Don’t be an idiot, she ordered herself. He’s using Arlen’s own words for Arlen, not for my sake. He’s not trying to…tell me anything.
But he had, by accident or design, put himself in between them.
“You focus on the big prize,” Kincaid was saying. “Let me keep working her.”
The phrase made Taylor bristle. But she again held back; she couldn’t deny her relief that, for the moment at least, Arlen appeared to be listening. At least, his fists were relaxing. The backhand had been bad enough, and her cheek still hurt. She didn’t want to think what damage a fist could do.
And then Kincaid had his hand on her elbow, urging her to her feet. She hesitated, fearing she was playing into their hands, but she honestly did not want to spend another minute in the same room with the dangerous—to her at least—Arlen Sanders. So she stood up.
Kincaid then urged her toward the outer office. Arlen was instantly suspicious.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Kincaid gave the man a conspiratorial wink. “Little privacy, y’know?”
“Like hell. I want her—”
“I know,” Kincaid interrupted, making the exchange a weird sort of double entendre.
“I’m not risking her getting away.”
“She won’t,” Kincaid said, at the moment Taylor was silently promising herself if the chance arose, that was exactly what would happen.
Kincaid lowered his voice again, leaning toward Arlen, but again loud enough for her to hear. “Besides, there’s a couch out there,” he said, his voice sounding full of smug male.
Taylor was getting mightily tired of biting her tongue. She had no other choice except to go along. Arlen might be soft, yet she now knew Kincaid was anything but. And while she was quick, and relatively fit, any idea that she might be able to overpower him or surprise him had vanished once she’d seen the real Kincaid that had been so completely hidden behind the nerdy disguise.
“We’ll leave the door open,” Kincaid said. “And if this doesn’t work, well, she’s all yours.”
Something flashed in Arlen’s eyes then, something bright and quick and frightening. And it suddenly struck Taylor; he hadn’t gone to any trouble at all to conceal himself. He’d kidnapped her, openly exposing himself, knowing she would know him instantly. So obviously he didn’t care that she knew he was the one behind this, that he was the one who intended to pirate the Watchdog system and sell it, and didn’t mind committing a major felony to do it.
Almost numbly she followed Kincaid’s lead, glad of any distance between her and Arlen Sanders. Because there was only one reason she could think of that explained why he was being so open about this. Why he hadn’t cared that she’d seen him, that she would know him.
He wasn’t worried she would tell anyone afterward. And there was only one way he could guarantee that.
He had to kill her.
Chapter 9
K incaid’s hand on her arm was oddly steadying as they left the big inner office for the smaller reception office. He led her to the couch. She wanted to resist, but her realization of Arlen’s probable intentions for her had shaken her to the core.
In a rush of emotion she thought of all the things she’d put off as she built her career, all the time she’d missed with her family, the way she’d not bothered to put much effort into looking for a serious relationship, or starting a family of her own, thinking she had plenty of time.
And now she might have no time left.
She sank down onto the couch, little shivers going through her, weakening her knees. Only then was she aware that Arlen was standing in the inner-office doorway, watching. That made her shiver even harder, and when Kincaid sat down beside her, she welcomed his warmth.
And there seemed to be a lot of it.
She was about to lean into him, vaguely aware that he smelled good, some spicy masculine scent. She caught herself as she started to move that way, caught herself as she turned to him for refuge.
“Well, now,” he said, “that’s better, elf.”
The despised nickname snapped her back the way nothing else could have. She wanted to slap him, indeed her hand moved, but she stopped herself, barely. She didn’t want to start anything now, when Arlen was right there within easy reach. While it would be difficult to get away from Kincaid, it would be impossible to get away from both of them together.
She should play along, and try to lull him, then make a break for it, she thought. And after the way she’d stupidly responded to his kiss in the other room, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to convince him she was enthralled. Because maybe she was, just a little.
Stockholm syndrome, wasn’t that what they called it? After those hostages who had ended up defending the perpetrators of the terror? Any act of kindness, or even just lack of abuse, had the victims grateful to their captors, and ended in a perverse distortion of reality that had them siding with them.
Pinning her hopes on Kincaid, even though he had saved her from further damage at the hands of Arlen Sanders, was beyond foolish.
“Maybe I’ll let you warm her up for me after all,” Arlen drawled in that smug tone. “Kiss him again. I’ll watch.”
The order, and the idea of him watching her do anything, made her stomach roil.
“Good idea,” Kincaid said, turning her face with a gentle but insistent pressure from his fingers. His voice was oddly rough, but she supposed it was all part of the act.
She pulled back instinctively. So much for going along with him.
“No?” Kincaid asked. “All right, then I’ll do the work. I want another taste.”
Before Taylor had time to do anything beyond register that he hadn’t gotten angry at her refusal, his mouth was on hers. And then she couldn’t seem to think at all. Not clearly anyway. When she should be plotting an escape, all she could do was feel his lips, warm, coaxing, tempting. When she should have been pulling away, the urge to lean into him was almost irresistible. When she should have fought him, hard, she couldn’t seem to find the strength to protest.
