Nan Ryan (24 page)

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he replied, and slid across the seat.

She anxiously caught his arm. “Please be careful, Roulette.”

Johnny grinned, touched her cheek. “It’ll be just for one night” He kissed her quickly and added carelessly, “What could possibly happen in one night?”

As midnight approached, a solitary figure sat alone in the shadowed hallway of St. Ann’s Hospital. A nurse in starched white uniform and cap came out of Miss Annabelle Delaney’s room.

King Cassidy came to his feet and looked anxiously at the nurse. A stocky woman with a ruddy complexion and kind eyes, she addressed him with a smile, “You Yanks are all alike. Emotional. Excitable.” She gently shook her finger in his face. “Worry too much. There’s no change in the patient’s condition. Miss Delaney is quite sick. Still, I do not believe she’s in great danger.”

“If that’s the case, why can’t I go in to see her?”

“The patient is in a deep, exhausted sleep. She’ll never know you’re there.”

“Nor will the doctor, unless you tell him.”

Nurse Harvey sighed. “You Yanks are also quite persuasive. Go on then, if you must, but let doctor catch you and I’ll deny—”

“I’ll accept full blame,” said King. He flashed her a winning grin and added, “Nurse Harvey, you truly are an angel of mercy.”

Inside Miss Annabelle’s room King Cassidy’s smile quickly died. Tiptoeing to the bed, he looked down at the pale still face and felt his heart kick against his ribs. For a long, silent time he stood staring down at her, hardly daring to breathe. Unmoving, unblinking.

Then the air exploded from his tight lungs and the worried man leaned over the bed, reached out and tenderly smoothed a limp lock of hair back off her damp temple. His fingers lingered to caress her pale face.

“Miss Annabelle? Can you hear me?” His voice was a raspy whisper in the night-silent room. Not an eyelash flickered in response. “Miss Annabelle?” He waited, his eyes locked on her face.

He pulled the chair up closer to the bed and sat down. Smiling fondly down at the sleeping woman, he gently took her cool fragile hand in both of his and said softly, “Annie, dearest, dearest girl. My sweet Annie.”

King Cassidy stayed at Miss Annabelle’s bedside through the long, rainy night until a nurse wearing a nun’s cowl came on duty a little after four in the morning and ordered him to leave.

Miss Annabelle, struggling against the bonds of drug and fever-induced sleep, labored to open her eyes, strained to hear the deep raspy voice more clearly, and murmured softly, “King? King?”

Her head tossed on the pillow and she patted frantically at the mattress, searching for the warm male hand that had lovingly held hers. “King, King? Where are you? Don’t go. Don’t leave me!”

Her voice no more than a strangled whisper, she continued to call his name as her eyes came open. Then she looked hopefully around the empty room. And quickly realized it had only been a dream.

A sweet, impossible dream.

23

She awoke with a start.

Her heart drumming loudly in her ears, Nevada bolted straight up in bed, the horror of the nightmare filling her with dread and panic. Swallowing convulsively, she tried to speak, couldn’t. Trembling like a leaf, she threw back the covers and finally managed to choke out, “Miss Annabelle? Miss Annabelle, I had this terrible dream and I—I …”

Her eyes fell on Miss Annabelle’s empty bed and the truth dawned. Miss Annabelle was not here with her. Miss Annabelle was sick and in the hospital. She was alone, all alone in the big, dark bedroom.

Her teeth chattering with fear and with cold, Nevada put her hands to her cheeks and told herself she must stay calm. It was just a nightmare, a ghastly, gruesome nightmare. It hadn’t actually happened, wasn’t going to happen. Running her hands up and down her chilled, stiff arms, she recalled with frightening clarity the macabre dream that had awakened her.

Johnny was on a Mississippi riverboat, playing cards below decks. A fire in the paddlewheeler’s galley had quickly spread to the dining room and on to the cabins. It was a dark cold night and terrified passengers jumped overboard and swam for their lives.

But Johnny was trapped!

