Beast in the Tower

by Julie Miller

  “I’m a doctor. I can manage my own injury.” As if. “And the answer’s no. Getting in requires a key card and a variable access code. Easting doesn’t have either one.”

  “Helen does.” Those thugs really were just trying to steal her keys. Only the key Helen carried could unlock millions of dollars’ worth of secrets. “If she brings you a meal ‘from time to time,’ she knows how to get in here.” Kit dried her hands and filled a clean beaker with water. She paid closer attention to the experiments lining the room as she returned to the table. “They’re using her to get to your secrets.”

  Damon sank onto a nearby stool as the color drained from his face. Kit rushed to his side, thinking blood loss had finally beaten his will to go on. But as she braced a hand at his shoulder and bicep to steady him, she could see it was one of those dreaded emotions, not any physical weakness that assailed him. “They left her for dead, just to get the damn key?” He pounded his fist against the table, scattering the items on the table and jolting Kit inside her socks. “Bastards. The key card doesn’t work unless they punch in the code. They hurt her for nothing!”

  His pain was evident in the tight line of his mouth that hovered right before her eyes. Kit risked staying put, wondering if she dared offer anything as mundane as a hug. Or if he’d even welcome such comfort. In the end she soothed the beast by simply gentling her voice. “Are you talking about a code like the one Kenny and Matt were trying to break?”

  “No, that’s for something different. I encrypt all my work. With the right translation, someone could recreate my equations. Produce the SinPharm formulas themselves. They could make a fortune selling them to a competitor and put me out of business.”

  “A code for this, a code for that—you’re a little paranoid, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged her hand off his shoulder. “It’s time for you to leave.”

  “Not when we’re about to figure this out. Not when you need me.”

  Damon shot to his feet, towering over her. “We are not about to do anything. And I do not need…”

  His gaze on her shoulder drew her own focus to the drop of blood that stained her robe.

  The tortured guilt that haunted his expression made it impossible not to reach out to him. Kit stroked a fingertip across the square line of his stubbled jaw. “I’m okay, Damon. I’m not hurt.” She summoned a reassuring smile. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  “I will, though. I lost Miranda. Helen nearly died. And you…” He hooked a finger around a strand of hair that had caught at the corner of her mouth and pulled it free. He tucked it behind her ear and let his fingertip mirror her gentle touch on him. “You nearly died. Stick with me, baby.” Sarcasm sounded particularly poignant in his rusty tone. “The people around me pay a horrible price for getting involved with me.”

  Kit caught his hand in hers and offered her strength. “Let’s just focus on the present, okay? Don’t worry about what might happen a few minutes or a few days from now. Just be with me. Here. Now.” She splayed her fingers at the center of his chest and nudged him back onto the stool. “I saw that you wouldn’t let the paramedics treat your hand back at the Black Hole. I won’t let you off that easily.”

  “You’re a warrior, aren’t you.” His gruff expression eased into a wry smile. “You don’t back down from anything. Not even a son of a bitch like me.”

  “You have your moments.” Kit cradled his injured hand between both of hers and moved it into the bright light that shone down on the table. “I think I’m half-afraid that if I ever turn away from the things that frighten me or hurt me—and start running—that I’ll never be able to stop. When my folks died, I knew I had to be strong for Matt. Germane depended on Mom and Dad, too. And the neighborhood depended on the diner…” She peeled off the old bandage. “Running scared just isn’t an option for me.”

  “Do I frighten you?”

  Once, maybe. While she didn’t agree with his choice, she thought she could understand why he isolated himself and clung to the darkness—Henry’s addled terror when Damon had busted into the squatter’s apartment to rescue her, the screams from the waitress at the Black Hole, the paramedics’ awkward hesitance at seeing the deforming scars and ridges on Damon’s hand. Riled up, half-hidden in shadow, Damon Sinclair easily startled, and often frightened the faint of heart.

  But she saw something more. The intelligence shining in that piercing blue eye. The seductive slant of those male lips. The spirit of a man willing to put his life on the line to protect her.

