Besides being a slob, he was also a pack rat, even keeping a beer coaster with a phone number, which she doubted, if asked, he could explain. But it was his dark side that both intrigued and troubled her. He seemed obsessed with anything that had to do with fear, death and the paranormal. Even the piece of driftwood on his desk that served as a paperweight had an eerie quality to it. It looked like an arm rising out of the surf, almost beckoning. How could anyone spend so much time around all this and not be drawn in? Drawn down?
They can’t. When is that going to sink in?
Blinking to fight the sudden burning in her eyes, she straightened the blotter she’d accidently nudged out of position. As she pushed it back onto the desk, she noticed some papers beneath. Her pulse immediately started racing.
Yes, this was it. There were almost a dozen, worn from a great deal of handling. The first three read like letters; expansive and adoring, they were written by someone who knew Zach’s work intimately. Fan mail, Willa thought, wincing at the almost painful and gushing praise. For The Well he wrote, “You know me. You know what I’ve suffered and what they did to me. Thank you for saying it was all right to make them pay. Always, your devoted reader.”
Willa shuddered, wondering what payment the reader had exacted for his real or imagined pain. It was incredible to think how long he’d worked on the letter, painstakingly cutting to keep his anonymity.
It was the third note that showed the most disturbing slant, a change toward intent. Short and heartbreaking, it said only, “She’s found me. So beautiful and terrible. I’m afraid. Help me.”
By the fourth communication, the transformation was done. Truth had been twisted and bitterness thrived. “You never cared about me. I hate you. You’ll pay. Wait and suffer!”
But the last, the most wrinkled, as if it had been crushed in a palm and then smoothed out again, produced the most heart-thumping reaction. “We’ve found the one. Her time is close. Do you want to beg me to spare her?”
Willa had to shove the papers back under the blotter. Just touching them made her stomach roll. But it was the flash of headlights that locked the breath in her throat.
Zack was back!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She’d never moved so fast in her life. Almost knocking Zach’s computer monitor off his desk, Willa lunged to get away from the window and raced out of the room. Running blindly down the hall, she groped for and found the banister and stumbled halfway down before her terror-stricken mind let her realize what was wrong.
She’d forgotten her flashlight.
Where did I put it?
Frantic, she scrambled back up the stairs and, before she could stop, she kicked the thing across the room. The terrible crash had her cringing—surely, Zach had heard that—but it was the pain in her foot that made her clench her teeth and whimper. Nevertheless, she dropped to all fours and reached under the desk to where it had rolled.
Once she had it again, she retraced her steps, knowing that she couldn’t risk using the light. She didn’t want to think what Zach would do to her if he found her in here. On the other hand, it might not matter; the way her heart was pounding, she was going to die of terror any second now.
The back door opened as she reached the bottom of the stairs. She froze, although everything inside her screamed for her to run. But if she ran, he would hear—and what if he had two guns and had taken one with him?
Easy. Easy. Take it one tiptoe at a time.
She waited for the first board to creak. Sweat should have broken out on her brow from the tension vibrating within her. One step, two, three…She inched toward the study, while every atom of her being listened to him shutting and bolting the back door, groaning as he settled into his chair. The thump and soft clanging sound that followed she identified as his setting down the canes.
But once she made it into the room and felt the closeness of freedom, the impulse to hurry affected her direction and balance. Combined with the lack of light, she tragically miscalculated where the chess table had been.
She felt part participant and part observer, and knew she had no chance. The instant her thigh came in sharp contact with hard wood, she gasped, then everything—table, chair, board and a few dozen hunks of marble—went flying, and she followed.
Between the pain and her cry, she didn’t hear another thing until lights blinded her and he swore a blue streak.
“Do you have a death wish? Is that your problem?” he roared in conclusion.
“Why don’t you just use that thing and get it over with,” Willa sobbed back, breathless and hurting. She supposed he’d expected the worst and had grabbed the first thing he could get his hands on as a weapon. Right now an added blow from a wooden meat mallet didn’t seem all that painful.
“I should.” But he tossed it into a corner by the door and wheeled toward her. “And then I should wring your neck. You don’t want to come over when you’re invited—no. But it’s okay to break into my house?”
“I didn’t break in.”
“The damn doors were locked!”
“Well, that window wasn’t!”
He followed her trembling, but pointing finger to the window on the left, and his scowl deepened. “The hell you say. I never leave those open.” But he wheeled over to inspect it, whipping aside the heavy drapes and running his hands alongside the paneling. Finally he slammed it shut and secured the lock.
When he pushed himself back to her, he had a strange look on his face. “Don’t lie to me, Willa.”
“Ho-ho, you’re one to talk.”
To her surprise, his expression turned guilty, even apologetic. But there was a little resentment, too.
“You saw.”
“There was a crash. I woke up.”
“I fell.” He bowed his head. “Damned clumsy ox, that’s all I am now.”
Dear heaven, is that how he thought of himself? “Zach, maybe it’s not the way you wanted things to turn out, but you can walk. Why can’t you see how fantastic—what a blessing that is?”
