Passion (22 page)

It was the reason he’d made love to her.

Somehow, in the last few days, that conclusion had escaped her. She had preferred to think that he, like she, had been swept
away by passion, that lust had overcome good sense. She had wanted to believe that chemistry had played a part, that two people
who had each been alone too long had connected in all the right ways. She had liked the idea of one wicked night, a one-night
stand, two ships that pass in the night, and those sorts of things.

But the simple truth was he’d had ulterior motives from the beginning. The moment she had announced to him that she worked
for Rebecca Robertson, he had realized that he could use her, and he had set out to do just that. He had probably thought
he would have to invest much more time, effort, and energy into his plan, but she had been so easy. All it had cost him was
a few hours, a few drinks, and cab fare back to her hotel. Fifteen, twenty bucks, maximum.

He couldn’t have bought a hooker so cheap.

No wonder he had left her bed sometime in the night. She had been sorry to awaken and find him gone, but at the same time,
she had thought it was sweet of him to spare her the morning-after-with-a-total-stranger discomfort. Sweet, hell. He’d gotten
far more than he’d paid for. He had learned one of the most closely guarded secrets in New Orleans at that time: where Simon
Tremont was staying. He had probably gone through her things, had probably found the envelope with Simon’s departure time
on it. He had earned her trust, which had allowed him to walk right out of the hotel with her the next morning, had allowed
him to kidnap her with no one—including
her,
damn it—any the wiser.

And he’d gotten laid. Three times. A hell of a return on his
investment. She told herself it didn’t matter. So what if sleeping with her had merely been part of his plan? So what if he’d
taken her one wicked night and turned it into something even tawdrier, something sinister? So what if he’d screwed her because
it was part of his plan and not because he’d found her enticing and tempting as she’d found him? It
didn’t
matter.

Oh, but it did. It made her feel dirty. Ashamed. Foolish.

Leaning to the side, she rested her head against the window. Be careful, D.J. had told her on the phone Wednesday night.
These are my games you’re playing.
She had thought she was grown up enough to play adult games, but she’d been wrong. The first time in her life that she’d
tried to be daring and a little wild, and she had made big mistakes. In a city known for its decadence and party atmosphere,
she hadn’t even managed to find the right kind of man—a no-strings, no-commitment sort of guy who was interested first, last,
and only in sex. Instead, she’d hooked up with John, whose first interest was Simon Tremont, followed by Teryl’s job at the
agency, his own delusions, and his plans for her. Sex had come pretty far down on the list.

This never would have happened to D.J. No man had ever gone to bed with her feeling anything but desire, wanting anything
but her. Even John would have forgotten Simon Tremont’s name if he’d been with D.J. She was the sort of woman who drove men
to distraction.

Teryl, obviously, wasn’t.

They stopped for the night in North Carolina, in an ugly little town somewhere south of Raleigh. The rain had slowed them,
slacking off for a few miles here or there as they passed from one cell of bad weather into another but never stopping, never
relenting enough to let John relax.

Teryl hadn’t relaxed, either, though there had been no more storms along the way. Most of the afternoon had passed in silence
while she stared out the window. On the few occasions he’d tried to start a conversation with her, she had cut him off with
short, clipped answers before returning
her attention to the sights outside. He wondered what she found so interesting there. He wondered why she suddenly no longer
found
him
interesting.

This time, for a change, he checked into a reasonably nice motel, the best of the three in town. They ate a silent dinner
in the restaurant next door, then walked back to their room, protected by an overhang from the steady rain. He wouldn’t mind
getting wet, he thought, listening to the splashes and the hollow echo of their footsteps on concrete. He liked walking in
the rain, liked climbing to the top of his mountain and staking out a place on an outcropping of rock to watch it fall. Back
when he was a kid, he had liked surfing in the rain, too, and the times he had accompanied Janie on her runs had almost always
been in the rain. It was refreshing. Cleansing. And a pain in the butt for driving.

