by Leslie Kelly
The thought made him even harder. So hard, he nearly erupted out of his low-riding briefs.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, her jaw wide open. She stared at his crotch like he was some kind of dancer at a strip club.
Hell, maybe he was.
“I think you’d better get out of here,” he said, his voice thick and hoarse, the words so painful he nearly had to rip them from his throat. He stepped away from the door, willing her to leave. When what he really wanted to do was to pull her close. Very close. To bury himself inside her and let all the confusion be washed away by raw, physical intimacy. “Go now.”
Shaking her head, she stood to face him and sucked in a few deep, ragged breaths. “I can’t leave you alone.”
“I’m fine,” he bit out between clenched teeth.
She squared her shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere. You can get back under the covers, and we can…”
Have wild, horny, sweaty, kinky sex.
“Talk. Or play cards. You just go back over there to your side of the room. Everything will be fine.” He didn’t know who she was trying to convince more with that weak, breathy voice…him or herself.
He’d tried to play the gentleman, tried to send her on her way untouched, safe and sound. She hadn’t taken him up on his offer. So now all bets were off. “Okay. Suit yourself.” Stepping closer until their bodies almost touched, he pressed each of his hands on the wall behind her head, effectively trapping her.
“But if you stay, we’re going to pick up wherever we left off downstairs in the kitchen.”
GWEN KNEW he was trying to intimidate her into leaving, for her own good. If he knew the truth—that his implied threat excited her more than it frightened her—he’d be the one in retreat. Because he didn’t mean it. He wanted answers, not sex.
Well, okay, he probably wanted both. Correction, judging by the erection straining against his underwear, and, oh, God, nearly erupting from the top of them, he definitely wanted sex. But she’d lay money he wanted answers more. She certainly would, if the situation were reversed. She’d want to know who she was before she could even think about having hot, erotic sex with a stranger.
Then again, she wasn’t a guy.
“You want to bring me up to speed on how far we’d progressed before we were so painfully interrupted?” His voice had returned to that sultry purr she remembered from earlier that night. His tone was sensuous and hypnotic. His stare equally so.
“W-we were saying goodnight.”
He stepped closer, until his bare legs brushed against hers and one of his feet was between her own. “Sure we were.”
She flattened herself as far as she could against the wall, fisting her hands to avoid throwing her arms around the poor man’s neck and begging him to take her. Now. Hard. Right where they stood. Or on the bed. Or in the bathtub. Or all of the above.
Not the kind of thing one should do to a secret agent with a concussion and amnesia. Not when the bad guy could be pounding down the door any minute, catching them unprepared. Distracted. In the throws of ultimate physical pleasure. Damn, it almost seemed worth the risk when she thought of it in those terms.
“So, I’m to believe we were going to bed…separately?”
“We were,” she said. “We just met tonight.”
He thought about it. “Okay, I guess I can buy that. I can’t imagine even a blow to the head could make me forget you if we knew each other more…intimately.” He looked down, his gaze resting on the gaping vee of her robe, where the glittery, beaded bodice of her nightgown was exposed. “We obviously hit it off.”
She nodded. “Yes, we did.” Clearing her throat she said, “But that doesn’t matter now. We have to make sure you’re okay tonight and everything will be fine tomorrow. You’ll get your memory back. You’ll do what you came here to do. Then you’ll go.” Taking the arms dealer sleeping upstairs with you.
And maybe coming back for a visit in the future, when this was all over. God, she’d give a year off her life if he’d come back so they could finish what they’d started. Particularly now, when she’d seen the physical evidence of what he had to offer.
A lot.
His eyes narrowed. “What I came here to do. You mean, beyond this?” He pressed against her suggestively. His tight boxers and her nightwear were the only things separating the hungriest parts of them both. “Is there anything beyond this?”
No. She didn’t think there was. Hadn’t thought so ever since she’d seen him get out of that bed, her body instantly responding. Without a touch, merely at the sight of him, she’d gotten so aroused she’d barely trusted herself to stand up.
