“I know,” she breathed into his ear. She smiled, holding him closer, taking him deeper.
And then it happened.
With a feeling of joy and love, he made one last thrust and then toppled into release with a dazzling shower of sparks. But it went on too long. The current, the sensations, were too strong, too many. Electricity zapped through his veins, coursing through his nervous system, pushing him into an explosion of light and scorching heat. Incredible pain shot through him. Gulping for air, he rolled away, trying to figure out what was happening to him.
He couldn’t quite form words or put together the fragile pieces. Too numb perhaps? Had he experienced a blowout? He had no idea. He could—gingerly, painfully—move his muscles. But he felt as though his whole body was encased in lead.
When people said mind-blowing, they had no idea. It was as if every generator in the city had been tuned in to his brain in one massive power surge. What was happening to him?
More importantly, what was he going to tell Gilly?
She cuddled closer, her eyes closed, as she reached for his hand. She held it to her heart, whispering, “I just have to tell you that I love you, too. I’ve always loved you. This…this was unbelievable. I never knew anything could feel so intense. But what I feel in my heart is what’s really important, Luke. Because I love you with everything I have.”
Luke said nothing. His tongue couldn’t seem to get around the words. It was frozen. Yet his body was still pulsing with aftershocks, and his brain felt drizzled with trails of sparks.
She half sat up. “Luke?”
By concentrating and pushing past the pain, he was able to mumble, “Sleep,” and squeeze her hand with what he desperately hoped was reassurance.
When he ought to be whispering sweet words of love and holding her close, all he could do was lie there. He couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t hear her breathing, even though she was very close, couldn’t see to the end of the bed, couldn’t smell the lavender in her hair, even though a stray tendril brushed his nose.
Drowsy, clearly sated, she curled up next to him and lazily rubbed her head against his chest. “Yeah, I’m really tired, too,” she said with a yawn. “We’ll talk more in the morning.”
The morning. Luke’s only hope was that a few hours of sleep would restore his fried circuits, reknit his synapses, soothe his shattered nerves.
He was not a praying man, but he didn’t have any other choice.
Please, God, let me be okay in the morning. At least long enough to talk to Gilly.
His body craved sleep, surfeit, rest, and he had no choice but to give in. He closed his eyes. Morning. He would wait until morning to assess the damage.
WHEN SHE AWOKE, Luke was still asleep, with the black sheet tangled around his waist. He lay on his side, breathing deeply, his lashes dark and thick against his cheek.
God, he was gorgeous. A lazy smile drifted over her lips. If she’d ever worried about his health, she had no fear now. Last night had proved, once and for all, that Luke was in tip-top shape. Tip-top. Her smile widened.
When Luke woke up, she’d tell him again how much she loved him, how good they were together.
“He said he loves me, too,” she whispered. “Okay, maybe he shouldn’t be held to heat-of-the-moment words in the light of day. But he’ll say it again. Lots and lots.”
At the moment, however, she had other concerns. Like the fact that she was stark naked, her stomach was growling, and Luke looked like he might be sacked out for hours.
She chuckled. “Had a hard night, poor baby.”
First thing on the agenda was to find something to wear, because the scraps of Suzette’s dress were not going to be much help. She marched to Luke’s closet. He had several white dress shirts hanging there, so she took one, buttoning it down to her knees.
But not much else would do. “Hmm,” she mused, eyeing the back of the closet. There was that nifty secret passageway that led to a whole roomful of old clothes. Maybe she could find a pair of pants or a skirt. Besides, she always had been curious about that secret room. So she slid back the false back, scooted through the passage and came upon the storage room, just like she remembered.
It was a great place, full of trunks and boxes, and she wandered a bit, finding some lace knickers and a pair of thick socks, an old pair of blue jeans that fit rather nicely, and a straw hat she would’ve liked to take home for a summer garden party.
As she continued to poke, she paused. How funny. There was a trunk of old sporting equipment, with jerseys and padded hockey pants lying around as if they’d just been used. Who would be using out-ofdate hockey uniforms in this household?
