She was close enough to feel the energy and heat that radiated from him, and to know without a doubt that he was strong, lean, powerfully built. His thick dark coat might conceal his body from her eyes, but not from her fingers. As she reached for him, he hauled her into his arms completely, toting her to an even darker corner.
“Stay here,” he growled.
“What?” She had been so dazzled by the strange power that seemed to emanate from Nightshade that she had almost forgotten the goon who’d stolen her backpack. “Oh, the thief!” she said suddenly. “I have to go after him! He stole—”
“Stay put!”
“But I—”
The man they called Nightshade simply pulled her into his arms and kissed her, branding her fiercely with the heat and force of his lips.
Oh, God. She had never felt anything like it. Summer bonfires, hot-fudge sundaes, zero gravity…Her mind was whirling, and her body seemed to have dissolved into a puddle of pure bliss. If she thought the kiss she had given Luke was intense, it was nothing compared to this. It was like turning up the oven so far the knob broke off in your hand, and then you just roasted in the unchecked flames.
She gave in, melting, breathless, tingling, but too soon he set her away from him. And then he left!
Gilly was still reeling as he took off in hot pursuit of the creep. Through the haze that clouded her brain, she watched him dash down the street, ducking into the shadows and abandoning the light.
“He’ll catch him,” she murmured.
And he did.
She was still staring down the street in the direction he’d disappeared when he grabbed her from behind, scaring the living daylights out of her. Without a word, he pulled two candlesticks, the backpack, a small porcelain figurine and a wad of money out from the far reaches of his coat, dumping it all into her arms.
“Your perp is stinking up an alley off Poplar Street,” he rasped, his low gruff voice sounding for all the world like Clint Eastwood’s. “He’s not moving.”
And then he kissed her again, quickly, before disappearing into the shadows with his long black coat swirling out behind him.
“I don’t know who he is,” Gilly said slowly, “but I sure wish I did.”
Juggling the loot, she raised a shaky finger to her lips. She could still feel the fiery imprint of his lips on hers. She shivered. She could also still feel the pressure of his gloved fingers on her arms.
She felt as if she’d been made love to, thoroughly and completely, when all he’d done was kiss her into mind-numbing ecstasy. She felt as if she’d finally met the man of her dreams.
Of course, she didn’t know what his name was or even what he looked like. But those were mere details.
He’d kissed her. It was incredible. He was incredible.
But who was he?
“Hey, Gillian Quinn!” a strident voice called out. “I’ve got three eyewitnesses who say Nightshade was just here. What can you tell me?”
Devon Drake was moving pretty quickly this time. Blinking, Gilly refocused on reality as the wily blonde came jogging up, her notebook and recorder at the ready.
“He went that way,” Gilly announced lightly, pointing down a particularly ugly alley in the opposite direction from the path Nightshade had taken. An odd sort of joy was bubbling below the surface of her consciousness, and she had to hold back a smile. “Maybe you can catch him.”
“In these heels? Don’t be ridiculous.” Devon pursed her heavily glossed lips. “I’m never going to catch Nightshade in a footrace. No, I’m going to catch him with terrific reporting.” She smiled deviously. “This is going to work great with a story I was already working on for tomorrow. Crime on the rise in West Riverside, mayor calling for cleanup—all the usual stuff. But now Nightshade foiling a burglary attempt, well, that takes it to a whole new level, doesn’t it?”
“You’re going to use this to bash West Riverside one more time?” Gilly groaned. “Come on—can’t you find a different angle?”
But Devon Drake just shook her head. “It fits too neatly, hon. I’d be crazy not to use it. And then…” Her eyes lit up. “I’m going to get a sketch artist to do a composite. I’m going to publish every description I can find. I’ve already got a psychologist working on a profile. Because when I’m done Nightshade won’t have any more secrets from me—including his identity.”
“This isn’t a super-hero comic book,” Gilly reminded the reporter.
But Devon was racing ahead. “What can you tell me, Ms. Quinn? Oh, and don’t leave anything out,” she ordered, her pen poised over her notebook.
