Winter's Daughter (13 page)

Tannis had been through The Alley before, of course, but never after dark. She hadn’t meant to go there now, but time had sped by her. She was already late meeting Dillon, and The Alley lay between her and City Hall.

The rattle and clank of her cart was disconcertingly loud on the nearly deserted sidewalk. Beneath that racket her shoes made a subdued accompaniment, a rhythmic swishing, like brushes on a snare drum. A few feet and a million light–years away in the street, expensive cars rushed by with locked doors and rolled–up windows, raising little whirlwinds of paper debris in the gutter. The streetlights came on, and shadows began to stir in nooks, crannies, and doorways.

Tannis walked quickly. Cold sweat misted her forehead and made tickling trails down her ribs. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck lifted as if stirred by the breath of something unseen. Leaning against the cart, Tannis willed the swishing rhythm of her footsteps to an even faster tempo.

As she passed them, the shadows detached themselves from graffiti–covered walls to form a silent parade behind her, like alley cats following a fisherman.

I don’t believe this, Tannis thought. This was danger, real and present. She was being stalked. She knew it, sensed it with every nerve and fiber in her being. In her mind she went over everything she’d been taught about self–defense, but her muscles felt weak and useless. She wondered whether adrenaline would come to her rescue when the time came.

Up ahead, a traffic light hung like a beacon.
Green.
Holding on to that calm, unwinking eye, Tannis pushed the cart faster and faster, praying all the while.
Don’t turn red, please don’t turn red—

Her prayer wasn’t going to be answered. While she was still a few yards from the corner, the eye blinked yellow, then red. Tannis halted, aware now that her heart was a thunder in her ears, her breathing a painful rasp in her dry throat. With a little sob of frustration she gripped the cart, prepared to cross with the traffic light even though it meant going out of her way. As she turned, one of the shadows that had been following her moved into the light, becoming a flesh and blood body in a denim jacket, and a dark face with hard, cold eyes. Another moved in close behind her, still a shadow but with heat and density, and an unmistakable aura of menace.

A third shadow moved up beside her. When she felt the touch of a hand on her arm, all her muscles locked, and her mind went blank. She thought she might have made a sound, the kind small animals make when they feel the predator’s claws.

"It’s me, you idiot," a voice whispered in her ear.

Light, hope, and understanding exploded through her, flooding her muscles with power and her heart with a wild, primitive joy. She looked up into Dillon’s face and saw a wide, wolfish grin. There was a hard glitter in his dark eyes too.

The two young men who had been pursuing her looked at Dillon, and then at each other. They looked back at Dillon, who towered over both of them by at least a head. One of them gave a dry, mirthless chuckle and shrugged as if to say:
She’s all yours, dude.
They went slouching off down the sidewalk, nudging each other.

Tannis turned to say something to Dillon, but he hissed at her under his breath and, grabbing her arm, forced her into a clumsy run. She lost both shoes in the middle of the street.

"Wait—my cart!" she gasped, but again Dillon hushed her with that wordless sibilance.

A block or so away Dillon finally paused to look back, allowing Tannis a chance to catch her breath and to ask again about her cart. She really hated to leave it behind.

"Your cart." His eyes narrowed incredulously, and he gave his head a little shake, as if it needed clearing. And then Tannis saw his mouth lift sideways in his familiar half smile as he muttered under his breath, "I guess the Lord does protect children and fools."

Her mouth popped open, but before she could think of an answer to that, he grabbed her wrist again and took off down the street. She had no choice but to go with him.

"Ouch!" she cried as her stocking foot came down on something hard—a rock, probably. Hopping on one foot, she stumbled and nearly fell. Dillon stopped and looked at her for a moment, then muttered something under his breath and bent down to hook an arm behind her knees.

She gave a startled squawk as he hefted her—not gently—into his arms. "What are you doing?" she gasped. Her impulse was to struggle and demand to be put down immediately.

She looked at Dillon’s dark face and swallowed further protests in one audible gulp. There was something about the set of his jaw, the gleam in his eyes, that made her heart go tripping helter–skelter through her chest like a child running too fast down a hill.

