Dark Vengeance (The DARK Files Book 4)

by Susan Vaughan

  She’d hoped the wine would loosen him up. No such luck. Then, after she snapped at him, he closed up like a steel safe. Most of the time she liked his take-charge manner, but that patronizing tone had rubbed her the wrong way. Something about him tempted her to try to shatter his hard-case shell.

  Never mind that his rangy body and angular good looks drew every female eye — including hers. He was a challenge. And a mystery. Why he fascinated her so, she didn’t understand, except for the occasional glimpses of grief that twisted her heart. And the warmth and humanity when he let down his guard.

  Her injuries and bone-deep weariness had to be the reason for her susceptibility to him. And her relative inexperience. She was no innocent, but raising her sister, attending college and working as a nanny hadn’t left much time for dating, much less sex.

  He was protecting her, but she was only a suspect and a job to him. Given her circumstances, she could want nothing more.

  So why did Santa Elisabetta seem to be mocking her?

  After covering the statuette, she dug out her nightclothes and toiletry kit. The silk nightgowns in her Vadim-bought wardrobe would’ve been impossible to put on with one arm immobilized. One of the female officers had bought her pajamas with a shirt that buttoned in the front.

  But first she needed a shower and a shampoo. That meant she needed help. She smiled. Now she would see how hard Jack’s shell was.

  When she stood, the room spun in a crazy circle. Whoa, the dizziness wasn’t done. She sank onto the bed again. She waited for the spell to pass, then tried again. No spinning, no light-headedness. But that little reminder of the concussion told her to take it easy and slow. She kicked off her sandals, draped the cotton pj’s over her good shoulder and carried the kit into the bathroom.

  The bathroom was a typical European one, with white porcelain fixtures — a deep tub with a shower curtain, a bidet and a separate water closet. A wooden chair sat beneath the open window. The owner had provided green towels that matched the ceramic tile floor.

  Sophie deposited her pj’s and kit on the vanity. Her pulse pounded. What if he refused to help her? Drawing a deep breath, she knocked on his door.

  He opened it immediately, as though he’d been about to enter the bathroom. “Are you all right?”

  She mustered up a smile. “Fine. Just tired and dirty.”

  “Oh. I thought… Never mind.” One arched eyebrow asked what she wanted.

  The moment spun out awkwardly, with her standing barefoot in the bathroom and his wide shoulders filling the open doorway to his bedroom. His musky scent mingled with the spicy food aromas that had permeated the restaurant. He’d pulled the shirttail loose from his trousers and looked ready to undress. She’d probably beaten him to the shower. That and seeing his duffel bag open on the bed reminded her of how personal his protecting her was becoming. A pulse throbbed in her neck, and her stomach clenched.

  She had to forge ahead. “When I left the hospital, they told me a female officer would come to the safe house to help me with … personal matters.”

  Both eyebrows dived low into his trademark scowl. “Personal matters,” he repeated in a puzzled tone.

  “If I raise my arm before the joint heals, the shoulder could pop out again. I can’t dress and undress by myself. I see no female officer, so I need an agent. You.”

  His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed hard. Was that a blush blooming on his tanned cheeks? No way. It was either the heat or her imagination.

  Staring at the wall behind her, he scraped a hand through his hair. “Okay. How you want to do this?”

  “I can undo the closures on the sling if you help me take it off.”

  First she unfastened the strap that held her arm tight against her body, then the other around her neck. The ripping of the hook-and-loop strips echoed against the tiled bathroom walls.

  Gingerly, as if afraid to touch her, he slid the sling off her shoulder and down her arm. As if yanked by an invisible force, he stepped back. His hands strangled the sling. Moisture beaded between his brows. “Look, maybe you should ask the B and B owner to do this.”

  “I told her we were husband and wife. How would it look if my husband didn’t help me?”

  His brows dived together into one. “Why the hell did you say that?”

  “Italy is a very conservative country. She thinks we have to sleep in separate beds because of my injury.”

