A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP

by Wendy Rosnau

  Sly pulled Eva against him, and took a step back, wishing he had a weapon of some kind.

  The panther said, "Free the woman and I'll let you walk away, McEwen."

  The voice was distinct, and Sly recognized it right away. "You're a long ways from home, Reznik. What brings you this far south?"

  "I'm here picking up something I've recently acquired." He motioned to the room behind him. "Thank you for bringing her to my door." Suddenly he pulled a smooth black piece of metal from his pocket, and with one quick maneuver a five-inch blade shot out from the end.

  Sly squeezed Eva and asked, "Do you want to go with him, Evy? Is he another one of your secrets?"

  She hesitated only a second before shaking her head. "No, I don't want to go with him."

  Holic Reznik slid the panther mask off and tossed it over the railing. "Sure you do, Evka. I'm a friend of your father's. You remember, we met a few years ago at a similar party."

  She never answered. Instead Sly felt her press her body tightly to him. "I don't want to go with him, Sly," she said softly. "Please don't give me to him."

  Her voice was rife with fear. Sly said, "I guess you didn't make as good an impression at that party as you thought, Reznik."

  "It makes no difference. A deal was made. Promises exchanged. I always keep my promises. Especially when money and women are involved. And of course … killing."

  There was an explosion below and it shook the hotel's foundation. Suddenly Bjorn was sailing toward them on a cable. "This place is on its way down, Sly. Let's get the hell out of here. Parish is waving sticks of dynamite around like they're party favors."

  He caught the railing with his feet and balanced there as he tossed Sly a second cable. Sly grabbed it, then lifted Eva against him. When he glanced back, he saw Bjorn had locked eyes with Reznik.

  "Shit. There's no time for this, Bjorn. You just said this place will be ashes in a matter of minutes."

  "There's always time for revenge," Bjorn said, then let go of his cable and leaped to the balcony floor. "Isn't that right, Reznik?"

  "Dammit, Bjorn," Sly swore, "not now."

  "Yes, now."

  "Where's Merrick?" Sly asked.

  "Chasing the Chameleon. You go on. I'll catch up."

  Another explosion sent the crystal chandelier crashing to the ballroom floor.

  "We go together," Sly insisted. "Now!"

  Not taking his eyes off his hated enemy, Bjorn shook his head. "I can't do that, and you know why. I'll be along shortly. We'll meet up later."

  Another explosion sent several large chunks of the ceiling falling onto the balcony. Eva screamed and buried her face against Sly's chest.

  "Dammit, Bjorn, come on!"

  "Get going, Sly. Take our Eva, and go."

  The balcony groaned, and Sly felt the floor shift beneath his feet.

  "Sly!" Eva cried out, and looked up at him.

  He swore, yelled at Bjorn to come on, then lifted off with Eva clinging to him just as another explosion sent the balcony supports groaning and shaking.

  Spurred into action, Holic Reznik started toward the stairs on the run. Bjorn lunged for him and his momentum carried them both down the steps, end-over-end to the third-floor landing.

  The last Sly saw was Bjorn on top of the assassin giving him an education with his fists when the stairway gave way as chunks of lava let loose from the ceiling and sent all in its wake crashing to the ballroom floor.

  Eva clung to Sly as he swung them onto a precarious ledge along the ballroom's cavelike wall and let go of the cable. Her mind was reeling, dumbstruck by Holic Reznik's words.

  She had wanted to call him a liar to his face, but she couldn't. Not after he'd stepped out of the exact room where her father had told her she was to meet him at midnight.

  Discipline will serve you well in your next life. I have a surprise for you, Evka.

  Thank you for bringing her to my door. A deal was made. Promises exchanged.

  "Eva? Did you hear me?"

  She blinked, felt Sly's body press into her as they shared the same small ledge. "What?"

  "I said, we're going to have to climb down from here."

  She glanced past him, over the narrow ledge. They were at least thirty feet from the ballroom floor. A floor that was hardly visible for the smoke. An alarm had gone off and she could hear sirens.

