by Tara Janzen
It was crazy. She was crazy. Suzi Toussi had offered her the biggest opportunity of her life, and when Suzi had sold the gallery to Katya Dekker, that opportunity had hit the stratosphere, and she’d still almost blown it.
Katya Dekker. Struggling artists whispered her name as a talisman. She was brilliant, becoming very high profile on the California art scene over the last couple of years, and in her career, she had taken a dozen no-name Los Angeles painters and turned them into stars.
Nikki wanted to be her first Colorado success. She wanted everyone to see her work, to experience it. To her, an unseen painting was only half complete, sterile. It needed the emotional response of the viewer in order to bear fruit—and that was the point of it all, the whole point, to make the connection, not just with the work, but with other people through the work.
She especially wanted to make the connection through this piece, Pathos VII, and she’d almost let the opportunity slip away by wallowing in heartbreak and shame. Twenty-one years of virginity, and she’d thrown it all away on a one-night stand. What did that say about her judgment?
Nothing good, she knew that much, but that wasn’t the worst. The worst was the pining. She longed for Kid, for his touch, for the sound of his voice, in a way she wouldn’t have thought possible. It was unbearably needy of her to want a practical stranger so much, all the time. She wanted to kiss him, breathe him in, be with him, and in her own twisted way, she’d managed it as best she could—and almost blown her show in the process.
Reluctantly but inevitably, she shifted her gaze to the far wall of her studio, her wall of Chaos, Kid Chaos. She’d photographed him that night, during the shoot with Travis for Pathos VII. He hadn’t known what she’d been doing, so all the shots were candid. He’d been taking in the whole process of her work, the lights going, the music blaring, her bank of cameras whirring and clicking, Travis succumbing to the abyss she’d created—and she’d caught him once staring straight at her through the lens of her Nikon.
The shot was stunning—especially blown up to four by six feet and enhanced with all the skill she had at her very talented fingertips. She had a dozen of the painted photographs hanging on the wall and stacked around her studio, along with enlargements of all the other shots she’d gotten of him. They were all showpieces, but she wasn’t putting any of them in her show. Not yet. He was still hers, even if only on canvas and paper.
She walked over to the wall and grazed her fingers across his face, across hawklike eyebrows, the smooth lines of cheekbones above the faint beard stubble along his jaw, across the curve of his lips. His gaze was narrow, fierce, piercing in its intensity, his alertness honed to a razor’s edge. Every fiber of his being was ready.
Ready for what? she’d wondered at the time. An hour later, racing down a mountain canyon in a hail of bullets, she’d known only all too well. He’d been ready for anything, absolutely anything, if that’s what it took to save her life.
He was a warrior who’d dragged his bag of lethal heavy metal up on the Hill in Boulder and changed her forever, and for a very short time, she’d thought he’d been hers. Waking up alone had cured her of that illusion. Not hearing a word from him since, in seven long weeks, had pretty much cemented her deduction: She truly had been a one-night stand.
How could she have been so wrong about what she thought had been between them?
The sudden ringing of the phone made her heart lurch to a stop. Her gaze instantly went to the clock: a few minutes past four A.M.
In two steps, she had the phone in her hand.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly, her heart pounding. On the other side of the room, Travis stirred and pushed himself up to a sitting position. Their gazes met, and Nikki held up her hand. She didn’t know who it was yet.
“Nikki? Nikki, it’s Regan. Sorry we’ve been late getting home, honey, but we finally got the parts we needed for the plane in Hawaii.” Her sister’s voice was scratchy, as if she’d been crying, which didn’t make sense. She and Quinn were on their honeymoon. “We made it to L.A. about an hour ago and should be home early this afternoon.”
“What’s happened?” Something was wrong. Nikki could feel it. Travis rose to his feet and started across the room.
There was a pause on the other end of the phone, then an indrawn breath. “Kid’s brother has been killed. He’s bringing the body back to Denver.”
The shock of the statement left her momentarily stunned. Travis put his hand on her shoulder, letting her know he was there.
Kid’s brother. J.T. Kid had told her he was working in South America, that they all did a lot of work in South America. So that’s where he’d gone, to be with his brother—and his brother had been killed.
“Kid?” She reached for Travis, gripping his arm, barely able to get the name out.
“He wasn’t hurt, Nikki. He should be home sometime today, maybe tonight . . . but I don’t . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen, honey. I’ll call you as soon as we get to Denver. Are you and Wilson okay?”
“Fine,” she said, still stunned. “We’re doing fine.”
“Okay, baby. I’ll see you this afternoon, then. I was so worried we might miss your show, because of the plane. But I’ll be there, Nikki. I promise. Good-bye. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Regan. Bye,” she said, then heard the click of the line disconnecting.
She carefully hung up the phone, her emotions racing.
J.T. had been killed. Poor Kid. Oh, poor, poor Kid. Her hand came up to cover her mouth.
“What’s wrong, Nikki?” Travis’s voice was softened by sleep, but his hold on her was steady, reassuring.
She lifted her gaze to his. “Kid’s brother has been killed. They were in South America. He’s bringing the body home today.”
