Blazing Nights (A Night Games Novel)

by Linda Barlow

  He entered beside her and switched on the front hall light. Chester was right there, meowing a welcome to Kate and rubbing his ample body against her legs. He lifted his head and cast a hostile look at Daniel. Daniel stuck out his tongue at him. "It’s safe on a data stick. I'm holding that data hostage until I see whether or not you're going to live up to your end of the bargain."

  "We didn't make any blasted bargain."

  "Stop sputtering. We're off to a great start, aren't we? Kate and Daniel, loving adversaries."

  "Adversaries, yes. Loving, no." She snapped off her coat.

  "Loving," he repeated. He snagged her wrist and pulled her into his arms. Her breath came out in a tiny "uumph" as she crashed against his chest. Then her breathing all but stopped as he dipped his head and kissed her.

  It began all over again—the bursting colors, the melting bones. His lips were firm and warm, his tongue gently arousing as it slipped past her teeth to stimulate the inside of her mouth. She yielded, obeying the special command of his body to hers; she opened to him, pressing her breasts against his hard chest, arching her head back as his mouth left her lips and pressed fluttery kisses along the curve of her throat.

  I love you, I love you, beat the rhythms of her blood as his hands adored her, sliding over muscles that shifted and shivered to the pleasure of hardness meeting softness, male meeting female. She sighed with pleasure. It had been so long, and she needed him so much.

  When his fingers closed fiercely over her breasts, she pressed against him, reveling in the feeling that this was right, that she was home, that in his arms was where she was meant to be. "I love you, Daniel," she murmured, then froze as she realized she had said it aloud.

  "I love you too," he returned, his mouth coming back to tenderly kiss her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her nose. "I've been in hell, missing you."

  "Dammit! Don't do this to me." She pushed hard with the palms of her hands against the buttery texture of his leather jacket. "Don't break my heart again."

  His hands imprisoned her wrists, pulling her arms around him. When he let her go, her arms stayed there, clasped behind his neck. "I won't," he said. He lifted her from the waist, forcing her legs around him, too, then carried her into the living room and set her down on the sofa. Dropping to the floor, he knelt between her thighs, caressing her breasts with tender, beguiling fingers. "I promise."

  She whimpered in an anguish of desire. Her blood was dancing for him, but she had to have it out with him now, before her ability to think and reason completely melted. "How can I believe you? You're all passion and intensity again, just as you were at the start. Couldn't you get anybody else? Are you so eager for a woman that you'll venture into a witch's bed?"

  His hands moved up to cup her face. "I don't want anybody else. Since the moment I first laid eyes on you, Kate Kingsley, all other women have ceased to exist for me. I'll never want anybody but you."

  Did he mean that? "Look, Blaze, I'm not foolish enough to listen to passionate declarations from a man who hasn't had sex lately. It's like going shopping when you're hungry: Everything in the store looks delicious, but when you get home, you're stuck with a bagful of junk food."

  Daniel threw back his head and laughed. Glaring at him, Kate tried to untangle herself, but despite his hilarity, he held her fast. "A bagful of junk food? Is that what you think you are to me? Listen to me, woman. I love you. If you don't believe it from a man who hasn't had sex for almost three weeks, get your damn clothes off and give me some sex so I can repeat it to you afterward."

  Kate stopped squirming to blink her eyes at him. "Don't keep saying that. Don't say I love you unless you really mean it."

  "Don't you love me, too?"

  She blinked even harder as her eyes misted over. "I thought it was unrequited."

  He shook his head solemnly, but there was a smile on his lips. "Some mind reader you are. It's requited. Very much so."

  "I never claimed to be a mind reader, dammit. Why didn't you tell me? I told you."

  "I remember," he said with a chuckle. "But I didn't know whether or not to believe you. You were under a certain amount of pressure when you said it." He moved his hips against her to indicate the sort of pressure he meant. "People say all sorts of thing in the heat of the moment."

  "Which is why I told you that I don't want to have sex again before we resolve all these—"

  "Ssh," he cut in. "We're having sex."

