Facing Fear (8 page)

He exhaled. So be it. “Good. Tonight, come to me and bring with you something to tie you with. I’ll leave the choice of material in your hands.” He disconnected without waiting for her answer.

On the TV, she stood still for a moment before putting away her cell phone. Rick mentally shrugged away the urge to call her back. He shouldn’t give a lick about her fear. He wanted her to be afraid of him; she was too much in control of this game they were playing.

He didn’t know where he was going with this but if she was willing to come to him in fear, then what she was after must be very, very important. Since it had to do with his dead wife, then it had to do with Gorman, because it was only Gorman who knew the truth. Was I.I. trying to get him to confess to Nikki, and if so, how would that tie in with their plans to use him as a scapegoat for the Gorman scandal?

He watched Nikki walk out of the room, her long braid swaying gently behind her. Tonight she would come to him with her hair down. His loins clenched at the memory of how she looked and felt in his arms. He still couldn’t decide if what he felt was real or was just some twisted psychological reaction to his past.

Focus, Harden, focus
. He stepped out of the room and nodded to the security guard outside. Focus on what she was hiding from him. So far, she had revealed two things. They had sent her to find out about his dead wife. And to learn whether he was a security risk.

His decision to act must have reactivated his dead brain cells. He stopped in his tracks as if a lightning bolt had struck him. The similar looks. Questions to bring back his memories. Seduction. Would she then betray him, like a replay of the past?

His beeper cut into his thoughts, reminding him of Harpring and paper trails. Rick flexed his hands, then looked at them. He had gone crazy the last time someone close to him was killed. Who was deliberately bringing back those memories?

N
ikki didn’t need Denise Lorens to tell her what kind of man Ricardo Harden was. She didn’t think that woman even saw beyond the lies that made up the operations chief of Task Force Two. That wasn’t the real Rick. Besides, Denise’s agenda was very different from hers. She wouldn’t care whether she had the truth, as long as she proved I.I.’s conclusions.

Nikki suspected her own image of Rick Harden would be a far cry from Denise’s. Of course, she didn’t have the same experiences that Denise undoubtedly enjoyed. Unfamiliar warmth flooded in the pit of her stomach at the images that came with that thought.

His request for a rope was meant to bring up those images. He was playing on her fear of him. Well, not exactly of him, she corrected. What she feared were ghosts that could no longer hurt her. What she feared were the strange emotions he made her feel. He wanted control of her, and instead of fighting him, she found that she had to fight herself. She couldn’t say no to him. The insight into her own sudden emotional flurry was unsettling.

It was only natural to start comparing herself with Denise Lorens, even though there was nothing in the world that would make her wish to be like that woman. However, it would be nice to lose her cowardice. Denise didn’t fear her own body’s reaction to a man, didn’t even think twice about giving in to her own needs while stealing a man’s soul, for it
was Rick’s shell she had been after, and not what was inside. To take pleasure that way was stealing. And wrong.

Nikki wished, though, that she didn’t fear what Rick Harden was making her feel. Her body responded in subtle ways even when he hadn’t touched her since those first minutes outside her bathroom. When he had tapped on her chime that night, standing there by her bed, dominating her private space, she had had a sudden vision of him naked.

And that had been the most unsettling thought of all. She had stood there staring until he had mocked her, asking her why she looked at him that way—transfixed, he said. How was she to explain that a few minutes earlier, in the shower, she had suddenly understood her grandmother’s second prophecy, and it had to do with him? That he was part of her quest to find her
chuung
? That he was the first man she had undressed mentally in a long, long time?

How ironic that he had shown up, and then played with the very instrument that influenced her life. A person was like a chime, making its own music. She remembered the haunting melody that had invaded her cell every now and then. It was the only sign of life in her darkness. One day, she had asked her interrogator what it was. For once he had answered a question, instead of demanding an answer.

A wind chime, he had said, and had cruelly added, “When the wind played with it, did it make you think of life outside?” He had said it to fill her with despair, but she had listened to that chime and it had brought her hope.

When Jed McNeil, a commando from the group who had saved her life, released her from the cell, he hadn’t thought her crazy when she told him she wanted her chime. Jed had smiled and risked his life a second time to retrieve something that meant nothing to him. That man—Nikki smiled fondly at the memory—would fit her grandmother’s good guy in the movies—the ones who were good-hearted, loyal and dedicated to a cause, who were
chuung-sum
. Jed would always have a special place in her heart.

