Flame's Dawn (3 page)

When he leaned away, her fingers uncurled and splayed out toward him in an unconscious movement. With effort, she pushed her hands down to her sides.

“All right.” His low voice, a notch above a whisper, flowed over her. “I'll just pull the door shut. Don't worry. I won't let anyone harm you.”

The creak of unoiled hinges set her nerves on edge. Everyone in Southeast Asia could hear the noise.

Once the door closed, she relaxed. Something about Barnaby's confident manner made her believe he would stop a tank to keep her safe.

His form was a mere shadow. Their too-loud breaths punctuated the still air.

“Barnaby, I—thank you.”

A pause. In the darkness, his hand returned to her arm, startling her until his thumb brushed circles over her skin. “My pleasure.”

The shakes had set in for real now.

“My dear, you're shivering.”

“Only nerves, which makes sense.” Of course it makes sense. Everything made sense to brave Jane, the girl who in high school found herself with no family, then pulled herself together and became a linguistics and pattern expert for the CIA. Wow. And just look at her now, cowering in a closet.

“Here.”

In the darkness, she startled at the rasp as he scooted the burlap sacks under a metal shelf. Then, with gentle, steady hands, he backed her up a step until she sagged against the corner of the closet farthest away from the door. Barnaby's broad chest brushed against her, and she rested a hand near his heart. Each steady thud under her fingertips fortified her nerves. His stance made it obvious: Anyone who wanted to get to her would be going through him first.

The thought both excited and unsettled her.

“May I?” he asked, his low voice rocking her back on her heels.

Man, he was so close to her.

“May you what?”

“Do this.” He snaked an arm around the small of her back and another around her shoulders.

When he pulled her close, she gripped his shirt in two fists and held on for dear life.

“Shush, dear. You're safe,” he murmured, almost to himself.

He slid his hand into the hair that had come free of her regulation bun. The sensation of his fingers on her scalp sent heavenly shivers down her spine. When he urged her head forward into the crook of his solid chest and shoulder, she nearly came apart by the tenderness of the act.

While he crooned nonsense words, she gave in to her nerves and sagged into his muscled frame, inhaling his light cologne and potent, earthy scent. For just a few moments, maybe she didn't have to go it alone. Maybe she didn't have to put up a brave front and be the first to volunteer for a risky mission. Instead of searching for her purpose, she could take the comfort offered.

Maybe she didn't have to do everything by the book.

They were in a closet. In a foreign country. During a war. And Charlie with guns prowled outside the office, eager to kill them.

Regulations be damned.

It took a few moments to register his lips whispering over her forehead. Firm but soft, his mouth traveled over her hairline, trailing warmth and pleasure.

In the darkness, his hand tightened over her lower back, creating the slightest arch of her body toward his.

And boy, did she like it.

When he made another circuit of her hairline, she turned her face up and intercepted his mouth when he reached her temple.

The brush of his lips against her lower one tilted her equilibrium. At his sharp intake of breath, she froze. Okay, she had crossed a major line. She got it.

“I'm so sor—”

He smothered anything she had to say with a hungry kiss that made her thankful for the wall behind her. So hard did he kiss her, when she gasped, the air she inhaled came from his body, feeding her, sustaining her.

Even as she slid her hands to the nape of his neck and tugged him closer, he needed no encouragement, judging by the growls of male interest rumbling from his chest into her bones. She felt the vibrations all the way down to her toes.

At an explosion in the distance, his arms tensed like iron bands, but he still held her in a gentle embrace.

Jane couldn't change the circumstances of their situation, but at least she could make the best of things while they hid from the VC.

If only his kisses didn't make her want to squeal. The one action that would put both of them in immediate danger.

So she focused on her growing passion instead. She met his mouth, desire matching desire, as she experimented with angles and levels of pressure, testing the limits of his abilities.

Who would've thought? He had no weaknesses in the kissing category. Not a one.

As a matter of fact, he got extra points when he slid his tongue between her lips and took the kiss to a whole new level.

