Behind the Shadows

by Potter, Patricia;

  Then he called the investigation agency that had prepared the report on Kira. “I want some protection for someone,” he said. “Good and discreet. Do you have a recommendation?”

  “Davies and Peeples. They’re good. They know how to blend in, and discretion is as much a part of their training as firearms.”

  “Have a number?”

  Twenty minutes later he’d hired someone to look after Kira.

  He called the newspaper and asked for Kira. She’d left for the day.

  She would probably be at one of two places. Her home or the hospital? As exhausted as she’d been last time, he opted for the former.

  He went to his secretary, who was a sorceress. She could find anything. Do anything. Conjure anything.

  “Do we have any spare laptops around?” he asked.

  “Sure. We’re always updating.”

  “I want a good one.”

  “How soon?”

  “Thirty minutes.”

  “You’re a hard taskmaster, but I’ll have one.”

  And she did. Ten minutes later he left the office, a cleaned laptop with him.

  Forty minutes later he drove up to her home. He parked, then called her on his cell.

  She answered after several rings, her voice sleepy. He tried to ignore the sudden image of her lying in bed, her blue eyes half closed and her body …

  “I have some news,” he said. “I’m outside. May I come in?”

  “Outside? What time is it?

  “Five p.m. Did I wake you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sorry I woke you.”

  “Don’t be. It’s time to get up. Five in the afternoon is a god-awful time to be asleep.”

  He grinned at that. “Not always.”

  “Give me a few minutes.”

  “Five?”

  “Make it ten.”

  The phone went dead. He glanced at his watch and leaned back. He was surprised at how eager he was to see her. He could have called and sent a messenger over with a computer, but …

  Dammit. He wanted to confirm for himself she was all right. He wanted to tell her in person that Leigh had agreed to the test. He wanted to see that rare smile again.

  He called himself all kinds of an idiot. He was violating every rule he’d ever made for himself. Never get involved with clients or with someone involved in a case. Hell, never get involved, period.

  Yet here he was in front of someone’s house like a lovesick schoolboy. It shook him to the depth of his soul.

  He closed his eyes for a few moments, then glanced at his watch. Five minutes. He stepped outside, stretched, glanced up and down the street. White picket fences protected the neat houses. Several kids played in one yard.

  Nothing out of the ordinary. Few cars were parked on the street. It would be difficult for any surveillance without notice. He had to believe the promises of the firm he’d retained earlier.

  Another glance at his watch. Two minutes left. Not that he’d ever been the typical schoolboy.

  He headed for the porch with the laptop. The door opened.

  Kira stood there, her eyes swollen with sleep. She wore a T-shirt and shorts and looked as sexy at that moment as any well-groomed woman in Victoria’s Secret lingerie.

  She didn’t say anything, merely held the door for him. Her face was tight with tension.

  He walked in and looked around. Things looked far better than they had early this morning. But damage was still obvious.

  He held out the computer to her. “Thought you could use this,” he said.

  She hesitated. “This wasn’t necessary.”

  “No,” he said. “But we had a spare one in the office and I heard you say last night yours was stolen. It’s a loan,” he added hurriedly before she could say no. “Return it when you have time to get a new one.”

  She didn’t take it. “Is that why you came?”

  “No. Leigh has agreed to a DNA test. I thought you would like to know.”

  “You could have called,” she challenged.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “I could have done that. I just … wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Her expression softened. “Thank you.” She reached out and took the computer and set it down. “When is the test?”

  “It’s scheduled the day after tomorrow at two p.m.”

  “Where?”

  “At her house. I told her that you—or someone you designate—might want to be there.”

  “I do.”

  “Even if the tests show a match, it doesn’t mean she’ll donate a kidney. As I told you earlier, she won’t go near a hospital.”

  Her back straightened. “Then I’ll have to convince her.”

  He should go. He’d done what he came to do. He felt he owed her at least a computer. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the trashing of her home had something to do with the Westerfields. What and who and why he didn’t know, but he was damn well going to find out.

  “How’s your mother?”

  “Deteriorating day by day.”

  “I’m sorry the transplant didn’t work out.”

  “Me, too.”

  His gaze met hers. He saw the sorrow there. But also the strength and determination that so appealed to him.

  There was something else there, too.

  He held out his hand. He didn’t know if she would take it or not. After a moment’s hesitation, she did. Her hand was warm, her fingers long and slender. They wrapped around his, and he felt the need in her. It wasn’t sensual, or maybe a small part of it was. It was a yearning, instead, for comfort, for human contact.

  He pulled her to him and held her. She trembled against him and his hold tightened.

  Delayed reaction from last night’s terror.

  He knew it. He should let her go and get the hell out of here.

  He just couldn’t do it.

  19

  Kira hadn’t meant to step into his arms.

  She certainly didn’t intend to look up at him and melt.

  He was on the other side. And there was obviously a deep, personal relationship between Max and Leigh, a protectiveness that crept into his voice when he spoke of her.

  God knew things were complicated enough. Even as she reminded herself of all that, she leaned against him, surrendered to the attraction that shimmered between them.

