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Shit. Baran shook his head hard as the twenty-year-old memory released its grip. The computer-induced flashback had done what it was intended to do: harden the resolve that was already pretty damn hard anyway.
No civ would ever have the chance to betray him like that again.
Jane Colby would do exactly as she was told, exactly when he told her to do it. If that meant he had to tie her up and fuck her brains out to gain her cooperation, fine. But even then he’d maintain a safe emotional distance.
Which didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself.
The thought slid through his mind, carried on the black mood the memory of his team’s death always inspired. Glancing down at the silky negligee still clenched in his fist, Baran felt a cold, dangerous smile stretch his lips. Maybe he’d have her put the gown on before he...
“Hey, Baran!” Freika called, snapping him from his erotic preoccupation. Claws clicked on the flooring as the wolf raced toward the stairs. “I see a vehicle’s lights approaching. I think it’s the woman.”
“Stay downstairs and hide.” Baran dropped the gown back on the bed. “I want to talk to her first.” Freika could be terrifying to the uninitiated, and this conversation was going to be tricky enough as it was.
The click of claws stopped, then started again as the wolf trotted off, presumably to find some hiding place large enough for his hundred-kilo body. Good luck, Freika transmitted to him through their communication implants. Somehow I think you’re going to need it.
Jane pulled into the paved parking space in front of her beige-and-white two-story contemporary. Turning off the SUV’s engine, she stared uneasily into the thick woods surrounding the house. How many places to hide could a killer find among all those trees?
She could almost hear her father’s ghostly sneer: Don’t be such a little coward, Jane.
Squaring her shoulders, she got out and strode to the front door. Intensely aware of her own vulnerability as she unlocked it, she barely managed to control the nervous rattle of her keys.
Once the door was locked behind her again, Jane blew out a breath and walked across the foyer’s parquet floor into the main part of the house. She’d left all the lights on when she’d gone out on the call; working murders always gave her a roaring case of the creeps. William Colby, of course, had considered that quirk further proof his only child lacked the Colby steel.
She set her jaw. Old news, Jane. For years she’d believed she had outgrown her obsession with her father. She’d done a damn good job in Atlanta, winning the respect of her peers and writing stories she was proud of. She’d even begun to believe in her own talents despite years of his verbal abuse.
But since returning home, it seemed Jane saw her father’s disapproving frown everywhere she looked. Like the Cheshire cat’s grin, it lingered.
Dammit, Jane, cut that out. Blowing out a breath, she made herself scan the living room she’d spent so much money to decorate. The rich cream leather couch and armchairs had not been cheap, and neither had the antique coffee table or the flat-screen high-definition television. Her journalism awards hung between original works of art she’d bought in Atlanta—here a watercolor of an old Southern mansion drowsing in the sun, there a pastel of a child in a straw hat, the sharp, vivid blue of her eyes skillfully captured in fine detail. The wall lamps had stained-glass shades, and the pale rose carpet was thick and plush under her feet. All of it was a silent statement of Jane’s capability and success. ^
Take that, Daddy.
Okay, that really was pathetic. Dragging both hands through her hair, she sighed in disgust. Face it, girl, you can’t win a war with a dead man. Hell, the only battle that counted was lost when you were ten. Deal with it.
Definitely time for bed. She always got maudlin when she was tired.
“Caller said his neighbor’s beating his wife in the front yard,” her scanner announced from her purse as she crossed the living room on her way to the stairs, feet sinking into the pile. “Said he’s Code Five with a baseball bat. The female half is on the ground. One-oh-two Bridgemont Street. Better step it up, guys.”
Typical Tayanita scanner traffic. Not the kind of incident Jane covered unless there was major trauma involved. Besides, she was so damn tired she wasn’t going out again unless they caught the killer or he murdered somebody else.
The scanner fell silent. Jane could hear the refrigerator hum in the kitchen. Damn, the house was lonely. Maybe she should get a dog, assuming she could find one Octopussy could tolerate. Her seal-point Siamese was definitely not a canine fan.