  "You're such a controlling, domineering—"

  He was laughing openly now. "Hey. Concentrate on my good points. I'm honest, remember. And constant. When I make a friend, the tie endures for life. You're the friend of my heart, Kate. You're the groove my erratic heart line has finally settled into. I love you. I never want to be with anyone but you."

  Kate longed to believe him but couldn't quite. "When you walked out on me, you said you were going 'before you got hurt.'"

  "Bravado. Did you really think I wasn't hurting? I figured I was just the first guy you'd allowed into the empty half of your bed after a long, sexless drought." He paused, and then added, "I didn't want to be the first guy. I wanted to be the only guy."

  "If you felt that way, why didn't you tell me?"

  "I tried to. Even after our first night together, I knew we had something different, something rare. I started to tell you that. But you stopped me. You didn’t want to hear it."

  "We hardly knew each other then. I didn’t want you to say something you might regret."

  "I'm not claiming that I loved you right from the start. But I felt something powerful, and then it just kinda grew without my noticing it." He hesitated, and then added, "Loving someone scares me, I guess. It’s still a bit hard for me to admit that I’m willing to take the risk of opening myself up to love."

  Wow, Kate thought. It sounded as though he really meant it. Deep inside her, a seed of joy was growing.

  "And it was a risk," he went on. "I thought you were still hung up on Arthur. I was afraid you'd shoot me down."

  "I was still hung up on Arthur. Or at least, I was still hung up on all the memories of my life with him. I’m really sorry about that. It can’t have been easy for you to see that I still had all Arthur’s things over the house."

  He shook his head slowly, his beautiful eyes leaking pain. "That was hard, but it was the séance that really terrified me. All I could think of was my mother. When she began communing with the supposed ghost of my father, she turned away from the real world. I was right there, but it was him she wanted, him she went to, leaving me alone in the world at the age of sixteen. That's too young, Kate. I wasn't as tough then as I am now."

  She cradled his dark head against her breasts. "Oh, Daniel, I'm not like your mother. I'm young, I'm alive, and I'm not obsessed with the blasted world to come." Her voice was intense as she leaned her face closer to his. "We're here now. We're together. That's what it's all about, isn't it? Being alive?"

  "Yes, my love. That's what it's all about." He lifted his head and kissed her hard. "And it's what first attracted me to you: your liveliness, your laughter. You seemed the last person in the world who'd be mixed up in the dark, depressing world of spiritualism."

  "I'm not mixed up in it."

  "I know. I understand that now, thanks in part to your mother."

  "My mother? What's my mother got to do with it?"

  He just smiled, his eyes gleaming with mischief.

  "I want to see that interview."

  "Later." His hands slipped into her hair and held her head still. "Your mother told me you were in love with me, and damned if Graham didn't confirm it a little while ago at the theater. Then there were your eyes." His hands lightly brushed her cheeks, and her eyes closed while his fingers stroked them. "Your eyes told me the truth. Some actress! A few cups of punch, and you no longer hide your heart."

  Kate began to laugh with sheer delight. She pushed him away as he tried to pin her to the sofa. She jumped to her feet and seized his hand. "Wait. Come with me. I have
something to show you."

  She led him into the room that had been Arthur's study and flicked the switch for the overhead light. There was a flash as the bulb blew. "Dammit," she said. "There's no other light in here."

  "Here," he said, going back into the living room to pick up a thick homemade candle from the mantelpiece. He lit it with a fireplace match. "Romantic." He grinned. "Now, what's this you have to show me? I suggest you hurry up about it. I haven't had sex for ages, and I might turn into a werewolf if I don't get it soon."

  "Vampire."

  "Whatever."

  She took the candle and set it on Arthur's old desk. The light was dim, but it illuminated the study enough for Daniel to see that she was redecorating. The beige wallpaper had been stripped off, and the walls painted a bright shade of yellow. She was painting the woodwork white; that part of the job she hadn't finished yet. There was still a faint odor of paint in the air.

