by Kay Hooper
She rose on tiptoe, fitting herself more firmly to his hard body, and the sudden, throbbing emptiness in the deepest part of her yanked a sound from her throat that was almost anguish. The urgency that swept over her was very nearly madness, and her fingers shook uncontrollably as she began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt.
“Lara,” Devon said raspily against her throat, his hands sliding down to curve over her bottom and hold her tightly against the swelling fullness of his loins. But she wasn’t close enough, and a groan escaped him. Swiftly, he moved her away, caught the hem of her sweater, and drew it up over her head. The moment her arms were free, Lara’s hands returned to his shirt, and she coped feverishly with the final button just as he unfastened her bra and pulled it off.
When she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, Devon shrugged out of it, his gaze fixed on her. The bulky sweaters she usually wore had allowed only a hint of the ripe curves beneath, and the utter perfection of her round, full breasts took his breath. The firm mounds filled his hands, nipples rising stiffly into his palms in an unbelievably sensuous caress. He heard her gasp, saw her vivid green eyes widen, darken, and she swayed toward him.
Devon was barely aware of a growl rattling in his throat. It was the sound of a caged wild thing. His senses flared violently as the hunger inside him reached a sudden, critical peak, and the part of his mind still capable of thought realized that he couldn’t control this need for her. For an instant he quite literally couldn’t move, didn’t dare try because he was afraid the primitive beast inside him would burst free.
Then Lara’s darkened gaze met his, and he realized that somehow, against all reason, she had been hurled into the same frenzy that gripped him. It was there in her eyes, a fire every bit as hot as the one that burned him. He felt a kind of astonished wonder in her, matching his own, and he could move again.
Lara was so dazed by the storm of desire that she was only half-conscious of the rest of their clothing falling away. She didn’t know who took off what and didn’t care. No one had warned her that it could feel like this, that she could feel like this, the hunger so stunningly powerful that every nerve in her body was on fire with it.
He was kissing her urgently, lifting her and placing her on the bed, and she could only hold on to him desperately. And even though the sensations ripping through her were alien, they were also, somehow, familiar. Her body knew how to respond to his touch, as frantic as his own body; she was conscious of an instinctive knowledge of what would please him, and didn’t hesitate to touch him, caress him.
Lara felt wild, desperate, greedy. She couldn’t be still, couldn’t stop the sounds she heard escaping her. Her trembling hands slid over the hard muscles of his back and shoulders, and her body arched with a will of its own as he stroked her swelling breasts. She tried to catch her breath and couldn’t, a moan blocking her throat, need burning her like a mortal fever.
His mouth was on her breasts, hot and hungry, his hands moving over her with a desire and skill that made her ache. There were things she wanted to say to him, but there was no room for them, no breath for them—no need for them.
And no time. The shattering tension within them built with a swift, relentless power that denied them time. Lara had never felt such blissful agony, and when his hand slid down over her quivering belly and gently cupped her, the ache intensified so sharply that it wrung a cry from deep inside her. She felt his fingers probing, stroking, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was going to splinter into a million pieces.
Devon seemed to know as well. A rough sound escaped him; he spread her legs and moved between them, his body taut as he held on to the last ragged threads of control.
Lara didn’t want control. It never occurred to her to be tense or to anticipate pain; despite the unfamiliar sensations he aroused in her, nothing had ever felt as natural, and as inevitable, as this. Her body accepted him with the same utter certainty.
There was only one surprise, and it delighted Lara. She’d had the vague notion that kissing and caressing were preliminary actions meant to arouse, were more or less reserved for foreplay, and that once the actual physical act of lovemaking began, they would be forgotten. But Devon, she found, made love to her entire body with his entire body.
The need burned just as hot in him; the shattering sensual tension wound just as tightly, but it obviously wasn’t enough for him to just satisfy physical desire. He didn’t possess her, he became a part of her, until she had no awareness of two separate bodies. There was only this incredible striving in a white silence, and a peak of pleasure that was devastating.
—
Lara couldn’t separate the following hours into specific interludes. Sated passion became, somehow, renewing passion that built again to a shattering peak. And again. And again. She knew there had been moments of total exhaustion, but then energy would flow into them, and exhaustion would be forgotten. It seemed there was too much need in them to be satisfied completely. She was, from time to time, conscious of astonishment and more than a little awe, but there was little room in her for coherent thought.
Sometime before dawn, one of the peaceful interludes became sleep. If Lara had been capable of thought by then, she would have fully expected to sleep for at least a year, because she was dimly aware of the sheer inability to move so much as a muscle. She had, however, reckoned without Ching.
“Prrupp?”
Conditioned by Ching himself to respond to her demanding feline friend, Lara forced one eye open and peered across the broad expanse of Devon’s chest. The room was bright; though the drapes were closed, daylight penetrated, and the lamp on the nightstand was still on. Devon was on his back, holding her against his side with both arms, and she felt so utterly relaxed she wanted never to move.
Except her very peculiar cat wanted something of her, and patience wasn’t one of his strongest traits. Ching glared at her, looking offended as only a cat can.
