Passion (27 page)

It was a pretty little place, he thought, even if it did look as if it belonged in the Southwest—Arizona, California, or perhaps
someplace more exotic, like Morocco—than in Richmond, Virginia.

He shifted into first gear, set the parking brake, and shut off the engine. “Is this where you live?”

She nodded.

“It’s a dollhouse.”

His pronouncement made her smile. “This estate used to belong to the Grayson family. They were a big name locally in the early
part of the century. This was where the groundskeeper lived. The house is a replica of the family home—which is farther down
the drive—only, of course, this one is much smaller since a groundskeeper didn’t need space or luxury. I don’t guess they
gave any thought to the fact that Spanish or Mediterranean or Moorish architecture—whichever style it is—doesn’t work well
on such a small scale.”

Unbuckling his seat belt, he opened the door and climbed out. Damp heat and the fragrance of flowers greeted him. “It works
well enough,” he said, joining her at the front of the truck. “It just looks…”

“Like a dollhouse.”

As they crossed the courtyard, she dug her keys from her purse and unlocked the back door. The layout, John saw when he stepped
inside, was simple. The front and back
doors opened into a narrow hallway that ran the length of the L-shaped house. The living room, just visible through the door
up ahead on the right, formed the short leg, and the kitchen and dining room, on the left, made up the longer leg. If the
upstairs was the same size—and given the width of the balcony he’d noticed, he would bet it was smaller—the entire house was
maybe a thousand square feet, probably less. The whole thing would have fitted neatly inside the office and living room in
his
house.

As he closed the door behind him, she adjusted the thermostat on the hall wall, turning it low enough to bring the air conditioner
on. Then she simply stood there, looking awkward, apparently feeling uncomfortable in her own home. In spite of their truce,
he knew that she really didn’t want him here, invading her space, still controlling her life. Would it make a difference to
her if she knew she would handsomely benefit from their brief association? If he told her, showed her, proved to her, that
she would be a wealthy woman when this was over, would it make her any happier about the circumstances?

Not likely. Especially since she wouldn’t believe him.

Probably the only thing he could do that would make her happy was disappear. Then she could convince herself that the last
four days were only a bad dream. Then she could go back to worshiping Simon Tremont. Then she could forget that John Smith
had ever existed.

Shoving his hands into his hip pockets, he passed her and went into the living room, stopping near the sofa. The room was
small, but it didn’t seem so. The sense of space was due in part to the three sets of French doors that filled one wall and
led outside to the courtyard and in part to Teryl’s style. It was comfortable without being cluttered. There was a sofa in
wide blue and white stripes and a big armchair in a nubby white fabric of the sort meant for settling in, fronted by a hassock
almost as big as the chair itself and in the same fabric. The tables at each end of the sofa were open, two tiers, wood and
glass, the same as the shelves tucked in wherever there was space. There were baskets all over, one holding magazines, others
filled with books, dried flowers, and fragrant
potpourri. The curtains at the door, were white and sheer; he could see the bright reds, pinks, and yellows of the flowers
outside through them.

It was an easy room to be in… or, at least, it would be if Teryl wasn’t standing so uncomfortably at the door.

He turned to look at her. She’d been wearing the same dress for three days now, had sat for hundreds of miles in it, had slept
in the less-than-comfortable confines of the truck in it. It was wrinkled and limp and had definitely seen better days, but
she still looked lovely in it.

Sweet damnation, how he would like to take it off her.

For a long time he continued to look at her, and after a nervous moment, she looked back. How could two people, each half
of the same relationship, see each other so differently? he wondered with regret. He looked at her and saw a beautiful woman,
a woman he wanted to be with, a woman he wanted right this moment to make love to, while
she
looked at
him
and saw a man she wished she’d never met. A man she couldn’t trust. A crazy man.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he
was
crazy. Living the way he had after Tom’s death—drifting from place to place, from job to job, barely living while he tried
dying—wasn’t normal. Retreating into the mountains and cutting off virtually all contact with the outside world for eleven
years wasn’t normal, either. Neither was kidnapping an innocent woman, taking her hostage, and forcing her against her will
to help him. Or wanting her so damned badly—while she was still his hostage, still his victim—that she haunted his sleep.

Maybe he
was
crazy in those ways.

But not about Simon. He knew
he
had created the pseudonym.
He
had written the books.
His
alter ego was the man Teryl adored, not that arrogant, smug, condescending bastard she had met in New Orleans. He
knew
those things, knew them beyond a shadow of doubt, knew them as surely as he knew he wanted Teryl.

But
she
didn’t know.

She leaned one shoulder against the arched doorjamb and folded her arms across her chest just beneath her breasts. If she
knew what a provocative pose it was—fabric pulled taut
across her breasts, then falling loosely practically to her ankles, revealing a hint of the loveliness of her body while concealing
everything else—she would move immediately. She would pull the material away from her soft nipples, would round her shoulders
so the dress fell, unimpeded by curves, all the way to the hem, or would raise her arms higher, providing better camouflage.

She could cover herself in armor from head to toe, but she could never erase the memories he had of her naked in bed beneath
him. She could never make him forget how sweetly rounded her breasts were, how taut her nipples had become, how slender her
hips were, how soft and tantalizing the curls between her thighs were. She could never make him forget the heat he had stirred
inside her or the way she had fitted him so tightly. She could never reclaim from him the sound of the soft whimpers she made
or the feel of her body clamping hard around him or the flush her skin took on when she came or the way she turned all soft
and weak when it was over.

