Outlaw Derek (8 page)

He was here. She was dependent on him for her safety, her life. And he was emotionally involved with her despite every atom of good sense.

“Derek?”

He looked over at the steps of the platform, where Shannon stood hesitantly. The pajamas she wore provided adequate coverage, since they were long and plainly styled, with a top that was buttoned all the way to her throat. But the cream silk lent the outfit its feminine appearance as it clung like a living thing, and the slender curves of Shannon’s body were as seductively obvious to his intent eyes as they would have been clothed only in a brief silk teddy.

Score one for Raven
, Derek thought vaguely as he felt his belly knot in a sudden rush of heat. He’d told her that Shannon had injured a leg and was sensitive, and had asked the other woman not to buy too-revealing clothing that
might make Shannon feel uncomfortable. He hadn’t said anything about not making
him
uncomfortable, though.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Shannon offered a bit breathlessly, disturbed by his steady look and silence. “You couldn’t have gotten much rest last night, and—”

“You take the bed.” He smiled. “The years have trained me. Like most soldiers, I can sleep anywhere, probably even standing on my head.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.” Derek wondered if he was imagining that he could smell a delicate floral scent wafting to him from her; there was no soap with that scent in the loft. Had Raven taken care of that too? If so, he could blame her for a quick rise in his blood pressure. He cleared his throat strongly and concentrated on keeping his expression neutral. “I’ll probably be up for a while. Will the light down here bother you?”

“No.” She hesitated another minute, then turned away toward the bed.

Derek got up to turn off the overhead light anyway, leaving only the lamp by the couch on. He was unusually aware of the rustle of bedclothes in the silence, and reminded himself he was a grown man and perfectly capable of controlling his hormones. It didn’t help. He hadn’t really expected it to.

He went into the kitchen to the hidden control box for his security system; Shannon hadn’t noticed and he deliberately hadn’t pointed it out to her. The box was concealed behind what looked like just another section of the painted brick wall, opening to his familiar touch by a hidden spring. He set the system with the necessary codes, activating the alarms set at both downstairs doors and all the windows. Another switch activated timers in the three other lofts in the building so that lights would come on and go off at irregular intervals, suggesting the lofts were inhabited, which they weren’t.

He set three final switches: one to activate pressure alarms on the roof, one to turn on
motion-sensors and cameras placed strategically around the building, and the third switch to alert the building’s very dependable caretaker, who lived nearby, that Derek was “in residence” and not to be disturbed.

Shannon didn’t know it, but she was sleeping in a virtual fortress.

Having done everything possible to ensure an advance warning for them in case of visitors, Derek moved back toward the couch. It wasn’t until he glanced at the bed and saw Shannon sitting up that he realized she had watched his actions.

“Who are you, Derek?” she asked softly.

The light provided by the lamp barely reached her, and she was only an insubstantial shape, her silky pajamas reflecting the light in a faint shimmer. Derek sat on the couch because he didn’t dare remain standing; his body was having ideas that his mind found difficult to deny. “You know who I am.”

“I wonder if anybody does. William would be surprised if he saw this place, wouldn’t he?”

Derek didn’t think it likely. “In a fox hunt,” he said quietly, “the fox always has more than one way out of his burrow—if he’s smart. I’ve been hunted before, Shannon, so I’ve taken the idea a step farther. More than one burrow. And always more than one way out of each.”

“What’s the other way out of this burrow?”

He smiled faintly. “There’s a trap door inside the closet, and a tunnel leading to an outbuilding. James Bond stuff,” he mocked himself lightly.

Shannon hugged her upraised knees and watched him, not yet ready to sleep because she was afraid she’d dream. “Has it been exciting—your life?”

“I wouldn’t have stayed in this business otherwise,” he answered. “There are always benefits to my work. I’ve seen parts of the world the tourists will never see, for instance.”

“And the drawbacks?”

Derek fished a package of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. “Those too.”

After a moment of silence, she said, “You don’t want to talk about the drawbacks?”

