by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
He stood up. She was annoyed with herself for feeling disappointed when the removal of the sheet revealed a pair of shorts instead of nudity. “I could change your mind,” he said. “Remember what I did to Nola’s disciple.”
“No, you can’t, because I have this. You said so yourself.”
“Just as well,” he said, reaching for the clothes he’d left on the nearest chair. “You’re right, after all. It would be a mistake on every level.”
Linnet nodded. “Absolutely. We have to concentrate on finding Nola. Nothing else.”
“You shouldn’t have touched me.” He hurried into his slacks and yanked on a T-shirt.
“Me? Touch you? So now it’s my fault you can’t keep your hands to yourself?”
“My hands aren’t the problem.” With a wry smile, he sat down to put on his shoes. “You needn’t worry, none of those problems will get near you from now on.”
A flood of anger swept away her arousal. “Great! And you don’t have to worry about me touching you again, either!”
“Excellent.” He picked up a key card and stalked across the room, then whirled to face her. “Make sure you keep that promise. My self-control is not infinite.” He walked out the door and slammed it behind him.
Chapter 7
Max’s throat burned with thirst. He could hardly keep from snarling aloud as he flung the door shut and stormed down the hall to the stairway exit. He had no patience to wait for the elevator. Scarcely touching the steps, he half flew to the ground floor.
What was wrong with the woman? She behaved as if she wanted her blood drained. Touching him while he slept, with his defenses down…Of course he’d felt her fingers at the pulse point on his neck. It had been all he could manage to keep pretending to be oblivious. When she’d bitten him, the playful impulse had almost wrecked what little control he had left. Why would she be fool enough to act so seductively?
Emerging into the courtyard, Max glowered at the still-bright early-evening sun. It wouldn’t set for at least another hour at this time of year. Fuming, he retreated to the shade of a flowering tree. The pool glinted in the center of the court. He had no intention of joining the sweaty human crowd and exposing himself to the blinding glare of the blue water. He needed to find a solitary female he could feed from in safety before returning to the room and facing Linnet’s reckless allure.
He blinked in astonishment at his own thoughts. He was thinking like a human male—blaming the victim, as they called it nowadays. Linnet couldn’t possibly guess what fate she’d tempted, nor had she intended her curious exploration as seduction. It was his own responsibility to keep a proper distance from her. Why did he crave her blood? After feeding on her the previous night, he shouldn’t feel the need for at least another twenty-four hours. Proximity was artificially stimulating his appetite, he supposed. Also, the challenge of her immunity to his mesmeric power might have something to do with his interest.
For several reasons, he had to resist the desire. Emotional entanglement would impair their ability to work together, distract them from the mission. Repeated feedings at too close intervals would weaken her, and he needed his ally at full strength. Most important, if he tasted her too often, he risked becoming addicted, as Anthony had been with Deanna. Max never planned to fall into that trap. In one way Nola’s strategy was sound. By taking her victims from a “harem” of a dozen or more, she never had to resort to the same one often enough to develop a dependency.
Furthermore, a passionate interlude with Linnet would hurt her—emotionally, even if not physically. He respected the woman’s courage, no matter how foolhardy its expression. On some level, he liked her. Anthony had liked her niece. The attraction must run in the family. Now you’re thinking like a fool, Maxwell, he berated himself. She’s a pet, at most, and you don’t have time for a pet.
Having argued himself into behaving rationally, Max surveyed the people strolling to and from the pool. Perhaps he could lure one of the young women away from the crowd. Blood from any live human prey would do, but a responsive female satisfied him best. Lacking the excitement of sexual polarity, a man’s blood tasted little better than an animal’s.
Lurking under his tree, eyes stinging from the sun, Max watched the people walking along the path a few yards away. A family, parents accompanied by a pair of little boys shoving each other as they ran ahead. A gaggle of teenage girls. Two women of about forty. No good, he needed one alone, who wouldn’t be missed for a few minutes.
