Anne Stuart's Out-of-Print Gems

by Anne Stuart

  “Try it again.”

  “Trust me, Daniel, I don’t have your ability to turn inanimate objects into cinders,” she snapped. “You’re the superman around here.”

  “I wish I could be sure.”

  “Of what?”

  “Any number of things. That I was the only one affected. That it was only inanimate things.”

  She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Who’s to say I can’t incinerate another human being?”

  He’d hoped saying it out loud would take some of the horror out of the notion. It only made it worse. He pushed away from the railing.

  “I’ll be in the lab, working on the slime. Maybe I can break it down enough to find some answers.”

  “An antidote?”

  “If need be. Right now I think we’re going to need all the advantages we can muster. I don’t think the people at Beebe are going to forget about us.”

  “What makes you think they know I came with you?”

  “They know,” he said. And he walked away from her. While he could still make himself do it.

  SHE DIDN’T MEAN to fall asleep. She was just going to lie down for a while on the surprisingly comfortable mattress upstairs, just close her eyes and feel the cool air across her skin. When she awoke, it was pitch-dark, and she could only hope it was after eight and she’d missed Daniel’s disappearance. She fumbled around for her glasses, then turned on the light beside the bed.

  Her scream echoed through the eccentric little house. She heard Daniel, the pounding of his footsteps up the narrow flight of stairs, and while she’d managed to quiet her screams, she couldn’t catch her breath. She felt her hands and face grow numb as she gasped for air, and the darkness was all around her, and she was going to die, she knew it, the green slime had simply taken longer to get to her, but it was going to kill her—

  Hard hands caught her arms, shaking her. “Stop it,” he said. “You’re hyperventilating. Snap out of it!”

  She bit back her choked protest. Some distant part of her brain told her that he’d be perfectly capable of slapping her if he thought she needed it. She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to force her panic down.

  “Good girl,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms, against the fiery heat of his chest. He was wearing a T-shirt—she could feel the soft cotton beneath her clutching fingers, and beneath that the solid bone and muscle. It calmed her, as nothing else would.

  “Don’t call me girl,” she muttered, burying her face against his shoulder.

  She could feel his smile. “Yes, ma’am. What happened? You’re not the type of woman who has hysterics.”

  She pulled away reluctantly, staring up at him through her glasses. “I’m blind,” she said simply.

  For a moment he didn’t move. “What do you mean by that? It’s after eight—even I can see my reflection in the mirror.”

  “I told you, I’m blind. I turned on the light and everything’s a complete blur.”

  “Blurred is better than blind,” he said flatly. “Can you see some things better than others? When I’m invisible my body looks blurred to me, but everything else is in focus.”

  “I’m not invisible,” she snapped.

  “I know.” He sounded just as rattled, which surprised her. “Just answer the question. Is everything fuzzy?”

  “Yes.”

  She could see his outline as he sat on the mattress, watching her. “Describe it. In detail.”

  “It’s the slime, I know it. I’ve been feeling hot all afternoon. Not a sweaty kind of heat, just a dry, tingling kind of warmth.” She shivered. “When I lay down a few hours ago I could see perfectly. Now it feels as if my glasses are coated with Vaseline.”

  For a moment he didn’t move. “Interesting,” he murmured. And reaching out, he plucked her glasses off her face.

  Everything focused, with a swiftness that was completely disorienting. She stared at him in the half-light, shocked. “This is impossible,” she said in a hushed voice.

  “Is it?”

  “I’ve worn glasses since I was in the third grade. I can’t see a thing without them.”

  “You can now.”

  She took her glasses from him and held them up. “Oh, my God,” she said quietly.

  “Welcome to the world of miracles,” he drawled. He reached out and put his hand along the side of her neck in what felt alarmingly like a caress. She tried to jerk away, then stilled.

  “That’s better. I’m only trying to check your pulse,” he said.

  “Most people use the wrist.”

  “The carotid artery is a better indicator. Your pulse is racing.”