But she dismissed it from her mind, spying a coatrack in the corner and remembering it immediately. It was the one that always used to be in the front hall. Now, relegated to the secret closet, it held a huge old raccoon coat that looked promising, at least to get her home in. She donned it, feeling very Roaring Twenties, and paused long enough to note the other things on the rack—a big black trench coat and a brown one, too, as well as several old-fashioned hats. Humphrey Bogart hats, she thought, twirling one around her finger.
Humphrey Bogart hats?
She stopped. She reached for the only other items hanging there, old cashmere scarves. She held one of them, brushing its softness between her fingers, remembering exactly what it had felt like to sink her hands inside Nightshade’s scarf when she’d touched his face.
Nightshade.
The hats. The coats. The scarves. The bottom dropped out of her stomach.
She supposed if she went snooping around long enough, she would find various pairs of sunglasses and gloves, too.
Luke was Nightshade. One and the same.
Chapter Fourteen
She stood there clutching the scarf, as her mind reeled.
But Luke couldn’t be Nightshade. Nightshade was bigger, broader, taller.
Okay, so maybe a coat, hat and padding had made him seem bigger.
But it was impossible! Luke wouldn’t leave the house, and Nightshade was running around saving people. Besides, hadn’t she been talking to Luke on the phone at school while Nightshade was still disappearing down the hall?
Not even Luke could be two places at once.
And then again, after Nightshade had paid his latenight visit, slipping in and out through the window, she’d called Luke not five minutes later. He couldn’t have had time to climb down the fire escape, walk to his car, race home, and get to the phone!
Except that Aunt Abby had stalled. And Luke was breathless when he finally spoke to her.
She sat down on a trunk with a thump.
It all fit. Luke’s lifelong friendship—Nightshade’s “emotional ties” to West Riverside. Luke’s tender ribs—Nightshade’s padding. Luke’s dark shadowy house—Nightshade in sunglasses. Luke’s sensitive hearing—Nightshade whispering, “Just know that when you’re in trouble, I will hear you.”
And the worst of all, Nightshade’s mind-numbing kisses matched up with Luke’s dazzling embrace. One and the same.
“How could I have been such an idiot?” she demanded. She’d even had a dream about Nightshade and woken up murmuring Luke’s name! Her subconscious knew all along even if her conscious mind was sticking its head in the sand.
The word “fool” might as well have been etched on her forehead.
Furious with him, furious with herself, she snatched a scarf and one of the fedoras from the coatrack, scrambling for the passage and the closet back into Luke’s room.
He was still in bed, damn him. Not for long.
She whipped the scarf at him, and when he didn’t wake up, pitched the fedora like that guy in the James Bond movies.
“Wake up,” she demanded.
But still he slept on.
She crossed her arms over the ridiculous raccoon coat. At least it covered the rest of her outfit. It should’ve been hard to be mean and angry when you were dressed like a refugee from “The Munsters.�
� But she wasn’t having any trouble.
All she had to do was think of Nightshade and the damn bedroom-window escapade that made her feel guilty for cheating on Luke, and her fury rose higher than ever. She’d been manipulated. Used. Made a fool of.
Still, Luke slept like a baby, not even noticing the furious woman standing there and staring a hole in him. She frowned. Was it possible he was playing possum to avoid her attack of temper? That was even lower than pretending to be Nightshade and making a monkey out of her all this time.
Suddenly the images of kisses and lovemaking, of Nightshade’s disguise and Luke’s lies all rolled together, and she felt completely overwhelmed. She just couldn’t deal with it anymore. If he wanted to pretend to be asleep, so be it. A haze of anger and love and betrayal clouded her vision, and she knew she had to get out of there before she strangled him.
Picking up the remains of her dress, her heels, and the keys to the Ferrari from the floor, Gilly ran for the door. As she cleared the doorway, she thought she heard a sound from the bed, and she whirled around.
“Did you say something?” she asked.
His eyes remained closed, and he didn’t respond. Gilly chewed her lip. His behavior was so weird she felt a faint ripple of alarm, as if maybe something was wrong. Luke had been ill before, or at least put on a good show of it. Was it possible that making love had put him over the top somehow?
She didn’t waver for long.
