Forbidden Dreams (3 page)

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Especially if he had come looking for her, because that meant he was in reality looking for Lilianne.

Lilianne … whose dark, intense beauty had captivated the world for that fleeting, scintillating time, beauty that many said would never be equaled. Lilianne … that brief, bright flame … Like Elvis, like Marilyn, she was “seen” frequently in the oddest places. At a mission in Africa, a convent in France, on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Too many fans still flatly denied that Lilianne could be dead, especially without a body as proof. So, even after nearly twenty years, the questions were asked in tabloids, on newscasts on the anniversaries of her disappearance, at cocktail parties and on the street—wherever people gathered and gossiped.

Why? How? Where? And sometimes even, ominously, who? There were those who believed that, body or not, Lilianne had been murdered by some unknown person who had hidden her away along with her little daughter, who had also disappeared. But never, not once, had one of those tabloid writers speculated in print that it could have been them and their blood lust for intimate details of a woman’s life, their veritable feeding frenzy as they sought what they considered their due, that might have driven her away.

Dread settled over Shell like a wet fog. Had this man come to try to answer those questions? Dammit, where had she seen his face? And since she knew she had, why couldn’t she fix it firmly in either time or place?

As if sensing her presence, he opened his eyes, his gaze swinging to her in the doorway.

“Are you feeling a little better?” she asked, picking up the lamp and taking a step closer.

“Yeah.” The way he squinted told her it was a lie. He was in pain, but she couldn’t let herself care about that. She needed to know who he was; what threat, if any, he presented.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Don’t … ’member?”

His words startled her until she realized they had been a question, not a statement.

“No, dammit, I don’t remember! Tell me your name! Tell me what you want.”

“Name’s Jase … O’Keefe,” he said weakly, his words slurred. He licked his lips. “Thirsty. Want … drink.”

Idiot, that wasn’t what I meant
, she wanted to shout, but he looked so pathetic, she had to take pity on him. O’Keefe? she thought, as she slipped into the kitchen for a glass of water. That fit the missing letters on his pill bottle, but it didn’t turn on any bright illumination in her brain. Returning to the bedroom, she slid a hand under his head and held the glass to his lips. He moaned with pain but managed a sip or two.

“Thanks,” he said. It seemed to take a lot of effort for him to force out the word.

“Do you want more pills for pain?”

His eyes rolled crazily as he tried to look at her. “How … long?”

“Since you had some? A couple of hours.”

“Too … soon. More water.” He licked his lips again. “So dry.”

His bare back felt hot, and she wondered if he was starting a fever. His muscles, hard and sleek, moved under her hand as he shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. She quickly pulled away, pushing a pillow behind him. He gulped down several long swallows, draining the glass, then closed his eyes, leaning back against the pillows.

“Good,” he said with a grateful sigh.

“Would you like more?”

He nodded, not opening his eyes. When she returned with a fresh glass, he was asleep again, his breathing shallow and labored. She set the glass beside him. “Good night,” she whispered, neither expecting nor receiving a reply.

“I’m scared,” she said to Skeena, who had followed her into the man’s room and now padded after her back to her own bedroom. Simply saying it took the edge off the fear, and she slid back under her covers, pulling them up to her chin. The dog turned around several times, then lay down on the mat beside Shell’s bed. She sighed once, then began to breathe deeply almost at once, oblivious to the raging storm outside and the weight of worry in her mistress’s heart.

“Lucky you,” Shell murmured, reaching a hand over the side of the bed to make contact with a familiar, living, breathing creature. She wished she could sleep but knew she wouldn’t, not until morning came and she could turn this entire problem over to Ned. As soon as it was even a little bit light, just enough so she could see if a falling tree or branch was aimed at her, she’d get up and go to Ned’s house. He’d come back with her and take … care of … everything …

She was deep in a dream of Lilianne berating a dark-haired photographer who needed a shave, telling him, “You leave Shirl alone! She’s only a little girl!” when the horrifying sound of a man’s scream jolted her awake.

She knew at once who it was. She flung back the covers and leaped to her feet, groping for the flashlight. With its unsteady beam leading the way, she tore done the hall to where the lamp guttered now, nearly out of fuel and producing evil-smelling black smoke. She blew it out on her way by and flung open the door to O’Keefe’s room.

