Keeping Watch: Heart of the Night\Accidental Bodyguard (26 page)

“Except yours,” she admitted. She had laid the thick folder to the side when she’d come to it. She already knew everything it contained. There were no secrets there. It had seemed far more important to examine the others. “I’d already read it a dozen times before, and I
knew
you weren’t involved.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” he said. There was a hint of amusement in his tone, and she knew he had recognized the significance of that confession. She had read his file a dozen times before because of her fascination with him.

“I had read a couple of the files on the investigators, and then you called. I swear I didn’t see anything I hadn’t read a hundred times before. I can’t imagine what Lew found.”

“It’s always possible that it wasn’t something in those files. It’s possible that Garrison uncovered something else.”

That was a possibility, of course. Lew had promised yesterday to pursue other things. Mays’s connections with the current hate groups. Thorne’s injuries. She had been the one who had asked for that, a long time ago, before she had come to know the man standing beside her. But of course, those scenarios wouldn’t explain why Lew had mailed her the files.

“We could start fresh in the morning,” Thorne’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Maybe when you’re less tired…” He let the suggestion trail.

“I just want it over. I just want to find whoever killed Lew. Whoever—” Whoever had sent the bombs. Like the one that had arrived here three years ago and had forever changed Thorne Barrington’s life. “Just over,” she finished.

“I know, but I think you’ve probably dealt with enough during the last couple of days. You don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”

“You have another suggestion?” she asked, smiling at him.

“Let it go,” he said. “Don’t think about it. About what’s happened. About the files. Don’t think about anything. Not tonight. Just let me hold you while you sleep.”

Don’t tempt me,
he’d said, and now he was tempting her. A very tempting offer. To forget about it all. Finally to feel safe again.

“I’d like that,” she said simply, the absolute truth. “I’d really like that.”

T
HEY CLIMBED
the dark stairs together, Thorne’s arm still comfortingly around her shoulder. The bedroom he led her to was huge, with furniture massive enough to fill its soaring dimensions. The draperies had been pushed back from the expanse of windows, so that the moonlight filtered into the room through the leaves of the trees that lined the street outside. Even in the moon-touched dimness it was obvious that the room’s decor was masculine.

“This is your room?” she asked.

“The phone’s here. I thought—”

“That wasn’t a complaint. Only a question.”

She took a breath, acknowledging the inherent awkwardness in their situation. Like the first kiss, neither of them could be sure what the other was feeling.

“It’s all right,” Thorne said. “I meant what I said. You need to sleep tonight—far more than you need anything else.”

“What about the other?” she asked, smiling at him. She was relieved that he seemed able to read her so well.

The dark head tilted, questioning, and a faint crease formed between the winged brows. “The other?” he repeated.

“To hold me while I sleep. Is that offer still good?”

“I can’t think of anything that would give me more pleasure than to hold you,” he said softly.

She couldn’t resist, despite the quiet romanticism of that. “Not…anything?” she teased, lips tilting.

“I’m trying to be a gentleman, Kate, but I have to warn you that you’re pushing your luck.”

She laughed. Despite everything that had happened in the last few days, despite the horror and fear, something relaxed inside.

“Come to bed,” he invited.

He held out his hand, like a courtier from another age, and she laid hers in it. He led her to the wide bed and sat down on the edge, still holding her fingers. He looked up from them, his gaze moving over her features, and then he smiled.

“I like your hair like that, soft and loose, as fine as a child’s.”

In spite of what he had promised, the deep voice was seductive. Suddenly, she knew that she wanted his fingers entangled in her hair, touching it. Touching her. Finally, touching her.

Drawn by that image, she moved closer to him. He opened his legs, creating a space between them for her to stand in, welcoming her body between the strength of his thighs. Freeing her fingers from his, she laid her palms on the wide expanse of his shoulders. His hands found her waist, and with their movement against her body, she could feel the play of muscle under her palms.

