He came to his feet, a swift powerful move that made her cringe at the next chime of the device. Brian glared at it. “Go ahead. If we have to leave here, so be it.”
Emily’s hand shook as she delved for the instrument. Trembling fingers flipped the receiver open, and her voice hitched as she said, “Hello?”
“Miss me?”
All energy drained from her body, as she sank down on the cushion’s edge. Colin.
“Wh-where are you?”
“Uh-uh. You know better than that, sister dear. But I’m safe, and I know how you worry so.”
She barked a laugh that sounded on the border of madness. In her periphery she caught Brian watching her. He knew who was on the other end of the line, but it didn’t seem to remove the edge to his tension. “We’re looking for you. The only way you’ll be safe is with us.”
“There is no safety in this world.” Colin drew in a long breath, and Emily feared he might hang up, but he continued quietly. “Where am I? Deep in hiding. Underground. On the lam. A virtual dissident. I’ve gone so deep only the Devil will find me—and even he has to look down. And, and,”
A ragged pain tore into Emily’s chest at the catch in his voice. “Yes?”
“I can’t find Benjamin.”
Oh no. “Colin, please honey, tell me where you are.”
“Dammit Emily, I said no names!”
Emily glanced up to see if Brian had heard Colin’s outburst. He was at the window, the stark planes of his face shadowed by the drawn shade. He dropped the flap back in place and leaned over to extinguish the lantern. Emily started at the sudden plummet into darkness, but blinked until her eyes acclimated to the glow from the porch light. She understood the need for this cloak of shadows. It was the slightest of advantages.
Back at the window, Brian looked like night himself, with black hair and a shadowed face. Only a glint of gold flashed in his eyes from the outside bulb.
“Besides,” Colin continued in exasperation. “I can’t tell you over the phone. Who knows who is listening?”
“Then how?” Emily pleaded. “Colin, Brian will help you. I know he will.”
In the shadows, she met his gaze. When he looked at her with that penetrating stare she was aware of a rush of electrical energy inside her head.
“You can’t do this alone.”
Colin sighed on the other end as she listened for any telltale signs of his whereabouts. Silence. Nothing but the sizzling inside her head.
“You can’t look out for me all the time, Emma. You think I don’t know how you’ve taken care of me. You think I live in some fantasy world where I don’t have to deal with reality. I know what’s happening, and I’m responsible. Not you. This is not your mess to clean up, and you should have never gotten involved to begin with.” A slight squeak, like a rusted joint that needed lubricant. “You seem to trust the NMD guy. Why, I’m not even going to venture a guess. Just, just get to the lawyer. You still have the backup drive, don’t you?”
“Yes.” It was becoming more difficult to talk over the vise around her throat.
“Okay,” Colin was quiet for a moment as Emily strained again for any betraying background noise. Nothing. “Emily?”
Something in the way he said her name started the tears. A sense of dread had the crystals bubbling at the corners of her eyes.
“Yes,” She choked.
“I wish Dad was here.”
Oh God. She struggled to keep the sob out of her voice. “I know, Cole.”
“If anything happens to me, at least I’ll get to see them.”
“No!” Emily’s sudden surge to her feet snapped Brian’s head away from the window. “Listen to me.” She clutched the phone with desperation. “Give me a clue, something to let me know where you are.”
Colin’s voice was muted, like he was not speaking into the receiver. “If you look between a rock and a hard place, that’s where you’ll find me.”
“Dammit, this isn’t the time for jokes.”
“No joke, Emster. No joke.” His mouth was back to the receiver, but the tone was a mere whisper. “I’m safe, okay? I’m safe.”
“Colin, don’t hang up!” He was gone.
Emily’s fingers unclenched, and the glowing cell phone dropped to the floor. She tried to cry, but the sobs were locked inside her body, manifesting in a series of tremors that jarred her limbs.
She swayed—a graceful dance with despair.
CHAPTER VIII
Brian moved quickly, but drew up short of contact. Emily’s eyes were closed tight as if the world would not exist as long as she couldn’t see it. Still, he did not touch her. Her arms were hugged tight about her, a means to ward off connection with the rest of the world.
“Emily,” He whispered.
Moist lashes remained fixed against pale skin.
Dammit, he wanted to hold her, but she was standing there mourning over her husband. His support would be inappropriate. Instead he watched helplessly as the woman bled pain and sorrow from a self-inflicted laceration. Screw it. He reached forward and engulfed her rigid form in his arms.
Emily resisted. Futilely she struggled to be freed, but she was no match for his strength. Even now he only used one arm to lock her against his chest, the other was free to caress her hair and sooth her into his embrace. One searing cry broke from her lips as she wilted against him to the point that he nearly kept her on her feet.
Brian thought of lifting her into his arms, but instead drew her down onto the couch beside him. There her head remained tucked against his shoulder where she trembled.
It was overwhelming, the whiff of jasmine in her hair, and the warmth of her fingers as they reached up to clutch behind his neck. There were soft breaths against his throat, tiny hitches of pain that he wanted so badly to soothe with his lips. But Emily did not belong to him, and all he could offer right now was this brief consolation.
“What did he say, Em?” He murmured against her ear.
