by Alice Orr
“You come near her again, and I’ll kill you.”
Nick was shocked by how strongly he meant those words. He wasn’t a killer by nature.
“No, buddy,” the guy said in a cracked voice, his eyes glittering like burning coals. “I’ll kill you.”
Nick sensed the gun before he saw or felt it. This guy might have eyes that were on fire, but Nick had some rage of his own to vent right now. This creep was trying to hurt Delia, and Nick wasn’t about to stand for that. His reaction was lightning swift, faster even than a trigger finger and far less expected. He raised his arm and drove his elbow into the guy’s throat in a single, powerful motion. The blazing eyes went blank for an instant. In that flash, Nick grabbed the guy’s gun arm and twisted till the weapon dropped free. Nick yanked him away from the wall, turned him toward the descending stairwell and pushed. The man toppled backward, arms flailing, down the stairs, grunting and cursing till he hit the parquet floor where he lay crumpled and quiet. Nick followed down the stairs. The guy was knocked out but still breathing. Nick knew he didn’t have to shove the guy down the stairs like that, but he’d needed a lesson he wouldn’t forget. Now, Nick had to make himself scarce before security showed up and brought this mess back to Delia’s doorstep in a way she wouldn’t like.
The gun had bounced down the stairs and was lying next to its owner. Nick picked it up. The thought that this creep came here after Delia with a gun on him had Nick white-hot again until he looked down at the weapon in his hand. It was a 9 mm Beretta. Something about that very serious weapon and the look of the guy in general clicked a recognition switch in Nick’s head. He’d been too angry to put it together before. His cop’s instinct was usually with him every minute, but he’d let himself get emotionally involved here. That could screw anybody up. His instinct was back on course now, and it was telling him something very disturbing. This guy on the floor wasn’t just some flake from Long Island. He was a pro.
Nick would have liked to toss the guy’s pockets right here, but he didn’t have time. Somebody was bound to come out of the ballroom any minute. There’d be trouble for sure then, and that wouldn’t be good for Delia. If all they found was this guy passed out on the floor, they’d figure he drank too much and fell. If what Nick suspected about this guy was true, he’d most likely go along with that story. He wouldn’t want hotel security in on this any more than Nick did. On the other hand, if somebody came out here and found Nick standing over this dude, there’d be alarm bells going off all over the place.
Nick pocketed the Beretta and headed back up the stairs. He picked up the gift package he’d dropped before grabbing the guy. No need to leave any traces behind. Nick pulled absently at the red wrapping paper as he hurried down the hallway toward the corridor that would take him out of sight of the stairwell and in the direction of the elevators. Alarm bells of his own were clanging in his brain to beat the band. Had Delia been stupid enough to let herself get mixed up with a professional gunman? Everything Nick had ever learned in this business told him that didn’t ring true.
Loose ends of her story that he hadn’t paid enough attention to before were suddenly dangling right in front of him. There was definitely something off-line with what she’d told him. He could see that now plain as day. He was used to being lied to. Clients lied all the time, even when their lies made it more difficult to keep them protected. He’d expected more than that from Delia, and not just because she was in the business herself and should know better. He’d expected more because of what he’d started feeling for her. “Emotions cloud judgment.” If that bodyguard manual of his had a firstof-all rule, this was it. He’d forgotten his own first rule. Nick told himself he wouldn’t forget it again.
By the time he reached the elevators, he’d torn the wrapping off the gift box and opened it without even realizing what he was doing. He glanced down at the box while he waited impatiently for an up arrow to flash red above one of the elevator doors. The tissue paper had been pushed aside to reveal a necktie in very proper regimental striped design except for the Santa face in the center. Nick pulled the tie out and put the box down beside a vase of flowers on a table next to the elevator bank. He ran the length of silky fabric between his fingers. He couldn’t help wondering who should be strangled with this thing—the professional hitter back there laid out on the floor or Nick’s own lying client.