Maybe tomorrow morning the clouds would be gone and the sun would be shining. Maybe they would make better time on the remainder
of the trip. Maybe he would give up these potholed, congested, meandering two-lane highways and these depressing, shabby little
towns and take the interstate the rest of the way in.

And then what?

It didn’t take a brilliant mind to know that Teryl was hoping to dump him as soon as she got home. Maybe she intended to go
so far as to provide him with an introduction to Rebecca Robertson, but he doubted it. Most likely
all
she intended was to get rid of him. To do whatever was necessary to get him out of her way.

It wouldn’t be that easy for her. He wouldn’t let it be.

At the last room before the sidewalk took a left-hand jog around a corner, he stopped, pulled out a card key, and unlocked
the door. The lamps they’d left burning when they had dropped off their luggage were still on, the television was still tuned
to a twenty-four-hour cable news channel, and the air conditioner was humming efficiently. Even without stepping across the
threshold, he could feel its cool breeze.

Stepping back from the door, he gestured for Teryl to enter. “Why don’t you go ahead and get ready for bed?”

She looked vaguely suspicious. “Where will you be?”

“Out here.” He shrugged. “I’m not ready to come in yet.” It was a lame response, but it was true, and he figured it was safer
than telling the whole truth. He wasn’t ready to shut himself into a small room with her again. He wasn’t ready to sit on
one of the beds while she took a shower, wasn’t ready to listen to the sound of the water running and know that she was naked
and wet and touching herself in places that he would sell his soul to touch.

Most of all, he wasn’t ready to face the after-shower time. The time when she was dressed for bed. The time when he finally
got his first real privacy of the day. The time when he took his own shower. The time when—God forgive him—he had to tie her
to the bed.

After a moment’s hesitation, she went inside, picking up her suitcase as she passed the dresser, lifting it onto the nearest
bed. He watched from the doorway as she took out bottles of floral-scented liquids and creams, that damned tank top, and those
pin-striped shorts. He wanted to tell her that she could sleep in just the top—the shorts were too tailored to be particularly
comfortable—or in nothing at all. He wanted to assure her that he wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t force himself on her, wouldn’t
take advantage of her.

But she wouldn’t believe him. Hell, he wasn’t sure he believed himself.

Besides, if last night was any indication, he wouldn’t necessarily have to force her. When he had knelt beside the bed to
bind her hands, before she had realized what he was doing, she had been aroused. He had seen it in her eyes, had heard it
in the ragged tenor of her breathing. He had noticed her swollen breasts, had watched her nipples harden until they strained,
visibly taut, against the flowery print of her dress. She had wanted him, even being his hostage. Even believing he was crazy.
Even though it shamed her. When she had taken his hand, he could have dropped that telephone cord, and she would have continued
touching him. She would have let
him
touch
her.
She would have let him make love to her one more time.

He wouldn’t have had to force her… but he would have
been taking advantage of her, and that was almost as bad… wasn’t it?

As she turned away from the suitcase, her arms full of toiletries and clothing, she paused, her attention directed toward
the nightstand. She was standing so still, looking at the telephone. Remembering what he had used the cord for? Or wondering
if she would have an opportunity to use it and call for help while he was outside?

Then abruptly, as if realizing that he was watching her, she moved away from the bed and went into the bathroom, closing the
door behind her. A second later, he heard the click of the lock.

He stood where he was for a moment, wanting to trust her, wanting to turn his back and go outside again and not worry that
she would try to make a call. But, much as he regretted it, he couldn’t trust her, no more than she could trust him. He couldn’t
leave her and the telephone unguarded in the same room. Crossing to the nightstand in a half dozen strides, he held the phone
in one hand and yanked the cord from the wall with the other. Then he tossed the phone on the bed, went outside, closed the
door after him, and walked through the rain to the Blazer.

His hands were unsteady; it took him a moment to slide the key into the lock, a moment longer to turn it in the right direction.
Once the door was open, he didn’t bother climbing in out of the rain, but instead leaned across the seat to rummage in the
console for the book of matches he’d picked up at breakfast and the pack of cigarettes he’d bought this afternoon, along with
two Cokes and a tank of gas. That had been the only time since her comment about the thunderstorms that Teryl had initiated
a conversation with him.

