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Quickly she seized the opportunity. “Look, you stand still while I walk into the yard. He’s behind you, so don’t move any closer to him. When I’m out of the way, get in the car on this side and he probably won’t bother you.”
“That dog’s vicious. You should have him chained,” Ellis snapped, but he didn’t argue with her instructions. He stood absolutely still while Rachel walked up into the yard, then sidled toward the open door on the passenger side of the car.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, hoping he couldn’t hear the insincerity in her voice. “I didn’t think. Still, he’s good protection. He’s never yet let a stranger walk into the yard.”
Joe moved then, the movement betraying his position. Snarling steadily, he planted himself between Rachel and Ellis.
She wanted to laugh. There was no chance of even a good-night kiss now, and from the look on Ellis’s face he wanted nothing more than to be inside the car, with solid steel between him and the dog. Hastily he slid inside and slammed the door, then rolled the window down partway.
“I’ll call you, okay?”
She made herself hesitate, rather than shouting out the “No!” she wanted to voice. “I’ll be busy getting ready for my vacation. I have some work I have to finish before I leave. I really won’t have much free time.”
Now that he was safe from the dog his cockiness was returning. “You have to eat, don’t you? I’ll call you for lunch or something.”
She planned on being busy, but she could handle him over the telephone. She didn’t want him showing up here unannounced, but that wasn’t likely as long as Joe was in residence.
She stood in the yard, watching the taillights as he drove off, then said, “Good boy,” to Joe with obvious approval
in her voice. Turning toward the house, she wondered why Kell didn’t turn on a light for her now that Ellis was out of sight. She started to walk up to the porch but hadn’t taken a full step, when a hard arm passed around her waist and jerked her backward.
“Have fun?” a low, angry voice whispered in her ear.
“Kell.” She relaxed against him, pleasure flooding warmly through her at even this touch, despite his anger.
“Did he touch you? Kiss you?”
She had expected questioning, but not primarily about that. Kell’s voice was rough, almost savage.
“You know he didn’t,” she replied steadily. “After all, you were out here watching.”
“What about before?”
“No. Not at all. I couldn’t stand the thought.”
A great shudder passed through his body, an extraordinary response in a man as controlled as he normally was, but when he spoke his voice was level again. “Let’s go inside.”
He locked up while she went into the bedroom to put away her purse and slip out of her shoes; then he joined her in the bedroom. His black eyes were expressionless as he watched her slip the earrings out of her pierced lobes and put the jewelry away in a velvet-lined box. He’d been right; she slipped into stylish sophistication as easily as she puttered barefoot in the garden, and she was gut-wrenchingly sexy in either case.
His silent, unwavering stare was making her uneasy. “I did get some information,” she finally offered, taking a nightgown from the dresser and darting a quick look at him. He looked…furious, somehow, though his face was rock hard and his eyes expressionless. His arms were folded across his bare chest; he wore only his jeans and running shoes, and he looked formidable.
He didn’t ask, but she condensed it for him, anyway. “There are nine of them actively searching for you, but Ellis let it slip that they have a backup of about twenty more if needed. They’re scattered, looking up and down the coast. Ellis and Lowell are staying at Harran’s Motel. He thinks you’re dead and that they’re wasting his time, but the head man on the operation won’t give up.”
That would be the mysterious “Charles.” Sabin had known who had to be behind things from the moment he had recognized the red-haired woman, Noelle, on the boat. He had known it would be only a matter of time until they locked horns again. Charles was the head of an international terrorist organization that had been growing bolder and more challenging, while at the same time Charles himself had kept at a safe distance, protected by a web of technicalities and politics. Now he had come out into the open, to get Sabin. But he’d made one big mistake: his first attempt hadn’t succeeded, and now Sabin knew that his own organization had been infiltrated. Charles couldn’t afford to stop the search until Sabin was found, dead or alive.
When Kell didn’t ask any questions Rachel shrugged and went into the bathroom to take off her makeup and change into her nightgown. His silence was unnerving; he probably used it as a weapon, to shake people off-balance and put them on the defensive. Well, she wasn’t one of his minions; she was a woman who loved him.
Five minutes later she left the bathroom, her clothing draped over her arm. Sabin was sitting on the side of the bed, taking off his shoes. He kept his eyes on her while she hung her things in the closet, not looking away even when he stood to unzip his jeans.
“The nightgown is a waste of time,” he drawled. “You might as well pull it off and put it back in that drawer.”
Startled, Rachel looked around at him. He was standing by the bed, his hands on the fly of his jeans, and he was watching her with the concentrated attention with which a cat watches a mouse. The air around her suddenly sizzled with tension, and her throat went dry, forcing her to swallow. Slowly he slid down the zipper on his jeans, the denim spreading open in a vee to reveal bronzed skin and the vertical line of downy hair that arrowed down his lower abdomen into the thicker growth of hair just visible in his opened pants. The thick bulge beneath the denim clearly demonstrated his intention.
Her body leaped into immediate response, her heart beating faster and her breath racing in and out of her lungs. It had been like that from the beginning, and she had no more control over it now than she’d had then. He wanted her; that was more than obvious. But he didn’t want to want her, and the knowledge hurt.
She swallowed again, pushing the closet door shut and leaning against it. “It’s silly,” she said, trying for a wry tone but failing miserably. Her voice was taut and shaking. “After this afternoon you’d think I’d be more comfortable about going to bed with you, but I’m not. I don’t know what…what we have, if anything. I thought it would be clearer, but it isn’t. What do you want from me?” She made a brief, dismissive gesture. “Other than sex.”
Silently Kell swore. He was so good at holding people away from him that now, when he desperately wanted Rachel as close as he could get her for what time they had left, she still thought he was pushing her away. They had so little time together that the thought of not grabbing for every moment with her was unbearable, and he didn’t know how to make her see that. Perhaps it was better if she didn’t see it; perhaps it would be easier for her if she never knew how tempted he was to forget all his rules and priorities. But he had to have her, had to stockpile memories against the empty days in the future when she wouldn’t be there. Even now she wasn’t playing games, wasn’t trying to hide behind lies to protect her pride. She was so honest that she deserved at least a fraction of the same honesty from him, no matter how it hurt. But the pain wasn’t only hers.
