Blush

by Suzanne Forster

  What she feared was there, everything she feared.

  She saw desire so strong and fierce it hurt her to witness it. She saw traces of rage and the unrequited need for his enemy's blood. But the tenderness and wanting that washed over her made her heart rise and tilt. The love she saw made her senses sing like the music box.

  He touched her hip, his hand lingering possessively. "Yes, I want this baby," he said. "Almost as much as I want you."

  A gasp of surprise welled in Gus's throat, and before she could get it under control, it shook through her like a sob. A joyous sob. Her vision misted with tears, and his eyes became diamonds, dazzling hard and bright.

  "Can I make love to you?" he asked. "In your delicate condition?"

  "You'd better," she whispered, unable to locate her voice in the riotous clamor of her vital signs.

  They were both in a delicate condition as they discovered when they began to undress each other. Gus had forgotten all about his cracked ribs. "I'll be gentle, " she said as she unzipped his jacket and slipped her hands inside, glorying in the feel of his hard, warm torso.

  His shudder said he couldn't stand it any longer.

  "You promise?" He caught his hands in her hair possessively and drew her head back, bending over her until his mouth was aligned with hers and the breath from their bodies mingled. "You promise not to hurt me?"

  "I'll n-never h-hurt you." The words got terribly tangled up, but she didn't care. "I'll never leave you."

  He slipped his hands inside her tank and slid them up to her breasts. She let out a sweet moan and pressed against his palms as he cupped her. They were cool against her flushed skin.

  The sound of her own joyous laughter made her throw her head back. She was unable to do anything for a moment but simply feel the shaking wonder of being with him. I love you so much, she thought. So much! But she couldn't say it. That would have made her blush to her toes, and she probably never would have gotten the words out. Enough was enough. Even Gus Featherstone had some dignity ... but not much where he was concerned.

  They ended up on her frilly canopy bed. Still half-dressed, Gus in her tank top, Jack in his briefs. Gus took the time to administer some first aid as she bent to kiss the bandages that wrapped his ribs, and then she addressed herself to his scars, particularly the one near his hip, where she gently pressed her lips and moaned softly. That was all it took to incite him to shed the rest of his clothes, which revealed a state of wondrous physical ardor.

  He pulled up her tank, exposing her breasts. His eyes flared at the sight of her, but he didn't touch her, just drank her in for several seconds before he bent to take her in his mouth. He thrilled her with his sweet, tugging lips. He sent hot, piercing loveliness all through her, bringing her to the very brink of a spontaneous release, then pulling away. She wanted to do the same for him, but he wouldn't let her. As she tried to trail kisses down his torso to his groin, he held her at bay.

  "No, you don't," he said, fending off her questing mouth and fingers. "We'll have none of that. I want you on your back, wife. I want to be inside you the whole time, for all of it. "

  Though it clearly gave him pain to do so, he lifted her bodily and arranged her beneath him on the bed. As he moved between her legs and stared into her eyes, Gus felt the need of him instantly. She didn't want to be touched or fondled or stroked, no matter how lovely that might feel. She wanted the maleness that jutted from between his thighs. She couldn't wait another second for it, and the look in her eyes must have told him so, because he opened her with his fingers and entered her with that thrilling part of him, delving into her immediately, deeply, hungrily.

  Her body accepted him with a clutch of pleasure that bordered on rapture. She reached for him, crying out as he pulled her into his arms and drove into her, and though it felt as if he were touching her soul, it wasn't deep enough. She couldn't stop moaning and whimpering and gasping her astonishment at the sensations. She couldn't get enough, couldn't stop begging for more, imploring him not to stop, and finally, when he rolled her over and settled her on his hips, the depth of his penetration sent her into a swift, profound climax. She arched up and shuddered, cresting with a fury that made her shoulders sway and her head loll.

  A sound locked in her throat, anguished.

  His body was electric, hard-wired with virile energy. As he flexed inside her, he crushed the material of her tank in his hands and held it up, bringing her to him so that he could ravish and suckle her breasts. His wild ardor nearly sent Gus over the edge for a second time.

