Dangerous Loves Romantic Suspense Collection (76 page)

“Shit.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what did you tell him?” Kimmi asked. “I can’t imagine you took the news quietly.”

“I didn’t get the chance to say anything.” She closed her eyes. Why did it hurt so much to remember. “Someone shot him.”

Kimmi gasped.

“It gets worse.”

“How? I can’t imagine anything worse.” Then she asked with a rush, “
You
weren’t hurt, were you?

“No, thank goodness. I’m okay. Sort of.”

“Then what happened? He didn’t die, did he?”

“No, he didn’t die.” That was the problem. He should have died.

Faith still couldn’t understand how someone could survive after losing that much blood. And not only had he survived…he was completely healed minutes after being shot.

She had done something to him.

But what?

And how?

“What? What happened? Tell me!” Kimmi demanded.

Faith opened her mouth to say,
I healed him
. The words were there. She heard the thoughts clearly enough. But then…not a sound. Not a whimper.

Nothing.

“I-I—” she finally forced the words to stutter out of her mouth. But before she could say anything else a blinding pain gripped her. “
I’m going to be sick
.”

Faith pushed her way out of the bed and tripped over a pile of clothes that shouldn’t have been in the middle of the room, and stubbed her toe on a dresser that shouldn’t have been there either. Hopping the rest of the way, she made it to the bathroom just in time to heave the contents of her stomach into the toilet. Afterwards, she gurgled with mouthwash. Twice. It made her feel a little better.

Her head still throbbed, though. Faith didn’t dare wonder why. She wasn’t in the mood for a repeat performance in the bathroom.

She almost never threw up. Traveling the world had given her a cast-iron stomach. Only, this morning it felt like a mariachi band was celebrating a fiesta in the pit of her belly.

Had Horace or that odd friend of his slipped her a drug to make her forget about the shooting? To confuse her about what had really happened?

Faith gripped her stomach, desperate to quiet that jittery band in her belly. Every time she thought about Horace and his club the acid in her stomach danced around with a chaotic beat.

She stepped out of the bathroom. “Kimmie, maybe I should—” Her gaze floated over her cozy bedroom and she froze. “
What the hell happened in here last night
?”

“That’s what I’ve been asking you!” Kimmi yelled from where she was still sitting on the bed.

Every piece of clothing that had once hung in the closet or been neatly folded in her dresser drawers were now scattered across the bedroom floor. The dressers—including a heavy six-foot-tall wardrobe that she’d inherited from her grandmother—had been pushed away from the walls. One had tipped over. The wood on its back had cracked. The full-length mirror had been shattered.

“It wasn’t like this when I got home,” Faith said as she rubbed her hands over her eyes. Perhaps if she rubbed hard enough everything would all go back to normal.

“You mean you slept through someone doing this to your room?” Kimmi frowned. “How much did you drink last night?”

“You know I never have much more than one or two glasses of wine.”

“Drugs?”

“You know I would never—” Faith refused to acknowledge such an insulting question. She may have been slightly reckless in her life, but never—ever—had she abused drugs. She’d seen firsthand the ravages of drugs while traveling with her parents into some of the poorest regions of the world. But hadn’t she just wondered the same thing herself? She rubbed at the chill that suddenly filled her body. “Maybe Horace slipped me something. I feel horrible this morning.”

“He must have. How else could you have managed to sleep when something like this was happening in your own bedroom? Or perhaps you did this in a drug-induced fit of rage?”

“That must be it. I must have done this.”

You sure did,
a voice inside her head shouted.
But not with your hands
.

She shook her head.

Why not believe that your anger and frustration over Horace’s rejection could manifest itself physically?

Why not? She’d already fallen down the rabbit hole…saved a man with a gaping chest wound by wishing hard enough. If she believed that, why not believe this, too?

Faith rubbed her hands over her face. It hurt like the devil to think about last night or anything that involved Horace.

“I think I must be losing my mind,” she whispered.

She needed to talk with Horace.

But he didn’t want to see her again.

