by Jenna Ryan
“I never pretended it was. Dee knew that from the start Don’t bleed for her wounded pride, Niki. We’re none of us saints.”
His rumble of laughter had a drunken edge to it Nikita inspected him in the silvery half-light spilling in from the corridor. He looked tired and drawn. “Will you answer a question?” she asked carefully.
“Shoot.” He swallowed another mouthful of Scotch.
“Did you ever sleep with Patti Warneckie?”
“You bet.”
His ready answer startled her. Her fingers curled around the edge of the desk. “For God’s sake, why? She was a patient here. You had no right to take advantage of her.”
“She was a stripper, Niki.”
“She was a veterinary assistant”
“By day. By night, she was Patrice Warner, stripper at Monty Marks.”
Nikita could usually distinguish Martin’s lies from the truth. This sounded disturbingly true. “Do you know if she mentioned that to Dr. Baines?”
“She never told anyone. It had nothing to do with her problems. Her old man two-fisted her from as far back as she could remember. Her ex-husband did the same and worse. She wanted off the abusive merry-go-round. Surprisingly, moonlighting as a stripper didn’t play into that Her accountant hubby hurt her more than any leering drunk.”
This was getting confusing. Was any of what Martin said pertinent to Patti’s death, or had her connection to the hospital brought that about?
“You think I killed them, don’t you?” her brother asked softly.
In the pale flow of light, his features appeared waxen, unreal. Strained. “No, I don’t,” she replied. “I mean it, Martin,” she said at his disbelieving snort “I think you’re capable of sleeping with half the female population of Boston, but I don’t think you’d kill anything bigger than a cockroach.”
“You’re cop friend’s not so easily convinced. And you can imagine the poisoned daggers I’ve been getting from Dee’s father. I could be the Boston Strangler for all he believes in my innocence.”
“Maybe you should talk to Vachon again,” Nikita suggested.
Martin drained his glass then rose to pour another. “What the hell for?” He glowered at her, swaying slightly. “He’d as soon nail me to a cross as listen. And that partner of his—man, give me a break. He’s about as angelic as—I don’t know who. One of the Borgias maybe.”
“He’s cold,” Nikita agreed, “but I doubt if he’s a complete monster.” On the other hand, she reflected…
Martin made an irritated sound, then whirled and sent the top of the crystal decanter flying to the carpet. “Where is she?” he demanded through his teeth. “She should be here.”
Nikita had no desire to rub it in. If he cared, genuinely cared about Deana, maybe they could work it out. If not, well, Deana had as much right to her freedom as Martin had. Still, Nikita couldn’t quite visualize her old friend having a tawdry affair.
She slid from the desk, tired mentally and physically. “I’m off,” she said, scribbling a note and sticking it on Deana’s message spike. “You can come with me and wait upstairs if you want to.”
Abandoning his glass, Martin cuddled the decanter and stumbled to the leather sofa. “I’ll stay here,” he mumbled, then hiccupped and grinned. “My pal Jack’ll keep me company till—whenever. She’ll be back. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—she’ll be back.”
Nikita felt a quick tug of sympathy for him. How could she not care with his hair tumbling into his eyes and his fingers unable to perform the simple task of unzipping his leather jacket She did the second thing for him, then pushed him down on his back and set the decanter aside.
“Take a nap for awhile, okay?” She brushed at his dark hair. “Dee won’t be long.”
Martin appeared unconvinced, but he rolled obligingly onto his side. “‘Night, Niki,” he slurred. “Thanks for everything.”
Nikita hesitated, then left without a word.
He wasn’t behaving normally. Her brain knew it, and so did her instincts. Was he upset at the thought of Deana being with another man? Or was he frightened because he could be directly linked to both murder victims?
She undid her French braid as she walked toward the north wing. It felt good to have her hair loose, closer to human and less like a robot. What a day. She’d been hit, then kissed. She’d discovered the same woman’s body twice in eight hours. She’d visited Adeline, talked to Talia and watched Verity sidle stealthily out of the freezer. She’d deflected endless questions from police, been unable to locate Deana or confront Verity, whose cousin had arrived to take her out for the evening. Most of all, though, she’d been unable to stop thinking about Vachon.