  His scent was enticing. She wasn’t good at identifying aftershave scents, but she knew she liked this one. Even more, she liked the feel of his body against hers. She fit into his angular form just right.

  Stupid, she told herself. Why after her heart’s long drought was she attracted to the worst possible man in the universe? Fate was perverse.

  And, at the moment, irresistible.

  His arms tightened around her, held her so tight she heard the beating of his heart. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. And was consumed by them.

  His lips touched her cheek. Lightly. Almost like the whisper of a breeze.

  It was unlike any sensation she’d ever experienced.

  He was not a man who hesitated. She’d known that the moment they met. He was strong, decisive, cynical. Yet the tenderness in his gesture was breathtaking. His fingers played with the back of her neck, not in seduction, she sensed, but in comfort, which was, in itself, incredibly seducing.

  Her arms went around his neck.

  Unwise. So very, very unwise.

  The words hung unsaid between them. She saw he realized it as well, but they’d been on the verge of this since that night in the restaurant. Lodestones? Simply raw sex appeal?

  She should move away. Too much was at stake. But her legs didn’t seem to work very well.

  His lips moved to hers. They barely touched, yet a conflagration started in her stomach. He hesitated a moment, then his lips played with hers. The kiss was tender at first, teasing, then exploratory.

  She had not thought of him as gentle before. He’d been all unemotional competence, his face a study in reserved discipline
with the slightest cynical twist to his lips.

  Step back! She couldn’t. Her legs were rubbery and her heart pounded and all she wanted was to meld into him, to feel the kiss deepen. From the moment his lips touched hers, she was helpless to protest, to slow the tingling of every nerve, to stop the painful longing inside.

  She wanted him, although all her warning bells were clanging. She realized from the tenseness in his body that he had the same mental reservations. Neither stepped away.

  She was transfixed with the essence of him. Tremors coursed through his body, and she responded with a hunger she’d never known before. His kiss deepened, and his tongue teased her mouth open. Sensations surged through her.

  Heat pooled inside her as his body hardened against hers. His hands encircled her hips, pulling her up until the swelling at the apex of his legs matched the crevice at hers. The heat built inside. It was as if her blood had turned into hot, throbbing rivers of desire, painful in intensity.

  She’d never felt such need, such raw desire, before.

  She heard the quick intake of his breath, then his lips pressed hard on hers, taking now because he knew she wanted this as much as he.

  “Dammit,” he said, his voice breaking as he moved an inch from her lips, his face taut. “This is …”

  “Crazy,” she finished, a tremor in the word. She didn’t know what he’d started to say. Probably that this was impossible or unethical or stupid. All of the above.

  “Nothing about this is right,” he whispered, but then he defied his own words, kissing her again with a passion that crowded out any more warnings.

  His hands moved up and down her back in sensuous strokes. His body, his hands, his lips made her quiver with expectation. She closed her eyes. She just wanted to feel and savor, to give up all the anxiety and fear and sorrow that racked her life in the past months and culminated in the combination of events last night.

  His mouth consumed hers. His tongue tempted her mouth open again, then seduced. The kiss took on a wild, fierce quality that made everything else fade into nothingness. Passion—or was it lust?—raced through her.

  It had been so long since she’d been with a man. And she’d never felt like this before. The need was primal in its intensity. He moved his lips from her mouth, downward to her throat. They lingered there as he caressed the back of her neck, then they went to her ear, nibbling the most sensitive part of the lobe. Her hands left his neck and explored the sides of his body. Lean. Hard. Sexy as sin.

  She felt as if she were caught in a whirlpool, drawn more and more into turbulent, twisting currents of feelings. Drowning in them. Drowning in her need for him, for that mixture of reserve and tenderness and even a tempered violence she now felt in him.

  He pulled her T-shirt over her head. Freed from clothes, her skin was alive with feeling, with wanting. She fumbled as she tried to unbuckle his belt and unzip his slacks. He helped her and discarded both them and dark briefs.

  He picked up his clothes, and she led him to her bedroom. The bed was still mussed from when she’d answered his call. His eyes took it all in, and his fingers tightened around hers.

  She slipped off her shorts. She was not particularly proud of her body. Her build was large and she’d never been svelte. But his gaze devoured her even as he hesitated one more time.

  “Are you sure?” he asked in a ragged voice.

  “Don’t you dare stop now,” she exclaimed.

  He actually grinned. “I won’t, then.”

  He guided her down, then he reached for his slacks and took a package from his wallet.

  For the barest of seconds, the action startled her. Had he planned this? Or did he have that many chances or planned encounters? Neither choice was appealing to her.

  But then he was beside her again. “That package has been in my wallet for a very long time,” he said with a slow smile. “Thank God.”

  Her last reservation faded as he kissed her, starting with her mouth and moving, ever so sensually and lazily, downward. Her throat, her breasts, then to her midriff, and finally to the triangle of hair. The core of her became a mass of writhing nerve ends, the pain both sweet and exquisite in anticipation as he teased and explored.