“ ’Lo, cat,” she murmured, yawning.
Ching’s aqua eyes narrowed. “Yah,” he said, and snorted. He expressed himself with such force that he nearly fell off the bed. The bed was big, but so was Devon; Ching didn’t have much room for his somewhat ample behind.
“I can’t,” Lara told him, interpreting the cat’s annoyance as a pointed dialogue concerning his late breakfast. “I can’t move. You’ll just have to wait, dammit.” She kept her voice low.
Ching rang the bell on his collar. He didn’t seem to move at all, and Lara had never figured out how he got the bell to ring.
“Don’t do that,” she said, faintly irritated. “It’s weird. You won’t starve, you know.”
The bell tinkled again, and Ching added an emphatic “Yah!” to the sound.
“I’ll feed you liver. You love liver. Just let me stay here a few more minutes.”
“Yah!”
“Liver with egg. You love that even more.”
“Yah!”
“Please. Have a heart. I’ll buy you one of those cat seats to fasten to the window, and you can watch the birds without having to cling to the sash.”
Ching considered, obviously tempted by the bribe, but then snorted.
“I don’t know why the Egyptians ever worshiped cats.”
Ching smiled at her, eerily wise. “Yah,” he said softly.
Lara moaned in despair and burrowed closer to Devon’s warm, hard side. “Go away,” she muttered. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
The cat gazed at her for a moment, then glanced at Devon’s unaware face. Then he lifted one striped paw and placed it gently on the man’s bronze shoulder. Slowly, the paw tensed, until the sharp claws began to extend.
“All right,” Lara said hastily. “I’ll get up. Stop that this minute!”
Ching’s smile curled at the ends. He relaxed his paw.
Lara realized that her pillow was shaking, and lifted her head to stare down at Devon. Obviously, he was awake. Sapphire eyes glinted at her with a kind of enjoyment she’d never
seen in him before—absolutely unshadowed.
Chuckling, he said, “If I told anybody that I was awakened by a two-sided conversation between you and your cat, I’d be locked up. Especially if I claimed to understand what Ching said in his part of the dialogue.”
“Did you?” she asked curiously.
“Yes. He wanted his breakfast. And when you told him he’d have to wait, he decided to wake me up. Rudely.”
“He’s a strange cat,” Lara admitted.
“Yah,” Ching agreed complacently.
Devon looked at him for a moment, then said, “Excuse us?”
Ching returned the steady gaze, then muttered to himself and jumped down from the bed.
“I’ll have to feed him, or he’ll shred something.”
Devon’s arms tightened around her. “In a minute.”
Lara, somewhat surprised to find that she felt no shyness at all after a definitely incredible night-before, smiled at him. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” He kissed her, his morning beard a sensuous rasp against her flesh. “I was afraid I’d dreamed you,” he said huskily.
She searched his expression a bit hesitantly. “No regrets?”
“No.” The response was reassuringly instant. But then Devon frowned. “Except I didn’t even think about protecting you, honey.”
“The timing’s wrong, I think,” she said, reasonably sure, since she’d just finished her cycle.
He half-nodded, accepting that. “Still, we’d better be more careful from now on.”
Though she hadn’t believed that Devon intended only a one-night fling, she was relieved by the comment. “I’m all for planned parenthood,” she told him.
“So am I.” His eyes darkened slightly. “I don’t want anything to push you into a decision you aren’t ready for.”
Lara smiled and kissed him, no longer startled by her strange understanding of him. “Just me?” she asked gently.
Devon hesitated, then sighed. “I want to make promises, Lara. But I can’t even think past today. I can’t let myself. Do you understand?”
“The way steeplechase jockeys make plans only after the last race. Like that?”
“Yes. Until you’re no longer in danger, and all the questions are answered.” His darkened sapphire gaze searched her eyes restlessly. “Until this is over, you won’t be able to think clearly about your future.”
She didn’t know if Devon loved her. She knew that he felt the same bond she did, but whether that would prove to be a blessing or a burden to him remained to be seen. And she knew that she had no choice but to wait and find out.
Using one finger to draw an intricate design among the black hairs on his chest, she said calmly, “I know that. Or, at least, I know that you believe that. And I understand. Are you going to move in here with me for the duration? It would be safer, you know.”
He smiled a little. “Safer for whom?”
“Me.” She looked at him innocently. “Since my prince is also an FBI agent, he should certainly make it his responsibility to guard my body.”
One of Devon’s hands slipped beneath the covers and found a rounded hip. Gravely, he said, “Quantico instructs agents in all the latest techniques.”
“So you’re…um, up on those?”
“Couldn’t you tell last night?”
“Was that what you were doing? Guarding my body?”
“I was using the definition of ‘watchful care.’ ”
“Quantico teaches selective definitions, too, huh?”
Devon cleared his throat. “There are expected to be a certain number of judgment calls in any situation. Last night, I judged that the best way of guarding your body was to remain very, very close.”