A terrifying thought struck her. What if, God forbid, she’d fallen in love with him?
Her apartment smelled comfortingly of roses and nutmeg. She’d bought nutmeg for baking cookies. The rose scent was residual from the bubble bath she’d taken this morning.
She turned on just enough lights to create a warm glow, shed her lab coat and her pantsuit and pulled on her favorite lavender-and-aquamarine silk robe, the one her father had sent from Paris last year. It flowed and swished and made her feel sexy despite the horrors of the day.
Opting for Elton John over television, she headed for the kitchen. A craving for something sinfully sweet gnawed at her. She’d make those cookies and refuse to dwell on Vachon’s long, dark hair, his mysterious brown eyes or his sensual mouth that kissed her in ways she’d never been kissed before.
A knock sounded on the door while she was searching for a mixing bowl. Martin? She expelled an impatient breath. He’d better not be staggering drunk.
She marched over and yanked it open. “Martin, if you’re…”
Her voice died. There on the threshold stood the object of her reluctant fantasies. He looked wonderfully intriguing, like some forbidden and probably unattainable delight. He thought nothing of head doctors, after all.
“You, ah—” A proper greeting failed her. Her delicate brows came together. “Why are you here?”
He stared at her, his gaze unfathomable. “Your grandmother.”
Nikita would have laughed if her mind hadn’t been thrown into a sudden tailspin. “She sent you?”
“She made a suggestion. She said you like flowers.”
“Actually, I…” Her eyes widened at the red rose that appeared out of nowhere in his right hand. His hand, which seconds before had been inside his coat pocket. A smile curved her lips. “She’s right, I do.”
He maintained a sober facade. “She didn’t say how many. Two? Three? Six?”
They kept coming, not there one minute, part of a growing bouquet the next. He didn’t stop until there were a dozen in his hand, each with its own fragile column of baby’s breath.
Bewildered, amused and touched all at once, Nikita accepted them from him. “How did you do that?”
A slow grin lit his face. “Trade secret Do you like wine?”
“Yes.”
“White, red or rosé? Sparkling or dry?”
She answered without thinking. “Grande Cuvée.”
“Et voilà.” Like the roses, the bottle simply appeared, except that this time he reached around to produce it from behind her head.
“Son of a magician,” she murmured dryly. “Come in, Monsieur le Magician—unless you prefer standing around in dark hallways.”
He regarded her for a long, heart-stirring moment, then seemed to reach some kind of decision and stepped wordlessly across the threshold.
HE SHOULDN’T have come, but he’d wanted to. With or without Adeline’s prod. He’d been incapable of thinking straight for days. Murders at Beldon-Drake; Nikita at Beldon-Drake. Half the time he wondered if it was the case that drew him here or her bewitching blue eyes.
“You’re not sure about this, are you?”
His eyes came up from the floor where they’d been focused. “Not really. I think I want to be here.”
She said nothing, merely reach
ed for a crystal vase on a high shelf and filled it with water.
White accordion doors opened between kitchen and living room. He could watch her in there from the relative safety of the shadows out here. It didn’t help, however, that Elton John was singing an arousing song about another beautiful Nikita. Depending on how he looked at it, his arrival had either been way off the mark or dead on it.
A rising sense of panic churned in his stomach. What the hell was he doing, bringing wine and roses to a psychiatrist? Did he think so little of his grandmother’s memory?
“I’m not like Dr. Marcel Fontaine, Vachon.” Nikita’s voice, close to him, yet still a good six feet away, brought him back to the present. “I’ve never conned anyone—not professionally, anyway. I like people. I enjoy helping them. It gives me a purpose in life.”
“Have you helped Lally?” She didn’t deserve that, but he needed an outlet for the emotions that spun like a whirlpool inside him. On the other hand…He let his head drop forward. “I’m sorry, Nikita. That was a nasty shot.”
