Steele leaned back in his chair and wondered if she’d been trying to do both.
11:00 p.m.
Kira fumbled with her phone. She didn’t need Steele staring at her that way. With her emotions all over the place, she wasn’t sure what might come out of her mouth if they kept playing Twenty Questions. What the hell was she doing, anyway? Sitting in the kitchen flirting when her father was being tortured? She choked back a sob. Maybe he was already dead.
“Can you give me some privacy?”
“Sure.” He pushed back his chair. She felt him wait a second or two, felt his gaze burning the back of her neck. She didn’t look up. Only when his footsteps echoed to nothing did she dial Isha’s number.
“C’mon...pick up,” she urged into the phone. But she only got voicemail. She hung up without leaving a message.
God, she needed to talk to someone outside these walls. Her skin crawled with anticipation, with nerves, with memories closing her in second by second. Who else could she call? Carl? Francesca’s idiot lawyer was a waste. Almost twelve hours since Edoardo’s capture, and they hadn’t heard a word from Washington. She shook her head. Just because Francesca kept the fool on retainer didn’t mean Kira had to rely on him.
“Oh, shit.” Francesca. She’d left the woman upstairs over an hour ago, promising to get rid of Steele. She’d meant to say it quickly, like pulling off a bandage, and shove him out the back door. Instead she’d let herself fall for his story about a rogue reporter and ended up entertaining him like a goddamn dinner guest.
“Now what?” she asked the walls. She didn’t want to go back upstairs. She didn’t want to see Francesca. She could barely stand the thought of staying in this house. She glanced outside. Could she sneak by the knot of reporters that waited in the dark? Probably not. And they probably weren’t all reporters. She’d bet a few locals were hanging around outside too, phones in hand, ready to snap pictures or video to post online. She could only imagine some of the captions.
Long-Lost Daughter Returns
Morelli Child Star Sneaks Home
She ran her fingers through her hair, agitated. What if someone figured out the truth? What if one of them forced open a door, broke a lock, and stumbled upon the single piece of paper that exposed the black streak running through her blood? Her fingers itched for a cigarette, but her pack was two flights up in the pocket of her skirt.
She flipped the phone between her palms. The universe would say that family loyalty, warped or not, meant she should climb those stairs and make sure Francesca hadn’t done anything rash. Comfort her. Figure out a plan for facing the media together. Kira dropped her head onto her arms. She’d waited so long. She’d thought that enough time might heal things. But now her father faced a hell she could barely imagine, and she had no opportunity to try and right things—if they were hers to right at all.
She sat up and dialed Scotty’s number. At least she knew he’d be up this late.
“Kira?” He answered after half a ring. “Where the hell are you?”
“Don’t ask.”
“The fuck I won’t. Felix said you went home. Home? As in the shitty little town of Napa?”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell for? Pigs finally sprout wings and lift their asses into the sky? I thought you hated that place.” Scotty didn’t know who she really was, but he did know where she’d come from. And she’d let it slip that she knew Edoardo Morelli, that they’d filmed together once or twice. Whether he’d put two and two together, she didn’t know, but she wouldn’t put it past him.
“Shit.” Scotty coughed. “Heard about Morelli. Sorry.” He let loose a few colorful comments on the nature of Edoardo’s kidnappers and the state of the American government before slowing down to take a breath.
Kira glanced at the doorway. Steele hadn’t returned. She wasn’t sure that made her feel grateful for the privacy or suspicious that he was wandering around where he shouldn’t be. “Listen, I should be back tomorrow. Sunday the latest. I just wanted you to know where I was.” Plus she’d needed to hear a familiar voice, besides the grating one of Francesca’s and the guilty one inside her own head. “You working?”
“Nah. Told you I was takin’ some time off. But I got a fuckin’ awesome screenplay today. Might have some potential. Gotta run it by you when you get back here. Be safe, okay? And let me know if there’s anything I can do. Money, hand grenades, whatever.”