Nick spent the rest of the trip to his room calming himself down and doing some thinking. When he raised his fist to knock on the adjoining door to Delia’s room, he had more than one big question on his mind. It took a couple of knocks to get an answer.
“Who is it?” she asked from the other side of the door.
“It’s Nick,” he said, subdued a little by what sounded like fear in her voice. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, though he could hear that wasn’t true. “But I’m not up to talking right now.”
Nick could feel the tremor in her voice melting his resolve. Tremor or not, there was one thing he had to find out. He leaned close to the door panel so he wouldn’t have to talk loud.
“How did that guy know we were here?”
She was silent for a moment before she answered. “I did something very dumb.”
“What was that?”
Another pause. “I left the hotel phone number with my office answering service. I always let them know where I’m going to be. He must have called and found out where I was, then waited down in the lobby till we showed up.”
Nick sighed and shook his head.
“Can we please talk about this later?”
She was pleading now. That, plus the thought of her being so conscientious about her job that she put herself in danger, deflated his anger faster than he would have guessed was possible.
“Sure,” he said. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” she said, her voice smaller than ever. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
Nick stared at her door for a moment longer. He had yet another question. Wasn’t she just a little too devoted to that job of hers? Or was he just being overly suspicious to make up for not being suspicious enough before? Whatever his reasons, he was determined to get the answers to all of his questions in the morning. He could use some sleep himself. But, with the way he had the Santa necktie clutched into a tight ball in his fist, he wasn’t likely to find much sleep on his agenda tonight.
DELIA WAS DREAMING when the sound began, trying to get her feet off the ground to fly. Then the jangling started and the dream dissolved. What was going on? What was this noise, and where was she, anyway?
The last answer came first. She was in a hotel. That’s why she didn’t know where anything was. She groped off the side of the bed where the table lamp should be and found empty space. The darkness in the room was total. She’d drawn the blackout drapes before going to bed. Now she wished she’d left them open for the light from the street to come through. She’d be able to get her bearings if she could see something. Her hand hit the smooth, china surface of what had to be the hotel bedside lamp. She felt upward over the curved surface but found no switch. She ran her hand back down to the bottom of the lamp and around the circular metal base, still feeling for a switch.
Meanwhile the sound continued, more of a buzz than the jangling it had first seemed to be. She’d figured out that the buzz must be from an alarm clock. She was trying to piece together why she’d set the alarm when her fingers hit the light switch. She twisted it, and the room filled with light. All she saw was the clock radio on the other side of the lamp. She grabbed it and poked the buttons on top till the buzzing stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
Two hours had passed since she’d drifted into an uneasy sleep. She wasn’t yet entirely awake. She was still caught at the edge of dreaming when another real world sound reached her ears, softer and less jarring than the alarm buzzer had been. Delia drifted up from the bed and followed the knocking sound to the door between her room an
d Nick Avery’s. This time she would open that door.
Chapter Eleven
Nick heard Delia disengage the lock on her side of the door. He’d recognized the alarm clock sound and wondered why she would have set it for the middle of the night. As her bodyguard, he needed to know the answer to that, especially if she planned to leave her room on her own for any reason with that tall, blond guy from last night still on the loose. Besides, Nick had been sleeping only fitfully himself.
There was silence after the door clicked.
“Delia?” Nick called. “Are you there?”
The silence continued for a moment before she answered.
“I’m here, Nick.” Her voice was faint but unmistakable.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
No answer again. Maybe something was wrong. Could the tall man have gotten to her somehow? Could she be his prisoner? If that was true, he’d be using her as a shield. Nick slipped to his bedstand, grabbed his gun and checked the clip before returning to the doorway. He took hold of the doorknob just as it was turning in his hand. That made him think caution, but he moved rapidly like a spring suddenly released. In a lightning-quick snap he had yanked the door open and stood at an angle in the opening. What he saw made him relax in one way and tense further in another.
