Straddling him on her knees, Amanda had to hunch awkwardly to slide the flat of her hands over his hard buttocks. She reached downward until her fingers curled around the soft cotton knit of the sweatpants’ waistband, which was bunched around and under his thighs. Without his help it took her a while, but she finally inched it up into place and tied the strings at his waist. She was sweating with the effort, and resisting the desire to slump onto his chest for a rest, she contented herself with unzipping her velour sweatshirt and flapping the sides to create a breeze. Climbing off him, she rezipped with one hand and pulled the thermometer out of his mouth with the other. She raised up on her knees and snapped on the light.
“Turn the damn light off!” he howled, and she twisted around to stare at him in surprise.
“What?”
“Lass, please, have mercy,” he said with what he thought was commendable restraint. What he really wanted to do was rip the light out of the wall and swat her across the room like a pesky fly. “I dinna have a temperature. The light is killing me. Turn it off!”
She turned it off. For a couple of quiet moments, she sat on the floor next to him, her knees pulled up and hugged to her chest, watching him. You could tell just by looking at him that he was in acute pain. “MacLaughlin?”
“Tristan,” he mumbled.
“What?”
“You keep calling me MacLaughlin. Or Lieutenant. My bloody name is Tristan.”
“If I call you MacLaughlin or Lieutenant, Lieutenant,” Amanda replied with some exasperation, “it’s because I didn’t have a clue what your first name was.” Of all the exasperating, ungrateful…
“You do now,” he growled, and for a moment his eyes focused sharply on her. “Say it.”
“Tristan,” she snapped, and a small smile eased the pinched white line around his mouth. His eyes closed.
“Tristan,” Amanda continued in a softer tone. She never thought she would see the day, but he actually looked vulnerable. “Can you sit up?”
“No.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll help you.” She reached out to grasp his bare shoulders, but he shrugged her off irritably, and then moaned deep in his throat.
“I said no, dammit,” he snarled, and let loose a string of obscenities. When he ran out of combinations, he ended with, “Will you fucking well leave me in peace?”
Amanda surged to her feet. “I’ll leave you, period, you filthy-mouthed, arrogant creep.” When she whirled to go, however, she found her left ankle manacled in his large hand. She looked down her nose at him.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have said that then. But every time I move, lass, I feel like I’m gonna throw up.” He shivered as a stray draft blew across his bare shoulders.
Amanda squatted in front of him again. Picking up a sweatshirt with its sleeve ripped off—the only garment she’d been able to find that wasn’t a starched white dress shirt—she pulled the neck opening over his head and worked his arms through the armholes. When she realized how much pleasure she was gaining by smoothing the warm, fleecy knit over the firm ridges of his muscular stomach, she snatched her hand back and became all cool efficiency. “That’s what this pan is for,” she said briskly. “You can’t spend the night on the floor, Tristan, so let me help you into bed.”
“All right,” he said wearily, knowing if he didn’t agree, she would probably go home. And as much as he dreaded the possibility of disgracing himself in front of her, he didn’t want her to leave.
By leaning heavily on her and marshaling all the willpower at his disposal, Tristan managed to make it to the bedroom without getting sick. He was shaky from the effort, however, and burrowed beneath the covers, both hands clutching his skull in an attempt to contain the pain. “Soddin’ head feels like it’s about to explode,” he said between clenched teeth.
“Here.” Cool fingers removed his glasses and set them aside, before slipping behind his head to lend support, and Amanda held out three aspirin. When he washed them down thirstily with a glass of cold water, she hesitated for a moment and then almost reluctantly said, “Let me try something. Sit up for just a moment.”
“Ah, Lord, Amanda, you don’t know what you’re asking,” he said, but he struggled up on one elbow just the same.
Amanda held his shoulders and helped him raise up. Then she squeezed behind him and, bracing herself against the headboard, slid her legs around him to bracket his hips. She eased him back until his weight rested on her, his head supported against her breasts. “I used to do this for Teddy sometimes. It always seemed to help.”