He moved again, brushing his hips against hers in an agonizing sexual tease, coaxing a hopeless whimper from her mouth. How could he know her so well when he didn’t know her at all? Was she so easy to read, so pathetic a female that he had been able to tell just by looking at her how much she wanted him? Had wanted him since she first set eyes on him?
“We can’t.” That sounded about as strong-willed as a teenager who’d already climbed into the back of a car with her boyfriend. We can’t. We mustn’t. We shouldn’t. Take me, baby!
He ignored her, moving his hands lower on the wall until his forearms touched her shoulders and his fingers teased a few long strands of her hair. She sighed. Obviously hearing the sound, he lowered his mouth to her throat, tasting her skin, breathing deeply as if he couldn’t get enough of her scent.
Her brain screamed danger. Her body said to hell with it.
“So,” he continued as he moved higher, sliding his tongue on her neck as if testing the fluttering of her pulse. “What am I doing here, Gwen?” Another nip. Another tiny flick of his tongue. Another question. “What haven’t you told me?”
She couldn’t think, could barely breathe, could hardly remember her own name at this point.
“Come on, angel. Let’s just get it out in the open and move on.” He kissed higher, sucking her earlobe into his mouth and nibbling it so lightly she shivered with sensation.
“Tell me.” He punctuated the command by lowering his hand to trail his fingers along the neckline of her gown, tracing a path on the sensitive skin above her breast. “Tell me.”
Resistance was futile. Gwen caved in like a guilty suspect being interrogated by Sipowicz on NYPD Blue. Or like a counterspy being seduced into talking by James Bond. That was probably closer to the truth. Her words came out in a rush, on one long, exhaled breath. “You’re a secret agent and you’re chasing a Russian arms dealer and his buyer and you were supposed to meet your local contact tonight, but he knows you’re hurt, so he’s outside making sure the perimeter is secure. I’m to stay here with you to make sure you’re all right and if you stop touching me, I think I’ll die.”
There. All said. And obviously shocking, because he stopped the sensual assault and merely looked at her with an open jaw and wide eyes. She waited, wondering if he’d remember, if hearing the truth would put his memories back where they belonged.
He finally shook his head and stepped back, swiping a hand through his hair as he absorbed her words. Then he tsked.
“That’s the stupidest story I have ever heard.”
AS IMPOSSIBLE as it seemed, Gwen’s ridiculous explanation cut through the haze of lust in Miles’s brain, reminding him of who and where he was. Well, at least where he was. The who remained up for debate. “That sounded like a bad movie script.”
She shot him a look that held both irritation and a hint of disappointment that he’d stepped away from her, breaking the sensual aura between them. Irritation apparently won out. With a firm set of her chin, she grabbed a briefcase and tossed it on to the bed. She didn’t ask permission before opening it. Not that he’d have given it—he didn’t recognize the damn briefcase and had no idea whether it was his or not.
“Well, then, why are you carrying these? Most average guys or traveling salesmen don’t have dossiers on Russian killers, crime scene photos, aerial maps or encoded message
s, do they?”
“I’ve fallen into a Mission Impossible movie,” he muttered. Still, he couldn’t resist stepping closer, watching as she pulled files, papers, reports and photos from the case. She tossed him a file and he caught it in midair.
“Read it.”
“It’s in another language,” he said, still not willing to accept her story as truth.
“Humor me.”
So he did. He opened the file and something in his brain sparked, told him he knew this, had seen it before. He began to read aloud from a Moscow police report, detailing a series of break-ins that had preceded a 1972 murder case.
She crossed her arms and raised a brow in triumph. “You read and speak Russian.”
“So does Baryshnikov,” he shot back. “That doesn’t make him a secret agent any more than it makes me a ballet dancer.”
God, at least he hoped not. No. No frigging way was he a ballet dancer. Just to be sure, he tried to conjure up some music in his mind. All he came back with was classic Stones, with some Metallica thrown in. Nothing remotely balletlike. Thank God.