Her hand at her mouth to choke back the sobs threatening to erupt, Nevada, shaking so violently she could hardly function, anxiously lunged from her bed and dashed across the carpeted room. She yanked open the door and rushed through the spacious sitting room to Johnny’s closed door.

Her hand on the polished brass knob, she waited, trying desperately to get a grip on her tensed nerves, delaying until the furious pounding of her heart could slow a little. Silently telling herself everything was all right, that Johnny was sleeping just inside, that he was safe and here with her, Nevada quietly pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The silken drapes at the bedroom’s tall windows had not been closed against the night. A steadily falling rain pelted the uncovered glass. It was cold, much colder than in her own room. The gloaming from London’s streetlamps and the buildings’ gaslights bathed the bedroom with a pale ambient light.

Directly across from the door, in an oversized custom bed hung with rich brown velvet, Johnny Roulette slumbered peacefully, the white silk sheet riding his bare waist, a long muscular leg stuck outside the covers.

Staring at him, Nevada took a long deep breath of happy relief and turned to leave. She paused, glanced back at the sleeping man. Should she cover him? He wore no pajamas; what if he should catch pneumonia like Miss Annabelle?

Nevada tiptoed to the bed, looked down on Johnny, and felt her just-slowed heartbeat race once more.

He lay in the very middle of the huge bed, on his back. His head was turned to the side, the midnight-black hair tumbling over his forehead and onto the silk-cased pillow. His beautiful black eyes were closed, but his lips were slightly parted to reveal the gleam of wet teeth.

His smooth brown shoulders were very dark in the half light and the appealing fanlike pattern of hair on his broad, bare chest narrowed to a heavy black line going down his stomach and disappearing beneath the covering sheet. One side of the sheet, caught and clutched in Johnny’s left fist, was pulled and stretched below a prominent hipbone, almost exposing that most male part of his long lean body.

That he was naked was evident. That he was warm, despite his nakedness and the damp chill of the room, was just as evident. That he was so devastatingly male and desirable in his warm naked slumber that Nevada longed to explore his powerful nude body, was a fact of her life.

Her eyes caressing what her hands longed to touch, she softly, impulsively said his name.

“Johnny.” It was an awed breathless whisper in the quiet room. He didn’t stir and all Nevada could hear was the sound of the rain drumming against the windows. And her own heartbeat. “Johnny, Johnny,” she repeated a little louder.

She needed him to tell her that everything was going to be all right. Needed to hear that deep, sure, drawling voice murmur words of comfort that would drive away any lingering fear and doubt. If only he would waken and assure her that Miss Annabelle was going to be fine and that he would not be playing cards on some burning riverboat, then she could go back to her own room and rest.

“Johnny, wake up, please. Wake up. I’m afraid and I need to talk to you. Johnny?”

He did not respond. He drew a deep, slow breath, released his death grip on the sheet, and flung his long, bare arm up over his head.

Nevada frowned in frustration and started to say his name again. But she stopped, and a smile touched her lips as she recalled the day on the boat train when she had sat on his lap. He had slept all the way to London, undisturbed by the commotion around him, and it had been difficult to rouse him even when they pulled into the noisy station.

Johnny Roulette was undoubtedly a very sound sleeper. Short of leaning down and shouting into his ear, there was little hope, or danger, of awakening him.

And he looked so warm and peaceful, while she felt so cold and upset. If she dared lie down beside him for just a few minutes, he would never know the difference. She need not even touch him, just stretch out atop the sheet near him until the terror of the dream had completely vanished.

The idea of crawling into bed with Johnny Roulette made Nevada’s pulse race with excitement and apprehension. All too vividly she could recall how it felt to share a bed with this gorgeous, virile man. Remembered so well the sweet joy of sleeping in his arms, of being snuggled warmly to his hard body, of them both being as bare as Johnny was now.