Him again. A rude epithet that graphically described Tristan’s opinion of Amanda’s precious little Teddy rose to his lips, but he forced himself to swallow it unsaid. If he cursed again, she was going to remove that gloriously comfortable body, which was cushioning him in a way no pillow could ever hope to emulate. And not even the warmth of an electric blanket could replace the penetration of her body heat into his chilled flesh. He closed his eyes and sighed. Then her fingers went to work and he groaned.
Tristan had never experienced anything quite like what she was doing to him. He had never been mothered in his life, but he imagined this was what it must be like. Amanda murmured low, soothing words as her fingers massaged his aching head and the taut tendons in his neck, and her thumbs dug deep to relieve the tension bunching his shoulders. The firm motion of her hands rocked his head ever so gently against her breasts, and he felt like a babe in arms, cared-for and comforted. While her ministrations didn’t make the pain go away appreciably, he could feel all the accumulated stress of the past few weeks slowly drain out of him, and gradually, he relinquished the last tenuous hold he’d retained on his control. His body grew heavier against her as he slipped into sleep.
For nearly twenty minutes after his even breathing indicated he was sleeping soundly, Amanda sat with her head tilted back against the headboard, her hands still idly soothing Tristan’s neck and shoulders. Not until numbness settled into her hips and slowly began pervading her legs did she try to extricate herself from her wedged-in position behind him. Cautiously, she eased him down onto a pillow and slid one leg out from around him, swinging it over his head and shoulders as she tipped onto her side and rolled away. He stirred and mumbled in his sleep and she froze, perched on the side of the bed. She turned back and rested a hand on his forehead before she remembered that it was only in her own mind that he had ever had a temperature. So she pulled the covers up over him instead.
She felt him roll over at the same time she started to rise, but she wasn’t prepared for the strong arm that snaked around her waist and tumbled her back onto the bed beside him. He mumbled her name, and before she could divine his intention, he had rolled to partially cover her, one thigh flung over her legs, his cheek cushioned against the silk-covered rise of her breasts and one arm a diagonal bond, pinning her to the sheets from diaphragm to hip. He snuggled in and sighed, still asleep.
For several moments, Amanda held herself rigid within his embrace, hands flung overhead to keep from touching him. Then, slowly, she relaxed. She patted the mattress above her head for the extra pillow, but didn’t feel it. Tilting her head back against the mattress, she spotted it and arched up to snag it with her left hand.
“Ah, Jesus, lass,” Tristan said clearly as her motions thrust her breasts more firmly into his cheek. The hand molding her hip came up and cupped her left breast, stroking it slowly for a moment before stilling. Asecond later it slid heavily to the bed, his fingertips resting in the smooth hollow of her armpit. Amanda slowly pulled the pillow down and stuffed it under her head. She stared through the darkness at a ceiling she couldn’t see.
There was no way to deny her attraction to this man. He might seem cold and hard in a lot of ways, but where her body was concerned, it didn’t seem to matter, for he possessed an insidious sexuality that had worked its way under her skin. Oh God, one touch, delivered in his sleep, and she was as warm and malleable as soft candle wax.
> If she had the tiniest survival instinct, she’d get while the getting was good. She would put as much space between herself and this man as she possibly could, and avoid him at all costs in the future.
But she knew, even as the thought crossed her mind, that she wasn’t going anywhere. She wanted to stay exactly where she was.
There were depths to him that Amanda couldn’t quite figure. Just when she’d been convinced that Tristan was utterly cold and unfeeling, he’d gone and sent Rhonda those flowers and that compassionate note with its funny formal signature. It would be a long time before Amanda forgot the look on her friend’s face when she received them. It had meant a great deal to her.
And if Amanda were to be honest with herself, she’d have to admit she reveled in this opportunity to be near MacLaughlin when he wasn’t all cool and in command. Cautiously, she threaded her fingers through his short hair. It was wiry on the surface but satin-smooth the deeper she burrowed, near the roots of the hair shafts.
Besides, she further rationalized, she still hadn’t talked to him about her caller. If she left, there was simply no telling if she’d be able to catch him in the morning before he pulled another of his famous disappearing acts.