A man might be a better idea. These days the closest she got to male companionship were the romance novels that were her secret vice.
Jane had always been too obsessed with her job to devote any real attention to finding a lover. And now that she was back in tiny Tayanita, her options had not exactly improved. Between reporting and running the paper, she never had time to go to any of the local bars, that being about the only place single men congregated in Tayanita. Assuming she could even find anybody there whose name she didn’t regularly see on police reports.
Maybe she should get Reynolds to fix her up with a cop.
Nah, that’d never work. Cops viewed reporters with all the warmth Octopussy reserved for yappy little French poodles.
A firefighter, maybe. She liked firefighters.
Jane sighed, imagining warm, strong arms to wrap around her, a sympathetic ear to listen to her gripe about the school board or the mayor. Someone to hold her while she cried for a murdered woman she’d never met.
Somebody to ward off killers.
Paws thumped frantically in the hallway floor overhead. Jane looked up, pausing on the stairs as Octopussy flung herself from the top of the steps. She caught the cat automatically, wincing as her pet dug every claw she had into her shoulder.
Staring into Jane’s eyes, Octopussy began complaining furiously in a mix of meows, growls, and hisses. Like most Siamese, she was convinced she could talk.
“What’s got you in such a tizzy?” Jane asked, trying to give the animal a soothing ear scratch that was foiled when the cat jerked her head away. “Are you hungry, or do you want to go outside?”
Octopussy’s feline gripes rose in volume and bitterness. Jane’s mouth quirked as she stepped up into the bedroom. “Or is little Timmy trapped hi the well?” The Siamese swarmed up her shoulder and leaped off to head back down the stairs in desperate bounds. As Jane blinked in bemusement, the cat shot under the couch, leaving not so much as the tip of a chocolate tail visible. “Guess Timmy’s on his own.”
Muttering about inexplicable feline mood swings, Jane walked down the hall into her bedroom, reaching for the buttons of her shirt. All she wanted was to crawl back into the sheets with her book. She’d just gotten to the good part when she’d heard the murder call over her scanner.
“Jane Colby?”
Jumping with a muffled shriek, she stopped dead in the doorway, her heart stuffing her throat.
There was a man sitting in the armchair across from her bed.
In that first instant of startled terror, Jane saw only size and black clothing and some sort of vivid paint running along one side of his face. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded, clutching her chest with one hand as her heart banged against his fingers.
“I’m Baran Arvid,” the man said, uncoiling from the chair. “You’re in danger, Miss Colby. I’ve been sent to protect you.”
Protect, hell, Jane thought, staring wide-eyed as he straightened to a height of at least six-foot-five. If I’m in danger, it’s from him.
He wore a black cable-knit turtleneck that stretched across impressively broad shoulders. Black pants hugged his long, muscled legs, and soft dark boots covered his feet. A long black duster that smelled like leather fell in folds around his massive body, putting her uncomfortably in mind of Dracula’s cape.
“Protect me from what?” She licked dry lips and remembered Tom’s gruff warning earlier this evening: Jane,
everybody in this town has a reason to be worried.
Oh, God, was this the killer? No way could she fight him off, not judging by the width of those shoulders. Hell, she wasn’t sure Arnold Schwarzenegger could fight him off; the man looked like a human tank. Jane backed up another step. “And how did you get in my house?”
“I broke in.” He studied her, his expression dispassionate, no doubt reading the terror that was probably written all over her face. “Don’t look so frightened. I’m not the threat you need to worry about.”
“Yeah, well, personally I don’t accept reassurance from burglars.”
He lifted a dark brow. “Even if their only intention is to protect you from a killer?”
Jane blinked. “Well, that’s certainly preferable to being the killer.”
The burglar smiled slightly. “I thought so.”
“Just for curiosity’s sake, which killer are we talking about?” she asked cautiously.
“Is there more than one?”
“You never know.”
