Raven on the Wing (6 page)

Raven gripped the wheel even tighter and
pulled into the drive of the towering apartment building. She couldn’t think of that, couldn’t let herself think of that: Drawing threads of control taut within her, she concentrated on the role.

Control, Zach decided silently. That was why they were sitting in a car an hour past midnight watching the front entrance of the apartment building across the street. They were here because Josh Long had what amounted to an obsession about keeping control of his life, and the woman presently in the penthouse of this building was shaking that control.

Zach glanced at the man in the passenger seat and silently amended the thought.
Destroying
that control. This strained, intense man was not the one who had come to Los Angeles. Zach tried, again, to dissuade his friend from what he planned to do. “There’ll be a guard inside—”

“You studied the plans, didn’t you? There has to be a quiet way past him.”

Reluctantly, Zach said, “There’s a service entrance, likely quiet this time of night.” He
paused, then added hopefully, “I’ll have to bypass the alarm system to get you in.”

“Then that’s the way.”

If Zach had been given to double takes, he would have done one then; in fifteen years, he’d never known Josh to permit any of his people to break the law. The very thought had been anathema to him. “Illegal entry,” Zach reminded him, but no longer hopefully; Josh was clearly willing to do whatever it took to get up to that penthouse secretly.

Josh didn’t respond.

“If anyone sees you going into Leon Travers’s building,” Zach commented, “it’ll really hurt your reputation as an honest businessman. Why don’t you just call the lady and meet her somewhere?”

“I want to see her
there,”
he said in a low voice, his gaze riveted to the entrance to the building. “She told me she’d never met him; I want to face her with that where she can’t deny it.” He wasn’t entirely sure why he was so adamant about reaching the penthouse unseen;
perhaps it was simply because Travers was a dangerous man and Josh wanted to take no chances. There was, at least, that much of his control left.

“Going to tell her about the dossier?”

“No.” Josh lit a cigarette. “I want her to tell me.”

“Think that’s likely?”

Josh swore, every word harshly expelled with smoke. “How the hell do I know? She seems to be living a damned double life, and there
must
be a reason for it.”

Zach sent him a guarded look, then said carefully, “If the dossier was legit, maybe she just needs a clean place to wash off the dirt.” He thought he’d gone too far for a moment; even in the darkness he caught the stabbing glance from the other side of the car.

“The report’s wrong,” Josh said gratingly. “
Wrong
. There’s an explanation for it. There has to be.”

His friend tried another tack. “And we’ll find it, if it’s there. Why don’t you go on and finish the trip while we look into it? By the time you
head back this way, we’ll know. There’s no hurry, is there?”

Josh stared briefly up at the lighted windows of the penthouse. “Travers is up there,” he said savagely. “With her. If he’s had his filthy hands on her—I have to know, Zach. About that, at least, I have to know.”

“And the rest?” Zach deliberately made his tone of voice harsh. “D’you think you can live with that, if it’s true? D’you think you could even touch her knowing she was a liar, a thief … a whore?” A choked sound came from the passenger seat, but Zach pushed on relentlessly. “You know what I found out today. You know that so far everything checks out. What if it
all
checks out?”

“It won’t!” Josh drew a deep breath. “You haven’t met her; I have. That file is about another woman, it has to be. Or it’s a pack of lies.”

“I guess we’ll find out.” Zach was staring toward the building’s entrance. “There’s Travers.” They both watched the silver-haired man step into a gleaming limousine that drove away
without lingering. “I guess you’ll find out at least part of it tonight.”

When Leon had gone, Raven took a quick shower and got ready for bed. She habitually wore a silk and lace teddy as sleepwear, and dressed now in a violet creation that left little to the imagination. Feeling a bit chilled in the air-conditioned penthouse, she also donned a white silk robe.

She went into the kitchen and made a pot of cocoa, then carried her cup into the den and gazed around restlessly. She didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to dream. She debated between television and a book, deciding finally to read and listen to music. But instead of using the built-in stereo system the penthouse boasted, she got a portable tape player from her bedroom and set it carefully on a low table beside a large arrangement of silk flowers.

