Lady Killer

Chapter 8

The kiss was light and soft and sweet. He held his breath and closed his eyes because it seemed not quite real, except for the heavy thumping of his heart.

A great stillness came over him. Later, when he thought about it-when he could think again-it seemed to him like the stillness he felt when waiting for an elusive subject to move into the perfect spot, waiting for the exact moment when he would finally capture it. His body was still…but inside, every nerve and sinew and sense vibrated with energy and excitement and that sense of awe and wonder that never seemed to diminish no matter how many times he experienced that moment.

But this was different, of course, and it ended just when he felt his hands begin to lift of their own accord, and he knew he was about to touch her-her arms, first, then…who knows?-against all good sense and his better judgment. It ended when she rocked back on her heels-although she let her hand linger a while longer on his face before it slid down to rest on his chest-and he let his breath go, carefully. She went on gazing at him then, with her head tilted slightly, and her hair, loose, for once, in a carefree fall of subtly curving layers, seemed to lift and float around her face like feathers.

“Are you absolutely sure you’re not gay?” Her voice was a rusty sound, and he responded with a feeble noise, which he, with his manly self-image, would not accept-could not possibly believe-was a whimper.

“Positive,” he managed, more croak than voice, and tried to laugh.

“Hmm…well.” Her hand moved slightly on his chest, drifting more than stroking, and where it paused again, he felt the heat of his body soak through his shirt and merge with hers. “Just so you know-” she hitched in a breath “-I only act like a brazen hussy during the full moon, so you’d better take advantage of the opportunity while you can.” And he heard a new note in her voice, one he had no trouble recognizing, though she’d tried her best to hide it under a camouflage of sultry laughter.

“And…that’s the problem,” he said gently, on firmer ground now that he understood how vulnerable, how uncertain she was. “I would be.”

“Oh.” Her hand stilled…curled on his chest, and from only that contact, he felt the fine tremors coursing through her. “I see-you’d be taking advantage of me in my present desperate circumstances.” Her chin came up, and her hair slithered back over her shoulders. He could see her lips curve in a smile that even the metallic colors of moonlight couldn’t rob of softness and warmth. “Tony,” she said in a husky whisper, “you are a very sweet man.”

He gave a spurt of laughter. “Oh, thanks-just what every manly man wants to he-”

“Stop.” Her fingertips, laid warm against his lips, caught the last word. “You have no idea how appealing that quality is to me.”

“And you…have no idea how appealing you are…to me.” He felt her arms, the skin cool but warming rapidly under his palms, and wondered when his body had given itself permission to touch her.

“Then why…”

“Don’t I want to kiss you? Because I know if I do, I won’t want to stop.” And why do my hands insist on slipping up to your shoulders? And…is this your neck I feel, so warm and vibrant, your pulse racing like a wild thing against my palms?

“Well, darlin’-” and the pure Texas in her voice made him smile “-nobody’s askin’ you to.”

“Brooke…” His heartbeat was thunder, not fast but slow…

“Hush up.” She swayed toward him. “Let’s just cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? For now, why don’t you try it, and if neither one of us wants to stop, we’ll just keep on doin’ it-how’s that?”

I am a brazen hussy, she thought. When did this happen?

She didn’t care. All she wanted-and she wanted it with a desperation that astounded her-was for him to kiss her again. Not again-I kissed him the first time. That doesn’t count. Tony…kiss me…please…because if you don’t, I think I will die of embarrassment, and if it’s possible to die of wanting, I will do that, too.

And then he was kissing her, and his hand cradled her head like a newborn babe. She gave a whimper of thankfulness; and her arms went around his big, solid body; and it felt to her like a bulwark, a bastion of safety in the chaos her world had become.

The kiss was sweet and gentle, as she’d expected his kiss would be. What she hadn’t expected was that it would be-she was no expert on kissing, but the word skilled came to mind. Thorough…sensitive…not overbearing, and yet…utterly devastating. Something shattered inside her, leaving her groundless and trembling. She lost her place in the world; now she clung to him as she would hold on to a tree in a hurricane.