He tossed the file back into the briefcase. “Where’s this so-called local connection of mine?”
“He’s outside, but we spoke while you were in the kitchen.” She nibbled her lip. “I’ll admit, I was skeptical of you and your story. But I’ve known Mick since I moved here and he confirmed your identity. He’s a real estate agent.”
He snorted with laughter. “Oh, yeah, there’s a great backup. What’s he gonna do, help the killer get low-rate financing for his next missile? Refer him to Illinois Van Lines to transport his cache of weapons?”
“Ha ha.”
“I think I heard about a counterespionage school for Realtors in California. Handgun training and no closing costs.”
“I liked you better when you were threatening to kill me,” she muttered, obviously not enjoying his amusement.
He paused. “I threatened to kill you? What’d you do?”
Raising a brow, as if daring him to laugh again, she replied, “I kissed you.”
He immediately lowered his voice, picturing the moment, picturing her in his arms, their bodies entwined, his fingers tangling in her hair and her hands on his hips. “Did I like it?”
She pursed her lips and purred, “You loved it.”
He swallowed hard. Yeah. Of course he would have loved it. “So, do you usually kiss the men who threaten to kill you?”
“I knew you were kidding. Besides, it made sense at the time,” she answered with a shrug.
“Maybe having a realtor be my backup made sense to me at some point, too,” he conceded.
“Mick’s got a family history going back a hundred years around here. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. Who better to provide information on this town to the feds?” Not giving him another chance to shoot down her theory, she grabbed two more items from the briefcase and held them up. An identification card with a photo, plus a badge. “And there are these.”
The badge was a tougher stumbling block than the language thing. Plus, that was his picture on an ID card—though he looked younger in it. “What’s the Shop?” he asked.
“You tell me.”
He didn’t speak, trying hard to focus his thoughts, grab pieces of truth out of his uncooperative mind. And there, deep in his lost memory, he did find reference to a top-secret government agency called the Shop. He didn’t know why he had the knowledge, but there was no doubt he did.
Probably the most damning thing of all, though, was that something about Gwen’s story had begun to ring true. The police files and badge had felt familiar in his hands. He had the feeling a gun would, too.
And what reason would there be for him to carry around those documents—coroner’s reports and photos of crime scenes that should have induced shock, but brought out an almost analytical curiosity instead? He again glanced at the items in the briefcase with an almost surreal sense of déjà vu, knowing he’d seen them before. That he’d put them there. That he’d pored over them. That if he sat down and wrote something, the handwriting would match the notations made in red on the folders.
He reached for another file, opened it and saw a picture of a bloody handprint. Stark. Deadly. A tragic story captured in one black-and-white moment. Gwen stared, too, looking intrigued when he would have expected her to be disturbed.
He closed the file. “You need to leave.” Immediately. Because a part of him had begun to concede the possibility of her story. Which meant getting rid of the beautiful innkeeper.
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
Putting the folder away, he snapped the briefcase shut and flicked the lock, hoping like hell that by tomorrow he’d remember the combination. “I’m fine. It’s been a couple of hours. I’m okay.” When she looked poised to argue, he frowned. “I don’t want to get my memory back tomorrow and have to explain to my wife or girlfriend that I spent the night with a beautiful blonde.”
“You’re not married,” she replied. When he raised a questioning brow, she looked away, as if embarrassed by her knowledge. “You, uh, mentioned it. Downstairs.”
Right. They’d progressed at least that far during their kitchen tryst. He only hoped he wasn’t a cheating SOB who’d lie about his marital state to get to a woman. But he doubted it. The very idea was offensive, and he didn’t imagine his moral code would have been as affected by a bunch of pennies as his memory had been. “Thanks. But you still need to go.”
“I’ll just sit back down and let you go to sleep,” she replied, sounding so prim he couldn’t believe she was the same woman who’d been staring at his crotch a short time before. Or the one who’d kissed him when he’d threatened to kill her.