“Thanks.” Kira’s eyes filled. She hung up and stared at the rain outside. After a long minute, she pulled up a website. She wanted to know. She didn’t want to know. She couldn’t bear to look. Her knees popped as she stood and stretched. The screen took forever to load, and when it did, the picture looked faded and filmy. “Damn battery.” She held it up to the light.
“Everything okay?”
She jumped at Steele’s voice. “God. Don’t sneak up on me.”
“Sorry.” He leaned closer, and his breath raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “Get anything new?”
“Could you possibly not crowd me?”
He cleared his throat and stepped back again.
Kira leaned against the counter and squinted at the screen. After a minute, a news report scrolled along the bottom: Morelli Kidnappers Continue with Demands. Time-stamp: 10:56 p.m. “The administration is refusing to give in to the terrorists’ demands to release twelve prisoners in exchange for the movie star,” she read aloud. “At this time there has been no further discussion by either party.”
Kira stopped reading. “Refusing?” She flung the phone across the room. “How can they re-refuse?” She wrapped her arms around her waist and began to hiccup. “It’s my fa-father—it’s a person’s life they’re talk-talking about. It’s—” She couldn’t get any more words out. She wasn’t even sure what she meant to say. War images flashed through her mind: bloody bodies, overturned jeeps, crashed helicopters, flag-draped coffins. Hundreds of people die every year, in one war or another. One person means nothing in the big picture. Not even a famous person.
Her legs gave out and she sank to the floor. For the first time, the possibility that her father might really die clutched in the back of her throat. She closed her eyes and pressed her fists against them. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
“Hey.” She felt a touch on her back. “Hang on there.”
But Kira had nothing to hang on to. She opened her eyes and stared at the pattern of green and gray tile beneath her. It spun, grew lighter and darker by turns, until she thought she’d go mad. Tears slipped down her face. Her head pounded.
“Kira?” His hand moved from the small of her back to her shoulder. “What can I do? Tell me.”
She didn’t answer. She remained sitting on the floor, mostly because she didn’t have the energy to get up. Fatigue washed over her in waves. He didn’t say another word, but his fingers moved in the fringe of hair along her neck. His palm flattened in the space between her shoulder blades, and the heat from his touch seeped into her in slow degrees.
In and out. Just keep breathing. It amazed her how difficult that one act could become, when it seemed as though the entire world crushed her with desperation. She lost track of how long they sat there. Outside, the rain increased, spitting against the windows.
“Feeling any better?” he asked after a while. His breath feathered her ear, and she shivered.
“A little.” She closed her eyes as his fingers brushed her neck, then her jaw. “That tickles.”
He didn’t say anything. But he didn’t move away either.
Kira kept her eyes closed. For a moment, she let herself imagine she was sitting somewhere else. She imagined she was someone else, the someone else she’d tried to become after leaving home. It would be so easy, if I was just a girl and he was just a guy. She wouldn’t be sitting here trying to rationalize every thought and resist every touch. She could flirt. She could turn and wrap her arms around his neck. She could just...be.
His arm slipped around her waist. “Can I do any
thing?” he asked again, and this time Kira’s thoughts turned decidedly twisted. She almost told Steele he could do whatever he wanted, right then and there, wide windows or cold tile or granite countertop be damned.
“Like what?” She looked at him and lifted her chin. But facing him turned out to be a bigger mistake than she’d guessed. Desire colored his eyes a deeper shade of blue, and his smile lit something inside her. She knew she only had to reach up with one hand, draw in his mouth with hers, and he would wrap those arms around her and lift her, breathless, off her feet.
So she did.
STEELE HADN’T EXPECTED this. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected at all. He’d thought maybe he could ease her anxiety. Maybe even convince her to talk to him some more. But every rational thought left his mind when Kira put her hands on his face and opened his lips with her tongue. His hands slid to her waist and he pulled her to a stand, breathing in a fragrance that reminded him of springtime. She had a perfect ass, hips that met his when he pulled her closer, and she swayed against him just enough to turn him hard as iron.
