„You should have been asleep,“ he told her very seriously.
„Should I?“
„It would have made things… easier.“ He didn’t move in the doorway.
„Easier for whom?“
„For me.“
Sara drew a deep breath. „But not for me,“ she whispered, and held out her hand in an ancient gesture of feminine invitation.
„Sara?“ Adrian’s voice was raw with the question.
„Come to bed, Adrian. Please.“
He hesitated for a timeless moment. Then he moved forward in a dark, silent glide that swept her up and bore her back onto the bed.
„Adrian…“
„Hush, Sara. There’s no way on earth I could let you change your mind now.“ He was sprawling heavily on top of her, his hands pinning her passionately against the pillows as he sought her mouth with his own.
She wanted to tell him that she had no intention of changing her mind, that she wanted him, needed him, that she had never felt like this about a man before in her life. But the words seemed to be locked in her throat as he began to make love to her.
Adrian pushed the canvas shoes off his feet without even bothering to sit up on the bed. Sara heard them thud softly to the floor. She felt him fumble with the fastening of his jeans and then the buttons of his shirt. And all the while he kept her achingly close to him, deliriously trapped under his strength.
„I told myself I shouldn’t stop at your door,“ he grated as he kicked his clothing to the floor.
Sara’s head moved from one side to the other on the pillow. „No, this is where you belong.“ She circled his neck with her arms, pulling him close.
„Sara, my sweet Sara.“ He tugged at the nightgown, pushing it off her shoulders and down to her waist. Flattening the palms of his hands across her breasts, he grazed her nipples with a rasping, tantalizing touch that brought them to taut peaks.
Sara uttered a soft sigh into his mouth and dared him with the tip of her tongue. He responded instantly, thrusting deeply behind her teeth. She traced the contours of his sleek back with her fingertips until he groaned heavily.
Lifting himself for an instant, Adrian pulled the nightgown down over her hips and let the garment fall to the floor beside his jeans. Then he came back down beside her and Sara felt the demanding hardness of him against her thigh. She could feel the almost violently taut need in him and her own body reacted to it with fierce awareness.
Slowly, with deliberate provocative strokes, Adrian caressed her. His fingers played an enticing game on the inside of her leg until Sara thought she would go out of her mind with excitement. When he moved his hand upward, she cried out against his mouth.
Then she was struggling passionately to return the heady thrill and the throbbing anticipation. She slid her hand down his back to the slope of his thigh, feeling the crisp curling hair. Then she explored him more and more intimately until she cupped the heavy evidence of his desire.
„Sara, you’re driving me wild,“ he groaned out.
„Yes, please,“ she whispered breathlessly.
„Sara, are you sure?“
„I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.“ She used her nails with excruciating delicacy, and he muttered something soft and savage against her throat.
„Adrian?“
„I couldn’t stop now if all the forces in hell got in the way,“ he said, and then he was parting her legs with his own, sliding toward her warmth until he was only a pulse beat away from possessing her completely.
Sara whispered his name again and again, lifting herself with undisguised longing.
„That’s it, sweetheart. Give yourself to me. Just give yourself to me. I need you so.“
She gasped as he entered her, the shock of his passionate invasion ricocheting through her whole system. Then she tightened her arms and legs around him, wrapping him as close as possible.
Lost in the embrace, Adrian knew only that he wanted Sara to cling to him forever. There was nothing else besides this shattering moment and Adrian seized it with all of his strength. There would be time enough tomorrow to wonder at the intensity of her need, time enough to worry that she was only reacting to the drama of the situation, time enough to reconsider the wisdom of letting himself be swept up in her hot, damp warmth. There was always time enough to regret the past. But he was living for the moment tonight, he told himself, and for this hour he would revel in it. He would allow himself to believe it was all for real.
When he felt the telltale tightening of her body, it precipitated an echo in his own. For an instant he forced himself to raise his head so that he could watch her face during the fiery release. He had a few seconds to wonder at the compelling possessiveness he felt for the woman in his arms and then he was trapped in the vortex of their combined desire. It swept them both to a violent, throbbing climax, left them hanging for a sweet moment and then slowly, slowly ebbed.
The moment in which he had been living was already becoming the past, Adrian thought distantly as he lay beside Sara. Soon the morning would arrive and with it another slice of the past. Perhaps there was some sense of balance in nature. Perhaps one piece of the past could offset another. He would have the memory of Sara’s warmth tonight to carry with him as a talisman against the chill of tomorrow.
She stirred in his arms. „Adrian?“
„I’m here, Sara.“
„Good,“ she murmured drowsily. „See that you’re here tomorrow night, too.“
When tomorrow night comes will you really want me here, my darling Sara, he wondered silently.
He left at dawn and Sara was at the door to watch him go. She had awakened the instant he did, her senses aware of his every movement. He’d lain quietly for a long moment looking down into her face and then he’d brushed his lips lightly against hers. Words flooded his head but he couldn’t find a way to say them aloud. There wasn’t time now to say the things that should be said. Perhaps it was better this way.
Pushing aside the covers, he’d climbed out of bed and headed for the bath. Without a word she’d fixed coffee for him while he dressed and then she’d stood on tiptoe to kiss him good-bye.
