Shower Of Stars

by Nancy Herkness

  She squirmed against her bonds as she heard the footsteps echoing down the hall, suddenly wishing she hadn't been in such a hurry to pull that last knot tight. There was a moment of silence, and then the footsteps moved away.

  Damn. She couldn't stand much more of this torture. Should she call out to him?

  She heard the refrigerator whoosh closed, and the footsteps came swiftly down the hall again.

  The door she had so carefully left ajar at just the same angle she had found it flew open, and Jack strode in. He was dressed in a black blazer, black shirt and black slacks. Putting a bottle of water down on the dresser, he shrugged out of his jacket and began to unstrap the shoulder holster concealed underneath. The sight of the gun made Charlie gasp.

  Jack whipped around, his right hand reaching for the pistol as he bent his knees into a dangerous crouch.

  For a long moment, he froze. Then his hand dropped, and he straightened.

  “Well, well, well. What have we here?”

  He sauntered over to the foot of the bed and let his eyes roam up and down Charlie's spread-eagled body.

  “Hello, Jack.”

  He laughed.

  “Hello, sugar.”

  As he came closer, Charlie could see the blaze of restrained exultation in his eyes, like a general who's just won one battle but faces another, more difficult one the next day.

  “That's an interesting knot,” he said, his long fingers toying with the loose end of the tie around her left ankle. “It seems securely tied.”

  Charlie cleared her throat. “Very. The average adventurer knows her knots.”

  He dropped the tie and trailed his fingertips up the inside of her calf to her knee as he took a step forward.

  Charlie swallowed hard as he continued to move his touch upward along the exposed skin of her inner thigh. She shifted her gaze upward to his face and lost her ability to breathe. The blaze in his eyes had multiplied tenfold, and he was staring down at her body with a hunger that made her long to free her hands to cover herself.

  She closed her eyes to block out the vision of naked desire, then wished she hadn't. All she was aware of now was the slow, inexorable progress of his hand toward the warm, dark throbbing between her legs.

  As his fingers danced across the join between thigh and hip, she moaned softly.

  Then his fingers were sliding down along the folds of her center, against the most exquisitely sensitive place on her body, and deep inside her.

  She arched up from the bed like a bow, driving his fingers deeper. “Oh God, Jack!”

  He slowly withdrew his fingers, only to slide them in once again. And again.

  Her hips rocked upward and she groaned, “Yes, yes. Again.”

  As he left the inside of her body, he flicked the outer nub and laughed triumphantly when an orgasm ripped through her. The silk ties bit into her wrists and ankles as her inner muscles clenched like a fist, then spilled a pool of warm release which spread in ripples from her center out-ward.

  She lay limply with her eyes closed, a few quivers of leftover sensation rippling through her. How had that happened?

  “I see you've been thinking about me,” Jack's voice drawled from above her.

  Charlie forced her eyes open. He was standing right beside the bed, and as she looked upward, she noticed that the black wool of his slacks was pulled taut over his arousal.

  “All day,” she managed to rasp out. “And all last night too.”

  He laughed again, and sat down on the edge of the bed. His weight rolled her toward him slightly, and he splayed his left hand across her belly and left it there.

  Suddenly, all the laughter left his voice. “Care to tell me what this is about?”

  “It's a metaphor,” Charlie said.

  He slid his hand up to cup her breast. “You know, I have a hard time seeing a naked woman tied to my bed as a literary device.”

  She wished he would stop circling her nipple with his fingers. It made it very difficult to explain her message. “It's a metaphor for trust. I want to show you I trust you. That I have no fear that you're like your father.”

  “Trust.” His fingers stilled. “Here I was thinking it was a metaphor for 'Take me, I'm yours.'”

  “It is,” Charlie whispered. “I trust you to do anything you want with me. I am yours.”

  His expression darkened at her last sentence. Then he looked down at his hand resting on her breast. “So you wouldn't have a problem with it, if I just lay down on top of you, unzipped my fly and drove myself inside you right now?”