“Ah, Nikki,” he said, turning her into the warm circle of his arms, holding her close.
She lowered her face into her hands. Her heart was breaking, breaking in a thousand jagged pieces, she hurt so badly for him, but she couldn’t deny that deep inside her blood was rushing faster and a small spark of hope had flamed to life, because Kid Chaos was finally coming home.
CHAPTER
11
WHEREVER SHE WAS, it was perfect, Katya thought. The bed was perfect. The sheets were perfect. The pillow over her head was perfect, and as long as absolutely nothing moved, she’d be perfect, too. The problem was, she was breathing. It was inescapable, and every breath brought a tiny bit of movement, and every tiny bit of movement brought a huge, wracking, throbbing, aching pain to her head.
She carefully opened one eye a bare fraction of a slit. There was enough space between the pillow and the bed for her to see all the way across a rather expansive room to a large bank of windows on the other side. The ceilings had to be at least fifteen feet high. The windows were framed in iron with a very industrial look, quite a contrast to the soft gray furniture grouped around an Oriental rug in front of a black marble fireplace. There was a fire going. She could feel the warmth of it floating across the room and taking the chill out of the air, and there was a chill in the air. From the angle of the sunlight streaming in through the windows, she figured it was about mid-morning—and she’d woken up in a strange bed.
That was a first.
A very disconcerting first.
Then she remembered something—an explosion, and a car named Roxanne, and a man . . . and a killer margarita.
Oh, brother. How could she have forgotten for even a second? Christian Hawkins, and this was undoubtedly his bed.
She turned her nose deeper into the sheets. Oh, yeah, this is his bed—soft, warm blankets, Egyptian cotton sheets, down pillows, and the smell of him wrapping around her senses. Heaven.
“Katya?”
The voice came from somewhere on her right. She recognized it instantly—and it was definitely Hawkins. She quickly calculated the odds of her spontaneously disappearing without a trace, and figured they were pretty slim.
Too bad.
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“Are you okay under there?”
“Yes,” she whispered into the sheets, then confessed, “No.” She didn’t have the strength to maintain a lie. She was completely wiped out, more tired now than she could have possibly been when she’d fallen asleep—or perhaps “passed out” was the more accurate description—and her head was breaking. It was what had woken her up, and what was going to make getting back to sleep impossible: the Headache from Hell.
“Do you want some tea?”
Tea?
“Chamomile. It’ll help. Then we’ll get a couple glasses of water in you. If you can eat some toast, I’ll give you some aspirin.”
A man with a plan that sounded like it could save her, which was his specialty, if she remembered correctly, and she was pretty darn sure she did. The night was quickly coming back to her in bits and pieces, like a jumbled-up puzzle. She let them all fall through her mind and fall into place, painting a rather tumultuous picture of the previous night, until one of those little memories leaped out and froze her solid where she lay under all those soft, warm blankets.
She’d stuck her hand down his pants.
Ohmigod. The heat of a sudden, fierce blush flashed across her cheeks.
She heard him walk away, heard the sound of him working in the kitchen and, far too quickly, heard him return.
“Kat?”
“Hmmm?” she answered softly, politely. The small sound echoed under the pillow like she’d yelled down the Grand Canyon, and she winced, which just about blew her head off.
“Come on, Kat. Let’s get a little something in you.” He’d moved closer. She could tell by the sound of his voice. Then she smelled the tea and toast, and miracle of miracles, it smelled good, like it actually could save her.
He was right, of course, she needed some sustenance, but that didn’t make her unbelievably mortifying situation any better. She hadn’t just stuck her hand down his pants. She’d . . . she’d . . . oh, God. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed someone would tell her it just wasn’t so, that she hadn’t actually grabbed on to him and . . . and felt him up—which was as close to the truth as she dared to get. Oh, geez, what in the world had she been thinking?
She’d meant it as a rhetorical question, but her suddenly functioning memory banks were all too ready to supply an answer. She’d been thinking how warm his skin was, and how much she was fascinated by his tattoo, the clean, broad strokes of stylized feathers, the tips curling onto the backs of his hands, the wings themselves flowing down his back to the base of his spine, where they split and curved low around his hips, ending above his groin. She’d been thinking about all the times she’d traced those lines with her fingertips . . . and her tongue, and then suddenly they’d been kissing, his mouth so hot on hers, and her hand had gone way beyond the out-of-bounds territory.
Her blush deepened, as did her distress. It had been a lot like making love, being that intimate with him, and the last thing she wanted to face was even the remote possibility of still being attracted to him. It had been thirteen years, and she’d never heard so much as one word from him in all that time. What had happened had been too awful, and she’d assumed that like her, he would only want to forget.
Except that was a lie. She hadn’t wanted to forget anything about him. Being wrenched away from him, losing him, had been as painful as facing Jonathan’s death. Hawkins was who she’d needed to share her grief with, to find solace with—and he’d been taken away. He’d been the man she loved, even if he’d only been a boy.
“Katya?” His voice came again, a little more insistent.
Well, he wasn’t a boy any longer, and God, yes, what she needed to do was pull herself together and get out of his exquisitely decorated downtown loft, before he had her arrested for sexual harassment, but she simply could not face him.