„Be careful, Adrian. Please be careful.“
„Hey, I’m only going to talk to a friend of your uncle’s,“ he protested gently. He was afraid of the intensity he saw in her gaze. He liked it better when she was laughing up at him with her eyes or watching him with passion. Adrian realized just how much he had come to value the impulsive warmth that was so much a part of Sara. Life would be very cold without it. „I’ll be home by sundown.“
„Yes.“ She didn’t argue.
„You won’t leave the house,“ he said again, making it an order.
She shook her head. „Not unless you or Uncle Lowell tell me to leave the house,“ she answered obediently.
„Sara…“ He hesitated on the porch, turning back to her one last time.
„Just hurry, Adrian. I’ll be here when you return.“
He looked at her, nodded once and left without glancing back again.
Chapter Eight
The house seemed incredibly lonely after Adrian left. Sara wandered around from room to room, wondering if doing a little housekeeping might help her deal with the strange mood in which she found herself. The thought brought to mind the question of who actually did Adrian’s housecleaning. Something told her he probably took care of the chores himself. Certainly no one had been in during the few days she had known him to sweep the hardwood floors or dust. But everything seemed orderly and reasonably clean. Keeping his environment neat and precise was undoubtedly a part of his nature. It fit with what she knew of his preference for being in control of his world.
Sara wondered if Adrian had ever felt out of control. When had the need to be in command of everything around him come into existence? Perhaps he had been born that way. Or perhaps something in his past had made him so cautious and controlled. Surely the average person didn’t install the kind
of sophisticated electronic gadgetry that protected this house unless some event had instilled a raging desire for security. Adrian was definitely not the type of man to let his imagination make him paranoid. He must have his reasons for his self-control and the controls he had imposed on his surroundings. The only time she sensed that he slipped his own leash was when he made love to her.
The images engraved on her mind from the previous night rose to warm her now. She remembered the passion and intensity of the man who had held her. And she recalled her own ungoverned responses.
She drifted into the library and drew a finger along the top shelf of the bookcase. There was a smudge on her hand afterward but nothing really terrible. Just a normal amount of dust. The kind she herself collected on the top shelf of her bookcase. The kind people living alone tended to collect. She wondered how long Adrian had lived alone. Most of his life, apparently.
Finding the thought depressing, she turned away from the bookcase and walked over to his desk. Having been through it once, she felt there was no point amusing herself by browsing through it again. She sat down in the swivel chair and remembered the way Adrian had caught her here a few nights ago. She hadn’t heard his approach, she recalled. You hardly ever heard the man. He moved very quietly in those well-worn sneakers.
A shaft of morning light caught the crystal-and-gold apple, making the trapped bubbles come alive for a moment. Sara leaned forward and studied the shimmering effect. She liked the notion of Adrian having sat here at his desk for months, the apple in front of him, while he worked. How many times had he glanced up idly and found himself studying the apple? Perhaps as many times as she had.
But she hadn’t known there was a duplicate crystal apple in existence, Sara reminded herself. While Adrian had known all along that there was another apple and that someday he would encounter its owner. She wondered what he had expected her to be like. What picture had her uncle sketched for him? It was suddenly very important to Sara that Adrian had found his gift satisfactory. She wanted to be sure he would return to collect it this evening.
„Adrian,“ she whispered aloud, „remember what I said about taking care of yourself. I don’t think I should have let you go alone.“ As if she’d had a choice.
Uneasily Sara stood up and walked slowly back out of the study. She’d make herself another cup of coffee and see if she couldn’t find something to read. It was going to be a very long day.
She was pouring the coffee when she realized that what she wanted to read was Phantom. Perhaps if she went through it a second time, this time knowing her uncle had deliberately been planting information, she might pick up something useful. Digging the manuscript out of her suitcase, she carried it back to Adrian’s study and sat down to read it with the cup of coffee at her elbow.
She wrinkled her nose at the sketch of the wolf on the first page and then deliberately set herself to go through the manuscript with an alert eye. There must be something in it. Didn’t Lowell believe in hiding things in plain view? He certainly had doodled a great deal on the pages. But then, that was standard operating procedure for Lowell Kincaid whenever he found himself with a pencil in hand and a sheet of paper nearby. The man should have been an artist instead of a secret agent.
Just as had happened the first time through Phantom, Sara once again found herself caught up not in the intricacies of the plot but in the hero’s pain and savage determination to survive. The feelings of protectiveness she had experienced the first time she read it returned anew. She longed to comfort the hero even as she told herself that only he could endure his own survival both emotionally and physically. In the end she knew she would again be left wanting to know for certain that there really was going to be a happy ending. And once more the question of how much of Adrian existed in the guise of Phantom returned to haunt her. This was a first novel. Somewhere she had read that they tended to be the most autobiographical.
Sara was into chapter three when the phone on the desk rang shrilly. The unexpected sound startled her. In the time she had been staying at Adrian’s home, the thing had never rung. She hesitated a few seconds before reaching out to pick up the receiver. Then the thought that it might be Adrian calling for some reason made her fumble with the instrument.