I’ve never seen his face, but I know he’s gorgeous. I’ve never had a conversation with him, but I know he’s honest and brave and kind. Instead of that lovestruck nonsense, Gilly reeled off the usual list. “He’s tall, he’s Caucasian, and he wears a black coat, sunglasses and the kind of hat Humphrey Bogart used to wear in the old movies. Try Casablanca,” she put in helpfully. “Other than that…I can’t think of a thing.”
“Height? Weight? Hair color? Eye color?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know and I don’t know.” Gilly smiled sweetly. “But hey, listen, good luck! I really have to go.” She lifted her arms, indicating the pile of items Nightshade had dropped there. “I need to return my neighbor’s belongings. I’m sure you’ll excuse me.”
As Devon scrambled to interview the other witnesses, Gilly walked home in a daze. He kissed me.
“Wow,” kept rolling off her lips. “Wow.”
She might’ve called him dreamy if it didn’t sound so much like a high-school crush. But dreamy he was.
The police were talking to Mrs. Mooshman when Gilly got upstairs. She cheerfully relayed the information about where Nightshade had left the culprit, wordlessly turned over the candlesticks, the shepherdess and the money, then drifted to her own door.
“Gilly, what’s wrong with you?” her neighbor demanded. “Did the burglar hit you over the head or something? You’re acting all moony and weird all of a sudden.”
“No.” She offered a distracted smile. “I’m fine.” I’ve been kissed by a mysterious stranger and I’ll never be the same again. But I’m fine.
“You might be in shock, ma’am,” the policeman noted. “You should probably go to the hospital and get checked over.”
“I’m fine,” she said again. “G’night, Mrs. M.”
“Hey, you didn’t bring back my whistle,” Mrs. Mooshman exclaimed in disappointment.
Gilly paid no attention. She was practically dancing into her apartment, locking and double-bolting the door.
“I’ve been kissed by a mysterious stranger and I’ll never be the same again,” she said with a laugh as she waltzed into a nightgown and climbed into bed. “But I am so fine!”
GILLY DREAMED she was dancing in the dark. “Ahhh,” she murmured, sinking deeper into the heavenly dream.
She was wearing a diaphanous white dress, kind of like the girl in the Bible with the seven veils, Her red hair was longer, less curly, more wavy and flowing, and her skin was very, very pale, almost as white as the filmy dress.
She knew her dress hid nothing, that every inch of her was visible and that her nipples pressed against the transparent fabric, impudent and blatant, and she knew she was very wicked to be flaunting her charms this way.
But the knowledge only made her more brazen. She sent peals of joyous laughter to join the stars and the moon. Practically naked, dancing like a hoyden, she felt happy and alive, enchanted and enchanting.
Because he was watching.
He hovered in the shadows, wordless, but watchful. She could see the long dark silhouette he cast. She knew exactly where he stood, where he waited.
The moon glistened on her bare shoulders, casting opalescent sparkles on her hands and her cheeks. There were paving stones under her bare feet, and she whirled and twirled, feeling the silken fabric float around her ankles, drift over her calves, caress her thighs.
It w
as delicious.
She felt beautiful and untamed, and she knew he followed every tiny movement. She felt a surge of power, her own power over the man in the shadows, and a rush of moon-drenched desire that soaked her to the bone. It made her dance faster, more wildly, crazily, until she knew she must stop.
But she couldn’t stop. Spinning and twisting, she was growing tired and disoriented, but still she could not rest. It was as if he commanded the dance, and only at his pleasure could she find relief from the feverish pace.
And then, just at the moment she thought she would drop of exhaustion, when she could not go one more step, his arms caught her, held her, swept her up in his embrace.
The dance continued. But now it was different. Very different.
He was all darkness and danger; he smelled of nighttime, of midnight, of slashing rain and angry storms. But she curled into him, pressing her face into his wet black collar, brushing his neck and his jaw with her hungry lips. He, too, pressed hot kisses into the pale cool gauze of her dress, driving her mad.