“No,” she told herself forcefully. “Whatever his story is, I’m not buying it. He’s obviously breathing, and that’s more than he deserves at the moment.”
She roared back down to her apartment in his jazzy car, dumping it right out in front in a No Parking zone and sprinting up the steps in her stocking feet. She had barely opened her apartment door when Mrs. Mooshman came running up, resplendent in her lime green running suit, complete with NOD Squad cap, flashlight and a brand-new whistle.
“Oh, Gilly, honey! What a relief!” Her neighbor squeezed her for all she was worth. Then she squinted at Gilly. “What are you wearing?” She added, “We were so worried.”
“Why?” Gilly detached herself enough to see Mr. Zamechnik, Suzette and Tony Fielder and his mother crowding into the third-floor hall. “What is this?”
“It’s an emergency meeting of OGW,” Mr. Zamechnik explained, elbowing his way in front of Mrs. Mooshman and stopping the woman in midbreath. That earned him a dirty look, but he forged right on. “The school principal, Mrs. Sheffield, and young Tony were on duty last night at the Snow Ball, but circumstances being what they were, they lost you.”
Gilly glanced from face to face. “OGW? I thought it was the NOD Squad.”
“No, no, that’s different,” Mrs. M said, squeezing back around the old man. “That’s Neighborhood Observers and Defenders. This is Operation Gillian Watch.”
As if she hadn’t had enough humiliation for one day, Gilly thought. Now it seemed she was at the center of some damn watch. “What is this? You’ve all been spying on me?”
“No, of course not,” Suzette hastened to assure her. “After that newspaper article where you said you were going to put yourself in danger on purpose, we were very concerned about you. So your aunt and uncle formed a little committee to keep an eye on you.”
“My aunt and uncle? I know where that came from,” she said darkly. “Luke.”
“No, no, it came directly from your aunt and uncle.” Mrs. Mooshman’s round eyes were guileless. “And that’s why—I’m sure you’ll understand the thinking here—we had to call the Fitzhughs and let them know when you were still missing this morning.”
“But I wasn’t missing! I was—” She broke off. “Somewhere that is none of your business.”
“With Lucas Blackthorn, right?” Suzette asked with a smile. “The two of you were looking pretty cozy last night.” She shrugged sheepishly. “I tried to tell them you were probably with him.”
“No, no,” Tony interjected. “She was with that cool Nightshade guy. That’s your boyfriend, right?”
“You mean you haven’t heard?” Mr. Zamechnik said.
Everybody turned his way.
“What could he know?” Mrs. Mooshman scowled. “Be quiet, old man, and stop wasting our time.”
But Suzette was the first to voice the question everyone else was thinking. “Heard what?”
“Why, that Mr. Blackthorn and Mr. Nightshade are the same person. I mean, Lucas Blackthorn is Nightshade. Or Nightshade is Luke Blackthorn. Something like that.” Mr. Z raised his hands in confusion. “That Devon Drake broke the story last night. I saw it in the paper this morning and heard it on the radio, also. The Drake woman said she had witnesses who saw Nightshade round up some ruffians at the Snow Ball, and then he went and stuffed his coat and hat in the trunk of his car, and presto—he turned back into Lucas Blackthorn!”
“The Ferrari,” Gilly groaned. “The trunk was open! So he’d just dumped his disguise in there. Oh, God, I am even stupider than I thought.” No doubt, clothes similar to those she’d found in the secret room were still in his trunk.
“You mean you knew?” Suzette squealed.
“You mean you didn’t know?” Mrs. Mooshman shrieked.
“I didn’t know. Until this morning.” Gilly turned to Mr. Zamechnik. “Can I see that paper?”
It didn’t take her long to scan the story or to realize Luke was in danger. “They said they would make him pay, and he’s up there all by himself,” she whispered.
“You can’t be serious. Not after this!” Suzette took one of Gilly’s arms, while Tony Fielder’s mother came up on the other side.
“Ms. Quinn, you don’t want to feel sorry for him. Why, he lied to you, pretending to be this Nightshade character.” Mrs. Fielder’s deep brown eyes were lit with concern. “You take it from me, Ms. Quinn. You don’t need no double-dealing scum of a man. You do fine all by yourself.”