She murmured something against his mouth that turned him heady. Then the words were gone, and it was just her breath and his, her tongue and his, her hands finding every inch of him. His groin ached, and something in the back of his mind thought he should probably stop this before it went somewhere it shouldn’t. But this was Isabella Morelli he had his arms wrapped around. And she—was that a tongue stud exploring his mouth? Cold metal touched his bottom lip, and stars exploded behind his eyes. In another minute he’d have her out of her clothes and naked on the counter.
She laced her hands behind his neck and stood on her tiptoes. Her mouth moved to his cheek, his neck, his collarbone.
With great effort, he stopped her. “I’m thinking maybe we shouldn’t do this.” What the hell was wrong with him? When had he ever turned down a woman who basically threw herself at him?
But this was different from all the other times.
The tiniest frown knit her brows together, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She locked her gaze with his, and Steele could almost feel her peeling away his shirt and khakis. Jesus, what a look. No wonder the camera loved her.
“I—” He could barely get the words out, and it took near-inhuman strength to loosen his hold on her waist. “I don’t want...”
“Me?”
He almost laughed. “Christ, no. You drive me crazy in ways you can’t even imagine.” But a bizarre sense of duty knocked against his brain. He didn’t want to fulfill the prophecy he knew waited for him at The Chronicle’s office. He didn’t want to play the stereotypical role of Steele Walker, playboy extraordinaire, dumb good-looking jock, who thought with the wrong brain and went through women like water.
He ran a finger along her chin. “I’m a reporter.”
“So you said.”
“I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Who says you’re taking advantage? You think you’re in control of this situation?” She slid one hand to his cock and squeezed gently.
“Hell. I know I’m not.”
Lightning flashed and thunder cracked at the same moment. The lights above them flickered. Kira’s gaze moved to the hallway behind them and her expression changed. Steele glanced over. His camera gear.
She put one hand on her hip. Her short hair fell over one eye. The lights flashed again, and her lips parted. He couldn’t read her thoughts, and right then he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“Okay,” she said. “You can take my picture.”
His breath stopped. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” She ran her fingertips down his chest. “Before I change my mind.”
He had no idea what had changed it to a yes in the first place, but he wasn’t about to argue or question. Only this kind of opportunity had the ability to dampen his raging desire. He dragged out his favorite Nikon and frowned. “Not here. Lighting’s shitty.”
“Out in the foyer, maybe? The parlor?”
The lights flickered a third time, and Steele wondered how long before they lost power altogether. He fought the need swelling inside him. He had to keep his head together, had to act like this wasn’t the fucking chance of a lifetime and like he wasn’t falling harder for Kira with every passing moment.
She had already brushed by him and was waiting at the bottom of the grand staircase when he got to the foyer. For a moment, his vision blurred, and all he saw was Kira pressed against him, her fingernails etching lines in his skin as he peeled away layers and tasted the curve of her collarbone. Fuck the pictures. There’s only one thing I want right now.
“Walker? You okay?” She waved a hand in front of his eyes.
“Sorry.” He pointed to the parlor. “Let’s go in there.”
She nodded and led the way, stopped for a moment in front of the fireplace, then sank onto the hearth and crossed her legs on the white marble. Thunder crackled, and the house groaned under its own weight. Steele barely noticed. He kneeled on the sofa and started with her face. Heart-shaped chin. Round dark eyes. No smile. He zoomed out for a view that took in her entire delicate frame. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, drawn up to her chest. Protecting something, he thought. Keeping out the camera, even though she’d been the one to suggest the photos in the first place.
“Can you—” He motioned to her hands.