“Who are you?” she cried. Even from the depths of her desire, she knew she must know his name.
But he did not answer. Instead, he continued to stroke her and touch her, until she could barely breathe with the heady passion sliding through her veins.
“No, no,” she whimpered. “I must know who you are.”
She cupped his face with her hands and looked deep into his eyes. But even so close, she couldn’t make out his features. It was as if a mist had passed before her eyes, and she could not quite break through it.
He pressed her down onto the rough paving stones, his clever hands stoking the fires higher, until she clung to him, hanging on for dear life, letting the waves of fire carry her away.
She whispered, “Make love to me. Now. I want to feel you inside me. I love you, Nightshade. I’ve always loved you…”
“LUKE!”
She awoke with a start, feeling very strange. Her body was tingling and flushed, and the bed clothes were all rumpled.
What in the world had she been dreaming about?
Gilly blinked. She put a hand to her head, still woozy. She had some vague memory of the dream, but it was very hazy, something about dancing under the moon in hardly any clothing.
Well, that was different. Usually her dreams were more like nightmares, in which she was frantically trying to teach her class as all her teeth fell out.
But dancing naked was a whole new experience.
“Nightshade,” she whispered. “Nightshade was there. So I was dancing naked with Nightshade. Oh, my God.”
As she fell back into the pillows, she felt hot shame suffuse her. As fair-skinned as she was, she could blush from head to toe. And she was doing a pretty good job of it right now.
“I’m not this sort of person,” she wailed, wanting these feelings to go away. Far, far away. Now. “Just because I haven’t made love in the nineties is no reason to send me erotic dreams about a guy whose face I’ve never seen!”
She swallowed. That was part of the dream, too, wasn’t it? Trying to see his face. And not succeeding.
“This is too spooky for me,” she murmured, rubbing her arms and shivering under the covers. Try as she might, she couldn’t put any other pieces of the dream back together. Dancing naked with Nightshade and trying to see his face was as good as it got. Which wasn’t very good.
It was still dark outside, but she knew she would never get back to sleep when she was this restless. Besides, she always wished there were a few more hours in the day. Looked like this was one day she had them. So she swung out of bed and headed for the shower.
It was only when the first rush of water hit her head that she remembered.
“Luke. Something about Luke. But what?”
But whatever it was, it had left her. Grumbling, she finished up and poked her way through her normal morning routine. Why was she so sluggish this morning? And why did she feel like she’d run a marathon somewhere between the time she went to bed and the time she got up?
She was dawdling over the newspaper, cursing Devon Drake and her mean-spirited article about West Riverside, when she saw the much-vaunted sketch of the mysterious Nightshade. She laughed out loud.
“He looks like the Unabomber in a cowboy hat!” she crowed. It was the wrong hat and the total wrong look. So much for Ms. Drake’s eyewitnesses.
Just for fun, she read the psychological profile, too. “‘A solitary individual, probably not married or living with anyone who might notice his nocturnal disappearances.’ Well, that makes sense.” She skipped ahead. “‘Excellent cognitive skills…high threshold of justice. Maybe someone burned by the system in some way.’ Oh, they always say that. ‘Probably lives in or near West Riverside, although he may simply have some emotional attachment to the area of which we are unaware.’”
There was certainly nothing there that would help anyone find him. She did like the last line, though. “The fact that this man only appears at night is very significant. He is clearly more comfortable with darkness than with light.”
“Nightshade, you are one fascinating guy,” Gilly murmured, staring at the awful sketch.
And then she spied the date at the top of the page.
“Oh, no,” she moaned. “The one day I’m up early and it’s Saturday. A completely free, unencumbered Saturday when I could’ve slept till noon! Way to go— kill my only day to sleep late, Nightshade!”
Determined to rediscover the joys of a warm bed, Gilly dodged back under the covers. Only to find herself sitting straight up some fifteen minutes later.
“Of course I was thinking about Luke. I was on my way to his house when I got sidetracked by Mrs. Mooshman and the burglar.”
This time she arose with a sense of purpose, ready once again to storm the citadel.
