Dangerous Lover

by Lisa Marie Rice

Axel’s excited breathing was loud in the darkened room.

  Deacon smiled. “Maja’s going to love these. Come over and look.” Deacon reached over the cot to suddenly open the shutters, flooding the room with harsh light. Axel was temporarily blinded and would remain blind for about a minute and a half. More than enough time.

  Deacon had closed his eyes and turned his back to the window, and he could see just fine.

  His hand dropped to his boot, where he quickly and quietly pulled out a long thin dagger with a folding handle the UN troops hadn’t even noticed. He’d been briskly frisked for arms before being shut up in the detention center, but no one had thought to check his boots. Or his belt buckle with the minirevolver or the garotte wire along the inside of his belt.

  The garotte was out of the question. Deaver needed Axel’s clothes intact. A slow choking death would loosen his bowels and bladder. And a bullet wouldn’t do—it would stain his uniform with blood.

  There was only one way to do it.

  Deaver dropped the bag into Axel’s hands. The bag opened under Axel’s eager, fumbling fingers. When the bag was open, he poured the contents in his hand. It took him a few seconds to realize that he held not diamonds but stones. His head lifted.

  “What—” he began. It was his last word on this earth. Deaver hooked his left arm around Axel’s chest and with his right he slipped the stiletto he kept as sharp as a scalpel straight into the brain stem. It immediately stopped all bodily functions. Axel went from sentient being to stone in a tenth of a second. He slumped into Deaver’s arms, an instant corpse.

  Deaver worked fast.

  In five minutes he’d exchanged clothes and shoes. Axel kept his passport and airline ticket on his person at all times. He’d told Deaver he had an unholy fear of the cleaning staff stealing them. The UN peacekeeping mission had been too much for him. Well, good old Axel was getting out of Africa, in a manner of speaking. Permanently.

  Deaver hitched Axel up in a fireman’s lift and made for the door. He opened it slightly and waited for a moment in which no one was visible. It was 17:20, close to dinnertime, and the encampment was deserted. When Deaver was sure no one could see, he slipped out the door and made his way around the back.

  The detention center backed onto the jungle. In the steamy heat, Deaver made his way carefully, disappearing immediately into the dense foliage, leaving barely anything to track. He was lucky. If he’d had to carry a man in the high deserts of Afghanistan, the sand would have kept his footprints for weeks. In the jungle, his tracks would be covered within the hour.

  He walked until his instincts told him he was beyond the natural patrol point and put Axel down. Deaver looked at him, stretched out on his back. He looked peaceful, as if he were taking a nap.

  You should thank me, buddy, Deaver thought. I just gave you a great death. The best.

  It was the one thing soldiers feared above all else—a bad death. Long, lingering, painful. The RA rebels specialized in hacking deaths, where it takes a man maybe an hour to die after having his hands, then his arms, then his feet and finally his head chopped off. Sometimes it took the child-soldiers, wielding axes half their size, ten tries to separate the head from the body.

  Deaver had seen men taking hours of agony to die after having been gut-shot or having their insides ripped open by a land mine. Two employees of ENP had been hacked to death by a ragtag squadron of RA thugs. It was after looking down at their bodies that Deacon vowed to get himself some real money and finally get out of the business.

  That was when he heard about the diamonds.

  Axel had had his own fears. Four UN peacekeepers—a Norwegian, a Pakistani, a Brazilian and a Brit—had been found tortured to death last month, their bodies having been dumped into the UN encampment during the night as a warning not to cross RA troops.

  The medical examiner said they’d been raped repeatedly “with something big and wooden,” then skinned alive. Axel had told him this with a shudder, and Deaver realized it was his worst fear.

  It would never happen to Axel, now. He’d gone out like a light being switched off. One moment he was happy in the knowledge that he was going to give diamonds to Maja, then bam! Lights out.

  Lucky guy.

  Deaver was going to have to mutilate the body, but Axel was already dead. It wouldn’t make any difference to him.

