Strangers in the Night

by Linda Howard

  He was silent for several moments, but finally she heard him sigh. “Yes.”

  She closed her eyes as the shock of his answer rolled through her. If the dreams were that accurate, then she had another question for him, and this one was far more important. She braced herself and asked it, her voice choking over the words. “In your dreams, have you killed me?”

  Again he was silent, so long that finally she couldn’t bear the pressure and glanced up at him. He was watching her, his gaze steady. “Yes,” he said.

  6

  Thea shoved away from the table and bolted for the front door. He caught her there, simply wrapping his arms around her from behind and holding her locked to him. “My God, don’t be afraid of me,” he whispered into her tousled curls, his voice rough with emotion. “I would never hurt you. Trust me.”

  “Trust you!” she echoed incredulously, near tears as she struggled against his grip. “Trust you? How can I? How could I ever?”

  “You’re right about that, at least,” he said, a hard tone edging into the words. “You’ve lowered yourself to let me touch you, give you pleasure, but you’ve never trusted me to love you.”

  She laughed wildly, with building hysteria. “I just met you yesterday! You’re crazy—we’re both crazy. None of this makes any sense.” She clawed at his hands, trying to loosen his grasp. He simply adjusted his hold, catching her hands and linking his fingers through hers so she couldn’t do any damage, and still keeping his arms wrapped around her. She was so effectively subdued that all she could do was kick at his shins, but as she was wearing sneakers and he had on boots, she doubted she was causing him much discomfort. But even knowing it was useless, she writhed and bucked against his superior strength until she had exhausted herself. Panting, unable to sustain the effort another second, she let her trembling muscles go limp.

  Instantly he cuddled her closer, bending his head to brush his mouth against her temple. He kept his lips pressed there, feeling her pulse beating through the fragile skin. “It wasn’t just yesterday that we met,” he muttered. “It was a lifetime ago—several lifetimes. I’ve been here waiting for you. I knew you would come.”

  His touch worked an insidious magic on her; it always had. The present was blurring, mixing with the past so that she wasn’t certain what was happening now and what had happened before. Just so had he held her that night when he had slipped through the camp of her father’s army and sneaked into her bedchamber. Terror had beaten through her like the wings of a vulture, but she had been as helpless then as she was now. He had gagged her, and carried her silently through the night to his own camp, where he’d held her hostage against her father’s attack.

  She had been a virgin when he’d kidnapped her. When he had returned her, a month later, she had no longer been untouched. And she had been so stupidly in love with her erstwhile captor that she had lied to protect him, and ultimately betrayed her father.

  Thea’s head fell back against his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s happening,” she murmured, and the words sounded thick, her voice drugged. The scenes that were in her head couldn’t possibly be memories.

  His lips sought the small hollow below her ear. “We’ve found each other again. Thea.” As he had the first time, he said her name as if tasting it. “Thea. I like this name best of all.”

  “It’s—it’s Theadora.” She had always wondered why her parents had given her such an old-fashioned, unusual name, but when she’d asked, her mother had only said, rather bemusedly, that they had simply liked it. Thea’s brothers, on the other hand, had the perfectly comfortable names of Lee and Jason.

  “Ah. I like that even better.” He nipped her earlobe, his sharp teeth gently tugging.

  “Who was I before?” she heard herself ask, then hurriedly shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t believe any of this.”

  “Of course you do,” he chided, and delicately licked the exposed, vulnerable cord of her arched neck. He was aroused again, she noticed, or maybe he’d never settled down to begin with. His hard length nestled against her jean-clad bottom. No other man had ever responded to her with such blatant desire, had wanted her so strongly and incessantly. All she had to do was move her hips against him in that little teasing roll that always maddened him with lust, and he would take her now, pushing her against the castle wall and lifting her skirts—

  Thea jerked her drifting mind from the waking dream, but reality was scarcely less provocative, or precarious. “I don’t know what’s real anymore,” she cried.

