by Anne Stuart
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He could have slammed the door—he was much stronger than she was—but he didn’t. He simply stared at her out of narrowed eyes that were very bright and intense, shining in his pale face. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
The guilt wouldn’t leave her—she had to be certain. “Can I come in?”
His slow, mocking smile reminded her just how infuriating he could be. “Why, certainly, darling. Why didn’t you say that’s what you had in mind in the first place? I’m always willing to oblige.”
He didn’t open the door wider, though, and she knew the smartest thing would have been to walk away. She wasn’t feeling smart. She pushed it open, and he fell back easily enough, letting her into the dimly lit room.
He stumbled over to the large, cushioned couch in front of the fireplace, the couch she had chosen for its enveloping comfort, and sprawled gracefully, looking up at her with a mocking smile. “Lock the door, sweetheart,” he murmured, “and pour us both a drink.” She did close the door behind her, rather than have any of the too-curious MacDowells overhear their conversation, but she made no attempt to lock it. “I think you’ve had enough to drink,” she said coolly.
His grin was faint as he stretched out on the sofa. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
Her eyes were beginning to get used to the dim firelight. She’d been trying to avoid looking below his neck—his body was undeniably disturbing—but now there was no looking away. He was tanned, even in the winter, and solid, the muscles a subtle definition beneath his flesh. The jeans rode low on his hips, and golden hair drifted across his chest, his flat belly.
Carolyn swallowed nervously. And then she noticed he was covered with a faint film of sweat, and his cool, mocking eyes were slightly glazed, and she told herself he was drunk, and she knew he wasn’t.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.
“Nothing.” He smiled sweetly. “Why don’t you come over here and let me see what you’re wearing underneath that baggy t-shirt?”
She wasn’t wearing anything, and he knew it. She stayed put. “You’re not Alexander MacDowell,” she said sharply.
“You came up here to tell me that? No, you didn’t. Why don’t you take off your shirt and let me kiss you?”
She failed to understand how a man could entice and annoy her at the same time. The real Alex had had the same gift. “Why don’t you sleep it off?” she said, turning away from him.
“I’ll do just that,” he murmured. “Aren’t you going to tell me why you decided to honor me with a midnight visit?”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“And why wouldn’t I be, Carolyn?” The question was soft, ever so faintly accusing.
“Because . . .” The words stopped as she noticed the syringe lying on the table. She turned back in utter horror. “You’re on drugs!”
He didn’t reply, he just smiled.
“How dare you! How dare you come into this house and pass yourself off as Alexander MacDowell and inject yourself with your filthy drugs when no one’s looking and—”
“They’re very antiseptic,” he murmured, half to himself.
“I’d smash it if I wasn’t afraid of getting AIDS,” she said furiously.
“Oh, you don’t need to worry that I’ll use it again. It’s a one-shot measured dose.” He seemed completely amused by her outrage.
“Pig,” she said. “You’re not going to die on us, are you? I don’t think Aunt Sally could bear that.”
“Why should I?”
“You must have injected some kind of stimulant. Cocaine, maybe? Your breathing is shallow and fast, and I’m willing to bet your heart is racing.”
“Maybe my heart is racing because you’re near, Doctor Carolyn,” he mocked her.
“I’m going to find Mrs. Hathaway. I want a nurse to check you.”
“Don’t bother her; I’ll be fine.”
She looked at him, long and luscious and despicable on the couch she’d loved. “I’d like to murder you,” she said in a cold, grim voice, turning and heading toward the door.
“Don’t worry, you can always try again.” She stopped, her back toward him, as a sudden, horrifying suspicion swept over her. She turned back, and without a word stalked back to the discarded syringe. It lay in a medical pack, and even in the dim light she could read the labeling. It was epinephrine, prescribed to fend off dangerous allergic reactions. Like a deadly reaction to shrimp.
She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach, as all the ramifications hit her. She began to shake, to tremble all over, and she hadn’t even realized he’d risen from the couch and come up behind her. He put his arms around her, pulling her back against the chilled dampness of his skin, and she could feel his heart racing from the drug he’d taken to keep himself from dying.
“Don’t look so stricken, Carolyn,” he whispered in her ear. “I made it back here in time and no one noticed a thing. You’re not the first person who’s tried to kill me, and you probably won’t be the last. At least you didn’t really mean it.”
“It’s not possible,” she said faintly. “You can’t be.”
“Anything’s possible in this life. You’ve lived too long in the cocoon of the MacDowells or you’d know that. Just because you saw somebody shoot me eighteen years ago doesn’t mean I have to be dead.”
She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She wanted to pull away from him, from the accusing sound of his racing heart, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t realized how big he really was, how he could manage to enfold her, envelope her, dominate her with his size. “It’s not proof,” she said weakly, hoping to make him release her.
He didn’t. “No, it’s not proof. Lots of people are allergic to shrimp. Lots of people have blue eyes and look like me. Hundreds of people have a scar across their hip.”
She’d forgotten. It was that simple, that obvious. Another guilt, so strong that she’d blotted it out.