“Come on up. My door is unlocked.” Rick’s voice came through the buzzer. There was a loud click and the secured
doors that led into the bright lobby opened. Nikki took a deep breath and stepped inside. The security guard smiled at her. She returned his greeting.

Rick. She mouthed his name softly. She had never said his name to him. She didn’t know how to say it without betraying herself. So strange. It was just a name, but it embodied all her wants and fears. She pressed the elevator button to his floor.

Every man owned a dark and a light side. And the
chuung
, his center, balanced the two. But only if the man learned to listen to himself because, like a chime, he had to synchronize and balance the noise. That was the moment when he could hear the
chuung
. It wasn’t easy to sit and talk to one’s own soul.

She got off the elevator and slowly made her way to the apartment on the right. She stared at the door, then lifted her hand and unclipped her loosely bound knot. Her hair tumbled down past her waist.

It was important to take each lesson and give it its proper sound. She would not let fear make any noise in her
chuung.

The apartment door opened. And Rick Harden stood before her, without a smile, without a greeting. Her lesson had begun.

Rick was wearing a dark green shirt and slacks. Nikki’s eyes met his glittering ones for a long moment before he took a step back. She walked in, but he didn’t move aside. He pushed the door closed with one hand. His other hand swooped under her cascading hair, closed around her waist, and drew her in. The last time he had her near a doorway, he had attacked and trapped her. This time, the hand on her lower back didn’t hurry as he pulled her inexorably closer.

Nikki couldn’t resist. If he had used force, she might have. But his green eyes caught hers, and the look in them took away her breath. Her heart quickened. She wet her lips.

“This is your last chance,” he said softly, his gaze on her moistened mouth.

He was right. He wasn’t forcing her. Nonetheless, she felt his hand firmly persuading her forward.

“You can still fly away, little bird.”

She should.
Release the frozen heart. It would burn you.
She should. Instead she found herself shaking her head.

“So be it,” he whispered. And his lips seared hers.

They said the cosmos began with intense heat at a single point and a big explosion. Brilliant white heat. Dark fire. Raging chaos. His tongue stole into her mouth, and she sagged against him even as her whole body exploded into this sudden awareness. It was like waking up abruptly from dreaming. Like coming up for air after being trapped under water.

Before, if anyone came close to kissing her, she would be engulfed by sheer blind panic. Somehow, Rick’s kiss was overriding her fears. Her whole being vibrated, starting from where their lips met, rushing inward, washing away her old apprehensions like toppled sandcastles and storming past her defenses into her inner sanctum. He swallowed her gasp.

He didn’t kiss her gently. Far from it. He stalked every corner of her mind, taking over any thought of protest. His tongue roamed in lazy exploration as his hand moved to her backside and pulled her even closer, letting her know in no uncertain terms that as far as his body was concerned, she wasn’t going anywhere.

Rick wanted. He had to taste her. That sensation from the other weekend was back, in double dose. That dark and needy hunger, that forbidden search for satisfaction, grew into a maelstrom. Part of him wanted her out of his life. A tiny, negligible part. But all of him wanted to just devour this woman.

She was petite and fragile, a shivering female way over her head where his desires were concerned. But the feelings she invoked weren’t fragile at all. They overwhelmed every protective layer he had, making him throw caution to the wind, to merge all of himself with her. His male into her female. His deep need into her soft surrender.

How could the taste of one so delicate be so powerfully heady? Her soft tongue hesitated and yielded, driving him crazy the way only a woman could. She responded with an
eagerness that surprised him, with a passion that he had known was lurking under that calm exterior. He wanted her to taste him. He sucked on her tongue. Almost there. Almost…she hesitated. Didn’t she know that only drove him wilder? He curved one hand around her soft bottom, and pulled her against him as he thrust forward. He ached to have her.

Rick’s aroused state shocked Nikki back to her senses, and she started to push him away. Her shoulder bag fell to the floor, the notepad in the side pocket making a loud slapping protest. He released her lips but still held her tightly against him.

His eyes blazed down into hers. “You weren’t afraid a moment ago. Why now?” he asked, his voice a low rumble.

Breathing hard, Nikki couldn’t tell him. She had embraced his kiss with mindless abandon. It felt so good to let go and let his heat fill her. He could have continued forever and she wouldn’t have been aware of the time, but now the old fears came tumbling back into her and she couldn’t tell him why.

“Is this part of your game?”

She shook her head and pushed against his hard, unyielding chest. He didn’t budge. “Let me take a step back,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “I just need a few minutes.”