Panic seized her. Her mind cried out to him to stop.

And he did. Gently easing his mouth away from hers with soft caresses, which lingered on her lips like something so delicious…so heavenly that she licked her lips to keep the taste of him with her just a little longer, already knowing she was addicted. Already wanting more.

“Hmm,” she murmured, eyes closed, swaying a little. “See, I knew you’d be a good kisser.” She heard the slur in her words and knew she sounded drunk…or besotted. And didn’t care.

He laughed, and the fact that it sounded shaken rather than smug endeared him to her even more. His arms enveloped her, and she felt small and cared for-a novelty for her, being five-ten in her socks. She tilted her head back so she could look at him, marveling at the rugged landscape of his face in the moonlight, marveling that a man with such a face could be so incredibly tender. And it came to her then, in that moment, that his face was actually…beautiful.

“Why did you stop?” she asked in a whisper.

He tipped his head to look at her, bringing his mouth close to hers again. “I thought you wanted me to.”

“I did.” She swallowed. Audibly. “Just for a minute. I was…I couldn’t-”

“Yeah,” he whispered, “me, too.”

“I’m okay now, though, I think. Can we do it again?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes…please…”

This time they broke from the kiss, both of them, breathless and shaky. Tony cradled Brooke’s head against his rapidly thumping heart and stared bleakly over her head at the colorless landscape beyond the chain-link fence and wondered how he could have let himself come to this in so short a time.

She trusts me. Daniel trusts me. Hell, even the dog trusts me. And I’ve lied to them all. She doesn’t know who I really am or why I’m really here. She doesn’t even know who she really is. How am I going to tell her?

Oh, God…I have to tell her, now.

“Brooke-” he began, at the same moment she said, “Tony-”

He paused, and they both said together, “There’s something I have to tell you-” They both stopped again, laughing in a rueful, pain-filled way.

“Me, first,” she said in a thickened voice, pulling back and gazing earnestly at him. The back of one hand was pressed against her nose, and above it her eyes were dark and still, like deep forest ponds, reflecting only the moonlight. It was only because he was holding her that he felt her shiver.

“Okay,” he said, “but only if we find a warmer spot first. You’re cold.” But it was he who felt cold-on the outside where her body had nestled, and inside, deep in the pit of his stomach, where the fear was.

She shook her head but turned in his embrace and slipped an arm around his waist as they began to walk together back toward the barn. “Not cold. Nervous, maybe.” She glanced at him, then quickly away, making him realize what an understatement that was.

He wanted to say something to take away her fear, but his own was so deep, he didn’t trust himself to utter a sound. He couldn’t ask her what she might have to confess, to be nervous about-how could he, when uppermost in his mind was that she was about to tell him she’d killed her husband, after all, and that he’d been wrong about her all along? So he walked beside her in the moonlight, her arm around him and his around her. It occurred to him that they must look like lovers, but while her body felt warm and vital against him, the cold he felt inside was the sick and clammy chill of dread.

In the barn, they sat on a bale of hay in a patch of moonlight framed by the big open door, side by side, like children on a bench. Brooke shifted, turning to half face him as she took one of his hands in both of hers. Her shoulders lifted as she took a breath.

“Brooke,” he burst out, unable to stand it anymore, “I can understand if it was self-defense-”

“What?” She blinked and shook her head sharply, as if coming out of a daze. Then clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh-oh, God. You thought-oh, stupid me.” She stared at him for a moment, then smiled crookedly and said, with that Texas twang he was beginning to find so unexpectedly endearing, “Tony, you poor thing. You’re sittin’ there thinkin’ you’re about to find out you’ve just been kissin’ a cold-blooded killer, aren’t you?”

“Well,” he said in a garbled imitation of a frog.