  She was swaying with ecstasy when he began to buck and shudder, his body on a journey it had almost forgotten how to take. He caught hold of her face, searching it, gripping her at the moment of release, and she'd never seen such agony pass through a man, such dark, flaring beauty. He was being torn apart before her eyes, fighting for control, unable to contain the ravaging emotional storm. It moved through his body like a hurricane, and then his eyelids drooped and he was gone somewhere, lost in his own wondrous completion.

  She saw what might have been a tear squeeze out and catch in the creases of his eye. It was gone by the time he opened them and gazed at her, but they were wet with relief and brilliant with spent passion.

  Sometime later, as they lay on their sides in her bed, facing each other, her head in the curve of his elbow, he let out a gust of disbelieving laughter. "What did you do to me? I lost it so totally I'm going to have to put out a missing person's report to find it again. "

  She laughed with him, busy exploring the nasty scar on his shoulder and wondering how he got it. Secretly she was overjoyed that he had surrendered to his feelings, but she didn't want to embarrass him in any way. "Maybe whatever it was you lost, you didn't need?" she suggested.

  "Right, who needs self-control, " he quipped. By now he was taking her cue and playing with her shoulder, but his fingers didn't stay there long. They drifted to the inner slope of her breast, sending a sweet shiver of anticipation through her.

  "I think I may want to do that again, " he said. "You've just given this kid a new toy. "

  She met his eyes and sighed, so full of bliss and silliness she could burst. Cinderella's got nothing on me, she thought, wanting to laugh again. If there was a lingering shadow on her horizon, she'd decided to ignore it for a bit longer. There were still things she needed to talk with him about. She hadn't yet told him what she'd done or her suspicions about who might want him out of the way. He was convinced it was her family, but she had reason to believe otherwise. She couldn't do that now, however, not quite yet. She couldn't bear to break the mood.

  If only he wasn't touching her so beautifully, if only he wasn't gazing at her as if she were the woman of his dreams. Morning, she thought. It will keep until then.

  She was asleep when Jack woke up, deeply asleep and curled up beside him like a kitten. His need for her was immediate and intense. The stitch of pain he felt with each breath barely registered. He wanted to do it again, like some kind of fourteen-year-old kid, who'd just had sex for the first time; he wanted the amazing beauty of it again.

  He curled his hand to the softness of her butt and kissed her shoulder. He wanted to revel in the control he'd lost with her. He wanted to come inside her again and again, until he couldn't any more, but something about her concerned him. Despite all of her blushing last night, she looked oddly fragile this morning, pale and thin, too thin for a pregnant woman, and her breathing seemed a little labored. Had he hurt her last night?

  "Gus? Wake up, baby. Are you okay?"

  Before he could rouse her, a noise distracted him. The melodious chimes of the front doorbell drifted up from downstairs. They were followed by a pounding that alerted him something was wrong. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearly ten A. M. Quietly he slipped on his sweatpants and went to investigate.

  He hesitated in the hallway that led to the stairway, and confirmed his suspicions that someone had come to the front door. He heard voices, the only one of which
he recognized was Lake's. As he neared he was able to pick up enough of the conversation to know that there were at least two men, they were from the Treasury Department, and they were looking for him.

  "What relation is Jack Culhane to you, Mr. Featherstone? And how long has he been residing at this address?" one of them asked.

  "He's my brother-in-law," Lake answered. "He's been here a week, maybe, I'm not sure. Is something wrong?"

  "A valuable painting's been stolen, and we'd like to ask Mr. Culhane some questions. Is he here now?"

  "Yes, he's upstairs with his wife, my sister, Augusta. "

  Jack crept forward, totally alert. Lake must have seen Jack enter Gus's room before Jack covered the aperture. That was the only way he could have known Jack spent the night, unless Bridget told him, which was unlikely.

  "Where upstairs?" one of the men asked.

  "You're sure he's in there?" the other questioned.