“Unfair,” she agreed with surprising equanimity. “But I’ve asked similar questions myself about cops.”
Jamming his hands in his pockets, he prowled her apartment floor. Anything to keep from touching her in that flimsy excuse for a robe.
Her taste in furnishings appealed to him. The sofa and chairs were ivory, deeply cushioned with blue and green throw pillows everywhere. The carpet resembled rich honey, and the walls were some kind of sandstorm shade with a sculpted white-trimmed wood border. She had plants in ceramic and clay pots, brass planters and rattan baskets. The latter hung on chains from the carved ceiling. She had shelves, high and low, crammed with books, a compact stereo system that had excellent sound and an overflowing knitting basket by the chair next to the fireplace. There were paintings of Russia and Revolutionary America on the walls and a collection of Rockwell prints, framed and hung with care above the couch. It was impossible for Vachon to keep his mind from envisioning her bedroom.
Damn her Slavic spell and her Scottish-American grandmother. He should have been able to resist temptation, to cool his fevered emotions with memories that hurt as surely as a fist to the stomach. He’d adored his grandmother. How could he now also love Nikita?
Swearing silently, he paused in front of the window and gazed out. Fairy-tale figures in silhouette dotted the area directly before the woods. Snow blew across the pane in ever-increasing gusts. They’d built Beauty and the Beast, Nikita had told him. From Vachon’s vantage point, the Beast appeared rather lopsided.
Music played on in the background. He felt Nikita behind him and knew he had to look at her. Like a sensual magnet, she drew him out of himself and into her. Maybe he’d been wrong to come here tonight, but if so, it was the best bad mistake he’d ever made.
Vachon turned. He had to approach her, she wouldn’t come to him. His objections were stronger than hers, his mind more firmly set.
“Nikita.” He spoke her name out loud. Eyes steady, hands still rammed in his pockets, he advanced on her.
In the pale wash of snow-brightened light, he saw her chest rise and fall beneath the silk of her robe. A hint of creamy gold cleavage teased him. She was staring, waiting, watching him like a wary cat. She was not about to let him hurt her.
The smallest of smiles grazed his mouth when he stopped before her. She swallowed with shaky defiance and brought her chin up. That sent a ripple of desire shooting through his body. It started in his loins and speared outward from there. In all his life no woman had ever done this to him.
“I won’t apologize for what I am,” she warned as his gaze drank in the clean, sculpted lines of her features. So stunning to look at. So much pride in her stance and in her words. “I’m not a miracle worker, Vachon. I’m a psychiatrist I wish I could help the world, but I know that I can’t.”
He shook his head, feeling dazed, slightly drugged. “You don’t have to help the world, Niki.” His mouth began a slow descent over hers. “You only have to help me.”
NIKITA HEARD a sigh slip from her throat as Vachon’s lips covered hers. A wistful sound at first, it quickly became a gasp of pleasure.
She didn’t want this, and yet, of course, she did. She had for days now, maybe since the first night she’d met him.
Her fingers curled into his long hair, pulling his head closer and deepening the kiss. Her body seemed to melt into his, as if an artist had molded them together in clay.
Amazing, she thought, with a tiny sound of wonder, how well everything fit But then that was Nature’s province, wasn’t it? The delicate bonding of one sex with the other. Primal lust, blended with the more sophisticated human feelings of tenderness, trust and fear.
“I don’t want to love you,” she said between kisses.
“I don’t want to love you, either,” he returned. Was that amusement tingeing his voice, or panic? He lifted his head just enough to stare at her. “I do want to make love with you, though. And risk whatever complications might follow.”
Nikita wished she could think. Or did she think too much sometimes? Adeline said she did, and for all her faults and foibles, Adeline was a very wise woman.
“Follow your heart for once in your life, girl,” her grandmother often insisted. “You can’t know a thing is for sure until you’ve experienced it firsthand. If you want it, take it. Just make sure it’s legal.”
Adeline’s delighted cackle echoed in Nikita’s head, dissolving swiftly in favor of Vachon, whose tongue explored her mouth with an urgency frighteningly close to her own.