“No, it’s my fault, and I’m sorry. I should have thought.” She faced forward again and didn’t reclaim his hand, bracing hers on the edge of the bale instead as she rocked herself slightly. She gave a faint laugh. “Funny thing is, I never even thought about…that. Can you believe that? I actually forgot for maybe a minute.” Her voice took on an edge, and she threw him a quick, intense look over her shoulder. “The answer to the question that’s eatin’ you up inside is, no, I did not kill my husband. Ex-husband,” she amended wearily, closing her eyes. “You can believe that or not…but it’s true.”

Tony cleared his throat and found his voice was functional again, and that the cold place in his belly was fading. “I do believe you. I have been believing you. That’s why I’m here.”

“But you’ve had doubts.” She looked at him over her shoulder again, sadly this time. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have thought I was about to confess.”

He tried to smile. “I can’t argue with the logic of that, so I’m not even going to try. But since we both know you’re not a murderer, what is this thing you feel you have to tell me?”

She looked at him for a long time, her eyes lingering, not on his eyes, but on his mouth…his shoulders, his chest. The stark hunger…yearning…he saw on her face nearly stopped his heart, then quickened it again. She turned away quickly, but not before he saw her lips quiver…saw her press them tightly together to stop it.

In a voice so low he had to lean closer to hear it, she said, “I want you to know…it felt so good, you holding me. Felt too good, you kissing me, me kissing you-I didn’t want it to end. But…I thought, before I let this go any further, you should know exactly who you’d be kissing.” She gave him that over-the-shoulder look again, and now it reminded him of one of the wild things he’d stalked with his cameras, watching him as he approached her comfort zone, wary and uncertain, not quite sure whether to be afraid. “There are an awful lot of things you don’t know about me.”

I probably know more about you than you can begin to imagine…things you don’t even know yourself, Tony thought. But aloud he said indulgently, with all the confidence in the world, thinking no matter what she had to tell him, it couldn’t possibly rival the bombshell he was about to drop on her, “It’s all right. You can tell me, Brooke.”

She nodded. Said, “I know. All right.” Cleared her throat, sat up straight, looked him in the eye and said, “I was molested.”

He couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d hauled off and slugged him. He stared at her blankly. The words she’d spoken had no meaning; they rang in his ears like the discordant clang of a broken bell.

She rushed on, filling his silence with more of those incomprehensible words. “Abused. Sexually. Raped…actually. When I was a child. By my brother-adopted brother.”

He was-had always been-a man who respected, even revered, women. The very idea that a man could mistreat or terrorize a woman-any woman, of any age-was simply appalling to him. But this woman…and a child…He wanted to cover his ears like a child himself. Wanted to tell her to stop. He could feel the edges of his world curling in on him, shimmering…turning dark. And still the words came.

“He was older-ten years older. It started when I was fourteen-that’s when my sister ran away. He’d been doing it to her since we were about…eleven, I think. Maybe even before that. I think I knew, but I didn’t want to, you know? So I didn’t tell anybody. Then my sister ran away, and that’s when he…he turned to me.”

Why didn’t you tell someone? His mind, finally functioning again, shrieked the question, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask it. It seemed too much like an accusation. Like blame. And that was the last thing she needed, he realized. She’d been blaming herself far too long already.

He didn’t ask it, but she answered as if he had. “I didn’t tell my parents, because I knew they wouldn’t believe me. I’m sure that’s why my sister didn’t tell anyone, either. He-Clay-was their son. Their real son, you know?” There were tears on her cheeks now. He wondered if she even knew. “He would have denied it or else blamed us. I know he would have. My parents were very religious-the hellfire and damnation kind of religious. I was sure they’d disown me if they knew. My father would have, anyway. I think I told you, he never wanted to adopt us to begin with. I think he just went along with it because he knew Mom wanted a little girl so bad, and she couldn’t-well, I told you about that.” She cleared her throat, paused and then went on.

“So…finally, I ran away, too. In a way. I was seventeen when I met Duncan, and he was so strong, so protective…and I thought, Here’s somebody who’ll take me away from here, and Clay can’t ever touch me again. So, I…”

“You married him.” He heard the harshness in his voice but couldn’t seem to make it softer. “Did he-your husband-did he know?”

