The Phoenix Encounter

by Linda Castillo

  But her body remembered. Every hard plane. Every solid ridge of muscle. Every brush of hard against soft. She remembered the heady jitter of nerves at his touch. The promise of more. The anticipation of knowing she would get it.

  All the while his mouth worked black magic on hers. A combination of gentle and fierce that made her legs weak and beckoned her to make a mistake. Lily felt herself begin to unravel, like yarn ripped from a spool to tangle and shred. Her senses flickered. Common sense fluttered away. Vaguely she was aware of her arms going around his shoulders. His name on her lips. The truth bursting in her heart.

  Making a sound low in his throat, he slipped his tongue between her lips. The sudden taste of him shocked her with pleasure. She opened to him, delving into the warm silkiness of his mouth with her tongue. He murmured something in her ear, but she couldn’t make out the words over the pounding of blood in her veins. She’d forgotten what it was like to be kissed like this. To be swept away and lost in a man’s arms. In Robert’s arms. The rightness of it fractured her control.

  She arched against him, her hands skimming over his shoulders where rock hard muscles bunched and trembled with restrained power. His hands swept down her back, pausing at her hips and holding her in place while he moved against her. The flood of arousal mingled with urgency and coursed hotly through her, a lava flow barreling down a mountain to devour everything in its path.

  And not even the knowledge that she was making a mistake could stop her. She kissed him with wild abandon, poured endless months of heartbreak and loneliness into it. She let herself feel all the things she had refused to feel, refused to remember, all the things she had denied for what seemed like eternity.

  She shuddered when his hands brushed over her breasts. She’d forgotten how powerful desire could be. How he could make her breasts ache for his touch. She arced, giving him full access. His hands possessed her, molding her flesh. She cried out when he brushed his fingertips over her sensitized nipples, but he swallowed the sound with another kiss. She writhed in his arms, wild for his touch, frantic to ease the fire burning within her.

  He made love to her mouth, drugging her and making her forget about all the reasons they shouldn’t be doing this. He kissed her neck, her collarbone, the point of her shoulder. She smothered a cry when he raised her sweater and took her nipple into his mouth. She felt herself go wet between her legs. Her vision blurred when he began to suckle. She cupped the back of his head, guiding him, wanting him closer, wanting him inside her. She could feel the pounding of blood in her womb, tiny waves moving through her. Reaching down, she ran her fingers along the length of his arousal. A steel rod trapped within his jeans. Her hand went to his zipper, but he grasped her wrist and stopped her.

  For an instant confusion swirled, then she felt him working the snap of her jeans. Lowering the zipper. She burned and ached and felt if he didn’t touch her soon she would die with wanting. The world tilted beneath her feel when his hands met the crisp curls at her V. Whispering his name, Lily opened to him. Shifting closer, he separated her folds and dipped two fingers inside her.

  The intimacy of the contact shattered her. White light exploded behind her lids, as violent and shocking as the lightning and thunder outside. She cried out his name when he began to stroke her. Deeply, knowing exactly where to touch, how much pressure to use, when to tease, when to satisfy. A minute part of her brain knew she should stop this before things got out of control. But the rest of her knew things had already passed that point, and she could do nothing but hang on for the ride.

  The waves built inside her, a relentless tide spilling onto a jagged shore. She rode the peaks, letting their power tumble her end over end until she didn’t know up from down. All the while he stroked her, deeply and firmly, driving her to a fever pitch, up and over the edge into a freefall.

  She didn’t want the moment to end. The preciousness of it clenched her heart. She closed her eyes against the flood of emotion. Physical and emotional sensation melded into a single profound ache and shimmered inside her, like a diamond melting beneath a thousand suns. Tears burned behind her lids, yet her body sang with a joy that couldn’t be contained. She heard his name on her lips. A name she’d whispered a thousand times in the last months as she’d cried in the dark and denied what she knew to be true.

  He captured her mouth, and she drank in the essence of him like a woman dying of thirst. She heard a sound, and only then did she realized a sob had escaped her.

  Robert pulled back, his expression concerned. “I…didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Embarrassed that her emotions had spiraled out of control, Lily started to turn away, but he stopped her by touching her face gently.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Shifting slightly, he brushed the damp hair from her face, then caught a tear with the pad of his thumb. “Lily.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, feeling awkward and silly and completely overwhelmed by what had just happened. “I’m just…that was…too much for me to handle.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

  “I didn’t give you much choice.”

  “I didn’t exactly say no.”

  Robert looked away. Lily’s cheeks burned with the memory of everything they’d done and the wanton way she’d reacted to his kiss. She wasn’t a prude, but she didn’t give up control easily. Robert was the only person she’d ever met who could do that to her. He’d always possessed the unique ability to destroy her inhibitions and make her lose control. Not only physically, but emotionally. She supposed that’s why things had always been so intense between them. There was no middle ground when it came to her and Robert. It was all or nothing. Win or lose. Heaven or hell.

  And now he knew her secret.

  The thought sent a spear of panic skidding up her spine. Oh, what had she been thinking letting things get out of hand like that? She hadn’t been thinking at all. That was the problem. That had always been the problem with Robert. One touch, and her intellect crumpled and turned to dust.

