Touching Darkness (4 page)

O
livia stood at the French doors in one of the mission rooms at the end of the hallway, watching Nicholas on his balcony. He wore only athletic shorts on a long, lean body. She'd seen him running through the grounds both early in the morning and sometimes late at night. He had a runner's body, muscular but not bulky, and whenever she'd glimpsed him (okay, she'd out and out gawked for as long as he was in view), she'd fantasized about running her hands over those muscles.

Hm. Curious. He tied a bandana around his head to cover his eyes. Talk about erotic connotations. He walked to the stone railing and threw what looked like a small red ball. It sailed through the air and landed somewhere in the southwest quadrant of the maze. The maze was designed by a puzzle maker and was one of the most difficult in the world, something her grandfather had told everyone with pride.

But Nicholas was the most puzzling of anything she'd ever encountered (and she had gotten lost in that damned maze many times, so that was saying something). With the blindfold still on, he braced his hands on the balcony and launched himself over, dropping to the ground with the grace of a cat. He ran straight to the maze's entrance and disappeared from view.

She felt someone walk into the room but was too entranced to turn and see who it was. Nicholas's shock of dark hair appeared momentarily around a bend, then disappeared again. She glanced over to see who now stood beside her: Jerryl, who was also watching. His ultrashort hair and feral eyes fit his military bearing and attitude, but he seemed to have something to prove.

She turned back to the maze in time to see Nicholas emerge, racing toward the building, blindly but unerringly pulling himself up the molding and climbing back onto his balcony. He held the ball in his hand, which he dropped as he stripped off the blindfold.

“Damned show-off,” Jerryl muttered.

“Is it showing off if he doesn't know anyone's watching?”

Jerryl only grunted as he turned to leave. Her mouth twitched in a smile.

She knew Nicholas was scheduled to start working at ten, and it was now nine. She went downstairs and used the kitchen phone to call his room. She hated to admit it, but her father was right; she felt a hitch in her breath when he answered.

“Good morning, it's Olivia. Could you meet me in the kitchen in about fifteen minutes?”

After a pause, he said, “Sure. Be right there.”

She felt that hitch again when he walked into the kitchen twelve minutes later, wearing a Polo-style shirt that stretched across his wide chest. His dark brown hair was damp and combed into submission. Usually, it looked delightfully mussed. With his soulful brown eyes and slight pout to his mouth, he reminded her of pictures she'd seen of Elvis in his youth. The smell of soap filled her senses.

“Hey, what's up?”

She lifted a finger to indicate he wait and slipped behind the tall metal shelves. She lit two candles on the small pyramid of cake she'd managed to salvage and
walked around the corner. “Happy birthday to you…” She didn't go on because she couldn't sing worth a damn and wasn't going to embarrass herself or put him through the agony.

A mixture of surprise and alarm froze his expression. In fact, his whole body stiffened, though a small tremor moved across the muscles of his arms.

“Oh, jeez, you're not a diabetic, are you?”

When she neared, he lurched forward and blew out the candles with a burst of breath. “One of the candles looked like it was about to fall over,” he said with a wave of his hand in answer to her questioning look. He released a breath. “No, I'm not diabetic. How did you know it was my birthday?”

“I manage the staff records.”

He gave her a smile. “That was really sweet of you.”

She set the dark blue cake on the small table the staff used to take their meals. She'd already placed two plates and forks there. “I thought we'd have a piece before you started work.” Okay, she didn't want Gerard to see it.

Nicholas sat down, and she handed him a knife to cut it. He did the honors and gave her a slice first. She waited for him to take a bite, and his smile filled her with something close to giddiness.

“Wow. This is the moistest cake I've ever had. Did you make this from scratch?”

She nodded, pride glowing inside her. “I love to bake. I'm a Food Network addict, especially the baking
Challenge
shows. I have this idea…” Was she really going to tell him that?

“What?”

She waved it away. “Nothing. It's silly.”

“Good.” And he waited.

