She parted her lips, and he took what she offered, his self-control melting away. His tongue swept deep into her mouth, claiming, devouring. Yes, she thought, yes, I want this. I’m alive and I want Mac.
His hands moved on her back. One slid up into her hair, and he drew back a little, then tilted his head and kissed her again, capturing her lower lip with his teeth before tangling his tongue with hers. For a moment, enveloped in his arms and the soft darkness, she imagined making love with Mac right here, standing in her living room.
Mac had other ideas. He pulled his mouth from hers, kissed her cheek, grazed the edge of her earlobe, then whispered, “Where’s your bed, darlin’?”
She loved hearing him call her darlin’—not only because it sounded so damn sexy in his gravelly drawl but because it meant he was finally accepting that she was fine. He’d been so somber in the car, so grim and anxious. Now, at last, he seemed able to accept that she was safe, that he’d saved her and she didn’t resent him for it.
Far from resenting him, she desired him. Because he’d saved her. Because he’d come for her. Because he was Mac.
She took a step back and turned to light the candles. Mac lifted one, and she took the other. Together they walked down the short hall to her bedroom.
She set her candle on the night table next to her bed, and he placed his on the dresser. The two flickering flames gave them just enough light to find each other, to see what they had to see.
Mac pulled her into his arms again. He scooped her hair into his hands, smiling as if the mere feel of it sifting through his fingers turned him on. He dropped a light, teasing kiss on her lips and whispered, “I’ve got to do something,” before turning her around. Lifting her hair away from her neck, he kissed her nape. She heard him sigh, then kiss that sensitive skin again. She sighed, too.
“When I saw your hair pinned up this evening,” he whispered, “all I could think of was kissing you there.” He kissed her again and again, hot, eager kisses that stoked the ache inside her.
She breathed his name. He responded by inching down the zipper of her dress, and when he grazed her bare shoulder with his mouth, she gasped.
“Julie.” He touched his lips to the place where her bra strap would have been if she’d been wearing a bra. “I don’t have anything with me.”
Of course he didn’t. He hadn’t expected to be seducing her tonight. She hadn’t expected to be seducing him. Maybe she’d hoped—without ever admitting it to herself—that he’d be entranced by her appearance. Maybe when she’d chosen this dress, which she couldn’t wear with a bra because of the daringly low-cut front, and when she’d pinned her hair up, she’d been secretly imagining that her appearance would knock Mac sideways. When he’d danced with her at the party—it seemed like a century ago, rather than just a few hours—she’d believed he found her tempting. But she hadn’t expected him to act on that temptation.
Neither, apparently, had he.
“I think we’re okay.” She slipped out of his arms and moved to her night table. In the drawer, along with her phone book, notepaper, pens and assorted other clutter, she located a three-pack of condoms, the sort of item single women tended to keep in their drawers, just in case.
Mac took the package from her, kissed it, grinned and kissed her. He opened the package and dropped it onto the night table. Then he shrugged off his jacket and tossed it into a dark corner across the room from the candles.
His elegant suit—didn’t he want to take better care of it? Evidently not. He pulled his loosened tie over his head as if he were escaping a lasso and sent it sailing into the same dark corner.
Julie reached for the buttons of his shirt before he could open them. No longer having to undress himself, he concentrated on her, easing her dress over her shoulders and down her arms. The bodice went slack at her waist. A sigh escaped him as he gazed at her naked torso.
He backed up to the bed, sat and drew her close, sandwiching her with his thighs. Then he buried his lips in the hollow between her breasts. Julie leaned into him, her legs shaky beneath her. She pushed his shirt down his arms and off, exposing the most gloriously male shoulders she’d ever seen. She ran her hands over their warm surface of muscle and bone, flexed her fingers, dug her fingertips into the firm flesh and provoked a gasp from him.
He pulled back, and she saw no trace of his smile. His eyes were glazed, his breathing unnaturally deep as he peered up at her. “Oh, Julie,” he said, half a groan, half a plea.
