" 'Use' is the operative term, isn't it?" she said bleakly.
He wasn't angry. To the contrary, he had become absorbed in studying her anatomy. "I think you enjoyed my use of you. As I enjoyed yours of me."
She couldn't deny it, or the way her body responded to the growing heat in his stare. Her long hesitation must have encouraged him. He reached across the bed for her, almost lazily, so sure of himself and his sensual power.
"Come, darlin'," he said. "It's not a fight I'm after. You're not my enemy."
She let go of the sheet and slid off the bed and out of his reach. "That's reassuring. I'm not your friend and I'm not your enemy. What does that make me, Liam?"
For a time he lay stretched across the bed, unmoving, as if he were giving her question due consideration. "It makes you a woman. Isn't that enough for you?"
"Not by your definition." She fought her anger even as she felt it filling the places in her heart that were so easily hurt by his scorn.
He rolled off the bed, magnificently naked and not in the least self-conscious about it. He strolled toward her. "And I thought taking you to bed would tame you."
"Like a good little Victorian woman?" she asked sweetly. "Like Caroline?"
He stopped. "Caroline is different. I swore an oath to watch over her. Gresham trusted me." He laughed. "Trust is a very rare commodity, Mac. I trusted Perry once."
"But you don't trust Caroline."
"She can't be trusted. She has a dangerous wildness in her makes her an easy victim of men like Perry."
There was a shift in his tone, the faintest crack in his implacability. Mac got up and walked toward him, step by hesitant step.
"You sound as if… you've seen this happen before."
At first she thought he wouldn't answer. But he turned his head toward the window, and she saw his profile: it made her think of stone that appeared impregnable but could be shattered with a single well-placed blow.
"I know," he said, as if he were speaking to someone only he could see. "She'd put herself into their hands, and they'd use her, destroy her, until she ended her life on some street corner selling her body…"
He was no longer talking about Caroline. He no longer seemed to be in the room at all, but somewhere far away in time and space.
"It was someone… close to you, wasn't it?" she asked.
No reaction. No questioning of her meaning, no anger, no mockery. Only a flat, frigid harshness that covered something unbearable.
"Siobhan," he said at last.
"That's a beautiful name."
"She was beautiful once. It was beaten out of her."
"By… a man?"
"By life."
"Who was she?"
He looked over his shoulder, the familiar cynicism back in his eyes. "You want my life story, Mac? It's a sad, sad tale. Before the English landlords took our farm in Ireland we were prosperous people. They left us with nothing."
"Liam—"
"Da said 'Go to America.' He had great plans to make us comfortable again. But he wasn't a man. He broke his promises. He left Ma and me and Siobhan in a New York tenement. He took what money he'd earned and went his own way."
Abandoned, Mac thought. "Then Siobhan was your sister," she said softly. "How old were you?"
"Old enough. I was eleven. Siobhan was fourteen."
Mac took another step, commanding her hands to stay at her sides. "What happened?"
His gaze had grown unfocused. "We had no money. No food. I worked where I could, but it wasn't enough. I wasn't Da. Ma was sickly. She could never accept what had happened. She wouldn't accept my—" He fell mute, and it was several moments before he spoke again. "She went mad, I think. She never left the tenement. But Siobhan wanted more. She wanted what we'd had in Ireland, and she was beautiful. There was always a wildness in her. She met a man who told her he'd give her all that and more in exchange for her virginity."
Even with so little said Mac knew where the story was going. She was already beginning to understand the source of Liam's fixation. A young woman barely out of childhood, a girl with a reckless streak who didn't know what she wanted, perched on the edge of freedom—or ruination…
"I tried to watch her," Liam continued, flat and distant. "I tried to stop her, but she always had her own way. And I wasn't Da. So she went with this man and he kept her until he tired of her, and then she went to another. And when one of them made her sick enough that no one wanted her, she took to the streets." His hand flexed against the wall, grabbing at nothing. "I couldn't stop her."