She nodded and brushed absently at her cheek. Her voice became a whisper. “I told him on our honeymoon. He’d figured out I wasn’t…you know…so I had to tell him. At first he seemed okay with it-sweet, even. Angry, but not at me. I thought. But then, when I got pregnant, he started acting so jealous, possessive, like he didn’t trust me. He actually doubted Daniel was his child. And that’s…when he started…”

“Hitting you.”

“Yes.”

“My God.” He discovered he was shaking. Shaking with a rage that demanded violence, a primitive rage that wanted to smash, break, kill. He shook because what was required of him instead was tenderness. “Brooke…” He wanted to hold her, wrap her in his arms and stroke her hair and kiss away her tears. But in his fractured state, he was afraid to touch her. “You do know none of it was your fault?”

She nodded…drew a long, shuddering sniff. “In here I do-” she touched her temple “-in my grown-up head, I do.” Then her chest. “But in here…I don’t know. Sometimes there’s this person in here, inside me, this little girl, and she feels…ashamed and dirty and scared-” Her voice broke, and a huge shudder ran through her as she gathered herself to flee.

He didn’t think, wasn’t aware of moving, but somehow he had her wrapped in his arms, with her face pressed against his heart. He murmured things…soothing things…sounds without words, and she began to sob like a heartbroken child. She fought it, though, her body rigid, hands clutching at his shirt, gathering fistfuls of it, as if she wanted to rend something-anything. And he held her and stroked her hair and shielded her face from the chill and the light with his hand, as if she were a small, terrified orphan creature he’d found. And he let her cry.

He held her until she grew quiet, and when he felt her stir and resist his embrace, he let her go.

She pulled away and straightened a little, fingers plucking at the sopping wet front of his shirt. “Boy,” she said groggily, “do I know how to kill a moment, or what?”

He looked at her, smiling a little, too overcome with tenderness for her even to laugh. “There will be other moments.”

“Yeah, but…” She cleared her throat, sat up straight and wiped her cheeks with both hands, not looking at him now. “Here I was, all set to seduce you into carrying me off to bed and making love to me all night. Guess that’s not gonna happen.”

Laughter rose to his throat in a painful lump. He thought, God, what am I going to do about this? If I hurt this woman, I deserve all the hellfire and brimstone You can muster.

“Not tonight, anyway,” he said gently as he stood and held out his hand to help her up. He smiled. “Although I am going to carry you off to bed.”

Her eyes widened above the hand she’d pressed to her still-streaming nose. “You are not! Big as I am, you’d have to be crazy. Probably cripple you for life.”

He slipped an arm around her waist, laughing. “That was a figure of speech. Although,” he added wryly as they walked slowly together, in step, back toward the house, “I have to tell you, it doesn’t do much for my machismo that you don’t think I could.”

She swiveled her head toward him, and when he looked at her, he saw that her eyes were dark and grave, and that she wasn’t smiling. “Honestly, Tony?” she whispered. “I believe you could do just about anything you set your mind to.”

He couldn’t answer her. And again, fear and guilt were a painful tangle inside him. Dear Lord…what am I gonna do?

Like a proper gentleman, he walked her to her bedroom door and kissed her. And although her fingers lingered on his chest and he felt the tug of her longing as if it were something tangible-a rope, a lasso around his heart-he said good-night and left her there.

“Sleep well…” he whispered as he touched his lips to her forehead, knowing he would not.

Brooke woke to sticky eyelids and a dry mouth and the feeling that she’d spent the past several hours at the bottom of a deep, dark well. Climbing out of it seemed not worth the effort-until she heard noises from beyond her bedroom walls and remembered. I remember…moonlight, and Lady…and Tony. Tony…and me being a brazen hussy. Tony kissing me. Me…talking. Me…crying. Tony…

A profusion of emotions, many of them in conflict with one another, nibbled furiously at her: shame and longing…fear and delight. Shameless longing…

She threw back the covers and rose, only to discover she felt as wobbly as if she’d been in bed a week with the flu. What is this? she thought. Am I sick? I’m never sick.

