by Kay Hooper
Now she wandered back out into the bedroom, towel-drying her hair, and eyed the connecting door warily. As instructed, she’d opened her side a few inches, and Kane’s pack reposed on a chair near the door. The chalice was still inside. She had idly considered taking it out, but common sense told her that Kane could find it easily if he was so inclined, no matter where she hid it. Besides, she was just too tired and sleepy to worry about it.
Still drying her hair, she went over to the window and pulled back the curtains, gazing out from the tenth-floor room at the sprawling city of Bogotá. In this basin high in the Andes, the temperature maintained an average of just under sixty degrees, so Tyler wasn’t tempted to open the window. She looked out for a few moments, picking out, in the distance, the cable cars that carried tourists higher into the mountains for a bird’s-eye view of the city.
Finally, too tired to think, she tossed her towel toward the bathroom, brushed her damp, tangled hair off her face with her fingers and climbed into the double bed. She had already hung out her DO NOT DISTURB sign, bolted her door and put on the night latch.
The last thing she remembered was pulling the covers up to her chin and sinking down into a too soft bed that felt wonderful.
KANE MANAGED TO make arrangements for their transport to the coast and get back to the hotel within two hours. He thought Tyler’s plans for the remainder of the day had sounded dandy, and he meant to get cleaned up and fall into bed himself. He got his key from the desk clerk and went up to the tenth floor after requesting that a bellman come up to get his laundry. Like Tyler, Kane had learned to take advantage of the amenities offered by hotels, especially when there was still a great deal of hard traveling ahead of him with accommodations of the find-a-corner-and-roll-out-your-sleeping-bag variety.
The room was the usual sort, with practical furniture and uninspiring prints framed neatly on the walls and everything small enough to carry off bolted down, and he barely took notice of it. He went immediately to the connecting door and opened his side. She had left her side open, with his backpack in plain view of the door. He stepped into her room silently.
She was no more than a slender mound under the covers, and from this angle all he could see was a shimmering curtain of red-gold hair spread out on the pillow. He lifted his pack from the chair, and knew instantly by the weight that the chalice was still inside. Not, he acknowledged to himself, that it meant anything, because she had been tired, and being tired made her sweet, and vague, and vulnerable.
He stood there for a moment longer, tired and dirty and beard-stubbled, gazing at her and wishing he could crawl into bed with her. Memories of her soft, slender body against his made his loins tighten and begin throbbing, but he shook his head and retreated silently back into his own room.
The spirit was certainly willing, but the body badly needed the rest more than the recreation.
He stripped and stuffed his clothes into a laundry bag, leaving out only a clean pair of sweatpants—actually the pair Tyler had briefly worn. The same bemused bellman again accepted a laundry bag and a handful of pesos held out to him by a disembodied arm, and went away muttering to himself.
Kane found the energy to shower, but decided to shave when he woke up, and barely took the time to dry off before crawling into his own bed naked and falling asleep instantly.
When he woke to a dark room, his internal clock told him at least six hours had passed, and he felt rested and hungry. Tyler would no doubt be hungry, as well, and they could always go back to bed in a few hours; it wasn’t much past ten o’clock. He turned on the lamp by his bed and then reached for the phone, calling room service and ordering enough food for a small army, along with milk and coffee.
Tyler liked milk with her coffee. Not cream. Milk.
Room service informed him it would be at least half an hour, and Kane accepted that amiably. He got out of bed and took another shower, then shaved and dressed in the sweatpants. Then he went into Tyler’s room, moving silently in the darkness until he could turn on her bedside lamp.
She had moved only to push one arm out from under the covers, which had fallen down below her shoulders. She was lying on her back, dressed in a white terry robe, and the lapels had slipped open to reveal the creamy inner curves of her breasts.
He felt a rush of desire so sudden and fierce it was as if he shuddered under some unexpected blow. He could almost feel her full, firm breasts filling his hands, her slender thighs cradling him between them, her silky warmth surrounding him. His body hardened in an instantaneous arousal that made sweat break out on his brow, and he could hardly breathe.