  When a patrol finally found him, they had to think it was Deaver’s body, fallen into the hands of the RA. Deaver looked down, studying the body. Hacking off limbs is harder than it looks, unless you have a tree stump and a big axe, which most of the assholes in the RA did.

  All Deaver had was his Kobun Tanto, but he kept it as sharp as a scalpel. He’d dressed enough deer growing up in Arkansas to know how to go about doing what he had to do. He bent, inserting the knife point between the tendons on the inside wrist, and quickly severed Axel’s right hand. He picked it up and flung it far into the jungle. He could hear the small thud as it fell. In five minutes, the second hand was severed and flung in the opposite direction, the unclotted blood forming a red arc as it flew through the air. The hands would be eaten before nightfall.

  Now came the distasteful part. Deaver bent down, knife point on the throat and in one quick, hard movement, slashed Axel open from sternum to pubic bone. There was very little bleeding, but Axel’s bowels bulged out through the opening. With several more slashes, the skin on Axel’s face hung in tatters.

  The Revolutionary Army was known for its stoned thugs who loved torturing and mutilating their victims. There would be no doubt in anyone’s mind what had happened. The story of the diamonds was well-known. RA soldiers broke into the encampment, kidnapped Deaver, tortured him for the diamonds, and left his body to rot in the jungle.

  While Axel left for Finland and Maja.

  Deaver straightened and stepped back to admire his handiwork. The predators of the jungle would come across the body as soon as he left. No matter when a UN patrol found the body, what would be left would be Deaver’s clothes, wallet, passport, ENP Security ID and very little else. With no hands and no face, the only thing that could identify Deaver was DNA, which would have to be analyzed back in Paris, if anyone cared enough to want a positive ID.

  By the time the DNA analysis results were back, Deaver would be long gone, back in the States, tracking down Prescott to get his diamonds back.

  He knew just where that fucker Prescott would go. Deaver knew from the moment he set eyes on Prescott, that he was trouble. He made it his business to find out his weak spots. The fucker didn’t have any. He didn’t drink, he didn’t do dope and he couldn’t be bought. The only weakness Deaver could find was a woman. A girl. Prescott kept a photograph and a press clipping about her, hidden in a secret compartment in his rucksack. Deaver had managed to make photocopies once, while Prescott was away. He’d watched Prescott take the photo out and stare at it, endlessly.

  So he knew where that fuck was going. Back to that bitch he’d mooned over forever, the one he jacked off to.

  Deaver’d find him, oh yeah. He’d find them both and the diamonds, too. It would be a real pleasure killing them before he disappeared again, forever.

  Four

  Summerville

  Oh, my, Caroline thought, watching through the wide arch as Jack quickly descended the stairs and strode through the atrium into the dining room. There was a rare, very definitely feminine flutter in her chest.

  Boy, does he clean up nicely.

  Gone was the scruffy, unshaved look of a man who’d been traveling hard and rough. He’d washed his hair and tied it back. It gleamed an intense, shiny black.

  He had on tight black pressed jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. Though the clothes were informal, they had the odd effect of looking like elegant evening wear. The clothes also showcased his body, strong chest muscles and biceps showing under the sweater.

  In the bookshop, it had been clear that Jack Prescott was a tall, strong man, but Caroline had been too busy worrying about whether to a
ccept him as a boarder and then about whether they’d actually make it home alive to dwell on his body.

  But now they were safely home, they hadn’t died, the boiler hadn’t died, and he didn’t seem like a serial killer. Now she could look her fill. In between setting the last of the tableware and lighting the candles, she watched him.

  She’d rarely seen such a perfect specimen of a man. It was something other than being buff. Buff was normal nowadays. Even Sanders was gym-fit. This was something beyond that—it was sheer male power, unadulterated, unadorned.

  His eyes met hers and held as he made his way quickly down the staircase and into the dining room. Some expression, one she couldn’t pin down, passed over his face when he saw the dining table.

  Had she overdone it?