She
could forget, but she could never make
him
forget.

Judging from that hazy look in her eyes, he thought it was a fair bet at that moment that she wasn’t trying to forget anything.

“What—” Breaking off, she cleared away the hoarseness from her throat before trying again. “What do you want to do now?”

He knew the sort of answer she wanted—let’s unpack, let’s get dinner, let’s watch TV—but he had no interest in those answers.
They had wasted enough time in the last few days packing and unpacking, had eaten enough meals together, had watched enough
television together. He wanted more. He wanted activity. Conversation. Stimulation.

He wanted arousal, passion, completion, exhaustion.

He wanted sex.

He walked toward her, covering the distance in his own sweet time, coming to a stop directly in front of her. “I suppose seducing
you is out of the question.”

His regretful, yet hopeful words took her by surprise, making her eyes widen, her breath catch, her muscles tighten.
She tried to hide it when she spoke, but the slight tremble in her voice gave it away. “That isn’t going to happen.”

“Why not? You were more than eager Tuesday night. You were agreeable Thursday night. You were pretty damned willing last night.
What’s different now?”

She didn’t answer his question. Instead, she simply repeated her answer. “It isn’t going to happen. I can’t let it. You can’t
make it.”

He studied her for a moment, then smiled a little. “You’re wrong, Teryl. I
can
make it happen.” He saw the misunderstanding darken her eyes and immediately dispelled it. “I’m not talking about using force.
If I were going to rape you, I would have done it Wednesday morning before we left the hotel. I would have done it again that
night, when we were lying in your bed. Hell, we never would have gotten farther than Slidell if that was what I’d had in mind.
But I’m not talking about rape. I’m talking about making love. I’m talking about kissing you, about touching you here…” He
stroked his hand along her jaw. “And here…” Just the tips of his fingers brushed across her breast, lingering only long enough
to start the sweet rush of sensation that would harden her nipples. “And here…”

She caught his wrist before he reached below her waist. Her neat, short nails were pressing hard against his skin, creating
four little half-moons of pain. “Another rule,” she said, her gaze locked with his, her voice little more than a whisper.
“Keep your hands to yourself. I don’t want them on me.”

He lowered his voice to match hers. The softness enclosed them in an air of intimacy. “You don’t? Then why are your breasts
swelling? Why are your nipples hard? Why are you getting wet? Why are you trembling?”

Dropping his wrist, she turned away, quickly putting the width of the hallway between them. “You’d better decide what’s more
important to you: meaningless sex or getting access to Rebecca’s files on Tremont.”

Mimicking the position she’d abandoned—arms folded across his chest, shoulder braced against the doorframe—he
studied her. “Meaningless sex, Teryl?” he asked quietly. “Is that what you think it was?”

Her cheeks flushed, and she avoided his gaze. She also avoided answering. Instead, she climbed the first few steps before
glancing in his general direction again. “Why don’t you bring the suitcases in, and I’ll show you which room you can use.”
Without waiting for his response, she went upstairs and disappeared from sight.

Meaningless sex.

He had known that going to bed with her when he had lied to her from the start wasn’t a good idea. She had believed that he’d
gone to her hotel room with her that night for no reason other than lust, for nothing more than a few hours of passionate
sex and mutual satisfaction. Then he’d told her his full name, had told her his story, and her insecurities had kicked in.
The man she had loved, had lived with and wanted to marry, had deceived her, had merely used her. That experience must have
made it easy for her to believe that
he,
too, had used her, that the sex had been simply a means to an end, that—if not for his need to get into Rebecca’s office—he
never would have been in Teryl’s bed.

Insecure or not, if she believed that, she was a fool. He had wanted her in spite of his need for her help, not because of
it. He had wanted her—still wanted her—because she was a beautiful woman, because he liked being with her, because he liked
the way she smiled, the way she walked, the way she talked, the way she kissed. He had wanted her because he’d gone so damned
long without sex, because lust was a powerful need, because her actions had told him that she would be willing, because instinct
had told him that they would be good. It had had nothing to do with Simon.

For those few hours Tuesday night, he had forgotten that Simon even existed.

But maybe he was being arrogant. Maybe
meaningless
was how
she
felt about it. Maybe, for her, Tuesday evening had boiled down to one thing: sex, pure and simple. Maybe
he
was the one who had been used. If he hadn’t offered to spend the evening with her, maybe the man posing as Simon would have
been in her bed instead, or the waiter at Pat
O’Brien’s who had served her drinks with more attention than was necessary, or the cab driver who had leeringly watched them
in his rearview mirror. Maybe John’s presence in her bed that night had simply been a matter of luck that had had nothing
to do with
him
and everything to do with fulfilling the fantasy of a nameless, faceless, anonymous fuck.

I always thought it would be fun, just once in my life, to be wicked in New Orleans.

Instead of the desire, instead of the attraction and liking that he’d been convinced was mutual, maybe that was all it had
been.

Maybe he’d simply been her
fun
.

S
unday morning D.J. awakened with a headache, bruises up and down her arms, and an overall stiffness that added about ten years
to her thirty. Stretching her legs out, she realized that she was lying on a bare mattress, that she was naked except for
the sheet wound around her arms and wrists, and she hurt when she moved.

Her memories of last night weren’t particularly clear. All she knew was that they’d argued again—she and Rich—as they so often
did, and it had ended the way it always did. He had punished her, and in that sick, dark place inside her, she had enjoyed
it. She had wanted it. She’d gotten off on it.