  “We are, Thea. We’re real. I know you’re confused. As soon as I saw you, I knew you’d just begun remembering. I wanted to hold you, but I knew it was too soon, I knew you were frightened by what’s been happening. Let’s drink our coffee, and I’ll answer any questions you have.”

  Cautiously he released her, leaving Thea feeling oddly cold and abandoned. She turned to face him, looking up at the strong bones of his features, the intense watchfulness of his vivid eyes. She felt his hunger emanating from him like a force field, enwrapping her in a primal warmth that counteracted the chill of no longer being in his arms. Another memory assailed her, of another time when she had stood and looked into his face, and seen the desire so plainly in his eyes. At that time she had been shocked and frightened, an innocent, sheltered young lady who had suddenly been thrust into harsh conditions, and she’d had only his dubious protection from danger. Dubious not because of any lack of competence, but because she thought she might be in greater danger from him than from any outside threat.

  Thea drew in a slow, deep breath, feeling again that internal blurring as past and present merged, and abruptly she knew how futile it was to keep fighting the truth. As unbelievable as it was, she had to accept what was happening. She had spent her entire life—this life, anyway—secure in a tiny time frame, unaware of anything else, but now the blinders were gone and she was seeing far too much. The sheer enormity of it overwhelmed her, asked her to cast aside the comfortable boundaries of her life and step into danger, for that was what Richard Chance had brought with him when he had entered her life again. She had loved him in all his incarnations, no matter how she had struggled against him. And he had desired her, violently, arrogantly ignoring danger to come to her again and again. But for all his desire, she thought painfully, in the end he had always destroyed her. Her dreams had been warnings, acquainting her with the past so she would know to avoid him in the present.

  Go. That was all she had to do, simply pack and go. Instead she let him lead her back to the kitchen, where their cups sat with coffee still gently steaming. She was disconcerted to realize how little time had passed since she had fled the table.

  “How did you know where to find me?” she asked abruptly, taking a fortifying sip of coffee. “How long have you known about me?”

  He gave her a considering look, as if gauging her willingness to accept his answers, and settled into the chair across from her. “To answer your second question first, I’ve known about you for most of my life. I’ve always had strange, very detailed dreams, of different lives and different times, so I accepted all of this long before I was old enough to think it was impossible.” He gave a harsh laugh as he too sought fortitude in caffeine. “Knowing about you, waiting for you, ruined me for other women. I won’t lie and say I’ve been as chaste as a monk, but I’ve never had even a teenage crush.” He looked up at her, and his gaze was stark. “How could a giggling teen girl compete?” he whispered. “When I had the other memories, when I knew what it was to be a man, and make love to you?”

  She hadn’t had those memories until recently, but still she had gone through life romantically unscathed, the deepest part of her unable to respond to the men who had been interested in her. From the first, though, she hadn’t been able to maintain any buffer against Richard. Both mentally and physically, she was painfully aware of him. He had grown up with this awareness, and it couldn’t have been easy. It was difficult to picture, but at one time he had been a child,
and in effect he had been robbed of a normal childhood and adolescence, of a normal life.

  “As to how I found you,” he continued, “the dreams led me here. The details I saw helped me narrow down the location. The dreams were getting stronger, and I knew you couldn’t be far away. As soon as I saw this place, I knew this was it. So I rented the neighboring house, and waited.”

  “Where is your home?” she asked curiously.

  He gave her an odd little smile. “I’ve lived in North Carolina for some time now.”

  She had the definite feeling that he wasn’t telling her the entire truth. She sat back and studied him, considering her next question before voicing it. “What do you do for a living?”

  He laughed, and there was a tone at once rueful and joyous in the sound, as if he’d expected her to pin him down. “God, some things never change. I’m in the military, what else?”

  Of course. He was a warrior born, in whatever lifetime. Snippets of information, gleaned from news broadcasts, slipped into place. With her inborn knowledge of him directing her, she hazarded a guess. “Fort Bragg?”