  "I haven't quite finished," she explained, waving her hand at the cans of paint and turpentine in the corner near one of the few boxes that she hadn't yet taken up to the attic. "But when I do, this study will be mine, not Arthur's. I ought to have done it long ago."

  Daniel slid an arm around her waist. From the desk, he picked up the one photograph that was left, the wedding picture in the heart-shaped frame.

  "I'm keeping that," she said softly. "It will always be important to me."

  He stared at it without any trace of the jealousy that had once burned in him. He set it carefully down. "You're the woman you are partly because of Arthur. For that I can be grateful to him." He kissed her. "I love you, Kate. I love you."

  Their mouths melded sweetly for an instant, then turned abruptly hot. He crushed her against him, groaning. "I can't wait." He moved his hands up under her jersey to capture her breasts. "I'm going to take you right here."

  "Daniel—"

  "Don't argue."

  "I wasn't arguing," she assured him, forcing the jacket off his shoulders with hands that trembled. He pushed her away to remove her top, tossing it on the floor, and then pulled her back to kiss her. Their heads rocked from side to side as their tongues danced against each other. She unbuttoned his shirt. He unclasped her bra. The pile of clothing on the carpet grew.

  "Dear God, but I've missed this," he said as he gently weighed her breasts in his palms. His thumbs whispered over the nipples now hard with desire. Every time he touched her, her stomach muscles tightened, and when his head dipped to take one swollen bud into his warm mouth, she felt urgent contractions deep inside her.

  "Daniel," she sighed. Her fingers went clumsily to his belt, and his attacked hers. "This is inefficient." She laughed as their hands were tempted to tease each other through their jeans, their mouths to cling, their chests to rub maddeningly together.

  "You're right," he agreed, stepping back. A yard apart, they finished undressing, their eyes intent upon each other. Kate could feel her heart beating in her throat; her skin was warm with the flush of love and desire.

  When at last they were naked, Daniel held out his arms, and she ran into them. He stroked her gently from head to thigh, and then pushed her down to the floor, spreading her legs apart with his strong thighs. "Now, witch, practice your magic." His mouth covered hers, and he took her.

  Kate wrapped her legs around her lover's driving body and gave herself up to his violent rhythm. As the tension in her lower body grew, the clarity of her mind seemed to increase, and she felt his love, knew it for a true thing. And in her imagination she heard her mother's wise words once again: "Life is the only thing we're sure of. You have to love life."

  "You're my life, Daniel." She didn't expect an answer; she thought he was beyond words. But she got one.

  "You're my soul, Kate," he replied.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, as they lay sprawled and spent on the rug, Kate looked over Daniel's shoulder to see two gleaming eyes staring at her in the dim light. Chester was standing in the doorway, watching them curiously. "Look," she said, tugging on a lock of Daniel's hair until he lifted his heavy head from the hollow between her neck and shoulder. "A voyeur."

  Daniel started when he saw the eyes. "Not a ghost, I hope?"

  Kate giggled. "It's Chester."

  Daniel scowled at Chester, who was disdainfully regarding the two naked bodies entwined on the floor as if to say, good grief, now I've seen everything.

  "Get out of here, you wretched beast," said Daniel. "Go find your own female." He made a playfully threatening gesture toward Chester, who immediately leaped up on the desk for a better viewing angle. His tail twitched as he balanced there, knocking over the wedding portrait in its heavy frame. It fell against the candle, which rolled backward off the far side of the desk. Moments later, there was a loud hiss and a flash of orange flame.

  "Oh, my God!" Daniel was on his feet.

  "The paint!" Kate cried at the same moment. And they both stared in a moment of frozen shock as fire engulfed the open jar of turpentine and, immediately thereafter, one of the few cartons she hadn't yet lugged upstairs.

  "Do you have a fire extinguisher?"

  "On the wall in the kitchen."

  He ran to get it, ordering her out of the study as he went. She paid no heed. The draperies were starting to catch. Coughing from the acrid smoke that was beginning to fill the room, she struggled to jerk them down to the floor.

  "Stand back," Daniel ordered from behind her. He had the fire extinguisher in his arms, and as soon as she moved, he turned it on full blast.

