Undercover Lover

by Kylie Brant

  Her hand on his arm grew caressing. Every nerve stilled, and his gaze dropped to watch its movements.

  “Sometimes I think you take your role of protector too seriously, Sully.” Her words, coupled with the bittersweet sensation of that light touch, sliced into him like the keen edge of a blade. “A sense of responsibility is a good thing, unless it’s taken too far. Then it can eat you alive.”

  Sully sat upright in bed, fighting his way out of the nightmare. The breath tore out of his lungs in huge, heaving gulps, sweat pouring off his body in heated rivers. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, trying to walk that tightrope between horror-filled sleep and reality. It was times like these, when nights were deepest and consciousness unwary, that the line between the two became indistinct.

  He shoved off the bed, as if by putting distance between it and him he could lose the tendrils of the nightmare still curling through his subconscious. In the dark he stumbled into a chair, sending it, and the window-sized fan sitting on it, crashing to the floor.

  Without pausing to pick them up, he continued out into the apartment, heading toward the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and gulped it down. Then, cupping his hands under the faucet, he filled them with water and splashed it over his face and chest. He repeated the motion until the cool water was streaming over him, washing away the perspiration. Grabbing a towel, he carelessly wiped the dampness from his body, then dropped it into the sink.

  Guilt had a way of haunting a man, the past and present weaving together into an inescapable trap. Most of the time he was able to keep old mistakes and regrets tucked away in a pocket of his mind, unlocked only when his guard relaxed. It wasn’t difficult to understand what had elicited this rerun of the nightmare. Today his life had brushed against Ellie’s in a way that was reminiscent of another time when an innocent had gotten too close.

  Close enough to die.

  He paced around the small apartment, driven to move. That situation had been completely different. Alberto had insisted in involving himself, even after he’d been warned of the risks. But the fact remained that there was no real way he could have realized the chance he was taking. He’d been innocent of the kind of life he’d immersed himself in, and had ended up being sacrificed to it.

  Sully strode to the window, stared out into the night blindly. Ellie wouldn’t be his next regret, he swore. She wasn’t going to be allowed close enough to become a target. Discovering the truth about Sully and his activities could mark her for danger. Not to mention making her turn away from him completely.

  The darkness seemed to press in on him from all directions. He didn’t reach for a light. The shadows were too fitting for his bleak thoughts. Honesty, even if he wished to give it, couldn’t be offered to Ellie. Not now.

  The knock on his door was soft, but sounded through the quiet of the apartment like a gunshot. Sully whirled and stalked silently over to the boots he’d left on the floor near the kitchen. He withdrew the knife from its sheath and moved quickly, soundlessly to stand beside the door. His Glock pistol was in the bedroom, within easy reach of his bed. He thought of retrieving it, then a second later discarded the idea. It wouldn’t be necessary. He was even more adept with the blade than with the gun.

  He held the knife loosely in his hand, wrist cocked, and watched the knob slowly turn. The lock held and he braced himself, waiting for the door to burst in, readying himself for the bloodbath that would inevitably follow.

  “Sully?” The whisper was barely discernible. If possible, his whole body drew even tenser. “Are you awake?”

  He leaned his head against the wall and cursed, a silent litany of imaginative expletives. Ellie. He couldn’t deal with her tonight, not with old regrets churning so close to the surface. He didn’t feel capable of clinging to the careful defenses necessary with her. Didn’t feel capable of remembering all the reasons for them.

  The knock sounded again, more insistently. “Sully? Is everything all right?”

  “Go away, Ellie.” He stared into the darkness of the room, the cloak of shadows exemplifying his solitary state. He’d been alone for as long as he could remember, since childhood, really. He couldn’t imagine anything different.

  But that wasn’t quite true. The woman on the other side of the door made him imagine a great many things, wildly impossible things. Things that made him ache and want, things he had no business even thinking.

  Tonight he wasn’t sure he’d be successful denying them.

  “I heard the crash...then you moving around....” Her voice trailed off.

  “I’m all right. Go back to bed.”