Well, Horace hadn’t actually said that. What he’d said had made
her
not want to see
him
again, though. Horace had rejected her right after they’d had sex. Perhaps she’d done something wrong. What if she was a terrible lover? Come to think of it, no man had ever before praised her skills. How could she face him…and
that
? Something else teased at her mind, something she needed to remember, something that would make everything else easier to handle.

He’d told her something. She foggily remembered him kissing her forehead. Supporting her. Rubbing her back and making her feel safe.
What had he said right before she’d left the club to go home?

She started gathering clothes from the floor, hoping that the end results would make an outfit. She had two shirts. She dropped one and picked up a pair of jeans. Underwear. Where in the world had her underwear gone?

She peered under the bed and found a lump of panties.

“What’s going on?” Kimmi peered under the bed as well. Their gazes met. “Why are you muttering to yourself?”

“I’m making plans.” Faith grabbed her underwear and crawled out from under the bed. “I’m going to do what any good researcher would do—follow the only lead I have.”
Horace
.

“You have a class to teach this morning.”

“Right, my class.” Faith slipped off her oversized sleep shirt and pulled on a loose-fitting green tunic that had once been hanging in the back of her closet but was now in a pile in the middle of her floor. “Could you please call Professor Newitt and tell him I won’t be able to make my morning class?”

“Not until you tell me what you’re planning to do.” Kimmi snatched up the jeans Faith had been eyeing off the floor and held them hostage.

“I need to go to the club and to find Horace.”

“And do what?” Kimmi sidestepped Faith when she tried to get her jeans from Kimmi. “I’m not going to give you these until I know you’re not going to go do something you might regret.”

“I just want to talk with him. Clear the air about last night.” Faith rubbed at the sudden pain that struck her temples when she thought about Horace and last night’s shooting. “I need to find out if he drugged me and why this happened.”

Kimmi’s grip on the Faith’s jeans tightened as she stared at the shattered mirrored glass littering the floor. “From the look of things in this room, I don’t think seeing him again is a good idea.”

“Come on. If you were in my place, you know you’d be running to confront him, too.”

“But what if he drugged you? He could be dangerous.”

“I’m feeling more than a little dangerous myself right now. So you’d better give me those jeans before you feel the same wrath that destroyed this bedroom.”

“Okay, you win.” Kimmi handed over the jeans. “Not because I think it’s a good idea, or because I’m afraid you might go all Xena Warrior Princess on me. But because I know you. I know you won’t go to the police before gathering all the facts yourself. But Faith?”

“Yes?”

Kimmi hugged Faith tightly. “Please, be careful.”

Although running to Horace just a few hours after she’d left him smacked of desperation, Faith stuffed her legs in a pair of tight jeans and eyed the piping hot coffee Kimmi had brought with her. The cup sat on a bedside table that was now all the way across the room and at a crooked angle to the door. She recognized the logo on the side of the cup. Kimmi had gotten the coffee from the local shop down the street that sold those tall, gourmet coffees, the kind with the rich flavors. Faith had picked one devil of a week to give up caffeine.

Hopping on one leg and then the next as she pulled on a pair of sandals, she explained to Kimmi that she hadn’t lost her mind—she hoped. She simply needed to clear the air with Horace.

“I guess he wasn’t seriously hurt by that gunshot wound?” Kimmi asked.

“No,” Faith said as she grabbed her purse and rushed toward the door, “I don’t think he could have been.”

Perhaps the bullet had only grazed his chest and had momentarily stunned him. That would explain the quick recovery. But it didn’t explain her pounding head. Or her confusion.

She was determined to get some straight answers from him.

Besides, Horace had to be expecting some repercussion after all that…um…weirdness last night. Odd, it didn’t seem to hurt her head as much if she didn’t think about it directly.

She’d make sure he’d explain
that
as well.

* * * * *

Horace rolled over in his bed and glanced at the clock, surprised to discover he’d overslept. He rarely slept past six. But after a sleepless night and a morning of fitful dreams crowded with sensual images of Faith doing deliciously naughty things to his body with her pierced tongue, he couldn’t seem to work up the energy to face the day.