By the time a suitable target approached, his head was pounding from the sunlight. A girl of twenty or so in a two-piece bathing suit walked up the path, barefoot, blond hair dripping. No one else was nearby for the moment. Max stepped in front of her.
“Pardon me, miss, I believe you dropped your key.” Capturing her eyes, he slipped the key card from her left hand, under a fold of the damp towel she carried, and offered it to her. Oblivious to his sleight of hand, she accepted the card and murmured confused thanks.
Having used the trick merely to entice her to look into his eyes, he held her gaze and whispered, “You aren’t in a hurry to return to your room. You want to come with me into the shade, alone, where it’s quiet.” He clasped her hand and stroked from elbow down to fingertips, then back again, in a pattern of languid repetition. Her eyelids drooped. “Come with me. You will enjoy it, won’t you?”
“Mmm-hmm.” When he put an arm around her waist, she allowed him to guide her off the path and around the corner, where a taller tree provided deeper shade. At that moment a woman carrying a baby walked by. Max glowered at her, and she quickened her pace.
He focused on his prey again and curbed his impatience long enough to construct a bubble of illusion to hide them from anyone else who might stumble across them. Tucking the girl’s wet hair behind her ears to expose her neck, Max caressed her shoulders in long swirls that wandered along her upper arms and back again. The scent of chlorine, mingled with her salty fragrance, enveloped him. She melted against him, her arms wrapped around his torso. Since she stood a foot shorter than he, Max had to bend over to lick and nibble her jawline and throat. He avoided her lips. Unlike Linnet, this girl inspired no desire for the intimacy of kisses. Stop thinking about that woman! he growled to himself.
Enough. The girl was lulled into a semiconscious erotic fog, and the enzymes in his saliva had numbed her skin. No need to risk further delay.
He pierced the tender flesh, avoiding the large veins and arteries where he would have done real damage. With a gasp, she pressed harder against his body. Tasting the salt-sweet trickle of blood, he stroked down her curves and insinuated his hand between her thighs. She convulsed against him, and her pulse raced. The heat of her life flooded through him.
He counted heartbeats to avoid losing track of time. The last thing he wanted was having to hypnotize some chance witness into forgetting this incident. Reluctantly, he lifted his head and applied gentle pressure to the tiny incision. “Go back to your room now. Drink a glass of water and rest. You will not remember meeting me.”
She twisted away from his fingers at her throat and snuggled against him. “Don’t want to go,” she mumbled.
“Yes, you do,” he said more firmly. He used her towel to wipe away the thread of blood and stop it from seeping afresh. “You need to forget about me and take a nap. You will have pleasant dreams and awaken satisfied, remembering nothing about this encounter.” He allowed the psychic shield that surrounded them to melt.
He heard the voices of two boys coming up the path. “Go now,” he ordered more sharply.
Finally she accepted the command and padded away. She might be perfectly satisfied, but he realized he wasn’t. He’d enjoyed the few minutes of pleasure, sharing the girl’s climax, but now that it was over, he still felt discontented. The best he could say for the experience was that the fires in his stomach and throat were quenched, and his head didn’t hurt anymore. In this short time, he’d started to become obsessed with Linnet. All the more reason no
t to feed from her again. The quicker they found Nola, the sooner they could separate, and he could escape further temptation.
At any rate, now he could return to Linnet without the torment of hunger to undermine his resolution. Realizing how disheveled he looked—the girl’s embrace had left blood on his shirt—he once again shrouded himself in a psychic veil to walk into the building and up the stairs. Doors that opened and closed by themselves, he decided, would arouse less curiosity than a man in a bloodstained T-shirt.
Still invisible, he paused at the door of the motel room, listening. He expected to hear only Linnet’s breathing, or perhaps the television. Instead, he heard suppressed sobs. Damn it, what was wrong with the woman now? He doubted her crying arose simply from grief over her niece.
Slipping his card into the lock, he eased the door open a crack. Linnet lay on the bed, her face pillowed on her arms. He sensed the effort she made to keep from sobbing out loud. Anger as well as sadness radiated from her. Max felt an urge to take her in his arms and soothe away those negative emotions.