  His words sounded harsh, even to his own ears. But they failed to sway her.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I can see for myself.”

  He stood there for a moment, then, muttering a curse, he found his boot in the darkness and slipped the blade back in its sheath. Then he walked to the bedroom and grabbed his jeans off the floor. Pulling them up, he zipped them but didn’t bothering buttoning them. He returned to the door just as a knock sounded again.

  “Sully!”

  He pulled open the door as she spoke again exasperatedly. Propping an arm against the doorjamb, he contemplated her through the shadows. “What?”

  “I just wanted to be sure you’re all right. You’re having trouble sleeping again, aren’t you?”

  His brain seemed sluggish. It took a moment to register her meaning. “Again?”

  “Again.” Her dark eyes were anxious. “I hear you sometimes, pacing around in here during the night. The walls aren’t particularly thick, you know.” Her words rendered him speechless, and she ducked under his arm and walked into his apartment.

  By the time he’d recovered, she’d gone the few feet into the living room and turned on a lamp. He turned to face her but remained where he was, keeping the door open. She wouldn’t be staying long. He couldn’t let her.

  He was still trying to adjust to the idea of her listening to him, not just tonight, but other nights. He was aware that her bedroom lay just on the other side of the wall from his. He was definitely aware. Many a night he’d lain awake in bed, imagining what she was wearing in hers. Imagining what she’d look like lying beneath him, wearing nothing at all.

  “Sorry I woke you. It was nothing.” He shrugged. “Just a dream.” But she didn’t appear to be listening to him. Her eyes went wide with concern.

  “Oh, Sully, your poor chest! And that bandage! What happened to you?”

  He blinked at her uncomprehendingly, and she crossed to him quickly and laid one soft hand against his skin. He looked down, realizing she was referring to the injuries he’d received in Bogota. And then thought faded as sensation crashed over him.

  Her fingers were moving lightly over his chest, and his heart richoceted beneath her palm. Sparks bounced in the wake of her gentle touch, sending an arrow of need straight to his loins. His eyes slid half-closed, and he watched her, letting himself imagine for an instant what it would be like if she touched him out of desire instead of concern. How she would look touching him just like that as he mounted her, before her touch grew stronger, wilder, as he slipped into her for the first time.

  His need for her was as keen as a blade, threatening to whittle away at the layer of civility he’d carefully constructed, leaving his defenses in shambles. He took her wrist in his hand and stepped away.

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  No, she shouldn’t be here, in the middle of the night, wearing a silky invitation for a robe, tied hastily around her narrow waist. One quick tug would unfasten it, and it would take only a little urging from his hands to send it slithering down her arms to pool at her feet. She shouldn’t be here touching him like that, looking at him like that.

  He shoved his fists into his pockets. She shouldn’t be here.

  “Were you in some kind of accident, Sully? Heavens, no wonder you can’t sleep. Have you been to a doctor? Are you in pain?”

  His brain was fog
gy with lust and lack of sleep. It took a moment to follow her meaning, another to seize the excuse she’d given him. “It was an accident at work.” The delivery of the lie filled him with weary self-disgust. “It doesn’t hurt.” The dull aches from the bruises and the knife wound were little competition to the jagged edge of despair that was gnawing away inside him. Her presence here only seemed to magnify his regrets.

  “I hope you had a doctor check your ribs,” she murmured. She’d moved closer again, closer than she should be, closer than he’d normally dare allow her. He held himself rigid as she trailed her fingers over the ribs that still protested the pounding they’d received a few days ago. He pulled his hands from his pockets, meaning to push her away, to send her back to her apartment once and for all. But his hands didn’t obey the edicts of his mind. Instead, they went unerringly to her hair.

  He combed his fingers through the long strands, giving in to an impulse that had burned inside for more than a decade. He pushed the heavy sheaf of hair over her shoulders, and then framed her face in his hands. Her gaze was arrested; he’d managed to divert her attention from his bruised ribs. He never touched her if he could help it; he did his best to avoid such temptations. She was looking at him as if she didn’t recognize him. She wasn’t alone; he didn’t recognize himself.