She’d been nine, he’d been fourteen, pulling her long blonde braids, pinching her, tickling her, teasing her, until she’d finally turned around and socked him.
Unfortunately they’d been standing at the edge of the cliff overlooking South Beach, and he’d lost his balance, tumbling down that long, rocky incline in just his cutoffs. Mostly he’d had scrapes and bruises, except for the long gash across his left hip bone, enough to require a dozen stitches and hysteria on Carolyn’s part. It didn’t matter that Carolyn knew he was reveling in the attention and her guilt. She still felt like a murderess.
As she did right now.
“Scar?” she echoed numbly.
“From when you shoved me down the cliff.”
That was another thing. He’d never told a soul that Carolyn had pushed him. He’d always insisted he was goofing around and tripped, and even though it gave him one more slice of power over her, Carolyn hadn’t told the truth. No one knew about it but the real Alexander MacDowell.
Who was standing behind her, his arms holding her against his body as his heart still raced from the aftereffects of her crude attempt to test him.
“I don’t believe it,” she said.
“You don’t want to believe it.”
“Let go of me.”
“Certainly.” She hadn’t realized his arms and body had been holding her up. When he released her she wavered for a moment, missing him. When she turned, he was watching her from a few feet away, looking oddly tired and smug.
“I want to see the scar.”
“Doubting Thomas,” he chided her. “If you don’t mind, I don’t either.” He reached for the snap of his jeans, and she let out a shriek of protest.
He grinned, and moved his hand to his hip, tugging the loose jeans down over his lean hip bone. The scar lay whitely across
the bone, just as she remembered it. Maybe too much like she remembered it.
“It doesn’t look twenty years old,” she said.
He let out a sigh of acute exasperation, and before she knew what he was doing, he’d caught her hand and yanked her toward him, placing it on his scarred hip, inside the waist of his jeans, and held it there. “You need to feel it to believe it, Carolyn?” he murmured, close to her, too close. “What else do you need to feel?”
She tried to jerk her hand away but he had no qualms about using force to keep her there. His skin was hot, sleek, smooth, the scar a rough ridge beneath her fingers. Suddenly the room was silent. She could hear the faint hiss and crackle of the dying fire. She could hear the racing thud of his heartbeat. She could hear her own pulse race.
And she knew the crazy, wild desire to sink to her knees in front of him and put her mouth against his scarred hip.
She kept her face down, certain he’d read that sudden, insane need and know everything. He’d always known her too well—how vulnerable she really was, what she wanted, what she needed. She could only be glad he’d disappeared for the most fragile of her formative years. The guilt and fear she’d lived with were a small price to pay for being out of his reach.
She was well within his reach right now. Her hand was trapped beneath his, his body was so close she could practically feel him touching her through the enveloping t-shirt, the loose jeans.
“Please, Alex,” she said, not even sure what she was asking for.
“This is the second time you almost killed me, Carolyn,” he whispered, his mouth hovering close to hers. “I’m not saying I don’t deserve it. I think I like driving you to the edge of murder.”
“That can be dangerous,” she said in a hushed voice.
“Not really.” His lips touched hers, so briefly she couldn’t be sure there was actual contact. “I always know when to stop.” He put his mouth against the side of her neck, where her pulse was racing wildly, and she felt the dampness of his tongue, tasting her.
“I don’t believe you.”
“You never do.” He kissed the base of her neck, and all the time her hand was on his bare hip. “You’re much safer believing that I’m a liar and an imposter, no matter how much the truth stares you in the face. It’s me, Carolyn, whether you like it or not. Your childhood playmate. Your juvenile tormentor. Your first love, come back to claim you.”
She tried desperately to regain her scattered wits. “Dream on,” she said.
“I am.” He moved up the other side of her neck, tasting, biting, kissing her, and she found she was clutching his hip, wanting to pull him closer. “There’s no escape, Carolyn. I’m your erotic dreams and your worst nightmares, all rolled up into one. Just pretend you’re doing this as penance.”
“Doing what?”
“Going to bed with me.”
“I’m not . . .” His mouth caught hers in mid-protest.
And she knew, with a kind of numb, glorious despair, that she was.
Chapter Eleven
THERE WAS MUSIC playing—she hadn’t realized that before. Something soft and slow and bluesy, curling through the air-like tendrils of smoke. She was frozen in place, in time, trapped by his blue eyes and her own adolescent fantasies. “I don’t think—” she began.
He put his hand on her mouth. “Good,” he said. “Don’t think. I want you to close your eyes and forget about everything.” His hands were sliding up under the loose t-shirt, cool on her bare back. He sighed, a sound of pure, animal longing, as he reached her shoulder blades and gently tugged her closer.
“You’ll regret this,” she warned him, her voice not much more than a whisper.
“I always regret the things I don’t do, not the things I do.” He began to pull the shirt over her head, slowly, and she knew she should stop him. And she knew she wasn’t going to.
“This would be easier if I were drunk,” she said in a choked voice.
“Too bad. I want you sober.” The shirt went sailing through the air, and she was standing before him, wearing only an ancient pair of jeans, the firelight flickering across their bodies. She put her arms up to cover her breasts, but he caught her wrists before she could raise them, holding her arms down as he looked at her.