  “No problem. Do it,” she said, her eyes locked on his. “Whatever you want.”

  He shifted his hand to her other breast, stroking it softly so that she had to swallow a whimper of pleasure. He was no longer looking at her. Instead, he stared toward the curtained window for a long moment.

  When his gaze shifted back to her, she smiled at him, knowing her heart was in her eyes.

  He got up abruptly and walked over to the wall of knives. Drawing a curved dagger from its silver-and-leather case, he turned and sliced through the necktie holding her left ankle with such swiftness that she jumped.

  “Now you're afraid?” he asked, walking to the right side of the bed. He scythed through the second necktie.

  “No.” Charlie drew her knees together.

  He quickly freed her two hands, then unhooked a dark blue silk bathrobe from his closet door and tossed it to her. She pulled the bathrobe on, and stripped the remains of the neckties from her wrists and ankles.

  “What are you trying to prove?” he asked, crossing his arms with the dagger still dangling from one hand.

  What was she trying to prove? Charlie took a deep breath.

  “I'm trying to prove that when I didn't tell you about Don's threats, I did it because I thought you had enough to worry about. I knew if I told you, you'd drop your own concerns and come racing to help because that's the sort of person you are. You'd already done enough; I didn't want to be a further burden to you.”

  Jack uncrossed his arms and put the dagger down on the bedside table.

  Charlie swallowed and went on. “But that doesn't work. If you love someone, you can't choose when to let him in and when not to. You have to trust him enough to let him decide. I wanted to prove I trust you enough to do that.”

  She had never seen anyone go so still. If Jack was breathing, there was no outward sign of it. Suddenly, he dragged in a long draught of oxygen, and spoke. “Did you just say you love me?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I love you.”

  He laughed.

  Charlie flinched inwardly. But Jack had turned away to pace across the room to his closet, and didn't see the hurt in her expression.

  “You can't love me,” he said, spinning around. “You don't know me.” He laughed that ugly laugh again.

  Charlie pushed herself off the bed. He stalked to within three feet of her and said, “Sit down. I'm going to tell you what I really am. Then see how much you trust me.”

  She stood for a moment, her eyes locked with his, before she sank back down. What made Jack believe he was so far beyond the reach of the most powerful of human emotions?

  “I told you my father was an abusive husband when he drank,” he began, shifting his gaze back to the window. He seemed to be conjuring up a past so awful he couldn't stand to look at it straight on. “My mother did her damnedest to keep me out of their battles but as I got older, my father got drunk more often. Once I knew what was happening, I tried to defend her. My father was a big man so he'd just slam me against the wall, and go back to beating Mama.”

  Charlie felt tears sting her eyes.

  “When he finally gave me a concussion, my mother went to a lawyer and filed for divorce. She even had a restraining order put on him. But we all know restraining orders aren't worth the paper they're printed on if no one's there to enforce them.”

  Jack stopped. Charlie watched him gather his breath and strength for the rest of th
e story.

  “I came home from school one day, and found my mother unconscious on the kitchen floor. Her face was covered with blood, her clothes were in shreds, and I could see a bone in her arm sticking out through her skin. I called an ambulance and as soon as she was in it, I went back inside the house. I got a shotgun from my father's gun case, and I went from one bar to another until I found him.”

  “Oh God…” Charlie gasped.

  “I told him I was going to kill him for what he'd done to my mother. He laughed. He was so drunk he laughed. I shot him right in the chest.”

  “Did he die?”

  “Yes. A shotgun blast at three feet does a lot of damage. So at age fourteen, I murdered my own father.”

  “That's not murder, that's self-defense!”

  “It was premeditated murder.” He leaned down and gripped her shoulders hard. “Do you understand? I took that gun and went looking for my own father with the sole purpose of killing him. I didn't want to scare him. I didn't want to hurt him. I wanted him dead.”