God, how much longer could he wait for her?
Kane sat down slowly on the edge of the bed, his eyes moving from the beckoning curves of her body to the vulnerable curve of her lips and the satiny skin of her delicate face. Her long lashes made dark crescents against the softly flushed cheeks, and beneath her eyelids were faint flickers of movement as she dreamed. Around her small face, fiery hair tumbled in unruly curls, like sunshine trapped in the dimness of the room.
She drew a sudden, shuddering breath, her breasts lifting jerkily, and her mouth quivered as a soft sound escaped. It was a strange sound, like a jolt of pain so deep and dreadful it could only be voiced in a whimper. Like a shriek muffled behind locked teeth. A primitive sound, as if it came from a wounded animal.
Kane frowned, holding an iron rein on his desire as he leaned over her so that his shadow fell on her face. “Ty?” he murmured softly. “Wake up, baby.”
Her reaction as his quiet, husky voice shattered the silence was instant, unexpected—and violent. The dark lashes lifted to reveal wide eyes that were blank for an instant and, focusing on the big silhouette above her blocking out the lamplight, those amber eyes dilated with sheer terror. Her face went deathly white, and her lips drew back in a soundless scream as her shaking hands jerked up, palms out, in a mindless, pathetic attempt to shield her face. She seemed to sink into the bed, as if her very terror lent her slender body weight, as if that could provide some escape for her.
“Tyler!” Kane spoke with unconscious harshness, so shaken by her response that for a moment he could hardly think. This was no nightmare, no phantom conjured by the dark, this was something all too dreadfully real . . . And then, in that flashing instant, he remembered the lightly spoken words that had seemed to mean very little—then.
“. . . I felt helpless and vulnerable. It’s—it’s almost a phobia with me, feeling like that. I can’t take it. . . .”
Quickly Kane straightened so that he was no longer blocking the light, so that she could see his face. And even as the answer to his earlier mental question jarred through him, he was speaking softly again, reassuringly. “It’s just me, baby. Kane. You were having a nightmare.”
For another endless moment the anguished, stricken eyes stared at him between her fingers, before her hands turned to cover her face and a shudder racked her. Hesitating only an instant, Kane drew her up into his arms, holding her gently but firmly against him. She was stiff at first, and he could almost literally feel her withdrawing mentally and emotionally, but gradually her body relaxed.
She didn’t cry, didn’t make a sound or shed a tear, and for some reason that hurt Kane more than anything else.
Pushing back away from him finally, she lifted one shaking hand to push the tumbled hair off her face and the other to draw the robe together over her breasts. Her eyes wouldn’t meet his. “Some nightmare,” she said shakily.
Kane opened his mouth, but a soft knock from the door in his room stopped him from saying what he wanted to. Instead he said, “I’ve ordered some food. It’s only a little after ten, so we can go back to bed later. Hungry?”
“Starved,” she answered, her voice more steady now.
“I’ll have the cart left in my room. Come on in when you’re ready.” He rose from her bed and went into his own room to let the room service waiter in.
Tyler threw back the covers and got up, making h
er way into the bathroom on trembling legs. The last dark claws of terror and pain lingered in her mind, pricking now instead of raking, and the face that gazed back at her from the mirror was white and taut. She tried to control her breathing as she struggled for composure, and the sick, helpless fear gradually faded.
Dear God, it had been so long since that nightmare had tormented her sleep. Years. And its return reminded her of what the counselor had warned her when she had said that it would probably always be with her, that it would be likely to resurface with stress or other kinds of fear.
Stress. She’d been exhausted, and the changing relationship between her and Kane had unnerved her. The latter, of course, was bound to trigger the fears that her rational mind could deal with but that her subconscious shied violently from confronting. Then she had awakened abruptly, and the starkly male silhouette above her had made the nightmare seem all too terribly real.
