“I noticed,” Ian drawled.
Zander nodded. “I also have some private enquiries of my own I want to make before we leave New York tomorrow.”
The other man grinned. “I’d like to come along when you visit Mr. Taylor.”
Kate looked at both men in alarm. “You aren’t seriously thinking of going to see Joey?”
“Oh, I’m well past the thinking-about-it stage,” Zander assured her grimly.
“Me too.” Ian sounded just as determined.
“Did you tell the police you suspect Joey of being responsible for the shooting?” Kate frowned.
“It wasn’t him, Kate,” he assured her gently. “Not personally, anyway. I’ve already checked in with the two men standing guard outside his apartment, and Taylor hasn’t been out all day.”
“Then it was one of his men,” she said with certainty.
“We have no proof of that. Nothing concrete to give the police.”
“But—”
“Kate, it could have been anyone,” Zander reasoned. “It could as easily have been a terrorist as it could Taylor. Or maybe just someone who got up this morning and decided to shoot up the airport,” Zander added with disgust. “The police will follow all leads. But I’ll be surprised if any of them lead to Taylor. For now, we should get out of here. You’re starting to attract attention,” he announced as he noticed several people looking in their direction. Kate was recognizable in her own right, but the photographs of the two of them in today’s newspapers would have piqued public curiosity even more.
Kate’s relief at knowing Zander was virtually unharmed and coming back to the hotel was quickly followed by dismay as it became obvious he and Ian intended confronting Joey. Sooner rather than later.
She hung back as Zander’s arm about her waist would have propelled her toward the elevators. “Should you be leaving the hospital at all yet? Don’t they like to keep people with head injuries in overnight, to ensure they don’t go into delayed shock?”
“I’ve already signed my discharge papers.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” she maintained stubbornly.
“This is nothing more than a graze,” he dismissed. “I’ve had worse shaving myself.”
Kate raised skeptical brows. “Then you must be exceedingly bad at it.”
He grimaced. “You’ve seen what it’s like here. The chaos. Injured people lying on stretchers waiting to be attended to. Relatives hanging around waiting for news of loved ones. I’m not injured enough to take up a bed they might need for someone else.”
“But—”
“If it makes you feel any easier,” Zander continued firmly, “I’ll sleep in your bed with you tonight so that you can keep a night vigil at my side to ensure I’m only sleeping and not gone into shock.”
“This isn’t fun— You will?” Her eyes widened.
“I will.” He nodded.
“You aren’t angry with me anymore?”
“No more than usual,” he drawled.
Kate looked at him searchingly.
Zander was pale, of course. No matter how he tried to make light of it, he had been shot at and received a graze to his temple to prove it. An injury that could have proved fatal if it had been an inch or so to the left.
But there was also a glitter of intent in his eyes as he returned her gaze unblinkingly. An intent that implied he didn’t plan to be doing much sleeping tonight if he shared her bed.
Kate had heard of soldiers having this physical reaction to the rush of adrenaline during battle. A driving need afterward for sex, possibly as a means of establishing they were still alive.
She didn’t really care what Zander’s reasons were. She had thought she’d lost him today, first to her own insecurities in thinking he was having an affair with Sophie, the second time to a bullet. She wanted him in her bed tonight. Wanted to be able to look at him, to touch him, and reassure herself he really was there with her rather than lying cold and dead in a New York morgue.
Anger rose up inside her. “That bastard could have killed you!” Her hands were clenched at her sides. “When next I see him, I’m going to—”
“You aren’t going to do anything, because you aren’t going anywhere near him,” Zander told her calmly, cutting a glance at Ian. “What do you think? Delayed shock?”
“Without a doubt.” The other man nodded. “She was in such a rush to get to the hospital, after we saw the news report on TV, I had to remind her to put some shoes on before we left.”
Zander glanced down. “I would have appreciated that more if you had ensured they were a pair of her fuck-me shoes.” He sounded disappointed.
Ian shrugged. “Think yourself lucky they’re a matching pair.”
“I do—”
“When the two of you have quite finished discussing me as if I’m not here?” Kate interrupted with saccharine sweetness. “And, just so you know, Zander, you’re failing miserably if this is an attempt on your part to divert my attention from the fact you intend paying Joey a visit.”
“Damn.”
Kate nodded. “If I want to come with you to see Joey, then I will.”
Zander took a firm grip of her arm. “Let’s discuss this back at the hotel, hmm?”
“Let’s not and say we have,” she came back dismissively. “And the outcome of the discussion was I’m coming with you when you go to see Joey.”
He raised his eyes heavenward. “And to think I almost, almost, made my escape back to England…”
“Hah.” Kate snorted. “Admit it, you would have missed our arguments.”
Strangely, Zander did enjoy arguing with Kate. Oh, not the sort of argument they’d had this morning, but here and now? Yes, after the trauma of the last couple of hours, he was thoroughly enjoying this fiery exchange with her.
He also had no intention of allowing Kate anywhere near Joey Taylor, in the near or distant future. He’d suspected the other man was dangerous the night he saw Taylor in the nightclub, today’s events had confirmed it.
