Nightfall

by Anne Stuart

  “How would you define leaving you alone?”

  “Don’t touch me, don’t talk to me, don’t tease . . .”

  “No t words. No taunting, tickling, or torturing, either?”

  God, she hated him. “You turn everything into a mind game, don’t you? Can’t you ever give an honest answer?”

  “Give me a letter of the alphabet, and I’ll stick to it,” he murmured, unmoved by her whispered fury.

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “I thought I was going to fuck you.”

  He stood there, far too close, arrogant, cool, and mesmerizingly beautiful in the moonlight. He was doing it again, playing with her for his own twisted reasons, expecting her to run away again.

  She couldn’t live in this apartment, with her father, if she didn’t face Richard down. Richard, and her fears. “I’m calling your bluff, Tiernan. I go to bed with you, and then you’ll leave me alone. Right?”

  Damn that smooth, superior curve to his mouth. The unreadable darkness in his eyes. “You love your father that much? That you’ll give yourself to the devil for his sake? Or is that it? You need to make a sacrifice. It isn’t good enough just being here. You have to prove your love.”

  “You were the one who started it,” she said. “Is it a bargain or not?”

  He let his eyes drop down the length of her body. She knew just what she looked like—tangled hair, pale, furious face, and an overlong body swathed in layers of clothes. If the man had any aesthetic sense at all, he’d send her on her way. She was counting on him doing exactly that.

  Richard Tiernan couldn’t possibly want her. His wife had been a fairytale princess. He’d hardly be interested in settling for Sean O’Rourke’s oversize klutz of a daughter.

  “A bargain,” he said lightly. “How did you want to do it?”

  She stared at him openmouthed in shock. “What do you mean?”

  “How shall we do it? Missionary style, you on the bottom? Or do you prefer the top? We could do it up against the door, with your legs wrapped around me. Or I could take you from the back. That way you wouldn’t have to look at me, and maybe you could pretend I was someone else.”

  “I . . . I . . .” It was one of the first times in her life she was lost for words.

  “You’re trying to call my bluff, Cassidy,” he said softly. “Two can play at that game. Do you want to come first? Do you want me to use my mouth?” She fumbled behind her for the doorknob, ready to run, when she saw the gleam of mocking triumph in his eyes. She wasn’t going to let him win. Too much relied on the outcome of this confrontation. She had to win. She couldn’t afford the price if she lost.

  She stiffened her back, glaring at him. “Do whatever you goddamn please,” she said, and pulled the heavy cotton sweater over her head.

  “Oh, but I always take my partners’ preferences into account.” He caught the sweater she hurled at him. “Are your breasts sensitive? Do you have a kinky streak? I could tie you up if you think it would make you feel better. That way you could pretend it was rape, and you’d be perfectly free to indulge your martyr fantasy. I think there are a few ties we could use . .

  She yanked the sweatshirt over her head, her movements sharp and jerky. “Trust me,” she said with false sweetness, “I’ll be completely passive.”

  He still hadn’t moved. He stood a few feet away, watching her, a faint, mocking smile on his shadowed face, and she wondered what would happen if she hit him again. The idea was as repulsive as it was enticing.

  She put her hands under the oversize T-shirt and reached for the waistband of her sweatpants. “You certain you want to go through with this?” she said coolly.

  He made no answer, watching her, so she shimmied out of them, kicking them away from her ankles, and then reached for the hemline of the T-shirt before she could chicken out, pulling it over her head. Her underwear wasn’t designed to entice. It was cotton, with a modest lace trim, and she hadn’t been planning on exposing it to anyone in the near future. Particularly not Richard Tiernan.

  “Change your mind, Cassidy?” he murmured, when she hesitated.

  Suddenly the reality of what she’d done hit her with a blinding force. It was the middle of the night, and she was standing in the bedroom of a convicted murderer, wearing only a skimpy bra and panties, and daring him to have sex with her. She must be totally out of her mind.

  But he was looking at her with that damn-all, amused smile, and the lingering tendrils of fury wiped out any second thoughts. He was playing a nasty game with her, and the only way she could win was to see it through to the end. “Change yours, Richard?” she countered.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You don’t really want me. You have no reason to want me. You’re just amusing yourself by twisting the lives of the people around you, and you want to see how far you can push me. Isn’t that right?”

  He seemed to consider it. “Partly right. I want to see how far I can push you. And I like seeing just how twisted other people’s lives can become. It’s a small solace, but I’ll take what I can get.”

  He took a step toward her, and it was all she could do not to back up. She held her ground, staring up at him defiantly, trying to ignore just how little she was wearing.

  “But you’re wrong about one thing, Cassidy, and you know it as well as I do, no matter how you try to tell yourself otherwise. You’re too wise, too intuitive not to know the truth, even if you wish it weren’t true.”

  “What?” she asked warily. He was too close, when she’d been hoping he would have backed down, now that he knew she wasn’t about to.

  He took her hand in his, and before she realized what he was doing he’d placed her palm against the zipper of his jeans. Against the unmistakable, pulsing hardness of him. “I want you, Cassidy. And you know it. I want you as much as you want me.”