  She looked over the table, set with her best Villeroy & Boch tableware, which her parents had bought on their honeymoon in Paris thirty-two years ago. She still had four unbroken Waterford crystal glasses and there were still bits and pieces of the family silver. Enough, certainly, to set an elegant table for two.

  She’d been lighting the last of the candles when he stopped on the threshold. They looked at each other, utter silence in the room. What incredibly magnetic eyes he had. They held her own. His gaze was so compelling, she could scarcely look away…with an exclamation of pain, Caroline blew out the match that had singed her fingers. It stung. She glanced down at the angry red spot on her index finger.

  In a second, he was by her side, a deep frown between his eyebrows. He picked up her hand and examined it carefully.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, tugging at her hand to free it. It didn’t work. He was holding her in a perfectly painless yet unbreakable grip. How stupid, to burn her finger on a match staring at a man. You’d think she’d never seen a man before, the way she’d been staring at him.

  A flush of embarrassment rose from deep inside her. She was cursed with the skin of a redhead, and she knew that her cheeks would be flushed and that the flush would extend down to her breasts.

  He was standing very close, close enough for her to smell him. He’d used the soap she left for all the guests, but his smell—the one that had been imprinted on her brain, on her very nerve endings in the car—overrode the attar of roses. Maybe it was the combination of such female and masculine scents blended together that made her slightly dizzy.

  For a moment she felt light-headed and would have swayed if he hadn’t been holding on to her hand so tightly.

  “You’ve got delicate skin. You wouldn’t want that to blister.” He reached past her and picked up an ice cube from a water glass. “Here. Hold that against the burn for a few minutes.” He held the cube against her finger and curled his hand around hers.

  He didn’t step back, as she would have expected, but watched her in silence, his hand around hers. Caroline was aware of her heart beating, slow and hard, and of the incredible warmth of his hand. She didn’t know what to do. Of course, she should withdraw her hand from his, but somehow her muscles wouldn’t obey, so she simply stood quietly, watching him. His irises were a dark, deep brown, almost indistinguishable from the pupils.

  A drop of melted water fell through her closed fist to plop onto the marble floor, sounding loud in the hush. It was as if that small splash awoke her from a deep slumber. She took in a deep breath and flexed her fingers under his.

  He opened his hand immediately, and she looked down. The ice had done the trick. The redness was almost all gone.

  “Thanks,” she murmured, stepping back. Stepping away from him was harder than it should have been, as if that big body exerted a gravity of its own, a small planet made of heat and bone and muscle.

  “You’re welcome. Here.” He dug into his jeans pocket and came away with a plain white envelope. “We should get this over with right away.”

  She held it, looking up at him. Though he wasn’t in any way handsome or even good-looking, he had an oddly…elegant face, long and lean, with a strong bone structure no longer blurred by the stubble. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth.

  The paper crackled under her fingers. “What is this?”

  “The five hundred dollars for the first month of rent, plus a five-hundred-dollar deposit. If you’ll have me, I plan on staying a while. I’ll pay on the twenty-fourth of each month if that’s okay by you.”

  Wow. That was wonderful by her. The thousand dollars was going straight into the bank on Monday morning. Caroline pulled out a drawer of the secretaire where she kept her bank statements, dropped the envelope in, and nudged it closed with her hip.

  She’d been incredibly low all day, alone in the bookshop, with only an empty house to come home to and a long, long lonely Christmas weekend to look forward to. But now it appeared things were looking up.

  She smiled as she walked to the kitchen. She’d outdone herself with dinner, maybe to celebrate no longer being quite so alone. Jack Prescott was a boarder, it was true, but he was turning into a good one. Who knew? Maybe he even had conversation in him. Maybe—

  “Caroline?” His deep voice was low, a questioning note in it. She turned. In the kitchen a bell pinged. The roast was ready. “Yes?”

  He pointed a long finger at the secretaire. “Aren’t you going to count that?”

  She stared at him. “Count what?”

  “The money. I want you to count it.”

  Caroline looked at him, then at the drawer. She gave a half laugh. “But—but I trust you.”