“You call half dragging yourself for a few dozen yards walking? And the pain so bad, you’d as soon take a gun to your head a blessing?”
“Yes, you embittered jerk! If I could have had my husband back in that shape, I would have thanked God every day for the rest of my life!”
He looked stunned, but no more amazed than she was at herself. She’d never admitted anything like that before, and no doubt A.J. would have acted no better than Zach; however, now that the words were out she knew they were her truth. She and A.J. would have been okay. She would have bullied him with love until it was okay. Life was simply too precious to wish away or ignore, as Zach seemed determined to prove.
Sniffing back the unwanted tears of emotional and physical pain, she tried to stand, but the pain in her thigh and hip hadn’t lessened one bit. She did well just to sit up. Biting back a moan, she tugged her kimono down over her thighs and retied the loose sash, disgusted that on top of everything else she was making a spectacle of herself.
“That’s a nasty bruise on your thigh.”
“It’s okay.”
Zach shifted closer, then locked his wheels and extended his hand. “Come on.”
He’d caught her sneaking around in his house; did he think she was going to trust him? Especially when he was looking at her like he couldn’t decide whether she should be lunch or fishing bait? She shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”
He didn’t answer; rather, he reached over and swept her off the carpet and onto his lap as if she were a dropped towel. It reminded her again—as if she needed reminding—of what kind of strength she was dealing with.
“Zach, this is crazy. Let me—What are you doing?”
Without so much as an “Excuse me” or “May I?” he parted and pushed up her kimono. Her throbbing flesh suddenly felt scorched when he ran his fingers over the bruise.
“That needs ice.”
“I’ll put some on as soon as I get home.”
; But when she tried to get off him, the arm tightened around her waist. He used his other hand to release the brake. Willa knew she should be grateful that his overall reaction hadn’t been worse, but being this close to him was more than her confused and vulnerable emotions needed right now.
“Zach, please. Let me go.”
“I told you, the window is always locked. At least it’s supposed to be,” he replied, as if explaining simple addition to a child. “What do you think that means?”
“Your cleaning lady was trying to air out the place and forgot to close it?”
“I don’t have a cleaning lady.”
“Really? You could have fooled me.”
He made a faint sound deep in his chest, but she didn’t know whether it was a snort or a chuckle. When he didn’t go to the kitchen, but turned toward the elevator, she also didn’t care.
“What are you doing?”
“You need ice.”
“But the kitchen’s that way,” she said, hooking her thumb over her left shoulder.
He nodded, but kept going, never once looking at her. “And I’m telling you that someone who’d been in my house deliberately left that window unlocked. Now I’m going to ask you one more question,” he said, sliding open the cage door. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes.”
“Did you read all of them?”
“Yes,” she admitted more softly. Oh, Lord, she didn’t want to put it all together.
“Then how do you think I could let you go back out there in the darkness, alone, knowing that some demented…monster might be waiting for you?”
Was she the one, then? Willa decided she didn’t want an answer to that. She couldn’t handle it at the moment. But as he slid the door shut and the elevator growled and rose, she knew the answer stood fatalistically between them.
She looked down at her hands that were fidgeting with the end of her sash, rolling and unrolling. It amazed her. She never fidgeted. “Where did you go, Zach?”
“For a ride.”
“Do you do that often?”
“Only when I reach out to a woman I’ve been trying to resist, and she tells me to get lost.”
“I didn’t!”
“Well, either way, you weren’t coming over.” He sighed. “I thought I could be philosophical about it. I even told myself it was what I’d wanted. Instead, the walls started closing in on me. The writing…Things weren’t going well. I figured that being out in the night, rolling down the windows and chasing the stars would help.”
“Did it?”
“Didn’t get that far. I started feeling uneasy about leaving, so I turned around and came back.”
And scared her half to death. “I’m sorry for knocking over your chess set.”
“No, the game needed to be stopped. I didn’t like the pattern that was forming.”
“Me, neither. I felt sorry for your white queen. She looked as if she were about to get slaughtered.”
“Yes.” The elevator stopped and for the first time since lifting her off the floor, Zach looked into her eyes. “But do you understand? If I hadn’t come back, I’m not sure you would have gotten out of here alive.”
Her mind resisted the idea forming, the concept that someone read her so well that she’d been set up to come here tonight. If she’d been killed, Zach would naturally have been the police’s prime suspect.
“No.” Shock came like a series of shattering waves and, needing to anchor herself to something real and solid, Willa wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oh, Zach!”
His arms closed around her, fierce, but wonderfully reassuring. Burying her face in the warm curve of strong neck and shoulder, she held tight. She didn’t even mind his silence, or that when the elevator came to a stop, that he had to let go to open the door and wheel them out. It was enough to draw from his confidence and power. When she was this close, she knew how wrong she’d been to have any doubts or fear about him. Zach might get furiously angry with her, but he would never hurt her.
Only when she felt a draft of cold air did she look around. “You have a refrigerator in your bedroom.”