  He wasn’t a careless man, nor an impulsive one. He wasn’t one to ignore carefully crafted control and wellreasoned logic. He didn’t willingly take falls because he could too easily imagine the sensation of slamming against the bottom. But he was very close to falling now.

  Her bottom lip was trembling slightly; he watched it in fascination. Was she afraid of him? She should be. Right now he was very much afraid of himself. His thumbs caressed the delicate pulse points below her jawline, fascinated by the rapid drumming there. Then her hands came up to cover his, and his blood thundered through his system.

  All he ever wanted, all he ever dreamed of, formed a hot fist of need that pummeled him with relentless urgency. He closed his eyes and fought for a control that seemed alarmingly distant.

  “Sully?” Her shaky whisper pierced his longing like a bullet. He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her emotions were always easy to read. Right now was no different. There was surprise—and, God help him, desire—transparent on her face. But it was the last emotion he read there that crashed over him like a wave of Arctic water. The hints of apprehension there had him pulling away and stepping back from her. As if to remove himself from temptation, he turned away.

  “Go home, Ellie.” His tone was flat, expressionless.

  He could hear the long release of her breath, with its tendency to shudder. Could feel the silent battle she fought to regain composure. He waited for the argument, the insistence for an explanation.

  Neither came. For once in her life she did exactly as he requested. He heard her hand on the knob, the squeak of the hinges, the near-silent snick of the lock as the door closed behind her. Only then did he turn around and stare at the door.

  In the still of the night it seemed to represent much more than a mere entranceway. It was an insurmountable obstacle that separated him from the only woman who would ever matter to him.

  He heard the tiny sound of Ellie entering her own apartment and closing the door, and still his muscles wouldn’t relax. He’d come too close to making a mistake with her. If she had given him the slightest encouragement, this night might have ended completely differently. And though his body ached with frustration, he knew it was for the best. Keeping an emotional distance from her was the most certain way to keep her safe.

  The fact that it left him miserably alone, in a way he’d never before fully comprehended, was something he’d just have to learn to live with.

  Chapter 4

  “Did he miss me?” Elizabeth murmured as she took a deep breath and slowed to a walk beside Monica Pruett.

  Her friend and co-worker slanted her a look from cool blue eyes. “Of course. He asked about you just a few minutes ago.”

  Elizabeth groaned. Her boss, Nathan Milway, was a stickler for punctuality, and her tardiness would not go without comment. The errand over her lunch hour had taken her longer than expected, and hurrying about in this humidity had left her feeling a little wilted. That was an additional fact Milway would chide her about, since a wellkept appearance was another of his mantras. His own tall, thin frame was always impeccably dressed in an expensive suit with a spotless white shirt and tie. He expected his employees to dress no less formally.

  “What’d you tell him?” She smiled welcomingly at the small group of ladies who strolled past them, intent on examining the gallery’s newest offerings.

  Monica lifted one elegant shoulder. “I said you had a dire feminine emergency, and were in the rest room.” She watched in cool amusement as Elizabeth colored with mortification. “I don’t know who turned redder, Nathan or you. Don’t be such a prude. It was the only thing I could think of that would keep him off your back. If I know our fussy boss, he won’t even be able to look in your direction for the rest of the day, much less treat you to one of his famous lectures.”

  They parted then, each of them approaching a customer and offering assistance. Elizabeth was smiling despite herself at Monica’s words. She hadn’t been prepared to like the coolly elegant blonde when they’d first met at the gallery. The woman had reminded her of so many of the vain, shallow women she’d met at Carter’s clubs, women whose primary interests were shopping, men and gossip. But she’d been disarmed by the almost bawdy earthiness that lurked below Monica’s sophisticated demeanor. While it often embarrassed her, it was so at odds with her first impression of the woman that she couldn’t help but be intrigued. She was perceptive enough to recognize the streak of vulnerability beneath the woman’s polish, so she’d accepted her casual kindness, and their resulting friendship had surprised them both.