Though it hardly looked it, the small tape player had one special quality that Raven depended on whenever she felt it necessary to
confuse listening ears: it was designed to damp out reception by electronic bugs like the one planted among the silk flowers.

Raven had made a habit of playing the tape recorder whenever she felt like listening to music. Habitual behavior tended to allay suspicion; by checking with his security people, Leon would know that she was alone, and had no reason to guard against being bugged. And she also needed at least occasional moments free of the sensation of someone listening to every sound she made.

Leon had examined the player—apparently casually but with real thoroughness—after she used it the first night. After that he had ignored it. Undoubtedly his electronics experts had assured him that the tape player was harmless, that it was beyond the present state of the art to build a machine that could overcome electronic listening devices. The expert who had built this one had assured her that his breakthrough invention was top secret.

When the doorbell rang, Raven froze. The guard downstairs had not announced a visitor.
Kelsey? She went quickly to the door and peered through the peephole—and the frozen sensation she’d previously experienced was nothing compared to the cold she felt now. Icy hands moved to unlock and open the door, and she stared at Josh with a horror she could not conceal.

He brushed past her without a greeting, going into the den and turning in a slow circle to stare at the blatant wealth all around him. He looked at the stark white carpet that was ankle-deep, at the plush gray pit grouping, at glass-topped tables and oil paintings and fragile lamps and vases. Then he turned to stare at her as she came slowly nearer.

“So you don’t know Leon Travers?” His voice was taut, the savagery held in check barely below the surface.

Raven drew the lapels of her robe tightly together and crossed her arms over her breasts, trying to think. “What are you doing here? How did you—”

“Answer me!”

The lash of that voice was enough, just barely
enough, to jolt Raven’s mind. She thought fleetingly of the man who after several drinks had laid his kingdom wistfully at her feet, comparing that gentle man—and gentleman—with this tautly controlled but obviously savage stranger. Not two different men, just two sides of one man.

She kept her voice steady with a tremendous effort. “I know him. I’m doing some work for him.”

“What kind of
work?”

Raven’s chin came up swiftly, and only years of discipline enabled her to stop herself from reacting to the scorn and disgust in that final word. But it took everything she had … much more than she had ever needed before.

She spoke in a measured, impersonal tone. “Work. Since you seem to know this is his building—which, by the way, isn’t commonly known—then you must be aware that Mr. Travers is very security-conscious. I wouldn’t have a job very long if I told anyone who asked what my work entailed.”

“This is his
penthouse
.”

“No. He holds the lease, but if you’re implying what I think you are, that he stays here, you’re wrong. He sublets the place on a temporary basis to people who work for him. Like me.”

“He left half an hour ago.”

“We sometimes work here. Like tonight.”

Josh wanted to believe her. God, how he wanted to. But he knew too many other apparent facts to let go of this so easily. “And the clothes?” he asked tightly, gesturing to her expensive sleepwear. “The car downstairs in the garage? Does he
sublet
those too?”

He watched her face drain of its remaining color, fighting the instincts urging him to go to her, gather her in his arms, tell her that he hadn’t meant it, could never think she was—

“I’m not a whore.” Her voice was very soft, toneless. The laughing violet eyes were dark and still, and her face was expressionless. “But you think what you like. You will anyway. Get out, Josh. Before I call the security people and have you thrown out.” It was a bluff; the last thing in
the world Raven would have done was call attention to his presence here.

Josh reached out to catch her shoulders, all but shaking her. “I don’t want to believe it,” he said thickly. “But you’re
here …
dressed like this … and he just left.…” The smell of herbal soap rose from her skin, and Josh felt dizzy suddenly; his heart told him the woman he held couldn’t possibly be what the dossier claimed, but the cool brain that had added immeasurably to an empire reminded him that some dirt couldn’t be seen. “Raven …”

“Get out.” Her voice was no longer steady.

