Connor (2 page)

Who the hell was coming into her room?

She'd insisted that no housekeeping be done, except once a week when bedding needed changing and the bedroom and en suite needed cleaning. Today wasn't housekeeping day. And it was far too early for it, in any case. Most people weren't even up and about yet.

So who else would have a key and be trying to get into her room?

Hurriedly, she hid her camera and slid the double-glazed window closed. All she needed to do was scream to have the place buzzing with concerned B & B residents, so she didn't fear for her life. But someone was invading her space and it felt dangerous. Very dangerous.

There was nothing covert about the way the door opened. The man who swung it inward looked as if he had every right to do so. And it was only when her gaze tried to pin him in the doorway that the threat of danger became a reality.

From her position on the floor by the window she had to crane her neck to take in his full, imposing height. And it wasn't just his height that was imposing. Everything about the intruder screamed
Danger, Will Robinson
at her.

How old was he? Twenty-five? Just a few years older than she was, but with way more life-experience, if his confidence was anything to go by.

That's when the newest anomaly struck her. Even dressed in heavy-weight grey sweats this man looked remarkably like her target. Except that his cheeks were less hollow, eyes green instead of brown, and he wore his sandy hair buzz-cut short. The nose was different too, having a bump in the middle, as if it had been broken sometime back in the day. And his eyebrows weren't plucked into neat, metrosexual lines, either. Instead, one had a scar running through it.

So what made her think he looked like Haversham Smythe? The shape of their eyes, the heavy brow-lines, even their builds were similar. Just like the man in the bistro on Sunday mornings, this man looked enough like her target to be his brother; and yet different enough to be unrelated. It was more a feeling she got, a sense of recognition, than a definitive list of physical characteristics.

How long they gazed at each other, Allie wasn't sure. But the invader was staring at her just as intensely as she was staring at him.

"Well, pretty lass, yer a surprise," he finally said, his deep voice heavily laced with Irish brogue. The sound of it had an odd effect on her, like running her hand over velvet and getting a static charge.

"
You're
surprised?
I'm
the one having someone break into my room."

He grinned and relaxed his pose, although she'd be a fool to believe he really was relaxed. This was a predator of the most dangerous kind. When he looked the most unthreatening was the time she was in the most trouble.

"American and sassy, I like that." With a nonchalant nudge he closed the door, effectively closing them in together and cutting off her escape route.

Allie sucked in her bottom lip. Her heart was beating like a Geiger-counter. If she didn't slow it down she'd go into a full-blown panic-attack, and that was hardly professional or helpful, in her current situation.

"Irish and unwelcome, I hate that." What made her poke at him when he held all the cards, she wasn't sure. But trying to control her heartbeat always made her drop the filter between her brain and mouth.

"Aye well, we Irish are rarely welcome at first. But we eventually prove our worth. So, lass, I see by yer kit that this is a surveillance gig. Get any good pics?" His voice remained casual and flirtatious as he took in her open laptop, folded tripod and activity log, almost as if they'd met in a bar somewhere and were going through the steps that would lead to hooking up.

This guy would be incredible in bed, she knew. There was something wild and unpredictable about him that added to the danger he exuded. Maybe he'd do it for her for the first time. Maybe he'd get her off.

Before he killed her. She reminded herself forcefully. What was she thinking fantasising about having sex with a guy who'd obviously been sent to shut her down?

"Lovely winter landscapes, classy English townhouses. My readers love the whole British scene… Jane Austen meets One Direction… you know the thing."

His bark of laughter had her reluctantly smiling back, for all her breaths were coming faster and shallower now. Any moment she'd get dizzy and keel over.

What kind of idiot worked as a PI when they suffered from panic attacks?

The kind who liked to stay in the background, seeing but never being seen, that's who.

"Though I'd love to continue standin' here tradin' the crack, I have to ask fer yer camera. The one yer have hidden so subtly behind yer back." His smirk was really annoying her now.

She'd pushed the camera, complete with oversized zoom lens, behind the curtain as the door opened, so now she was able to lift her hands innocently and jump to her feet without giving away the camera's location.

A wave of heat washed over her. Damn, already dizzy! Getting up quickly had
not
been a great idea.

Faster than the blink of an eye, the intruder was at her side, a strong hand holding her upright by her elbow, for all the world like a polite gentleman assisting a lady. If she'd considered him imposing when looking up at him from the floor, it was nothing compared to how he made her feel now he was in her personal space. Like a ghetto blaster, he boomed power at her in psychic waves.

That was when she picked up the newest anomaly. For all his predatory stance, air of danger, and subtle threats, he seemed as discomforted by her as she was by him. Why? It wasn't like she was dangerous. The basic self-defence training she'd undertaken as part of her PI certification hardly made her a threat to anyone. And yet there was something in the way he was treating her, like she was an unexploded bomb, which seemed odd. Maybe he thought she was a spook and had nifty ninja skills just waiting to be used on an unsuspecting male like him?

Green eyes coated with contact lenses stared down into hers. His breathing hitched and he blew out a soft whistle. Carefully, he released her and stepped back. She wasn't sure if that pleased or disappointed her. This man was playing havoc with her internal guidance system.

"Sure, yer the clever one. Yer play the
damsel in distress
like a pro." He shook his head in amusement.

Drawing in several deep, cleansing breaths, she studied him even more closely. He thought her panic-attack was an act? Good, that meant she could disguise a weakness as a strength.

Smiling brightly, she shrugged. "John Wayne School Of Drama, Class of 2012. What can I say?"