  “Kit?” he prompted, his dark, husky voice sending a skitter of intimate awareness down her spine.

  She soaked a gauze pad in the water and began cleaning the bullet graze that grooved his palm and the inside of his fingers. “I think what frightens me are the things I feel when I’m around you.”

  “And what do you feel?”

  Tending Damon’s wound was a little like petting a big jungle cat. He sat and let her spread the antibiotic ointment that would help prevent infection, but Kit got the feeling that he was all coiled energy, more aware of his surroundings—and of her—than she could imagine. One wrong word, one false move, and the panther would pounce and she would be at his mercy.

  But for now she was the one in control. Her soft words and gentle touches seemed to have a mesmerizing effect on the cat. And his radiant warmth and hushed talking in that low-pitched growl seemed to have an equally mesmerizing effect on her.

  She’d make easy prey if he chose to turn on her now.

  “I feel…” How could she explain the soul-deep connection she felt to this man when she could barely understand it herself? There were so many things that separated him from the rest of the world—his fearsome appearance, his intellect, his money, his secretive moods. But she felt an affinity for him in every touch, every conversation, every look—he stimulated her brain, aroused her body and touched her heart. Yeah, right. Try explaining that ethereal notion to a man of science.

  “I feel like I’m…” She tried to laugh off the deep turn her thoughts had taken. “Well, you’d sure be easier to hang around with if you were some mild-mannered accountant or regular Joe.”

  “You’d be better off with a regular Joe.” He dutifully turned his hand so she could clean and dry the back. “He might actually ask you out on a date. Take you to a museum or research center where you could indulge that curiosity of yours. At least he’d meet you in the daytime. Maybe even outside. In the light.”

  “You’re not a vampire. You’re just a night owl, like me. Only, you take it to the extreme. I’m guessing it’s easier to avoid people and their reactions that way. Though, to give the rest of us credit, we all have hang-ups of one kind or another. Yours are just…obvious.” She’d guess that building and working in a secret laboratory wasn’t all about professional security. This was his sanctuary. The big cat’s lair. This was probably the one place he could completely relax. But Kit didn’t voice that opinion. Instead, she frowned and raised his hand for a closer look at his fingers. “That’s odd.”

  “I lost some of my fingerprints in the fire,” he explained, misunderstanding her interest.

  But that wasn’t what had caught her eye. The wound from Kenny’s bullet bisected the webwork of scars and keloids that covered his hands. But that wasn’t what she’d noticed, either. “You have new skin—new scars—growing across the wound already.”

  The panther cat had had enough. Damon curled his fingers into his palm and stood. “Good night, Kit.”

  She caught his sleeve and held on as he shoved the stool back. “Don’t pull away. Explain it to me.”

  “Ever the curious one, aren’t you?”

  “Is that your tissue regeneration formula at work? Did you inject yourself with something?”

  “Years ago.” He turned his hands, palms up, palms down, looking at them with contempt. “I cut my hand in the lab one day. Thought it’d be a smart idea to test the formula on myself. It worked, all right. Every paper cut, every splinter I’
ve had since has repaired itself. The cells in my hands were reprogrammed to expel any foreign object and regrow the damaged tissue. They’ve been doing their job ever since. I haven’t yet figured how to reverse it.” He held up his hands as though a good look would scare her away. “These scars aren’t from the fire—they’re from the healing.”

  But Kit could only see the miracle at work. “So, you weren’t worried about Kenny shooting you in the hand because you knew you could heal yourself?” Her lips parted in wonder as she took one hand and inspected the reconstructive work more carefully. “That’s bloody brilliant, Doc. It’s as if microscopic nanites are replacing the tissue, cell by cell.”

  “It’s not quite that sci-fi.” He offered only token resistance when she resumed the first aid. Maybe he just wanted to get the scars hidden as quickly as possible. Or maybe, just maybe, she was wearing down a few of those distant emotional walls he wore like protective armor. “I perfected a later version—the one that was patented and put on the public market. It doesn’t stay in the system and alter it permanently.”

