Beast in the Tower

by Julie Miller

  She’d kissed him above his eye, massaged the tender skin at his temples, soothed him with gentle words.

  And when he’d pulled her down beneath him and entered her that third time, she’d opened herself and welcomed him in a way that was more healing than any miracle cure he could devise. He’d been alone for so long; he hadn’t let himself feel or care. He hadn’t known how desperately he needed the kind of acceptance she offered him. Acceptance as a man—not a scientist, not a prodigy, not a provider. Through her eyes he wasn’t the monster he thought he’d become. But then, she’d given him that long ago when her curiosity had overridden any natural aversion to his appearance. She’d given him that with her fearless determination to question him, argue with him—treat him like a normal man.

  Kit Snow had given him a gift far greater than saving the life of his dear Helen. Greater than the tender ministrations with which she’d doctored his hand.

  Her caring had cracked open the prison inside him and given him back his heart.

  He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to the silky crown of her hair. “Thank you.”

  Damon rolled flat on his back and stretched out, wondering if the sun would feel as warm and natural on his face as Kit’s body felt nestled against him.

  But as he turned his head farther to glance at the clock, the first twinge of discontentment set in. He picked up the eyepatch from the bedside table and pulled it back into place around his head. But that couldn’t dispel the image staring back at him from the nightstand. “Oh, damn.”

  The muscles in his body began to tense, one by one. He swiped his palm over a jaw that needed a shave. But the sense of betrayal didn’t leave him.

  Miranda’s clear blue eyes watched him from the anniversary photo beside the bed. The last picture he’d taken of her, from their trip down to the Bahamas. Their marriage had been in trouble then. She hadn’t wanted to be that far from the office, hadn’t wanted to be gone for an entire week. In fact, they’d come back just after the weekend.

  Maybe it was his imagination, but there was something judging him even then in that photograph. The wind had whipped across the beach that day, but Miranda had managed to avoid the surf and the fun. With the sunset behind her on the hotel room balcony, she was a vision of physical beauty. Every long, blond hair was in place, unlike the wild fan of caramel-colored hair teasing his arm and chest this morning. Miranda’s coral lips curved in a secretive, Mona Lisa smile that revealed none of the abandon of Kit’s easy laugh. Those blue eyes looked at the camera, but they weren’t really looking at him. They wouldn’t look past the handsome facade that had once been his the way Kit saw so deeply inside him now.

  Maybe he hadn’t been so desperate to save his wife eighteen months ago in that fire—he’d been desperate to save their marriage and what they’d once shared. Miranda hadn’t killed their love the night she took her own life. It had already been dying a slow, sad death for months before that.

  It was time to let go of the guilt and try to remember the love. It was time to let go of the past. Like Kit had encouraged him last night, he wanted to stay in the present. Here. With her.

  He reached out and touched the picture frame. “I miss you, babe.” He laid the picture facedown and said goodbye to that chapter of his life.

  The emotional reawakening was all too new for him to even try thinking about the future.

  “Oh, no.” The body beside him stirred.

  Damon smiled. “Good morn—”

  “Oh, my God.” Kit sat up and scooted away, clutching the sheet and comforter up over her breasts. “Is that your wife?”

  Damon sat up, alarmed by the stricken look on her face, anxious to reclaim the serenity of waking up together. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I was just putting the picture away. I forgot it was there.”

  Those gray eyes darkened with some unnamed emotion and she raked her fingers through the hair he had so thoroughly mussed the night before. “Do you…? Was I just a…? Did you two ever…here?” She pointed to the bed.

  “Kit, calm down.” Did she honestly think he’d bed her as a substitute for the wife he had lost? “I’ve never had any woman in this bed but you. There’s nothing in this room—in this penthouse—that belonged to Miranda.”