  Moments later the fire was out, but they were both coughing from the smoke. Daniel dropped the extinguisher and threw open a window. "Let's get out of here. The fumes are probably lethal."

  But Kate was gazing down at the blackened, foam-coated mess that was all that remained of a carton of Arthur's old books and papers. Misfortune, she thought vaguely, recalling Graham's words. "Dear God," she said aloud, "I should have done the exorcism."

  "What are you talking about?"

  She hardly heard him. Sparkling amid the mess was the one thing she had wanted to save: the silver-framed wedding photograph. Without thinking, she reached down and grabbed the heart-shaped frame. It was white hot, and she cried out and dropped it, then stood staring numbly at her hand. The photograph had turned black.

  Muttering his full repertoire of imprecations, Daniel seized Kate and carried her bodily out of the room, slamming the study door closed after them. He took her into the kitchen and thrust her hand under cold water.

  "Idiot! 'Do not try to salvage your heart from the ashes—the heat is too strong—it will burn you,'" he snarled at her.

  "Dear God," she whispered, forgetting the pain. "So that's what he meant."

  Chapter 25

  Later, when her hand had been bandaged and the house ventilated to clear it of smoke, Kate and Daniel climbed, exhausted, into bed, took one rueful look at each other, and burst into laughter.

  "I don't know what's so damn funny," he protested even as he continued to laugh.

  "I don't either." She held up her bandaged hand. "When you threatened to burn me, it never occurred to me that you meant it literally!"

  "I didn't mean it literally, dammit. And who would have thought that Sir Godfrey Vernon did either? 'Beware the fire'—really!"

  "I thought you were the fire I was supposed to be wary of, Mr. Daniel Blaze Haggarty," she confessed. "I thought 'Don't try to salvage your heart from the ashes' meant there was no hope you'd ever truly love me."

  "That's the trouble with prophecy: We unenlightened mortals misinterpret it all the time. Either that or the 'spirits' deliberately mislead us, just to cause mischief."

  "Um, speaking of mischief, Chester has really done it this time. I'm probably going to have to repaint the study again."

  Daniel promptly sneezed. "That damn cat. Where is he anyway?"

  "The last I saw of him he was skulking under the dining table, looking guilty as the dickens." She handed him a tissue from the
box on the bedside table and added, "I've been thinking... much as I hate to do it, I've decided to give Chester back to my mother. He's comfortable with her, and she adores him."

  "No, sweetheart, don't do that. I know you love the beast. I can tolerate him."

  "I love you more. And besides," she added as he sneezed again, "look at the energy you're wasting. I can think of a better use for all that physical power."

  He raised his eyebrows and leered at her over the Kleenex. "Hmm, so can I."

  "Speaking of my mother—" she began.

  Her phone chimed.

  "That's her. You see? Telepathy."

  "How do you know?"

  "I know." She answered the call without even glancing at the screen. "Hello, Mom."

  "Kate?" said Iris in an agitated voice. "Are you all right? I had a terrible dream about a fire."

  "I'm fine. We put it out before it did any real damage," Kate assured her. She had pressed the speaker on the device so Daniel could hear the conversation, too. When her mother mentioned the fire, he raised his eyebrows in amazement.

  "What happened to your hand?"

  "It's nothing. I burned it a little, that's all."

  "Oh, dear. I have a special homemade cream for burns. You should come right over and let me tend it, Kate."

  "Mother, it's not that bad, and besides, we're in bed."

  "Is Daniel there with you? Let me talk to him."

  Kate raised her eyebrows at the ceiling. "She wants to talk to you."

  "I heard," he said, calmly taking the phone in his big hand. "Hi, Iris."

  Iris?

  "Is my daughter all right?" Iris asked. She was speaking loudly enough for Kate to hear her. "You were supposed to take care of her, Daniel."

  "She's okay. She loves me, Iris."

  "Well, of course. I told you so, didn't I? Was she very angry when she heard that we'd lied about the interview?"

  A hot flush spread over Daniel's cheekbones. "Well, uh—"