  “I’ve had a shock,” she said, stubbornly ignoring the fact that his hand, straying inside the neck of her T-shirt, was doubtless responsible for at least part of her condition.

  “Your skin is warm. Not as warm as mine, but warmer than it was,” he observed in a detached voice. “Let me listen to your heart.” He moved to press his head against her breasts, but this time she’d had enough. She jumped off the bed and skittered away from him.

  “My heart’s just fine, thank you,” she said.

  “I wonder why it took so long for it to affect you,” Daniel murmured, suddenly analytical. “It’s been more than forty-eight hours since the lab explosion, and I started being affected almost immediately.”

  “Probably because I didn’t take a bath in the stuff,” she said crossly. “You got the full brunt of it. I only had a little on my hands.”

  He looked at her, an arrested expression on his face. “I keep forgetting you have a mind.”

  “Do you really?” she said acidly. “I guess it’s my blond bimbo looks.”

  “No,” he said frankly. “But you are distracting.”

  She wasn’t sure how she wanted to respond to that, so she avoided it, getting back to more important matters. “Did you learn anything about the slime?”

  “Not yet. You can’t rush these things.”

  “I thought we didn’t have much time.”

  She was trying to rile him. She failed. “You have a point. I’m going back to work.” He rose, and she got a good look at the T-shirt he was wearing. “Eat right, exercise, die anyway,” it said. Hardly reassuring.

  “What about dinner?”

  “I’ll make myself a vitamin drink.”

  “No, you won’t. I’ll make us something.”

  A wry smile curved his mouth. “You’re feeling domestic, Molloy? I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”

  “I’m feeling hungry,” she corrected him. “And you need solid food, not vitamin drink. I want you to be in top physical condition.”

  His smile widened. “Any particular reason?”

  “I’d like us to survive.”

  He touched her again. A brief, tender caress on the side of her face, a whisper of a stroke before he dropped his hand again. “We will, Molloy. I promise you.”

  She made him pasta, with every kind of vegetable she could find thrown into the sauce. He barely noticed her when she brought a tray into the lab, which was no longer the spotless operating room it had once seemed. Paraphernalia was strewn over the counters, and she shoved a pile of papers out of the way and dumped the tray down.

  “Eat,” she said.

  “Eventually.” He didn’t move from the microscope.

  “Eat,” she repeated firmly. “I’m going to stay here and bug you until you do.”

  He lifted his head, focusing on her as if he’d forgotten her very existence until now. He probably had, she thought wryly.

  He glanced at the overfilled plate and sniffed warily. “What’s in it?”

  “Broccoli, egg, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, pea pods and cheese.”

  “No beef?”

  “There is no beef. Not unless I go out and rustle a cow myself,” she said grumpily.

  “Good.” He hunched one hip onto a stool and took a forkful. He ate half the plate, slowly, methodically, and then looked up at
her with dawning surprise. “It’s good,” he said.

  “Of course it’s good. I know how to cook. You just don’t know how to eat,” she grumbled.

  He didn’t take offense. “Good point,” he said, rededicating himself to his dinner. He finished it, ate the garlic bread and then looked up hopefully. “Dessert?”

  “I thought you didn’t care about food.”

  “You’re having an insidious effect on me.” He rose, moving toward her, and it was all she could do not to back away from him. She’d been feeling warmer, but his heat still far outstripped hers. “Dessert?”

  “I’ll bring it in,” she said in a resigned voice. “What about coffee? Or are you going to insist on some god-awful herb tea?”

  “Coffee,” he muttered, considering it. “With caffeine. Lots of it.” He turned and went back to the microscope, dismissing her presence.

  She was half tempted to take the tray and slam it over his head. Who did he think she was—his maid?

  Then again, she didn’t necessarily want his presence. As long as he was immured in his lab she could ignore him. Or, at least, make a damned good stab at it.