Clutching at his corded shoulders, she hung on as he used his mouth in new and amazing ways. Her breasts tingled and her core ached; he had her so turned on as he transported her to a place a world away from Vietnam.

In a single smooth move, he slid his hand under her blouse. The rasp of his palm skimming over her stomach sent her into orbit and made her strain on her tiptoes to arch into him even more. With feather light passes, he stroked her skin until she tingled with the need to have his hands on every inch of her body.

Their breathing, his low growls, and her little gasps were the only sounds to fill the closet. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else could hurt her as long as Barnaby had her in his arms.

“Oh my dear, you're so sweet, so beautiful,” he groaned, rubbing his thumbs over her plain, nylon bra.

When he rolled a nipple between his fingers, she would have collapsed if not for his strong arm anchoring her to his heated torso.

Exactly as it should be.

The thought rocked her to the core. They fit perfectly.

He dipped a hand lower, over her hip, and ran a fingertip under the hem of her skirt.

“Barnaby,” she breathed. The hand disappeared, leaving a void that craved his touch. “What's wrong?”

He stroked her hair. “Nothing at all, my dear. I'm just ... you're an amazing woman. I want to ... but I won't if you don't— Just know that I understand if ... Criminy.” He groaned and rested his chin on the top of her head.

“Don't stop on my behalf.” No more coloring between the lines. They only had right now, and she wanted him, plain and simple.

“Are you sure?”

She groped for his hand in the darkness and hooked it under her skirt.

“Completely certain.”

Forget the knife lust, Barnaby's mind had become consumed with another hunger altogether. The ever-present need to kill had been surmounted by his need for Jane. Not since 1553 had he wanted a woman so badly.

Not any woman, but Jane, this woman with a fierce commitment to her job despite personal danger, a sweet smile that greeted him every morning, and a body that seemed designed to nestle perfectly against his own.

Speaking of which, when she gave that breathy sigh against his mouth, the perfection of the sound sent a jolt of desire into his hard cock.

He slid his fingers inward along the skirt fabric. The heat between her legs felt like the sweetest, most perfect warmth, and he inched his fingers upward. Her delicate floral scent, like those yellow apricot flowers here in Saigon, surrounded him.

God's teeth, what he'd give to see her treasures for himself! But without light, his other senses became amplified, as if his mind wanted to imprint the memory of her into his soul. Every sound she made set his nerves on edge. Every sweep of his rough palm over her silky skin elicited an answering tightness in his groin. The tiny noises she held back as they both tried to remain unheard ... he wanted to be inside of her posthaste.

When she gripped his arm where the bullet had passed through, he couldn't reconcile the mixture of pain from his rapidly healing wound and the pleasure of her hands on his body. He wanted more of her contradictions—pleasure with pain, sweet but seductive, soft and tough. Her invasion of his senses threatened to render him senseless. He had to have more of her.

Hooking her undergarment with a finger, he slowly drew the lightweight fabric down her legs until she stepped out of it.

The wondrous world of her flesh and her pleasure was his to explore. Verily, he wanted to feast upon her, take his time, draw out her passion. But whatever might occur outside the door necessitated a more time-sensitive encounter tonight.

As he brushed a finger over her core, he absorbed the surprised gasp with his mouth. She was eager for him if her pelvis rocking against his hand was any indication.

Leaning back to unzip his pants, he thanked the holy host that modern garments had much faster access for times like this.

He couldn't see it, but his cock, hard and ready, pointed toward Jane. Obviously, it knew what it wanted.

He leaned into her, his damp tip brushing over her soft flesh before it stopped at her closed thighs. She shifted and bumped against the wall.

With the close quarters, he needed a creative solution to this untenable conundrum. Patting over the shelving in the closet, he found a solid metal level that would do brilliantly.

“Lift your leg a bit,” he whispered.

She nipped and licked his lip, making him forget his name. Then she complied, and he directed her foot and trim ankle to a shelf a few feet off the ground.