She looked down into his face, the features masculine and strong, yet perfectly aligned, perfectly formed. She had thought about Thorne Barrington for months, but being with him was different from anything she had imagined. Because
he
was different from the man he should have been. Despite the fact that he must have grown up accustomed to the adoration of the opposite sex, there was none of the sexual arrogance often found in men who were this attractive.

His hands had slipped under her T-shirt, their slight roughness pleasant against her skin. The big fingers skimmed slowly upward, over the small, regular protrusions of her ribs. He wasn’t smiling now, and again she could see the starkness of desire etched in the spare planes of his face.

He wanted her, and she was fascinated that he did. Fascinated by the idea that someone like Thorne Barrington could be attracted to her. Fascinated by him. By his touch. There was no resistance in her mind to what he was doing. She wanted him to touch her, had wanted it for a long time, far longer than she had ever admitted, even to herself.

Finally his hands found the full, unrestrained softness of her breasts, cupping under their weight, holding her, still gentle, carefully controlled. She heard the depth of the breath he took. Trying to maintain that control. “Kate,” he whispered.

“I know,” she said. This was not what he had intended—not what he’d promised—but it was what they both wanted.

His thumbs swept across the sensitive swell of her breasts, across nipples hardened with her own desire, taut with the promise of his caress. And then back. No demand. Only need. A need she shared.

She moved closer, putting one knee on the bed beside his narrow hips—leaning against him, letting him support her—and then the other knee on the other side, so that she was kneeling above him now.

His hands shifted under her shirt. Behind her now. Holding her. Pulling her to him, to be locked against the wall of his chest. She eased down into his lap, put her head against his shoulder, and was held in his arms like a child. His size seemed to give her permission to feel fragile, permission to be vulnerable, and she no longer needed to fear that vulnerability. He was certainly strong enough to protect her.

His hands slid over her spine, moving under the thin shirt, soothing out tension and fear. “It’s all right,” he promised. “Everything will be all right.”

She eased her body away from his, only far enough to look into his eyes. This was inevitable. Their relationship had been building to this for days, weeks. Months, she acknowledged. Long months when she had only looked at his pictures, had dreamed about him.

“Make love to me,” she whispered. She hadn’t intended to ask him that. She had hoped that he, too, would be aware of the inevitability of this, but she was afraid that he might have meant to do exactly what he had promised. She knew now that to be held was not what she wanted from him tonight. Not
all
she wanted.

His hands had stilled. He held her, unmoving, apparently trying to read what was revealed in her features.

“Please,” she added.

“Are you sure, Kate?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been as sure of anything in my life,” she admitted. “I want you to make love to me.”

Something shifted in the taut lines of his face. It was not a smile, but a softening, a relaxation of tension, perhaps. Relief that the restraint he had promised was not what she needed from him? Relief that she, too, needed something else? Something very different from the control he had been seeking.

“I want to see you,” he said. Already his hands were tangled in the loose fall of her shirt, helping her ease it off over her head. The curling tendrils of her hair were caught up briefly in the fabric, and when the shirt was off, they fell back against her neck and shoulders in a mass of shampoo-fragranced confusion. Unthinkingly, she raised her hands, running her fingers through the disordered strands, pushing them up and away from her face.

“Don’t move,” he ordered softly.

Surprised by the tone of the command, which she had instinctively obeyed, her eyes sought his. He wasn’t looking at her face. His gaze was instead on her breasts, thrown into prominence by her raised arms, their small peaks thrusting upward as if seeking…

She knew exactly what they were seeking as she watched his lips lower to touch against one and then the other. She held her breath, feeling his against her skin, warm and damp and feathering over the too-sensitive flesh she had exposed for his touch. Because she had wanted him to touch her there. Had wanted him for such a long time.

His mouth fastened over one nipple. His tongue mimicked the motion his thumbs had begun, slowly across and then back. She could feel her skin tightening in response and wondered what that movement felt like against his tongue, wondered if he could know what he was doing to her.