Zander had hoped maybe his obvious intention of leaving New York, and Kate, would have kept a check on the other man’s erratic behavior. Instead, that behavior seemed to have escalated out of all proportion to what Taylor perceived as Kate’s crime.
Taylor had to be stopped, one way or another.
“Comfortable?”
“I’d be more so if you would lie down next to me rather than hovering next to me playing nurse.”
Kate had persuaded Zander into lying down on her bed shortly after they arrived back at the hotel. For all he claimed he felt fine, he still looked a little pale as she plumped the pillows behind him.
“Although I’ve never played doctor/nurse…” he murmured speculatively.
She straightened. “You aren’t going to play it now either.”
“Spoilsport.”
While Kate appreciated his humor… “Have you forgiven me yet?”
“Yes.”
His answer came far too quickly for her liking. “What have you forgiven me for?”
“Whatever it is you want to be forgiven for.” He made a grab for her arm, his obvious intention to pull her down on the bed beside him.
Kate stepped out of his reach. “Ah-ah, not until we have this settled between us. I was always told I should never to go to bed on an argument.”
“I’ve never been called that before.” Zander moved forward so suddenly, Kate wasn’t able to avoid his grasp this time. His fingers wrapped about her wrist as he pulled her down until her body was stretched out on top of his. “Better,” he murmured his satisfaction as he held her there by placing his hands on her bottom and grinding his erection into her mound. “See? Forgiven.” He grinned.
Kate felt Zander’s engorged cock pressing against her rather than saw it. She also wasn’t about to be distracted by it. “I need to apologize again for what I thought…assumed about you and Sophie last night. And I need to know you forgive me.” Her lashes lowered. “I should never h
ave reacted so pettily.”
“Okay, you’re forgiven.” He turned onto his side and took Kate with him, the two of them now facing each other. “Now can we get on to the good stuff?”
Kate’s frown was pained. “I’m not sure you’re up to the ‘good stuff.’”
“Oh, I assure you, I am.”
She shook her head. “You aren’t taking me seriously.”
Zander sobered as he fell back onto the pillows. “I am, actually. Sophie is ill. Hopefully, Bernie taking her back to England might help with that. It was also a relief to know that my security measures hadn’t gone awry. Besides, last night, our disagreement this morning, they both seem…inconsequential after what happened at the airport earlier.”
Kate rolled onto her stomach and leaned on her elbows, their faces now only inches apart. “Were you scared?”
“No time,” Zander dismissed.
“How about now?”
“It isn’t the first time I’ve been shot at, Kate.” He reached up to caress the hair away from her face, his fingers lingering against her cheek. “I doubt it will be the last either.”
Kate gave a shiver of revulsion at the thought of the danger Zander lived with on a daily basis because of his job.
“It’s what I’m paid for,” Zander reminded her softly.
She gave a shaky sigh. “You aren’t being paid enough to risk getting killed.”
“I was paid less in the army.”
“That’s different. Presumably, you knew what you were signing up for then. This…Joey’s possessiveness where I’m concerned is just sick.” Another shudder traveled the length of her spine. “He could have killed someone today.” Joey killing anyone was totally unacceptable to her; if he had succeeded in killing Zander, it would have sent her into a rage of emotion once she was over the initial shock.
“We still don’t know it was definitely him,” Zander reasoned. “And I do forgive you for last night.” His gaze held hers captive. “I might have thought the same if I had seen and overheard the things you did.”
“Really?” Kate knew her reaction last night had been due to jealousy and a lack of confidence in herself as to whether or not someone like her could hold the attention of a man like Zander. He was a hardened soldier, a warrior, and she was a rock star. From the sublime to the ridiculous.
She had never thought of her career in quite those frivolous terms before. But she was aware of it now. She was good at what she did, and it gave millions of people pleasure, but none of that would have mattered if someone had died today because of her.
“Really,” Zander assured her gruffly.
Kate looked at him searchingly. “Are you going to get into trouble with Gabriel Knight for staying on as part of my security detail, after all?” She had found the other man austere in the extreme when she and Bernie initially discussed her extra security with him, and his manner on the telephone earlier today hadn’t exactly been friendly.
“Gabriel can kiss my—” Zander broke off, shaking his head. “I’m on two weeks’ leave. I can do and go where the hell I want with it. If I choose to be with you, that’s my business.”
“And do you?” Her heart leapt at the thought. “Do you choose to be with me, Zander?”
Zander’s self-preservation against emotional attachments instantly kicked in. And then was instantly kicked out again. By him. After today, whatever was between him and Kate, he was going to do what she’d suggested. Go with it and see where it led rather than heading off in the opposite direction, as he usually did.
He’d already come to that conclusion at the airport, before the shooting started, as he wondered what he was going home to or for. Two weeks’ leave in his soulless converted warehouse. Not that he had ever thought of it that way before, but after four months spent traveling the world with Kate, most especially these past couple of days, that was exactly how it now seemed to him.
Besides, he’d suffered his own pangs of jealousy yesterday in regard to Kate’s past relationship with Joey Taylor.
He’d been approaching the check-in desk to ask to have his luggage removed from the flight when the first shot was fired, sending him to his knees.