“Suit yourself,” he replied with an evil smile. He reached for the waistband of his boxer-briefs. “But I sleep naked.”
She visibly gulped. “How would you know?”
“My mind might not remember, but my body does. I also feel pretty sure I’ll kick the covers off.”
Their eyes met, hers widening as she acknowledged the night that lay before her. Him, lying naked on the bed, uncovered, doing everything he could to make her as uncomfortable as possible. She turned to the door. “Well, your eyes are normal and your speech isn’t slurred. I guess you’ll be okay tonight.”
He grinned, even as, for a brief second, he almost regretted forcing the issue. An hour ago, he would have thought about enticing her to stay. Now, however…well, what if it was true? What if there really was some dangerous criminal in the house? The last thing Gwen needed was to be anywhere near him.
“Promise me you’ll stay in here all night,” she added.
“I will.” Before she could leave, he caught her arm. Her silky robe moved under his fingers, and he could feel the warmth of her skin beneath. “Good night, Gwen,” he whispered, forcing himself to let her go. “And thank you. I’m not saying I believe all this…but I appreciate your concern.”
She nodded once, then slipped out without another word.
Turning out the light, he stripped and got into the huge bed, wondering if he’d made a mistake. He’d pushed her away, when near him—beside, below, on top of him—was where he wanted her to be. “Enough,” he growled, trying to calm his half-empty brain.
It wasn’t working. Nothing could remove her image from his mind, the way the gold in her hair had reflected the light from the lamp. The way she’d smelled when he’d backed her against the wall—like sweet fruit and heady spices mixed together. The way her eyes had widened with excitement, and a hint of fear. The way she’d stared at him, with outright avarice, when his body had made it clear how much he’d wanted her. Still wanted her.
“Idiot. Think of something else.”
Since sleep eluded him, and thoughts of Gwen only increased his tension, he instead tried to access some unlocked drawers within the confines of his mind. He didn’t think hard, merely searching for snippets of memory, of knowledge, or intuition.
He soon found t
hem.
Why he’d know how to make a gun out of a piece of pipe, a nail and a block of wood, he had no idea. But he knew he could do it. Which meant he probably was the man she claimed him to be.
“I’ll be damned.”
Then he remembered something else. The gun. The one in the pocket of his leather jacket, which still hung on a kitchen chair, waiting for some innocent person to stumble across it and get hurt.
“Sorry, babe, can’t keep my promise,” he whispered as he got up. He couldn’t stay in his room, not with the chance of some kid finding the jacket, of a child’s curiosity leading to tragedy.
Since his shirt and the waistband of his jeans were still damp, he merely pulled his boxer-briefs back on. As he slipped into the dark hallway, closing the door behind him, he noticed the small, handwritten sign showing the catchy name of his room. “Pretty Boy’s Pad.” He rolled his eyes.
Moving through the shadows felt as natural to Miles as breathing. As he headed toward the stairs, he felt much like a shadow himself. More proof. He’d done this before.
A foyer light was sufficient to guide him down the stairs and into the kitchen. The jacket was where Gwen had tossed it. A quick glance confirmed the presence of a small caliber, silver handgun in the pocket. Not knowing whether he was glad for the additional proof or not, he headed back up to his room. He’d been down and back within ninety seconds, with none the wiser. No innkeepers to panic. No terrorists to elude.
Or so he thought. Until he reached the top of the stairs, turned and saw a figure standing outside his room. He blinked hard as his vision became blurry. It had to be the blow to his head, or the whole Halloween atmosphere pervading the house, that suddenly made the person appear to be standing in a mist, his body emitting a strange glow, almost reflecting itself.
He squeezed his eyes shut, opening them to see that the man was still there. But he hadn’t turned around, didn’t seem aware of Miles’s presence.
Now he knew damn well his eyes were screwed up. Because the guy down the hall didn’t even seem to be standing on the floor. He looked like he was a couple of inches above it.
