Skin Tight

CHAPTER 3

Mia felt oddly transfixed.

There was violence in his eyes, but his fingers were gentle. The world seemed to slip sideways, and when his mouth touched hers, the world detached completely. Something else swam up to fill the gap in her reality.

Lights twinkled overhead. Silk flowers twined around the white columns, giving the gym a tropical air. A photographer at one end took pictures of couples standing inside a fairy-tale gazebo. Edwin McCain crooned the first lines of “I’ll Be.”

She wore a red dress. Her mother had said they couldn’t afford it, but she must’ve changed her mind. Tense with nerves, Mia glanced around at the other couples dancing. Girls like her didn’t get asked to dances. She didn’t belong here, and she just knew something bad was going to happen.

Instead, Jared Kennedy came toward her with two glasses of punch. He wore a shy, uncertain smile, and it faded when he got a good look at her. “You said you were thirsty…”

“I am,” she said, suddenly breathless.

Her hand trembled as she reached for the glass. Luckily, it didn’t matter if she sloshed some on her dress. The fruit punch and the vibrant satin would be close enough in color that nobody would notice in the shifting light. She made herself sip, ladylike, while gazing up at him.

Dressed in a black tux, he was every bit as handsome as she’d dreamed all those afternoons in AP English. She doubted the popular cheerleader types would agree; he was tall and slim, refined rather than muscular. His face held an artistic sensitivity, reflected in the poems he sometimes read in class. She’d often wondered what he thought about, whether his musings were as deep as she believed.

“Would you like to dance?” He looked no more sure of himself than she felt, which put her at ease.

She simply nodded, and he led her out into the crush of swaying bodies. At first his hold was light, almost tentative, and then he gathered her close as she’d imagined so many times. They danced through songs by the Backstreet Boys and 98 Degrees. Bliss soaked in through her skin. She’d never thought she could be so happy.

The chaperones weren’t paying very close attention, so Jared maneuvered them into a part of the gym where the shadows fell thick. He didn’t ask permission; he could see by the upturned angle of her face how much she wanted the kiss. His lips were warm and soft, full of innocence and desire, and happiness surged through her like an electrical storm. Her arms wound about his neck, and she pressed close, rousing a shiver from him.

His lips toyed with hers, delicate and expert. She never would’ve imagined Jared could kiss like this, sensual but commanding. His tongue teased into her mouth, making her ache. She kissed him back, hungry for more of the sweet tension coiling through her.

Teeth grazed her lower lip, unabashedly demanding. She gave him more, undulating against him. They’d stopped dancing. The music had quieted, too, but she didn’t open her eyes. She was afraid everyone would be staring, watching the ice princess Mia Sauter hover on the brink of an orgasm, just from the delicious skill in Jared Kennedy’s mouth.

Warm lips skimmed to her jaw, down her throat to her collarbone and back again. Beneath her gown, her nipples perked. She knew she shouldn’t let him. Good girls said no, at least in public. In hotel rooms or the backseats of cars-well, that was another story.

“You have to stop,” she whispered.

There was a thrill in saying it because it meant he wanted her after all this time. She’d spent two years gazing at him, never dreaming he’d ever look back. His desire spiked through her in a heady rush, kindling a hungry echo. Before tonight, she’d never even been kissed, and now she was thinking about all kinds of things.

“Do I?” he asked, husky-voiced. “Please don’t make me, Mia. I’ve wanted you for so long.”

“Really?” Could it be true? Had he been watching her the whole time she was watching him? If only one of them had been brave enough to speak up before now.

“Yes.”

“Is everyone watching?”

“No, princess. We’re out in the hall. No one will know, I promise.”

She opened her eyes, astonished to find that at some point during the sweet, endless kisses, he’d nudged her through the side doors and into the dimly lit corridor. Her back was to a row of lockers, and there was nobody around. His eager cajoling struck the right note; he didn’t want to stop just yet, and neither did she.

“Maybe a little more, then,” she said, breathless.

His kisses hit her system like a narcotic. He caressed her, fingertips skating down her spine to the small of her back. With surety, he lifted her so that her hips centered on his erection. Mia arched against him, trembling with arousal. She wanted him inside her so badly that she moaned aloud.

And that was when she knew it for a lie. This was a woman’s need. If anyone had made her feel like this at seventeen, she’d have wept in shock and then fled, not demanded more. Back then, she hadn’t been ready for this.

She wrenched away, and the minute she did, the gym disappeared. Another time and place superimposed itself upon the dream. It hadn’t been Jared Kennedy. She suspected Jared still wouldn’t know how to caress a woman so expertly; he had been a girl’s romantic ideal, and he’d never invited her to the prom. How embarrassing to have a secret, nearly forgotten fantasy plucked from her brain like that.

Anger slammed through her. She balled up her fist, intending to punch Foster and demand to know what he’d done to her. A drug on his lips? But that made no sense. He would be affected, too.

Mia noticed that he shook, too. That made it better; he was no more able to resist her than she could him. It also told her that something extraordinary was going on.

