Nobody's Angel (12 page)

He'd
kidnapped
her, damn it. She didn't need to take life lessons from a criminal.

Pulling her hair back in a barrette from her purse, she stalked back into the shabby motel bedroom. It was clean. That was all she could give it. At the sight of Adrian propping the room's one chair against the doorknob, she scowled.

“Keeping thieves out or me in?”

He dropped into the chair, crossed his arms over his chest and stretched his long legs out in front of him, practically filling the narrow aisle between the end of the bed and the dresser. Her tired gaze focused on the scuffed soles of his worn wingtips—courtroom shoes, she used to call them.

“Both,” he responded warily. “The way your mind works, you'll have figured out how to have me locked up and be
halfway back to Knoxville before I wake up. I need my sleep.”

Faith glanced at the double bed. She wasn't about to suggest that they share it. Let him suffer.

He hadn't asked to share the bed.

She dropped wearily on the sprung mattress, wrinkled up her nose at the thought of checking the sheets and, removing her comfortable Easy Spirits and suit jacket, lay down as she was. He'd brought in a duffel bag probably containing all his worldly possessions. She didn't even have a toothbrush.

A forty-watt bulb in the reading lamp still burned between them. Adrian's eyelids were already drooping. The shadows from the lamp highlighted the hollows of his sculpted cheekbones, and she wished she had enough talent to draw him. The glimmer of his silver earring captivated her. If all she wanted was sex, she might as well have taken up with Artie from the band. He'd be a lot less trouble.

She flung the spare pillow at her kidnapper.

Adrian jerked up, caught it, and glancing at her warily, shoved it behind his back.

“Kidnapping is a federal offense.” She couldn't go to sleep like this. He might as well suffer with her.

“So sue me.” He shut his eyes again.

She wanted to turn the lamp off so she wouldn't see the breadth of his shoulders straining against that damned flannel shirt. She was afraid to be left alone in the dark with him. Panic began to build in her throat. She didn't know where it came from. Could she pry her phone out of his pocket?
Touch
him? Not a chance.

“There are a blue million banks in Charlotte. We can't possibly visit all of them. I have to get back to my shop.” Maybe voicing her fears would help. It would certainly drive him as crazy as her, at least.

He opened his eyes again, and she wished he hadn't. The “lean and hungry” look that Shakespeare wrote about couldn't compare to what she saw in this man's eyes. Large and dark, shadowed by indecently long lashes, they narrowed
as they focused on her, forcing her into awareness of how she lay sprawled across a bed big enough for two.

She breathed a sigh of relief as he turned off the lamp.

It didn't help. In the darkness she was even more intensely aware of the vibrations. He'd been in prison for four years. She'd been on remote control longer than that. It was just human nature, she told herself.

She could escape. All she had to do was seduce him.

“Don't,” he warned.

She didn't even have to be told what he meant. She understood from the tautness of his voice and the dangerous depths from which it emerged.

She didn't know which she wanted more, escape or the seduction.

“I can't trust a man who kidnaps me,” she whispered into the darkness, more for her own benefit than his.

“And I'm not about to trust a woman who holds my life in her hands,” he retorted with just enough anger to be convincing.

“Then I suppose you'd better find a way to resolve that problem.” Snapping the words, Faith rolled over to face the wall and closed her eyes.

In the blinking light of the hotel sign through the thin curtains, Adrian stared at the tempting silhouette of rounded hip and slender waist lying on the sagging bed, and only years of control prevented him from doing something he shouldn't.

A package of dynamite would be safer.

He'd been on the edge of arousal since he'd first seen her on that stage. He ached so fiercely with it now, he'd never go to sleep. And if he didn't go to sleep, he'd sit here all night imagining all the ways he could get her under him.

He didn't think it would be difficult. He'd seen the sexual awareness in her look. He knew women like her were tempted by the dark and forbidden. He'd taken advantage of their kind once or twice in the past. It was pure animal curiosity, nothing more. But this time he had a feeling it could be a hell of a lot more for him and three times as dangerous.

Convincing his mind was one thing. Telling his body was quite another.

He could do this a lot easier when angry. He needed to summon that anger boiling within him, stir the cauldron that seethed in his soul, spice it with the hot pepper of indignation. But she looked more like a bewildered child than a cold-blooded villain, and he couldn't even kindle the coals—not of anger, anyway. Lust would have him bursting into flames any minute now.

She wanted trust. How the hell could he give her that? It wasn't in him. Tony—her husband—had burned what little bit of trust he'd once possessed. For all that mattered, it looked as if she'd never trust him for the same reason.

Finally, her breathing evened, and he relaxed enough to contemplate tomorrow. His eyes had scarcely closed before they jerked open again to the sound of running water and the glaring light of dawn blazing through the curtains. He'd never curse another Carolina dawn as long as he lived. The freedom to walk out into the cool morning air was a blessing he'd never really appreciated until he'd lost it.

His gaze swung from the rumpled, empty bed to the closed door of the bathroom. At least she hadn't stabbed him in his sleep, so maybe violence wasn't on her agenda.

The door swung open and Faith emerged, all shiny and bright-eyed like a brand new toy under his Christmas tree, and he almost swallowed his tongue in longing. She'd let her hair down and it swirled around her shoulders like thick white-gold silk. In this light, her eyes were almost blue, and as crystal clear as a mountain lake. If he started investigating the way the tailored silk of her blouse clung to her breasts or the thin cloth of her skirt emphasized the sexy curve of her hips, he'd be salivating. Her legs were definitely out of bounds.

“I'm hungry,” she announced with a challenge in her eyes.

