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CHAPTER NINE
Hot, cloying air burned in her lungs and covered her skin like a moist, invisible blanket. She kept running, vines clinging to her legs, her feet stumbling as leaves slapped her face. Sweat poured from her skin and the sound of footsteps, heavy, evil and moving with the quickness of a jungle cat, crashed after her.
Help me!
The sound of the sea drew her like a magnet, though she knew the ocean was no savior. But the malevolence breathing hot upon the back of neck propelled her unwilling legs steadily up the hill, chasing her. Fear drummed in her ears and she sent up prayer after prayer.
Please, God, help me!
“¡Pare!” a deep voice yelled. Oh, God, he was so close! In her peripheral vision, she saw his shadow looming big and black and moving swiftly.
She ran harder, her lungs burning, her legs straining.
“Nikki! Nikki!”
Trent’s voice, somewhere in the distance.
The shadow stretched out its arm, targeting a gun toward her back. Nikki tried to scream but her voice froze in her lungs.
The gun cracked—
“Nikki! Nikki! Wake up!”
Shrieking, Nikki sat bolt upright in bed. Shaking, her voice raw from her own screams, she collapsed against Trent and lost a battle with hot, terrified tears.
“You’re all right,” he whispered against her crown. She buried her face into the curve of his shoulder, her fingers digging into his flesh. “Nikki, shh. You’re safe now.” His arms, strong and possessive, wrapped around her, and he cradled her against his chest, slowly rocking her, kissing her crown of mussed hair, willing his strength into her trembling body.
“It was so real,” she whispered, her insides quaking. Swiping back a tear with her fingertips, she felt like a fool. Her fears had crystallized in the dream, the same damned nightmare she’d had off and on for two weeks.
“You were back on the island again,” he said, holding her.
She nodded against him, her cheek rubbing his solid flesh. Over the sound of her breathing she could hear the steady beat of his heart. Squeezing back more tears, she leaned against him, her arms surrounding his naked torso, her sighs ruffling the dark swirling hairs of his chest.
Trent held her until her breathing was regu
lar, until she no longer trembled in his arms, until the guilt eating at him was too great to bear. He stared at the clock. 5:00 a.m. The fire was reduced to a few glowing coals in a bed of cool ashes, and the rain had stopped. Through the window he saw the first few lights winking from the homes of early risers who lived across the lake.
Her arms tightened around him and he gritted his teeth against the deceit that tore at him like cat’s teeth. For two weeks he’d lied to her, and sooner or later he would have to own up to the truth. He’d planned to set the record straight the minute their plane had touched down at SeaTac, but he hadn’t, partly from fear, partly because he was so damned selfish. For the first time in five years he longed for a cigarette and a fifth of Jim Beam and wished the ache beginning to harden between his legs would go away.
Time was running out and the lie was growing bigger.
In a matter of hours, she would be able to check the records herself.
He hated weakness and he was weak where she was concerned. Had been from the beginning. That much hadn’t been part of the lies. His lust for her had been overpowering and he’d given into carnal pleasure at the expense of her trust. Hell, what a mess.
The time was right. There was no going back. Slowly he disentangled himself from her. “Maybe you should try and get a little more sleep,” he suggested, then mentally kicked himself for putting off the inevitable.
Yawning, she stretched, her hands reaching upward, the bedcovers slipping down to reveal her breasts, round, darktipped mounds that begged for his attention. The little peaks were tight from the cold and he had no trouble imagining what they would feel like in his hands or how they would taste….
“I can’t sleep,” she said, smiling a little.
His insides turned to jelly. Didn’t she know how damned sexy she was with her gold-brown hair falling in sensual, tangled waves to her shoulders, and her eyes, still dark and slumberous, focused on him?
The hardness in his crotch was becoming unbearable. He slid to the side of the bed, threw his legs over the edge of the mattress and struggled into his suddenly too-tight Levi’s. The room smelled of charred wood, perfume and fresh air, permeated with the heady aroma of sex.
“I can’t sleep, either,” he admitted, conscious of her gaze on his back. If he’d only known a few weeks ago how painful this would be, the consequences of his actions, he might have done something different. Now, of course, it was too late. Much too late. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.” He was facing the opposite direction, but he sensed her stiffen, knew that her calm had given way to wariness again.
Hell, McKenzie, how could you have been such a fool? Turning, he rested his hips and hands against the edge of the bureau. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said, measuring his words and hating the brutal effect they would have on her. “But you were right. We aren’t married.”
