Midnight Heat (7 page)

She’s been harassed by some weirdo on the phone, he reminded himself. The last thing she needs is you drooling over her.

They entered the kitchen and Dane
glanced around. No plane parts in here. The room was average size, with standard appliances in standard colors. But it was warm, homey somehow. Maybe it was the woman occupying it that made it seem that way.

The center of attention was a large oak pedestal table flanked by four ladder-back chairs. Adria put his briefcase on the table, sat down on the other side, and snagged her cup of coffee.

“Please.” She nodded at the chair in front of him.

He started to slide the briefcase to the floor, then changed his mind. It might be wiser to keep the constant reminder in sight. He swallowed more of his Coke and allowed himself another glance at her. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and her face was pale. There were shadows under her eyes that hadn’t been there before. It was probably the lighting. He really wanted it to be the lighting.

The thought of her being terrorized by strange phone calls in the middle of the night had his stomach muscles tightening. One call he could dismiss—and he’d done a lousy job of that—but two calls …

The instincts riding him now were unfamiliar. They were primal, basic. The sort that made men go out and confront dragons. Because there was simply no other alternative.

Dane shook off the rather intense, unsettling feeling as he clicked open his briefcase and took out a pen and notepad. He felt ridiculously obvious in his attempts to armor himself, but she didn’t appear to notice. Besides which, no matter how much he might wish it, she wasn’t the dragon he wanted to fight. It would be so much easier if that were the case. Instead, she was rapidly becoming the damsel he wanted to fight the dragons to win.

“I appreciate your coming over,” she said quietly.

He shrugged and began flipping the pages, looking for a clean one. “Like I said, I was up, you were up.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dane noticed Adria’s gaze stray to his shirt. She’d done that at the door, but he hadn’t paid much attention then. Now he looked down at the dark blue polo shirt, but didn’t see anything strange. His eyebrows rose in question.

“Sorry,” she said, color blooming in her face. “It’s just I’ve never seen you without a suit on.”

Heat crept into his own cheeks. He didn’t know why he even bothered trying to keep things businesslike with her. He damn well knew he didn’t want to. “Did you think I slept in a suit, too?”

Her widening eyes told him he’d missed dry humor by a mile.

“You weren’t in—I mean, when I called, you were working.” She stumbled over her words. “You
were
at your office.”

“Yes, I was.” He’d been at work all right, but she
had
caught him dreaming. His thoughts tumbled from falling asleep at his desk way too often to not wearing suits, to wondering what it would be like to fall asleep not wearing anything and being with her when he did it.

It was a powerful image.

He shifted in his seat and took another sip of Coke. It was icy cold but did next to nothing to cool him down.

“The phone call,” he finally said. “You want to tell me about it?”

Adria studied her coffee as if she expected wisdom to rise with the steam and penetrate the fog in her brain. What was wrong with her? She was thirty-one years old, married and divorced. Certainly well past the age of stuttering and blushing around men.

But it was no wonder he had her all tongue-tied. A man who was only interested in business had no business giving a woman “the look.” He was too in control of every facet of himself not to know what he was doing. Or what effect it had on her.

She wanted to groan in embarrassment. Did he know what she was thinking? Dear Lord. Tony had taunted her too often with her
inability to mask her thoughts for her not to be aware of that particular shortcoming. It was still on the long list of things she was trying to change.

Dane’s chair scraped the floor, startling her. He’d shifted closer.

“When did the call come in?”

It wasn’t until she exhaled that she realized she’d been holding her breath. “Two-thirty. I called you right after.”

“And the first call? That came at three?”

Adria silently thanked him for keeping his attention on the notes he was making. “Yes. It was the same whisper. I think it was the same person.”

“What was the message this time?”

She swallowed the fear that knotted in her throat. “ ‘Keep talking and you’ll lose more than your job,’ ” she quoted, not entirely able to keep her voice steady.

“That’s it?”

“Isn’t that enough?” she shot back.