No, he didn’t. Not to her. Not now, at least, when she was living under the threat of some of those drawbacks. “You should get some sleep, honey.”

Shannon slid down in the bed and drew the covers up, gazing at a shadowy ceiling. He
had
called her honey this time. But it probably didn’t mean anything. She wished it did. Wished she could tell him how afraid she was to sleep, because she wasn’t too tired to dream tonight. Wished she could ask him to just hold her because—

She felt shaken suddenly. Shocked. When had she ever asked anyone for that kind of physical closeness? It was hardly something she was used to. Her mother wasn’t a physically demonstrative woman, and Shannon had always felt stiff and uneasy whenever someone came too close.
Why was she longing, now, for strong arms around her and the comforting sound of another heart beating under her ear?

Because she was afraid? Or was it something else, something about Derek? Was that longing for his touch all tangled with her stark awareness of him? Stupid.
Stupid!
She’d been hung around his neck like an albatross, and that was all. The poor man was being forced to cope, not only with threats against him because of her, but with her fears, and—

“Shannon?”

He was standing by the bed, silhouetted by the lamp behind him on the lower level, his very outline unnervingly masculine and heart-catchingly powerful. And her heart jumped into an uneven rhythm as it thudded against her ribs. How had he known? What
was
he that he always seemed to know how she was feeling?

“I’m all right,” she said, and they both knew she wasn’t.

D
EREK SAT DOWN
on the edge of the bed and gently captured one of her hands that was twisting on top of the covers. Her hand was cold and tense in his for a long moment, but gradually relaxed. Quietly, he said, “It’s always worse at night, isn’t it? The darkness closes in, and it’s easy to feel like you’re alone. But you aren’t, Shannon.”

“I’m sorry,” she said jerkily. “You’re in this mess because of me, and I can’t even make it easier for you. I want to be strong, but I can’t
stop thinking about them out there looking for us as if we were animals being hunted. And I know
I’m
one of those drawbacks you didn’t want to talk about, tied around your neck and just weighing you down—”

“Stop it, Shannon.” His voice was abruptly sharp. “Do you really think you’d be with me if I didn’t want it that way? I could have had you hidden away in protective custody somewhere until we got this whole thing sorted out. I could have sent you with Raven; the security system set up around her and her husband is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Hell, I could have called the cops and had
them
take care of you. You’re with me because I
want
you with me.”

“Just because you feel responsible—”

“No.” He hesitated, then said dryly, “Maybe it’s my ego saying I can take care of you better than anyone else. Maybe it’s those big brown eyes of yours—or the way you looked in that damned red dress.” He felt her hand tense again, and wondered if he’d gone too far. How far
could he go to get close to her without pushing her even farther away?

“It wasn’t even my dress.” Her voice was low, shy.

He laughed softly, and purposely kept his voice light and unthreatening. “It was yours once you put it on. A dress like that on a woman like you could make a grown man cry. Or start writing sonnets in his mind. Unfortunately, I have no creative ability when it comes to words, and that dumb macho ethic kept me from breaking into tears.”

She laughed shakily. “So what do you do?”

“I bit down on a knuckle when you weren’t looking,” he told her solemnly.

Shannon laughed again, honestly amused. “I can’t see you doing that.”

“I don’t want you to see me doing that,” he said in a reproving tone. “It ruins my tough, manly image. I debated whether to cook for you, but decided in the end that since there are so many male gourmets, I was pretty safe.”

“You showed talent as a masseur too,” she reminded gravely.

“Masseur.”
He corrected her pronunciation in a grand French accent. “If you know the French for a thing, it takes away any gender connotations.”

“I would have thought it was the other way around,” she said with a little choke of laughter. “The French seem fairly conscious of gender.”

After a deliberate moment, Derek said consideringly, “You could be right there. I may have sacrificed my tough manly image by—no, I forgot, that was in another life. Just some residual technique left over for this life. So I’m safe.” Her hand was relaxed now in his, and warm, and her laugh was rich with humor. A part of him was elated, but there was another cautious part that reminded him it was easier to find closeness in the dark than in the light.