Incredible. A smile tugged at her lips because it wasn’t one of those hotel-room-size ones, either. In fact, half the wall across from his giant bed was set up as a kitchen, and the other half had every piece of electronic equipment he could want.
“Except for your office, is every room in this place dark?” This room wasn’t paneled; rather, it was papered with an intense sapphire blue, and the furnishings were all heavy bold mahogany.
“I guess. I haven’t really thought about it except for in here,” he said, taking a container of ice and placing several cubes in the towel on the counter. “I don’t sleep during normal hours, and this side of the house gets sun most of the day.”
Willa doubted that any sunlight made it through the heavy blue drapes on the two sets of windows. Her gaze wandered back to the bed, which was unmade, but the sheet and spread were rolled back neatly. She could see the impression of his body on the dramatic green-and-burgundy sheets, which immediately triggered intimate, erotic images in her mind. That made her react all the sharper when Zach laid the ice pack against her thigh.
“That’s worse, not better!” she cried, trying to remove it.
“You just need to focus on something else,” Zach said, cupping the back of her head with his free hand and claiming her mouth with his.
He was right. The feel of his lips against hers definitely emptied her mind of everything but him and the realization that she’d been wanting to be this close again.
She clenched at the sweatshirt so hot from his body, and thrilled to the feel of the deep breath he took in response to that. She thrilled, too, when he didn’t linger on tentative nibbles and brushstrokes. As if he’d expected never to get this close again, he parted her lips and drove his tongue deep.
Maybe it was part adrenaline, a result of once again having been made too aware of life’s fragility. More than likely it was because no one kissed like Zachary Denton. All honesty and bold passion, he made no excuses for his desire, didn’t hide it behind coaxing kisses, or tentative darts and teasing strokes. He kissed as if she were melting ice cream and he didn’t want to miss one drop.
When he paused, it was only to breathe and whisper, “Wrap your arms around me. Hold me.” Then he locked his mouth to hers again and took on the erotic dance where he’d left off.
The soft thud of the ice cubes tumbling to the carpet came as no surprise. Willa thought it impressive that Zach had managed to keep focused and hold them in place for as long as he did. Nor did she miss the damp cool cloth as it slid off her. With Zach combing his hands into her hair and intensifying the kiss, any residual discomfort was reduced to an abstract awareness.
Then just as she thought they might melt into each other, he groaned, and rocked his forehead against hers. “Don’t say no. I can’t let you go this time.”
Madness. Now she knew she’d left most of her senses next door, and had lost the rest when creeping through his window. It no longer mattered that they were veritable strangers, that he troubled her almost as much as he tempted her. This moment was about instincts and fate, and right now theirs were mysteriously, irrevocably tied.
“Tell me what to do.”
“Anything and everything you want,” he murmured, stroking his hands down her back. “I know I’m going to try.” As if to prove it, he shifted to her front and untied her kimono’s belt. But after slipping the silk from her shoulders, he swallowed. “Damn.”
Her weakness had long been wanting sensual things close to her skin, even when her outer clothing consisted of functional cotton, even casual T-shirts and leggings. The disadvantage was that mesmerized stares such as Zach’s had a decided physical effect on her that was impossible to hide, so that when he reached out and brushed his fingers across her already taut nipples, she reacted to the excruciating sweetness as if he’d plunged a dagger into her breasts.
&nb
sp; Every muscle in Zach’s face worked. “Would you consider a big favor?”
Thinking her jerky response had hurt him, she asked, “Do you need me to get up?”
“Only so I can look at you.”
Even if she had been shy, she could never have denied him that request, not once she saw his expression. When he lifted her to her feet and gazed at her, she thought it amazing how arousing a visual caress could be.
But looking wasn’t enough when Zach focused on her bruise. Taking gentle but firm hold of her hips, he leaned forward and kissed the already discoloring bump. Before the tingling sensations had begun to dance from nerve ending to nerve ending, he’d inched up the teddy to do the same to the bruise forming on her hip. Then he slipped both hands into the silky material to cup her and draw her closer.
As he pressed his face against her womb, her knees turned weak. Stroking his hair, she murmured, “Zach…let’s lie down.”
Never taking his eyes off her, he backed his chair to the side of the bed and locked the wheels. Willa wondered if she should offer to help, but realized that in doing this every day, he’d become quite adept at it.
It also became apparent how few words were necessary between them. With a look, she knew he welcomed her helping him take off his things, and that after she slipped off her sneakers, his faintest touch told her that he wanted to finish undressing her himself.
But it wasn’t as if they didn’t speak. Zach whispered accolades to her hair when it brushed his thighs, oaths when she explored him with her hands and mouth, and a two-worded prayer when he eased the straps of her teddy off her shoulders and drew the garment to her waist, hips and beyond.
In his own way, he was also graceful, although she knew he didn’t think so. But his weight training had made him extremely conscious of his body, and like some Eastern martial-arts master, he rarely moved without purpose. As a result, the lines and angles his body formed made him as beautiful to her as she seemed to be to him—something apparent as they shifted back against the pillows. Every gesture, every exploration was based on some sixth sense of what the other craved or needed.
Watching for Willa Page 13