They were already crossing the street in front of City Hall. But instead of turning toward the lighted lobby, Dillon kept right on going through the parking lot and into the deserted park. Tannis cleared her throat, tapped him on the shoulder, and asked in a tone of mild curiosity, "Uh, Dillon, what are you doing?"

He looked down; his gaze swept slowly over her from the top of her purple cap to the toes of her baggy socks. "Something," he said vaguely. "Something I’ve been wanting to do."

Tannis stared at his angular profile while her imagination raced around in a vacuum. Where was he taking her? The slightly grim set of his smile made a shiver run through her. She could feel his pulse beating beneath her hands where they clung to his neck. She was aware of the enveloping heat of his body and of his heartbeat knocking against her side.

It occurred to Tannis that Dillon’s progress across the park was not random; his path was arrow–straight and his footsteps firm with purpose. She also observed that he appeared to be heading straight for the Spanish fountain in the center of the park. A horrible thought struck her.

"You’re not––" she tightened her grip on his neck "––going to dump me in that thing?"

He gave a shout of laughter. The fountain gurgled and chuckled, sounding disgustingly merry. She felt its cool, misty kiss on her hot cheeks as Dillon’s arms tightened around her. She gave a little gasp, closed her eyes, and wrapped her arms in a near stranglehold around Dillon’s neck, promising herself if she was going into that fountain, so was he.

In the next moment she felt her feet touch lightly down on the fountain’s tile apron.

"You can let go of me now," Dillon said in a voice rich with laughter.

Tannis opened her eyes and found them about an inch from his stubbled chin. She blinked, and mumbled, "Oh." Relaxing her arms, she slipped them reluctantly from his neck. He caught them at the wrists and drew them down, out of his way, then reached for the buttons of her coat. She whispered, "What are you doing?"

"Taking your coat off."

"Why?" But by that time it was done. Dillon’s hands slid upward, pushing the heavy coat over her shoulders. It fell with a slithery rustle and settled around her feet.

His hands felt warm on her shoulders, and warmer still on the bare skin of her neck. Her breath caught; awed and still, she felt his fingers burrow under the strands of her wig and lift both it and the cap from her head.

She gave a small gasp when she felt the coolness, and reflexively lifted her hands to her flattened hair. But Dillon’s hands were there before hers; his fingers raked through her hair, discovering and discarding pins, unwinding the knot into which she’d twisted it to keep it out of sight under the wig. Her knees weakened unexpectedly. She grasped his wrists and felt the tendons in them surge and quiver like ropes against her fingertips. In a breaking voice she cried, "Dillon, what are you doing?"

"Something," he said softly, "I’ve been wanting to do ever since you walked into my office." One of his hands moved to support her head, curving warmly over the back of her neck. "Something you’ve been making pretty near impossible." The fingers of his other hand searched her face, quickly finding and stripping away the bits of molded latex.

With his hands still woven through her hair, Dillon drew her to the edge of the fountain. When he leaned over to scoop a handful of water from the fountain, she instinctively squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind had stopped functioning. Except for one sharp gasp, she didn’t move or protest when he began to wash her as if she were a child with a dirty face.

The water was cold, but Dillon’s fingers were gentle. Tannis opened her eyes and stared up at him, enthralled by the feel of his fingertips on her cheekbones, the ball of his thumb sliding down the bridge of her nose, the hollow of his palm cupping her chin. She searched his face as he scrubbed at hers, disposing of the last vestiges of her makeup, while water dampened her collar, ran down her neck, and trickled into the hollow between her breasts.

She felt—confused.

"There now," he whispered, brushing her cheek with the backs of his fingers, "that’s better." His body shifted; his face moved closer, then stopped. "Oops, not quite." His thumb skimmed lightly across her lower lip. "Open your mouth," he commanded softly.

And so completely was she under his spell that she complied. Dillon’s water–chilled finger invaded her mouth, located and deftly disposed of the bits of padding that altered the shape of her face.

"Now—" he breathed, and pulled her into his arms.