  He nodded.

  Special Forces, then. She wouldn’t have known where they were based, if it hadn’t been for all the news coverage during the Gulf War. A sudden terror seized her. Had he been in that conflict? What if he had been killed, and she had never known about him—

  Then she wouldn’t now have to fear for her own life.

  Somehow that didn’t mitigate the fear she felt for him. She had always been afraid for him. He lived with danger, and shrugged at it, but she had never been able to do that.

  “How did you get leave?”

  “I had a lot of time due. I don’t have to go back for another month, unless something unexpected happens.” But there was a strained expression deep in his eyes, a resignation that she couldn’t quite read.

  He reached across the table and took her hand. His long, callused fingers wrapped around her slimmer, smaller ones, folding them in warmth. “What about you? Where do you live, what do you do?”

  The safest thing would be not to tell him, but she doubted there was any point in it. After all, he had her name, and he probably had her license plate number. If he wanted to, he would be able to find her. “I live in White Plains. I grew up there; all of my family lives there.” She found herself rattling on, suddenly anxious to fill him in on the details of her life. “My parents are still alive, and I have two brothers, one older and one younger. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  He shook his head, smiling at her. “I have a couple of aunts and uncles, and some cousins scattered around the country, but no one close.”

  He had always been a loner, allowing no one to get close to him—except for her. In that respect, he had been as helpless as she.

  “I paint houses,” she said, still driven by the compulsion to fill all the gaps in their knowledge of each other. “The actual houses, not pictures of them. And I do murals.” She felt herself tense, wanting him to approve, rather than express the incredulity some people did.

  His fingers tightened on hers, then relaxed. “That makes sense. You’ve always loved making our surroundings as beautiful and comfortable as possible, whether it was a fur on the floor of the tent or wildflowers in a metal cup.”

  Until he spoke, she’d had no memory of those things, but suddenly she saw the pelts she had used to make their pallet on the tent floor, and the way the wildflowers, which she had arranged in a metal cup, had nodded their heads in the rush of cold air every time the flap was opened.

  “Do you remember everything?” she whispered.

  “Every detail? No. I can’t remember every detail that’s happened in this life, either; no one does. But the important things, yes.”

  “How many times have we …” Her voice trailed off as she was struck once again by the impossibility of it.

  “Made love?” he suggested, though he knew darn well that wasn’t what she had been about to say. Still, his eyes took on a heated, sleepy expression. “Times without number. I’ve never been able to get enough of you.”

  Her body jolted with responding desire Sternly she controlled it. It would mean her life if she gave in to the aching need to become involved with him again. “Lived,” she corrected.

  She sensed his reluctance to tell her, but he had sworn he would answer all her questions, and his word was his bond. “Twelve,” he said, tightening his hand on hers again. “This is our twelfth time.”

  She nearly jumped out of her chair. Twelve! The number echoed in her head. She had remembered only half of those times, and those memories were partial. Overwhelmed, she tried to pull away from him. She couldn’t keep her sanity under such an overload.

  Somehow she found herself drawn around the table, and settled on his lap. She accepted the familiarity of the position, knowing that he had held her this way many times. His thighs were hard under her bottom, his chest a solid bulwark to shield her, his arms supporting bands of living steel. It didn’t make sense that she should feel so safe and protected in the embrace of a man who was so much of a danger to her, but the contact with his body was infinitely comforting.

  He was saying something reassuring, but Thea couldn’t concentrate on the words. She tilted her head back against his shoulder, dizzy with the tumult of warring emotions. He looked down at her and caught his breath, falling silent as his gaze settled on her mouth.

  She knew she should turn away, but she didn’t, couldn’t. Instead her arm slipped up around his neck, holding tightly to him as he bent his head and covered her mouth with his.