“You’re not thirteen anymore,” he whispered.
“No. I’m not.”
His smile was slow, impossibly sexy. “Lucky for me.” Still holding her wrists, he leaned forward and kissed her mouth with slow, exquisite care. For a moment she was merely a stunned, appreciative audience. The man knew how to kiss. He knew how to entice, tempt, worry, and then soothe a woman, all with the utter cleverness of his mouth, his lips, his tongue, his teeth.
He bit her lower lip, gently. “This time you’re supposed to kiss me back,” he said against her mouth.
“I’m admiring your artistry,” she whispered.
“I’ve had lots of practice.” He slid his hands up her arms, catching her shoulders and pulling her against him. The feel of his chest against her breasts was a shock. He was still chilled, and she could feel his heart racing beneath his smooth skin. But her heart was beating almost as quickly, and she didn’t have the excuse of added adrenaline. It was all him.
She’d never realized a kiss could be so blatantly erotic. It had always seemed a necessary part of foreplay but never a particular enticement, something to be accomplished on the inevitable journey toward bed. But Alex kissed as if kissing were an end in itself, as if he found complete and utter pleasure in her mouth. The least she could do was kiss him back.
Her hands had somehow ended up around his neck, her fingers entwined in his long hair. She closed her eyes—she didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to acknowledge the foolishness of what she was doing. She kissed him, clumsily, and he made a low, growling noise in the back of his throat, one of sheer animal arousal.
The sound made her wet.
He must have known. He slid his hands down and caught her hips, lifting her almost effortlessly, pulling her legs around his waist as he started toward the bed.
He pushed her down, following her, settling between her legs as if he belonged there. He was completely aroused, big and hard against her, and he loomed over her, rocking against her, slowly, insidiously, holding her hands trapped against the rumpled bed.
“Go ahead, Carolyn, close your eyes,” he whispered. “Pretend it’s all an erotic dream. It isn’t really happening, it’s just a fantasy.”
She knew it was cowardice, but she did what he told her, afraid to look up into his Cossack eyes, afraid to watch his mouth, afraid to admit to what she was doing.
She was lying sideways across the bed where she’d spent so many nights alone. He pushed himself off the bed, looming over her in the darkness, and reached for the fastening of her jeans.
She caught his hand, trying to stop him, but he simply pushed it out of the way, unzipping her jeans and stripping them off her body, leaving her naked, stretched across his bed in the darkness. Vulnerable. Afraid.
He caught her hips and pushed her further up on the bed, putting his mouth between her legs. She jerked in protest, trying to get away from him, but he was too strong, and he dug his fingers into her hips, holding her still. “Don’t be a baby, Carolyn,” he whispered in the darkness. “Take what I can give you.”
She threaded her fingers through his long hair, pulling at him, but he ignored her, using his tongue against her, and she wanted to weep. She hated this. She never let a man do this to her—it was too intimate, too demeaning, too overwhelming. She dropped her hands to the mattress, gritting her teeth, trying to shut out the feelings that were spiraling through her resentment. She was shivering, her hands catching fistfuls of loose sheet, and she bit her lip, hard, to keep from saying anything, asking for anything, bit it so hard she could taste the blood on her mouth, and s
he just wanted him to stop, wanted to crawl out of the dark, sweet smoke of tangled desires that were wiping everything out of her mind but what he was doing to her.
She was almost there when he pulled away, and she let out a cry of loss and despair, her eyes flying open to see him stretch out over her, his body hot now, burning hot, slippery with sweat as he caught her face with his hands, his eyes burning down into hers. “You sure you want me to stop?”
She stared up at him, unable to say a word. She was hot, trembling, shaking with a need more powerful than any she’d ever known. He touched her lip, and his fingers had blood on them. “You bit your lip,” he said. “Bite mine.” And he covered her mouth with his.
It should have hurt, but she was past the point of thinking about it. When he pulled away there was blood on his mouth as well, and his kisses were hot and wet along the side of her neck. She wondered if he left a trail of blood, like a vampire. She wondered if she even cared.
She couldn’t breathe. When his strong hands finally covered her breasts she arched her back as a little convulsion washed over her, and she reached for him, trying to pull him down to her, needing him to finish this, finish her.
“Slowly, Carolyn,” he whispered, pushing her back against the pillows. “No need to rush, we have all the time in the world.”
“No,” she said in a strangled voice. She opened her eyes, and she could see the firelight flickering over their bodies, dark, pagan, magical. “Don’t make me . . . beg.”
He slid his hands up her legs, pulling them apart. “Oh, angel, I don’t want you to beg,” he whispered. “I want to be the one to beg you.”
She caught his shoulders, digging her nails into the smooth, sleek flesh. “You don’t need to. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
“Maybe next time,” he whispered. He touched her between her legs, and she jerked, fighting back a tiny scream. “Hold on tight, angel.”
She braced herself, certain he was going to slam into her, hurt her.
He didn’t. She could feel the head of his cock, hot and hard against her, but he didn’t move, he waited, patient, rigid, utterly still, until she thought she would scream.