It was as she had thought it would be—a plunge from the high board, dizzying, exhilarating—terrifying. She actually felt as if she were falling. Her heart and stomach surged upward, forcing an involuntary gasp from her throat. Tensing automatically, she clutched at Dillon’s arms for support and found the muscles beneath her hands rigid. She felt the hardness of his body, the taut quivering deep inside him, like a just–released bow string.

For a moment, then, she felt overwhelmed, on the verge of panic. Again she found herself remembering the way she’d first seen him—as a derelict, darkly, dangerously, disturbingly attractive. Seeking reassurance, she lifted her hands to touch his face.

And discovered, not a derelict, nothing dark or sinister, hard or cold, but only warm human flesh. A man’s face. Dillon’s face. She felt his skin, its rough and smooth places, its tiny irregularities. A day’s growth of beard pricked her fingertips. She touched the grooves in his cheeks that so charmingly encompassed his smile.

And somewhere deep inside herself she felt another of those small explosions, and then a sweet, spreading warmth. With a sigh she relaxed and sagged against him.

Dillon’s arms gentled around her; his mouth softened; his tongue traced and caressed her lips, then slipped between them and pressed deep in a slow and sensual merging, a tender penetration that seemed to cleave her body to its core. His legs shifted; one hand slipped down to stroke her lower back in easy, circling rhythms that coaxed her body against his. With his other hand he cradled the back of her neck, massaging upward into her scalp with his fingertips, bringing her head slowly to nestle in the curve of his broad shoulder.

Holding her thus, he claimed not only her mouth, he took possession of her entire body. It wasn’t just a kiss, but a kind of erotic dance. With her eyes closed she seemed to whirl to its silent music and sway to the rhythms of her own body. He guided her so subtly and skillfully, she wasn’t even aware that the rhythms weren’t hers at all, but his.

Though if it was a dance, it was no civilized gavotte but something much more primitive that began slowly, like the throb of distant drums, and gradually increased in tempo and intensity until it filled her head with thunder and her body with heat. Her breath became heavy in her chest, so that at last she had to turn away, pulling her mouth from his with a desperate sound much like a whimper.

Dillon’s breath expired in a warm gust against her cheek. For a few moments he held her there, his jaw pressed tightly to hers, while his fingers stroked sensuously at opposite ends of her spine, sending shock waves racing through her on collision course.

Her own hands, she discovered then, were holding on to Dillon’s neck, and her fingers were burrowing through the hair that grew long on his nape. She thought:
How warm his neck is—how soft his hair—
But beyond that she couldn’t think at all. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do next, or even whether her legs would support her if he let her go.

And then, still holding her in that intimate embrace, Dillon began to chuckle. His body shook with it, rocking gently. It was soft laughter, easy laughter, a little embarrassed and more than a little surprised.

In need of some sort of emotional release herself, Tannis found herself laughing with him, pressing her forehead against his jaw.

"What was that all about?" she asked when at last he eased her away from him. She meant it to sound testy, but a certain hollowness and a touch of huskiness in her voice robbed it of conviction.

Dillon’s hands rested on the rounds of her shoulders. absently kneading. His head was bent, and his eyes searched her face with dark intensity.

"I’m not sure." He sounded bemused. "I don’t think I meant to do that. I mean, I know I’ve been wanting to kiss you, just not—" His voice trailed off as he picked up a strand of her wet hair and rubbed it between his thumb and fingertips. "Not quite like this," he said with a soft, rueful laugh. "I didn’t mean to do this to you."

"Well, then," Tannis said, delicately clearing her throat, "why did you?" It gave her an odd feeling to hear him admit to feeling as confused as she did. Excitement mixed with tenderness in her.

"I don’t know." She saw his shoulders lift and expand with his indrawn breath, and then, with a smile lingering in his voice, he said, "You’ve been frustrating the hell out of me, you know."

"Me? Why?"

There was silence while he stared down at her with his head bent, his face in shadow. Tannis stood still, forgetting to breathe while she tried to study his eyes. Unable to see them, she focused instead on his mouth—and
remembered
. She remembered with graphic immediacy the way his lips felt. And knew she wanted to feel them again. Weakness flooded her, making her tremble.