Rick frowned, and she saw realization creeping into his eyes. He slid his hand up into the hollow of her back and allowed a few inches between them. She released a sigh, then gulped a big breath. She looked up and saw anger replacing the taut desire in his expression.

“How are you going to do this if you’re afraid of it?” he taunted. “That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it? Sex.”

She tilted her chin up at the challenge in his tone. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, very brave indeed,” he mocked. His hand moved up her back, lingering for an instant to sweep her hair away from her shoulder, as if reluctant to let her go. He stepped back. “Go home, little bird. You’re afraid of a man’s body. I’m hard, and for some reason, your fear makes me harder. You’re
afraid I’ll touch you, and after that kiss, I’m going to do more than touch you. So go now. Don’t play with me. Your fear won’t stop me from taking what I want.”

His words hurt. She hated her fear, hated the way it controlled her life. Rick Harden might have a reputation of being a bastard but he had attempted to let her go three times now, and that told her more about him than all these words he had tossed to warn her off. She would not let fear make any noise in her
chuung
, she repeated adamantly.

Slowly, succinctly, she declared, “I. Am. Not. Afraid.”

Slowly, deliberately, she reached out and placed her hands where she feared most, on the front of his pants, where he had been hard, where he was still hard. She squelched the urge to turn and run. Without thinking, she ran her hands down the length of him, and his immediate response brought her gaze back down. Not just hard. He was hot. And big. Absolutely big. Her eyes widened at the thought, and she wanted to turn and run again.

I. Am. Not. Afraid
. She grasped him determinedly and felt him stiffen. She looked up and caught him trying to hide his surprise, and unexpected elation rose. She repeated, “I’m not afraid. You’re the one who’s afraid. You don’t want
me
to touch
you
.”

“Lady, you’re playing with fire.”

The damn woman was challenging him. Why was she so afraid? She was scared shitless, but evidently that wasn’t going to stop her from accomplishing whatever it was she wanted. Fine. He was through offering her chances. He covered both her hands with his and pressed down. He wasn’t lying about playing with fire. He was burning up. He moved her hands up and down, and with hooded eyes, watched the emotions fleeting across her face. Panic, then determination. Fear, then fascination. Then, to his amazement, he discovered that she was doing the rubbing all on her own; he had forgotten to keep moving his hand as he grew more aroused by her touch.

He quelled the need for simple seduction. She issued a challenge, didn’t she? “Did you bring it?”

Her hands stopped. He almost changed his mind, just to get her to continue. Ah, the power of a woman to make a man beg. He had learned his lesson from that. No, her fear was important. As long as she had that fear, he was in control of her.

His apartment had the air of a self-absorbed man, grown used to privacy. The living room was starkly furnished in black leather and brass-gold. Throw rugs provided the only bright colors on the oak shellac floor. There were no decorations on the wall, except for a large ornate clock with external moving parts. No pictures. No flowers or lace curtains. All man.

Nikki walked past the long sofa to the fireplace with a large tricolored animal skin lying on the hearth. There was a pile of books nearby, one still open. A couple of throw pillows. Here, she thought, was the center of the room. She stood there for a moment, looking into the quiet fireplace, then slowly turned to look at Rick.

Hands resting on the back of the black sofa, he stood with deceptive boredom as the green fire in his eyes consumed her every move. He was waiting. Slowly, she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a silk purse. It felt cool and soft, quite different from its content. He watched as she approached. Somehow she felt safer with the sofa between them as she held up the silk purse.

He took it. Weighed it in his hand. She watched his face as he appeared to consider opening the colorful bag with its chrysanthemum needlework. Standing this close, she could see how long his black eyelashes were. She glanced away quickly, feeling foolish. That she would be drawn to these little things about him, when he was so tough and unyielding, was bewildering.

She couldn’t quite believe what she had done. Her hands still tingled at the memory of touching him…there. Never in her wildest imaginations would she have come up with that ever happening. He had been right when he taunted her about being afraid of sex. Before she’d met Rick, touching any man would bring on panic attacks.

There was no denying it any longer. She had pushed aside what she had known ever since the day when she’d drunk down that glass of frozen daiquiri with Rick Harden’s gaze on her. He was the first man she was attracted to in a long, long time. She wanted—

“Have you eaten?”

She blinked and shook her head. She had been too nervous to eat anything.

“We’ll eat first, then get to your business.” He didn’t say anything about afterward. He lifted a strand of her long hair and twirled it around one finger.

“All right.” It was quite clear the man wanted, too. But he caressed her hair like a fond memory. Nikki inhaled. She must remember that. He wanted, but not her.