His body ached. His arm burned. The burning was what had finally stirred him from his sleep. His arm had once burned like this before. But when? His head ached when he tried to remember.

With his eyes still half-closed, he carefully eased into a sitting position in his bed. Unless it was several degrees below freezing outside, he slept in the nude, which made it easy to see what was causing that pain in his arm.

A primitive outline of a lion had been seared into the skin on his right bicep as if someone had branded him.

He had been. But that had been years ago
.

He’d removed the mark, hadn’t he?

Damn. He couldn’t remember. Wouldn’t remember what had happened during those two missing years of his. And none of it mattered anyhow, because the mark of the lion had returned.

He rubbed his hand over the lion-shaped burn. And then scrubbed at the raw skin, but the mark seemed to be stuck there.

“Damn.”

It was back. It was beginning.

Again
.

Chapter Six

Horace found Faith waiting at the door when he arrived at Club West. From the looks of things, she’d been waiting for him for several hours. She slumped on the shaded top step to his club with her head cradled in her hands.

He usually came in before noon, but after sleeping in late and the shock of the mysterious reappearing tattoo, Horace didn’t have the energy to face either the bar or his out-of-control feelings for Faith. Not today. Not after last night.

Faith had pulled her silky blond hair into a ponytail that looked good enough to run his fingers through. And she wore a pair of tight jeans with a loose sea green tunic that had slight shimmer to it and dipped low enough to show the lovely swell of her breasts.

Damn, he wanted her.

She needed to leave. He’d have to think of something to send her away before he did something stupid, like have sex with her again.

Just seeing her again made his mind go down all the wrong paths. He wanted to nibble on her lips and down the graceful arch of her neck. He’d peel off her loose shirt and give his lips permission to go even lower, tasting and tempting her with his kisses.

He could imagine how she’d mewl softly as he suckled her breasts, not letting up until her nipples hardened and resembled ripe strawberries. And she’d be panting and encouraging him to touch her lower…lower…until he found the center of her tantalizing heat. She’d scream his name then.

If that was what she wanted…if that was why she’d shown up at the club so early, how could he deny her?

He violently shook that last thought away.

He didn’t have time for those kinds of dangerous fantasies. He still needed to talk to Stone. Hopefully Stone would have some idea what the painful tattoo that had re-appeared on his arm this morning might mean.

Horace had snatches of memories, some involving the tattoo. But whenever he tried to focus on them, the memories would start to burn holes straight through his skull. And Horace had too many holes in his memories already, too many questions about the missing two years from his life that begged to be answered. He couldn’t risk losing the few memories of that time that he had left. Perhaps Stone could help him with that, too.

But he had to get rid of Faith first.

That shouldn’t be too hard. Stone had blasted through her memories, wiping away last night. Including the sex. For her, nothing had changed between them. For her, he was just the club owner, and she was still nothing more than his employee.

“I thought you had classes all day today,” he said to her, making an effort to sound cheery.

Faith glanced up at him. Dark shadows circled her eyes. And the worry clouding her blue irises looked anything but normal.

“We need to talk,” she said in a low voice that made the hair on the back of his neck take notice.

“Of course,” Horace said and faked a careless smile. He reached out his hand and helped her to her feet.

After unlocking the door and swinging it open, Horace gestured for Faith to precede him inside. He couldn’t help but watch how tightly her jeans hugged her body, or the graceful way her hips swayed as she walked.

He battled a sudden urge to kick the door closed, press Faith up against the closest wall, and tear off those painted-on jeans. He’d put her legs over his shoulders and lap at the honey between her thighs. He could already taste her sweet scent and feel how she would squirm against his raspy tongue. He’d give her no mercy. He’d…he’d…

Whoa there
. Horace shook his head. As impossible as it might seem, thanks to Stone, that amazing sexual encounter with Faith in the alleyway would be no more real to her than a long-forgotten dream. She certainly wouldn’t understand why he was fighting an damn powerful urge to pull her into his arms and make love to her right here and now.