Angel Face (22 page)

“All I want to do is
this,”
he said, “to hold you until we both stop shaking. And then I’m going to find that agent and make him tell me the truth, the whole goddamn story.”

Angela was half off, half on the couch and clinging to him with every ounce of emotional strength she had. She had no arms to hold him with, and it was a struggle to breathe the way he gripped her, but nothing had ever felt as sweet as this unexpected embrace.

“Just until we stop shaking,” he told her again.

She didn’t understand how he’d come to the decision, and she wasn’t sure he knew, either. Some needs were instinctive and difficult for the mind to comprehend. Moments ago, he’d been talking about killing her and he’d made it sound like his duty to mankind. Now he was holding her and shaking as hard as she was. No, she couldn’t imagine what had changed his mind, unless he had the same crazy feeling she did, that somehow this was all inevitable;
they
were inevitable.

“I hope I’m right about you,” he said, gathering her even tighter.

“I hope you are, too.” She couldn’t laugh, although that was what sprang up, laughter. It stung her throat.

He swung back to look at her, and she told him the truth, as far as she knew it. “I don’t know for sure what I’ve done, but I don’t believe I could wantonly kill under any circumstances. I just don’t.”

His expression was thoughtful, searching. “I hurt someone once,” he said, “an innocent who didn’t deserve it. I don’t ever want to do that again.”

Angela found that remarkable. It sounded as if he were more concerned about hurting her than he was about his own welfare.

“Is that why you’re giving me the benefit of the doubt? Because you hurt someone?”

She could feel him release her even before he actually let go. His arms tightened and a sigh of reluctance escaped him. Her heart picked up those two brief signals and knew he was about to take away the warmth and the strength, even the ray of hope, she’d felt in his arms. There was little she could do but let him settle her back on the couch.

When he had the sheet in place, he tried to answer her question. “The agent should have told me to keep you here until he could send someone to pick you up. When he started urging me to kill you myself, I knew something was wrong.”

Angela was surprised. “You don’t think the intelligence community does things like that? I was only on the fringes of it, but nothing would surprise me.”

He shook his head. “It was a gut feeling. He was selling too hard, pressuring me.”

“So it wasn’t anything I said? I was hoping you’d decided to believe me. Probably foolish of me, right?”

His eyebrow tilted. “Believe you, Angela? How can I do that when you don’t know what to believe yourself?”

That brought a rueful smile to her lips. There was no faulting his logic, but she hadn’t meant that. She’d meant believe
in
her. Saying so was out of the question, however. It was asking him to accept on faith everything she
told him and ignore the mounting evidence against her. The risk of rejection was huge.

She must have looked terribly forlorn, because he reached out to touch her arm. She liked him there, at her side, touching her bare arm almost possessively. Or was she fantasizing again, always fantasizing?

“I guess that was the wrong answer,” he said.

“I guess so, yes.”

“I don’t believe you could kill anyone, Angela. I have never believed that, not from the first.”

She struggled to speak. He had more faith in her than she did in herself. “Thank you.”

“There’s no need to—”

“Jordan, put your hand on my heart,” she implored. “Feel how hard it’s beating.”

He did, resting his hand on the softness above her breasts.

“That’s me. That’s who I am. I can’t prove my innocence, not even to myself, but you can hear that, can’t you? You can hear what my heart is trying to say?” She looked away, devastated. This was costing her too much. “It’s the only proof I have.”

His hand was light on her flesh. Light, but warm.

“What is it you do to me?” A hint of wonder crept into his voice. “I left my life behind to come after you, patients who need me, my family, everyone. Can you tell me why I did that?”

She wasn’t able to do anything but shake her head.

“It feels like nothing matters except you. Why is that? All I want to do is protect you from those bastards.”

She struggled to sit up. “Untie me, please. I can’t talk to you like this. Take off the ropes.”

His pressured sigh told her that was not a good idea.

“You still don’t trust me?” she asked.

“I don’t trust me.”

The logic of that eluded her. She was the one tied up.
How could it be any worse if she weren’t? But before she could make that argument, he was reaching for her shoulders to turn her around. She tried to anticipate him, but got flustered and went the wrong way. And that was when they touched.

His hand brushed over the most sensitive part of her breast, and her hiss of surprise stopped them both.