SHE WAITED until after eleven, when she figured Abby and Fitz would be occupied. She knew their schedule pretty well after all these years. On Saturdays Aunt Abigail liked to have Uncle Fitz drive her to flea markets and swap meets. You’d never know it to look at her, but Aunt Abby had a fondness for knitted toiletpaper covers and mismatched teacups. Even now, with Luke requiring more care than usual, Gilly knew Aunt Abby wouldn’t be able to resist a trip to Bargain Heaven.
Still, Gilly knew better than to try the front door. Luke was perfectly capable of simply lurking in there, refusing to answer no matter how hard she pounded.
Instead, she took a page from her childhood escapades and scaled the ivy on the west wall. It made her smile just to grab hold and take the first step up on the vine. As she recalled, this bountiful crop of ivy grew right up to Luke’s bedroom. And he had a balcony. Both of those facts had proved very useful when they were sixteen and way past curfew, and Luke had to sneak in before Aunt Abby caught him.
Gilly had only climbed the ivy to prove she could, because Luke teased her mercilessly about being uncoordinated. She’d shown him, scaling the wall faster than he had.
Now, however, she wasn’t nearly as graceful—she’d been a better climber when she was younger and more limber—and she was huffing and puffing as she neared the third floor. But eventually she reached Luke’s room. Letting go of frozen fistfuls of brown vines, she hoisted herself over the wrought-iron railing and landed on the balcony, ending up flat on her backside.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed before she could stop herself. Rubbing her poor bruised derriere, she stood up and looked around. There was a great view from up here, especially now that the trees had no leaves to block the way. Why, you could see the river and most of West Riverside.
Well, the view was spectacular, but so was the wind, and Gilly was chilled all the way through. So she crouched by the heavy French doors looking for a clever way in.
She pinged a nail against the glass. She’d heard of double-hung windows, but this was ridiculous. What was Luke doing with windows as thick as ice blocks? After several moments of careful examination, she pulled out a nail file, ready to try to pry open the
lock. But when she touched the handle, the door swung open immediately. It wasn’t even latched.
“So much for breaking in,” she said lightly, peeking past the door before sticking a foot inside.
When her foot caused no uproar, she edged in her whole leg and then the rest of her, cautious as a cat in a new yard. Although the room was dim, she knew one thing: it was still Luke’s bedroom. And he wasn’t there. Lucky chance on that one. She didn’t think he would still be sleeping at eleven, but given his recent odd behavior, there was no way to be sure.
She had been prepared to stumble over him right away, although she preferred to get a chance to look around first.
“Knowledge is power, Lucas Blackthorn,” she said aloud. Curious as hell, she scanned the room.
She couldn’t really remember what his bedroom looked like when they were kids. White walls, she thought, and the usual bed and a dresser perhaps. With a chuckle, she remembered the days when Luke had had nothing but a mattress on the floor and a stereo system with a huge set of speakers.
Luke had never been fond of decorating his space, even a big, high-ceilinged space like this. She had joked and called this his “bedchamber” once, since that’s what it looked like—something out of a Gothic novel.
But the room was a heck of a lot more Gothic now. “Weird,” she muttered, examining the heavy velvet drapes around his bed. “Depressing and weird.”
Even his sheets were black. There were headphones, the kind that came with very fancy stereo systems, lying at the foot of the bed, but she didn’t see anything to plug them into. A sleep mask and a half-open book had been tossed on the floor next to the bed. She picked up the book and flipped it open to the title page. “Bats, Nature’s Night Warriors,” she read, and then dropped the book immediately. “Eeeuw. I hate bats.”
She tiptoed past the huge draped bed, eyeing the dark painting of an orchid on one wall and the African tribal masks on the other.
The only other furniture besides the bed was a strange-looking apparatus along the far wall. It hummed, so she knew it was electric, but what was it? It was entirely too coffinlike for her, and she was reluctant to get close. But curiosity got the better of her and she edged nearer. When she peered through the little window in the side, she saw what looked like water sloshing around.
Touch Me Not Page 9