  “Except you.” She tugged at the covers, and when they wouldn’t cooperate, she covered herself with her arms and slipped out of the bed. She spun around, searching for the clothes he’d carried up in the middle of the night. “I can deal with a lot of stuff. But I can’t compete with a ghost.”

  “Compete?”

  She pulled on her panties and jeans, and bent down to retrieve the bra that had fallen to the floor. “I have to get downstairs and get the diner open. Germane will have half the prep work already done by now.”

  “Katherine.” She paused for a moment at the use of her full name. But only a moment. She turned her back to him and continued to dress with a modesty she hadn’t shown him last night. Maybe things had gone too far too fast for her. But it made no logical sense for the warm-hearted woman who’d welcomed him last night to be turning that cold shoulder to him this morning. Damon tossed back the covers and stood beside the bed. “You’re the one who always wants to talk. Let’s discuss this.”

  She turned around, saw his naked body, saw all of him, then blushed and turned away. “I don’t think I can talk right now.”

  Damon cursed and reached for his boxer-briefs. “So you can peel the skin away from my wounds, but if I dare try to find out what’s bugging you, then I’m the monster again?”

  “No.” She had her blouse on and halfway buttoned when she turned. The panic had left her posture, but the distance was still there in her eyes. “You’re not a monster. Please don’t say that. I’m sorry. I just…” She concentrated on the rest of her buttons before continuing. “You loved your wife very much. I can tell you’ve grieved for her.” She picked up her sweater and hugged it to her chest. “I was only thinking in the moment last night. But I don’t really believe I thought this through. I mean, Matt’s downstairs. I have responsibilities.”

  Good. She was talking. Damon pulled on his jeans and zipped them, hoping a little less skin—a little less him—would relax her further. “We were both a little impulsive last night.” Her eyes widened. Okay, a lot impulsive. “But this wasn’t just a fall-into-bed-and-get-my-rocks-off thing. I haven’t been with a woman since my wife’s death.”

  “Great.” She pulled the sweater over her head, masking her expression.

  Maybe she hadn’t heard him right. “I haven’t wanted to be with a woman since Miranda.”

  “Miranda, hmm? I saw the photograph. She was very beautiful.”

  “If you like the cool, sophisticated type.”

  “Who doesn’t?” That particular laugh did nothing to ease his concern. Now she was tucking things in, searching for socks and boots. “I guess I’m a convenient stand-in.”

  That description angered him. Damon circled the bed. “Did I at any time last night belittle you or make you think you were anything but sexy and desirable? That I didn’t want you like hell on fire?”

  “Fine. We had sex. It was good.”

  He took her by the arms and forced her to look him in the eye. “We didn’t just have sex, and you know it.”

  “What I know is that you still have feelings for your wife. I miss you, babe?” She echoed his words. Her hands rested against his chest, willing to touch, but not clutching at him, needing him the way she had last night. “Were you thinking about her while you were with me? Or did you just feel like you cheated on her afterward?”

  Damon released her. She’d knocked the feet right out from any logical argument by nailing the truth. He had known a moment of guilt this morning. But it hadn’t lasted. He’d acknowledged it and moved on.

  But Kit had already grasped that neither of them had any idea of what they were moving on to. And apparently she needed a few concrete facts to reassure her. Hell. If he could come up with any, he’d be more tha
n willing to share.

  She headed for the stairs and Damon followed. “My wife is dead and gone. You are here and very much alive.”

  When she hesitated, he stopped two steps above her, keeping her beyond arm’s reach. “I have…feelings…that I don’t know what to do with, Damon. I care about you, and no, I don’t regret what happened. But I can’t just…I want…”

  “What do you want, Kit? Tell me.”

  Her shoulders heaved with a mighty sigh before she turned and lifted her gaze to his. The tears that welled in her eyes sucker-punched him in the gut. “Something that doesn’t exist in the real world where I have to live.” She swiped at the tears before they could fall and headed back down the stairs. “I have to get to work. Matt? C’mon, buddy. Get up. We have to go.”