She loved that he was interested, giving her his whole attention, and she hated that she'd now have to tell him. “It's just an idle daydream, you know, because I'm committed to
an illustrious career with the CIA, working for my country and all that, but I muse about how fun it would be to have my own business.”

He glanced at the cake. “A bakery?”

A grin exploded on her face. “‘Dangerous Cakes.' Not just ordinary, boring cakes but
big, tall,
cakes, with moving parts and pyrotechnics, and…” Her enthusiasm was running away on her. “See, silly.”

“You don't think so.” His smile wasn't patronizing. The way he was looking at her, she'd swear he was absorbing her zest for the idea, or at least enjoying it.

“Well, it is, because I already have a career.”

“I don't mean to degrade what you do, but how illustrious can being an assistant be? Even to a director?”

“There are possibilities for advancement.” That's what her father had been telling her. So far, she saw only the leash that kept her working with him.

“I don't see that spark when you're talking about the CIA. I saw it when you talked about Dangerous Cakes. Livvie, life is short.” His expression shadowed on those words. “It can be over in an instant. Grab it now and suck every bit of juice out of it.”

Those words shimmered through her in ways she couldn't even decipher, but her body involuntarily moved closer to his. “I like that. Maybe I'll write it down and tape it to my bathroom mirror. I like the sucking part best.”

His eyebrow went up, clearly taking her words for something much more erotic than she'd meant. Or had she?

She tilted her head. “Say it again, so I'll remember it. Grab it now and suck the juice right out of it?”

He cleared his throat, his fingers tight on his fork. “We'd better finish our cake before…”

“Before?” Before he tore off her clothes? Kissed her? He was looking at her mouth, making it tingle so that she had to run her tongue over it.

He wrenched his gaze away. “Before I have to report for work.”

Work. Father. Rules. Damn.

They ate in companionable silence, catching each other's gaze and smiling.
Okay, a little harmless flirting.

He took a bite, sliding his fork out of his mouth and rolling his eyes. “This is outrageous. Where did you learn to bake a cake like this, those cooking shows?”

His compliment filled her with champagne bubbles, not so much the words but the passion behind them. “I spent a summer in France in my junior year of high school. I was there to study the language, but I took a pastry cooking class and got hooked.”

He took her in with those chocolate Grenache eyes. “‘Dangerous Cakes.' Yes, very dangerous.”

Did he mean the cake? She wanted to think he also meant her. She remembered what he'd said yesterday, about wanting to socialize with her. She wanted to “socialize” with him, too.

She ran her finger through the cream icing and stuck it in her mouth. He watched the move, his throat convulsing in a hard swallow. Yeah, he could have meant her. The fact that she had an effect on him sent a supercharged thrill through her.

Once again, it seemed an effort to pull his gaze from her and back to his cake.

That's when she realized he'd called her Livvie. She'd gotten totally distracted by the sucking part. “No one's ever called me Livvie before.”

“Really? You look much more like a Livvie than an Olivia. Does it offend you?”

“I think I like it.” Livvie, fun, light, the kind of girl who flirted. Her smile faded. “Just don't call me that in front of Darkwell.”

He feigned a shocked look. “Heavens, no!”

She laughed, loving the sound of her own laughter and the way it tickled through her. He chuckled, a soft, deep sound that did more than tickle. No one had plugged into her body the way Nicholas had, bringing it to life the way
the family's fake Christmas tree came to life once it was dragged out of deep, dark storage.

He took a last bite and set his fork on the plate. She stood, leaning forward to take his plate just as he got to his feet. Their noses brushed, and she stepped back, nearly losing the plate she was holding. The fork, however, went flying to the floor.

He started to reach for it, but she said, “I'll get it.”

When she stood, she was inches from him. She had to look up at him, since he was probably eight inches taller than she. His gaze flicked to her mouth, before returning to her eyes. She swallowed hard, fighting the urge to lean closer, knowing his mouth would taste like sugar and butter and everything else she'd put into that cake, including feelings she shouldn't be having.