  “Sophie, we’d be nowhere if you didn’t speak Italian, but from now on I need to know what you tell people. What they know might be key to our staying safe.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. “Okay.”

  He stared at the sling as if he couldn’t fathom how it had gotten in his hands. Smoothing it out, he placed it on the chair.

  She opened the two top blouse buttons. When she reached the third, what she saw in Jack’s blue gaze stilled her fingers. What had been exasperation turned to heat, bright and hot as lightning. Excitement streaked through her, and she reached for the sink behind her to steady herself.

  “You okay?”

  “A little dizzy.” But not from the concussion. It was his touch that rocked her senses and swirled tingles in her belly. “I’m pretty tired.” That much was true. She turned her back to him and continued to open the blouse.

  “Tell me how you learned to speak Italian like a native.” His voice, raspy with strain, told her she didn’t imagine the sparks dancing between them.

  “Nonna, my grandmother, came to live with us after my father died. She insisted. Living with the Donatis for six years helped too.”

  “Your file says you were six, your sister two, when your father died. Your mother went to work, and your grandmother cared for you and your sister.”

  “Until she became ill. I was twelve.” There were times when the pain of missing her grandmother hit her like a physical blow. Nonna had been more mother to her than her real mother.

  “Who took care of you after that?”

  “I did. Mom had a career by then, not just a job. I attended parent-teacher conferences for Anita and nursed Nonna until she died.”

  “That’s a big responsibility for a kid.”

  His deep voice, resonant with concern, licked heat down her spine. Shaking off the melting effect, she began shrugging the blouse down her good shoulder. “I knew no other way. I raised Anita until she was in high school and too independent to listen to me. Then I went to work for the Donatis.”

  “Seven years. A long time.”

  He’d stepped closer behind her, close enough for her to feel his body heat and smell his sweat, honest sweat earned protecting her. He lifted the fabric and continued its removal. The glide of his long-fingered hand burned the bare flesh of her exposed neck and arm.

  Her stomach did a back flip. She struggled to answer his question. “They needed someone who spoke Italian. I needed the work. The hours allowed me to complete some courses at CCNY — City College of New York. A degree will be a start toward my own life. I won’t be only the woman who takes care of other people and never herself. What that will be is still a mystery.” She’d started in education. When she’d seen that as an extension of being a nanny, she thought of switching. But to what?

  “So you came to Italy to figure that out?”

  “Finding my ancestral past is part of finding my future. I want a life for myself now.”

  “You came to Italy to find yourself and lost your memory of the trip.”

  “The irony hasn’t escaped me.” He was the first person who hadn’t considered her quest odd or foolish. How strange for this hard man to understand her.

  A blouse button snagged in her hair. As he worked it loose, his warm breath puffed against the back of her head. His solid strength lured her to lean against him, but she gripped the sink again instead.

  Together they slid the cotton blouse off her injured shoulder and down her arm. That left only her bra. Sophie plucked a towel from the pile
by the sink and held it in front of her. She pasted on a smile and turned. “Thanks. I can do the rest. The bra has a front closure.”

  His eyes dropped to her chest, thankfully covered by the thick towel. As he forced his gaze up to meet hers, a definite wine-red blush suffused his lean cheeks. “What if you get dizzy in the shower?”

  “I’ll be okay. If I’m dizzy, I can sit on the tub edge.” The desire flaming in his eyes ignited an answering heat low in her body. Her hands shook and she nearly dropped the towel.

  “Roger.” He executed an about-face that would gratify a drill sergeant. “That’s it, then.”

  “When I’m finished in the shower, I’ll call you.”

  On her last word, the door clicked shut behind him.

  Chapter 10

  HANDS ON HIS knees, Jack bent over and dragged air into his lungs. Touching her warm skin and thick hair, breathing in her scent had hardened him so he feared he might need medical intervention to recover.

  He heard the shower running and tried not to picture Sophie naked with water sliding down her wild-honey skin. At last able to breathe normally, he straightened.

