Shock Waves (12 page)

The moment that was culminating here, now, in this bright whitewashed room, with yet another women caught in the line of fire.

Exhaling roughly, he glanced at Brenna, who watched through those mystical blue eyes of hers, not calm now, but sparking with mistrust. She didn’t look scared, though. Didn’t look frightened. It was as if she’d watched this movie hundreds of times before, knew how events would play out, knew the ending, and was merely waiting for the pages of the script to be turned.

“Brenna?” he asked, ignoring the strange observation.

She pulled back from him, his touch, and hugged her arms around her middle. “You know what you have to do.”

Yes, he did. He just didn’t like it. “I’m not the same naive kid I was all those years ago,” he said to Jorak. Wasn’t one to trust something as flimsy as words and feelings. Both misled. “The second I give you the name, the second you have what you want from me, I serve no further purpose.”

“That’s hardly my problem,” Jorak mused.

Oh, but it was. He just didn’t know it yet. “I’ll give you what you want,” Ethan promised. “But you’ve got to give me something in return.”

Jorak lifted a single brow. “Do I?” he mused. “And just what is it you would like, my friend? What means so much to you?”

Ethan didn’t even hesitate. “Another night with Brenna.” Out of the corner of his eyes he saw hers darken, saw the confusion shadow her expression, but he didn’t let himself react. “Give me tonight and, come the morning, I’ll give you my decision.”

Jorak glanced toward the wall of windows, where the shadows of evening replaced the mellow light of dusk. Fading streaks of crimson shot up like arrows from the dark sea beyond. “You think one night will change anything?”

No, but one second had. One amazing, blinding second had changed everything.

“Not necessarily, but I can tell you this.” Slowly Ethan smiled, not a nice smile, but one he knew Jorak would recognize. “If you hurt her now, you’ll never get what you want from me.” He shoved free of the figurative corner
Jorak
had tried to put him in and steadily backed the other man toward a stalemate. “If you want me to talk, the lady stays with me.”

* * *

Brenna splashed cold water against her face, then looked into the mirror and watched it drip down her cheeks. The color had finally returned, the warmth that had drained the second Jorak Zhukov had touched her. But the images lingered, dark and dank and slimy. The man had lived a dirty life. He had no conscience, no moral compass. He lived only for himself.

And his thirst for revenge.

Turning off the water, Brenna looked at the nightgown hanging from her shoulders. Ivory silk. From thin straps it fell gracefully down her body, draping over her breasts and curving at her waist, falling over her hips. It was long, almost clear to the floor. But in it she felt naked.

Give me tonight and, come the morning, I’ll give you my decision.

The roughened words whispered through her, much as they had when Ethan had first issued the ultimatum. He hadn’t been touching her when he’d spoken, but she’d felt the caress of his voice, his implication.

And now he waited in the bedroom. For her.

One more night.

Warmth. Excitement. Anticipation. Uncertainty. They clashed, creating a hot melting sensation that streaked from her breasts to her belly, lower still, intensifying between her legs. Longing. That’s the only way to describe the ache for something she couldn’t name, but inherently knew would change her life.

Dangerous.

Despite everything, the past and what she knew still lay ahead, the thought of opening that door and joining Ethan Carrington, a man she’d met in the flesh only twenty-four hours before, in that bed thrilled her in ways she had no business feeling. He was not her friend. Not her ally. Not her lover.

But, heaven help her, some place deep inside wanted to believe he was all of that.

With one last glance in the mirror, she wiped the edginess from her face and strolled across the tiled bathroom floor, turned the knob and forgot to breathe.

He lay sprawled on top of the floral comforter, wearing only a pair of loose-fitting gym shorts that did nothing to conceal what lay beneath. He might as well have been naked. A deep bronze tan graced his entire body, even low on his stomach, where a trail of dark golden hair arrowed downward. His legs were thick and well muscled, covered by the same wiry hair as his chest.