I didn’t know you smoked, she had remarked in that slightly smug, slightly condescending tone nonsmokers tended to use with
those who did. I don’t very often, he had replied, which was a lie. He’d started when he was fifteen because the guys he’d
hung out with had smoked, because they had thought it was cool, and very much because his parents had denounced it as a nasty
habit. He’d taken up swearing about that time—not an occasional damn or hell, but
obscenities, every one he’d ever heard, the filthier, the better, and in every sentence—and drinking, too, all in an effort
to provoke parents who were already always angry with him.

But eventually he’d grown up. Recognizing swearing for the juvenile act that it was, he had cleaned up his vocabulary. He
had realized that drinking was pleasurable enough to become a risk, and so he had cut that back, too—although it was still
his strongest temptation when he was stressed out or more morose than usual. But he still smoked—not all the time but more
than was healthy.

She didn’t like cigarettes, Teryl had informed him, still using that superior tone of voice, and she would appreciate it if
he didn’t smoke around her. Well, that wasn’t a problem, he thought as he held a match to the cigarette between his lips.
She was in the bathroom, out of that damnable dress by now and in the shower, water pouring over her head, streaming across
her breasts, down the slope of her belly, and between her legs, and he was standing outside in the rain, trying to pretend
that he didn’t want to be in there with her. The only thing that connected them now was the fact that they were both wet…
and a certain part of him was bound to get a whole hell of a lot wetter if he didn’t quit imagining what she was doing and
how she looked doing it.

Hell and damnation.

Backing up, he slammed the door, then headed toward the room again. He didn’t pull his key out to go inside, though. He merely
stepped onto the sidewalk out of the rain, leaned back against the stucco wall, and took a deep drag on the cigarette.

Why was his luck so shitty? Why wasn’t Teryl shallow and self-absorbed or a snooty bitch? Why wasn’t she too ditsy to carry
on an intelligent conversation? Why the hell wasn’t she everything he
didn’t
like in a woman? Why did she have to be damn near everything he did like?

If he had met her a year ago—or three or five—maybe they could have had something. If they had met in Colorado instead of
New Orleans, if the purpose of her trip had been pleasure instead of business, if her business hadn’t been Simon Tremont…
He still would have thought that she was
pretty, innocent, and sexy as hell. It still would have taken him only a record-setting short time to decide he wanted her.
He still would have eventually mustered his courage and told her so flat out, and when she agreed, he still would have hustled
her off to the nearest bed and crawled deep inside her.

The only difference was that back then something could have come of it. Back then he wouldn’t have had to leave her that night
or kidnap her the next morning. Back then he wouldn’t have been forced to make her hate him before they’d even had a chance
to find out if she could ever feel anything else for him.

Of course, back then there hadn’t been another Simon Tremont living his life and stealing his glory. Back then he would have
appeared a reasonably normal man instead of a raving lunatic.

Jesus, he had the worst luck in the world.

He smoked the cigarette to the filter, lit another, then flicked the butt into the grass. It made little sizzling sounds in
the rain; then, with a puff of smoke, the glowing tip went out. He finished the second, the third, and the fourth the same
way. He was debating lighting a fifth but decided against it. His clothes were damp and clammy, and his feet were wet inside
his shoes. Teryl had had plenty of time for her shower, he wanted a shower of his own, and his need for the bathroom was growing
desperate. It was time to face her… and the bed… and the telephone cord, whether he wanted to or not.

That goddamned telephone cord.

Tucking the matches into the plastic wrap that enclosed the cigarette pack, he unlocked and opened the door and stepped inside.
He came to a sudden stop right there.

Teryl
was
finished with her shower, and she was sitting in the sole chair in the room. She had turned the television on its swivel
base to face her and had changed the channel to watch a syndicated rerun of “Murder, She Wrote”; although he couldn’t see
the screen, he recognized Angela Lansbury’s voice.