  Her skin was perfect but for her injury. Peeling off her shirt had revealed healing scrapes and fading red-and-yellow bruises that reminded him sharply of the stakes. Deep within him tenderness and longing welled up. A longing he couldn’t name and shouldn’t acknowledge.

  When she clutched the towel in front of her and faced him, her shallow breathing and dilated pupils had told him she felt the awareness too. Sheer nothing edged in lace had covered her breasts. The slipping towel concealed only her nipples.Not even a week since Vadim’s Maserati struck her. She had to wear the damn sling for five or six more days.

  Six more days of torture. For them both.

  Another reason to break through the amnesia fast.

  Checking in with Leoni would take his mind off her. He picked up the secure satellite phone from the bed and pushed the speed dial. When the officer answered, he said, “Any news?”

  “Yeah, Vadim walked up to the desk sergeant in the Questura, handed over the uranium tied in a big red bow and gave himself up. Case closed.”

  Jack nearly threw the phone across the room. “I’m in no mood for that crap. Any leads in the wreckage?”

  “Zip. The boat was reported stolen the night before. There is one thing. We may’ve located the missing courier.”

  “Dead, I assume.” Nothing else had gone their way.

  “You psychic or something?” Leoni chuckled. When Jack remained silent, he sighed. “A couple local kids found a body in the marsh not far from Vadim’s villa. Looks like our boy ran into a bullet headfirst.”

  Another nail in Vadim’s coffin. “Vadim doesn’t like to share. Dobrich should’ve known that about his cousin.”

  “Maybe the dumb slug had no other options. Anyway, I’ll let you know developments. How’s the honeymoon trip?”

  “How do you think?” Jack growled. “Someday you’ll have your guts in a vise, and it’ll be payback time.”

  “It ain’t your guts in the vise, buddy, but another part of your anatomy,” Leoni said. “Like I said before, lighten up. Enjoy the scenery. Just don’t touch.”

  Easier said than done. Jack gave his contact their location and his plan for the next day. “That it?”

  “One more thing. Vadim’s housekeeper was poking around at the villa today.”

  At that Jack narrowed his eyes in speculation. Although the task force had finished searching, they were keeping the villa under surveillance. “What do you mean poking around?”

  “Said she’d left some stuff there. Seemed bent, if you know what I mean, phony. One of the guys kept an eye on her.”

  “You think Vadim sent her to look for the uranium?”

  “If he did, she came away empty. All she took was an apron and a dish.”

  They discussed the possibilities for a few moments, then Jack disconnected.

  “Jack, I need your help. Please.”

  At Sophie’s call, he dropped the phone on the floor. He hadn’t noticed that the water stopped running.

  “Jack?”

  Her siren’s voice tugged him toward the bathroom. He could no more have let her fend for herself than he could’ve flown to Mars in a Venetian vaporetto. But what would he find? Sophie wrapped in a wet towel? Or in nothing? Hell.

  When he opened the door, he entered a cloud of fragrant steam. In the middle stood a dark-haired Venus on a half shell. He blinked at the mirage but realized she was mostly covered. Desire and dismay dueled in his struggling system.

  She’d wound the bath towel around her upper torso. Her hair hung in glistening ropes over her shoulders. She wore yellow cotton pajama boxers that bared her tanned legs. And the shell was merely a white bath mat. His hungry gaze climbed her legs’ slender length until it reached the massive yellowing bruise on her left thigh.

  Reality slapped him back to earth. He could do this. His brain knew his duty even if his body didn’t. He had a duty to right a wrong. She was only a means to that. Add to that, she was still a suspect and under official protection. All kinds of tangles to trip him if he didn’t keep tight control.

  “Your agent reporting for duty, ma’am.”

  “How do you like these pj’s? The color matches my bruises.” Grinning, she managed a model-like pose with her good arm in an elegant gesture.

  Even more like Venus. Jack clenched his teeth. At this rate, he’d need a dentist. Soon.

  “Practical. Ready for the shirt?” Then she’d be covered. No more Venus mirages. His constant arousal would ease.