  Lily didn’t know what to do. He’d just proven to her that she was vulnerable to him. Far more vulnerable than she’d ever imagined. If she wasn’t careful, he would lure her into making another mistake. A mistake that could end up costing both of them far more than their hearts.

  Robert stared hard at her, keenly aware that he was still fully aroused and dangerously furious. He could still feel the wetness from her on his fingers, the hot pulse of blood in his groin. He didn’t understand how she could have done this to him. How she could have done this to them. To that innocent child sleeping down the hall.

  He was a father.

  The thought staggered him. He told himself he should have seen it coming. The timing had been right. Jack was small for his age, but he was sick, and Robert should have known. Instead, he’d taken her at her word and assumed Jacques was Jack’s father. Why hadn’t he suspected? Robert had never been one to run away from the truth or his responsibilities. But maybe this particular truth wasn’t something he was ready to face.

  He had a one-year-old son. A little boy with a sweet smile and vivid blue eyes and a serious blood disease. “Hell,” he muttered.

  Because he couldn’t bear to stand so close to her and want her and at the same time be so furious he wanted to shake her, Robert stepped back. For the first time in his life he didn’t trust himself to do the right thing. “I want answers, and I want them now,” he ground out.

  “Not here.” Leaning against the wall, she worked frantically to fasten her jeans. “I’ve got to get this glass picked up.”

  He took another step back, cursing the burn of lust in his groin. He might be angry with her, but it didn’t seem to be affecting his attraction to her. A dangerous combination for a man who’d just broken his number-one rule and lost control.

  Turning away from her, he stalked to the living room. The fire had burned down to embers so he added a couple of logs. Beca
use he wasn’t yet ready to sit down, he went to the kitchen, put water in the kettle and set it over a burner. He wanted coffee, but she didn’t appear to have any so he figured he’d have to settle for tea. Damn it, he was starting to hate tea.

  He’d just poured two steaming cups when Lily walked into the kitchen. Robert glanced at her, felt his gut tighten at the sight of her, then quickly looked at his tea. “How is he?” he asked.

  “Sleeping.” She picked up her cup. “He drank some of the milk.”

  “Good. That will help him keep his strength up.” He carried his cup to the living room. Because he was too restless to sit, he set it on the small table between the two chairs and walked over to stare into the fire. He was aware of her moving behind him, setting down her tea and taking one of the chairs. He could still smell the sweet scent of her. Still see the way she’d looked at him when he’d kissed her and stroked her to climax…

  Robert crushed the image with a single blow. He couldn’t think of that now. Instead, he turned to her, felt the beauty of her impact him, and he prayed she didn’t notice. He didn’t want her to know she had that kind of power. He didn’t trust her not to use it against him.

  “He has juvenile hereditary hemoedema,” he said.

  Lily reacted as if he’d slapped her. The blood drained from her face. She pressed a hand to her stomach. The urge to go to her, to comfort her was strong, but Robert didn’t dare. Not at a time like this. Not when he knew touching her wouldn’t stop with simple comforting.

  “Is it serious?” she asked.

  “I’ve had it since I was fourteen.”

  “Is that why he’s been sick? Why his fingers are blue?”

  He nodded.

  “What do we do? I mean, can it be treated? Can we help him?”

  He took a step closer. “The disease is incurable, but it’s not life-threatening if he gets the proper care.”

  “Incurable.” She looked ill. “Oh, God.”

  “He’s going to be all right.”

  “How can you know—”

  “I’m a doctor, Lily. I’ve got the same disease.” He didn’t think this was the time to tell her it was the same disease that had killed his father and brother. That losing those two people to hemoedema was the main reason he’d become a doctor.

  “How do we treat it?” she asked.

  “Eventually, he’ll need a bone marrow transplant.”

  For an instant tears shimmered in her eyes, but she blinked them back. “Then I want to have him treated right away.”

  “Not in Rebelia. Paris, maybe. Or London—” Or the clinic in D.C.

  “But he’s sick now. I can’t bear to see him so ill. Surely there’s something we can do now, isn’t there?”

  “A transfusion will help.”

  “But my blood type isn’t—”

  “Mine is.”

  Lowering her head, she put her face in her hands and let out a long, shuddery breath. For a moment the only other sounds were the rain pinging against the roof and the crackle of the fire. When she’d gained control of her emotions she raised her head and looked at him. “Thank you.”

  Because he couldn’t accept her gratitude for something he would have taken his last breath to do, he didn’t answer. Instead, he stood with his back to the fire, watching her, trying not to think about how simple things had once been between them and how complex they were now.

  “Tell me what I have to do,” she said.

  “I’ll set something up with Dr. Orloff in Rajalla.”

  “All right.”

  “I want some answers, Lily,” he said. “Damn it, I want them now.”

  She curled more deeply into the chair. Robert knew it was a protective gesture. He hated that she felt she needed to protect herself from him. But he wanted the truth. All of it.

  “You were pregnant with Jack when I left Rebelia,” he prompted.

  “I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but yes, I was pregnant.”

  “Why didn’t you contact me?”