  She directed her gaze back to the piece the customer was asking her about, and dutifully recited the facts about its artist. While the woman dithered over her decision, Elizabeth’s attention faded again.

  She was grateful to Monica for saving her from one of Nathan’s reprimands, although she inwardly cringed at the method she’d used. Her friend was right; she was a prude. She certainly hadn’t been given the opportunity to shed many inhibitions during her ill-fated marriage to Carter. Sex with him had been as carefully orchestrated as the rest of their lives, and curiously devoid of intimacy. She hadn’t been encouraged to discover anything about sex that he hadn’t been prepared to teach her, and his lessons had followed very stringent guidelines. She’d thought his carefulness with her had reflected his love and consideration. When she’d confided in Monica, her friend had irreverently referred to it as his Madonna complex.

  She’d never had cause to regret her lack of experience before. But ever since she’d left Sully a few nights ago, she’d wished repeatedly that she had a little more knowledge to draw on. The crash in his apartment had startled her from sleep, but she’d been even more surprised once she’d seen him. He’d been abrupt, edgy. That in itself hadn’t been unusual. But for once there had been a crack in his normally impregnable wall of defenses, and her heart had simply turned over.

  She’d wanted to help him. The pain he’d been feeling hadn’t seemed confined to the injury on his shoulder, or the awful bruises covering his chest. But then he’d touched her, and her breathing had, quite literally, stopped. Sully wasn’t demonstrative, and he never, ever touched her unless it couldn’t be avoided. The shock from feeling his fingers tangling in her hair, caressing her face, had driven aside her concern, and she’d been bombarded by sensation.

  She answered her customer’s questions about the painting automatically, her mind filled with thoughts of her best friend. She’d spent the past couple days castigating herself for leaving the way she had. Fleeing, really. But she lacked the experience to identify the startling changes in Sully’s attitude. Surely his actions had been driven by nothing more than a combination of re
stless sleep and an aching body. But if his emotions had been indecipherable, hers had been instantly recognizable. At the first brush of his hand, a weighty ball of heat had lodged in her stomach and turned the blood in her veins molten. The intensity on his face had fired her pulse, and the throbbing had echoed in her brain. She might not have much experience with it, but she’d recognized what she’d felt. Desire.

  The admission, even to herself, sent her stomach into a slow roll. For the first time in their relationship, Sully had reached out to her in need, and she’d embarrassed herself by responding with need of a very different kind. Helping a friend had been far from her thoughts. Instead, she’d been considering how little it would take to close that distance between them, to feel his whole body against hers. To feel his mouth pressed over her own.

  She bit her lip unconsciously and stepped aside as her customer squinted at the painting once more. If there was one thing she’d learned from her marriage, it was that she was a novice at reading men. She’d had no inkling that Carter was betraying the vows she’d held sacred, and she should have known her husband as well as it was possible to know a man.

  So how could she trust her ability now to interpret Sully’s feelings? Especially when hers had crashed around her, drowning her in intensity? She wasn’t sure enough of herself as a woman to deal with the unexpected longing she’d felt. So when he’d told her to go that final time, she had gone, knowing it wasn’t him she was retreating from, but her own unfamiliar emotions. Now she needed to devise a plan to return their relationship to a more familiar footing. Her unusual reaction to him couldn’t be allowed to strain their friendship. She couldn’t bear it if he pulled away from her because he sensed a change in her feelings for him.

  Her customer was showing definite signs of interest. Elizabeth offered the woman a careful listing of the piece’s advantages, chief among them, she assured her, was the price. The woman lapsed into silence again, and Elizabeth could feel the imminent sale floating in the air between them. This was where she and Monica differed in their approaches. Her friend would start closing in on the sale at this point, drawing the noose tighter with an energized pitch that either sold or terrified her customers. Elizabeth preferred to give them their space, up to a point. Nathan had been leery about her approach in the beginning, but after a probationary period, he’d had to admit that her resulting sales figures were very respectable.