  He didn’t look up when she brought the coffee and brownies in, and she left. He probably wouldn’t notice cold coffee, she thought, stuffing her fourth brownie into her mouth. She stepped out onto the balcony, letting the cool air rush over her. The moon was bright overhead, almost full, and she could see a ring of frost around it. It was a cold night. And she could barely feel a chill.

  She thought about the man behind the closed door, his erratic powers and the uncanny effect he had on her. She was in trouble—in very deep trouble—since the moment she’d first snuck into Beebe headquarters in search of the elusive Dr. Crompton.

  The sooner this whole mess was resolved, the better for her heart and mind.

  Because she was realizing, despite her best efforts, she’d done more than fall in love with the man’s house. She’d begun falling in love with the man himself, and there was no future for a girl reporter and America’s secret weapon. Particularly when he turned into a down-side version of a superhero.

  Chapter Eleven

  Daniel rubbed a weary hand across his eyes. He was getting nowhere. Each time he thought he was on the verge of isolating the components of the slime, the solution escaped him. He’d been working for hours, stopping only long enough to wander into the darkened kitchen and get himself more brownies and coffee. He’d eaten half a pan of the brownies—he’d never realized he had a sweet tooth. He hadn’t paid much attention to the coffee, but at least it had kept him going.

  Until now. He glanced at his watch. It was quarter past five in the morning. He had forty-five minutes before he vanished again. He had a hard time working when he was invisible. The blurred outline of his hands distracted him as he worked at the microscope, and he’d jabbed himself in the eye more than once when he’d miscalculated.

  Suzanna had disappeared hours ago, and he could only assume she was in the loft, asleep. Lying there, probably wearing nothing more than a T-shirt, her warm body soft and relaxed in sleep. He wondered what would happen if he kissed her. Closing the lab door silently behind him, he started upstairs to find out.

  He stopped halfway up the narrow flight and turned, instinct calling to him. The door was open to the narrow balcony, and he could see her out there, bathed in moonlight, hands clutching the railing. And he realized with shock that there was a light snow falling.

  He was wrong about the T-shirt. She was wearing a short, silky kind of nightgown, the kind he’d seen in a Victoria’s Secret catalog he’d once perused, for scientific purposes, of course. It clung to her curves in a caress, and he wanted to follow those lush curves with his hand.

  He came out on the balcony behind her. “It’s snowing.”

  She didn’t turn. She must have known he was there. Snow was drifting down onto her bare shoulders, lingering for a moment, then melting. “I had a dream about the man we found in the stairwell.”

  “Jackson,” Daniel supplied. He moved closer, trying to warm her with his heat. She was cold, he could see it in the faint blue color to her soft lips, he could see it in the hardness of her nipples against the silk. He wanted her nipples hard. But he wanted to be the one who made them that way, with his mouth.

  “It was an awful way to die.”

  “I’m not sure if there are any good ways.”

  She turned and looked at him, sorrow in her healed eyes. “Who do you think killed him? And why? Was it the same person who tried to blow up your lab?”

  “I think Jackson was responsible for that. And I don’t know why he was killed. Maybe he knew too much. Maybe he was trying to double-cross them. Maybe he’d just outlived his usefulness.”

  “It sounds like a James Bond novel.”

  He shrugged, moving closer. She was shivering; he was hot. She’d made a joke about a cold shower sizzling on his skin. He was surprised the snow didn’t disappear in a cloud of vapor when it landed on his arms. “It’s not a novel,” he said. “Unfortunately it’s real.”

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s real.” Suddenly she rubbed her arms. “I’m cold,” she added, surprised.

  “Let me warm you.” He pulled her into his arms, and after a momentary resistance she let him. The tremors that racked her body increased, and he scooped her up effortlessly, carrying her back into the living room and sliding the door shut behind him.

  “Damn,” he muttered beneath his breath. “I didn’t get the heat going.”

  “That’s all right,” she murmured sleepily. “You’re very warm.”