Her fingers clenched tighter, but he didn’t mind. “He wouldn’t tell me where he was.” She gulped.
“But he’s okay?”
She nodded against his collarbone.
“See, it’s alright. He’s safe, you’re safe.”
“Thanks to you.” Her voice was muffled.
Brian felt tightness in his chest and instinctively held her closer. Gently, his free hand stroked up and down her arm and then reached to trace a silky strand of hair behind her ear. His thumb brushed her cheek.
“Tell me.” He commanded softly.
Emily burrowed in closer as if she wanted every inch of herself connected to him. In any other venue the instinctive motion would have made him crazy with lust, but here it was endearing, and bittersweet.
“I’m so scared for him. So much so that I can’t even breathe, Brian.”
Each word she uttered hurt all the more, but Brian only tightened his embrace.
“He’s a lucky man.” He acknowledged throatily.
“Lucky?” Emily’s head tilted back, and in the dim light he witnessed a poignant smile in the eyes that glistened with tears. “That’s not a word I would associate with Colin.”
She withdrew from his hold, but Brian felt her hesitation, he felt her lingering touch on his arm before she finally dropped her hand and moved to the window. Now she was nothing more than a silhouette to him.
“I mean look at this,” She swept her arm in agitation. “A week ago my life was mundane, regimented…and now I’m a criminal.”
“You must love him a lot.” Brian grated.
“More than you could ever imagine.”
That was it. That was the final nail in the coffin. The breathless way she declared her adoration was more than he could handle. He massaged the pain above his temple and tried to clamp his jaw tight, but the words came out regardless.
“If you love your husband so damn much, Emily, how could you kiss me like that?”
Emily’s quick intake of breath sucked the oxygen from the
room. Brian remained a menacing form nestled in shadows, his countenance as dark as the background, like one of the handsome barons in a gothic horror movie. She couldn’t even hear him breathing, but she sure could hear her heart slamming against her ribcage.
“You think that—” It was almost impossible to speak. Her throat was still tight from the conversation with Colin, and now her vocal chords failed her.
“You think I would—” Married? Where the hell did he get that one from?
In a fast-forward reel, the past two days blurred through her conscious as she struggled to recall Brian’s introduction to Colin. True, she had never used the word brother, but she assumed that if he was chasing them, he obviously knew their identity.
“You think Colin is my husband?” The words came out now, and they sounded awfully shrill. Near hysterical.
Muted light revealed the grim line of Brian’s lips as they briefly parted, and then fastened shut again. His arms crossed in a gesture that emphasized the strength in his shoulders, but still he remained silent.
“All this time you thought that Colin was my husband?” It bore repeating because it was hilarious. For a minute. Then it became painful. The reality of what he must have thought hit her like a fist.
“Colin Brennan is my brother.” Emily looked away. She couldn’t bear to meet his eyes right now. “I thought you knew that. I thought you were after us both, so I assumed you were aware who he was. Hell, it doesn’t take a scientist to see the similarity. Aren’t you the head of security or something?”
When there was no response, Emily turned around. She was met with his stoic stance and unreadable glare. “What?” She dropped the shade as if the slick plastic had caused a paper cut.
Still, he remained silent. A brooding giant. With each second Emily grew fearful. Till this moment, despite the situation, she had felt a certain rightness in his presence. Although she would have never admitted it, she trusted Brian Morrison. Perhaps it was that she had witnessed his private side—the side that held her hand through the night and woke to watch her with something akin to adoration.
But now those eyes were as dark as his expression, and they masked all emotion.
Emily chanced a step closer. Why wasn’t he speaking? Did he think she had lied again? That wasn’t fair. Never once had she considered that he might imagine the last name Brennan was shared in matrimony, not kinship.
“Brian?” She hated the tremor in her voice.
She tried to clear it, but her throat was too tight to manage anything above a whisper.
Braving the gap, she took one last step, placing her into the lion’s trajectory, directly into his den. Now she could see his eyes. They followed her, glaring from beneath black lashes.
Emily bristled. How dare he pass judgment?
“You must have one mighty high opinion of me right now.” Her hands came to rest on her hips. “Heck, let’s see.” She held up one finger, “I committed theft, and then I left my husband to flirt with a stranger in a hospital.” Another finger came up. “I spent the night to make sure this stranger was okay.” She went to extend her third finger, but now her hand was shaking so she lowered it to her side. “And then, yes, the kicker is that I just shared one of the hottest kisses in my life against the side of a store,” agitated, she plundered on, “and all the while, my poor husband was waiting at home for me. Does that about sum up my wench status?”
Brian’s arms unwrapped from across his chest, the motion jarring her. His limbs could be lethal weapons, created with a sinewy strength that may well steal the life out of a man—or woman.
“No,” His voice was husky.
“No?” Emily swallowed.
“No, that doesn’t sum it up.” Those instruments of terror reached for her, hauling her to within an inch of his chest. For a frightening moment she thought he might crush her.
In a grave tone he declared, “This does.”