  Then he moved on top of her and entered her. He moved slowly, taking his time as he ignited feelings throughout her body. The air radiated with hunger, with sex, and she felt like a volcano ready to explode. A sound came from deep within her as she felt the bunching of muscles against her skin.

  She caught his rhythm. He plunged deeper and deeper as if seeking the very core of her. Her body moved in response. Hungry. So hungry. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around him, wanting him to come deeper and deeper as sensations grew stronger and wilder and more exquisite.

  Then he slowed again, tantalizing her, seducing her into a primal dance that magnified all those earlier sensations until she wondered how she could bear them without screaming.

  She heard her own cry, and his mouth came down on hers, his kiss snatching the sound from her as he made one last mighty thrust. Shocks of ecstasy rocked her, then climaxed in one magnificent explosion. Her body quaked with tremors as he held her.

  She felt his body shudder. “My God,” he whispered.

  She treasured the words even as aftershocks rocked her body. His words echoed her own disbelieving reaction. She’d never suspected sex could be this earth-shattering. It had never been before.

  Now she knew where music came from.

  She also knew she would never be the same.

  He withdrew from her, rolled over. His breath was labored.

  His hand took hers.

  Neither of them spoke immediately. She was still trying to absorb what had happened and the ramifications. Maybe there wouldn’t be any for him. She knew there would be for her.

  He was an experienced lover. She knew that. Her few experiences had included precious little foreplay, or much of an effort to give her pleasure before her partner took his.

  He played with her hand. “You know we just created one hell of a problem,” he finally said.

  “Yes.” She wasn’t going to pretend there wasn’t one. Despite what had just happened, he still represented what could be an obstacle to her mother’s transplant.

  “Damned unethical,” he added. “I know better.”

  “Me, too.”

  To her surprise, he chuckled. “Will you stop agreeing with me and show some outrage?”

  “Only if you stop doing what you you’re doing now.”

  “You were tired. I took advantage.”

  “Some could say I took advantage of you.”

  He put an arm under her shoulder and pulled her to him. “God, you feel good.”

  She nestled in his arm. For the first time in months, she relaxed. Felt as if she wasn’t alone with the world on her shoulders.

  She could relish it for a few moments, anyway.

  He turned and ran his free hand over her body.

  She inwardly flinched and wished away a few excess pounds. She wasn’t really overweight, but she sure wasn’t model size, either. Not like Leigh.

  Leigh’s image broke the reverie. She didn’t want to move. She never wanted to move, but she had to get to the hospital. Her mother would worry if she didn’t appear. She also had to see how her mother was doing after the debacle last night. She’d made one call after arriving home today. The nurse said she was doing fine, but Kira didn’t really trust the hospital that much.

  “I have to go to the hospital,” she said reluctantly.

  “I’ll drive you,” he said.

  “No.” Despite the fact that the last hour was probably the most spectacular in her life, she needed her independence. Especially from him. It would be so easy to yield to him.

  “Yes,” he retorted, then held up his hand as she started to protest. “Just this one time. It’ll be dark soon, and you’re still tired. Anyone else would be comatose. I’ll drive you there, wait, and then we can have supper at the Italian rest
aurant.”

  She started to protest. He stopped her with a kiss. “We have things to talk about.”

  They did. And he was right about her exhaustion. She’d had a couple of hours of sleep this afternoon but even less the night before. She knew she was near the breaking point, and she couldn’t afford that. A good meal sounded like nectar from the gods.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  He ran a hand through her hair. “You’re sexy as hell,” he said.

  She knew she looked astonished.

  “Hasn’t anyone told you that before?”

  “No.”

  “Just proves most men are fools.”

  She wanted to ask him whether his other women friends were thin and fashionable, but she wasn’t about ready to let him see that slice of insecurity.

  Instead, she forced herself to sit when she really wanted to lie next to him. Forever. Certainly for the night.

  At least he would be with her part of the evening.

  And then?

  Then they would have to stay apart. She had to get a kidney for her mother. He obviously intended to protect Leigh. That could mean a possible court case if that was what it took to force Leigh to donate a kidney.

  She stood. “I need a shower.”

  “Me, too.”

  She’d never taken a shower with a man. Now was probably not the time to start.

  “After me,” she said firmly. “You are too distracting.”

  He stood, obviously a lot more comfortable with his nakedness than she was with hers. “I sincerely hope so,” he replied.

  He went over to her, held her easily. “This was unwise, but I don’t regret it.”

  The hell of it was she didn’t, either.

  20

  Chris debated whether to call Leigh Howard or just show up.

  The problem with just showing up was the gate Kira had described. He might not get any farther.

  He picked up the telephone. The housekeeper answered and he asked to speak with Ms. Howard. He gave his name. Lies now would definitely be counterproductive.

  To his surprise, Leigh answered.

  “Ms. Howard, I’m Chris Burke.”

  “Mr. Burke?” She obviously knew who he was. Her voice was like ice cubes dropping in crystal.

  “I wonder if you could give me an hour of your time. I would like to explain a few things.”