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“They haven’t seen me,” he said. “Or I wouldn’t still be alive. What excuse did you give him?”
“I accepted.”
Rachel had known he wouldn’t be pleased, but she hadn’t expected the reaction she got. His head snapped around, and his eyes burned with black fire, his usual cool remoteness shattered. “Hell, no, you’re not. Get that idea out of your head, lady.”
“It’s too late. It might really make him suspicious if I made some weak excuse now.”
He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, and in petrified fascination Rachel watched them ball into fists. “He’s a murderer and a traitor. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I recognized him before they blew up my boat, tying together some details about things that went wrong when they shouldn’t have, and Tod Ellis is connected in some little way to every one of those plans. You’re not going out with him.”
Rachel didn’t back down. “Yes,” she said. “I am. If nothing else, I may be able to pick up some information that will help you—”
She broke off with a gasp; he had jerked his hands out of his pockets and reached for her so rapidly that she hadn’t had time to move back. His hard fingers closed on her shoulders in a grip that bruised, and he shook her slightly, his face hard and set with rage.
“Damn you,” he whispered, the words barely audible as he pushed them between his clenched teeth. “When will you learn that this isn’t something for amateurs to play with? You’re in way over your head, and you don’t have the sense to realize it! You aren’t still in college playing a game of Assassination, sugar. Get that through your skull! Damn it,” he swore again, releasing her shoulders and running his hand through his hair. “You’ve been lucky so far that you haven’t blundered around and really screwed things up, but how long do you expect that luck to last? You’re dealing with a cold-blooded professional!”
Rachel stepped back from him, putting her hand up to rub her aching shoulder. Something inside her had gone very still at his attack; that stillness was reflected on her face. “Which one?” she finally asked quietly. “Tod Ellis…or you?”
She turned and walked away from him, going into the bathroom and closing the door; it was the one place in the house where he wouldn’t follow. She sat down on the rim of the tub, shaking; she had wondered occasionally what it would be like if he slipped the tight rein of his control, but she hadn’t wanted to find out like that. She had wanted him to lose control when he kissed her, touched her. Wanted him to shake with need and desire and bury his face against her. She hadn’t wanted him to lose control in anger, hadn’t wanted to hear what he really thought of her efforts to help. She had been terrified all along of doing something wrong that might jeopardize him; she had agonized over every decision, and he had dismissed her from the start as a bumbling amateur. She knew she didn’t have his knowledge or expertise, but she had done the best she could.
It was doubly painful after the way he had kissed her and touched her, but now she remembered that even then he had retained his steely control. It had been she who trembled and yearned, not him. He hadn’t even lied to her; he’d told her plainly that it was nothing more to him than casual sex.
Taking a deep breath, Rachel gathered herself together. Since she was in the bathroom she might as well shower now; that would give her straight, heavy hair time to dry naturally and she wouldn’t have to do anything to it except give it lift and curve with the curling iron. She might be going out with Tod Ellis with all the enthusiasm of attending an execution, but she wouldn’t let him think that she looked on it as anything other than a real date, and that meant taking pains with her appearance.
She stripped off and got in the shower, briskly shampooing her hair and bathing, not allowing herself the luxury of brooding. Self-pity wouldn’t accomplish anything except wasting time, time that would be better spent considering how to conduct herself that night, how to be friendly without being encouraging. The last thing she wanted was for Ellis to ask her out again! If he did, she’d have to make up some excuse. She’d told Agent Lowell she was making a trip to the Keys; it had been pure fabrication, but perhaps she could use the lie as an excuse for packing, planning and so on.
She turned off the water and dragged a towel off the top of the shower door, then wrapped it around her head. Just as she started to slide the door open and step out of the tub she caught sight of Kell’s blurred image through the frosted door, and she jerked her hand back from the door as if it had burned her.
“Get out of here,” she breathed sharply, snatching the towel off her head and wrapping it around her body, instead. The frosted surface of the doors gave her some protection, but if she could see him, he could see just as much of her. Knowing that he had watched her bathe made her feel terribly vulnerable. How long had he been there?
She saw his hand reaching out, and she moved back against the shower wall as he slid the door open on its track. “You didn’t answer when I called you,” he said curtly. “I wanted to make certain you were okay.”
Rachel lifted her chin. “That’s not much of an excuse. As soon as you saw I was taking a shower, you should have left.”
His eyes raked over her, from her wet, tangled hair to her glistening shoulders and down to her slim, bare legs, which had rivulets of water running down them. The towel covered her from breast to thigh, but it would take only a tug to bare her completely, and his black, searching eyes had a way of making her feel even more exposed than she was.
“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, finally lifting his gaze to her face. “I didn’t intend to imply that you haven’t been a help.”
“You didn’t imply any such thing,” Rachel returned, her voice sharp. “You came right out and said it.” She felt both insulted and hurt, and she wasn’t in the mood to forgive him. After what he had said, he had a lot of nerve to stand there eyeing her the way he was doing!
Suddenly he moved, hooking his right arm around her waist and lifting her out of the tub. Rachel gasped, clutching at him for balance. “Watch out! Your shoulder—”
He stood her on the fuzzy bath mat, his face hard and unreadable as he looked down at her, his right arm still locked around her waist. “I don’t want you going out with him,” he finally rasped. “Damn it, Rachel, I don’t want you taking any risks on my account!”
The towel was slipping, and Rachel grabbed for the ends to anchor it more securely. “Why can’t you give me any credit for being an adult, able to accept responsibility for my own actions?” she cried. “You told me Tod Ellis is a traitor, and I believe you. Don’t you think I have a moral responsibility to do what I can to stop him and to help you? I think the situation is critical enough to warrant the risk! It’s my decision, not yours.”
“You never should have been involved.”
“Why not? You said yourself that you’ll have to have help. You’ve sent other people into dangerous situations, haven’t you?”
“They were trained agents,” he snapped, goaded. “And, damn it to hell, I never lay awake at night burning to make love to any of them.”
She fell silent, her eyes wide as they searched his. His expression gave away nothing but anger and a faintly startled look, as if he hadn’t meant to say that. The arm around her waist had her arched against him, though she had wedged her arm between their bodies in an effort to hold the towel. Only her toes touched the mat. Her thighs were inside his slightly spread legs, his growing hardness nestled against the soft mound at the top of her thighs.
They said nothing, both of them very aware of what was happening. Their chests expanded and fell rapidly as their breathing quickened, and Rachel’s knees grew weak as she felt him grow stronger and bolder.
“I’d kill him before I let him touch you,” he muttered, the words wrenched from him.
She shuddered at the thought. “I wouldn’t let him. Never.” Staring up at him, she shuddered again, as if she’d been struck between the eyes. Tod Ellis had made her realize anew how much danger stalked Kell’s heels. She wasn’t guaranteed three weeks with him; she wasn’t guaranteed tomorrow, or even tonight. For men such as Kell Sabin there was no tomorrow, only the present; it was the brutal truth that he could be killed, that tragedy and terror could strike without warning. She had already learned that lesson once; how could she have been so stupid as to forget? She had wanted things to be perfect, wanted him to feel as she felt, but life was never perfect. It had to be taken as it was, or it passed by without a second glance. All she had with Kell was right now, the eternal present, because the past is always gone and the future never comes.