Her heart clenched. "You were a boy."
"I tried to bring her home," he said, "but when Ma saw her it was too much. Siobhan ran and when I came back from work the next morning Ma had used my knife on her wrists."
Good God. He'd been a kid, watching his sister destroy herself and his mother…
"She killed herself," Mac whispered.
"I cared well for my dear old ma," he said harshly. "I took her to the church and then I went searching for Siobhan. I didn't find her for a week. She was already wasted from her disease. I couldn't stop it. She died."
It was all becoming terribly clear to Mac. "I couldn't stop it," he'd said again and again. "I tried." A boy who'd tried so desperately to be the man, to make up for his father's betrayal, to protect his womenfolk against life's inevitable cruelties. And had lost the battle, because he was only a boy and his world was far too merciless a place.
"And then…" she said, hugging herself to keep from hugging him, "and then you had no one."
All at once he looked at her—looked at her, not through her. "I didn't need anyone," he said. "I took care of myself. I made my own way. I have more money than Da ever dreamed of. I have everything."
Except freedom from the past, from your own perceived failure. Because you've never lived that down. Her eyes filled, and she fought to keep the tears behind her lids. You've been trying to make it up ever since. With the slave girls. With Caroline. Trying to save the ones you can.
Warm breath caressed her face. "Tears, Mac?" he asked, bitterness unconcealed. "Did my story move you so deeply?"
"Liam… I'm sorry—"
"Save your pity. I don't want it." He turned on his heel and went for his clothes.
"You think I don't know what it is to lose people you love?" she said, dogging his heels. "I do. I know how it feels when you're helpless to stop it."
He tugged on his pants and began to button his shirt, ignoring her. There was nothing to do but throw everything at him, whatever the risk.
"You don't love Caroline," she accused. "She was perfect for you because you didn't love her. She was safe. You could control everything she did, protect her for eternity, but she wasn't a risk to your heart, and you could still make up for the past. When you lost her you didn't lose love, you lost the chance to redeem yourself."
It was the wrong thing to say. He spun so fast that he almost knocked her down.
"To hell with you," he rasped. "You're not God to be knowing what's in my heart."
She summoned up every ounce of her courage and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "For God's sake, Liam, let me be your friend." She brushed his unshaven chin with the back of her hand. "I care about you. I care."
A bone-deep shudder went through him, passed into her own flesh and blood as if they were joined.
She reached for the top button of his shirt and slipped it from the buttonhole. "Don't run from me. I need you, Liam."
His answer held no words. He caught her hard in his arms, cupped her bottom in his hands, pressed her against the nearest wall.
And kissed her, with a stunning tenderness. He leaned into her as his mouth worked over hers, and she felt him melt through her wrap and chemise and burn straight into her heart.
She wouldn't let him take the lead this time. He needed. Needed to feel cared for, loved, without expectations or demands or judgment.
He didn't move as she slipped her hands under his shirt, baring his c
hest. He made only a single sharp sound when she peeled the shirt over his shoulders, trapping his arms.
She spread her palms against his chest, lacing her fingers through the crisp curls of pale hair. His heart thudded under her hand. She leaned into him and kissed his chin, his shoulder, the firm swell of his pectorals. Her tongue flicked his nipple, and he let out a rough sigh.
She was still kissing him as they moved to the bed. A moment later she was straddling his thighs, her kisses following the downward path of hair that stretched from chest to ribs to belly and disappeared into the waistband of his trousers.
He was very quiet while she undid the buttons and tugged his pants down around his hips. He was entirely at attention, practically leaping into her hand.
Sleek and smooth, hard and hot. She focused on the texture of him, stroking up and down, watching his face. He was letting her make love to him. A mark of trust that left her humbled and dizzy with quiet joy.
Only when she was sure he was lost did she bend low and take him in her mouth.