  “I don’t . . .”

  He wouldn’t let her go. He was holding her hand against him, tightly, rubbing against him. “Live dangerously, Cass,” he whispered. “Tell yourself you’ll never get another chance to screw a serial killer. Tell yourself you’re doing this for dear old Dad. Tell yourself anything but the truth.”

  “And what is the truth?”

  “That you’re drawn to me, just as I’m drawn to you. Some dark, hidden part of you wants me, needs me. And is going to take me. Any way you can get me.”

  His other hand slid behind her neck, pulling her up against his body, her hand still pressed against his erection. His skin was hot against hers, smooth, burning up, and his mouth caught hers in a kiss so devastating, so thorough she wanted to cry. He’d pushed her up against the door, as he’d threatened, and she could feel his ribs, pressing against her, the rough texture of hair, the bone and sinew of him beneath all that heat and fury. His mouth was hard against hers, painfully so, lips and teeth and anger, and the hand at the back of her neck was too tight. She felt dizzy, and she told herself it was with cold, with pain, and she knew she lied. She was dizzy with fear. If she gave herself to him she’d die, she knew it. She wouldn’t need him to kill her—she would simply cease to exist, and the thought terrified her.

  She shoved at him in sudden panic, and to her momentary astonishment he released her, stepping back, smoothly. “Change your mind, Cassidy?” he asked in a deceptively pleasant tone of voice.

  She shut her eyes for a moment, unable to bear the mockery in his face. He had to be some kind of monster, inhuman, to kiss her, to burn for her, and then to stand there, unmoved, and taunt her. She shuddered, then opened her eyes again. “Can I?”

  “Of course. It’s always a woman’s prerogative.”

  “You’re such a gentleman.”

  “I do try,” he said lightly.

  “If I go back to my room now, what will you do?”

  He appeared to consider it cal
mly enough. “Go back to bed. Alone, regrettably.”

  “And what will you do tomorrow?”

  “Exactly what I do every day. Haunt this apartment, read murder mysteries, and answer your father’s occasional questions. Hardly conducive to an interesting life, but I find I prefer the quiet. Not that I don’t expect to have more than my share of quiet, sooner or later.”

  “And what are you going to do about me?”

  “About you, Cassidy? Why should I do anything about you?”

  “Will you leave me alone?”

  His smile was so sweetly gentle it could have charmed a rattlesnake. “Not in this lifetime.”

  She was cold, he could see that. Though the tremors that shook her lush, magnificent body could have been brought about by terror, and even more likely, by rage.

  It was that rage that drew him. No matter how he tried to demoralize her, confuse her, shatter her, she came back fighting like a mother tigress, defending her cubs. She was passing every test he threw at her, passing them all with flying colors, and he allowed himself a small glimmer of emotion. Of hope.

  She was the one. She could do it, she could fight and keep fighting if it was something important enough. Now all he had to do was bind her to him, and that was relatively simple.

  He needed to get her on the bed, where she wanted to be. He needed to get between her long, wonderful legs and make her feel things she’d never felt before. He needed to make her come, again and again, until she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but what he wanted her to do.

  “So what’s your answer, sweet Cassidy?” he murmured, moving closer to her. “Yes, or no?” He reached his hand up to her. Her bra fastened in front. Thoughtful of her. He brushed his fingertips against the clasp. “Or if you prefer me to be more exact. Now? Or later?”

  A tremor rippled across her skin, and he could feel her heart racing beneath the clasp of the bra, beneath the touch of his fingers. And suddenly it was no longer a game. She stood there, within his grasp, trembling, and all he wanted to do was draw her against him and soothe her. Whisper gentle, calming words, stroking her into quiescence, until she warmed and softened and reached for him, ready for him.

  There was no room for gentleness in the short time he had left. No room for compassion, or tenderness, and if he allowed himself to care, even for a moment, he’d be endangering everything.

  Her eyes were bright with unshed tears of fury and a thousand other emotions, and he guessed she had no idea. She’d hate to think she was ready to cry in front of him.

  He wanted to kiss those tears away, he wanted her to shed those tears for him. And that’s what decided him.

  He dropped his hand, taking a step back from her, grateful the shadows covered his reaction to her, the tremor that shivered across his own skin. He couldn’t take her. Not until he had himself under control. Because if he made love to her when he was vulnerable, even minutely, then all his carefully constructed plans could explode in his face. And the consequences were too horrifying to even consider.

  “I assume the answer is later,” he said coolly.

  Her head jerked up in shock. “What?”

  “Go back to bed, Cassie,” he dismissed her in a bored voice. “The game has lost its spice. We can start again tomorrow. Unless you think you’re going to run.”

  “I can’t run.”

  He smiled, not bothering to make it a pleasant one. “I know.” He scooped up her scattered clothes and placed them in her arms. “Go to bed, Cassie,” he said again. “Dream of me.”

  He opened the door for her, politely, ever the gentleman, waiting for her to take her one chance of escape.

  “Not if I can help it,” she said in a raw voice, starting past him.

  “You can’t,” he murmured in her ear. And she slammed the door behind her.