Amanda smiled wryly in the darkness. When it came right down to it, she could debate the pros and cons until the cows came home and it wasn’t going to change a thing. Because, right or wrong, she was tired of trying to outrun her chaotic emotions. And for what remained of the night, she had no intention of budging from this bed.
Unfamiliar noises within his apartment woke Tristan the next morning. He automatically reached for his gun, but it wasn’t where he always kept it at night, on the stand next to the bed. Even as he picked up his glasses and turned back onto his pillow, snatches of memory filtered through his consciousness. He’d been rendered helpless by a killer headache last night. Traces of it throbbed in his temples yet, but by peering cautiously at the uncurtained window, he discovered it was no longer a migraine.
Then—he thought—Amanda had mysteriously turned up and taken care of him. She had changed his clothes, given him aspirin, and bullied him into bed. Then she’d climbed in with him, gathered him into her arms, and done something with her hands that had knocked him for a bloody loop, and he’d slept better than he had in weeks.
Or maybe that part was a pain-induced fantasy.
The door to his room opened, and Tristan cautiously turned his head. Ace raced into the room, scrambling up onto the bed and then into Tristan’s lap, wiggling in ecstasy. Tristan rested a hand on the sleek fur of the dog’s back, but then ignored him as he watched Amanda back the door more fully open with her hip and swing into the room bearing a tray.
“You’re awake,” she whispered, crossing the room to set the tray on the nightstand next to the bed. She bent down and felt his forehead. “How are you feeling?” Self-consciously, she pulled her fingers back. She didn’t know why she kept doing that.
Tristan stared at her pale, tumbled hair and her face, scrubbed clean and free of makeup. She was wearing the same outfit he recalled from the night before—a plush banana-colored thing with black edging—so she must have been here all night. “Fine.”
“Good. Head better?”
“Aye.”
What was the matter with him? He was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Um…would you like a little breakfast?”
Tristan looked over at the tray she’d prepared. It held a glass of orange juice, two pieces of toast, and a soft-boiled egg in a dish. He recalled her concern of the night before, when he had been expecting her disdain. “Aye. Thanks.”
Was this what families did then, when one of their members was sick? Did they massage each other’s heads and bring them breakfast in bed? He looked into her wide violet-blue eyes with their thick fringe of deep-brown lashes as she bent over to place the tray in his lap. “Who the bloody hell is Teddy?” Even as the words left his lips, he regretted the belligerence with which he asked the question. He picked up a fork and carried a bite of egg to his mouth. God, it tasted bloody marvelous.
Amanda straightened. Why did he sound so upset? Was she supposed to have discreetly disappeared this morning? “Teddy was my sister,” she muttered. Well, he’d simply have to excuse her all to hell and gone if she didn’t understand the rules. This was a bit outside her normal sphere of experience. She wasn’t used to playing nursemaid to irritable men.
Tristan halted his hungry shoveling of the egg midway between mouth and plate and stared at her. “Your sister?” Teddy is a woman’s name? He grinned. Who woulda bleeding thought?
Amanda was fully prepared to stomp off in a huff and leave him to his own devices before he smiled. When he flashed that rare, marvelous grin that made white, slightly crooked teeth seem a much more attractive proposition altogether than the straightest of smiles, it did something to her. It was a pity it was so fleeting. Even as she stared, he grew sober.
“You said she was your sister, lass? Is she your sister no longer?”
“Teddy’s dead.”
“Ach, that’s rough, lass. I’m that sorry. How did it happen, then?”
He watched the shutters drop over her eyes, and when she replied she would rather not talk about it, his curiosity soared. Why not? He wanted to hear about it. He wanted to know about everything pertaining to her. But then, his own defenses rose up when she turned and inquired if he had brothers or sisters of his own.
“No,” he said shortly. Then, grudgingly, he added, “I was raised in an orphanage.” To avoid seeing pity in her eyes, he concentrated on finishing his breakfast. He wouldn’t accept pity from anyone—least of all her. Setting the tray aside, he flung the covers off and prepared to rise.
