignores the warnings and listens to your files when he shouldn’t, then it’s his own fault if he fries his brains. You have nothing to do with it.”
“You don’t believe me,” she said flatly. “You think it’s a joke. That I’m a joke.”
“I’m not a shrink. I can’t give you the fancy name for what’s wrong with you.”
Astonishingly, he faced her without flinching, even though she’d unleashed her furious Voice.
“But if you’ve got a bee in your bonnet, believing what you do is responsible for the actions of others,” he continued, “then you’re wrong. Your husband died because he was fried out of his skull. Unless you physically poured the alcohol down his gullet, shot him full of coke and steroids, and glued his hands to the steering wheel, you had absolutely nothing to do with his death.”
Pippa punched him. She balled up her fist and hauled her arm back as far as it could go and plowed her knuckles into Oz’s flat, hard abdomen.
She nearly broke her hand. He didn’t wince, just caught her fist and twisted it behind her back, so she couldn’t hurt herself again. Then he frog-marched her up to the door, threw it open, and shoved her inside.
“He did all of that because of me!” she shrieked, not trying to restrain her inner Beast, her Voice, wanting to hurt him as he’d hurt her. Striking out as she’d trained herself not to do.
She waited in trepidation to see how Oz would strike back. Or if he would crumple to the floor or run off to avoid the dagger she’d twisted in his heart.
He merely stood there in the porch light, looking down at her as if she were a pathetic piece of hysterical flotsam.
“You could have horsewhipped him within an inch of his life,” he said calmly, showing no effects from her anger. “You could have walked up and down his spine in spikes and broke his head, and none of that would have forced him to do what he did. What he almost did to you. Get over it. The fact is, you were better than him. Stronger. More talented. And he wimped out. Not you. You survived. That’s what you are, a survivor. It’s damned painful, being a survivor. But there’s got to be a reason you’re still standing here and he’s not. Find it.”
Without warning, Oz grabbed her waist with both hands, hauled her up against his wide chest, and planted his mouth across hers.
Pippa almost swooned at the intoxicating warmth of strong, competent human hands touching her, holding her up, absorbing her into his physical warmth as their mouths twisted, fought, and finally locked together. Oz’s breath breathed life into her. His kiss renewed hungers she’d forgotten.
She fit against him as if she belonged there. She flattened her hands against his chest to push him away, but the heat of him beneath the thin cotton melted her frost, stripped her of the icy exterior she’d maintained all these years.
Oh, God, he was hard and strong and muscled, and she wanted to burrow into his arms and never come up for air. She needed him to take her away from herself.
The minute he took a step across the threshold, she panicked, shoved away, and slammed the door in his face.
Leaning against the heavy timber, she sobbed and choked on the pleasure she’d stolen, the pleasure she didn’t dare share with anyone, the pleasure she craved and had never thought to know again.
Chapter 14
Rubbing his bruised nose and battered ego, Oz stood outside the timber barrier Pippa had slammed between them.
She’d melted in his hands like a hot chocolate bar. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.
And they were both damaged goods. Okay, he got that. Who wasn’t damaged these days?
If he were back in L.A., dealing with a shrew who’d objected to his advances, he would have walked away. Walking away was probably the smartest thing to do in this case too.
The problem with that thinking was that he believed Pippa had more depth of character than any shrew, that she contained mysteries he needed to pursue, and that she was hurting even more than he was. Ergo, he couldn’t leave her alone. It wasn’t a matter of his mother teaching him better, because while she was alive, she’d pretty much left his education to the schools he’d attended. No, it was because some deep down masculine instinct said this woman was crying for help, and he couldn’t turn his back on her.
Okay, so he’d call his shrink when he got back to the city.
Oz let himself through the gate and took the narrow path between the house and the wall surrounding the property. She’d put walls up all around her house and not locked any of them. There was probably something Freudian in that.
Behind the house, he stopped at the patio door and looked in. She’d left a light burning in the kitchen but hadn’t turned on any of the others. He saw no movement. Would he scare her to death if he walked in?
Probably. He scraped the lounge chair around so he could watch the door and made himself comfortable. Except for the cold, it couldn’t be any worse than sleeping on an air mattress.
What the hell had she meant when she’d said she’d killed Robbie with her voice?
She was really and truly frightened of Conan listening to her silly children’s songs. He’d listened to CDs of a few of her teenage love songs. Her voice rivaled the music of an angel’s harp. It was a gift straight from heaven. Had something happened to it that she didn’t want anyone to know?
She was possibly a real head case, and he ought to run away as fast as his feet could carry him, but his gut kept him planted in the chair.
He knew he was right for waiting when Pippa drifted to the glass sliding doors and opened one. She slid out like a bright flame against the dark. There were no lights back here. She ought to install a security lamp, but he wasn’t the one to tell her that.