“I didn’t mean to imply it wasn’t,” he said, his manner offhand, as if he didn’t really care one way or the other that she’d been scared out of her wits. He was just an investigator doing his job.

A fact, Adria instructed herself with brutal candor, she’d better get real straight, real fast.

Even if he was being “just an investigator”
alone with her in her small kitchen, at three-thirty in the morning.

“I haven’t spoken to Ms. Greene again,” Adria said, “or anyone else from the media. The only person I’ve talked to is you.”

“Do you want to call the police?”

The question took her off guard. What, exactly, had she expected? That Dane was going to protect her from this unseen menace? The answer was painful to admit. That was exactly what she’d been thinking, albeit subconsciously, when she’d called him.

Stupid move, Adria, she admonished herself silently. Haven’t you learned your lesson by now? She’d better hope so. Teachers didn’t come any better than Tony Harris.

“I wasn’t sure if notifying them was a smart idea.” She was glad that this time at least she’d managed to sound calm and in control. Truth was, with some nut out there threatening her, and the Predator sitting at her kitchen table, she felt anything but calm or in control.

“It’s up to you,” he responded. “They can put a tracer on your phone, try to find out where the calls are coming from.”

“And then what?” She went on without waiting for an answer: “I mean, you and I both know the chances of finding the person is small. It’s too easy to call from a pay phone, or a cellular. And besides, I’m not completely
sure this person isn’t watching me. If my talking to you or Sarah Greene is making this person nervous, then I don’t want to make a show of having the police trooping in and out of my house.”

“But you called me. Let me come over here.”

He was right. All that had mattered to her was that she’d heard his voice and felt safe. When he’d offered to come over, she hadn’t wanted to say no.

“What makes you think you’re being watched? Have you spotted someone? A car or anything?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s just a … feeling.” What she felt right now was foolish for saying anything. Her tone was a bit on the defensive when she added, “I don’t know, I haven’t seen anyone or anything strange around here. Certainly not at three in the morning,” she added. “It’s probably my imagination. But I don’t know how else the caller could have known I’d talked to Sarah Greene or you.”

“Unless the caller knows about Sarah’s source.” Dane was so alert the air around him fairly vibrated. “Or our caller is the source.”

Our
caller. It was amazing how reassuring that word was for her. But she and Dane weren’t really a team, as much as she’d like to
believe they were. He could still file a report claiming she’d been negligent.

“The only reason the source would threaten me is to protect his position as a paid informant. But frankly, I can’t see where there’s any real money in it. This isn’t exactly Watergate.”

“Okay. But that still leaves a caller who knows something we don’t. Something he doesn’t want anyone else to know. Something he thinks you already know and doesn’t want to have spread around. To me, or anyone else.”

“All I know,” she said quietly, “is that there was a third plane. It was in exactly the right position to be involved in the collision. I can’t think of anything else that someone would warn me about discussing.”

Dane stiffened. “That third plane had to have had a pilot.”

Adria’s eyes widened. “Who would be solely responsible for almost killing several hundred people.”

Dane swore under his breath. “Which makes you the perfect fall guy.”

She nodded in understanding. “If the controller is proven negligent, no one would ever suspect the third pilot’s culpability. Case closed. Question is,” she went on, “why warn me? It just gives credibility to my story that
there was something else going on in the sky that night.”

Dane shook his head. “No, the question is: Who knows that you think something else is going on?” He smacked the table with his palm, making Adria jump. He didn’t apologize. When he leaned forward, his eyes were almost glowing. “I’ve got to get my hands on that missing fuselage. If there was a third plane involved, he had two wings clipped. There has to be some evidence of that on the ground.”

Adria gripped her cup so hard she thought it might crack. She peeled her hands off it and forced them into her lap.
He believed her
. Or as close as she was likely to get from him without concrete evidence. She closed her eyes for a second, sending up a quick prayer that the missing fuselage would be found and this whole horrible mess would be over soon.

“Adria?”

Her eyes blinked open. How did he do that? Infuse such intensity into one tiny word? That the tiny word was her name just amplified the effect on her.