  He let go of her and straightened to pace over to the dresser. Bracing his hip against it, he shoved his hands in his pockets and continued. “I got a lot of sympathy. The lawyer bargained it down to manslaughter. I was a juvenile so I went to a juvenile prison. But it was prison.”

  “Is that where you saw the meteor shower?”

  “Yeah. My first night there, I was lying in bed staring at the bars in a tiny window seven feet above me, when the sky exploded. It made an impression.”

  “Those meteors saved you. They gave you something to focus on while you were shut up in jail. No wonder you're so passionate about your work.”

  “I'm so passionate, I want to retire from it,” he pointed out.

  “What happened to your mother? Is she still alive? Do you ever see her?” Charlie said, brushing aside his interjection.

  “Mama recovered. She even had a baby nine months later because along with beating her, my father had raped her.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Oh yes, I have a baby brother. Not that I ever knew him. When I got out of prison, I went to say good-bye to Mama. Then I never went back home again.”

  “So you haven't seen your mother or your little brother since you were a teenager?” Charlie could not conceive of having a mother and a sibling and choosing to cut them out of your life.

  Jack's shoulders moved in a sort of half-shrug. “As often as I can persuade her, I fly my mother to some nice hotel and meet her there. But I can't stand the sight of Molena, Georgia. And I don't include my brother because I don't think he needs to know the convicted murderer in the family.”

  “But your mother understood why you had done what you did?”

  “She understood and she blamed herself.”

  “That's a lot of blame to shoulder.” Charlie pulled the robe tightly around her, trying to imagine a household where fear of physical injury was the prevailing emotion. It made being an orphan seem almost easy. “It seems to me your father is the only one who was guilty. You and your mother were his victims.”

  “The law frowns upon individual citizens deciding who's guilty and then carrying out a death sentence,” Jack said.

  “But the law didn't protect you or your mother, so what other choice did you have?”

  “At the time, I didn't think I had any.”

  She could see in his eyes he had gone away to his own private hell. But she refused to leave him there. She got up and slowly walked over to him. With equal deliberation, she wrapped her arms around his unyielding body, and laid her head against his chest.

  His heart beat loudly against her ear. They stood motionless for a long minute. Finally, he slipped his hands out of his pockets and circled his arms around her back, pulling her tightly against him. She thought she felt him feather a kiss over her hair. Then he slid his hands to her shoulders and moved her away from him. He walked to the door before he turned. “Thanks for the sympathy…and for the…'show of trust.' I enjoyed it.”

  Charlie blushed.

  “But none of it is necessary,” he continued, smiling without warmth. “You were quite correct about Hollinger being involved in stealing Sahara-Mars. When we confronted him, he admitted his guilt pretty quickly. Unfortunately, he no longer had the meteorite in his possession, so now we're going to pay a visit to Vandermade.”

  Charlie couldn't have cared less about Sahara-Mars just then.

  “You forgot to mention one other thing I offered you,” she said quietly.

  He thrust his hands back into his pockets but looked straight at her. “Sugar, I'm very flattered by your sentiments, but I don't return them. You're looking for something I haven't got.”

  ***

  By the time Charlie walked into the living room, her head was high and her shoulders were back. Jack was standing in front of the empty marble fireplace.

  “Good luck with Vandermade,” she said. “Let me know how it goes.”

  “I will.”

  She looked at him full on for just a moment. “If I were you, Jack, I'd get in touch with your brother. He might actually be proud to have you as a member of the family.”

  “I don't think so,” he said with implacable conviction. He accompanied her to the door. “Drive carefully.”

  ***

  After Charlie walked out of the apartment Jack's eyes never left the security monitor as her image progressed from hall to elevator to lobby. He watched the empty lobby long after she was gone, then dropped into the nearest chair, his elbows on his knees and his palms pressed hard against his eyes.