  Jack didn't need to hear any more to know that he was a suspect in an art theft. The two men claimed to be Treasury, which he had no reason to doubt, except that he doubted everything in circumstances like these. It was easy enough to come up with phony ID. Still, it didn't matter what their story was, or who they were, they'd come after him. That was enough reason to perform a vanishing act.

  "Shall I get him for you?" Lake was asking.

  Yeah, you asshole, Jack thought. Hand me over to the Feds.

  "Why don't you take us upstairs," one of them said. "We'll talk to him there."

  "If you'll come with me," Lake was telling the men.

  Jack began to ease back down the hallway, his mind zeroing in on a mental floorplan of the huge house and all the various exit strategies. Getting out was only part of the problem. He didn't know what he'd be facing once he was out. It was unlikely they'd staked the place out, but if they had, there could be a guard posted at every exit.

  Lake had been much too eager to accommodate the visitors, now that Jack thought about it. They hadn't mentioned a warrant, so Lake must have okayed them at the guard gate, which meant he'd had plenty of time to call Gus on the intercom and warn her that they were there.

  The footsteps coming Jack's way told him to move out. Hiding in the house was a trap. With Lake running interference for them, they wouldn't need a warrant to search the place. He'd probably escort them room-by-room, the deluxe tour, including back stairways and hidden passageways. There wasn't going to be time to tell Gus, Jack realized. He couldn't even leave her a note. He had to get out now.

  Torn by his need to escape and his need to protect her, especially now that she was pregnant, he hesitated in the hallway. If he lost his freedom, he would never catch the monsters responsible for his wife and child's deaths. He couldn't let that happen. He'd followed the demons into hell and become one of them in order to get to this place. He was close, too close. He could smell the bastard who had masterminded it all. He could almost reach out and grab him by the balls he was so close. All he needed was the proof. If his hunch was right, all he needed was that painting, Blush.

  He turned and sprinted down the hallway toward the same secret stairway he'd used the night he'd pulled off his vanishing act in the library. He was about to do an encore.

  Chapter 26

  Jack pushed the Scan button on the car radio, letting the stations stutter by until a news bulletin about the art theft came up. He jabbed the button again to stop the scanner, knowing the news wasn't going to be good. He'd been listening to essentially the same bulletin for the last hour.

  "Investigators from the Treasury Department have joined forces with the FBI and the LAPD, " the reporter was saying, "and they are currently seeking the prime suspect, a former security expert from the U. S. Customs Office who goes by the alias Jack Culhane. Culhane was relieved of his Customs duties five years ago after a job-related blackmail attempt resulted in the kidnapping and death of his baby daughter. He later served time in prison for the felony assault of a man he mistakenly believed to be one of the kidnappers—"

  A twist of the Power knob killed the radio.

  Jack needed the silence to think. Someone had pulled off the heist he'd described at dinner and framed him for it. They'd stolen a thirty-million-dollar Picasso. He'd known his strategy was a risky way to up the ante, but he'd had to show enough of his hand to let the other players know he wasn't bluffing. The old adage about it taking a thief to catch a thief was true. The one about honor among thieves was bullshit.

  Besides Lake, Lily, and Gus, there had been four others there that night—Ward McHenry, Rob Emory, Webb Calderon, and the housekeeper. When none of them had taken the bait and approached Jack to inquire about his unique services, Jack had suspected something was wrong. Now he understood what it was. His cover had been blown. Jack's nemesis had discovered who he was dealing with. Someone had found The Magician's bag of tricks, reached in, and pulled out a Picasso.

  It was fucking brilliant, Jack thought, aware of the car's temperature gauge as he headed into the crematorium heat of the Mojave. His admiration was almost as great as his need to nail the bastard, because he was virtually certain that once he'd done that, he would have the one who had set him up five years ago.

  The gauge's climbing needle warned him that the Blazer's engine was laboring under the load of the air-conditioning. He switched the unit off and rolled down the window, grimacing at the haymaker punch the desert heat packed, even at this hour of the morning.