Amanda was right there, leaning over him, her cool hands on his biceps, pressing him back into the pillows. She was thankful when he allowed her to detain him, for she had felt the round mass of muscle beneath her hands leap into hard relief before he decided not to fight her, and she knew she was no match for his strength. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To work, lass. I’ve overslept as it is.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tristan. You’ve been ill.”
“And now I’m not,” he said with fine disregard for the faint throbbing in his temples. It was nothing compared to last night’s pain, in any event, and the nausea that had accompanied it was totally absent. He was going to live after all.
“Your head still hurts, though, doesn’t it?” she asked, surprising him. Was she fey, reading his mind that way?
“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” he muttered, but he subsided for the moment when her fingers began their seductive massage of his temples. God, that felt good.
He didn’t care to think of himself as a man who categorized people, but he had to admit he’d harbored some misconceptions about dancers before he’d actually met any. When he had first learned he was to be assigned to this case, he’d been angry. He had made up his mind that male dancers were men of questionable sexuality, and female dancers were perhaps one step above whores.
In some cases, it happened he was correct. But he had met too many dancers since his assignment to continue automatically lumping them all together. Amanda Rose Charles was a case in point.
Closing his eyes and giving in to the pleasure of her ministration, he admitted Amanda was in a class all her own.
From the first, when she had dismissed him with such disdain outside the morgue, he had wanted to believe she was amoral as an alley cat, because he’d taken one look at those long legs and those big blue eyes, with their unusual purple cast, and he had felt a visceral jolt unlike anything he had ever experienced before. And he had ironclad rules governing unbidden attractions to women on the job. Besides, there had been something about the way she looked down her long, narrow nose at him that had made him want to picture her in the worst conceivable light.
But she wasn’t amoral. She was…decent. He didn’t meet many decent people in the course of
his work, but the word seemed appropriate somehow. Look what she’d done for him last night and this morning. She had cared for him like a mother cares for her child.
She sure doesn’t kiss decent. The thought popped unbidden from his subconscious. Tristan opened his eyes to stare at her mouth. It was soft and full and desirable, and its taste had lived on in his mind, resurrecting full-blown memories at the most inconvenient moments. He thought about her too damned often.
Decent be damned, his baser self decided. He was going to have her. If she was sexually ripe, he wanted to be the one to benefit. And to hell with his usual rules about mixing business with pleasure. He didn’t like the way she was invading his mind, and he was going to work her out in the only way he knew how.
He ignored the voice of reason that questioned the callousness of his decision. It only made him feel guilty, restless, and edgy.
“Who’s your decorator, MacLaughlin?” Amanda suddenly asked into the silence. “Nautilus?”
Unaware of Tristan’s thoughts, she had been looking around the room. Its stark lack of personality made her uneasy. He had taken everything of Maryanne’s that Amanda hadn’t already packed and had put it away somewhere. She could understand that; Maryanne had decorated with a feminine touch, and he wasn’t a man who’d like to be surrounded by frillies. But he had taken it to extremes, stripping the dust ruffle and the fussy comforter from the bed and not bothering to replace them with anything of his own. The room totally lacked personal effects. So did the entire apartment, now that she thought of it. She hadn’t seen a single photograph or keepsake, not one book or magazine. There were no bits and pieces to give a clue to who the real Tristan MacLaughlin was. The only items of an even remotely personal nature were the set of weights and portable bench press board in the corner, and his gun out in the living room.
She found it difficult to reconcile the sterility of the room with the warmth of the man who had kissed and fondled her with such passion just a few short days ago—the man who had sent flowers to Rhonda. Was she fooling herself? Was she so enamored of his body and the new world of sensation it had unexpectedly opened to her that she was blinding herself to the essential emptiness of the man? What if he was exactly what she had thought him to be from the beginning—a cold, withdrawn, self-disciplined man with all the natural warmth of an android? The last thing she needed right now was to get involved with a man who was all hormones but essentially an emotional wasteland.
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