Tapestry of the Past (3 page)

A mythical beast on a fantasy woman. Son of a bitch.

“Because Tom Harley seemed to think you can.”

Gabriel sighed, pulling his attention from the slender ankle. “Start at the beginning.” Damn, Tom had a nasty sense of humor but he should have remembered payback was hell.

“Someone is going to kill me.”

That caught Gabriel’s attention. He sat up straight. “And the authorities won’t offer protection?” Why the hell had Harley sent her to him? He knew Tom. Not only was the man a dedicated law enforcement officer but he was one of those rare beings who actually gave a shit if a person lived or died. If she were truly in danger, why wasn’t he taking care of the problem?

Her chin came up and her bright green eyes offered a challenge. “They can’t.”

“Why?”

Her gaze flitted to the front door then back to him, a movement so swift that if he hadn’t been watching carefully, he would have missed it. Behind those green eyes, he saw thoughts swirling in a chaotic mix. He got the distinct impression she was going to lie, then he saw her breasts lift as she sucked in a silent breath. Her shoulders slumped. “They have nothing to go on but my word.”

“Threats, phone calls, near misses?” He would pound Tom into the ground if he was messing with him. More than once the older man had told him he needed to get out and find a woman. Get laid. Something. Anything other than holing up on this isolated bit of property. He couldn’t shake the suspicion this whole plea for help was a setup.

Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take her to bed. Just once. After all, Tom had sent her to him.

The insidious thought popped into his head and refused to leave.

She was already shaking her head. “No, none of those things.”

“Then just what do you have to go on?” He made his voice very soft. Inside, he went cold. All half-formed thoughts of fucking her evaporated. He hated games and if she was playing one, it was one she’d never play again. Not after he finished with her.

She exhaled a shaky breath. “Mr. Steele, all my life I’ve had the ability, or curse, depending on your point of view, to be able to see things that have happened.”

“What sort of things?”

“Murders.”

“Son of a bitch. What the hell was Harley thinking?” Left unsaid but clear in his tone was the fact he thought she was a fake. A sense of betrayal fueled his anger. Tom knew his history. Most of it at least. He should have known that
Kalesia
Brannigan
was the last woman he’d be interested in.

“Now you just wait a minute!” Pure rage flashed across her face and tightened her full lips. “You haven’t even heard me out!” She shot to her feet, the anklet charm tinkling with the force of her anger. “Where Major Harley gets his faith in you sure beats me. He, at least, was willing to listen.” Disdain dripped from her voice.

Either she was a very good liar or believed what she was saying. Gabriel studied her. Emotion shimmered in the lagoon-green eyes, intensifying the color. Damn. If he were a betting man, he’d swear she actually believed the nonsense she was spouting. So that left him with a very interesting question, did Harley send her because he thought there was something to her story or because he knew Gabriel would be attracted to her?

“Tom gets paid to listen.” Gabriel gave a silent sigh and admitted to himself that he wasn’t going to send her away. At least, not yet. He waved to the chair. “Sit.”

She glared at him before grudgingly retaking her seat.

“Tell me exactly what you told Harley.” If he had any sense, he’d shift her sexy little ass right out the door instead of listening to fairy tales. He needed his head examined, he decided.

“I saw a body by a pond. I didn’t want to look at the face, so I studied the area around the body. I recognized it.” Back ramrod straight, each sentence was crisp, concise. It was clear she was still pissed at him.

He felt a tug of amusement. “Recognized?”

“As a place where I go often.”

“Why?”

“To take photos, walk, mostly to think. It’s peaceful and secluded.”

“Any chance that you could have seen or photographed something you shouldn’t have?”

She appeared to think for a moment. “I don’t believe so. I can only remember a handful of times that I even met another person while there. Usually teenagers looking for a place to neck.”

“What else was in your,” he paused. She glared at him, “vision.”

“It was in winter or early spring.”

“What makes you say that?” Gabriel watched her like a hawk but each subtle shift of expression and motion all backed up his original assessment.
Kalesia
Brannigan
believed she’d had a psychic vision. A reluctant tug of interest reared its ugly head.