The noises she’d heard had become voices-Tony’s and Daniel’s-and they were coming from the kitchen. Curiosity overcame both physical and emotional weakness, and she pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, raked her fingers through her hair and tottered across the hallway to the bathroom. When she emerged a few minutes later, she felt marginally better, but also keenly aware that she’d overslept. It had to be nearly time for the school bus, and Daniel-

These worries carried her as far as the kitchen doorway. There she halted, transfixed, as if caught in some paralyzing force field. She stood absolutely still, bathed in warmth and light, and knowledge sifted into her consciousness like sunbeams. Love. That’s what this is. I love this man.

The tableau in the kitchen consisted of two people and one dog, all three, for the moment, unaware of her presence. Tony-he was standing in front of the stove, and he was wearing an apron. An apron! Where he’d found it, she couldn’t imagine; even she never wore an apron. Daniel-he was at the table, busily assembling his lunch while keeping up a revealing commentary on the personality quirks of his various teachers. Hilda-she sat at attention between the two but had eyes only for Tony, for reasons that became evident when he flipped her a slice of what appeared to be…

“Hey-Mom! Tony made French toast. With cinnamon. We had it with applesauce, ’cause it’s healthier for you than syrup, and it was really good, Mom. Hey-is it okay if I take the last piece of chicken for my lunch? And we’re out of bananas, but that’s okay, because Tony said he’s going to town, today, anyway and he can get some more, so I’m taking grapes instead.”

Her son’s words fell on her ears and rolled away like raindrops on feathers. Encased in her shaft of enlightenment and towed by the tractor beam of Tony’s gaze, Brooke floated into the kitchen. She murmured absent replies to Daniel’s questions and didn’t think to scold Hilda, who knew very well she wasn’t supposed to eat people food or beg for treats from the table or stove, and had, in fact, already slunk off to her corner, looking guilty as sin. Tony smiled at her, and she smiled back.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, hefting a pancake turner in one hand, a griddle in the other. “We thought we’d let you sleep in this morning.”

“No-of course, I don’t mind.” She said it with a gasp as she grabbed hold of the back of a chair and held on to it, fully aware it was all that was keeping her from drifting on into his arms for a good-morning kiss. Which would be the natural way for a woman to greet her man the morning after they’d made love. Which they hadn’t, of course. But they would…soon. That knowledge-that certainty-made her voice husky when she added, “That’s…nice of you. You didn’t have to do that. But thanks.”

“No problem. Happy to do it. I told you-the sisters. I don’t want you to have to wait on me.”

And she got lost in his eyes and his sweet, sweet smile…

Blessedly oblivious to adult undercurrents, Daniel chattered on as he stuffed his lunch bag into his backpack, slung it over his shoulders and shrugged it into place. He brushed her cheek with a kiss, bumped knuckles with Tony, and went charging out the door, with Hilda on his heels. And silence crept into the kitchen, heavy with awareness and charged with tension, like a spring storm cell.

Tension sang in the clanging Tony made as he put down the pancake turner and griddle, rumbled in the grating sound of the chair as Brooke pushed it aside. Then she was across the kitchen, and his arms reached for her, and when her body collided with his, Brooke felt as if all the forces of a storm were breaking loose inside her. The fury and power, the excitement and wonder of it filled her mind and took over her body, leaving no room for fear or questions or doubt. No room for thought. She only knew when his mouth found hers…at last.

She tasted of toothpaste, he discovered, and for some reason, he found that endearing. A moment or two later-or it could have been longer; he’d rapidly lost the ability to track time-he discovered she wasn’t wearing a bra under her T-shirt. That he found not so much endearing as-not surprisingly-sexy as hell. Accepting the inferred invitation, he slipped his hands under her shirt and brought them up along her rib cage to cradle the sides of her breasts in his palms. And her gasp tore her mouth from his, and she buried her face in the curve of his neck and shoulder.