Tyler splashed cold water on her face and dried it. The face in the mirror was still pale, made more so by the riotous flame of her hair and her darkened eyes, but it was less tense. She finger-combed her hair and tightened the belt of her robe, then took a deep breath and went to join Kane in his room.
“Coffee?” he asked as she entered. “Or would milk be a better idea?”
Tyler managed a smile, her gaze fixed on the meal awaiting them. He had brought the chair from her room so they could both sit at the table, and she did so. “Milk, I think,” she agreed. She had long passed the stage of being afraid to go back to sleep after the nightmare, having learned that it seldom occurred more than once in a single night.
Kane sat down across from her. “I tried to avoid the more spicy dishes. The ajiaco should be good.” He indicated the bowls of thick soup with potatoes, chicken and corn. “Eat, Ty.”
He said nothing else while they began eating, and Tyler made no attempt to break the silence. Conscious that he was merely waiting, that he intended to ask questions, she was engaged in a silent battle with herself.
It did no good for her rational mind to be certain she should feel neither shame nor guilt; the emotions lingered even after all these years and despite all reason. It was always the response, she knew, but knowing did nothing to lessen the feelings. There were still remnants of helpless rage and disbelief inside her. And, if that weren’t enough, she had never talked about it to a man since it happened, not once. The doctors and counselors had all been women, even the police had provided a gentle female officer to take her statement, and the grinding shame she had felt had prevented her from talking to her father, despite all his loving attempts.
And now . . . to talk about it to Kane . . .
“Who did it, Ty?”
She started slightly, but kept her eyes fixed on her plate. “I don’t want to talk about it, Kane. Not to you.”
That hurt him. “Tyler . . .”
Don’t cross the line, she wanted to plead, but it was too late for that, they had already crossed the line between professional and personal. And if she told Kane about this, if she exposed her pain to him, nothing would ever be the same between them. If she trusted him with her pain, the only thing left to her was honesty, and that left her terribly vulnerable.
“Goddamn it, tell me.”
She looked up jerkily from her almost untouched food, and once she met his eyes she couldn’t look away. His voice had been very quiet, but there was something in his eyes she’d never seen before, something hard and fierce and implacable.
“Who raped you?”
Tyler put her spoon down with infinite care and sat back in her chair. In an automatic, instinctive gesture, she crossed her arms over her breasts, almost hugging herself as his stark question evoked burning waves of shame and guilt and anger. And she didn’t want to tell him, not Kane, but . . .
“I don’t know his name.” She heard the words emerge jerkily in a low, rapid tone. “They never caught him.”
A rough sigh escaped Kane. “Tell me, honey.”
Some part of her mind noted and wondered at the change in that endearment—because it was an endearment. Not sardonic or flippant. She vaguely remembered that he’d called her baby before, in a soft voice so unfamiliar that she had hardly recognized it.
“There isn’t much to tell.” The words were pulled from her by the determination in his eyes, by the taut waiting in his big body, like something primitive tugging at her. “I was on my way home from school, crossing a park. It was raining, that’s why there was no one except . . . except him in the park.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen.”
Kane almost jerked, feeling that stark answer like a blow. Sixteen, just a girl who had blossomed during the previous year, probably still bewildered by the changes in her body and shy at the male glances that had grown more intent. He felt a hard, hot rage tighten around something in his chest, wishing savagely that he could get his hands on that soulless bastard for just five minutes, that’s all it would take, just five minutes to break every bone in his miserable carcass.
Then he heard Tyler’s low, toneless voice going on, and another nameless bastard joined the list.
“I had a boyfriend, we were going steady. When I—when I went back to school, he asked me to give his class ring back. He said his friends were saying I must have asked for it . . . and that I was . . . damaged goods.”
“You know that isn’t true,” Kane said, his voice rasping over the words.