She ran her hands inside his coat, tugged the tails of his shirt from his waistband and slid her splayed fingers up his satiny smooth back.
Of course his skin would feel hot and deliciously sleek. Taut skin stretched over sinewy muscle and bone. Fire in his veins and in hers.
The center of his arousal dug into her abdomen. Her body throbbed; the pulse at the base of her throat raced in time to her heart. Her fingernails bit into his flesh as she wriggled closer. This was no mistake; every instinct she possessed shouted that. She had to know, wanted to feel, needed to understand the emotions he kindled in her.
Abandoning logic and reason, she pushed the coat from his shoulders. It dropped in a black heap on the carpet. He wanted her, he must. His mouth was too hungry on hers, too greedy and needful for her to be mistaken about that.
One deft hand loosened the belt of her robe. Sensation spun out of control as first his fingers, then his mouth caught and teased one erect nipple. He’d lifted her into his arms. When had he done that?
A fierce bolt of longing shot through her from breast to thigh. She wrapped her arms around his head and squeezed her eyes closed.
She had a sense of movement and altering shadows. Snowflakes danced past the windows. Suddenly Nikita wanted to dance, too. She and Vachon, weightless as ghosts.
The music changed to Kate Bush. Eerily romantic, the songstress sang of snow on the English moors and a spirit named Cathy scratching at the window of Heathcliff’s prepossessing Wuthering Heights.
Nikita allowed her head to fall back as a shudder stronger than desire spiraled through her. Hot little points of light sparkled and swam in her brain. She felt dazzled and dazed and eager to discover everything she could about the man whose hands and mouth were driving her to distraction.
They floated down—or the bed floated up. Nikita would have believed either thing at that moment.
Vachon’s lips skimmed across the trembling column of her throat. Her hands moved along his body, over his ribs and to the buttons of his jeans. He eased her robe away as she struggled with his fly. Dear God, how she wanted him.
With an impatient sound, he helped her slide his jeans off. His eyes held hers in a fascinating stare that seemed to Nikita to pull her even deeper into a vortex of sensory anticipation.
He bent his head toward her, started to capture her mouth, hesitated, then murmured, “One more minute, Niki.”
Reason asserted i
tself long enough for her to be relieved at his foresight She did not need to be pregnant at this point in her life, and no doubt Vachon saw it the same way.
He lowered her with exquisite slowness onto the lavender cotton sheets. Piece by piece, the remainder of their clothes sailed off into the darkened corners of her bedroom.
Vachon’s breathing grew more erratic; his smooth skin was slick with perspiration; his hair skimmed her shoulders as he drew her into his kisses once again.
She pressed herself against him, wishing fervently that she could get closer still, right inside him if that were possible. Her nipples rubbed his chest, bringing a stab of exquisite pain. She gasped his name and tugged on his shoulders with urgent hands.
Now, she thought, then wondered hazily if she’d spoken out loud.
The hair that fell over his neck and forehead was damp. He said something—she wasn’t sure what—then groaned and eased himself above her.
Nikita’s head arched on the pillow. Her hands closed around him; her breath came in uneven gasps.
“Do it, Vachon,” she whispered. “Now!”
And he did, entering her with a firm probe that quickly turned to an imperative thrust as his need swelled to match hers.
It was magic of the most elemental kind. Nikita’s mind dipped and swooped. Color overlapped color. She envisioned starbursts and rainbows and clouds and flying. She felt Vachon carrying her to a place where nothing and everything was real.
Every subtle twist of their bodies sent vivid waves of pleasure flowing through her limbs. She heard drums, or thought she did. It was probably her own blood pounding in her ears. Her hips rose to meet his, to challenge and entice him, return the pleasure he gave to her. To take him with her over the top…
The moment stretched on forever—and ended all too soon. He rocked back, and she forced herself to open her eyes. The colors in her mind blurred and began to melt. The heat inside her lingered, but she found she could breathe again. In a minute, she might even be able to think.