  She wrapped gauze around the wound and taped it to the back of his hand. “Will the stuff that was injected into me have any long-term effects?”

  “I don’t think so. That’s one reason I…” His gaze slid over to the row of microscopes. “I’ve been examining your blood work and tissue samples. Running some tests on them.”

  Kit gathered up the trash and tossed it on her way to examine what was beneath the lens in the first microscope. “K26,” she read on the slide label. She looked at the rapidly growing cells. “Is this me?” Kit’s stomach flip-flopped with an unsettled feeling—either this was really weird, or Damon was showing his concern in the only way he knew how. “I’m a science experiment?”

  “No.” She felt his heat beside her and lifted her head to see the earnest hesitation in his expression. “I think…” He reached out and stroked her jaw, petting her. Apologizing? “I think there’s something unique about your genetic makeup. When you rejected the 428 formula, I suspected. Now I’m sure.”

  “Of what?”

  His fingers slipped into her hair as he cupped her jaw in his palm. “That you’re a miracle.”

  Kit’s stomach flip-flopped for a completely different reason. “Me?”

  “It’s still in the rudimentary stages, not anywhere near ready for testing on live subjects or taking to market, but in the past, my formulas haven’t worked on people who share the same allergies you do.”

  If his words weren’t so darn clinical, she’d think he was sweet-talking her. Who was she kidding? With the way she loved science, he was seducing her with that tone and that gentle touch. “But you found something in my genes that makes the formulas work?”

  “Yes.”

  Had he stepped closer? Or was the temperature in the lab rising? She reached up and wrapped a steadying hand around his wrist. “So is K26 named after me?”

  His other hand, his bandaged hand, came up to brush another wayward tendril off her cheek. “It’s not quite so romantic as naming a rose after you, but—”

  Kit pressed two fingers to his lips to silence the apology. “I’m flattered. Something you created from me may help save lives. I’m sure that makes me weird, but I think that’s cool.”

  “Thank you.” His lips moved beneath her sensitive fingertips, creating dozens of erotic sparks that zipped along each nerve and tingled in the tips of her breasts and at the heart of her. “There’s nothing weird about you, Kit. Unless you count this willingness to let me touch you.”

  “Damon—”

  “Shh. I surrender. I keep trying to keep my distance, but you won’t let me.” Though his words and tone were meant to calm, her pulse started beating faster. “Your freckles are cool to the touch. Which is a neat trick, considering the fire inside you. Your hair is like amber silk. And, unless you stop me…” He was moving closer. “I’m going to conduct a little scientific observation.”

  His warm breath danced across her lips. “What’s that?”

  “I want to know if you taste as soft and warm and amazing as you look.”

  His lips closed over hers in a tender exploration. Kit’s lips parted and his gasp mingled with her own. His catlike tongue moved inside and slid against her own. Kit reached up to wrap her fingers around his other wrist, needing to hold on with two hands as her knees went weak.

  He suckled her bottom lip between his. “Soft,” he observed.

  He nipped down gently and Kit trembled in response. “Warm.”

  His fingers tunneled into her hair and tilted her head back to open her mouth more fully beneath his. “Amazing.”

  The pressure grew more demanding as he turned her and backed her into the table. His hips crowded against hers, and one muscular thigh wedged its way between her own. Kit shivered at the friction between rough denim and soft flannel. She moaned at the contrast of hard muscle pressing against her soft heat.

  “Damon—” Did that helpless plea come from her own throat?

  “As amazing as I remember.”

  No. Better.

  Kit abandoned her grip on his wrists and splayed her fingers across the flat of his stomach. The catch of his breath beneath her touch was an exhilarating, empowering thing. The jungle cat was letting her play. The nubby ribs of his sweater tickled her palms, but it wasn’t enough. She boldly dragged her palms to his waist and flanks, loving every hitch of muscle and catch of breath. She found the hem of his sweater, then slipped her hands beneath and singed herself on hot, taut skin.