  He inclined his head gravely. “That’s reassuring to hear. And to know. But you should count it, just the same.”

  “But the roast—”

  “Won’t burn in the minute it will take you to check to see that the money is all there. Humor me. Please.” That harsh face didn’t seem to have pleading in its repertory. The word had been said softly enough, but something in his face said it wasn’t a word he used often. And it definitely wasn’t a face you would say no to.

  Well, someone as big and strong as he was, an ex-soldier to boot, probably didn’t need to say pretty please very often. He probably just took what he wanted.

  It was, after all, the way of the world.

  Caroline had butted her head time and time again against those more powerful than she was, and she’d lost, every single time. Power in her world was usually money and connections, not physical strength, but since she didn’t have any of them—money or connections or physical power—she always came out the worse for wear.

  He didn’t move, and he didn’t say anything else, so on a sigh, she turned back and pulled open the drawer. The envelope wasn’t sealed—the flap was tucked into the envelope like a Christmas card.

  Inside were ten very new, very crisp hundred-dollar bills. She counted them, one by one, laying each bill on the surface of the table with a little slap, then when she’d done counting, tucked them back into the envelope and placed the envelope back in the drawer.

  It had been a charade, but maybe he’d been right to force her to check. The crisp feel of the notes was so reassuring. The month of January was going to be okay, money-wise. The boiler hadn’t conked out yet. She had an attractive man over for dinner.

  Man, she was on a roll.

  Caroline turned back to him. He hadn’t budged an inch, it seemed. She’d never met anyone, man or woman, who could keep so still. “Now, unless that money is counterfeit, and if it is, I’ll know it on Monday morning when I deposit it in the bank, I suggest you sit down and pour us a glass of wine. I’ll be right back.”

  When she walked back into the dining room, he was already seated and had poured them both half a glass of wine. He stood immediately as soon as she crossed the threshold.

  Caroline put down the roast beef and sat, noting that he didn’t sit down until she did. That rule had gone out with the dinosaurs, though apparently Jack Prescott hadn’t heard about it.

  Jack’s dark gaze took in the table, then shifted to her. “This looks absolutely wonderful. Thank you. I didn’t dream when I landed that I’d
be having such an elegant meal tonight. I thought I’d check into a hotel and try to find a diner somewhere.”

  Caroline smiled, pleased, as she served him. Yes, she had set a good table. And tonight she’d outdone herself with the cooking. It was an old trick. When depressed—slap on more makeup, slip on your prettiest blouse, put on some great music. Just as long as it didn’t cost money she didn’t have, Caroline knew all the tricks.

  The dining room was beautiful in its own right. When her parents had been alive, it had been painted a light canary yellow that went wonderfully well with the warm cherrywood Art Deco dining set. A year after the accident, on one of the few occasions he’d actually managed to stand upright, Toby had slipped and banged his head against the sharp corner of the buffet, then against the wall, leaving a bright red track of blood.

  Caroline had been so appalled and heartbroken at seeing her brother’s blood on the wall, the next weekend she’d painted the walls an uninspiring, flat mint green that was just one shade off hospital khaki. It had been the only color on sale the day she’d stopped by the local hardware store.

  Other than that, the room was as it had been in its heyday, when the Lakes entertained senators and judges and famous writers and artists. So far, she hadn’t had the heart to sell off the dining room set, though if Toby had lived much longer, the dining room set would have had to go, together with the last of the artwork and, eventually, the house.

  The cherrywood table was polished to a high gloss. The candle flames were reflected deep into the wood, as were the crystal glasses, almost as sharply as if the tabletop were a mirror.

  The candle flames were reflected in Jack’s dark eyes, too, tiny flickers of light in darkness. There was another kind of light in his eyes, too, unmistakable.

  There was no doubt that he was appreciating more than the dinner. He hadn’t said an untoward word, but the male interest was evident and potent. He didn’t do anything as crass as look her up and down—his eyes remained riveted on her face—but Caroline had been on the receiving end of enough male attention to know quite well when it was directed at her. Jack Prescott was definitely interested.