Another stroke of her soft flesh, and she trembled enough to rattle the shelving. He separated her folds and nudged the head of his cock into her slick core.

Pressing her bent leg outward, he swiveled her hips to accept more of his shaft. Heaven and hell shot through his body at the contact, and he wanted to drive into her, mark her as his own, and fill her completely. With brute force of willpower, he held his Indebted strength in check. Barely.

With slow, looping movements, he stroked until she gloved him. As he kissed her again, he pushed the rhythm faster, picking her off the ground with each thrust and swallowing her moans of pleasure.

When he nudged her leg open further, the bliss of seating himself so impossibly deep inside pushed him to the edge. The skirt material bunched at her waist; he shoved the bra up over her breasts. Barnaby wanted to contact all of her, all at once.

As her faint cries hit that perfect high pitch of the calm before the storm, he slowed down. Oh, sweet torture! She could torment him like this until the end of time, with nary a complaint from him.

Unable to resist, he sped up and thrust faster than was humanly possible, driving her beyond normal human response, pushing his pleasure beyond anything he'd experienced before.

With a death grip on his shoulders, she clutched at him and released with a hoarse gasp that she bit off. Beautiful spasms held him a willing prisoner inside of her body, and he followed a few seconds later, pouring out his release inside of her core. He wanted to fill her with himself, wanted to brand her ... as his own?

Cold fear clutched at his chest as he struggled to reconcile his mind: two halves of an ill-fitting whole. What future did he have with this fierce and sexy woman in his arms? Did he really want to number her in his various tuppings over the centuries? He had nothing to give any woman besides a romp in the sheets.

As a matter of fact, had Jane known about Barnaby's true disgusting nature as a cursed Indebted killer, she might have preferred to take her chances with the VC.

With reluctance and guilt, he eased out of her and kissed the salt from her brow. He wrapped his arms around her trembling frame as his mind spun.

What a pickle. He couldn't play fast and loose with her emotions in this stressful situation. Yet, that's exactly what he was doing, wasn't it?

All he could offer her was this sweaty, quick slaking of their mutual need in a dark closet. Unacceptable. Not enough for a woman like Jane.

Not for the first time in more than 400 years, he felt inadequate and unworthy as a man.

He helped her back into her undergarment and smoothed her skirt down. Tucking her into his arms again, he rested his chin on her silky hair and fought back his shame.

Unworthy as a man? Laughable.

He was no man. He was an ungodly scourge upon this world.

Barnaby, the wretched creation of Satan, was the thing nightmares were made of.

• • •

It had taken all of Jane's focus to keep from crying out at the delicious release in Barnaby's arms. She had no idea that he had such strength, but when he held her as he drove deep inside, she craved more of the power in his arms, in his muscled frame, in his protective spirit.

He pulled away to readjust his clothing, and she did the same. In an unconscious move, she caught herself leaning toward him. He was her anchor in a sea of insanity that swirled around her.

And now, he drifted away from her. Fitting, since The 5
th
Dimension belted out “Up, Up and Away” on the radio, in all their flute-punctuated oblivion to the ridiculous circumstances here in the altered reality of Vietnam.

Barnaby? Oh, he remained physically close, even dropping light kisses on her forehead once more and draping his arms around her. But the intimacy she longed for? Gone, like a curtain had fallen between them.

As she should have expected. Men in the service here didn't want a forever kind of girl, and tonight's bad decision proved that point.

If only her soul didn't crave more of him.

If only he didn't seem to fit her in every way possible.

Had to be the stress of war. No woman would be fool enough to believe that forever could come from stolen moments in a closet, hiding from the enemy.

So just like that, while she reeled from the amazing sex, Jane shoved the pieces of herself back together again.

Footsteps traveled down the hall outside the office, and she tensed. Barnaby put a hand up on the metal shelf, shielding her with his big frame.

She tugged at her wrinkled clothing.

The door flew open, and light speared her eyes.