“I think you really are a magician,” she said suddenly in a surprised tone.

“Well, legerdemain is a nice, masculine talent,” he allowed seriously. “I won’t object to that.”

She chuckled and said, “I feel better now. Thank you, Derek.”

He didn’t want to leave her, even though it was costing him to remain there. Common sense and caution won out over the demands of his body, and he squeezed her hand briefly before rising to his feet. “Good. Now get a good night’s sleep, honey.” He was at the steps when she spoke again.

“Derek?”

He paused and looked back at her.

“What did you mean—a woman like me?”

He didn’t need the question clarified. “You’re beautiful, Shannon,” he said quietly. “Someday I’ll teach you to believe that.”

After a moment, she whispered, “Good night.”

“Good night, honey.” Derek returned to the lower level and sat down on the couch, trying consciously to relax taut muscles in an effort he knew to be worthless.

How much more easily she responded to him
in the darkness. As if darkness were the only wall she needed then, and light brought her self-made walls rising instantly. Only in the darkness had he heard her laugh; only in the darkness had he heard the intriguing note in her voice that was so vividly alive it made his heart stop.

That was the real Shannon, he thought, coming alive in the darkness like some rare and fragile flower that showed its blooms only to the night. Was it because of her leg? Partly, he thought; the core of that characteristic could probably be found in her constant awareness of her flaw. In the darkness she couldn’t be seen, and her self-consciousness vanished.

He could reach her then, in the darkness. Closer one step at a time, unthreatening and undemanding. And the cost to him would be well worth the result if he managed to reach her fully. But he didn’t deceive himself that it would be easy. No, it wouldn’t be easy.

Derek lit a cigarette and broodingly watched
his hands tremble. Not easy at all. Grown man or not, he was finding it more and more difficult to control the desire he felt for her. He had never felt anything like this, and the strength of it had caught him off guard. Those big brown eyes—or that dress. Who knew what had done it?

She had come to him out of desperate need for his help and, with the worst timing possible, he had fallen in love.

There was probably, he thought, nothing on earth as fundamentally impatient as a man in love. It was entirely natural at such a mad turning point in one’s life to be intolerant of any delay, to be wholly resistant to the idea of cautious equanimity, and to be possessed by a primitive physical desire that had to be beaten into some semblance of submission. Or satisfied.

Entirely natural.

And to force patience at such a moment went totally against the nature of the beast. So much so, at least in his own case, that Derek wasn’t sure he could do it. Love made desire more than
itself, made it a hungry need just barely under control. But for how long?

Could he manage to control his own need long enough to reach Shannon and build that vital trust? And, even then … could he get close enough to touch her heart?

Raven hung up the phone and leaned back against the desk in their suite. “Damn,” she said softly.

Josh, standing a few feet away and gazing out a window at a sunny morning, turned toward her. “I didn’t like the sound of your end of the conversation,” he noted. “Bad?”

“It isn’t good. You remember I asked a friend of mine in the police department here to let me know if anything happened near Derek’s apartment?”

“I remember.” Josh came to her, his rather hard blue eyes softening as always when they rested on his wife. “What’s happened?”

“The alarm Derek had rigged in his apartment woke the neighborhood around two this morning. Witnesses reported two men running from the building. When the police got there, they found the door forced and the place empty. No sign of violence other than the door; they were looking for people, not things.”

Josh frowned. “Two men. Then Derek wasn’t there when they broke in.”

Raven sighed. “He always has pretty good street connections wherever he is. And he told me he expected them to find him just because he was a
possible
danger. If he was warned in time, then he’s taken Shannon and gone to ground somewhere.”

“Any ideas where?”

Her smile was crooked. “I think I told you once that all of us secret agent types had a specialty? Well, Derek’s is the ability to disappear—thoroughly. I told him we’d help if he needed a safe house, but I’m willing to bet he has half a
dozen of his own scattered around Richmond … just in case.”