If her father came in right then, he'd see that she'd gone against his wishes. Hell, he'd see much more than that. She felt all of that delicious excitement evaporate. Flirting with Nicholas was just a tease, but it wasn't a harmless flirtation.

“You'd better get upstairs,” she said on a rush of words, grabbing her plate and backing away. “You know how Darkwell gets.”

She was in such a habit of referring to him as someone other than her father, she now called him Gerard or, to the others, Darkwell. When she set the plates in the sink, she turned to find Nicholas standing next to her.

“I hope I didn't get you into trouble yesterday.”

She shrugged. “I violated the rules.”

He tilted his head. “Do you often do that? Break the rules?”

“No. Never.” She met his gaze. “Well, not usually.”

He leaned closer. “I don't like rules. They're too restrictive. Confining.”

Fever flashed into her cheeks. “Rules are good.” She didn't sound the least bit convincing. “They're what set us apart from animals.”

His voice grew soft, and his heated gaze swallowed her up. “Sometimes it's not bad to be like animals. Their lives are pretty simple. Eat. Sleep. Survive.” And after a beat, “Procreate.”

“But we need rules. We need…”

His mouth touched hers, jumping her heartbeat right into her throat.

Her lips were moving, trying to form the rest of the sentence she'd now forgotten. Then she was sliding against his mouth, and she couldn't breathe, and she didn't even care. He captured her mouth in his, and his hand curled around the back of her neck and pulled her closer.

A sound of surrender escaped her throat. He took that as an invitation to deepen the kiss, teasing her lips apart and running his tongue across their surface. Her eyes drifted shut, swept into sensations that started at her mouth and spread through her entire body. Her hand involuntarily came up and connected with his arm. Her fingers curled around his biceps, tensing on the hard muscle beneath his shirt.

“I need…” she whispered.

“To follow the rules?”

“For you to keep kissing me.”

His tongue dipped into her mouth, once, twice, then invaded completely, and she fully engaged him back. How long had it been since she'd kissed someone like this and enjoyed it?
I'm not just enjoying. I'm lost, sinking, senseless.

He tasted even sweeter and better than just the cake. Her tongue came alive, as though it had a mind of its own, toying with his, tracing the edge of his teeth and the ridges on the roof of his mouth. His kiss was as deep and slow and sensual as he seemed to be, as he would be if he made love to her.

He is making love to you.

That thought filled her heart with sunshine. He finished
the kiss, withdrawing his tongue but touching his lips to hers again and once more, as though he couldn't bear to part.

With his hand still around her neck, he leaned his forehead against hers. “You were saying…about the rules.”

She opened her eyes, hazy and heavy. Her voice was weak. “Rules are good.”

He laughed softly. “If you say so.” He stepped back, and she saw that his eyes were also filled with a sensual haze.

“For you, too. If Darkwell caught us…” The thought cleared away the fuzz in her brain. “You could lose your contract.”

“Would he fire you?”

“Worse.”
You said too much.

He nodded, taking another step back, the haze clearing from his eyes. “I respect that you respect the rules.” He pinned her with his gaze. “But you're not just worried about getting reprimanded. I see fear at the thought of being caught. What kind of hold does that man have over you?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to break another rule and not wanting Nicholas to think she was screwing her boss, either. “It's not what you think. But I can't say.”

“He's not your lover. That's what you're saying. Because that would be…”

“Sick. I mean, inappropriate.” Damn, she had a hard time following the rules where Nicholas was concerned.

“Why would it be sick? Because he's older? No, he acts more like a father…” His eyes widened. “He
is
your father, isn't he?” When her flushed face gave away her answer, he smiled in a relieved way. “That explains a lot. You don't look like him, though.”

“I look like my mother, at least that's what I'm told.”

“You've never seen her?”

She shook her head. “She left us when I was a baby. He destroyed all of her pictures. Anyway…” She pushed past that. “Darkwell—my father—doesn't want anyone to know. He wants to keep it professional.”