“I can’t.” He thought distantly of Zach’s warning and wondered what it would do to him if he found out she was what the report said she was. It didn’t bear thinking of. “It’s too late for me to get out.”

She didn’t understand what he meant; her mind had stopped working. And her protest was only a faint broken cry when he pulled her suddenly against him and captured her lips with an odd, despairing hunger.

Raven tried to fight, struggling in his arms
with the devastating knowledge that he believed her to be something terrible. Others had believed the same thing; she had made certain of that. But for Josh to believe it hurt her dreadfully. She didn’t want to respond to his passion … didn’t want to feel this for a man who thought her a whore.

But the seductive magic of his touch sapped even horror, and her body responded mindlessly. She felt him pulling aside the silk robe, and his lips pressed her shoulder, her throat. Her knees were weak, and she slid her arms around his neck, seeking the strength that he had and she had lost.

His mouth found hers again, his head slanting to deepen the contact, his tongue touching hers and demanding a response. He kissed her as though she were his for the taking, and he intended to take … and take.… Raven had never felt such utter certainty radiating from a man, such primitive determination, and she couldn’t fight him or the shivers of pleasure and excitement that were shaking her body.

And Josh, holding the vital, responsive
woman tightly against his own hardening, heating body, knew dimly that he was again on the edge of totally losing control. He was no longer conscious of even faint surprise that she held the power to do this to him, the power to ignite his body and shake his mind. He was aware only of building need, the surging fire of a ragged and overpowering desire.

And it wasn’t just a woman he wanted. He wanted
her
, Raven. The muscles of his belly contracted and his legs were rigid with tension as he widened them and pulled her even closer, one hand sliding over her silk-clad back to her hips, pressing her yielding warmth into full and aching contact with his swelling body.

“I don’t believe it,” he muttered hoarsely against her skin. “I can’t believe it. I couldn’t feel this way if you weren’t what I think you are.”

“Josh …”

He was moving against her subtly, one hand pressing her hips to his strongly, the other tangled in her long hair, kissing her deeply again and again. “I want you until I can’t think
straight,” he breathed. “Until I can’t see anything but you, feel anything but you.”

Every breath rasping harshly in his throat, Josh held her, kissed her, touched her compulsively. But even though she responded to every touch, he could feel, at first dimly, that she was holding back. And he remembered belatedly what he had accused her of, remembered that he had all but said aloud what no man should ever say to a woman. Not something she could forget, even in the mindless heat of passion …

His tongue caught the salt of tears on her cheeks, mute testimony that he was right, and it shook him badly.
“Don’t
. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Hurt
. It gave Raven the strength to pull away from him, the thought of who would be hurt if she allowed Josh to distract her from what she had to do. Crying … why was she crying? She hadn’t realized. She turned away, rubbing her wet cheeks with the backs of her hands and retying her robe, then sank down on the couch with an unsteady sigh. “Get out,” she whispered.

He sat down beside her, catching her hand when she would have moved away. “I can’t,
Raven. I can’t leave while you think—I’m sorry about what I said. So sorry. Please believe that.”

She shook her head a little, trying to think. “I believe you’re sorry, but you can’t take back the words. Or the doubt. It doesn’t make for a good beginning, Josh. Just let it stop here, all right?”

“No.” He lifted a hand to her face, making her look at him. His breathing was only beginning to steady, and his voice was deep and husky. “I told you I was a patient man; somehow, I’ll make it up to you for what I said tonight. I won’t walk out of your life, Raven.”

Raven looked at him and knew she was lost, knew she would do everything in her power to keep him safe—except let him walk away. She couldn’t do that. Not even to save either of them. “Then there’s something you have to understand. And something you have to promise me.”

“Anything,” he said instantly.

She glanced around at the opulent apartment. “This part of my life is separate. You can’t be a part of it. When I’m in the other apartment, I can see you. But not here. Never again here.”

He was frowning. “But you won’t tell me why?”

“I can’t. For—for security reasons. If you can’t accept that, then it’s no good.”
Tell me you can’t accept that. Walk away from me before I destroy us both
.