The heat that flooded her seemed to sap away every bit of determination, every ounce of resolve she had. Her muscles seemed slack, useless for anything except…kissing him back. And, God help her, she was.
She called herself names full of words she’d never spoken before. Still, she kissed him back. Clung to him as he deepened the kiss, moving his mouth over hers, his tongue touching, tasting, probing. Gently, seemingly careful of the tender spot where her cheek and mouth still hurt, he buried her in sensations. He was surrounding her, swamping her, and she couldn’t seem to stop her own body’s hot, unexpected—and unwelcome—response.
Sick.
She had to be sick in some way, mentally sick. What else would explain the fact that the fiercest reaction she’d ever had to a kiss or for that matter to any man would come now, at the hands of a man who literally held her life in those hands?
It wasn’t until she felt him shift, bearing down on her, that she realized he had pressed her down on the couch. If she were reacting sanely, she should feel trapped. Instead, her body welcomed the warm, taut weight of him. Savored it. Wanted more. So much more that no rationale of how long it had been since she’d really been with anyone, or of how scared she was, could explain it.
There was more at work here, and the only thing that made sense was what she’d thought of before, that hostage syndrome.
It wasn’t just his mouth on hers, or his weight pressing her into the cushions of the couch. It was his hands, stroking, caressing, seeming to light more of those unexpected fires wherever he touched. And the fact that his breathing had deepened, quickened, as if he were responding as intensely as she was.
It was an act, she told herself desperately. Just an act, designed to seduce her into cooperating. Wasn’t it?
His left hand cupped her breast, his thumb brushing, then rubbing at a nipple she only now realized was already taut and ready for his attention. Heat blasted through her anew, and she n
early gasped at the onslaught. She barely managed not to arch upward to him, silently begging for more.
“You going to do her right now?”
Arlen’s words, spoken in a voice no longer angry, sounding merely curious—and slimily entertained—were the bucket of ice water she needed.
That, and the fact that Kincaid broke the kiss. She was disgusted with herself that she felt the loss of his mouth and had to suppress a tiny moan of protest. And imagined that she felt a shiver of the same kind of protest went through him, a self-deluding fantasy that made her even more disgusted with herself.
“Back off, Arlen,” Kincaid growled, his own voice husky and harsh. He was breathing quickly, and when she moved slightly under him he made an abrupt sound, as if that breath had caught in his throat. Belatedly she realized that at least some part of this was real, because he was fully, hotly aroused.
Arlen laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.
Taylor moved again, this time determined to regain her sanity. She would get free of him somehow. But he was so strong, so much stronger and tougher than she ever would have imagined.
“Hold still,” he said, so quietly she knew Arlen couldn’t have heard it, even though he was barely ten feet away.
“Get off me,” she snapped.
“You weren’t fighting him a minute ago,” Arlen said, coming closer. And the change in his voice, as if he’d discovered a newfound pleasure in watching, made her skin crawl.
“You’re not helping,” Kincaid said sharply, throwing his partner a look over his shoulder. “I said back off. I’ll get you what you want, just back off.”
Taylor wasn’t sure whether it was the promise or something in the look Kincaid gave him that convinced Arlen, but he backed up to stand in the doorway again. Apparently he was enjoying himself too much to leave altogether.
Or he didn’t trust Kincaid.
Don’t even get to hoping that, she ordered herself silently, as she tried to squirm out from under the now not-so-welcome but somehow still-tempting weight of the man pressing her down with his body. That lean, hard body that had been such a shock.
“Hold still,” he repeated, again in that whisper, only this time there was a note of near pain in his voice as she bucked against his still-rigid arousal. “I’m trying to help.”
“I’ll just bet you are.” She pushed against his chest with both hands. It was like trying to move a rock wall.
“Taylor, listen to me,” he whispered, his mouth almost brushing her ear. His breath tickled the sensitive nerve endings, made her shiver.
She was such a fool. She’d responded like some love-starved, sex-hungry idiot female, when what she should have been doing was figuring a way out of this.
“I’m trying to help you,” he whispered again.
She lowered her own voice this time, not wanting Arlen to know she’d guessed his plans. “Sure you are. Help me right into a grave?”
He went still.
“You think I don’t know he plans to kill me?” It was hard to keep that one at a whisper.
“I’m not sure he’s planned anything,” Kincaid said, sounding nothing less than rueful. “That’s what makes him so unpredictable.”
“You’re the one who decided do this with him.”
“I didn’t decide. I was hired.”
Arlen was still there, watching, but not reacting; he must think Kincaid was plying her with sweet nothings whispered in her ear.
“So how much is he paying you to become a felon, a kidnapper?”
“That wasn’t the plan, and he’s not the one paying me.”
That stopped her thoughts dead for a moment. There was someone else involved? Someone both Kincaid and Arlen were working for? Just how big was this operation, and who really was behind it?
She was unable to stop the question even though she doubted he’d answer.
“Who is?”
He lifted his head, stared down at her with an intensity she’d never seen before, as if he were trying to will her to listen and believe.
“John Whitney,” he said.
Chapter 10
T aylor stared up at her captor in shocked disbelief.