Outside, the storm had dwindled to a faint drizzle, a few halfhearted gusts of wind, and the continued crash of surf on the beach, but inside O’Keefe a greater storm raged. He lay tangled in his bedding, thrashing, his head rolling from side to side as he shouted at someone to get back, to douse that light, to keep down. The sight of his injured leg oozing blood through the bandage was frightening, and she didn’t need to touch him to know that his temperature was dangerously high.

If he kept thrashing like that, he’d undo any good she’d done for him.

Aspirin, she thought. That fever had to come down. She darted to the bathroom, got aspirin, rubbing alcohol, and towels, then returned to perch on the side of his bed and force the pills down his throat. He fought her, flailing angrily and muttering dire threats, but swallowed when she told him to, his teeth chattering against the rim of the glass.

While she tried to hold him down, to keep him from hurting himself, he shouted warnings, his voice high and hoarse. She caught his hands and spoke to him in what she hoped was a calming tone, though it wobbled with the fear she couldn’t hide from herself. What if he died here with her?

He wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to let him. Just as she wasn’t going to let herself panic. She was an adult and as competent as anybody she knew—with the possible exception of Ned. Lord, but she wished she had some way of getting hold of Ned right this minute.

But she didn’t, and she had to deal with this man and his problems herself.

Carefully, mindful of his terrible bruising, she placed one hand on his shoulder to hold him still and began sponging him down with a wet cloth, hoping the evaporating alcohol would cool his burning skin the way it was supposed to. All the while, she spoke in a soothing voice, which seemed to get through to him. He lay quietly as long as she spoke to him, allowing her to work more easily.

When his eyes opened, she thought he was lucid. She smiled and asked, “Feeling better?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said gutturally, and clamped hard fingers around the hand resting on his shoulder. “Better than better.” Flattening her hand onto his chest, he rubbed it over one of his pebble-like nipples. “Feel real good, honey.”

Shell jumped. The feel of that nipple under her palm sent an unwelcome shaft of sensation stabbing through her. She snatched her hand away, but he caught it again and clamped it to him. “Don’t stop,” he said thickly. “Feels … great. Cool. So cool. Makes me … hot.” So quickly that she didn’t at first realize what he intended, he dragged her splayed hand down his chest and over his stomach, carrying it directly toward the distinct bulge she could see growing within the confines of his blue briefs.

“Stop that,” she said sharply, wresting her hand out of his control and slopping the wet cloth across his mouth and nose. “I’m trying to help you, for heaven’s sake.” He let go of her hand so he could remove the smothering washcloth.

“You’re sick, O’Keefe,” she added. And he could take that any way he wanted to.

Suddenly, he laughed, a low, sexy laugh that startled her with its potent ability to charm her. “And you’re a prude,” he said. His voice was husky, and his eyes glittered challengingly. “Too much of a prude to kiss me?” His tongue passed over his lips with blatant eroticism as he clamped his hands around her back and pulled her closer. “Don’t tease, honey,” he said cajolingly. “You owe me a kiss.”

“I owe you nothing! I’m trying to help you, so just knock it off, buster, or you’re on your own here. You can lie in this bed and burn for all I care.”

He looked wounded for a moment, like a child who’d been unjustly smacked; then his eyes fell shut again, and his head lolled sideways. His chest heaved with his short, tortured breaths. “I just want …” he murmured, but she wasn’t to learn what he wanted. His voice trailed away into a shaky sigh, and he appeared to sleep.

She swallowed hard as she continued to fight his fever with the cool sponging. What would it have felt like, under other circumstances, to have responded to his request, to have leaned against him, covered his sculpted lips with her own, and tasted him? For Pete’s sake! she told herself. You’re as sick as he is!

Still, she couldn’t keep her gaze from straying to his hard mouth, his determined chin. A vertical two-inch scar, no wider than a fine-tip pen mark, bisected one cheek, giving him a piratical air. His overlong black hair had not a trace of gray in it, and fell across a broad brow. Deep grooves that she recognized as having more to do with suffering than with age had been carved between his mouth and nose.

The depth and wistfulness of her sigh surprised her.