“I approve.” It was her turn to clear her throat as that wandering hand began to make interesting forays. Somewhat weakly, she added, “You can’t!”
Injured, he said, “I’ve had at least four or five hours of rest, and—”
From the living room came the sound of a thunderous crash and a feline wail of surprise and rage.
Before Devon could do more than tense in response, Lara was giggling. “I got him!” she said gleefully.
“Ching? What’d you do to him?”
“The last time he got mad at me, he decided to shred the living room drapes, and since he has claws like steak knives, he can do a lot of damage. He knew I was furious, and I knew he’d try it again because cats love a strong reaction. After I replaced the set he ruined, I loosened the rod at one end; I figured his weight would bring the whole thing crashing down on him.”
Devon listened for a moment, hearing a bitterly profane monologue coming from the living room. “It obviously worked,” he murmured. Then he looked at Lara, and his lips twitched. “What have I let myself in for?”
She laughed and kissed him, but wiggled away before it could get interesting again. “I’d better go feed him, before he starts on the couch…”
Much later, after a shower that got quite interesting and a belated breakfast, which Devon cooked very well, Lara had a sudden dreadful thought. She hastily closed the dishwasher and went out into the living room, where Devon was rehanging the drapes and making sympathetic noises to the disgusted cat, who was sitting on the coffee table watching him.
“Could this apartment be bugged?” she whispered.
“It isn’t,” Devon said in his normal voice. He gave the drapes a last tug to make certain they were secure, then turned to her with a smile. “I had it checked yesterday, and again last night.”
Lara sat down on the couch and thought about that. “I wish you’d told me sooner,” she said finally. “I suddenly realized that it could have been, and that someone could have been listening to us all this time. It was…unnerving.”
He joined her on the couch. “I would have told you last night, but things started happening rather quickly and I forgot.”
She was still thinking about it. “The apartment could only have been checked when I was with you. So you aren’t alone here?”
“Not now. I called in backup after someone broke into this place. As a matter of fact, they’re out pruning the bushes now.”
Lara blinked. “That landscaping service?”
“Right. That’s their cover during the day. At night, they’re close as well. Four agents. Someone’s always watching this building, and someone’s always watching you.”
“You really believe I’m in danger, don’t you?”
Devon reached out to smooth a strand of silky blond hair away from her face. “I really do. Lara, last night before we left the theater, I checked your car. The steering mechanism had been tampered with. I made sure the engine wouldn’t start.”
She waited for fear to sweep over her. But it didn’t. In her mind was the rational awareness that someone very likely wanted her dead, but…It was only then that Lara realized she no longer felt alone. For the first time in too many long months, that overwhelming sense of isolation was gone.
“Lara?”
She wanted to throw her arms around him and laugh out loud, because even living on the edge of a knife felt wonderful with the loneliness gone. It felt alive. Looking at him, she was conscious of a wave of love so powerful that it stole more than her breath for a moment. She didn’t voice the feeling, because she knew Devon would think it was gratitude. He already thought that at least partly, she knew.
Instead, she drew a deep breath and said steadily, “So what’s the next step?”
The shadows were back in his beautiful eyes for the first time that day. “I want you out of it,” he said.
“You know better than that.”
He did, and the reluctant knowledge was in his eyes, along with that almost savage anger that she’d seen before. But he said, “We’ll find another way to get them, Lara.”
“There is no other way. If I disappear, whoever they sent to get me will disappear as well. The only way is somehow to get the man they sent—”
“Or find your fat
her’s evidence.”
“I don’t know where it is!”
Devon put an arm around her. Quietly, he said, “You know something. I don’t think you’re holding back; I believe you know something you’re not aware of.”
“How could that be?”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “The mind plays tricks on us, honey. Especially when we’ve had a shock.”
Lara shook her head. “But why would I block out some knowledge of where the evidence is?”
“I don’t think that’s it. I think you saw or heard something that you just didn’t take in at the time.”
“What?”
He looked at her gravely. “We can try to find out. If you can bear to relive that night.”
“Hypnosis?”
“No, something similar. The mind retains everything, but sometimes you have to take it step by step through an experience in order to remember.”
Step by step…Lara remembered telling Devon about that night, remembered the pain she’d felt. And everything inside her shied away from confronting those memories again. In the blur of images, all she could see clearly was her father’s body.
She shook her head. “No. I—I can’t. Not now. Devon, please. Not yet.”
His arm tightened around her. “All right. But you’ll have to face it sooner or later.”
Lara forced lightness into her voice. “Not if we catch my would-be assassin.”
“They sent a pro, Lara; you can be sure of that.”
“Meaning that he won’t be caught so easily?” She sighed. “I assumed as much. But so far his attempts have been at a distance and haven’t involved guns. The truck, my car. If he’s just trying to scare me—”
“In both cases, you could have been killed.”
Lara thought about it, then began musing aloud. “Either he was following me that first night, or he knew where I’d be. He could have gotten to my car anytime, I guess; but how did he know when the apartment would be empty long enough for him to search it?”