“Brenna,” he said, and slowly his eyes warmed. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Her mouth went dry. Because she’d been waiting, too. But until this moment, she’d never known for what. “It’s not like I could go anywhere,” she pointed out.

“I know. I checked the windows.”

Her heart kicked hard against the confines of her chest. She didn’t really think he would force himself on her, but clearly be expected her to join him in that big bed. “Ethan—”

“Shh,” he said with a tenderness that staggered her. “Don’t fight me on this, angel. I need you in this bed with me.” Very blatantly he took in the sight of her standing barefoot in the silk nightgown that hugged all the right places, and a slow, lazy smile curved his lips. “Right. Now.”

Chapter 7

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N
o one had ever spoken to her like that before. No one had ever used a rough voice that sounded smoother than the Virginia whiskey her grandmother had given her to chase away a fright. No one had ever looked at her with such raw desire. It streamed through her like a potent drug, stroking deep.

Tomorrow she might die. In all likelihood she would. This night could be all she had left. It would be easy, so easy, to forget about survival and just let go, let Ethan take her to a place where she didn’t care what would happen with the sunrise. To feel the warm heat of his skin, his lips against hers, roughly, gently, urging and seeking at the same time.

“No.” The word came out with surprising strength. She pivoted from him and crossed to the wall of windows, stared out into the night. Stars lit the dark sky, the moon still little more than a sickle.

“Brenna.” His hands, warm, wide, settled against her bare shoulders. “I know this has been hard on you, angel. But don’t turn away from me. Not now.”

She didn’t want to. God help her, more than anything, she wanted to turn toward him and look into those dark green eyes of his, see something other than cunning glinting there.

“What kind of game are you playing?” she asked, then with a strength that pleased her, twisted from his touch and turned to face him, looked into his shadowed face. “We both know what you think of me.”

Regret. That was her first impression. Raw regret. And it blurred her determination not to trust this man or the draw she felt toward him.

“Earlier you challenged me to look in the mirror,” he said, and his voice rasped low, touched deep. He hesitated, ran his gaze over her face. “But I looked somewhere else and saw all I needed to see.”

The breath jammed in her throat. There was something about his voice, a note of sorrow she’d never heard, a sincerity that made her throat go tight. A game player, she reminded herself. The man was a master at getting what he wanted.

And now, for some reason, that seemed to be her. “What was that?”

His eyes heated. “You.”

He only mouthed the word, very softly. It shouldn’t have hurt. It shouldn’t have sliced.

“The way you looked at Zhukov,” he continued, never releasing her gaze. “The way you recoiled when he touched you.” A muscle in the hollow of his jaw started to pound. He paused, let out a rough breath, then stunned her by taking her upper arms and pulling her against his body. “I don’t know who the hell you are,” he ground out in a ragged voice so low Brenna barely heard, even though his mouth spoke directly into her ear, “or what you’re doing in my life, but you don’t work for Jorak.”

She went very still. Well-honed instincts demanded that she twist away from him, but shock held her motionless. Her heart hammered hard. The edges of her vision blurred. Ethan held her so close she could feel his every breath, his every heartbeat, every hard line of his body. And despite his words, words she’d
been hoping to hear from the moment she’d entered this man’s
life, relief didn’t come. Denial rushed too hard and fast, like a swollen, muddied river demolishing its banks.

“Maybe that’s all part of the ploy,” she said lazily, angling her chin. “A game, isn’t that what you said?”

His mouth twisted. “Maybe.”

“We could be acting,” she went on, driven by the need to make him stop looking at her as if he’d never seen a woman before. The need to push him away, change his mind, gripped her. And she didn’t understand why. “That whole scene back there could have been staged.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, assessing her through narrowed eyes. Then his expression changed, and the lines of his face relaxed. “I’ve hurt you,” he stunned her by saying, and before she realized his intent, he lifted a hand and slid the hair back from her face.

This time she did jerk away, pull back from his touch, his body. The temptation to lean closer was too strong, to lift her own hand and put it against the warmth of his chest, to see if it could possibly be as hard as it looked. If the dark gold hair would be as soft.