Her eyes looked almost as if she might still be asleep. They were heavy-lidded, gazing at him with a curious expression, as if she couldn’t quite remember who he might be. She wasn’t entirely awake, though she’d put on a robe. That must have been what kept her from opening the door right away. Her nightgown was visible underneath her partly opened robe. The gown was made of white cotton and hung long enough to touch the floor beneath the hem of her robe. The garments were loose rather than formfitting. They might as well have been slinky, transparent and halfway up her thighs. Nick saw her as maddeningly sexy, anyway.
He had just about enough sense left to note that there was nobody but her in the room. The louvered closet door was open across from him, and he could tell no one was hiding inside. They were alone. He should have made one more visual survey of the room—checked under the bed and in the bathroom—but her face told him everything the professional part of him needed to know. If somebody had broken in here and surprised her while she was sleeping, her eyes would be startled, not dreamy. He could see just a hint of apprehension there, but instinct told him that wasn’t because someone was lurking in the bathroom.
Every guideline of businesslike behavior, including the ones in his own head, insisted Nick should turn directly around right now and go back to his own room. Instead he pulled the connecting door closed behind him and flipped the latch to locked position. The flicker of apprehension in her eyes intensified a little then, but she didn’t move. She held her ground with her full lips slightly parted as if she might be about to say something. He could hear her soft breath coming faster than before.
Nick couldn’t stand it any longer. He whispered her name. Then he was across the space between them and she was in his arms, pressed against him where he so very much needed her to be. He’d been sleeping in just a T-shirt when the sound from this room awakened him. He’d pulled on his jeans, and he could feel her now through the denim. She was warm even though the room had cooled from its earlier temperature. Or was that his own heat he was feeling?
He knew he was hard as a rock inside his jeans. He’d been that way from the first instant he saw her. He pressed that hardness against her. He wanted her to feel how much he wanted her. She moaned softly. She’d felt it, and she wasn’t moving away. She wanted him, too. He didn’t let himself think that maybe it wasn’t really him she wanted, maybe she was just lonely. He didn’t let himself think about anything. In fact, the last thing his sensible mind registered was that he still had his gun in his hand, and he didn’t want it to be there.
He was looking for a place to lay his weapon down when Delia slid her hand down his arm behind her back and took hold of the gun. He maintained his grip for a moment. That much instinct was left in his besotted brain—to resist having his weapon taken from him, but not for long. His fingers loosened, and he let her ease the pistol from his grasp. She stepped back out of his arms and held the gun in both hands for a moment. She seemed to be caressing it, or maybe Nick just saw it that way. He felt that caress as if her hands were on the most intimate part of his body. He wouldn’t have thought he could get any harder there, but he did now.
He heard her put the gun down on top of the credenza next to the ice bucket and glasses, yet he only half realized her hands were empty again as he lifted her in his arms and carried her toward the bed. Suddenly she was clasping him around the neck and had buried her head against his shoulder. Her hair brushed his face. The sweet scent of those sleek locks was overwhelming. He might have staggered, but he was too intent upon getting her to the bed to lose even a second from faltering along the way.
He lay her down gently on the rumpled sheet with her head on the pillow. He straightened to almost his full height and looked down at her. His own lips were parted now, and he could hear his ragged breathing. He had never seen anything anywhere near as beautiful as her hair, fallen against the white pillowcase. He longed to leap on top of her and crush her to the bed with his body, but he also longed to make the exquisite ache of looking at her last.
Nick’s gaze traveled slowly over her, pausing to take in the most breathtaking details. Her lips were so full and reddened, they begged to be kissed. He hadn’t kissed her yet, other than a thousand times in his imagination. He would kiss her soon now. That thought made him pull his T-shirt over his head and toss it onto the floor. His gaze moved along her creamy throat to the soft heaving of her breasts. He opened the button at the waistband of his jeans and took hold of the metal tab. His gaze moved downward over her as his fingers pushed his zipper in the same direction. The zipper resisted moving over the hard mound beneath, but her body didn’t resist his eyes. She moved—just a little—a slight roll of her hips toward him. There could have been no more sultry invitation as far as Nick was concerned. His breath turned rapid as well as ragged.