  She shook her head. "We can't go down there."

  "I'll go first. All you have to do is follow me. Take the same route. There are hand and footholds. Use them. If they hold me, they'll hold you."

  "And if they don't hold you?"

  "Trust me. I'll get you out of here."

  "Why would you, Sly? Who do you work for? Who's paying you?"

  "We'll talk about this later."

  "If you're working for Merrick you would have gone after my father. But you came after me instead. Why? Are you hoping to use me as bait?"

  "No."

  "Simon told me he killed Dr. Fielding. Did you help him?"

  "What?"

  "You have the tapes. Are you working for Simon?"

  "That lunatic? Not hardly."

  "He knows everything. He knows I hacked into his computer … knows I called Merrick."

  "Come on. Let's get out of here."

  The smell of smoke made her lungs burn. Again Eva sent her gaze back to the ballroom. Hungry flames were devouring everything in sight. A wave of dizziness made her sway and she closed her eyes. Her temples throbbed and she knew what that meant.

  She felt Sly's fingers bite into her arm. "What the hell's wrong?"

  She blinked open her eyes, her body suddenly cold. She started to shake. "I don't know, but I can't go down there. We have to go up. Not down."

  "Listen to me." He gripped her chin. "I'll get us out of here, but you're going to have to do what I tell you."

  She shook him off. "No!"

  "Eva."

  She searched out a handhold above her head and started to climb up the wall. "Dammit, Eva!"

  "Come on, Papa. This way. Up the stairs, Papa. Hurry!"

  * * *

  Chapter 14

  « ^ »

  Sly didn't believe they were being followed, but he kept an eye out as he sailed the Hector up the coast. His mind was working double-time. Something had happened to Eva back at Cupata. She'd looked into the flames and seen something. She'd called him Papa, and then everything had fallen apart. She'd been so irrational that he'd been forced to knock her unconscious to get her out of there alive.

  From listening to the tapes he knew that the fire she'd lived through had been traumatic on more than one level. Her mother had died as a result, but more had happened later that same night. She'd said she had fallen down the stairs. Had she? Or had someone pushed her?

  She claimed she had heard more than one voice that night, her father's and another man's. That meant someone else was in the house. Tonight, while looking into the flames, had she identified the voice, or finally allowed herself to see his face?

  I still believe you're suppressing something from your childhood. Something painful that wants to surface. But you're fighting it, and the headaches are a result.

  She'd complained about her head hurting once they were on the Hector and she'd come to enough to know where she was and whose bed she was in. He'd set sail soon after that, and he'd checked on her twice since. The second time he'd found the sheer black bodysuit on the floor and her beneath his bedsheet.

  He intended to drop anchor when he found a satisfactory hiding place. He was dead on his feet, and he needed some sleep as well.

  The word sleep turned his thoughts to Bjorn. He had no idea if his friend was dead or alive. He wanted to believe he was alive, but the collapse of the stairway, and the sight of Bjorn and Reznik being buried beneath the rubble, left little hope that either had survived.

  Still, Bjorn had spent seven years in the trenches. He'd been shot a number of times, lived through cobra venom in his veins, and damn near being buried
alive in an avalanche in the Swiss Alps.

  The man was as good at cheating death as he was.

  That's why he refused to sell Bjorn short, and would proceed as they always did when a member of the team had gotten separated. He would follow the rules, and in a few days, he hoped, he would get a phone call from Bjorn telling him he was alive.

  Damn the Chameleon, he thought. Damn Holic Reznik and Simon Parish, too. And damn Merrick for not leveling with him weeks ago.

  He kept on a steady course for another hour and blamed his exhaustion for almost passing the small uninhabited island before he noticed it. He circled back, checked it out, then guided the Hector into a maze of sea caverns and dropped anchor.

  The cove was quiet, the beach a desolate stretch of sugar sand. And beyond that, the remains of an ancient monastery clinging to the face of a rocky bluff. The one thing Greece had plenty of was monasteries.