What an idiotic notion! If he touched her, the next thing he knew, he would end up kissing and caressing her, then getting thirsty all over again. Besides, where had he gotten the ridiculous idea that he ought to comfort a human female? She was just an ephemeral, whose emotions should mean nothing to him but a source of psychic nourishment.
Disgusted with his undisciplined thoughts, he pulled the door shut and, still veiled, stalked down the hall to a plate-glass window at the end of the corridor. Arms folded, he stared down at the freeway, where a stream of cars glinted in the sun. He punished himself with the glare, hoping the discomfort would drive away his irrational impulses.
When Max stomped out of the room, Linnet told herself she was glad he’d left. They both needed to cool off, didn’t they? She didn’t want to get sexually involved with a man she couldn’t in a million years consider spending her life with, and she certainly didn’t want a one-night stand. Even if she went in for that kind of fling, she would never choose Maxwell Tremayne. Their situation demanded an all-business approach. No distractions.
So why did she feel miserable? Just wounded ego from the fact that Max could so easily agree that they shouldn’t get involved? Linnet hoped she wasn’t that shallow.
Did she feel attracted to him, no matter how senselessly? She plopped down on the bed and picked at a loose thread on the hem of the cover. Sure, he turned her on. No doubt about that. But a grown woman’s brain shouldn’t get scrambled by a few incredible kisses. He seemed to feel that way, too. The moment she called time-out, giving him a few seconds to think, he jumped at the chance to escape from her. Well, let him. As far as she could tell, he regarded her as a nuisance he was stuck with against his will. Why had she demeaned herself for a single minute by kissing a man like that?
The thread she was twisting snapped off. She crumpled the bedspread in her hands and plucked loose another strand to fiddle with. A metallic scent wafted from the rumpled sheets. Max’s aftershave? If so, she didn’t believe the peculiar, though not unpleasant, aroma would ever become a bestseller.
Not that she wouldn’t have enjoyed getting to know Max in normal circumstances. Suppose Anthony had lived, married Dee and introduced Linnet to Max? Not only was the man infuriatingly ravishing, he had a brain. He wrote books. He’d traveled all over the world. If the situation were different, he could show Linnet the Globe, Westminster Cathedral, the Paris Opera House, Notre Dame, all the places he knew as an art historian rather than an ordinary tourist.
Right, and he would get bored with her inside a week. She’d hardly set foot outside Maryland, aside from a few family vacations. She and Max fitted together about as well as a tiger and an alley cat. Why was she indulging in these wild fantasies?
Still, did he have to agree so emphatically when she declared that making love would be a mistake?
Don’t know what you want, do you, girl? she mocked herself.
She wanted to go home, where life used to make sense. As if in a magical response to the wish, her cell phone beeped, announcing an attempted call.
She snatched up the phone. One message. When she pulled up the number, she sighed in dismay. Her mother.
She decided she had to return the call, or Mom would keep trying and interrogate her about it the next time they met. After all, she didn’t have to volunteer her whereabouts. Mulling over possible alibis, she punched in her mother’s number.
“Linnet, where have you been? I can’t get anything at your house except the answering machine.”
“Good grief, Mom, I left a message on yours.”
“Some message! You’ve got business that’ll keep you away from home for a few days?” said her mother in a sarcastic falsetto. “That doesn’t tell me a thing. What business?”
“I ran into Anthony’s brother. We had some financial arrangements and stuff to take care of.” She braced herself for a scolding.
“Anthony’s brother? You didn’t think this was important enough to tell me about, not to mention Robin and Tim?”
Linnet swallowed a hysterical giggle at the thought of trying to explain Max to her sister and brother-in-law. “I didn’t want to bother any of you. I’m sure Robin would rather have me deal with Anthony’s one living relative than have to do it herself.”
“That’s still no excuse to up and disappear.”