He peeled the sleeves of her dress from her arms, and it slid over her hips and onto the floor. He tugged her panties down, letting them join her dress. Then he pulled her into his lap and kissed her.
She loved the way his naked chest felt against her breasts, and she was suddenly desperate to strip the rest of him, to feel his entire body against hers, to make him as vulnerable to her as she was to him. He must have read her mind, because he shifted, allowing her to tumble onto the bed, and then yanked open his belt and stripped off his trousers and briefs with ruthless efficiency.
Whatever power problems afflicted New Orleans, Julie’s bedroom was ablaze with energy. Mac’s skin was hot; his body seemed to glow as the amber light from the flickering candles glazed the rippling muscles of his torso, the taut surface of his abdomen, the sparse hair texturing his chest and the darker hair at his groin, framing his erection. Julie touched him the way the candlelight did, imparting heat and light with every stroke.
Mac let her explore his body as he explored hers, his caresses nearly as gentle as hers. His hands were large and warm against her skin. His mouth ignited her, making her burn everywhere it touched. His tongue sent fire along her nerve endings.
As eager as she was for him, he held back, taking his time to nip first one breast and then the other, tenderly massaging her belly, planting healing kisses in a circle around the bandaged scrape on her knee. An eternity passed before he finally settled his fingers between her legs, stroking her where the fire burned most fervently, where all the energy in the universe seemed to gather, waiting just for him, for this.
She filled her hands with him. He was so hard, and with each caress he grew harder, until he thrust against her palm and then groaned and eased her hand from him. After kissing her fingertips, he reached for the condom. He tore open the packet and handed its contents to her.
His eyes never left her. She had to look down to perform the intimate act of sheathing him, but she felt him still watching her. When he was ready, she glanced upward, and their gazes merged.
From the very first time their paths had crossed, Mac had been watching her. And she realized she’d been watching him, too. Less purposefully, perhaps, but just as intensely.
She opened to him, guided him to her, and he thrust deep. This was a joining like no other. For the first time in her life she knew what it meant to depend on a man, to give herself completely to a man, to trust that a man would give her what she needed. She trusted Mac and let go, and to her amazement she felt infused with power. Depending on him seemed like a remarkable act of independence.
His surges were slow and controlled and so deep she was certain he was reaching parts of her that had never been touched before. She lifted her legs around his waist, clutched his hips, urged him deeper. She met his gaze until she had to close her eyes. What she was feeling was too personal, too exquisite. She couldn’t look at him while her entire being, heart and soul, lay exposed to his perceptive gaze.
Still moving inside her, he propped himself up. “Julie,” he murmured. “Look at me, chère.”
She opened her eyes and saw the need illuminating his, the want, the love. Her body convulsed, deep spasms racking her, so fierce they hurt. She heard herself moan, then heard Mac moan, as well, his body pumping hard and fast, all control gone. He went rigid in her arms, stopped breathing—but never stopped watching her, his eyes mating with hers as thoroughly as his body did.
He let out a ragged breath, then dropped a weary kiss onto her mouth. She felt his
weight on her, his sweat mixing with hers, his body still locked tight inside her as she pulsed around him. She wanted him there forever, joined to her, a part of her.
But eventually he went slack and pulled away. “Ah, Julie,” he murmured, sounding almost wistful. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The candlelight didn’t reach that high, and a stretch of black loomed above them like a starless, moonless sky.
Something was wrong. Julie knew it just as surely as she’d known that making love with Mac had been right, opening herself to him had been inevitable, trusting him had been essential. Now that the love and trust were there, he was withdrawing from her.
“What is it?” she asked.
He eyed her with surprise, smiled, looped an arm around her and drew her against him, cushioning her head with his shoulder and sliding one leg between her thighs. “What is what?” he asked.
“You seem…” She struggled for the right word. “Apprehensive.”
“No.”