Excruciatingly blue eyes. She wasn’t about to look at them.

“What’s happening?”

He asked the question. He wasn’t touching her breast, but his hand was still close enough to awaken every nerve ending. And the impulse to close the gap between them was overpowering. She didn’t know what to do.

Fortunately, he did. He took her by the shoulders, as he’d originally intended to, and turned her around. But when he touched her wrists, she let out another startled sound. There was no reason for it. He hadn’t even begun to untie her yet. He’d done nothing to make her jump or make the air whistle softly through her teeth, but she did both anyway. Her skin was hypersensitive. It felt like she still had a fever and couldn’t bear to be touched. Every point of contact seemed to tingle like a sweet little shock.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She fought not to react as he touched her again. If she didn’t sit still, she would never get untied!

“Am I hurting you? Rope burns or something?”

“No, no, go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

She should have known that his hands would give off this kind of energy. She’d seen it in her study. The deep blues and plumy reds of his somatosensory cortex had told her he was sensual and tactile. No wonder embarrassing little sounds were getting caught in her throat. When he touched her, it sent signals zinging back and forth that only her pleasure center seemed to be able to read.

Something hot tickled her palm. “Oh!”

“What’s wrong, Angela?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Gently he turned her around to look at her, and something unexpected happened. Maybe it was her eyes. Maybe they pleaded with him to kiss her, maybe they didn’t. But he glanced at her lips with such naked longing that she tilted toward him, offering them. He fought the wanting. She watched his jaw knot, and it thrilled her.

“Angela, this is only going to complicate things.”

“I know, I know.” She was backing off when he grasped her by the arms and brought her mouth to his.

“Don’t do that,” he warned. “Don’t back away when I need to kiss you this badly.”

His mouth was as magical as his hands. The kiss brought up every feeling she had, and God, what feelings they were. Glorious and pounding. She rose up, and he brought her back, catching her in his arms. Their bodies melded with a hot rush of sensation. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and if not for a bit of sheet, their bare skin would have touched. Touched and sent fire into the night.

When he released her, the sheet fell to her waist.

“Beautiful,” he whispered. “God, you are.”

Angela fought the ropes and moaned. She couldn’t help it. The movement in the pit of her belly was too strong. Something powerful was tugging at her. It could sweep her under.

“Untie me,” she pleaded.

“I don’t think I can do that.” The regret in his voice couldn’t begin to compete with the hunger in his gaze. “So help me, God, I don’t—”

“Why not?”

“Because I want you this way . . . at my mercy.”

She went very still. Even to breathe felt dangerous. This
was the payback she’d been expecting all along . . . he wanted his chance with her helpless to stop him . . . and it felt as if she would surely thrill to every moment of being at his mercy . . . if she lived.

“I
F
you don’t want me to do this, Angela, say no . . . say it now.”

“Do
this
?”

“Touch you, make you moan . . . make you mine.”

The inside of Angela’s elbow was exposed because of the way her wrists were tied. Jordan brushed his fingers over the very pale, very tender skin.

Angela’s wrists twisted and tugged.
She needed her hands.
She needed them as she had never needed them before. How was she supposed to hug the drifting sheet to her breasts and to hide her face so he couldn’t see the prickly heat creeping up her throat? How was she supposed to protect herself from a man who had just vowed to protect her? When that was one of the only things in life she’d ever wanted.

Long fingers spun down to the inside of her wrist and swirled there, sending chills through her. Everything inside her that could curl up was curling up. Everything that could flutter, was.

This would be the touching part,
she thought. And he knew how to do it.

Angela’s body had already answered him, but her mind couldn’t fathom the amount of control she’d given up. She didn’t see how it was possible to let a man tie her up and do these things to her, not willingly, not the way her foster father had tried to control her every thought and move.

Her first attempt to escape had been the night she ran away with Benjamin, her high school sweetheart. She’d taken back her life that night and vowed that no one would ever control her that way again. Of course, the car accident had brought the two of them back into the clutches of her father, and it had all ended in a desperate tragedy. She still felt responsible for Ben. He had trusted her. Adam had trusted her. And she had never meant to hurt either one of them.

“Don’t give me the choice,” she whispered to Jordan. “I’m not capable of making it.”