The smile expanded, flashing white and charming across his tanned face. Damn, a housebreaker with a sense of humor. “Actually, I’m referring to the man responsible for the murder you covered tonight.”
“How do you know about that?” Jane thought of at least one way he could have gotten that information—he could have committed the killing himself. She took another step back.
“I have my sources.” The burglar shrugged. “In any case, we believe the same man will eventually try for you.” His eyes were wide and dark, long-lashed, startlingly beautiful. And hard. Very hard. “I intend to stop him.”
Apropos of nothing, a thought pierced Jane’s unease:
Damn, he’s gorgeous. Not in a Gq-pretty kind of way, but in a primal, utterly masculine sense enhanced by his square-jawed face, aggressive cleft chin, even the beard stubble darkening his angular cheeks. Adding a startling touch to all that rough masculine beauty, a strange design in iridescent red and blue swirled down one side of his face from forehead to cheekbone. Not paint, she realized. A tattoo, though she had never seen one so bright and vivid.
His hair added to the impression of elegant barbarism, falling straight and black around his shoulders. Something glittered against the midnight silk; small jeweled beads, braided into a single dark lock that swung beside one high cheekbone.
Staring up at him, it hit her suddenly that he was standing a lot closer than he had been. While she’d been gazing at him in besotted fascination, he’d been subtly stalking her.
Oh, God.
As Baran watched, the fear deepened in Jane’s eyes again. He almost growled in frustration. For a moment there, he’d seen a trace of feminine response in her gaze, but now the panic was back. She had reason to be afraid with Druas after her, but her best protection from that threat was Baran himself. Which was why he couldn’t let her run from him.
“I appreciate your sense of civic responsibility,” she told him in an elaborately polite tone as she edged away, “but I think I’d rather depend on the local cops.” “That wouldn’t be wise.”
She pointed toward the stairs. Despite her firm tone, her hand shook slightly. “Let me put it another way: Get out.”
He shook his head and tried a wry smile. “I wish I could. I did have other plans for the next few days.” Like the General’s assassination, but he didn’t think she’d find that particular detail reassuring. “Unfortunately, my superiors have ordered me to protect you, so it seems both of us are going to have to make the best of it.”
“What superiors?” Her small pink tongue slipped out to moisten her full lips.
Baran was instantly reminded of that dangerously erotic red nightgown and its clinging scent of sex. A bolt of lust took him by surprise. He suddenly wanted to taste that mouth. And work his way down. He had to fight to keep his gaze from dropping to those pert, tempting breasts.
“What superiors?” she repeated, her tone sharpening, voice rising as her fear visibly increased.
“I can’t discuss that.” And he couldn’t. The Enforcer had warned him repeatedly to keep Jane in the dark. Unfortunately, that presented him with a problem, since evasion wouldn’t exactly win her trust.
Then again, neither would tying her up, but if she didn’t start cooperating, he might have to try that next. And whatever her taste in reading matter, he doubted she’d like that at all.
Baran edged closer, making up the distance she’d put between them as his mind ticked through his alternatives. He had a set of force restraints in his pocket, but he’d rather try to charm her first.
Jane, however, was not in the mood to be charmed. “Yeah, well, I think the only one I need protecting from is you,” she told him, obviously doing her best to bide her nerves under a shell of cool courage. “I’m not bluffing. Get out, or I’m calling the cops.”
Baran frowned. He couldn’t allow her to contact the authorities. Arousing their suspicions would make his job even more difficult. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Let’s find out.” Jane whirled and bolted for the stairs.
Baran growled a curse and lunged forward, grabbing her wrist and spinning her around. “No.”
“Let go!” she snarled, and went directly for his eyes with her free hand, fingers curled into claws. She had to reach up to do it.
He snatched her hand out of the air and curled a lip in warning. The ferocity in his gaze would have instantly quelled a woman of his own time. Jane just bared her teeth and tried to knee him in the balls.
He barely sidestepped in time. “If you don’t stop this, I’m going to put you in restraints!”