As if he had heard it, he opened his eyes again, glaring now with irritation. “Jeeze, woman, shut the damned window!” His teeth chattered as he wrapped his arms around himself. “It’s colder than a whore’s heart in here!”

“Such a colorful vocabulary,” she said, toweling him dry, rubbing briskly over his arms and shoulders before drawing the quilt up to his chin. She hadn’t meant to freeze him, merely to cool his fever. It appeared, though, she thought with relief, that she’d also cooled his ardor.

Or had she?

He tossed the quilt back. “Come to bed, honey,” he said, startling her again with the clarity of his gaze as it locked itself on her eyes. A suggestive smile played seductively over his lips. He patted the mattress. “Let’s keep each other warm.”

Firmly, Shell tucked the covers back around him. “No. Go to sleep.”

His fingers clamped around her wrist. “Don’t leave me.” Once more, he was that intriguing blend of little boy and tough guy. At least it wasn’t difficult to twist her arm free.

“I’ll stay until you’re asleep.” Because, she told herself, he might talk in his sleep and say something that would reveal who he was and what he wanted. She’d stay for that reason and that reason only.

“Closer,” he said.

She sat on the side of the bed near his knees. “This is close enough.”

“Not nearly.”

She gasped in surprise as his arms whipped out from under the quilt, shoving it back, and snaked around her, capturing her and pulling her up over his chest. In spite of the shivering, his skin burned against her. She gently extricated herself from his embrace, holding him down with one hand in the middle of his chest. He glared at her impotently for several moments before sighing and closing his eyes again.

After a couple of minutes Shell thought he was deeply enough asleep for her to leave. She’d just begun easing herself off the side of his bed when he flung himself erect.

His shout, “Carson!” as much as his galvanic jerking upright, frightened her half to death. She tried to push him down, but he was too strong for her now. His eyes were wide, glittering like wet black stones. He looked determined. He also looked demented. “Carson, cover me, I’m going in!”

“Take it easy,” Shell said, trying to pin his shoulders. “Jason, don’t fight me, please. Lie down. You have to rest because you’re ill. I’m trying to help you.”

He groaned long and low and despairingly, looking straight into her eyes with such loathing, she felt chilled. “You? You never helped me,” he said bitterly. “You left me! You turned me in.” He choked, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them and stared at her. He clamped one hand onto the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. “Oh, God, Sharba, why?” he asked. “Why did you go?”

“Jason, lie down. Please. Try to relax.”

“Ahh, get the hell out of here,” he said, thrusting her away. “I don’t want you back.”

“Okay, that’s fine. Just lie down and let me cover you.”

Abruptly, his look of hatred was gone, replaced by one of pleading, of endless, depthless yearning that closed Shell’s throat with pain. He caught her by the elbows and held her before him, his voice low and grating as he said, “I don’t want you to go. But … how could I ever again trust you to stay with me? Could I ever believe in you again after what you did? You have to understand, Sharba. It can never be the same again for us, so go. Please, by all that’s merciful, get out, before I let the loneliness take over and beg you to come back …”

His eyes closed. He fell silent, but didn’t let her go. Shell sat very still, waiting for his hands to relax in sleep, but abruptly his eyes popped open again. “Why?” His exhalation was short and abrupt, like a sob. “Please! I wanted you for so long … I waited and waited, and you never came back, so if you leave me now, I’ll …” His voice trailed away as he gazed at her, those coal-black eyes boring into hers, searching for answers that weren’t hers to give.

He cupped her face then, drew her down to him, and took from her a kiss that also was not hers to give. Her head pressed to his chest, he rested his palm on her cheek. His fingers slid through her hair, tenderly, seductively, as if the feel of it so pleasured him, he couldn’t stop moving his skin against it.

“Soft,” he murmured against her temple. “So soft, like black satin.”

His head fell back onto the pillows while he continued to hold her. He stroked her cheek, his fingertips hard, callused, sending shivers of forbidden delight down her throat and chest to gather at and pucker her nipples. Her other cheek lay on the powerful muscles of his chest, and she drew in a long breath of his scent. He smelled clean and masculine, and the sound of his heart pounding steadily in her ear was as soothing as the feel of him, the scent of him, were disturbing.