Well, so was he, but he didn't think they had the same hunger in mind. He couldn't keep from wondering what she would do if he stood up and started kissing that pouty pink mouth of hers. His imagination had her blouse unbuttoned and bra unfastened and his hands full of soft warm flesh before he could rein in his fantasies.

He groaned and shut his eyes. He'd made some big mistakes in his life, but this was one of the most agonizing.

“The minute I go in there and wash, you'll run for help, won't you?”

“Thought about it,” she agreed.

Shit. They'd send him back to the slammer before he could taste a woman's mouth again. His mother would curl up and die and his family would go straight to hell.

“But I'm not about to fish the car keys out of your pocket, and I'm not in the mood for police before breakfast. I don't suppose this joint has a café?”

Oh, God, thank you. Whatever he'd done to deserve this, he would repeat twice over. He opened his eyes to narrow slits to see if she was laughing.

She tossed her hair and gave him one of those mouth-watering smiles she bestowed on the bar crowd. He didn't trust it for an instant.

“You're waiting for me to feed you and
then
you'll call the cops.” He surged from the chair and stalked toward her, feeling every ache and pain from a night in his awkward bed.

She stood her ground. “Touch me and I'll
feed
you to the cops,” she warned, “in bite-size pieces.”

Warily, Adrian waited. If he touched her, he'd have her on the bed and rolling under him before she had a chance to utter another syllable, aching muscles or not. He'd best wait to see if she'd discovered a more reasonable alternative.

“We can use my cell phone to call the banks on the way to the storage unit. I don't know if they'll even give out safe deposit box information without a death certificate, but we can find out that much. You can sort through my junk until you're satisfied Tony left nothing in there. Then I can leave you with your family and I can go home.” She waited a moment, and when he didn't immediately reply, she added, “You'll have to trust me with the phone.”

He had a feeling it wouldn't be as simple as that, but if that's what it took to make her happy for the moment, he wouldn't disagree. “That's a plan.” Gathering up the reins of
his control, he marched past her into the bathroom and slammed the door.

He would have short-circuited on frazzled wires of frustration as soon as the door closed, but his gaze caught the shower, and with determination he jerked on the cold faucet. He'd survive this, somehow.

Faith checked off another phone number from the list she'd copied from the hotel's directory. “Death certificate, identification, and/or the key before they'll even bother looking. Damned banks charge more and more and do less and less. It's a good thing I don't have enough money to worry over which one of the monsters to give it to.”

Adrian steered through the morning rush hour traffic on I-85 into Charlotte. He had the windows rolled down, and even the smell of exhaust fumes was perfume to his nose. He was free. He was home again. He could almost hear his mother's joy and the clamor of the kids as he walked through the front door. What was he doing chasing down a ghost?

Looking for his life, he reminded himself. Otherwise, he'd be bagging groceries or flipping hamburgers. “All right. We'll track down how to get that death certificate. And we'll search the storage unit for a key. I'll assume identification isn't a problem for you?”

He turned his attention away from the road just enough to catch her sticking her tongue out at him. Grinning, he turned back to the road in time to prevent the Mercedes in the next lane from ripping off the VW's bumper in its hurry to cut in front of them.

“You wouldn't do that if you had any idea what it does to a starving man's hormones,” he warned without a trace of delicacy. She might as well understand where things stood here. They'd fenced around it long enough.

“As if I give a damn about your hormones,” she retorted calmly enough. “Obviously, deprivation has given you testosterone poisoning. I'm not hanging around here. I'm going home.”

“I'll follow you. If you have any care for my family, you'll avoid that.”

Silence. He could almost hear her simmer. He had her number, finally. She might think he was scum of the earth, but she had a heart as mushy as warm cream cheese.

“Annie will pick up my deliveries, but she can't sell anything. My clerk won't work full-time. I can't afford to lose more than a day's worth of sales,” she protested.

“We're talking about lives here.” He used his best sincere voice. He hadn't become captain of the debating team without knowing all the answers. “Is a few dollars worth the futures of seven kids?”

“I thought there were eight,” she answered suspiciously.

“I've already put Belinda through nursing school. She's married and on her own. I should have talked her into becoming a doctor, but she had marriage on the mind at the time.”

She sighed dramatically. “Just give me one good reason why I should care.”

Telling her she had a heart like cream cheese probably wouldn't do it. Adrian grinned anyway. It was a beautiful Carolina-blue morning. The heat of the sun poured through the windshield. Puffy white clouds flitted above and willow oaks flashed past as he gunned the engine and eased into an opening in the next lane. He was free. He was sitting beside the most beautiful woman he could ever remember meeting. He could do anything.

He debated all the possible answers he could give her. He could lie and promise to love and cherish her forever. Women loved hearing that even if they didn't believe it. And this one wouldn't believe it for an instant, not after what Tony put her through. She probably didn't even want to hear it.

He could tell her about each of his siblings, about the athletic twins, about Cesar's genius, about Hernando's crippled leg and Ines's adorable grin. He could tell her about the loving mother who had literally worked her arthritic fingers to the bone trying to keep them all fed and healthy.

But he'd bared his heart enough. He wouldn't give her
more. Looking straight ahead, he offered the only reason he could afford. “Because you're the kind of woman who wants the right thing done, no matter what it takes.”

She didn't reply, and he knew he had her.

“I told you the storage unit was on South Boulevard. You just turned uptown.” Faith figured even if he hadn't given her the car keys yet, she still had the phone. She could always call 911.

She could see tension bunching the muscles beneath Adrian's shirtsleeves. His earlier easy laughter had disappeared behind a grim mask as he negotiated the heavy traffic. She didn't think it was the traffic bothering him. She tried to put herself in his shoes and wondered why he didn't go straight home to his family. She would.