That broke him up. His laugh was loud and genuine, and if she didn't miss her guess, those were tears glistening in his green eyes.

"Oh, lass, there I was thinkin' I drew the short straw havin' to come check yer out. But though yer good, very good, I won't be distracted." Before she realised what he was about, he'd reached down and retrieved her camera from behind the curtain.

Making one ineffectual grab for her expensive piece of equipment, she tossed up whether she'd achieve anything by screaming. The trouble was, she wasn't one of those women who
could
scream at the drop of a hat. The only time she'd ever really screamed was when a large, hairy spider had dropped down on her from the ceiling of the derelict house she once used for surveillance. Luckily, the spider had been more scared of her than she of it, and there weren't any neighbours close enough to hear her embarrassing shriek of terror.

But this guy didn't know that she couldn't scream, did he? Surely he wouldn't want to be caught accosting a poor woman alone in her room?

"Give that back or I'll scream the house down. You think I can play
damsel in distress
, you wait until you see my
woman fighting off a rapist
. The 'bobbies', or whatever you call them, will be on the doorstep in seconds." She made another lunge for her camera, but he effortlessly held it out of her reach.

He grinned again, his green eyes sparkling. Did he have to be so good looking? Why couldn't her enemy be fat and ugly? Getting turned-on was
so
unprofessional.

One minute, she was thinking naughty thoughts as she stared up into those twinkling eyes; the next, she was wrapped in his arms from behind, a warm, calloused hand over her mouth. How did he do that? She was fast and flexible, but this guy made her look like a ninety-year-old pensioner with a walker.

His hot breath on her neck as he growled into her ear should have been terrifying. Instead, it just upped her sexual arousal another couple of degrees. The way he breathed her in made her wonder if he could actually smell how turned-on she was.

"Ah, pretty lass, what am I goin' to do with yer? The Guild is sure gettin' cleverer, if they're sendin' out women like yer."

Frowning, she fought her hormones so she could focus on what he was talking about. The Guild? What was that? It sounded like a trade union or something.

"Ah, so yer don't know who sent yer then. That's good. I'd hate to have to kill yer." Even as he said the word
kill
, it was like he was whispering dirty words in her ear. What the hell was wrong with her?

She couldn't blame it on sexual frustration. She'd picked up a guy late Thursday night. Sure, she hadn't gotten off during the hasty hook-up in the alley behind the nightclub, but she used the thought of the quick and nasty to get herself off later, back in her own bed. So, it wasn't like she was desperate or anything.

Was she?

"Danger turns yer on," he declared, breathing her in as if she was a fragrant meal.

Wriggling, she tried to get her mouth free so she could deny his accusation. But her efforts only seemed to amuse and arouse him further, if the hard length pressed into her back was anything to go by.

He pulled her sweater away from her neck, before feathering soft, damp kisses along it. A shiver ran up her spine that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with arousal. She moaned into his hand.

He tightened his grip and growled. "Lass, yer kryptonite."

The idea that she could be his undoing aroused her further. At least her panic-attack had been averted. Any shaky breaths she was drawing in now were from excitement.

With a groan, he lifted his head back. But before she could miss his warm contact on her neck, it returned, bringing with it a sharp, needle-like pain at the crux of her shoulder. But the pain was fleeting, quickly replaced by a lightning strike of sensation that shot her over the sensual-edge into a blinding flash of completion.

Jeezus, he'd given her an orgasm unlike any she'd ever known before, and with just his mouth on her neck. As she reeled from the onslaught of the passionate delight still coursing through her veins, all thoughts vanished. It didn't matter that he still had her mouth covered, or that she was the captive of an enemy threatening her with death. She was drowning in endorphins that told her this was the best sex of her life. And she wasn't even having it.

For an endless time, he held her in place with what she eventually realised were his teeth. He panted and purred and his hold on her body became as sensual as the bite. The hand that had held back the sweater, now slipped up under it, to cup her breast, tweaking her erect nipple. She cried out into his rough palm, as the contact tipped her over the edge yet again. When had her breasts become this sensitive? A guy could suck on them all night and she never got this kind of reaction. Maybe it was an acupuncture thing. His teeth were embedded in erogenous points. That would do it, wouldn’t it?

When the hand over her mouth slid down to the junction between her jean-covered legs, she moaned and leaned further back. He eased up on the bite and licked the wound with his hot, rough tongue. The electrical storm inside her began to abate, leaving her limp with satiation.

He spun her around to face him then, and her sex-drugged mind noted vaguely that there was something not quite right about his eyes. They'd changed…

His indrawn breath and frown told her something she hadn't been aware of up to that moment. His eyes weren't the only thing that had changed. She had too.

What the hell!!!?

"This complicates things," he growled.

Panicking, she broke free of him and dashed to the mirror on the wall. It felt like there was something wrong with her eyes. Her teeth hurt too. When she stared into the mirror and saw her usually dark-brown eyes now glowing with a metallic hue and her pupils elongated like a cat's, her legs nearly gave way under her.

"What have you done?" she whispered, reaching for the mirrored surface.

The man came up behind her and stared into the mirror, his own cat-eyes meeting her gaze in the glass. "It seems it don't rain but it pours mates, all of a sudden. I guess yer'll be comin' wi' me."

That's when confusion gave way to dread. She took off for the door, determined to escape whatever was happening to her. He'd injected her with an hallucinogen, that was what had happened. It had just seemed like a bite. And their eyes just seemed to be glowing metallically, like cat-eyes, because of the LSD.

This was a trip. Didn't they do that in the white slave trade?