  Sly went below and checked on Eva again, then returned to the deck and stretched out on the seat that curved the stern, his thoughts going over the night's events. More than once he'd questioned his actions. From the beginning his mission had been to find the Chameleon, learn his identity, then kill him for Sully. He'd had the opportunity tonight to do just that, but instead of going after the enemy, he'd gone after Eva.

  If he could believe her, then Simon had lied and had set them both up last night. He wanted to believe that. To believe that she had left him only after finding the tapes. If that was what had happened, then… Then he had no reason to be angry with her.

  He had shied away from emotional nooses all his life, but lately he felt as if he was choking from the inside out. And as strong as he was, as disciplined as he was, tonight the facts had spoken for themselves—he hadn't been thinking about the Chameleon when Bjorn had cut him loose. All his focus had been on Eva, and getting her away from Simon.

  Sly gave in to his exhaustion, and as he drifted off to sleep he was aware that his entire body ached—for an old guy, Merrick could still throw one helluva punch.

  Eva continued to munch on the apple as she watched Sly McEwen sleep. She'd awakened a short time ago to the smell of smoke and had sat up quickly only to realize that she had been dreaming about the fire in Atlanta the night her mother had died.

  She'd glanced around, recognizing her surroundings immediately. The memories of the last time she had been there swamping her emotionally. She had buried her face in Sly's pillow after that, then wished she hadn't, aware that the scent of bay rum made her feel worse.

  Her migraine was gone, that was the good news, and she was grateful for that until she had recalled what had happened at Cupata and why she had no memory of how she'd gotten on the Hector—Sly had punched her in the jaw and knocked her out.

  In the bathroom mirror she'd verified the fact, noting that her jaw was slightly swollen and tender. She had also taken inventory of her appearance and realized that she couldn't go anywhere wearing just a black thong and black star pasties over her nipples.

  That had spurred her into raiding Sly's closet. She'd intended to settle for one of his shirts when she stumbled on a small stack of women's clothing: a feminine-looking moss-green shawl in a bottom drawer, along with a black bikini, a pink tank top, a green-and-pink pastel skirt and pink sandals.

  She had helped herself to the black bikini, then tied the green shawl around her hips. On her way through the galley, she'd snagged an apple before climbing the stairs.

  Eva finished the apple while she slowly sent her eyes over Sly once more. He was still wearing the zebra pants that outlined every muscle on his body, but he'd put a fresh bandage over his bruised side.

  Before her brain turned to mush and she started feeling sorry for him, she gently touched her sore jaw. Then she raised her arm and drilled the apple core at Sly's head.

  The core smacked him in the forehead and he jerked awake and sat up quickly. Blinking her into focus, he spied the apple core on the deck, reached for it and tossed it overboard.

  "You got something against a man taking a nap?"

  "I want you to turn around and take me back. I should never have left Santorini with you."

  He stared at her, one eyebrow lifting. He rubbed his unshaven jaw, then stood and stretched carefully, wincing as he ran his hands over his black-and-blue chest and abdomen.

  "Did you hear me?"

  "I heard," he said. "Do you remember what happened at Cupata."

  "You slugged me in the jaw. That's what happened."

  "I didn't slug you. I skillfully tapped you."

  "That was a tap?"

  "What did you see when you looked into the fire?"

  "Nothing."

  "Bullshit."

  "I need to speak to my father."

  "To ask him if he really did sell you to Holic Reznik?"

  "He didn't sell me."

  "Reznik said a deal was made. Promises exchanged."

  "He could have lied," she offered, knowing she was reaching for something that wasn't there.

  "Holic Reznik is a lot of things, but not a liar. If he says you're part of a package deal, then you are. Why is it so hard for you to believe? You've been living with a sadistic freak for four years, compliments of your father. I believe your words were, my father took me with him to a party. It was at Boxwood Estate. Fielding asked you what happened at Simon's party. You answered, if I told you you wouldn't believe me. And if you did, I would have to kill you. What happened that night?"