“Could you go away . . . please?” she mumbled under the pillow. Like to Siberia for a few days, so she could slink away like the coward she was and hopefully never, ever have to face him again.
After a long silence, in which she began to wonder if he actually had gone away, he spoke.
“No, I can’t go away.” He didn’t sound any happier than her about it, which made her feel even more mortified. “We’ve got a lot of work to do today, and I need your help. If we can get a little food and water in you, you’ll feel better. The toast is whole wheat.”
Oh, God. He’d remembered her favorite toast. He was a saint, and she was a pervert, but she didn’t have to be an idiot pervert.
Slowly, she slid her hand out to the side of the bed. “Toast,” she mumbled.
“Tea first.”
Fine. He wasn’t going to be nice and do things her way, but she’d get through this. She always got through horrendously mortifying situations. But she honestly didn’t think she could apologize for sticking her hand down his pants. She didn’t have the courage to even mention it, let alone discuss it. All she could do was hope he hadn’t noticed.
Yeah, right.
How could she have done such a stupid, crude thing? Just how desperate was she, really?
Once again, her brain was only too happy to supply the answer, and the truth was, it had been a long time since she’d met a man she wanted, and what she’d done hadn’t seemed at all stupid or crude at the time. It had been lovely. Touching him had made her feel warm all over and hot inside, and so very alive—which just made it that much harder to face him.
God help her. She had to get out of his loft, the sooner the better.
Moving carefully, she slowly levered herself up on one elbow, letting the pillow slide off her head onto the bed. Her hair was half down over her face, which she considered a real plus, and she barely opened her eyes, the better to keep her head from blowing off.
“Tea,” she agreed, putting her hand out.
She did not look at his face. The last thing she wanted was to make eye contact. Most of what she saw was the front of his shirt, and what she saw sparked her curiosity in spite of her hangover.
She leaned her head sideways a little to see past his vest.
“‘Fuck you’ ?” she said, reading the Chinese characters on his shirt.
“Sure,” he said, “but why don’t you drink your tea first?”
It took a second or two for that to sink in, and when it did, her half-closed gaze inadvertently shifted to his, and another blush, even deeper than before, flashed across her face.
“I was just . . . just—” Not thinking. At all, she admitted to herself.
“Reading Chinese,” he said, helping her out. “That’s interesting.”
“It’s Alex, my secretary. He knows Chinese, and he . . . uh . . .” Betrayed me, she remembered. Sold her down the river to her mother. Oh, yes, it was all coming back now, but as awful as Alex’s betrayal was, it was nothing compared to the trouble she was in, sitting in Christian Hawkins’s bed.
One look at him, and a hundred other memories came flooding back. He’d kissed her. That’s how everything had started. He’d kissed her in the bar at Mama Guadalupe’s, and she’d melted with pleasure and need. Absolutely melted.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and her blush grew even hotter. No one kissed like Christian Hawkins—long, and slow, and wet, and deep, like his next breath depended on her kiss, his mouth molding to hers like they were made for each other, his body so strong and hard up against her, moving against her. She could have kissed him forever.
“Don’t worry about Alex,” he told her. “He’s out of the picture, if you want him to be. Not even your mother can change that.”
His words startled her out of her reverie, and with effort, she forced herself to meet his eyes again. He looked about twenty-two this morning, with his tough-guy clothes, tousled hair, and beard-shadowed jaw, and he obviously needed a reality check on one of the less pleasant facts of life, one she would have thought he’d known.
“My mother can change anything she wants,” she told him, because it was the truth. International oil crises, di
plomatic relations with Third World countries, political agendas and media priorities, friendships, loyalties, her daughter’s love life—Marilyn Dekker had messed with them all, repeatedly and freely over the years, with abandon and damn little conscience.
“Not this time,” he told her with enough self-assurance in his voice to make her wonder if it could possibly be true. Could he possibly have some source of power great enough to subdue the Dragon?
She looked around his loft. He lived well, very well. She knew expensive furniture and a designer kitchen when she saw them, and he had both, but Katya didn’t doubt for a minute that Dragon Dekker could ruin him all over again—if she found out what had happened. And with Alex on her payroll, she was probably already airborne and headed to Denver.
The thought was enough to clear her head in one startling blast of realization, and make her stomach churn with the next. Oh, God, she had to get out of there, away from him, immediately. She couldn’t bear for him to be hurt again because of her.
She wasn’t too thrilled about what her mother might try to do to her, either.
Damn Alex all to hell.
“I’m—uh—sorry, but I won’t be able to help you with any work or anything for—um, who did you say you were with? The Department of Defense?” What in the world he thought she could do for the Defense Department was a mystery. Not much, was what she figured. Moving with glacial slowness, she started easing herself off the bed. “Thanks for—uh—everything, though.” Whatever everything might be. She really wasn’t sure, but a nice thank-you always eased a parting—or an escape. “If you’ll just call me a cab, I’ll let you get on with your day.” And I’ll go find a hole to crawl in somewhere, probably at a hotel, since Toussi’s was the first place her mother would go.