“Yes?”

“You need to get some rest. Why don’t I get out of here? I’ll call you as soon as anything is reported from the field.” He clicked his briefcase shut and shoved his chair back.

No
. Adria was half out of her chair, leaning over the table to stop him. “Wait.”

He froze, his gaze fastened on where her hand was gripping his wrist. As if his attention to that area had thrown on a power switch, Adria was immediately aware of the feel of his skin and muscle under her fingers. Without intention, her fingertips exerted additional pressure. His pulse leaped under her touch.

The combination of feeling him hot and alive under her fingers and watching emotions spark just as hot and alive in his eyes made her tremble.

The silence spun out; her will to move was nonexistent. The air between them charged up so fast that when Dane began to slide his gaze slowly from her hand up along her arm, she half expected to see a trail of fire. By the time he lifted his eyes to hers, she was not only trembling, she was burning up.

In less than thirty seconds, she’d felt as if he’d scented her, hunted her down, and trapped her. With nothing more than the beat of his pulse and those electrifying eyes of his.

Which made no sense. She was holding him.

“What?” he asked finally.

The question jerked her back to sanity. She let go of his arm. But he was quicker. He flipped his hand over and captured her wrist, his grip not painful, but inescapable.

“What do you want, Adria?”

What do I want?
“Ask me something easy,” she said shakily.

Without letting her go, he set his briefcase down and walked around the table toward her. Adria was trying hard not to let her sudden inability to breathe be too obvious. He stepped closer. She swallowed hard.

He raised his free hand and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. At the same time his thumb made slow circles on the inside of the wrist. She felt terribly unnerved. And unbelievably aroused.

“Why are you shaking?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Not an easy question either?” He reached for another strand of hair, but this time he let it slide through his fingers. “It can’t be that I’m frightening you. I don’t think anything frightens you. Not truly.”

That’s where you’re wrong, she wanted to say. But the words were stuck deep in her throat. That he might continue this slow, intoxicating interrogation frightened her. But far more frightening, was the thought that he might stop at any second and walk away.

He ran a fingertip across the tender skin beneath her eyes. “You’re not sleeping enough.”

Right now she would settle for breathing. She wanted him to let her go. And yet she was the one who’d asked him not to go.

What
did
she want from him? His help? Yes. His expertise as an investigator? Yes.

To touch his face as he was touching hers? Oh, yes.

“Adria.” This time her name was half warning, half groan.

Her gaze had become instantly riveted to his lips when he spoke. To feel that mouth on her? Is that what she wanted?

God, yes
.

“This isn’t smart,” he said, moving closer still. “I should be in my car, heading home.” She gasped when his knees brushed her legs. “Right now.”

“Yes,” she said. “Right now.”

He let his hand drift to her chin, tilting it up slightly. “It wouldn’t help. I don’t sleep either.” He broke off, then went on, his voice nothing more than a rough whisper. “You torture me in my dreams, did you know that?”

She gasped, then a tiny moan escaped her lips. She pressed her knees tightly together as a curling knot of sweet pain clutched hard between her thighs.

“And then I lie awake all night wondering things.” He looked at her mouth with hunger so clear. “What does your mouth taste like, Adria?”

She shook her head slightly.

“Is that, ‘No, you don’t know’? Or, ‘No, don’t find out’?” He rubbed his thumb over
her lip. “I’m an investigator, Adria. That’s what I do.” He leaned down, his breath warmed her lips. “Investigate.”

Just when she thought he’d end her agony and kiss her, he lifted his head slightly.

The tiniest of twinkles flickered in his eyes. “May I?”

“You’d better,” she answered hoarsely.

He slid one hand to cup the side of her face as he pulled her wrist up and placed her palm on his chest. He held it there, letting his heartbeat pulse heavily against her fingertips.

He dropped a torturously light kiss on her lips. “Remember,” he warned. “I’m very thorough.”

“God, I hope so,” she breathed. Then slid her hand up into his hair and pulled his head down to meet hers.