  She knocked on the study door and went in before Damon could even find the will to move. “Matt?”

  She came back out just as quickly. “Dammit, little brother, you’d better be downstairs.”

  Kit was out the door. It felt as though she was out of his life even before Damon realized he’d already let her in. “Kit? Kit!”

  The whole idea of bringing them to the penthouse was to keep her close, keep an eye on her. Keep her and her brother safe.

  But that wasn’t the only reason he dashed back up the stairs to throw on the rest of his clothes. Last night in his lab, Damon had been afraid to touch her, afraid that his dark world would snuff the light out of hers. But the passion between them could not be denied. His needs had been met. And by doing so, he’d apparently found a whole new way to destroy her happiness. By wanting Kit. Caring about her. Loving her.

  He let that last thought slide without really acknowledging it. This was about Kit. He was bound and determined to give her whatever it was she wanted from him—even if it was distance, time to think things through. Even if she decided he’d be too hard a son of a bitch to deal with day in and day out, and wanted nothing more to do with him.

  But she was damn well going to tell him to his face what those feelings were she was dealing with. He’d do right by her. Whatever it took to make it right with Kit, it would be done.

  WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?

  What the hell was she thinking?

  Kit fiddled with the buttons on the keypad beside the penthouse elevator, but without a key card, she couldn’t make it work. That left the freight elevator, twenty-nine flights of stairs or swallowing her pride and going back inside the penthouse to ask Damon for a key and the code.

  Kit headed for the freight elevator.

  She’d been thinking that last night with Damon was some sort of fairy tale. He was the proverbial beast and she was the modern-day beauty—if one didn’t go for the cool, sophisticated type—who’d freed him from his nightmares and opened his heart to the idea of love.

  But there was no happily-ever-after with a man who was still tied up with thoughts of his dead wife. A man who would risk his life to repay a debt would have no qualms about thanking her with a night like they’d shared. She hadn’t wanted his money as a thank-you. And she hadn’t wanted a night of intimacy that had gone beyond amazing sex as any kind of payment, either. Oh, she’d wanted last night, all right. But she’d forgotten the whole think-with-your-head thing and had led straight from the heart.

  Kit raked her fingers through her hair, disturbing the scent that was uniquely Damon’s. The familiar soap and musk made her ache. Oh, God, what had she done?

  Her beast didn’t have a heart to give her. It was still buried in his wife’s grave. And Kit wanted so badly what her parents had shared that she wouldn’t settle for anything less.

  Of course, that left her with damaged pride, some shaky self-esteem and a battered heart that had foolishly opened up and given Damon everything he needed. Everything she’d wanted to give him. But in return—

  “Where are you going?” Damon’s gruff voice followed her down the hallway.

  She’d been so caught up in wishes and regrets that she hadn’t even heard him open his door. “To the freight elevator. It’s either that or take the stairs.” The air rushed from her lungs in a steadying breath. Kit turned around and headed for the stairwell. “On second thought, I could use the exercise to work you out of my system.”

  He stopped her with a hand on her arm when she tried to pass him. “Kit.”

  “Just let me go.” She jerked her arm away with more force than she needed.

  He held his hand up in surrender. “I know, you need to get to work. But I’m not going to let you leave when you’re upset like this.”

  “Upset?” She wheeled around to face him. “Upset is when you’re cramming for your final exams and you get a phone call that says both your parents are dead and you have to come home and become a mother to a teenager who doesn’t want one. You don’t get to say no. You don’t have time to mourn or rage at the injustice of two good people being taken from the world. Upset is when you’ve got needy, deserving people looking to you to put a roof over their heads and give them meaningful work to do—even if it means giving up your own dreams.”

  He was scowling at her now, his expression darkening as she ranted on. Kit swallowed hard and put on the brakes, wisely clamping her mouth shut before every emotion trapped inside her tumbled out.