  Eva stiffened. "Did you memorize everything on those damn tapes?"

  "What happened that night?"

  "That's none of your business." It was as if he could read her thoughts, as if he knew. She looked past him, out over the water. "That night I was introduced to the games. I didn't play, but I…"

  "Watched."

  "Yes, I watched."

  She heard him swear, and she faced him. "It doesn't matter what happened in the past. I survived so one day I would understand. That's what this is all about, understanding why it all happened. I want to know why my mother had to die. Why my father became someone I didn't recognize after her death. He loved me before that night. It couldn't have all been a lie. I won't believe that. He loved me once. I'll play whatever game I must to learn the truth."

  "You think the truth will set you free, is that it?"

  "Yes."

  "You're wrong. It won't."

  "It will. It has to. My father will set me free. I'll get the words out of my mouth this time. I'll make him tell me why it all happened."

  "He's long gone from Santorini."

  "You don't know that." Again, she glanced around, wondering how easy it would be to escape Sly McEwen and return to Santorini. If there was someone else on the island then maybe… A boat somewhere.

  "The answer is no. Escape is going to be damn hard, unless you plan to kill me. The other part of that silent question is also no. We're alone. This island is uninhabited."

  "And how long do you plan to stay here?"

  "A few days."

  "If you're waiting for your friend to contact you, he won't. We watched him die with Reznik."

  She saw his jaw clench. He obviously didn't want to believe that.

  "Headache gone?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. We have unfinished business."

  The look he gave her sent her body on red alert. An image formed behind her eyes of Sly between her legs, his mouth there. She shook her head, forced the image from her mind.

  "Your silent question is yes. I want to be there, but not just my mouth." He stepped forward and reached for her, encircled her waist and dragged her against him.

  "No."

  Eva tried to wiggle free, but he slid his hand over her backside.

  "I hate you," she insisted, shoving at his chest.

  "You would have given me up to Simon if that was true. You had good reason to. I had the tapes, you felt I'd violated your trust."

  She stopped fighting, looked up. "You believe me? You believe I didn't tur
n you over to Simon?"

  "Make me believe you."

  As easily as if she weighed nothing, he lifted her off her feet to cradle her against him. She could smell him, feel him, hear his heart. He moved his hips, slid her along his length. She let out a sigh, almost fell under his spell. Almost.

  "I can't do this. I won't do this."

  "I'll make it good for you."

  "No. No!"

  "He came quick. I didn't. He was a greedy little bastard. I give you my word, I won't be."

  That he could recite passages from the tapes embarrassed her as well as made her angry. She renewed her fight, shoving hard against his chest. Turning her face away, she said, "I don't want you … there."

  He released her. "I don't believe you."

  His arrogance forced her to look at him. "I don't care what you believe, I won't let you take anything more from me, Sly McEwen. You know too much. I won't let you know my body, too. I won't let you take one more thing from me."

  The words were barely out of Eva's mouth and he had her back in his arms, his mouth covering hers, proving to her that he was strong enough to take anything he wanted from her. Anything and everything.

  Sly saw her hand raise out of the corner of his eye the second he released her lips. He took a step back, grabbed her wrist before she could strike him.

  She tried to escape, but there was no breaking free of his iron grip. He knew that fact registered when he saw fear darken her eyes.

  He let her go. "Take it easy. There's nowhere to run. No reason to. I'm not going to force myself on you."

  He expected his words to make a difference. Expected that she would turn around and go below. But she tossed him a curve and bolted past him instead. Thrown off guard, she was already past him by the time he reached for her. He came away with no more than the soft green shawl she'd tied around her waist.

  He roared in anger as she slipped through his fingers and dived into the water. He tossed the shawl to the deck and followed after her. His anger immediately turned to concern when he popped up and she was nowhere in sight. He dived again. Circled the Hector. Surfaced.