It took him two tries to find his voice. “Did I do something wrong?”

He doesn’t know, she realized. He thinks I’m still seeing whoever supplanted him. Does this happen whenever he touches a woman? He makes us delusional? How… horrible. It would be awful for the women who never saw him as he was; that must make it impossible for him to maintain a normal relationship. For the first time, she understood his rebuff so many months prior.

In some regards, his affliction reminded her of Kyra’s. If she hadn’t seen what her friend could do, years ago, she would be panicked now. Instead she was only shaken and pondered how best to spin this to her own advantage.

Did the effect wear off when he broke contact? Or was the victim then lost in the past for all time? If only she knew, she could decide how to handle things. His expression gave her no hint.

Mia gambled. “No, Jared. There are people around.” How she wished she could blush on cue. “We’ll have to get a hotel room later.”

If she could string him along, make him think she was still lost in the dream, then he would probably leave her alone. He’d believe any threat from her had been neutralized, and by the time he realized he was wrong, she would have had the opportunity to investigate him fully. But he read her too well, and the bluff failed.

“You know,” he breathed. “But how? How do I look to you?”

His eyes held a painfully avid light. Despite her animosity, sympathy panged through her. She knew what Kyra had suffered-how she couldn’t be touched-but this was the first time Mia had considered her friend might be more than a genetic anomaly. Obviously, there were more like her, and Mia had one of them standing before her. There was no point in pushing the pretense further; he was too intelligent to fall for it. So she answered honestly.

“You have brown hair, streaked light, and gray blue eyes, like the sky before a heavy rain. Your face is not handsome, but it is…” She paused, seeking the word. “Compelling. Your bone structure is sharp-”

“Enough.” He regarded her with something like wonder. “Something happened when I kissed you, though.”

Her lips curved. “Are you asking if I liked it?”

For the first time since she’d met him, he seemed unsettled. His cheeks colored. Mia decided she liked the turn their association had taken. He was the sort of man who managed everything down to the last detail-but she made that impossible.

“No, I’m not asking that.”

“Then what?” She lifted a brow, enjoying herself.

“What did you see?”

“Ah, you want the nature of my hallucination. Just a silly girl’s dream, but you didn’t kiss like an inexperienced boy. The logical disconnect popped me out.”

“That’s never happened before,” he said, almost to himself.

Mia grinned. “You’ve never kissed anyone as clever as me.”

“That may be true.” He looked as though he’d come to a swift decision. “If I swear to you that my agenda here has nothing to do with any missing money, will you let me operate in peace? In fact, I can help you identify the thief.”

“You’re asking me to trust you,” she said in utter disbelief.

He had the grace to show a flicker of chagrin. “Put that way, I understand your reluctance. What would it take to convince you? I’d rather not be your enemy, Mia. You are… uniquely valuable to me.”

That was truer than she could ever know. Once he kissed them, women simply didn’t see him again. The dream took over, and he was forever after associated with the fantasy. Sometimes they lived in a bizarre juxtaposition of then and now, going about their daily lives, except in connection with him.

His wife certainly had.

At the time, he’d thought it worth the price to put an end to the loneliness. Soon enough, he’d discovered that living a lie was worse than being alone. For years, he’d answered to another man’s name, known she saw someone else’s face when he made love to her. It had cut him to the bone, so there was precious little of him left now.

Just enough to accomplish this last task.

“I’ll need to see all your financial records,” she said at length. “If I agree, I need to be sure you’re not the thief.”

He decided to be honest. “I could come up with some dummy accounts to assuage you, but you know that I don’t have any. Officially, I don’t exist. The man I used to be died long ago, and I’ve owned many names since.”

She shrugged. “Then I need to see all of those records, unless they’re all dead, too.”

He waited, sure she would realize the truth. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she called herself clever. It dawned faster on Mia than it would on most.

“They are,” she said quietly. “If I queried Addison Foster, I’d find a recent death certificate, wouldn’t I?”

He nodded. “I’ll let you look at my Thomas Strong account, if you like. That’s the only one I have open.”

“He was a real person, then?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No. That’s not the way it’s done.”

“Explain it to me.”

A frisson of unease rippled through him. She already knew too much. Telling her more made no sense, especially since she hated him-even if her kisses said otherwise-and had promised to bring him down. He found himself answering anyway.

“When a suitable person perishes overseas, I intercept the information. I set data nodes to prevent the death notices from reaching the authorities.” He thought of the men whose names he borrowed as being in limbo.

“So you mine these identities in case you need them. Nobody ever learns that Thomas Strong died in a scuba diving accident on the Great Barrier Reef.”

He gave a fleeting smile. “It was a car bomb in Moscow actually. But yes, in essence. I gave notice at his last place of employment, procured suitable documents to have his ID replaced, and took a job here.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Not easy. I just have a good deal of practice. But it’s not accurate to say nobody ever learns how these men died. Once I finish with an identity, I input the information to spark production of a death certificate. It’s only right that the next of kin be notified.”