  She held up a tube of cream. “The hospital gave me this liniment to promote healing. I can’t reach very well. Could you rub it on for me?”

  Rub it on her? On her bare skin? Jack’s body thrummed with tension. She was asking him to stroke her bare flesh, all warm and rosy from her shower. Everything male in him saluted. She needs liniment. Only liniment. He repeated the mantra over and over.

  He helped her arrange a second towel in a turban to confine her wet hair. She turned her back, and he opened the tube. The cream had a slight medicinal odor, not enough to mask her scent or block his reaction to it. He squeezed cream onto his palm and took the plunge, stroking the liniment along the elegant line of her back and into the scabs and bruises on the soft flesh.

  Sophie kept her hands on the sink. She stood quietly, with occasional murmurs and sighs. The sounds of desire? No. More likely his ministrations were hurting her.

  “Tell me if I press too hard.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “No punishment is too harsh for the low animal that did this to you. With this crime, he has compounded his debt. When I get my hands on the scum-sucker—” He clamped his mouth shut, afraid he’d said too much.

  As his massage reached her sore shoulder, Sophie turned.

  Her shallow breathing and the lure of her half-parted lips shifted his pulse to fifth gear. With his palm he circled the shoulder and massaged down her upper arm. When his hand brushed the outer curve of her breast, she inhaled sharply.

  His blood rushed south. Need fisted into him. Enough. He’d touched her as much as his system could tolerate. He should step away from the temptation of her skin, her trusting eyes and her vulnerability. She revived protective and possessive instincts he’d buried long ago. He couldn’t step away because his feet were nailed to the floor. Capping the tube, he held it out.

  Sophie could barely breathe. Sparks tap-danced over her skin where he’d massaged. Her stomach fluttered. She ached to know how he tasted, how that grim mouth would feel against hers, how his hard body felt against her. How could she want this man? He was all wrong for her. The time was wrong. She was wrong.

  She reached for the cream. “Thanks.”

  He didn’t release the tube but covered her fingers with his. He didn’t speak, only stared at her with an intensity that strangled her breath. Pupils so di
lated that barely any blue showed, his smoldering gaze made her skin tingle and her thighs tremble. If he kissed her— No, not going to happen. Mustn’t happen.

  Pulse raging in her ears, she dragged her gaze to their joined hands. The scars, his growling fury at Vadim, a debt… “Are these scars the reason you hate Vadim so? Is he responsible?”

  “Sophie, don’t,” he said on a shaky breath.

  Before she could speak, he rocked his mouth over hers, and she went liquid with want. His lips seared hers, first with gentle nips and then with thoroughness. He took his time, molding his mouth to hers. His tongue slipped inside, plundered and stole away her feeble resistance.

  She was dizzy with contrasting sensations. The surprise of his firm yet soft lips, the scrape of his whiskers. The heat of his mouth, redolent with garlic and wine, the rasp of his callused fingers on hers. The intense energy yet equally intense control that limited their contact to mouth and hand. She clung to his mouth as the kiss went on, urgent and needy and thrilling.

  When he ended the kiss, it was as though someone had thrown a switch. His mouth left hers and he released her hand. The tube of cream fell to the floor.

  He retrieved it and placed it on the sink. “I shouldn’t have done that. I apologize.”

  Heart drumming loud enough to wake the town, she ducked her head. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not. But it shouldn’t happen again. This … we…” She fluttered a hand in mute explanation as she picked up her pajama top.

  “Yes. If I’m to keep you safe and help you remember, I don’t— Neither of us needs the distraction.”

  As if by mutual consent, he helped her finish dressing without either of them speaking. Once the pajama shirt was around her, she dispensed with the towel. They worked on the sling and tightened its fastenings until her shoulder was secure.

  She thanked him and said good-night. After gathering up her toiletries, she started toward her bedroom. She’d intended to ask for help with her hair, but having his hands on her any longer wasn’t wise. For either of them.