  The cry in her throat drew his lips there. His stubbly beard abraded the soft skin. His lips and tongue soothed it.

  He skimmed his hands down her back, pulled her away from the table. He cupped her bottom in two sure hands. Squeezed. Aroused. Lifted.

  Then she was sitting on the table. Damon spread her legs and walked between them. Her robe was untied. Off her shoulders. He nibbled an ear, sampled a cord of her neck, gently kissed the fading bruise at her collarbone.

  His knuckles brushed against her breasts, elicited shivers of delight as he unhooked the buttons of her shirt and exposed her to his hungry gaze. He cradled the heavy globes in his big, scarred hands, teased the nipples into a hard salute. Then he bent his head to capture a distended peak in his mouth and Kit lurched against him. She dug her fingers into the skin at his waist and threw her head back, losing herself in the powerful need of each touch, each nip, each kiss.

  Kit felt heavy inside. Molten. Alive.

  She was no big sister. No short-order cook. No orphan or failed grad student. No nosy friend or neighborhood guardian. She was a woman. Distilled into her purest, most feminine form. And the man laying claim to her had taken her to that place.

  “Damon. Please.” She needed his kiss. Needed his strength. Needed him.

  “I want you,” he growled against her mouth. The unspoken evidence was already swelling behind his jeans and pressing against her thigh. “I shouldn’t. But I do.”

  She scraped her palms along the smooth cut of his hair and angled his mouth back to hers. “I want you, too.”

  “It’s been so long.” He stole a kiss. “I don’t know if I can make this last.” He slipped a hand inside her shirt and squeezed her breast. “Don’t know if I can make it good.”

  “The only way—” Kit swept the lab coat off his shoulders, tempted him with another kiss before tugging at the hem of his sweater and helping him remove it “—it won’t be good…” He returned the favor. She was naked down to her waist. The cold air of the lab teased her skin but couldn’t find its way inside to rob her of this erupting heat. “…is if you stop.”

  He scooped a hand beneath her bottom, circled his arm behind her back. He picked her up against him, binding them body to body, skin to skin, trust to trust and, in some very elemental way, soul to soul.

  Kit wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as her pajama pants disappeared and his jeans and shorts dropped to the floor. When he sat her back on the t
able and entered her, Kit nearly exploded, right on the spot.

  Oh, yeah. Damon’s experiment was a raging success.

  And neither one of them was stopping.

  Chapter Eleven

  For the first time in months, Damon considered opening the two-story blinds that shaded the windows on the east side of the penthouse and letting the morning sun pour in.

  But that would require getting out of bed, going downstairs and pressing the button that operated the window coverings. And he didn’t want to do anything to spoil the moment of waking up with Katherine Elizabeth Snow’s naked body snuggled against his chest.

  Her soft breathing warmed a spot near the base of his neck, and her bare, palm-size breast pressed against his side was shamelessly warming up a spot farther down on his body. She dozed peacefully, no doubt worn-out by the demands he’d made and the passion she’d so willingly shared. First, in his lab, where the intensity of their need had made up for his lack of seductive finesse. And then again in the loft, where he’d remembered a condom and tried to slow things down and do it right for her. Though, when Kit had urged him onto his back and straddled him, ideas of finesse disappeared and he’d been as eager to take her as she’d been to receive him.

  Maybe it was that third time, just before dawn, when he realized just how quickly he was falling in love with this woman.

  Damon had been seized by the nightmares again. Thrashing in his sleep, caught up in the fires that wanted to destroy everything he cared about. Kit’s firm voice and firmer touch had reached him in the fiery darkness, and he’d awakened to the glorious, Renaissance-painting-worthy sight of the moonlight glimmering over her naked breasts and shoulders.

  When she knew he was with her again, she’d cradled his head to the pillow of her breasts. She’d held him tight as he latched on to her and shared the haunting tales from his dreams. She hadn’t recoiled when he’d removed the eyepatch and tried to explain how the glass eye was uncomfortable and needed to be adjusted, but since no one ever saw him, anyway, what did it matter?