“Why, damn it?” The question ripped from somewhere deep inside him. He stepped toward her, stopped himself before touching. And in his eyes a light burned hot enough to destroy the darkness pushing in from the night. “Why won’t you let me touch you except when others are around?”

She swallowed hard, forcing back a surge of questions of her own. Why was he acting this way? Why was he pretending he cared? And, God help her, why did she want to step closer, when instinct warned to keep space between them. She’d avoided human contact for so many years. The desire to try, one more time, staggered. “I told you. I don’t like to be touched.”

“I know what you told me. I just don’t know why.”

Because it hurt. The words broke from her heart and scraped against her throat, stayed there, lodged behind a knot of emotion. It hurt when Ethan touched her. It hurt to feel the warmth of his skin, the tenderness of his touch, to feel the longing unfurl through her, when she knew nothing could ever come of it. Even if they weren’t from different worlds, even if she didn’t stand to be killed the following day, even then, nothing would come of it.

Because she wouldn’t let it.

And neither would he.

Something had hardened this man beyond the point of repair. He’d been jaded, his soul darkened by a betrayal so heinous he no longer knew how to trust. He wasn’t a man who believed in things he couldn’t touch or feel, and emotion, the kind she’d once longed to share with a man, fell into that realm.

“Not everything in life is as simple as you want it to be,” she said, careful to keep her voice from breaking.

“Simple? Who said I thought life was simple?”

She wrapped her arms around her middle, but the growing chill didn’t lessen. “You and Jorak, your quest for justice and revenge.” She inhaled deeply, let the breath out slowly. “Sometimes things aren’t so clear.”

A hard sound broke from low in his throat. “Trust me. There’s nothing clear or simple about this.”

That much they agreed on. Frowning, she turned to the night beyond, concentrated on the sound of the surf swishing against the beach. She had a CD of nature sounds at home, of waves crashing and wind blowing, and whenever she needed to pull back from the world, the ugliness, she’d sit in a dark room with a candle lit, turn her stereo on very softly, and concentrate on her breathing, let it carry her away. Even her regal, constantly alert Great Dane, Gryphon, relaxed when she turned on the music and off the lights.

Gryphon.

The thought stabbed in, unearthed a wave of sadness. She’d rescued the dog, malnourished and abused, from an animal shelter when he’d been little more than a bag of bones. In the eighteen months since, they’d never spent a night apart. What would he think now, with Brenna gone? Leanne, her cousin and roommate, would take care of him, but inherently she knew her companion would again feel abandoned, this time by her, the one human he’d grown to trust.

“Brenna.”

The voice, quiet, intense, jarred her back into the softly lit room, with the big bed only a few feet away, the big man even closer.

“Please,” he said. “You have to trust me on this.”

She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. “Why?” she asked, spinning toward him. The blast of anger felt good. “From the moment I walked into your life, mine has been turned upside down. And now you want me to trust you? You, the man who—”

He moved so quickly she didn’t have time to prepare. In a heartbeat he destroyed the distance between them and pulled her back into his arms. His hands splayed wide against the cool silk of her nightgown, one grabbing a fistful and holding on tight while the other cruised up to claim her shoulders.

“Not another word,” he rasped into her ear. “Not if you want to stay alive.”

The threat lanced through her like a broken needle. She shoved against his hold on her, shoved harder when he wouldn’t let go. “You son of a bitch,” she said, curling her hands around the hard muscles of his upper arms and digging her nails into his flesh. Hurt gave her strength. “How dare you—”

“Stop it,” he hissed, sliding his hand to the back of her head. With just the slightest pressure he had her gazing up into the intensity of his green, green eyes.

“Don’t you get it?” he asked, his face moving closer to hers. She could do nothing but stare at his mouth, his lips, as they formed words, moving closer to hers. “I’m not the enemy,” he said, and once again his mouth was on hers.