Brian’s mouth came down over hers, and any semblance of air remaining in her lungs rushed into that contact. He took her. With little coaxing, his lips parted hers with an incision that released a torrent of sensations. His hands cupped her face and then slid into her hair, tilting her head back for a deeper connection. He made her quiver as his mouth brushed against hers, demanding and giving, bringing her towards a pinnacle that made her lightheaded from lack of oxygen.
Need clawed at her as if a trapped animal sought release. She wound her arms around his neck, matching his ardor with urgent kisses of her own until all that existed was this sensation. Shock from deprivation came when his mouth left hers, but picked up its assault further down, on her throat, on the throbbing tempo of her pulse.
She now had to grab his shoulders because her muscles had atrophied. With her mouth free, she managed a tiny croak, “Brian,”
The sound was a ragged intake of breath that he quickly smothered with another kiss. She didn’t want this to end. She wanted to climb up onto him and possess him in an erotic attack. He must have felt the same need because his hands dropped to her waist, pulling her impossibly closer. His kiss entrenched her in a silky pool with no bottom, and she was barely treading water.
Somewhere deep down, a wave began its ascent, the impetus building, overtaking her awareness of his kisses. She clung to him, but the surf charged forward, a relentless breaker that filled her chest, and swelled into her throat where it rushed to freedom on a rolling sob.
Emily cried out, and her legs would have collapsed were it not for the vise-like arms sustaining her. Her fingers curled tightly around Brian’s shoulders as her body racked with a keening moan. Tears poured out with the salty surf, their stream unchecked, moistening the musky fabric her face pressed against.
So many swirling emotions begged for dominance, their effect worse than any form of vertigo. Her body still hummed with desire while her eyes continued to stream in desperation.
The effect made her feel raw, as if she had just ridden in on a tsunami.
In the distance she heard Brian as a remote echo, soothing with its resonance. Her sobs diminished into hiccups and she was only vaguely conscious of her feet leaving the ground, her body suspended in air until she came to rest in an insulated shelter.
When the tide finally turned and there was no water left to pour onshore, Emily sniffled and rubbed at her swollen eyes with the back of her hand. She kept her eyelids shut, afraid of the outside world, but other senses picked up where blindness left off.
Touch. She felt the strong arms around her, and the rock hard thighs beneath her—a cocoon that offered protection from the demons of the night.
Smell. The scent of soap and desire was so heady she felt faint with every tremulous breath. Beyond that, she inhaled the brisk aroma of winter in the woolen fabric, which evoked images of a warm fireplace and beguiling golden eyes.
Taste. She was held so tightly that her face was pressed into the crook of his neck, her lips touching the beat at the base of his throat where she tasted the salt of her own tears.
And finally, sound.
“I was looking for a way to distract you,” Brian murmured hoarsely, “Did it work?”
With her emotions in chaos, Emily felt a soft bubble of laughter tickle her chest. “Yeah, yeah that worked.”
“You had that coming, Em.” Soft words tickled her hair. “You were holding it all in. You’ve been brave, but you’re also very tired, and emotionally strung out. You needed release.”
Emily tried to tip her head back, but she was nestled in the crook of his neck, and the steady beat of his pulse was something elemental that she could cling to.
“If you kept kissing me like that,” she whispered, “that release may have gotten carried away.”
Those words shot straight to Brian’s groin atop which Emily’s bottom rested. His jaw clenched and he gently shifted her rear out of danger’s way. It took a couple sustaining breaths before he could manage to speak.
“Look, I want to be supportive.” He began in a gruff voice. “B
ut I am human, and comments like that might just end you up on your back in a predicament you’re not ready for.”
Emily’s head wrenched out from beneath his chin and already he missed the heat of her nestled there. A sliver of light passed by the rim of the shade and scored her face.
Midnight eyes were charged with energy. Passion and anger combined with fear and desperation to create a maelstrom. Brian held his breath and waited for the deluge.
“So now that you realize I’m a single woman I’m free game for you?” Her voice was shaky, a premonition to a full-blown outburst.
“No. Not at all.”
Wasn’t it true though? Hadn’t he purposely overlooked the resemblance between the two engineers? If Emily was married, then she was off limits, and there would be no reason for him to want his hands and his mouth all over the criminal he was pursuing.
Now he was in no-man’s land—torn between an inherent sense of duty, and the soft body draped across his lap. She still hugged him despite the tension that stiffened her frame.
Brian smiled in the dark. Such a contradiction Emily was. Headstrong and courageous, yet even in anger she clung to him.
“Come to think of it,” Emily continued in a tight voice. “Every time you have kissed me, there’s been some scheme involved. Hide from the thugs after us. Distract Emily from becoming a basket case. You must be happy I played into all of your little acts.”
Brian hooked his finger under Emily’s chin when she would have tried to elude his gaze. “No, I’m not happy at all.”
In one fluid move he lifted her off his lap and laid her down on the mattress, while he shifted to a safe distance at the foot of the bed.
Hunched over, Brian cupped his head in his palms. What should he do now?
Emily didn’t need him in a physical capacity. She needed him to help find her brother—that was all there was to it.
“Without the resources back at NMD I can’t trace that phone call,” He sounded detached, “and I can’t ask Phil to go back in the office. It’s not safe for him now.”
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