“What?” she finally managed to choke out, barely remembering in time to keep her voice to that whisper.
“You heard me. Your boss hired me.”
She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe it.
“J.W. would never hurt me,” she said, shaking her head.
For a moment Kincaid looked puzzled. Then he shook his head in turn. “Not this. Grabbing you, I mean. That idiocy was pure Sanders.”
And then, startling her, he kissed her again. She stiffened, and he tightened his arms around her, using his weight to once more hold her in place.
“Appearances,” he whispered against her ear, the teasing brush of his breath causing that annoying shiver again.
Under her breath she used one of those unaccustomed, foul words. And to her surprise, Kincaid chuckled nearly as quietly.
Then he laid a soft, impossibly sweet trail of kisses over her brow, along her cheek, down the side of her throat. Her own breath caught as his had, and she hated herself for it. She needed to focus, now perhaps more than ever in her life. Yet how could she when every kiss seemed to start its own little fire, and the string of them threatened to burst into a wall of flame and drive her mad?
“Listen,” he whispered as he trailed back up to her ear again. “John knew something was going on. He brought me in to find out what. And who.”
“Brought you in? Are you saying you’re a cop or something?”
“Or something,” he answered, nuzzling her neck.
What, she thought, a private investigator? WhitSys didn’t have much in the way of physical security, it hadn’t seemed necessary. Technical system security, yes, of course, that was a huge part of their business. So if J.W. had felt it necessary, he would have had to go outside for that kind of help.
“I discovered several employees had,” Kincaid said, “unknown to each other, been approached in the past few weeks, by an anonymous contact from the outside, someone who was after inside help.”
She went still. And only then did she realize that he had, with that clever, irresistible mouth, nudged her head to one side, toward the back of the couch, no doubt to further muffle their words. That mouth—how had she ever thought it sulky?
She answered her own question immediately. If he was telling her the truth—and she wasn’t yet convinced—then she’d thought it sulky, and him terminally geeky, because that was exactly what he’d wanted her, and everyone else, to think.
This wasn’t the time to deal with that. She needed to find out if he was telling the truth. And fast.
“Arlen?” she asked.
“Mmm-hmm.” He shifted his body, drawing up one leg over her, effectively enveloping her. Trapped. Not that she hadn’t been before, but now it was…
She couldn’t dwell on what it was, or all the sensations rocketing through her. And yet he kept talking, as if he were feeling none of it.
As, perhaps, he wasn’t.
Except…he was still aroused. Completely.
Like any guy wouldn’t be, the way she was reacting to him? You’re the only fool in this operation, she told herself sternly.
“So I set myself up as a likely prospect, a slacker relative who had little interest in really working. It was the perfect bait. And eventually word got around and Arlen bit.”
“Birds of a feather,” she said, forcing herself to think through the lovely haze wrapped around her.
“Exactly.”
It all felt too damned real. The heavy breathing, the eager touching, the occasional quick, nearly silent gasp, it was an act, yet felt more real than anything she’d ever experienced.
She needed to—no, she had to focus, she told herself again. And she grasped at that only thing she could think of that would help.
“Why didn’t you—or J.W.—tell me?”
He seemed to
hesitate a moment, flicking his tongue searingly over her collarbone before answering. Formulating a lie?
“We didn’t know if he’d already recruited someone, someone we hadn’t found out about yet.”
With those damnably hot and arousing kisses continuing, it was all she could do to process what he’d said. When she did, she stiffened.
“Good,” he said. “A little resistance plays well.”
She ignored the admission that they were just playing parts; she’d deal with that—and herself—later. Right now it was a struggle to keep her voice to the necessary whisper. Righteous outrage wasn’t a quiet emotion.
“You thought it was me?”
“Give it up, man,” Arlen called from the doorway, cooling her outrage with a jolt of fear. “This won’t work.”
“Not with you hovering,” Kincaid said sharply. “Back off, Arlen. Go make sure your computer’s ready.”
To her surprise, Arlen chuckled. It wasn’t a pleasant sound, however. “I’ll be right back,” he promised. “Maybe you’ll have some clothes off her by then.”
Taylor shivered, but Kincaid merely picked up where he’d left off.
“John swore it couldn’t be you,” he said. “He said he’d trust you with his life.”
That mollified her a bit. “But you didn’t believe him.”
He gave a half shrug as he smoothed an errant strand of her hair back from her face, then kissed the spot he’d bared. She reacted in spite of herself, wishing he wasn’t quite so good at this, almost wishing the awkward, bumbling Kincaid would reappear.
“He’s a good man. A decent, honest man. They’re sometimes the easiest to fool.”
She supposed he was right, and her anger cooled a little. J.W. was a decent, honest man, and he thought the same of others. Sort of a corollary to her grandfather’s old saying, “You don’t look under the bed unless you’ve hidden there yourself,” she thought. If you never have or would, you don’t assume others are, either.
“And you have complete access. And knowledge. That’s one of the first things I learned at WhitSys, that if anyone wanted to know anything, or needed anything done, Taylor Burke was the go-to.”
Deadly Valentine Page 6