Resting against his shoulder, she could see only the line of his jaw. He no longer met her gaze. Maybe apprehensive described her more accurately than him. “Don’t lie to me, Mac.”
He stroked his hand up and down her arm. A long, tense minute passed, and he said, “I’ve been lying to you all along, chère.”
That statement, at least, was the truth. She knew it from his resigned tone, from his hesitancy. He was speaking honestly now—and what he had to say was that he’d lied to her.
She pushed away from him, even though that meant losing the warmth of his arm around her and his body next to hers. Sitting, she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the fact that the heat hadn’t come on in her apartment all night. As long as Mac avoided her gaze, ice would settle inside her where just moments ago she’d been on fire.
I’ve been lying to you all along. “What have you lied about?” she asked, even though she feared his answer. Maybe, despite his personnel records, he was married. Maybe he had a criminal record. Maybe he was leaving town tomorrow and she’d never see him again. Maybe he had an incurable disease.
Whatever he’d been lying about, she knew it was bad.
He glanced her way and smiled. “Come here, darlin’,” he said, extending his hand. “We don’t have to discuss this now.”
They sure as hell did have to discuss it now. She deflected his touch, then sighed as he circled his fingers around her wrist and brought her hand to rest on his chest. “You’d better tell me,” she warned. “Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as what I’m imagining.”
He steered his gaze back to the ceiling. “I’m not a hotel security guard,” he said.
Given all the worst case-scenarios that had zoomed through her mind, his confession struck her as hilarious. “Of course you are,” she said, suppressing a laugh. He’d filled the job of hotel security guard every day for more than six weeks. He’d run the security office, managed the security staff, uncovered mishaps like the glass in the towels and addressed the needs of guests. Even if he chose not to call himself a hotel security guard, that was what he was.
“No.” He let out a long breath. “I’m a security consultant. A private investigator.”
“You worked at that place, I know. Before the hotel hired you, you worked at…what was it? Crescent City something?”
“Crescent City Security Services. I don’t just work there, Julie. I founded the business with a friend. I own it.”
This still didn’t seem like a tragedy. Why Mac seemed so grim puzzled her. “So…you wanted to supplement your income by working at the hotel?” she guessed.
“No.” Once again, he turned to gaze at her. The candle on her night table was reflected in his eyes, twin yellow flames flickering in the darkest parts of his irises. “I was hired to watch you. I took the job at the hotel so I could do that.”
“You were hired to watch me.” The words came out in a shocked whisper. Even his hand covering hers couldn’t impart warmth to her. Oh, God, she’d been right all along. He’d been watching her. Because someone had hired him to. “And that’s why you’re in my bed right now? Because someone hired you to watch me?”
“No!” He pushed away from the mattress, but he must have noticed her recoiling from him because he lowered himself back to the pillow. “I’m here in your bed because I’m crazy about you.”
“Oh. Right.” Sarcasm vibrated through her voice. “Is that why you watch me? Because you’re crazy about me?”
“I watched you because I was paid to.”
“Who paid you?”
“Don’t ask me that, Julie. I’ve already said too much.”
Anger bubbled up inside her, surprising her with its ferocity. She wasn’t a violent person, even after what she’d been through earlier that night. But she wanted to hit Mac, hit him hard. It took all her willpower to keep from swinging at him. “I’ve asked,” she retorted. “You’d better tell me.”
His smile became placating. “I can’t. The client doesn’t want to be known, and I’ve got to respect the client’s wishes.”
“I suppose that’s more important than respecting me,” she said sharply.
“It’s completely different.” He propped himself up on his elbows, then sat fully, his eyes now level with hers. “I respect you with all my heart, Julie. I respect you in ways I can’t even put into words. But I’ve got a contract with a client, and I have to respect that, too.” He cupped his hand under her chin and caressed her cheek with his thumb. “Would it have been better for me to keep lying to you? I respect you too much to do that.”