“I didn’t disappear.” She struggled to keep exasperation out of her voice. “I left you a message. I’ll be home in a day or two.”
“You never said where you are.”
“Just in and out, nowhere special,” she said with a vagueness she knew she could never get away with face-to-face.
“Do you even know about that crazy boy who went to the police and confessed to the murder?”
“Yes, I heard about that, but I’m not up to discussing it right now.” She didn’t have to fake the strain in her voice. “Look, Mom, I don’t want to run up my cell-phone bill. I’ll tell you all about what I’ve been doing next time I see you.”
“And Robin. She’ll want to hear about it, whatever it is, too.”
“Not likely. She can’t stand to hear Anthony’s name mentioned. Besides, she won’t talk to me in the first place.”
A heavy sigh drifted over the phone. “She didn’t mean anything by those things she said to you.”
“Sure sounded like it to me.”
“Hon, you have to understand, she’s not herself. Her daughter was murdered.”
Acid welled up in Linnet’s throat. “What about my niece? And your granddaughter, for that matter? Robin’s not the only one hurting, damn it!”
“Don’t use that language to me!”
“Sorry, Mom.” Her cheeks burned from the flare-up of anger. “But I loved Dee, too. Maybe not the same way Robin did, but that doesn’t give her any right to take it out on the rest of us.”
“You have to make allowances for her.”
“Why do I always have to be the reasonable one and make allowances?” Catching the whine in her own voice, Linnet said, “I don’t want to fight like this. We’ll talk in a day or two.” With a quick goodbye, she turned off the power before her mother could speak again.
Tears welled up. Sniffling, she grabbed a tissue and rubbed her eyes. She knew what she wanted. She wanted her parents and sister to forgive her for letting Deanna get murdered. Heck, while she was wishing, she might as well wish to have her niece back. Come to think of it, she could wish Deanna had never met Nola Grant or even Anthony, nice as he had seemed. She dabbed at the moisture streaking her face.
Nice? If she’d had time to get better acquainted with him, Anthony would probably have shown himself to be as arrogant and insufferable as his brother. For all she knew, Max might have decided he was fed up with her and driven to Monterey alone. Linnet flung herself down on the bed and hid her face in the pillow.
Several minutes later, a faint sound cracked the surface of her misery. The door? She rolled over and looked in t
hat direction, just in time to see it close.
“Max?”
No answer. She stood up, wiped her eyes once more and scurried to the door. Opening it, she saw nobody in the hall. She knew Max could move fast, but disappearing that quickly seemed impossible. Yet who else would have peeked in at her? Not the motel staff, surely. Why had Max changed his mind and retreated?
Easy, because he was a coward. Afraid of emotional outbursts, like all men. A crying woman turned them into quivering blobs. He’d walked out in the middle of a fight, and now he was afraid to come back. Well, she wouldn’t let him get away with it.
With just enough foresight to grab her own key off the dresser, she charged into the hall, barefoot. In the back of her mind a small voice chirped that at least he’d cared enough not to run off to Monterey without her. So far, anyway.
She glanced from one end of the corridor to the other. Had he had time to catch the elevator? In that case, she thought she would have heard the groan of the machinery. Not that long had passed before she’d opened the door. She headed toward the other end of the hall, with the stairway exit and a tall window.
When she got within a few yards of the window, the air shimmered. A heat mirage, she thought at first, until it darkened into a man-shaped blur in front of the glass. And then Max stood in front of her.
She jumped and clapped a hand to her chest. Her heart fluttered as if trying to fly out of her rib cage. “You—” She swallowed. “You did that in the woods, too. Appeared out of thin air.”
He arched his eyebrows. “Surely you don’t believe that. You’re a scientist.”
“So what do you expect me to believe? I know what I just saw. You weren’t here, and now you are.”
“I’m fast and quiet. Let it go at that.”
“No way! I’ve been letting too much go on your word. I’m sick of being treated like a stray puppy who followed you home, instead of a partner.” She put her hands on her hips and scowled at him.