If he let his mother’s Celtic ancestry rule, he’d believe she was a wraith drifting across the tiles to hand him… what? Hemlock?
He accepted the glass and waited to see what she would do next.
She took the lounge she’d left beside his earlier. Except now instead of sitting side by side, she was facing him. He could see her pale features against the striped cushions, could reach over and wiggle her bare toes, but that was about it. He guessed the distance made her feel safer.
He still wanted to kiss her. That had been one spectacularly explosive kiss, and he wasn’t about to give up a chance at another. So that was his real reason for being here, right?
He sipped the drink. Raspberry something or other. Instead of heaving him in the pool for his refusal to take no for an answer, she was feeding him. Maybe he was on to something here.
“Robbie was only two years older than I was, so yes, at twenty, he was probably weaker than you are now,” she said in that toneless voice he was learning to despise, now that he’d glimpsed her passion. “Maybe if we’d met today, he would have been able to save himself. But I killed him before he had the chance to grow up.”
Oz had already pointed out the flaws in her logic. He waited to hear if she explained them away.
“I know you don’t believe me,” she said flatly. “No one believes me. How could they? What I’m capable of is not real. That’s what I thought, too, that it was all in my head. But every time I opened my mouth, someone got hurt. People went crazy. Men actually crawled on their knees when I got hysterical. You’re sitting here now, why? Is this something you would nor
mally do?”
Oz thought about it. “For Alys, I might have. But I was kind of young then, cocky and obnoxious and determined to have my way.”
She snorted impolitely, and he grinned against the darkness. Yeah, he hadn’t changed much. He was relieved that she was smart enough to see that. He wasn’t much of an actor and had never pretended to be other than who he was.
When she said nothing else, he continued feeling his way around her perfectly legitimate question about why he was sitting here. After all, he’d been asking himself the same thing.
“These days, I don’t see many women worth wasting my time on,” he admitted. “We get old, jaded, use each other as we’ve been used. But you’re different somehow. I’m not in the habit of hurting women, but I feel as if I’m hurting you. So I’m just trying to sort things out. If men crawled on their knees for you, it’s probably because they knew they had hurt you and wanted to make up for it.”
He wasn’t entirely certain he believed her version of events. Teenage girls often developed hysterical fantasies, and the business she’d been in would create a lot of stress. But he was willing to hear her out. Maybe he’d get to the bottom of the mystery and he could walk away with a clear conscience. When all was said and done, he was only here because of Donal. Pippa was simply a diversion to keep him occupied.
“I don’t think that many grown men are idiots,” she replied wryly. “I wasn’t a little Lolita who drove men to drink with seduction and rejection. But one time, I got angry and shouted at a reporter to go soak his head. He did—in the pool. He couldn’t swim. Fortunately, there were others there to fish him out.”
She sipped her own drink, and Oz waited. If she wanted to talk, he was ready to listen. Paparazzi ended up in pools and sandwiched between cars because they were incurable pests and someone was always eager to swat at them. He figured this one got pushed.
“I don’t know how it works, exactly,” she murmured. “Experimenting is too dangerous. But looking back, I should have seen the problem long before Robbie. My first manager tried to seduce me when I was twelve. That should have been a sign right there.”
Oz sat straight up, nearly spilling his drink in his lap. “I hope the police locked up the son of a bitch.”
She waved a careless hand. “I hardly knew what was happening at the time. I’d just reached puberty and didn’t even know what sex was. My foster parents had spent more time taking me to singing competitions than teaching me the facts of life. I thought Bill wanted to reward me for winning the contest. He hugged and kissed me and told me how wonderful I was. What lonely, unloved kid could resist that? I only panicked when he unzipped his pants and let it all hang out.”
Oz thought the top of his head might explode if he contained the steam much longer, but he bit back all the scathing retorts and did his best to pay attention. He might be an obnoxious bully upon occasion, but he was skilled at listening.
“And you think it was your fault for not handling the bastard better?” he asked with what he considered admirable restraint.
“No, I’ve had lots of shrink time. As I said, I know I was no Lolita. I was scrawny and red-haired and petulant. I didn’t know enough to encourage him. But when I sang… grown men wept. I didn’t understand why. I still don’t completely. Bill was declaring his abject love to me even after I shrieked until the hotel security guards broke in and clapped him in handcuffs. He didn’t fight with them, but the guards still overreacted and nearly beat him to a pulp—until I quit shrieking. I should have learned my lesson then, but it was all much too confusing.”
“Where were your foster parents?” he demanded. He could see fault in the actions of every adult around the poor scared kid she must have been. He just wasn’t seeing why she blamed herself.
“Down in the bar celebrating the nice contract they’d just signed. They were a little ticked when Social Services threatened to take me away after that incident, but they stepped up to the plate better after that. I was never really mistreated, if that’s what you’re thinking. I had a good life. An exciting one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I love singing. I would have sung every minute of every day if I could have.”