His fingers stopped swirling, but Angela’s stomach did not. It was light enough to float away. She was going to evaporate from the inside out and become nothing but vapor. There would be a cloud floating in the summer sky, and when people looked up, they would see traces of a woman’s face.

Angel Face,
she thought with some irony.

Jordan touched the ropes that looped her wrists, and her fingers furled. She sensed that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, make the decision. He was going to free her. And maybe that was exactly what she expected.

But she did not want to be untied. She did not.

Angela sat very still for a moment. What was she thinking? Everything about the realization came as a surprise. Control was the most precious thing she possessed. She had let her own father die to regain it. She had not killed him. But she had not saved him, either.

The jungle had gone so quiet she wondered if it was listening to them.

She chanced a look at Jordan, but he wasn’t looking at
her. He was still preoccupied with her curled fingers and the ropes that held her.

“You want me to make this decision, don’t you?” he said.

“Yes, but why?”

“It’s about self-control, I think. You hold on to it so tightly it’s beginning to suffocate you, but you don’t know how to let go.”

He was right. So very right that it made her wonder about him.

“Does it take one to know one?” she asked.

A smile flickered, and Angela knew the pleasure of being right, too. He had done some thinking about this, she realized.

“Some of us males hang on to our self-control like a badge of honor,” he admitted. “It’s not easy letting go of something you’ve worked that hard for. It goes against every law of survival.”

“But surviving isn’t living,” she pointed out.

“It isn’t. If you want the full experience, you have to take off the training wheels and ride.”

Yes, she needed to learn how to do that again, with someone like him, someone she could trust. God, how she prayed she could trust him.

“Have you decided yet?” he asked her.

“Have you?”

“Do you mean have I decided
for
you?”

“Well . . . yes.”

“You want to know if you can ever safely entrust yourself to anyone again?” he quarried.

She gazed at him, so very impressed. “And how many people have entrusted their hearts to you?”

His shrug was slow to come, perhaps even a little shy. Now she was impressed and touched.

“A few,” he said, “and like you, they all wanted to know they would be safe.”

“But there’s never any way to know that for sure.”

“Not unless you take off the training wheels.”

I do want to know I’ll be safe,
she thought.
I do want that. But I also want to know if I can moan.

“Kiss me,” she demanded softly. “Touch me.”

Make me, make me
. . .

She fell toward him, and those were the last words either one of them uttered for some time, if they had uttered them at all. The rest was a spring flood. Everything drowned in the wake of his kisses. They pattered and splashed like soft rain. They poured.

He filled her mouth and left it bereft. She felt him at her throat, spilling sighs all the way out to her shoulders. His hand was at the small of her back, accentuating the arch. His lips whispered to her breasts of forbidden pleasures. But the sensations were too strong. She had to catch her breath.

“I’m not sure—”

“Put yourself in my hands,” he whispered. “I’ll take care of you.”

Will you? Will you?

He fell back to look at her, and she was struck by the way he touched her cheek and searched for something in her face; perhaps it was the secret to making a woman happy.

But he already knew. Lord, did he.

“Put yourself in these hands,” he urged softly.
“Do it.”

His voice reverberated like a musical instrument. Its low, powerful tones told Angela what he wanted, but she couldn’t let herself believe it. And then he actually held out his hands to her. Her wrists pulled against the ropes. They pulled against the riot of anticipation she felt. How could she do this?

Make me, make me
. . .

The sheet had long ago fallen away and bared her to the waist. She delicately thrust out her breasts, and the
restraining ropes curved her body into a graceful arch.

“Put yourself in these hands.”

Trembling flesh on flesh. Burning heat on heat.

She poured herself into his cupped hands. She put herself there, sighing at the thought of his fingers closing on her flesh. And when they did, her eyelids fluttered in wonderment, and her head fell back. He squeezed gently, sending a thrill through her that was paralyzingly sweet.

She whimpered like a kitten.

A soft growl rolled in his throat, and his hands climbed her body, questing, hungry.

That was the moment it started: the swift and amazing transformation of Angela Lowe. She didn’t know if she was coming apart or coming together, but she knew that none of these things had ever happened to her before. When their roles were reversed and he was her hostage, she’d tried to break his will, but he wouldn’t let her. Now she understood why. It was too much. It felt life-threatening. Her self-control was her last defense.

“Touch you . . . make you moan . . . make you mine.”