  The Mojave was as hot and silent as a tomb in hell by the time he pulled the car to a stop in the same deserted stretch of road where he'd brought Gus when he'd kidnapped her. Remembering her antics coaxed a fleeting smile from his lips, but the memory was bittersweet now. It held far more pain than amusement, especially since he couldn't be with her or do anything to ensure that she and the baby would be safe.

  It astonished him how much he wanted that—to protect her in every way possible, with his life, if necessary. He would have done almost anything. The way his heart fisted told him he wanted that perhaps even more than he wanted to reconcile the errors of his past. But as he sat in the Blazer's cab and stared at the bleached and deadly landscape awaiting him, he understood that he couldn't allow that to happen. He couldn't want anything more than he wanted justice for his family and retribution for the killers. If he did, his soul was lost.

  The car door slammed shut with a resounding crack as he let himself out and went around to the hatch for his duffel bag.

  Moments later as he trekked through the desert toward the shack, he forced his thoughts back to the mental grid on which he had always mapped his strategies. At least where the Feds were concerned, he knew what he was up against. His background gave him that advantage. Specialized units would be mobilized like the LAPD Art Bunco Squad and the U. S. Customs & Excise Investigative Unit. A manhunt would be organized and an APB issued, which meant his mug shot, rap sheet, and other vital information would be flashed coast-to-coast on the television news, as well as the vast computer network of law enforcement agencies.

  But none of that was the reason he'd headed for the desert. He was playing out a hunch by going to the miner's shack. It was a hellishly risky one, but he had to follow his instincts. They'd failed him five years ago, probably because he'd been in such a rage to catch the killers, he'd nearly annihilated the decoy they'd thrown his way. The game was bloodsport, and he'd made too many errors. He couldn't afford to make any now, and even if he played it expertly, perfectly, he could still come out the loser because he'd been forced into a counterplot that was fraught with pitfalls. Normally he would have gone into hiding, but he couldn't do that now. He had to hide in plain sight. This time he had to be the decoy.

  A chill floated up Jack's arm, prickling the skin. He grew instantly still, aware of another presence in the mining shack. He'd repositioned the cot against the far wall, and he was lying there now, waiting. The door had fallen open, though he hadn't heard a sound, and a silent white form was standing on the threshold. It seemed to
have materialized out of the phosphorescence, and Jack couldn't tell if it was human or moonlight. He touched the gun at his side as the brightness slowly skated toward him.

  Moonlight could move, but it didn't bleed.

  The gun's safety was off, and his trigger finger was poised and ready to fire. The greatest challenge was knowing exactly when. If he miscalculated, it was all over. His plan went up. In the meantime he couldn't do anything to signal the apparition that he was awake and watching. He couldn't even allow the rhythm of his breathing to change. If the thing got suspicious, if it stopped to investigate, he might as well shoot himself.

  Come on, he urged silently as the silvery form approached. Five more feet and we'll see whether you're a ghost or not.

  Jack had been holed up in the shack for three days, seventy-two hours of waiting for this moment. It was all he could do to keep breathing as the thing hesitated near the tarp that lay on the floor. To avoid the tarp it had to move left, which would be the last step it took.

  Wood crackled and split. Jack sprang up, gun in hand, as the phantom broke through the loose boards and vanished from sight. The fleshy swish and thump of muscle and bone told him it had hit the bottom of the pit. A snarled obscenity told him it was human.

  Jack had stashed a wall lantern and some matches under the cot. Once he had the lantern lit, he left it near the cot and approached the pit from another angle, weapon ready, in case the intruder was armed.

  "Christ," he breathed as he saw who it was. Webb Calderon was brushing the loose dirt from his long dun-colored coat, and when he looked up the barrel of Jack's cocked gun, the ice crystals in his winter-gray eyes glittered and froze.

  "A deadfall?" he said with a cold smile. "Interesting idea, Jack. I was expecting some kind of ambush, but not this. "

  "And I was expecting someone to come after me, but not you. How'd you find me, Calderon? Why did you find me?"