  “Kit, I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. It’s tough when the world expects you to pick up the pieces and go on.”

  Someone you love. Had Damon really moved on? Could he ever?

  “What happened between us last night doesn’t upset me,” she whispered in a more rational tone, explaining her earlier tirade. She focused on that solitary blue eye that seemed to see so much, but understand so little about what she needed. “I’m embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?” He took a step toward her, but Kit held up her hands and he backed away.

  “I’m sorry. Not that it happened, but that I read more into it than I should. I’m not real sophisticated that way, I guess.” Not like Miranda. She shrugged, regaining control of herself as Damon’s posture and expression sank back into that dark, moody place where she’d first known him. She regretted that. But maybe it was safer for her, after all, if she held something back. “Well, I have to get to work. The police should be done with their search of the building. I’ll come back later this afternoon to get my things.”

  He didn’t touch her again when she walked past and pressed the call button to summon the freight elevator to the top floor. The gears ground together and the cables groaned with the weight of age and steel.

  She felt Damon’s heat behind her an instant before his rusty voice grated in tune with the elevator. “Until we know who shot Kenny and tried to kill you and Helen, you’re not going anywhere without me.”

  She shook her head. “You have your research to do. I promise I won’t leave the building. You can watch me on one of your monitors.”

  The elevator arrived at their floor and clicked and moaned to a stop. Damon reached around Kit, unlatched the gate and pushed open the doors. “I’m going with you.”

  Kit pulled the hem of her sleeves down over her hands and crossed her arms before going inside and standing in the back corner. Damon closed the gate and the doors and pushed the button for the lobby floor before taking a position on the opposite side of the car.

  The only sound as the elevator descended was the grind of metal against metal in the gear work above them, and the rumble and shake of the car itself. The silence was strained and awkward. Damon wore his sense of duty in the tight set of his shoulders, and the air between them was heavy with simmering desires and unspoken regrets. With every shake and rattle of the slow descent, Kit huddled tighter in her corner, trying not to think of J. T. Kronemeyer’s warning about how the freight elevator needed to be retired, or how much more secure she’d feel with Damon’s arms around her.

  They were passing the twenty-first floor when she recalled something else J.T. had mentioned. The engineer who was supposed to be fixing the elevator
s had quit because he heard voices in the elevator shaft.

  Either Kit was going nuts, or she was hearing voices, too. It was little more than garbled sounds, but the different tones told her at least two people were engaged in a conversation. Kit’s curiosity kicked in, giving her something to focus on besides her feelings for Dr. Brainiac across the way. She looked at the panel of buttons and into every corner for a speaker, but saw nothing. Kit looked up. What if one of the workmen had left a walkie-talkie or cell phone on top of the elevator?

  “What is it?” Damon asked. He didn’t miss a detail.

  “Do you hear that?”

  He listened for a moment, then shook his head. “Hear what?”

  Kit pushed the button for the twentieth floor and stopped the elevator. “…is the only chance you’re going to get. We’re on a schedule here. Now get the job done.

  “That,” she said.

  They both held their breath to listen in to more of the fading argument.

  “Where’s that coming from?” Damon opened the doors and the gate onto the stripped, deserted hallway. Like the thirteenth, it had had no remodeling work done yet. There shouldn’t be anyone on the floor. “I don’t hear it now.”

  He shut the gate and doors and pushed a button to resume their descent. Kit heard a different sound, one that seemed to be coming from below them now. She smiled.

  “Is that whistling?” Damon asked.

  She nodded. “Germane.” Something from Earth, Wind and Fire. “There must be something about the open grates of the freight elevator and the acoustics in the shaft that lets us hear sounds all the way from the ground floor.”

  “And up to the penthouse.” The theory made sense. “So we heard a couple of workmen arguing from one of the floors?”

  “I guess. The openings in the gate and doors must funnel the sound into the shaft. Germane is probably carrying in deliveries from the loading dock.”