He heard the wistfulness in that last. “But you can’t go back to singing because…?”
She met his gaze steadily, even though it was too dark to see the color of her eyes. “Did you notice what happened the other night when I read the book for Tommy? I tried very hard not to put my fear or hope into my reading, but it creeps out when I’m upset.”
“I noticed that you brought that kid out of the brush when no one else could. You wanted the coyotes to get him?”
“Pay attention,” she said impatiently. “I’m not going to recite my life history. What happened to the crowd when I read?”
“They got quiet. They listened to the story.”
The tension and fear that had been there that day had drained away to a moment of perfect harmony for the waiting crowd. Oz didn’t say that aloud because he thought he’d imagined it. The night had been crystal clear, like this one, with stars glittering in the heavens. Her simple tale had focused the universe on her for a few brief magical moments.
“An entire crowd of terrified adults got quiet and listened to a children’s book. That’s what I do. I cast spells. And don’t look at me like that. You felt it too. It’s probably why you’re here. I’ve let you hear too much of my soul, and I’m probably infecting you just as I did Robbie. I don’t want to destroy you or your brother. I just want to be left alone to live my life quietly, under circumstances I can control so the Beast doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
She really honestly believed she was doing something harmful. Oz puzzled over that, but he couldn’t make any sense of it. “Women have given me strange excuses for not wanting to have sex, but I think yours might take the cake,” he observed irreverently.
She flung the rest of her drink at him and started to rise, but Oz grabbed her ankle. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?” he demanded. “We got too close tonight, and you’re scared. Maybe you believe your crazy little story. I don’t know how a writer’s mind works. But it’s my business to read people, and I know when someone is backing out of a negotiation because they’re scared. Because they’re used to failure and shoot themselves down when they get too close to success. You’re running from the best damned kiss I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a lot. If you want me to back off, that’s fine. Just say so. Don’t give me fairy tales.”
“You really are the most impossible, arrogant, obnoxious piece of shit I’ve run across in a long, long while.” She kicked her foot free from his grip, stood, crossed to his chair, and straddled his knees with hers. She seated herself on his legs close enough so that she could lean forward, grab his shirt, and plant her lush lips across his.
***
Satisfaction rolled through Pippa, followed by greedy hunger as Oz grabbed her waist but otherwise let her control their kiss. She wanted to be the one in charge for a change. All those needy years she’d let men tell her what to do and how to do it. They’d insisted she wear her hair long and her skirts short. They’d made the first moves, and she’d waited for them.
For just this one brief moment out of time, she got to plaster her hands against his hard chest, feel his heart thump, while she decided when to open her mouth and let him in.
The control was giddy-makingly awesome. The kiss… She could not begin to describe how Oz kissed. The world went away. All the stars in the heavens encompassed them, filled her with joy and need and urges she barely recognized as her own.
And he brought them to an abrupt halt by using his greater strength to lift her off him and set her to one side so he could stand up.
She wanted to punch him again, but her knuckles were still too sore from the last time. Sitting on the edge of the lounge, her lips bruised and aching, the rest of her screaming for the compl
etion he promised, she buried her head in her hands and didn’t look at him.
“I’m not the other men in your life,” he growled. “I do not take advantage of hysterical, distraught, or otherwise vulnerable women. I want you fully sane and willing when we hit that bed. And I want you to be able to get up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and still agree to do this production with me.”
He started to turn away.
He still wanted her. She could hear the thickness in his voice, had felt his physical response. Pippa couldn’t bear it if he walked out now. For the first time since Robbie, she felt almost alive. He hadn’t faltered beneath any of her assaults—verbal or physical. She wanted to assume Oz was safe from the Beast. He didn’t believe she was dangerous, but she’d warned him. It might be the only time she was brave enough to speak of her fear. Like a genuine wizard, Oz made anything seem possible.
Maybe she could experiment on him. Could she deliberately keep him from leaving?
With brains addled by hormones, she summoned the sensual purr that had turned grown men into kittens. “I’m sane, Mr. Oswin,” she drawled huskily. “I’m dangerous, but I’m very sane. You’re the vulnerable one here.”
When he turned back to study her, she rose with confidence and strolled up to him, took him by the hand, and turned her face up for the kiss he hungrily grabbed.
After a mind-swirling moment, she gently pushed him back.
“Take me to bed, Mr. Oswin,” she purred in her best siren’s voice. “And you can look in the mirror in the morning and tell me if you still want to work with me.”
Chapter 15
Pippa’s sensuous purr was startling after these past days of icy monotone. Oz thought he preferred the blunt woman to the sex kitten, but he was a man. Her blatant invitation would arouse a tree stump. He wasn’t opposed to whatever she had in mind.
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