AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Inside, the house smelled of cleaning solvent, wax and oil. As they walked along wood corridors, Trent snapped on the lights unerringly, his hands finding switches in the dark, but still Nikki felt cold as death. Though she couldn’t remember her past, she was certain that she’d never set foot in this house in her life. The living room was situated near the back of the house. Furnished in high-backed chairs, ottomans and a couch in shades of cream and navy, the room offered a panoramic view of the lake, now dark and brooding, only a few lights reflecting on the inky surface.
Nikki stared out the window and wrapped her arms around herself. Brass lamps pooled soft light over mahogany tables and the smell of pipe tobacco and ash from the fireplace tinged the air in faint scents. “I’ve never been here before,” she said flatly.
“You’ll remember.”
“I don’t think so.” A chill skittered up her spine. “I would remember this. I would remember being here with you!” She trailed a finger along the window ledge, then turned tortured eyes up to his, hoping to feel a sense of security, of belonging.
“You’re just tired.” His voice was rough as sandpaper. Jaw tight, he took her hand and walked along a short, carpeted hall to the bedroom, where he placed her suitcase on the foot of a massive king-size bed with square posts and a carved headboard. The carpet was thick burgundy, the quilt was patterned in tan, burgundy and deep forest green.
A fireplace filled one corner, and Trent struck a match to the bottom of his boot and lit the dry logs resting on ancient andirons.
She felt a sudden sense of trepidation as she looked around the room. Something wasn’t right; she could feel it in the very marrow of her bones.
Flames began to crackle against desert-dry kindling and the moss popped as it was consumed by the hungry fire.
Trent straightened, rubbing the small of his back, then stretching. Nikki’s heart turned over at the sight of a slice of his skin just above the waistband of his low-slung jeans, visible as his hands reached toward the ceiling. She noticed the smooth muscles of his back and the cleft of his spine. “It’s been a long day,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it carelessly on the foot of the bed. “We should turn in.”
The room felt suddenly close and she could barely breathe. She’d slept with him while they stayed in the hotel on Salvaje, but she’d salved her guilty conscience with the knowledge that she’d had no choice. She’d made love to him hungrily because she was a willing prisoner and the rest of her life had seemed so far away and remote.
But now they were back home. Or in a place he claimed belonged to him, and the prospect of falling into bed with him was suddenly terrifying. Now the choice was hers. Or, at least, it should have been. An American woman on American soil in her own hometown. He wasn’t tying her to the bed, nor did he have to drag her here. True, he’d used his considerable powers of persuasion, but she had enough of her mind left to be able to say no if she’d really wanted to.
Truth to tell, she wanted to be with him. Here. Alone. As dangerous as he sometimes seemed, she couldn’t stop wanting him. Maybe he hadn’t lied. Maybe his story about the two of them held some water. The hot part was right. He yanked off his shirt, and Nikki watched as the firelight played upon tight, dense muscles sprayed with coarse chest hair.
He lifted a brow in her direction. “You want to take a bath or something?”
“You said you’d give me answers.”
“That I did.” He walked slowly to her, took the suitcase from her hand and dropped it onto the floor. With his gaze fastened to hers, he shoved her jacket over her shoulders and it dropped in a denim pool at her feet. “I just thought we should take care of a few more important things first.”
“You’re stalling,” she said, but her voice was breathless, and she couldn’t break the magnetic pull of his gaze as he searched her face.
He kissed her, his mouth molding over hers hungrily. Nikki closed her eyes and kissed him back, feeling the rough texture of his chest hair through her blouse, her fingers digging into the sinewy muscles of his shoulders.
“Nikki, oh, Nikki,” he whispered roughly. Her mind spun backward to another time when she was kissing another man, a man whom she thought she loved. But his kisses held none of the passion of this man’s, and she’d never felt the wild abandon that this man created deep in her soul. Yet they were confused in her mind, the then and now, the here and before. Trent or Dave? Her husband or fiancé? She couldn’t think and she tried to regain her disappearing equilibrium. “Dave?” she whispered as his lips traveled down her neck and touched the sensitive skin below her jaw.
He froze. His hands dropped. Stumbling backward, Nikki almost fell on the bed. She was dazed, her body still anxious and wanting.
His face was a mask of fury. “What did you call me?”
“Oh, God,” she said, her fingers trembling as she grabbed a clump of long hair and held it at the base of her skull. What had she been thinking? “I called you Dave,” she admitted, seeing a streak of pain slash through his eyes. “I…I was confused.”
He snorted and crossed his arms over the expanse of his chest. “You thought I was Neumann.”
“No—not really,” she said, shaking. Oh, Lord, why was she so rattled?
“But you called me—”
“I know. It’s just that I remembered,” she said, shaking her head as if to clear away the horrid cobwebs that kept wisping through her mind and distorting the past.
“Remembered what?”
“Kissing Dave.”
“Great,” he said, flinty anger sparking in his eyes. “Well, how do I compare?”
“Compare… No, I didn’t mean to—”
“Just what the hell did you mean?” he demanded through lips that barely moved. Brow furrowed, deep lines cleaving his forehead, he raked a gaze down her front.