  “There are a lot of reasons.” She looked down at her tea. “All of them are…complicated.”

  “I’m real good at complicated, Lily. What I’m not good at is being lied to.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  Tension shot through him at the apology. He knew she was expecting him to say it was okay, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t okay. Not by a long shot. So he didn’t say anything at all.

  Her eyes were ravaged when they met his. “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t realize you thought I’d been killed.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was knocked unconscious and received a serious concussion when the building was destroyed. I had a broken clavicle. My shoulder and part of my arm were burned.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “I didn’t.” She looked away. “The soldiers found me the next morning.”

  He felt the words like a whiplash across his belly. He imagined her lying among rubble, alone and badly injured, only to be discovered by hostile soldiers. “DeBruzkya’s men?”

  She nodded. “I was conscious by then, but I was trapped beneath the rubble. I was weak and dehydrated.” A breath shuddered out of her. “At first the soldiers were cruel. They wouldn’t help me. They just stood there, smoking cigarettes and laughing. Taunting me.” She closed her eyes as if remembering, and the pain on her face was so vivid he had to look away.

  “I didn’t know if they were going to kill me or help me,” she said. “I was lapsing in and out of lucidity. Then two young soldiers came with a stretcher and pulled me from the rubble.”

  “Did they help you?” He didn’t want to think of how vulnerable or frightened she must have felt, being at the mercy of DeBruzkya’s soldiers. The dictator wasn’t known for merciful treatment of prisoners.

  She risked a look at Robert, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. “They were decent for the most part. One of the older soldiers…touched me inappropriately. I couldn’t think of how to stop them, so I told them I knew DeBruzkya. The man in command stopped the others before things went too far.”

  “My God, Lily.”

  “They eventually took me to the hospital in Rajalla. A few days later, DeBruzkya showed up.”

  Robert couldn’t stop looking at her, couldn’t imagine this fragile woman injured at and the hands of enemy soldiers or a brutal man like DeBruzkya. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I wasn’t sure at first. I was very frightened. I mean, he’s been known to murder rebels on the spot. But to my surprise, he was very…human. He wished me well and told the doctors to make sure I was well taken care of. He sat with me several times, and we just…talked.”

  “About what?”

  “I had interviewed him about a year and a half ago for a series of articles I was working on, so we had been introduced before.”

  “And you knew how to play him.”

  She nodded. “That was when I told him I wanted to write his autobiography.”

  The hairs at the back of Robert’s neck prickled. “What did he say?”

  “He loved the idea immediately.”

  “Lily…”

  “We met several times in the coming weeks—”

  “You really are crazy.”

  “I always insisted we meet in public places. The café in Rajalla. The royal palace. He bought me dinner once.”

  Because his heart was thrumming, Robert rose and paced to the hearth. The fire didn’t need another log, but he put one on anyway. He needed to move. Damn it, he couldn’t handle the thought of her manipulating such a dangerous, brutal man.

  “One of the first things I realized about him is that he likes to talk. About himself. I’ve known things about him for months.”

  “Like what?”

  “He told me about the Gem of Power. I got the impression he wanted me to believe he actually believed in the legend. Of course, I didn’t, but I let him think so.”

  “What else?”

  “In a nutshe
ll, he wants to rule all of Europe. And he feels very misunderstood.”

  “That tends to happen to psychopaths.”

  “He’s fanatical to be sure.” She paused as if searching for the correct words. “But he’s also very…charismatic. Not often, but when he wants something, he can be very persuasive.”

  Robert cut her a sharp look. “What did he want from you?”

  “The autobiography.”

  He stared hard at her, knowing that wasn’t all, feeling it all the way to his bones. His hackles rose at the thought of her getting herself into such a dangerous situation all alone. “What else, Lily?”

  Her eyes widened for an instant, then skittered away. She shrugged. “That’s it.”

  Robert sensed there was more going on between her and Bruno DeBruzkya than she was telling him, but evidently she wasn’t ready to talk about it. He wasn’t sure he was ready to hear it. And he wondered how far she had been willing to go to get what she wanted.

  “I contacted the American government several times looking for you, but I kept getting lost in the shuffle. But now you’re suddenly here….”

  “I’m here on a humanitarian mission,” he said. “You know that.”

  She didn’t say anything, and a little swirl of uneasiness went through him at the thought of her knowing more than she should. “You put yourself in terrible danger.” Not only herself, he thought, but her child. His child.

  “I knew I was in over my head, but the opportunity was too good to let pass.”

  “You were pregnant…”

  She nodded.

  “Then you put our child in danger, too.” Our child. The words shocked him. Shocked him so badly he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to them. “You had no right to do that.”

  “If I hadn’t asked for DeBruzkya that day, the soldiers would have raped me. They probably would have killed me to cover their crime.”

  Robert felt the words like a dull knife twisting in his gut. He turned away and closed his eyes, not wanting to imagine such an atrocity. She’d been badly injured and pregnant. But he knew DeBruzkya’s soldiers wouldn’t have cared. If she hadn’t dropped DeBruzkya’s name, they would have been on her like a pack of dogs on a piece of meat. The thought made bile rise in the back of his throat.