“Hey…” He whispered it with his lips close to her neck, just below her ear. “I thought you said you only turn into a brazen hussy during the full moon.”

“Moon’s still full out there somewhere,” she mumbled from the depths of her hiding place.

He wanted to laugh, but her hands were busy behind him, untying the apron’s strings…tugging his undershirt free of his waistband, and then the feel of her hands on his skin drove every hint of mirth from his mind.

Then he did laugh, not because anything was funny, but because the emotions raging inside him needed some kind of safety valve, and for a grown man, laughter seemed infinitely preferable to tears. It was soft laughter, low and breathy, but it shook him to his core.

“Brooke, honey,” he said feebly, “I think it’s time I carried you off to bed now.”

“If you insist,” she murmured, smiling at him, and her eyes, peeking from under her lashes, had a pixieish glint.

He did. He swept her up in his arms and was amazed at how light she seemed. Or rather, how strong and powerful he felt.

He was amazed that this woman could make him feel things he’d never felt before, when he’d known…well, quite a few women in his life. Every one had been special to him in her way, but this woman…Brooke…She was his birthday and Christmas, the most wonderful Christmas of his life, with an endless supply of packages, each one to be slowly unwrapped and savored, each one revealing something new and exciting and wonderful. Somehow he knew that with this woman, he’d still be finding new packages to open when they were both ninety.

The realization stunned him and tempered his passion with a tenderness and care he was sure he’d never felt before.

And didn’t want to look at too closely-not then.

He carried her to his room-the spare room-not hers, and wasn’t sure why. Some primitive instinct, maybe, that made him want to bring her into his place-a kind of claiming. And that, too, was something he’d never felt before. And didn’t want to look at closely.

He looked instead into her eyes and lost himself there.

“I hope you don’t think-” she began, and he dipped his head and silenced her with a kiss.

“I don’t,” he whispered. This isn’t a time for thinking, love. If I let myself think-

He couldn’t let himself think.

He wanted her. Wanted her as he’d never wanted a woman before. Wanted her with the finest nerve endings in his skin and the deepest marrow in his bones. But it was a strange kind of wanting, because he wanted not to take something from her, but to give it. He wanted to give her pleasure and joy. He wanted to give her happiness. And hope. He wanted to give her all the good things in the universe, tied up with flowers and ribbons, and watch her face while she opened them. He wondered whether he would be able to give her all those things…and then knew, beyond any doubt, that he was the only one who could.

All that was in his eyes when he looked at her, in his mouth when he kissed her, in his hands when he touched her. It was in the unhurried way he removed her clothes and smiled at her shyness and at her whispered, “Guess I’m not such a brazen hussy after all…”

It was in the way he gave himself over to her so she could undress him at her own pace, even though her explorations-sometimes shy, sometimes brazen-made his muscles knot and his jaw creak with their demands on his self-control.

Her skin tasted to him like ice cream melting in the sun, and smelled of old roses. When she tasted his, it felt like the most exquisite torture and the greatest pleasure he’d ever known.

He groaned-could not help it-and she whispered, “Are you going to have your way with me now?”

“I think-” and he could barely form the words “-you’ve got it backwards. You…are having your way with me.”

She tilted her head, and her expression was poignant, eager and sweet. “May I?”

“Yes, love…oh, yes. Whatever you wish.”

And so she straddled him and gave to him the gifts he’d wanted for her: pleasure and joy and happiness and hope. And he watched her face while she gave to him, and knew he’d never be the same again.

Sometime later, when the earth had righted itself and resumed its normal spin, and she’d become reoriented to her place in it; when they lay together in the tumble they’d made of the double bed, talking in sleepy murmurs of the wonders and coincidences of fate, Brooke remembered.

“You were going to tell me something,” she whispered. “Last night…before I…ruined the moment.” And her ear, pressed against his chest, felt his heartbeat quicken.

“Hmm…can’t remember now. Must not’ve been that important.” His voice was a lazy growl, and his hand never faltered in its silken slide up and down her naked back.

But just the same, she knew he lied.