His breath sawed in his throat as she tasted him, suckled him as he'd suckled her, all sensation and compulsion. His fingers thrust into her hair, kneading and tugging. She went on until he was rigid and on the edge, and then she slid astride him. It was easy to accept him into her waiting body. Easy to move with his hands on her hips, letting her take him as he'd taken her. Letting her give in the only way he could allow.
But in the end he clasped her waist in his hands and rolled her beneath him, kissing her ears and chin and hair with each slow, deep thrust as she rose to meet it. Hip to hip, belly to belly, chest to breast. Equal. Complete. Together they made it last, drew it out to a pinnacle of uncomplicated, untainted joy. And it was Liam who sent her before him until her exaltation pulled him after.
When it was over she didn't let him go. He was caught in the afterglow of their lovemaking, and she was ruthless. She pulled him against her, tucked her head into the curve of his arm, stroked his hair. And he took her comfort. He held her with quiet desperation, as if he thought she would rise and vanish before his eyes.
Liam, she thought. The first tear escaped, and she tried not to let him see. Oh, Liam. If only I could tell you the truth. If only you'd believe it.
But for now, for this time out of time, maybe some part of him did.
Chapter Twenty-One
Not heaven itself upon
the past has power;
But what has been, has been,
and I have had my hour.
—John Dryden
SHE SLEPT.
Liam watched her from beside the bed, holding his shirt in his fists. He'd thought she'd never sleep; she'd kept herself awake with a strange fierce adamancy, as if she couldn't trust him the minute her back was turned.
As if she could keep him here forever.
He wanted to caress her, to love her again. Her dark lashes were thick against her cheek, her hair tangled on her forehead, her lithe body sweetly curled on the bed in unconscious invitation. And she would have welcomed him.
But there was Perry to deal with. Nothing Mac could say, nothing she could do would divert him from his course.
Not even her devastating questions, the way she'd probed and pushed until he was revealing things about himself he had never understood. Flaws even he had not recognized. Revelations she'd presented to him with pity in her eyes, having led him to bare his heart until he had nothing left of his manhood.
She had that power—to make him forget his strength and pride, to suck at his soul with a witch's talent for overcoming his resistance.
He had been more exposed than any mere nakedness displayed. She knew the full measure of his weakness. And still she'd pulled him down into her arms and he'd let himself be drawn into oblivion, unable to fight for what self-respect remained to him.
She had taken it all. She had made him need, when he'd never needed before. She'd given her comfort with such selfless nobility, generous in her victory.
Victory.
He reached down, his hand inches above her hair. No. He'd not be weak again. Mac was like a force of nature, a quiet storm he couldn't predict or control. But he didn't need her. She could give him nothing he couldn't live without. There were other willing women in the world, women who wouldn't steal his very soul.
Liam walked away from the bed, tugging on his shirt. Damn her. She'd said she needed him, but that was another of Heaven's little jests. Mac didn't need anyone, let alone Liam O'Shea.
But even she had her secrets.
Liam abandoned his buttons and went to the dresser against the wall. He examined the larger drawers one by one and found her pack pushed well into the back of the lowest.
Silently he pulled the pack from its hiding place and opened the toothed fastening—the zipper, as Mac had called it—and searched among the exotic contents for the one thing he needed to find.
The flat package of paper and cardboard was still there. He unwrapped it with unsteady fingers and found the photograph. Exactly as he'd last seen it in the jungle, dog-eared and creased and faded.
He stared at the photograph until it became a blur of gray shapes. He trusted Bauer's honesty implicitly. Bauer had seen this photograph, untouched and pristine in its frame, in Perry's rooms only days ago.
Liam took great care in rewrapping the photograph. He replaced the pack in the drawer and slid it closed.
Still Mac slept. He finished with his shirt and put on his coat, watching her. He wanted to remember the way she was now, when there weren't any words between them.
Once he'd dealt with Perry he might or might not survive the consequences. It didn't matter. He couldn't make Caroline safe by marrying her, but he could be certain she didn't fall into the hands of a murderer and slave dealer.