“The woods were bare and the grass brown. I had the impression of winter or early spring. When I,” a delicate shudder rippled through her small frame, “looked at her face, I saw mine.” Her eyes darkened to almost black as the pupils swallowed the green. Slender fingers twisted together in her lap.

Nervousness or an attempt at control?

“There had been a struggle. She—I—had been shot. Once. Through the heart.” Irritation forgotten, she leaned forward and placed a carmine-tipped hand on his. “Please believe me, Mr. Steele, this isn’t some sort of a joke.”

A trace of magnolia and exotic woods teased Gabriel’s senses. Against the ruined flesh of his wrist, her hand was small and smooth. He stared down for a long minute, breath clogged in his throat. He surged to his feet.

“I can’t help you.”

“Just like that?” Stunned, she stared at him, her eyes huge.

He couldn’t do this. He could not have what little serenity he’d managed to carve out of the ruins of his life, taken from him. Rage, pain and need, coalesced in one tangled ball. He focused it all on the woman sitting so still. Gabriel leaned over her, a hand on each arm of the chair. He used his size and fury to intimidate her without compunction. “You’re very good, lady but we both know you didn’t come out here because of some so-called vision. Trust me. You would have gotten a lot farther if you’d been upfront with me.” He was so close he could see the faint trace of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Somehow, that made him even more furious.

“I guess you do deserve something for coming out here all this way and for putting on such a superb performance.” He grinned, a feral showing of teeth.

The pulse in the vulnerable hollow of her throat pounded. For some reason, it didn’t give him the satisfaction he’d expected.

Before she had time to react, his mouth covered hers.

Soft. Warm. Moist. His tongue pushed inside, not giving her a chance to regain her equilibrium. Her hands came up to rest against his chest, giving a tentative shove. Gabriel nipped her bottom lip in warning.

She gave in with a soft moan. Her hands slid up to rest against his shoulders, nails kneading the heavy muscles like a cat.

Triumph heated his blood. He rewarded her with a gentle swipe of his tongue to soothe the small sting. One large hand cradling the back of her head, his fingers tunneled into a wealth of red hair beneath the braid. He used his hold to tip her head up for a deeper kiss.

That fast, Gabriel forgot he was trying to make her run away, forgot that she was dangerous to his peace of mind. All he cared about was how good she tasted.

“That’s it,
darlin
’. Open for me. Let me taste you. I need to taste you.”

His tongue stroked the sensitive roof of her mouth, danced away from hers only to come back and tangle with hers. The sexy, little, back-of-the-throat sounds she was making drove Gabriel crazy. He couldn’t get enough of them.

He fumbled with the over-large button on her jacket, swearing softly into the heat of her mouth as it resisted his attempt to unfasten it. At last he got it open. Immediately, he cupped her breast. She wasn’t wearing a bra! He rubbed his thumb back and forth over the crest of her breast, feeling the nipple peak beneath his touch.

He swallowed her gasp.

He tore his mouth free from hers, seeking and finding the small, hard nub. Gabriel braced himself with one hand on the arm of the chair. The position put unbearable pressure on his erection.

Almost as if she knew,
Kalesia
popped the button of his fly free. Mouth around the tip of her nipple, he froze, hardly daring to take a breath as he waited for the feel of those soft hands wrapped around his cock.

Slowly, ever-so-slowly, she eased the zipper down. He wasn’t wearing underwear so his cock jutted out, thick and proud, from the opening of his pants.

“Commando?” The throaty question went straight to his balls.

Gabriel lifted his head, taking a moment to study the wet circle on her silk blouse. “What can I say? I like to be one with nature.” He trailed a forefinger over the damp spot, satisfaction roaring through him when she shivered, her nipple drawing even tighter.

“Trust me, sugar, you are a miracle of nature.” Green eyes teasing, she traced an invisible line the length of his aching cock before circling her fingers around it, right behind the flared cap. She seemed fascinated when his cock flexed in her grasp.

Gabriel slid a hand up the inside of her thigh. Halfway up, his palm met warm flesh instead of silky stocking. Son of a bitch. She was wearing garters. Call him old-fashioned but there was something about garters on a woman. He slid his palm higher, until he felt the lace of her panties. Tugging the delicate panel of lace aside, he slipped one finger deep inside her body. The wet heat of her snug passage made him groan.