She dropped her arms and let them fall onto her lap. “Better?” She shook the hair from her eyes, and he saw anguish, anger, stubbornness in the way her gaze glittered and moved across him. He changed angles, moving to the left, until all he could see was her sharp profile and the darkness beyond. His throat tightened. God, she was beautiful. His fingers twitched. He continued to shoot, changing position an inch or two at a time. He stopped only once, to switch to black and white film.
The minutes passed, and she relaxed by degrees. “You like this,” she said. “More than the journalism, I’d guess.”
“What gave it away?” He lowered the camera and grinned. She cocked her head and gave him a flirtatious pout that seared him in the gut. Finally, Steele lay on his belly in front of her. He aimed the lens upward, catching the swell of her breast and the long smooth sweep of her upper arm. On impulse, he reached out and ran one finger along her instep.
“That tickles.” But she didn’t move away.
He took a few more, of her face only. Long lashes. Smooth brows, the right one punctuated by a silver ring. Cheekbones that might cut glass if given the chance. Her gaze smoldered down at him. He swallowed and grew hard again, but he didn’t try to fight it anymore. He laid the camera to the side with a careful hand and reached for Kira with the other.
She met him halfway, her mouth hungry. He slipped one finger under the strap of her tank top and moved the fabric down to her elbow, until he could run a knuckle along the silk of her breast. No bra. Skin like cream. She whimpered as she tilted her head back and he licked the hollow of her throat. God, he wanted to taste her. All of her. He wanted to make her move beneath him, to cry out his name. He wanted to lose himself inside her until he forgot who and where he was.
A mighty bolt of lightning flashed. An instant later, the room went black.
Midnight
Kira closed her eyes and welcomed the dark. Steele slipped his hands along her waist, and she arched into his touch. She didn’t care about the storm, or the shadows, or the cold marble beneath her. Swept far from the maddening memories this house held, she let herself mold to his muscled body above hers. It had been so long since she’d let a man peel away her layers. And oh, God, this was a man she wanted bare before her.
She unbuttoned his shirt, taking her time, until she could lay her palms flat against the hard planes of his chest. He made a sound in the back of his throat, and she dropped her hands lower, feeling him, teasing the hardness that strained against his khakis.
“You want me.”
In answer, he slipped a hand inside her pajama bottoms,
cupping her ass with one palm and kissing her again. God, he was strong. He pulled her closer, and his lips moved along her jaw, her neck, and down her bare shoulder. She shivered. He murmured into her skin, vibrations that burned her clear through. She clutched his shoulders, loving the bulk, the raw strength of them, the way they shifted and tightened. He laid her back on the carpet, and her lungs constricted under the weight of him, heavy and arousing all at once. Shades of purple and blue played beneath her lids.
“Yes. I want you,” he said into the skin of her belly.
I will. You can. She hadn’t felt alive in so long. She’d hidden herself, changed herself, spent so much time looking over her shoulder. For the first time in seven years, she could let down her guard. For better or for worse, Steele Walker knew who she was.
His skillful fingers removed her bottoms, then her panties, and she was naked in the dark, kept warm only by his breath and his hands and the fire slow-burning inside her. He licked her almost without warning, and she bucked against his tongue, against the ribbon of pleasure it sent through her. Then again, and again, and his fingers and thumbs joined in until she wasn’t sure where the pleasure started and where it ended, only that it was blissful and eternal, and when she came it was like falling into a warm sea where he was holding her adrift.
“God, you taste good.” He rested his chin on her leg, and she could just make out his satisfied grin in the dark.
Did that just happen? Her breath caught, and she stared up at the ceiling. Yes. It had. She’d just let a goddamn gorgeous stranger get her off in the room where she’d rarely been allowed as a child. She bet a therapist would have a field day with that. She laced her fingers through his. “That was amazing. Thank you.”
“Mmm.” He took his time moving back up her body, trailing kisses along her inner thigh and her waist and taking an inordinate amount of time on both breasts until they peaked so hard they hurt.
“Come here.” She slid one hand inside his boxers, finding the length of him so hot it burned, and he moaned into her hair.
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