He bent to her breast. What was she doing here, tied up and naked? Thrilling to every touch?

A sudden tug on her flesh echoed the sharpness deep in her belly. His lips pulled on her in an urgent call to intimacy. They drew on her in a way that made her gasp for breath. She would have fallen over backward if he hadn’t caught her and held her, but the power of his arms made her weaker. She didn’t know how that was possible. She didn’t know what to do.

“I’ll take care of you.”

Will you, will you?

She closed her eyes and felt energy, warmth. It shimmered down her body in a soft shock wave, and she knew it had to be his hands, hesitating at the curves of her waist before drifting lower. It was an exquisitely private caress.

Angela squirmed against her bonds.
Damn these ropes.
If they didn’t come apart, then she would. The pressure was mounting, and she was afraid the release would take her with it, like a hail of fire from an archer’s bow. It was a beautiful vision, but it was frightening, too.

The only thing she could hear was breathing, hers and Jordan’s.

The jungle was suffocatingly still. Was it listening?

He was at her midriff, her belly button, her hips. He was everywhere, and the places he left behind ached as urgently as the new ones he found. He trailed sparkles across her skin with his fingertips. Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her that he could perform miracles with his hands, but there was only one miracle she could think about now, and that was the urgency between her legs.

She was deeply grateful that he couldn’t get there, not with her thighs and knees tightly compressed. Not with her ankles lashed together. It would have been the end of her.

She was a firecracker. He could have set her off with a touch.
One
touch.

And somehow he did. With just one. A finger stroke of fire.

Somehow he got to her, and no amount of turning or twisting could stop him. Angela cried out as he touched her. It was a sound as aroused and desperate for relief as the blushing flesh he’d discovered. It was too tender there, too hot and throbbing for even the lightest caress. If he continued, she would surely, surely, break apart. And it wouldn’t be pretty.

“Let me go—”

Her plea went unheard, and she didn’t have the strength to say it again. She lost touch with what he was doing for a moment, and then she felt the sheet bell and float down to her ankles. There was nowhere to look but where he was looking—at her long, pale body, her tender pink
nipples, hotly aroused from his teeth, and at her clenched loins.

The sheet fell to the floor, and she was exposed to her curled toes. At any other time the sight would have shocked her. She was bound hand and foot. But now it aroused her. Everything he did aroused her. How terrifying.

“You can’t!” She squealed as he climbed above her.

Clearly, he could. He straddled her, gazing at the naked loveliness before him, then he bent low to bury his face in her curls and breathe in her female scent. From there he moved up and dusted each hip with a kiss, making a triangle out of her lower torso. Angela waited for him to follow the arrow back down to its lowest point. But he rocked up again and plucked lightly at the swollen buds of her breasts.

Her body arched tighter with every inch of skin he aroused.

“Too much,” she whispered, “it’s too much.” She was taking that ride, and her bike had no brakes. Now he was down between her legs, and she was flying. His hands slid beneath her and lifted her to his mouth. Warm breath rifled dark curls, and a groan of pleasure slipped out of him as he dropped little kisses here and there, momentarily relieving the pressure.

And then he began to use his tongue.

Angela’s spine flexed like a harp string at its highest tension. She swallowed a gasp as he took outrageously unfair advantage of the way her knees wobbled about. But, Lord, it was an amazing thing he did. Delving deeply into the tender nest, he created the wettest, softest, most scintillating chaos she’d ever known. Her head fell back and her body ignited. There was nothing she could do to protect herself from the rocketing pleasure.

His mouth was the miracle. It was pure blue heaven, and she was an angel. But it was the groan in his throat
that set her off as much as the feelings he elicited. Helpless, she answered with a sound that felt as if it had been hidden inside her forever, from a time before time.

A moan. He made her moan in ecstasy. And no man had ever done that.

She felt it come from the center of her being. And with it streamed feelings that were indescribable. If they’d been colors, they would have been the blue flames of the deep limbic or the pleasure center’s crimson fires. If they’d been sounds, they would been the heart songs of the primeval forest.

She cried, too. And every creature in the jungle knew what it meant, that sound. A sweet and terrible pressure broke her open, broke her in two, and even while she was crying out and whirling helplessly in its power, she fought against her bonds. She needed to be free. Her arms longed for contact with the man who had reduced her to this.