God, he needed to be inside her.

Wrapping his hand around her neck, he started to tug her up when she turned her head and placed a tiny kiss on the inside of his wrist. Right on the ridged, slick scar that circled it.

What in the hell was he doing? He was supposed to be getting rid of her, not taking her to bed.

Using his thumb to tilt her chin, he whispered into her mouth, “Tell Harley not to send a flake next time.”

She went utterly still, then erupted out of the chair. Unprepared for the strength of her shove, he stumbled back a step. She faced him, all spitting fury and feminine outrage. “You bastard.”

For a moment, Gabriel thought she was going to take a swing at him. Instead, she leaned down and grabbed her purse but not before he saw the wounded look in her green eyes.

For a moment, he wished she had.

Not looking at him once, she crossed the room and fumbled for the doorknob, her movements jerky. On the flagstone walkway, she hesitated as though she were about to turn around but then, squaring her shoulders, walked to her car instead.

A hard tension held Gabriel taut as she climbed inside. He almost called her back, even lifted a hand to stop her but let it drop when she slammed the door and started the car. He watched her taillights as they winked in and out of the trees as she sped down the drive. Not until after they were long gone did he close the front door.

Tucking himself back in his jeans, he zipped them but left the button undone.

It was for the best. If she knew what that scar meant, she wouldn’t kiss it. She’d run screaming.

A humorless smile twisted his mouth.

Perhaps he should have told her the moment she walked in the door. He shook his head. No, he wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to hold her, to taste her warmth and light. Not for anything.

Gabriel snapped off the lamp and sat in the dark.

* * * * *

Kalesia
stormed into the house and slammed the front door behind her. “The bastard! The low-down son of a bitch. How dare he kiss me, touch me,” a hot blush scalded her cheeks as she recalled just how she had let him touch her, “then call me crazy?” She slammed her purse on the nearest chair. “Just who the hell does he think he is?” It’d serve Gabriel Steele right if she called Major Harley and let him know what a jerk he had for a friend.

She sat on one end of the sofa, kicked her shoes off and curled her legs under her.
Kalesia
dropped her head back against the cushion, her righteous indignation fading as the ramification of Gabriel’s refusal to help sank home. She hugged her body to ward off a growing inner chill.

Dear God, she truly had no one to turn to. Her parents believed her visions were dreams, the police thought, at best, she had an overactive imagination and Gabriel Steele wouldn’t even consider the possibility that she was telling the truth.

That left only her to stop a killer.

Problem was, she didn’t have the slightest idea where to start.

A soft meow drew her attention. Leaning down, she scooped up the worried Siamese. Holding the slender cat close, she scratched its head and stared at the wall. “Tia, what am I going to do?” The Siamese washed her face in sympathy.

Damn, when would she ever learn? You’d think after the
fiasco
, she would know better. Even now, three years later, she winced at how naïve and stupid she’d been. She’d pulled the tatters of her self-respect around her and promised herself never to tell anyone about her visions again.

So, okay, there were extenuating circumstances this time. She’d never had a vision where she was the victim. But, still, the end results were bound to be the same. Disbelief and the subtle easing away, as if she might be contagious.

For some insane reason, though, she’d had the instant innate belief that Gabriel Steele was different. Something about his eyes. Even his initial reaction hadn’t dampened that belief. When he’d told her to sit and had begun to question her, she really thought he’d help her even if he couldn’t fully accept her knowledge came from a vision.

“Just goes to show you how wrong my instincts can be, huh?” She tickled the cat under the chin. “I reacted to him, Tia,” she confessed in a near whisper. “Like I’ve never reacted to another man. Not even Christopher. Even after he made it clear he thought I was lying.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Guess that makes me desperate as well as stupid, doesn’t it? You
wanna
hear something weird? I could swear he was as turned on as I was.” She wasn’t stupid, past history aside. She knew guys could screw like bunnies without knowing so much as the woman’s name. But would a man only interested in getting in her pants have said the one thing guaranteed to send her scurrying like a mouse? And it had been deliberate. Of that she hadn’t the slightest doubt.