Her breath caught, a small half sob of sound, like a child fighting the onslaught of tears, struggling now for her own control. Her hands deserted the wild profusion of her curls. She lowered her head over his dark one, which was still bent to allow his mouth its torturing contact with her body. She put her lips against his hair and then turned her face so that its silken caress was under her cheek. Her breath shivered out in small, audible gasps. His mouth was suckling, pulling and releasing in a pulsing rhythm, slow and strong. Too strong. Too demanding. The pulse was echoing somewhere in her body. Low in her belly. Demanding. Aching. The sweet, age-old ache of desire.

“Please,” she whispered again, her mouth moving against the coal-black softness of his hair.

His lips hesitated, the rhythm he had created broken. In the silence between them, she was aware again of the slightly sobbing quality of the breath she drew into lungs hungry for air. Had she forgotten to breathe as he touched her? Or did her body need more air, like a furnace that demanded oxygen for the fire he had ignited?

When he didn’t move, his stillness too prolonged, she put her hand over the back of his downturned head, cupping the smooth roundness of his skull and then moving down the strong column of his neck.

Suddenly, he fell back against the mattress, carrying her with him, her body lying on top of his. With the change in position she was very aware of how much he wanted her. The evidence of his desire was blatant through the thin material of his worn jeans, straining upward into the soft cotton knit of her shorts. So little between them. But she wanted nothing between. Nothing between the hair-roughened skin of his chest and her bare breasts. Nothing between the small convexity of her belly and the ridged muscles of his. Nothing between…

His mouth found hers. It was open, waiting for him. His tongue invaded. Seeking. Demanding. His hands were against her back. Despite the damage Jack had inflicted, they drifted again with sensuous grace over the slender, contoured planes of her body. Touching her shoulder blades, covered by skin that shivered into his caress. Along the ridge of her spine. Big hands slipping into the waistband of her shorts to curl over her bare bottom.

She could feel his breathing beginning to deepen, his hips straining upward into hers as his hands pushed her body downward. Their mouths released, and his slid, opened, across her cheek, a pulling sensation, dragging against her flushed skin. His lips touched the dampness of the curling tendrils that gathered at her temple and then moved to her ear. She turned her head, accommodating, seeking whatever intimacy his touch suggested he wanted. The warmth of his breath first, softly stirring against the outer fold of the sensitive channel. His tongue moving inside. Caressing. Tantalizing. Hot and wet.

He breathed her name again, so close, speaking it into the small, ivory cavern of her ear. She allowed her knees to slide away from him, lowering herself, millimeter by millimeter, her desire fusing now with his. She could feel the heat of his body through the barrier of their clothing. No barriers, she thought again. No barriers of any kind. Not tonight.

She was more aware of his breath, slipping out in small aching gasps almost over her ear. The other sound was subliminal. She would have ignored it, not unheard but unacknowledged, had she not felt the sudden stillness of his body beneath the bonelessness their lovemaking had reduced hers to.

She felt the change and wondered, and then into her head came the belated recognition of the sound she, too, had recognized. The same sound that had echoed into the darkness of the mansion each time she had come here—the small, crystal teardrops of the glass chandelier touching together in the draft created by the opening front door.

Chapter Thirteen

“What the hell?” Thorne said. His voice was almost soundless, a breath, but with the shocked whisper there could be no doubt that he had heard and recognized the same noise that had finally penetrated her desire-drugged brain.

She sat up, pushing away from him. Suddenly she was aware that she was half-naked and cold. Cold with her separation from the solid warmth of his body. Cold with fear.

Thorne still lay motionless on the bed, the pale fabric of the coverlet he was lying against a frame for his darkness. Dark hair and shirt, black eyes holding hers. She knew that he was listening. Both of them listening, without breathing. Listening in the eerie silence of the old house whose night sounds he would be infinitely familiar with.

There was nothing else. No other ghost of noise drifted, almost but not quite soundlessly, upward to the second floor.