She couldn’t digest his sweet words. They returned on her like something rancid. “Who hired you?” she demanded. “Glenn Perry?” Was her old boss after her? Now that she’d escaped Andrea Crowley’s insane revenge, would she face Glenn’s? Was Mac, the man who had just made love to her so sublimely, setting her up for Glenn? Damn it, would Mac do that to her? The mere possibility made her want to scream.
“It’s not Glenn. The person who hired me wanted me to protect you from Glenn. My client thought he’d be coming after you, darlin’. He’s not doing that, though, and at this point I’m convinced he won’t. He’s busy being a law-abiding citizen back in New York City, rebuilding his life and checking in regularly with his parole officer. You’re safe from him.”
But she wasn’t safe from Mac. “Then who is it? Who hired you? Who wants me watched?”
He shook his head. “Someone who wanted me to protect you from harm, that’s all. And I didn’t do a very good job,” he muttered, staring past her at the candle on her dresser. “You could have gotten killed tonight.”
“Maybe you’d better phone your client and let him know,” she said bitterly. “Gotta keep your priorities straight, Mac. The client always comes first.”
“The client has nothing to do with what happened here,” Mac argued, gesturing toward the bed. “Even before, when I was following your trail of pink feathers, I wasn’t thinking about the client. Just you. Saving you, keeping you in my life.”
“I don’t want you in my life,” she said. The words sounded false—but then, Mac had lied to her. Now it was her turn to lie. She wanted Mac, desperately. But not when he was receiving money to watch her. Not when he was answering to someone else. Not when, even after calling himself a liar, he refused to tell her the whole truth.
“Julie—”
“Get out. Get the hell out of here.” She wrapped her arms around her legs, rested her chin on her knees and closed her eyes. He wanted her to look at him? Forget that. She never wanted to see him again.
And she sure as hell didn’t want him to see the tears leaking through her lashes. She prayed the room was dark enough that he wouldn’t notice.
She heard him sigh, then felt the mattress heave under her as he shifted to the edge and stood. At least he respected her enough to leave her.
She listened to the sounds of him getting dressed—the rustle and whisper of fabric, the rasp of a zipper as he closed his fly. Her h
ero, she thought resentfully. Earlier that evening, when she’d felt Andrea’s gun jabbing her, she’d wanted Mac to be her hero. And he had been. He’d come, he’d found her, he’d captured Andrea. He’d taken her home. He’d made love to her.
But she’d wanted him to make love to her because his heart was as filled with her as hers was with him, not because someone was paying him.
So much began to make sense: his expensive suits, his expensive car, his friendship with police officers and street musicians. His gun. Even with her eyes closed, she was aware of his easy grace and confidence as he wandered through the dark bedroom, gathering his clothes. In a bedroom he’d never been inside before, and with the whispering light of two small candles, Mac moved as if he owned the ground he walked on, as if he’d memorized every nub in the rug, every seam in the floorboards underneath it.
He wasn’t the Hotel Marchand’s security chief. He wasn’t a knight in shining armor who’d saved her life because he loved her. He was a slick, suave private eye, getting paid by the hour to watch her.
And she’d thought being kidnapped at gunpoint had been horrible.
Hero for hire. Goddamn liar. How much longer until he walked out her door and she could open her eyes again?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HE THOUGHT ABOUT DRIVING to his office, but if it had been affected by the blackout, he would never be able to get inside. The building’s security system was powered by electricity, and only the building’s management possessed keys that could override the system. So he drove home instead.
The empty streets matched the emptiness in his heart. He was too tired to sleep, too wired to think. His skin was imprinted with Julie. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine her hair swirling through his fingers, her breasts firm and sweet in his hands, her body hot and wet and throbbing around him.
If he closed his eyes, he’d drive into a light pole. That actually didn’t seem like such a bad idea, but he kept his vision on the road ahead, cruised through empty intersections and found a parking space near the entry to his building.
In the Dark Page 22