  Chapter 10

  CASSIDY DECIDED she was a better actress than she would have thought. She was able to meet Sean’s gaze with unflinching calm, giving as good as she got. Now that she knew the truth, she was amazed she’d missed all the obvious signs. His color was pasty, and the glitter in his eyes was as much pain as malice. He was subtly more clumsy, his movements dulled by alcohol or drugs or pain, or perhaps a combination of all three. She watched him, when he was absorbed in his work, and wondered how long he had left.

  As for Richard Tiernan, she managed to avoid him, no mean feat. He was a man who wouldn’t be avoided, not unless it was his choice, so she had to assume he was giving her much needed space. In another man, she might have thought it was a kindness, to spare her embarrassment, to give her time to get used to her father’s condition. With Richard, she knew it was simply one more move in his elaborate psychological chess game.

  For whatever reason, she blessed her reprieve, knowing it would be short-lived. She was almost relieved when she walked into the office two days later, a mug of Bridget’s black coffee in her hand, to find him there. He was lounging in the green leather chair, a book in hand, and he simply raised an inquiring eyebrow in greeting, a silent reminder of how he’d last seen her.

  She had more important things to worry about than Richard Tiernan’s mind games. She looked at the book he was reading—Ted Bundy’s preppy face gleamed from the cover. She shivered.

  “Where’s your father this morning?” He set the book down on his lap, deliberately across his zipper, and she knew he’d done it on purpose, to draw her eyes there. “Did he send you in as a virgin sacrifice, to distract me?”

  “Mabry said he had a bad night. He’s sleeping in.”

  “Sean doesn’t give in to things like bad nights,” Richard said.

  “Don’t you think I know it?” she shot back. “Maybe it’s a hangover.”

  “Maybe.”

  She went behind the desk. There was a pile of manuscript pages sitting there. Sean usually kept his work close at hand, locked in the desk when he wasn’t working on it. He must have had a bad night, indeed, to have left it out for her curious eyes.

  “Are you going to read it?”

  She glanced up. Richard seemed no more than casually interested. “Have you read it?”

  “Most of it. It’s exactly what he wants it to be. Quite, quite brilliant. It should be a fitting swan song. For both of us.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Denial never changed anything, Cassidy.”

  She stared at the manuscript. She didn’t want to touch it, read it, find out things she couldn’t bear knowing. Her eyes focused on the first sentence.

  Diana Scott Tiernan was every father’s dream, a fairy princess daughter, with a delicate, almost ethereal beauty, a wicked laugh, a charm that was as natural as it was powerful. She had only to walk into a room and it would come alive. When she died she was only twenty-nine years old.

  She dropped the manuscript, shocked at the rage and jealousy that swept over her. She had never been anyone’s fairy princess—there was nothing delicate or ethereal about her. She was an overgrown disappointment to her father, and doubtless a source of amusement to the man lounging in the chair, watching her.

  “You don’t like the book,” he observed.

  “Sean makes your wife sound quite . . . wonderful.”

  “You wouldn’t have liked her.”

  “Why not?” She turned the manuscript over, gratefully, preferring to argue with her nemesis. “He makes it sound as if everyone loved her.”

  “The skies mourned when she died,” Richard said mockingly. “You wouldn’t have liked her. The two of you are complete opposites.”

  “So I noticed,” she said wryly. “On the one hand we have the fairy princess, adored by father and husband, on the other, we have . . .

  “On the one hand,” he interrupted ruthlessly, with the first real anger she’d ever seen, “we have a preening neurotic w
ho could see no farther than her own selfish needs and twisted longings. On the other, we have you.”

  She stared at him. “You hated her.”

  “Intensely.” There was no apology in his voice. “It came through during the trial, even though I did my best to hide it. It was that hatred that convicted me, among other things. That hatred that inspired the judge to sentence me to death.”

  “Did you hate her enough to kill her?”

  “Yes.” His answer was flat, uncompromising.

  “Did you kill her?”

  “Read the book.” His brief flare of anger was gone, and the manipulator was back.

  “I don’t believe everything I read.”

  “Wise of you. Don’t believe everything people tell you, either.”

  “On the other hand?”

  There was a gleam of amusement in his bleak eyes. “You want to know how you differ from Diana? Searching for compliments, Cassidy? Come to bed with me, and I’ll tell you everything you want to hear. I’ll even tell you I love you if I have to.”

  She just watched him steadily, refusing to back down. She was getting better at dealing with him, and that knowledge strengthened her. “How am I different from your wife?”

  “She was porcelain—fragile, with a hidden flaw that made her shatter. You’re earthenware, strong, eternal, solid.”

  “Lord,” she said in disgust, “how could you have been considered a womanizer with a line like that?”

  “I’m not trying to seduce you at the moment. I’m telling you the truth, and giving you credit to be able to appreciate it,” he snapped.

  “Okay, I’m clay, she’s porcelain. What else?”

  “She was the center of the universe—everyone existed to complement her. She couldn’t live outside of the perfect little world she’d spun for herself, with the help of the people who adored her.”

  “Did she cheat on you? Did she have lovers?”