“My mind knows. Maybe it even knew then. But the feelings . . . wouldn’t go away. There were doctors and counselors to talk to me and try to help. They kept telling me rape was an act of violence, not of . . . of passion. That I’d done nothing to provoke him and I shouldn’t feel guilty or ashamed.” Her brows drew together in a childlike frown of distaste. “But it was a long time before I felt clean again.”
Kane sat very still, watching her pale face, the distant, unfocused eyes. She looked almost frail, like something ethereal, and the wild mass of her bright hair, freed from its usual severe style, made her white face seem very small and very young. But her eyes weren’t young. Her eyes were far too old. She had been cruelly wrenched out of childhood, hurt in a way no woman should ever be hurt, and the scars would be with her for the rest of her life. Even now . . .
“No wonder you can’t stand feeling helpless,” he said roughly.
She looked at him, focused on him. “It’s been ten years. The nightmare is—rare now. There were years of therapy before I learned to deal with what happened. The fear of being helpless, that one lingered. I learned to defend myself because I never wanted to feel helpless again.” Then her mouth twisted with a touch of bitter humor. “But nature didn’t balance the scales, and muscle and size do make a difference; so I learned to carry a knife, and to handle guns.”
“And to build walls. Since then, you’ve never let a man get close, have you, Ty?”
Just one man. But the words remained unsaid; he knew he had gotten close, he had to know, so she ignored that question. She felt driven to make him understand something else, perhaps because so much of their past had involved deception. “There was a sense of grief for a long time. Something was . . . stolen from me, in violence and pain and fear. Not just virginity, but my dominion over my own body. I was pinned in the mud and brutalized—and I couldn’t stop it. He stopped it when he—when he was through. And left me in the mud.”
“Honey . . .”
She glared across the table at his white face. “You asked, Kane. You wanted to know.” Her voice was fierce.
He half nodded, an odd spasm of pain tightening his features briefly.
Tyler drew a short breath. “They say the physical healing is quickest and easiest. For me, it could have been worse. The doctors told me that. I had three broken ribs, a fractured arm, assorted bruises and cuts and—tears. I healed. As good as new. Almost. But he took something I can never get back. My choice. It should have been my choice. In the backseat of a boy’s car, or in a bed, or behind the bus
hes at some party—it should have been my choice.” She heard her voice thicken with grief and rage, staring across the table at Kane’s face through a shimmering veil of tears she couldn’t shed.
Before he could speak she drew another breath, this one longer and deeper, and her voice steadied. “I had no control over what happened to me. For months afterward I couldn’t bear to be alone, not even for a moment, and I felt helpless about everything in my life. I hated that, hated what he’d done to me. It was like putting myself back together one piece at a time. It took me years to feel like a whole person again.”
After a long moment Kane said slowly, “And now you—court danger. Try to control it.”
Tyler shrugged a little, a weary gesture. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I need to face all the fears he left me with. I’ve learned to fight.”
“And now you’re fighting me.” Kane leaned forward a little, his very posture insisting on an answer. “But what are you fighting in me, Ty? When I hold you and touch you, you aren’t afraid. You want me as much as I want you. So it isn’t sex. What? What are you fighting in me?”
She felt painfully vulnerable in that moment, and if she had not taught herself to be a fighter she would have run from his question because sure safety lay only in that response. But she was a fighter. And these last days had given her the truth of her violent response to Kane, a truth she could no longer avoid. Honesty was all she had left, and how ironic that honesty was her last defense against Kane.
“Tyler . . .”
With a twisted smile, she said, “He stole something I can never get back, Kane.”
Kane’s face hardened and his mouth went grim. “And you believe I’ll do the same?”
“You have before.” She held up a hand when he would have responded, and said, “Oh, I know those things we went after weren’t really important. It was a game, and we both played by the rules. Rivals, enemies. But it’s different this time, and we both know why. This . . . between us, it’s personal, not business. Somewhere along the way, we crossed over the line, and the rules have been shot all to hell.”