“Kind of you,” she said, gently mocking. “Not to make them suffer unduly. If I asked your real name, would you tell me?”

He smiled. “No.”

“Would it mean anything to me?”

“If I answer that, wouldn’t it give you a place to start?”

Guilt flashed across her face, almost too fast for him to catch. So she hadn’t given up on her enmity, merely changed tactics. Commendable, but he had out planned better opponents than her.

“I suppose so. I give you this much: for now we exist in a state of armed truce. If you don’t interfere with my work, I won’t interfere with yours, whatever it may be.”

Could he believe her? In fact, he didn’t, but maybe she’d surprise him. He didn’t want to fight her, especially not when he wanted her so much. His whole body ached at the strength of his reaction to her, and he was dying to find out what would happen if he kissed her again. What would become of the dream this time?

He was afraid to hope she might stay with him the whole time. Raw longing careened through him.

“Generous terms. I accept them.”

“Excellent. I’m really not the vengeance-for-life type. There’s one thing I would like from you to make this official, though.”

A kiss. Oh, he’d love to seal the deal with another kiss. But he might not stop there.

She went on, “An apology. And an explanation.”

“The first I can offer,” he said quietly. “But the second? It would be unwise of you to involve yourself any further in my business.”

She lifted her chin, her dark eyes sharp with perceived rejection. “I’ll take the apology, then.”

This was going to be a tough assignment, even more than he’d previously reckoned.

“I’m sorry I gave you to Serrano, Mia, but you were never in any danger. I had plans under way, and I knew your friend was coming. If I’d hidden you from him, it would’ve tipped my hand too soon, and the body count would’ve been much higher.”

Realization dawned. “You wanted Kyra to kill him for you. But why? What did he do to you? Why didn’t you just kill him yourself? You had ample opportunity.”

“The answers to those questions fall under the umbrella of explanation.” A devil took hold of him then. “Against my better judgment, I’ll answer each one for a kiss.”

She froze, gazing up at him with wide, dark eyes. Confronted with the warm, tactile reality of her, he was forced to admit he’d been dreaming about her for months, about the way she’d looked at him in Vegas, her expression open and full of possibility and desire. Some people might say she lacked classical beauty, but to his mind, she had strength and unconventional loveliness. He especially liked the sharpness of her nose and the dusky sheen to her skin.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Then we’re done here.”

But she seemed to be thinking it over, despite her initial response. “One question, one kiss? Do I get to pick which one out of those I asked?”

“Of course.” Excitement pounded in his veins.

Right now, he didn’t give a shit what Micor was doing behind those locked doors if it meant Mia was going to touch him of her own free will. Snapping at her, all those months ago, because she’d wanted to had cost him more than he cared to consider.

“All right,” she said, and lifted up on her tiptoes.

Her palms framed his face. For a long moment, she gazed into his eyes, and then her mouth brushed his. The warmth felt exquisite. It wasn’t a deep kiss or an erotic one. Nonetheless, it shook him, because when she stepped back, he could tell she saw him.

No haze.

No dream.

The kindling hope sickened him. He’d thought he had outgrown such fantasies. Ideas of home and family-they weren’t for such as him. He had long since excised the parts of him that could be considered vulnerable. But the sweetness of seeing himself reflected in her eyes nearly undid him.

He took a deep breath. “I owe you an answer, then. Name your question.”

“Why didn’t you kill him yourself?”

Of course she would ask why. Such a question offered more insight than “what,” but he would abide by their agreement.

“Because I wanted him to suffer.”

He could have said more. He loved your friend, you see. When she left him, took his money and his affection, it broke his heart, though he did his best to conceal it from me. But I saw the anguish, and I used it. I wanted him broken, as I was broken.

He saw her calculating that response, trying to factor it into what she knew of the situation. She really was impressively clever, and if he wasn’t careful, she would wind up destroying everything he’d dedicated his life to achieving. Her kisses weren’t sweet enough to take the risk.

But he would.

“So do I look like I’ve been making out with the boss?” she asked, surprising him.

If pressed, he would’ve predicted that she would ask him to elaborate on his previous answer. Instead, she appeared content with his response, making him wonder what she’d surmised. His inability to read or influence her made him uneasy, as if they faced each other as equals.

He surveyed her flushed cheeks, tousled hair, and smudged lipstick. “You do. I have a private washroom through there if you want to freshen up.”

Since bending you over the desk is out of the question.

“Thanks. Then I’d better get back to work. They’re going to wonder what we found to talk about so long.”

He watched her walk away from him, hips swaying with a rhythm that offered an invitation he desperately wanted to accept. This attraction was unwise. She probably hadn’t forgiven him; it was likely a ruse to get close and persuade him to drop his guard. He knew how it was done. Rule one-get close to the mark. Find out what he needs and offer it. After all, he’d worked that angle many times. But as she sauntered out of his office, he knew he was going to ignore that prudent voice.

Mia Sauter was going to prove a distraction he didn’t need, but he was incapable of turning away from her a second time.