She wanted to feel shock. She wanted to feel rage. Revulsion would have helped. Instead there was only the sharp, sudden draw of danger, the tight curl of longing. Against his biceps her fingers dug deeper, and though she told herself she sought to wound, some wicked place deep inside pointed out that she was holding on tight.

His mouth slanted against hers, not soft and persuasive as it had been earlier in the day, but hard and demanding. His increasingly thick whiskers scraped her jaw. She hadn’t thought it possible for his body to become even harder, but flush against her, she could feel the ridge pressed into her belly.

“Ethan,” she tried, but in opening her mouth, she only gave him better access. His tongue swept in, shimmied along her teeth, explored deep.

And her body caught fire.

Colors exploded through her mind, a prism of swirling, intense reds and greens and blues, yellows and purples. All the darkness she lived with, the oppressive shades of black, vanished.

Then he was gone. His mouth was anyway. His lips no longer claimed hers, but were sliding to her ear. “Don’t you understand?” he murmured roughly. “Jorak thinks he can get to me by threatening you. He thinks we’re involved. That’s why you’re here.”

And suddenly it all made an ugly, unwanted sense. She’d never understood why Jorak’s men had grabbed her, but now she knew. She understood the abrupt turnaround. She understood the heat in his eyes, the intensity of his kiss.

None of it was real.

Ethan Carrington was a man of principle and integrity. So long as he had a breath in his body, he would never let those he cared about come to harm. His family was under intense protection. There was no way Jorak could get to them, no way Jorak could use a parent or a sister as the leverage he needed.

But in Brenna he thought he had the perfect weapon.

“Then tell him he’s wrong,” she gritted into his ear. “Tell him I mean nothing to you.”

Ethan swore softly. “Are you out of your mind?” He pulled back to pierce her with his eyes. They burned darker than the night. “Don’t you know what would happen if I did that?”

She did. She would become disposable. “Your family is well protected. He can’t get to any of them.”

“But he would get to you, damn it. He would kill you without thinking twice.”

A shiver ran through her. “But he wouldn’t have his so-called leverage, and you would have no reason to give him what he wants.”

Ethan’s grip tightened. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

The question was hard, angry, and it stole her breath. She knew what kind of man he was, that was the problem. “This isn’t about what kind of man you are. It’s about justice, right?”

“Jesus.” He held silent a moment, burned her with his gaze. “You don’t belong here, Brenna. You’re not disposable. I’m not just going to toss you aside like an empty soda can.”

Her throat tightened. “Then, what are you going to do?”

For a moment he said nothing, just looked at her. The sounds of the night drowned out the uncomfortable silence, the screech of an egret somewhere not too far beyond the window. The wind blowing off the water and through the open slats in the windows perched high on the walls. The rhythmic sway of the surf.

“This,” he said at last.

She never had a chance to fight him. She never had a chance to prepare. He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, like a scene ripped straight from a romantic movie. A man dressed only in revealing gym shorts, his flesh hot and hard; a woman in a sexy silk nightgown clinging to the curves of her body, her hair loose and flowing. Her eyes wide and seeking.

Instinctively her arms lifted to curl around his neck. “Ethan—”

Still holding her, he pulled back the floral comforter and soft peach sheet, then sat, positioning her in his lap. “The cameras,” he whispered, brushing his mouth along the side of her face. “They’re watching.”

And suddenly it all made sense—why he was kissing her, holding her, carrying her to the bed. Because Jorak thought they were lovers, and Ethan, for some ridiculously noble reason, was letting the farce continue.

Her heart thudded hard against her rib cage, adrenaline streaming dizzily.

“Trust me,” he murmured, nibbling on her earlobe.

Little tendrils of heat licked through her, giving rise to a wave of panic. “I can’t.”

“Yes,” he said very quietly, very persuasively, “you can.” She stared into his eyes, those dark, burning swatches of green, like a primeval forest, and for a fleeting heartbeat, imagined what it would be like if this moment were real, if he’d carried her to the bed out of desire, not a cunning plan. If he touched her because of want. If he made love to her slowly, deliberately, thoroughly, with the lights on. The other time—