Captive Kisses (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) (5 page)

Almost against her will, she raised her gray eyes to his
dark and suspended stare. Turning the knife handle in his direction, she said, “You
may as well do your share. You can cut up the tomatoes for the salad while I
put on the steak.”

He took the knife in one hand and the tomato in the other.
He still stood weighing her words, watching her, when she turned away.

They spoke little as they ate their meal and cleared away
after it. Charles, with perfect aplomb, rinsed and dried the dishes as she
washed them. Kelly tried to disregard his nearness, and also the distrust that
made him determined to keep her within easy reach. It could not be done. Once
their shoulders brushed as he leaned to pick up a cup at the same time she
dropped a fork into the steaming rinse water. The contact sent a shock along
her arm that she felt to the tips of her fingers. It suddenly seemed unreal,
beyond belief that she could be where she was, alone in the lake house with a
stranger, a ruthless man who was keeping her a prisoner, one who saw her as
desirable and took great pains to make her aware of it. Darkly handsome, he
moved back and forth in the small kitchen with lithe, catlike grace. And beyond
the drapery-covered windows, the night drew in, advancing with ponderous
slowness toward the time when they would have to go to bed.

As if attuned to her thoughts, Charles spoke. “Do you have
anything outside in your car that you might need tonight?”

She flicked him a wary glance, discarding the impulse to ask
him one more time to let her go. “My suitcase, I suppose, and there is an ice
chest with a few things in it that should be put in the refrigerator.”

“If you will point them out, I will bring them in for you.”
His offer was politely helpful, with no hint of the unspoken demand that she
stay in his sight.

Her back stiff with resentment, Kelly marched before him out
to the car and stood to one side while he inserted the key and lifted the trunk
lid. In careful monosyllables, she indicated the things she wanted. Taking her
canvas shoulder bag containing her billfold and cosmetics and a brown paper bag
filled with paperback books from the front seat, she left him to struggle with
the ice chest and her larger suitcase.

“You came prepared, didn’t you?” he commented as he dumped
the chest on the cabinet in the kitchen.

“I told you I meant to be here for a week.”

“So you did.” He sent her a tight glance, but if he found reason
in her obvious preparations for a long stay to accept that she was no more and
no less than what she had said, he was not ready to concede it.

“You wouldn’t trust your own mother,” she exclaimed, angry
disappointment flaring in her eyes.

“We’ll leave her out of this, if you don’t mind.” His tone
was cool, but final.

“You mean you have a mother?” The words were out before she
considered how they might sound, jarred from her by surprise at his protective
attitude.

“Most people do,” he answered dryly.

“I wonder —” she began, then stopped.

“You were saying?” he prompted, though there was a
forbidding look in his face.

In a rush, she said. “I wonder what this mother of yours
would think if she knew what you were doing now.”

Amusement crossed his features and was gone. “She would
shake her head in sorrow over her wayward son, and wonder at the wisdom of his
running such a risk.”

“I told you, I am no danger to you!”

“The picture of innocence, aren’t you?” he said, then added
cryptically, “I think that’s what is bothering me.”

Was the doubt he had expressed good or bad from her point of
view? It was impossible to tell, impossible to decide what to say to help her
case. Searching the grim mask of his face, Kelly made no reply.

He hefted her suitcase. “Come on,” he said, “it’s time I
showed you where you are going to sleep.”

She moved before him down the hall, edging gingerly past the
first bedroom that he had made his own. She came to a halt automatically
outside the room directly across the hall on the left, the one where she and
Mary Kavanaugh had slept. Charles opened the door and looked in, then shook his
head. Further along, he took a disparaging inventory of the next bedroom on the
back side of the house, then moved purposely back across the hall to the other front
bedroom, the one beside his own.

“This will do. You have a view of the lake and your own
bath.” His voice dropping to a quieter note, he went on. “But there is only a
wall between us, and I am a very light sleeper. If you walk across the floor or
open a window, I will hear you. If you turn in your sleep, you will wake me.
This should be sufficient warning for you not to try anything during the night.
If you do, I can promise you that your next sleeping arrangement will not be as
spacious, or as private.”

He meant, in short, that he would force her to share his
room, if not his bed. As incensed as she was with the threat beneath his words,
she still had the presence of mind to be relieved. Caught between those warring
emotions, she could think of nothing to say. Her face stony, she watched as he
set down her suitcase, then pointedly leaving the door wide open, took himself
out of the room.

Three

Kelly placed her shoulder bag on the bedside table, put her
bag of books beside it, then dropped down on the bed. Closing her eyes, she
released her breath in a soundless sigh. She lifted her shoulders, feeling the
tenseness of the muscles of her neck from the strain of the past hours. What
was she going to do? The situation was intolerable, but try as she might, she
could see no way out. She was trapped, a captive at the mercy of the enigmatic
man who called himself Charles.

For a time, she had thought mercy was something the man who
held her lacked. There had been nothing in his reception to encourage her to expect
it. Thinking back, it seemed that his first suggestive remarks had been made
with the idea of speeding her departure. They had been most effective; she had
been more than ready to leave when she had caught sight of the elderly man and
his gun-carrying guard.

She had not been meant to see those two; that much was
plain. The fact that she had was the reason she was being kept here against her
will, the reason Charles had used such drastic measures to extract the
information he wanted from her.