“Oh, no, I’m not forgiving him,” Gilly asserted. “I’m still really mad at him. But he could be in trouble, what with the mayor and his thugs on the loose, and Luke pinpointed as Nightshade, and Uncle Fitz and Aunt Abby out of town.”
“The mayor and his thugs?” Suzette echoed.
“Oh, yes.” She’d almost forgotten about that part. But the sooner she announced the truth, the sooner West Riverside would be out of danger. “The mayor and that Ed Spivak from the Lucky Lady casinos have been behind all these muggings and robberies. The alley, the burglary at your place, Mrs. M, the punk who came in my window and all those thieves last night at the Snow Ball—they paid them to do it.”
“No!” Suzette exclaimed, her eyes round.
“Yes,” Gilly said. “We have proof. Luke overheard a very damaging conversation.”
The same thing occurred to them all at the same time. “Then he really may be in danger,” Suzette concluded. Tony and Mr. Zamechnik nodded gravely.
Gilly shivered, remembering that evil sneering voice in her bedroom. Tell your boyfriend Nightshade…sunglasses ain’t no shield against bullets.
“But the Fitzhughs ought to be back any time,” Mrs. Mooshman put in. “I called them at about five this morning to report you were missing, and they started right home. So at least he won’t be alone.”
“But he was when I left.” Gilly chewed her lip. She was beginning to get a very bad feeling about all this. “It could take them hours to get home.” All she could think of was Luke lying in that bed, hardly moving, not waking up even when she’d thrown a hat at him.
The ripple of alarm expanded into a roller coaster.
“Call him,” she ordered Mrs. Mooshman, pushing the woman in the direction of her apartment. But instead, Mrs. M flipped open a cellular phone and handed it to Gilly, who punched in the number as fast as she could. “No answer.” She looked around wildly. “I have to go back up there. I can’t leave him by himself.”
“You can’t go alone,” Suzette argued. “We’ll all go.”
“But we won’t all fit in the Ferrari, and I
don’t have any other car!”
“Mr. Zamechnik’s car,” Mrs. Mooshman started. “That big old wreck is plenty big for six. Come on, everyone. Time’s a-wastin’!” She blew her whistle as if to start a race. “Let’s get a move on, people!”
And so they all ran downstairs and piled into Mr. Zamechnik’s ancient smoke-belching Ford, with Mr. Z driving at a snail’s pace and Mrs. M ordering him to go faster and to take a different route. Tony laughed out loud, enjoying the adventure, while Suzette and Mrs. Fielder compared notes on the perfidy of men and plotted how to expose the crooked mayor. Gilly bit her nails, praying they got to Luke in time.
Because no matter how angry she was at him, no matter how hurt her feelings were, one thing remained. She still loved him. She loved him desperately, passionately, with all her heart and soul. He had to be okay. He just had to. She needed a chance to punish him, to forgive him, to make up.
And if he was hurt or injured, she would kill whoever did it. With her bare hands.
Right after she killed Luke for causing her so much worry.
HE HAD TRIED to call out to her. But his powers of speech were still not working. All he managed was some kind of damn little whimper that made him sound more like a mouse than a man.
Rage filled him. Because lying there, as lifelike as a hunk of salami, he’d known it was all over. Happiness had been here one moment and gone the next.
The hat on the bed told the tale.
Gilly had found one of Nightshade’s fedoras. And she was furious.
Even if he had wanted to wallow in his morningafter misery, he didn’t have time. He had no sooner taken inventory of his various body parts to find out what was working and what wasn’t when he heard the noise downstairs.
“Gilly?” he called out, his voice sounding like a rusty hinge.
“I heard him,” a man yelled. “Upstairs.”
And that was when Luke realized the second great truth of the morning. His powers were gone. It sounded as if a gang of not very polite thugs had just invaded his home, and he hadn’t even noticed until it was too late. Luke could hear them as they neared, just the way anybody else would, but nothing more. He couldn’t smell them, he couldn’t feel the pounding of their footfalls, and the light from the open window wasn’t doing a thing.
Touch Me Not Page 19