His arms moved about Kate’s waist as he held her tightly against him. “I intend sticking as close to you as a security blanket.”
Her expression lightened. “I’ve never had one of those. That sort of childish attachment wasn’t encouraged at the orphanage.”
There was something almost…painful, causing an ache in Zander’s chest, thinking of Kate growing up without anyone of her own to care for her. At least he’d had his parents for fifteen years, and then his grandparents until he was thirty. “Have you ever tried to look for your parents?”
She sighed. “I did look for them. When I was eighteen and could legally apply for the information. They’re both dead, Zander.” She spoke without emotion. “They died in a car accident.”
“Like my parents.”
“Yes. My mother… She was pregnant with me at the time of the accident. She only lived long enough for them to deliver me by caesarean section. I had no other relatives to take me, so I was placed in an orphanage.”
“Jesus…”
“It’s okay. Well…it’s not okay.” She smiled tremulously. “I would much rather have had them here with me. But it somehow hurts less to know they didn’t give me up voluntarily. Does that make sense?”
“Perfectly.” Zander found it strange they had their parents’ deaths in common too.
Kate placed her fingertips over Zander’s lips as he would have pulled her down for a kiss. “You haven’t succeeded in distracting me from the fact you and Ian intend to pay Joey a visit later this evening. There will be no exhausting me with intense lovemaking either, and then creeping away once you’re sure I’ve fallen asleep,” she warned.
“Damn, and it was such a good plan too!”
Much as she appreciated this playful Zander, she wasn’t fooled by him for a moment, knew exactly what he was doing. “I’m being serious, Zander.”
He sobered. “So am I when I say I don’t want you anywhere near that crazy bastard.”
Kate looked at him searchingly, noting the seriousness of his expression and the narrowed coldness of his eyes. “He is crazy, isn’t he.” She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen that in Joey before she went out with him.
Zander nodded. “Too much money and no one to curb his ‘it’s mine, it’s mine’ attitude. Now can I please strip you naked and have my wicked way with you?”
How could she resist an invitation like that?
Chapter 10
“Shouldn’t we have taken our clothes off before getting into the shower?” Kate looked at Zander teasingly as the hot water cascaded over both of them, her blonde hair slick down her back, her wet clothes clinging to her.
“And deny me the pleasure of seeing the way your nipples stand out beneath your T-shirt?” Zander scoffed as he began to slowly peel the garment up her hot, wet flesh.
He revealed her flat abdomen, then the underside curve of her breasts, then higher to the puckered areola encircling her nipples. He rolled the cotton material up centimeter by centimeter, as if he was slowly unwrapping a Christmas present. But a Christmas present like nothing he had ever received before.
Zander gave a groan as he finally exposed her rosy-red nipples, all turgid and swollen and begging to have his mouth on them.
He fell to his knees for the second time today, but rather than to escape being the target of a bullet, this time with pleasure in mind. Kate’s pleasure.
He cupped both her breasts in his large hands so that the nipples were visible between his thumb and index finger. And then he feasted. First on one nipple and then the other. Then back to the first before moving back to its twin. And all the time he suckled his fill of her, Kate leaned weakly back against the tiles of the shower cubicle, gasping and crying out her pleasure.
Kate was lost in a euphoria of sensations. The suction of Zander’s mo
uth. The bite of his teeth. The soothing lapping of his tongue against that aroused flesh. She was held in a state of arousal, never knowing which one he would bestow on her nipples next.
Her emotions were as confused as that mysterious jumble of sensations. Delicious lethargy one moment, tense expectation the next, followed by an aching excitement between her thighs that held her poised on the edge of her release.
“Please, Zander.” Her hands gripped his shoulders tightly. “I need… Oh God, what I need most is for both of us to be naked. Right now.”
His chuckle against her nipple sent those sensations even deeper into her core. “Are you going to be a demanding lover?”
She looked at him challengingly. “And if I am?”
He stood up, no longer touching her, but his gaze glittering with fierce intent. “Anything goes between us today. Anything you want.”
“You,” she replied without hesitation. “Inside me. Now.”
“Clothes off first.” Zander quickly dispensed with their clothes before swinging her up in his arms and carrying her through to the adjoining bedroom, uncaring that their wet bodies left a trail of water from the bathroom before he laid her down on the bed. He paused only briefly to grab a condom from the side table and roll it onto his straining erection before following her down, looming over her rather than pressing all his weight on her.
Kate wasn’t having any of that as she placed her hands on his shoulders and tugged, sighing her pleasure as every powerful muscle and sinew of Zander’s body was aligned with her own. “Kiss me,” she invited hungrily.
He shifted slightly to allow his hand to slide between her legs. “You’re so wet and open for me already,” he groaned before his lips claimed hers, fingers stroking her wet pussy in the same rhythm as his tongue invaded and claimed her mouth, a glide of pleasure, driving her need higher and higher until she couldn’t take any more.
She wrenched her mouth away from his possession. “Please, Zander. I need you inside me now.”
“Patience, woman,” he growled. “A little preparation will ensure I don’t hurt you.”
Tempting Zander Page 10