  He glanced down at her. He was more than warm, he was hot—for her. “All right,” he said, moving to the huge old sofa, sinking down and bringing her with him. She was still shaking from the cold, and perhaps something else as well, and if he were a decent, honorable man he’d set her down and find her a quilt, wrap her up and leave her be.

  He didn’t feel the slightest bit decent, or honorable. He sat back, cradled her against him and caught her chin in his hand.

  She stared at him out of those newly focused eyes, wary, waiting. But she didn’t move when he put his mouth against hers, slowly, deliberately, his lips on hers. Her mouth was cold, and he warmed it. Her lips were dry, and he moistened them. He pressed his thumb against her jaw gently, and her mouth opened beneath his, so that he could taste her, and he heard a quiet little sigh, a moan of pleasure that could have come from her, or from him.

  Her body warmed, softened, flowed against his. She lay curled in his lap, her hands clutching his shoulders, as he kissed her, kissed her until he was ready to go up in smoke, breathless, mindless, crazy with the heat and the need. She was soft and sleepy against him, and her tongue met his, shyly, with a touch of eagerness that just about destroyed him. He broke away, trailing slow, hungry kisses down the slender column of her neck, and she arched against him as his hand closed down over one breast.

  It fitted his hand perfectly. Cool through the silky material, it warmed, swelled against him, and he wanted to taste her there, too.

  There were buttons, damnable tiny pearl buttons down the front of the nightgown. He ignored them, sliding the thin straps down over her arms, baring her small, perfect breasts. And then he froze.

  “Did I do that to you?” he demanded, pulling away.

  The mood was shattered. Her eyes, dreamily half-closed, now shot open. Color flooded her face, and she yanked the nightgown up, backing away from him on the wide sofa. “Do what?” she managed to choke out.

  “The bruises. On your breast.”

  She tugged the gown around her, a wasted effort, given the skimpiness of the thing. “No.”

  “Then who did?” A sudden, daunting thought entered his mind. He’d never for one moment considered that she might be involved with someone. The livid bruises on her breast might have been gladly received, the by-product of a little rough sex.

  “Go away,” she said, curling up in a little ball, turning her face away
from him, into the sofa cushion.

  He put his hand on her shoulder, felt her coolness, and he turned her, careful to temper his strength, refusing to let her hide from him. “Who did it?”

  He could see by the expression in her eyes that it had come from no demanding lover. “Osborn,” she said finally. “In the hospital room, when I was pretending to be unconscious.”

  The fury that swept over him was so strong, so powerful that he thought he might explode with the force and heat of it. He wanted to smash his fist into Osborn’s fat, unctuous face. He wanted to storm and rage and kill.

  The emotions startled him. He wasn’t used to them, to the need for revenge, the fierce protectiveness, any more than he was used to the overwhelming lust he felt for the woman curled up in the sofa, her face hidden from him. Combined with an odd, soul-shattering tenderness.

  He took a step away from the sofa, trying to govern his anger. “There are advantages to this,” he managed to say in a deceptively cool voice.

  She lifted her head to look at him, startled. Her cheeks were still flame red, but her mouth was soft, slightly swollen from his kisses, and he wished to God he wasn’t still hard. That he could simply walk away from her, concentrating on his anger.

  “What do you mean?” Her voice was quiet, wary.

  He leaned against a bookcase. “I’ll get a chance to see whether I can turn a man to cinders as quickly as I can a car.”

  She thought he was kidding. She managed a weak chuckle. “If Osborn holds still long enough for you to experiment.”

  “I’ll make sure he does.”

  Something in his grim tone penetrated her self-consciousness, and she looked at him. “No, Daniel. I won’t let you kill another human being. You’re too civilized. It would end up destroying you.”

  “I’m not nearly as civilized as you think. I never have been. You’ve made any number of assumptions about me, and most of them have been wrong.”

  She glanced around her. “I was wrong about the house,” she admitted. “But I’m not wrong about you. By nature you’re cold, methodical, controlled. You’re not a man ruled by his passions….”