  Twenty-Four

  Two guards swung open enormous wrought-iron gates, and Jack gunned the Land Rover through them. “Why doesn't Vandermade invest in electronic gates?” he asked Miguel, in the passenger seat.

  “Because having human beings manning the portals reinforces the Master-of-All-I-Survey image he has of himself.” Peter Burke spoke from the backseat.

  Jack had reluctantly agreed to let the scientist come because he had gotten them in to see Hollinger. Now he had to admit Burke would add to the intimidation factor; the professor wore a charcoal-gray suit with a brilliantly white shirt and red tie, and he wore it with the arrogance of the CEO of a multinational corporation.

  The Land Rover ate up the long winding road to the Vandermade mansion, and the three men were ushered into the billionaire's library. Books climbed the walls for two stories, interrupted only by one immense leaded glass window. A mahogany desk the size of a ping-pong table dwarfed the man who rose from behind it.

  “Jack!” Curt Vandermade said, walking around the desk, hand outstretched. “I was devastated to hear about the theft.”

  “You know Miguel,” Jack said, gripping Vandermade's hand for a split second. “And this is Dr. Peter Burke.”

  “The eminent bio-astronomer,” Vandermade acknowledged. “And your nemesis, Jack. How strange for you to come calling together.”

  “We've joined forces in the interest of science,” Peter said.

  “Oh?” Vandermade cocked an eyebrow. “Gentlemen, have a seat.”

  No one sat. Vandermade couldn't conceal the flush of color on his face at their blatant disregard of his command.

  “We paid a visit to Dr. Hollinger yesterday,” Jack said. “He made a surprise appearance on some videotapes from the Museum of Natural History, and we thought he might shed some light on the disappearance of Sahara-Mars.”

  Vandermade's color intensified but he didn't move.

  “It turned out he was quite well-informed on the subject, and we have a very fine recording of our discussion, thanks to Miguel's camera work,” Jack continued.

  Miguel nodded in mock appreciation of the tribute, and pulled a slim plastic case from the inside pocket of his jacket. Leaning forward, he placed it on Vandermade's desk. “I made a copy on DVD for you, in case you'd like to see it.”

  Now Jack sat down in a large leather chair.

  He rested his elbows on the overstuffed arms and crossed
his legs, the very picture of a man in control of the situation. Miguel and Peter remained standing, flanking him. “We believe you would prefer not to have that recording find its way into the hands of the police and the press, and we're prepared to offer an exchange.”

  “I can discredit Hollinger in an instant,” Vandermade said, snapping his fingers. A vein was pulsing in his temple. “Nothing he says will stand up in court.”

  “You blackmailed him into stealing the security codes,” Jack said. “As a scientist, he had access to the staff at the Museum, and he used your money to bribe them.”

  “I can make your life very unpleasant,” Vandermade jabbed a finger in Peter Burke's direction. “Princeton's always looking for large donors. I'll insist on some personnel changes in exchange for my donation.”

  “Don't waste your time,” Peter said coolly. “I've got tenure.”

  “And we all know it's impossible to get rid of a professor with tenure,” Jack said.

  “I'll make sure you never get a graduate degree at any university in this country,” Vandermade hissed.

  “There's always the University of Djibouti,” Jack shrugged.

  “What about me?” Miguel asked. “I feel neglected.”

  “You're just a damned Spic,” Vandermade spat. “I'll have you deported.”

  “I was born in Union City, so that's as far as you can deport me.” Miguel laughed. “Although I think that's the worst threat you've made so far.”

  Jack and Peter chuckled.

  “What about that beautiful blond wife of yours?” Vandermade sneered.

  Jack was out of his chair and across the five feet between them in an instant, his face mere inches from the other man's. “If you hurt Charlie in any way, all the security guards you can hire will not stop me from killing you,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Hurt her?” Vandermade laughed nervously. “I'll buy her. Every woman has her price, and it's generally surprisingly low.”