And Mac he didn't have to worry about. Not brave, stubborn, crazy Mac.
His hand was on the doorknob when the first knock struck wood. He opened the door before the next could fall.
A nervous young man stood at the door, his gaze flicking from Liam past his shoulder into the room. Liam recognized him as one of Bauer's assistants, the boys he hired to run messages and do minor work for his detective business.
"Mr. O'Shea?" the boy said. "Mr. Bauer said I might find you here—"
Liam wasn't surprised. There was very little Bauer didn't know or couldn't guess—about his clients as well as those he investigated. "He has a message for me?" Liam asked grimly.
"Yes." The boy screwed up his face in concentration.
"He said that Mei Ling has been kidnapped by the tongs. Chen's already gone to rescue her. Mr. Bauer said to tell you it's probably a trap, and to warn you—"
But Liam was already moving. He cast a glance at Mac—who hadn't been awakened by the racket, thank God—and picked up his hat. "I have something for you to deliver. Do you know the law offices of Gregg and Hern down Market Street?"
"Yes sir, but—"
Liam pulled two envelopes from his pocket and pressed them into the boy's hand. "See that one of these gets to Mr. Hern, and the other to Bauer. Tell Bauer my final instructions are there, in case I'm not able to give them myself. My lawyers will see he's paid well for carrying them out."
"But Mr. Bauer said—"
"You've done your job, boy. Now do mine." He gave the messenger a generous tip to mollify him. "If Bauer wants to know where I am, tell him I've gone to Chinatown. Go."
The boy knew better than to argue again. The moment he was out of sight Liam turned for a last look at Mac.
She'd never seemed more beautiful to him.
But his weakness was past. Perry had set a trap for him, and he was going to walk right into it.
He closed the door with no sound at all.
* * *
Mac's bare feet hit the floor with a thump.
Five a.m., the electric clock on the mantel said. Five A.M., before dawn, and Liam was on his way to get himself killed.
He'd thought she was asleep, and that was the on
ly good thing to be said about the situation. At least she knew where he was going. And she knew she was going to follow.
The air was cool on her skin as she stripped off her chemise. The cloth still smelled of Liam. She held it to her nose, memorizing his scent. The time out of time they'd shared was over, and no matter what happened today or in the days to come Mac knew they'd never get it back.
Her jeans and T-shirt, patches, holes, and all, were still packed away in the bottom of the wardrobe. They weren't going to last much longer, but she wasn't about to wear skirts into the fight that was sure to come. The butter-soft denim felt like heaven against her skin—familiar, safe, hers as nothing in this world could ever be. She put them on as she would put on armor, filling the pockets with all the courage she could find.
The T-shirt wasn't warm enough for a San Francisco autumn morning. A walking-suit jacket came out of the closet, ridiculously inappropriate with the jeans but warm enough to serve its purpose. Her jungle boots were pressed into service as well, though Mac mourned the sneakers she'd left so far behind.
Last came the pendant. She'd hidden it away as she'd put aside all thoughts of returning to her own time until her work in the past was done; now it seemed right to wear it.
To remind her how all this must end.
She had no weapon other than her Swiss Army knife, no particular skills to protect Liam from his own recklessness. But if he were walking into a trap, he wouldn't be doing it alone.
She slipped out into the hallway with instinctive caution. A man was leaning on the balustrade a few rooms away, his attention focused on the Grand Court below.
Mac went the other direction, crouching low to avoid his notice. Chen had stopped her from following Liam before; it wasn't going to happen again. She steered clear of the sluggish elevator and found the stairs. No one stopped her.
The Palace Hotel had more than one exit. The one she chose was as far from the Grand Court as possible, leading out to an alley that was peacefully dark and quiet. Market Street was empty except for a scattering of delivery wagons and a few preoccupied individuals on early morning errands. Mac broke into a jog under the flickering streetlamps and constructed a map in her mind.
TWICE A HERO Page 28