A need to feel close and comforted began to change to physical desire and Nevada was tempted to pull her long lace-ruffled nightgown up over her head and toss it aside. To lift the silky sheet and climb nude into bed with the sleeping, naked man. To press her bare, eager curves to the length of his hard-muscled body until he awakened and became so aroused he could not resist making love to her.

She didn’t do it.

Instead Nevada very gingerly put a nightgowned knee on the bed and held her breath. When Johnny didn’t stir she cautiously, carefully climbed up onto the high soft bed and lay down on its edge, facing him. Folding her hands beneath her cheek she lay quietly on her side, staring transfixed at the dark handsome profile half shadowed in the soft night light.

Her eyes traveled down from his face to the broad, bare chest, rising and falling evenly. And finally farther down to where the thin silkiness of the white sheet did little to hide the jet-black growth of dense crisp hair covering his groin. It reminded Nevada of the way Johnny’s fine white silk shirts could not entirely conceal the dense black hair covering his chest. She had always thought the effect terribly sexy.

This was even sexier.

Instinctively Nevada moved just a bit closer to Johnny. Just enough, she told herself, to avoid the risk of falling off the high bed’s edge. Close enough to hear his slow, steady breathing. Close enough to pretend, if only for a sweet moment, that he was hers and she his, that they slept in the same bed every night. That they would be sleeping together for all the rest of their nights.

Her glowing eyes on his face, Nevada smiled. His countenance, like his physique, bespoke strength, masculine and unashamed. Her gaze ran affectionately over the rugged figure beside her and her skin tingled. How small she seemed against such muscled power. And how cold she was in her long nightgown, while Johnny was warm in his nakedness.

Dreamily Nevada sighed. Her eyelids began to grow heavy and she told herself she should get up. Return to the warmth of her own bedroom and get some sleep. Sighing again, she slid her cold, bare feet beneath the covers and stretched lazily.

And fell asleep.

In slumber Nevada turned onto her back and automatically reached for the sheet, pulling it up over her chilled body. She burrowed down into the softness of the bed. And still she was cold. She turned onto her side, facing away from Johnny and drew her knees up.

The drizzling rain stopped in the wee hours of the morning and with the clearing of the dark winter sides, the temperature dropped dramatically. The frigid cold of the London air invaded the interior of homes and hotels all over the city. At Claridge’s, the big, dim bedroom where two people unknowingly slept in the same bed had grown uncomfortably cold. Covered with only a slick silk sheet, the sleeping pair sought heat where they could find it.

Nevada never roused when Johnny, sound asleep, put a long arm around her and drew her to him. Her eyes barely fluttered, but she moaned in her slumber and snuggled gratefully to his warmth.

Instinctively she backed up against Johnny; he curved his big, naked frame warmly around her. They slept peacefully on, cuddled together, his body around hers, her slender, gown-clad back and bottom pressing his bare hair-covered chest and belly.

A hint of gun-metal gray was just beginning to lighten the dark skies when Nevada, licking her lips and inhaling deeply, came half awake. Her sleepy eyes flickered open just in time to see a gently groping brown hand find the ribbon-laced opening of her nightgown. In the half slumber still claiming her, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

So Nevada simply lay there and luxuriated in the warm pleasure of the moment. From under heavily-lashed, sleepy, drooping lids, she watched in sweet, lazy wonder, waiting without urgency to see what that hand meant to do.

With the same swift, sure dexterity of the wide-awake, card-dealing Johnny, long lean fingers found their way down inside the batiste nightie to quickly cover a soft rounded breast.

Nevada’s eyes slid closed and a smile of mild elation curved her lips. For a long, pleasant time, Johnny’s hand didn’t move at all. Merely closed warmly, protectively over her right breast, gently shielding it from the cold. It was wonderful, marvelous, the best. Her sleeping lover possessively covering her breast.

The best soon got better.

Nevada’s breathing changed when those long dark fingers began to stir ever so subtly. At first it was only a slight, elusive caress, almost a reflexive action. A gentle squeezing, a pressing of his warm palm against the soft nipple.