Would he have carried through his threats of physical
intimacy? Would he still do so if she defied him? She did not know. It seemed
probable, and yet, he had been extremely considerate over the sleeping
arrangements. Moreover, there had been a short time when he had dropped his
menacing attitude, becoming almost human. It was difficult to know what to make
of him. Her thoughts and emotions were in chaos, impossible to sort out. The
evidence of her own eyes convinced her that there was something sinister
involved here, and that Charles, if he was not behind it, was at least deeply
committed to it. She was suspicious of him, she distrusted him, and if she were
honest, she would have to acknowledge that she was afraid of him. Still, she
could not forget the burgeoning excitement she had felt when he held her, or
the tumult of the senses she had endured during his kiss. Her reactions were
disturbing. To think that she had no more control than that over her bodily
responses filled her with distress. The only thing that gave her comfort was
the thought that she had not revealed her humiliating weakness to Charles.

Raising her head, she looked around the room. It was large
and airy with double windows on the front and side, both sets of which opened
onto the veranda. They were covered with drapes in a cool green-and-white
bamboo pattern. A matching spread was draped over the bed with its headboard of
rattan. Dark green rugs were scattered here and there over the polished floors.
The accent color in the room was bright yellow, brought out in a lamp base made
from a ginger jar, and a set of bird prints framed in yellow bamboo against the
stark white walls. Overhead was a ceiling fan slowly revolving to stir the cool
air. The turning blades cast shadows on the walls, making a rhythmic, beating
sound that was oddly soothing, and might well drown out a little of the sound
of her movements.

She could not depend on it. With a weary shrug, Kelly got to
her feet, moving to where her suitcase sat on a wicker bench at the foot of the
bed. Snapping the latches, she opened the case out flat and took from it a long
gown of soft nylon in a pale green shade. She would not unpack. Surely by
tomorrow something would happen, some change would take place so she could
leave the lake house.

There was a lock on the bathroom door. She turned it with a
decisive snap and immediately felt better. Running a deep tub of warm water,
she dropped in a handful of herbal-scented bath beads, removed her clothes, and
stepped in. For a long time she lay soaking, feeling the tension ease from her.
It was only as she heard footsteps in the hall, pausing outside her bedroom
door, that she roused herself to make splashing noises. The last thing she
wanted was to remain so quiet that Charles would come pounding on the door,
demanding that she show herself.

Her nightgown, with its heart-shaped neckline and front
lacing like an Elizabethan basque, was more revealing than she had remembered.
With her lips pressed tightly together, she sought out the negligee that went
with it as a cover-up, but since the neckline of the negligee followed that of
the gown, she was little better off. She glanced at the open door, a shadow in
her gray eyes. Charles had gone, but she had no way of knowing when he might
look in on her again. She was probably being ridiculous to think that the sight
of her would inflame the man in the next room with desire. All his threats and
insinuations to the contrary, he had most likely felt nothing whatever for her.
It had been a game to insure her cooperation. That was all.

She thumbed through the books she had brought, selecting one
of her favorite Regency novels. Settling in bed, propped on pillows against the
headboard, she opened the book and started to read. She turned the first page,
a second, a third. Then, her mouth set in a grim line, she read the first page
again. The words could not entice her; the sentences had no meaning.

She lowered her book and lay listening. From the direction
of the living room, she could hear the sound of a low-turned radio, or was it a
stereo phonograph? What was he doing, her jailer? Was he prowling the house,
wishing he had never set eyes on her? Was he deciding what he was going to do
with her, deciding when he could set her free, if he could set her free?

He didn’t seem like a crook. The thought came unbidden, but
she allowed it to linger. She had never known a criminal before, it was true,
and she supposed the best of them, those who went undetected, must be just like
other people, nondescript men and women who went about their lives without
drawing attention to themselves. It had to be admitted, however, that such a
description did not fit Charles either.

What was he then? What legitimate reason could he possibly
have for holding a person prisoner? Was he a policeman? Some kind of detective?
If so, why hadn’t he shown her his credentials? Why would he play along with
her accusation that he was a criminal, even to the point of making sarcastic
remarks about she herself being from the police?

Some other branch of the law then, the FBI or the CIA? The
same caveat applied. As far as she was aware, the representatives of government
agencies were scrupulous about identifying themselves, and he would have had
nothing to fear from her in any case. If any agent suspected her of wrongdoing
after finding her crawling in the window, if she posed a threat to some
undercover operation, he had only to call in the local authorities and tell
them to come and take her away. The likelihood of her being held captive and
subjected to his type of harassment was nil.

No, she was going to have to accept the fact that this man
Charles was operating outside the law, that he was a hoodlum who specialized in
abductions, or worse still, some sort of hired killer. It was all too likely
that earlier, when she had thought he was interrogating her to find out who
might be concerned if she turned up missing, he had been trying to discover if
there was anyone willing to pay ransom for her release!

Such thoughts were not pleasant company, yet they stayed
with her long after she had flung down her book and turned out the light. They
would not let her sleep, but kept her tossing and turning as the hours
stretched one into the other.

Charles was right about one thing; it was possible to hear
every movement in the echoing openness of the house. She knew when he returned
to his room, knew when he showered. She sat up in bed then, and even flung back
the cover. But she realized after a moment that by the time she had slipped on
her clothing and eased into his room to find her car keys, he would more than
likely be out of the bathroom again. The last thing she needed was for him to
discover her in his bedroom.