‘Try it and draw back a nub!” She darted her head toward his hand, evidently planning to sink in her teeth.
Baran jerked out of range and put her wrists together, transferring them into the grip of one fist. “Fine. Restraints it is.”
Jane threw herself back, trying to drag free of his grip, but he held her easily. Given his enhanced strength, there was no way she could escape. She struggled anyway, brown eyes blazing at him. “You can’t do this, you son of a bitch!”
“Watch me.” Maybe after he tied her up, she’d see sense. Baran reached for a back pocket.
“No!” she spat, and launched her knee at his crotch again. This time she actually made contact with his thigh, though she was the one who grunted in pain at the impact. “What are you, the Man of Steel? Dammit, let go!”
“That’s it!” Before Jane could kick him again, Baran used his grip on her wrists to snatch her off her feet, swing her around, and force her back toward the bed a few feet away. Ignoring her shrieks and kicks, he pushed her down on the mattress and dropped on top of her, flattening her with his greater weight. “Now. You’ll listen,” he growled, riding her slim body grimly as she bucked and fought.
“Do you have any idea of the kind of time you’ll get for this?” she gritted through her teeth, glaring into his eyes. “And don’t think I won’t press charges!”
Despite his anger, he felt a niggle of admiration. She might not know what a Warlord was, but she was perfectly aware he outweighed her by a hundred pounds. It was hard not to admire a woman who wouldn’t give up even when she was so obviously overmatched. “Calm down, Jane. I’m only trying to protect you.”
“Yeah, right, you’ve got my best interests at heart!” She squirmed. In contrast to her rage, her full, soft breasts pressed against his chest so tightly he thought he could feel the bumps of her nipples through her clothing. His cock hardened as he lay in the cradle of her long legs. “That’s obvious from the way you broke into my house and threatened to tie me up!”
His irritation took on an edge of heat. “Judging from your taste in reading material, I’d think you’d like that.”
She froze under him, her eyes going wide at the taunt. As he watched, a mortified blush spread up her face. “You read my book?”
Frustrated and aroused, he gave her his darkest grin. “Oh, yeah. Want to act any of it out?”
Jane fought angry tears. Her legs hung off the end of the bed, and the burglar’s powerful torso rode between them. He felt so damn big, so damn strong, so damn hard as he pressed her into the mattress. If he was the killer, she was dead.
But she still wasn’t a coward. “Creep,” she growled, feeling completely helpless, but damned if she’d show it.
He took a deep breath, visibly trying to rein in his temper. “I realize you’re frightened. I don’t blame you, but you’re in no danger from me.”
She licked dry lips. His dark gaze flicked to her tongue, tracked it with hot male interest. “Then get off.” To her shame, a quiver of arousal shimmered along her nerves. Damn, she thought. What kind of sick bimbo would find this a turn-on ?
“Stop fighting me.” He let more of his weight settle between her thighs. “Otherwise I’ll have to restrain you.” The heat in his gaze intensified, mixed with a cool calculation.
Staring into his handsome face, Jane suddenly noticed glowing striations of bright red ringing the soft, rich sable of his pupils. She stared. She’d never seen anything like that fiery shimmer in anyone’s eyes before. It was as if he wasn’t quite human.
He lowered his head until she felt his breath against her mouth, warm and spiced with some scent she couldn’t identify. “Do I have your word on it?”
Was he getting hard? Oh, God. Distract him, Jane thought. Stall. “Okay. Okay.” If she could lull him into believing she’d given up, maybe she could get a chance to escape. Her chances were certainly better than if he bound her to the bed. Or did whatever it was he was thinking about that put that look in his eyes. “You said ... you said earlier you had orders. From whom? What’s going on?”
He paused. “I was sent by the government.”
“Which government? I know every cop in Tayanita County, and you’re not local. Are you state? FBI?”
He hesitated again as if he didn’t even recognize the terms. Then his expression cleared. “I’m an FBI agent.”