  7

  The taste of him was like coming home, their mouths fitting together without any awkwardness or uncertainty. A growl of hunger rumbled in his throat, and his entire body tensed as he took her mouth with his tongue. With the ease of long familiarity he thrust his hand under her T-shirt and closed it over her breast, working his fingers beneath the lace of the bra cup so his hand was on her bare skin, her nipple beading against his palm. Thea shuddered under his touch, a paroxysm of mingled desire and relief, as if she had been holding herself tightly against the pain of his absence and could only now relax. There had never been another man for her, she thought dimly as she sank under the pleasure of his kiss, and never would be. Though they seemed to be caught in a hellish death-dance, she could no more stop loving him than she could stop her own heartbeat.

  His response to her was as deep and uncontrollable as hers was to him. She felt it in the quivering tension of his body, the raggedness of his breathing, the desperate need so plain in his touch. Why then, in all of their lives together, had he destroyed her? Tears seeped from beneath her lashes as she clung to him. Was it because of the force of his need? Had he been unable to bear being so much at the mercy of someone else, found his vulnerability to be intolerable, and in a sudden fury lashed out to end that need? No; she rejected that scenario, because one of her clearest memories was of the calmness in his aquamarine eyes as he’d forced her deeper into the water, holding her down until there was no more oxygen in her lungs and her vision clouded over.

  A teardrop ran into the corner of her mouth, and he tasted the saltiness. He groaned, and his lips left her mouth to slide over her cheek, sipping up the moisture. He didn’t ask why she was crying, didn’t become anxious or uneasy. Instead he simply held her closer, silently comforting her with his presence. He had never been discomfited by her tears, Thea remembered, past scenes sliding through her memory like silken scarves, wispy but detectable. Not that she had ever been a weepy kind of person anyway; and when she had cried, more often than not he had been the cause of her tears. His response then had always been exactly what it was now: he’d held her, let her cry it out, and seldom veered from his set course, no matter how upset he’d made her.

  “You’ve never compromised worth a damn,” Thea muttered, turning her face into his shoulder to use his shirt as a handkerchief.

  He effortlessly followed her chain of thought. He sighed as hi
s fingers gently kneaded her breast, savoring the silkiness of her skin, the pebbling of her nipple. “We were always on opposite sides. I couldn’t betray my country, my friends.”

  “But you expected me to,” she said bitterly.

  “No, never. Your memories are still cloudy and incomplete, aren’t they? Sweetheart, you made some difficult decisions, but they were based on your own sense of justice, not because I coerced you.”

  “So you say.” She grasped his wrist and shoved his hand out from under her shirt. “Because my memory is cloudy, I can’t argue that point, can I?”

  “You could try trusting me.” The statement was quiet, his gaze intent.

  “You keep saying that.” She stirred restlessly on his lap. “Under the circumstances, that seems to be asking a bit much, don’t you think? Or am I safe with you, as long as we stay away from water?”

  His mouth took on a bitter curve. “Trust has always been our problem.” Lifting his hand, the one that had so recently cupped her breast, he toyed with one of her wayward curls. “On my part, too, I admit. I was never certain you wouldn’t change your mind and betray me, instead.”

  “Instead of my father, you mean.” Suddenly furious, she tried to struggle out of his lap. He simply tightened his arms, holding her in place as he had many times before.

  “Your temper never changes,” he observed, delight breaking through the grimness of his mood.

  “I don’t have a temper,” Thea snapped, knowing full well her brothers would instantly disagree with that statement. She didn’t have a hair-trigger temper, but she didn’t back down from much, either.

  “Of course you don’t,” he crooned, cuddling her closer, and the absolute love in his voice nearly broke her heart. How could he feel so intensely about her and still do what he did? And how could she still love him so much in return?

  He held her in silence for a while, his heartbeat thudding against the side of her breast. The sensation was one she had felt many times before, lying cuddled on his left arm so his right arm, the one that wielded his sword, was unencumbered.