„Hello?“
„Sara.“
„Uncle Lowell!“ Sara sat stunned as she heard her uncle’s distinctive growl of a voice. „Uncle Lowell, where are you? I’ve been absolutely frantic. This whole thing is – “
„Sara, don’t talk, just listen to me,“ Lowell Kincaid said quickly. „Come back to my place as soon as you can.“
„But Uncle Lowell-“
„As soon as you can, Sara. I can’t explain. I’ll be waiting.“
He hung the phone up in her ear before she could get in another question.
Her first instinct, Sara realized, was to panic. She had no way to reach Adrian to tell him what was happening, no way to find out if her uncle needed immediate help such as an ambulance, no way even to begin to figure out what might be wrong. All she could do was obey Lowell Kincaid’s summons as swiftly as possible. Desperately she tried to reassure herself with Adrian’s words about her uncle’s competence. He can take care of himself.
Whatever else was happening, at least she knew he wasn’t in Southeast Asia! If only she could get in touch with Adrian to call him off that wild-goose chase. Frantically Sara tried to think. It took her a moment to break through the paralysis engendered by her uncle’s phone call. Then she was on her feet and running toward the bedroom. Her purse was where she had left it, slung on the bed. She grabbed it and scrabbled around inside for her car keys.
Sara was almost to the front door when she remembered the elaborate warning devices built into Adrian’s house. Forcing herself to slow down and concentrate, she went into Adrian’s bedroom and programmed the alarms as he had taught her so that she could leave without causing a disturbance. Almost as an afterthought she pushed the reset button so that the house would be able to detect intruders. Adrian wouldn’t thank her for leaving the exotic alarm system completely turned off. She was afraid to set it to keep out intruders because Adrian hadn’t told her now to bypass the alarms if she were to leave and then try to reenter. There was always the chance that she might be coming back here this evening with her uncle. This way the house would recognize that it had been entered, but she would be able to get back inside if she wished. When she was finished, the alarms were set just as they had been the night she’d walked so easily into Adrian’s study to search it. She’d better leave a note, too, just in case Adrian returned before she got back.
She dashed back down the hall to the study and found a pen and a piece of paper. Hastily she jotted down the facts about the phone call and Lowell’s summons. Then she glanced around for a means of anchoring the slip of paper. The crystal apple caught her eye. She picked it up and a shaft of morning light broke into a rainbow as it passed through the apple and touched the frozen bubbles inside. Sara found herself staring into the depths of the crystal for a split second. The apple had been the start of this whole mess, she realized. And it had provided the first link between herself and Adrian.
Shaking off the momentary sense of distraction, she plunked the crystal apple down on top of her note. Time enough later to figure out whether the apple was more significant than it seemed.
Finished with the task, she flung herself out the door and down the steps to where her car was parked in the drive. She was furious with her own nervous tension and her anger just served to make her more nervous. It seemed an incredible chore to get the key into the ignition. The wait at the ferry dock was interminable. The Interstate was jammed through the heart of Seattle and over the bridge to Mercer Island. Everything seemed to be conspiring to keep her from making good time out of town.
When at last she was free of the city’s congestion, she found it difficult to keep within shouting distance of the speed limit. Every instinct was to hurry. Uncle Lowell’s words had sounded
extremely urgent. But there had been an oddly flat quality to his voice, she thought as she drove. She’d never heard him sound quite that way.
On the other hand, she had never been around him when he was „working.“ For her he had always been the laughing, witty man who had seemed to understand her even when the rest of the family hadn’t. There had been an affinity between her and her uncle since she was a small girl. Her parents tolerated it good-naturedly most of the time. But there had been occasions when she had been warned that it wasn’t right to play games with life. The black sheep of the family might be a lot of fun but he didn’t set a responsible example for a young person.
With every passing mile Sara wondered what had gone wrong with Lowell Kincaid’s latest game.
It wasn’t until nearly two hours later when she was turning off onto the narrow road that led toward the cottage that Sara remembered to wonder why her uncle hadn’t mentioned Adrian. If there was anything really wrong, would Lowell have asked her to come alone?
Impatiently she slowed to take the twists and turns of the old road. Quite suddenly she was furious with both her uncle and Adrian. Men and their little macho schemes. And they had the nerve to say she played games! When this was all over, Sara decided as she braked for a sharp curve, she would give them both a piece of her mind. More than that. She’d tear a wide strip off each of them.
The car that blocked the road on the far side of the curve came as a distinct shock. It was sitting across both lanes, making it utterly impossible to get past. Sara, who had her foot on the accelerator again as she came out of the curve, hurriedly slammed on the brakes.
„Damn it to hell!“ It was the last straw, Sara told herself as she came to a halt. Well, at least she could walk to the cottage from here. Angrily, her mood fueled by a firestorm of mounting concern, she pulled over to the side of the road, pushed open the door and climbed out. There was no one in the other car as far as she could tell. Who on earth would be stupid enough to leave a vehicle in the middle of the road? Probably some drunk driver who hadn’t made it home from a local tavern.
The Waiting Game Page 14