She pulled the tie loose on her robe and let it fall open. The delicate cotton of her gown molded her body and was nearly transparent in the soft light. His gaze rested on a shadow of darkness between her thighs. She wasn’t wearing panties. She was totally nude beneath her gown, and waiting for him. Nick shoved his zipper the rest of the way down. He wasn’t wearing underwear, either. He pushed his jeans down over his hips and felt himself spring free—harder and longer and maybe even more menacing than the barrel of his gun had been. But he didn’t plan to use this or any other part of himself as a weapon, only as an instrument of pleasure.
He saw her gaze travel down his body. Her eyes widened when they reached his loins. Her full lips moved lazily into a smile. Her hips rolled again, even more obviously inviting this time. Nick swallowed but couldn’t really catch his breath. He slid his jeans down more and pulled his right leg free of them. He was almost crazily overjoyed that he hadn’t put on socks or shoes. He pulled the other leg out of his jeans without taking his eyes off of her, but he didn’t stumble. His rational mind might be on another planet, but the rest of him was right here and steady on course toward taking this woman as he had never taken a woman before.
Her hand had been at her side. She drew it across her body, letting her fingers barely touch herself, over the gentle rise of her belly, upward to her breast and over the swelling there, very slowly, to her nipple, which was visibly taut beneath the delicate cloth. Her lips were still parted, and her breath was still in what he could hear was the rhythm of desire. She was tantalizing him, and she was tantalizing herself at the same time. She had picked up on his determination to take this at a certain pace, to torture every delicious moment till they both felt about to explode. Then to go on and do the same thing with the next moment.
Her fingers trailed around her nipple in a circle that nearly killed him as surely as if she had shot at him w
ith his gun. He could see the point of her tongue just behind her parted lips, beckoning him to put his own tongue there, just as her circling fingers were beckoning him to her breast. His mesmerized senses flashed on an image of another part of her, as pink and moist as the tip of her tongue. His own fingers and tongue and then the hard evidence of his wanting her, now thrusting straight out from his body, would claim that part of her, too.
Her fingers left their circling path and continued up to the lacy strap of her gown where the robe had slipped from her silky shoulder. She was about to push that strap aside, but Nick said, “No. Let me do that. Let me do everything.” And she did.
IT WAS HOURS later before they finally slept. In the morning, Delia awoke first. This time she had no doubt about where she was or about the difference between reality and dream. Last night, her reality had been a dream. She could feel the man at the center of that dream still asleep at her side. His warmth added to her own beneath the sheet and blanket, like a cozy nest against the winter cold. She could hear him, too. The soft cadence of his breathing was proof to her that their lovemaking actually had happened, no matter how impossible its beauty might seem. No gift could be more precious than that, and she thanked her Christmas angel for it.
That thought made her reach toward the bedside table. Last night, after hurrying back from the ghastly scene on the ballroom stairway, she’d left the gold gift box on the table. She touched the edges of the object still nestled among its tissue wrappings—a crystal angel with a golden cord suspended from its halo for hanging in a window or from a tree limb. This little angel had been more than a decoration last night. This angel had been her guardian in a crystal clear way, literally arming her to ward off danger, just as years ago her father had said a very similar glass angel would protect her from harm. It was that special gift she’d remembered when she’d first opened this box. A single glimpse inside brought with it a shock of memory that had sent her running from the ballroom. She’d left that other glass angel behind five years ago in her haste to escape Colorado. She’d regretted its loss ever since. This new angel felt like a restoration of some of that loss, all tied together in her heart with the man who lay next to her now.