Riptide (14 page)

“God.” It had been a long time since she’d had to be constantly on the alert for danger. After Marvin had spirited her away from Marrezo, it had taken her years to learn how to live without seeing shadows around every corner, hear whispers behind every door.

Marvin, bless his heart, had never stopped seeing assassins behind every shrub. Even years later when it was obvious no one was coming after her.

Yet now, with this new wrinkle, Bria felt the familiar itchy feeling between her shoulder blades. As if a bull’s-eye had been painted on her back. Two violent acts in a matter of hours in such close confines couldn’t be put down to paranoia. And she didn’t need her guardian’s voice in her ear to remind her coincidences like that shouldn’t be ignored.

One, maybe. She’d rationalized her recent attack to make it fit the current scenario. A random act of violence. But that didn’t gel anymore if someone had killed the man who’d tried to kill her. The whole thing added a new level of confusion to what she already felt.

She realized she’d been staring at the floor in front of her. Nick hadn’t said anything, allowing the silence to stretch until she was aware of her own heartbeat in her ears. Of his grip firm and steady at the back of her neck.

She frowned, straightening her shoulders. “So,” she said slowly, “someone liberated him from wherever he was locked up, then just threw him overboard?” She didn’t wait for the obvious answer, adding tersely, “Let me go, please. I won’t be manhandled, especially now.”

“Yes, you will,” he said, and caught her arm with his other hand as if guiding her in a dance. Only they weren’t dancing, and he wasn’t letting go. Not even to cross the circular lobby. “Especially by me,” he added, low voice tight with … what? Anger? Determination?

Damn it, he was impossible to read.

She set her jaw as her shoes rasped against the floor. Beside her, Nick’s bare feet were silent as a cat’s. He pushed her ahead of him down the wood-paneled hall, toward his office. And his bedroom. Bria’s internal thermostat flipped to high.

And because thinking of an attempt on her life seemed much safer than thinking about the bed in Nick’s room, she tried grasping at straws. “Maybe,” she said hopefully, too brightly, “this has nothing to do with me. Do you have any clues as to why any of this happened?”

“Not yet.”

She almost felt sorry for whoever was going to receive the punishment Nick’s frozen tone implied. Almost. But, she realized as they approached the end of the corridor, she had a more immediate threat to contend with.

Ignoring his cabin wouldn’t make it go away.

She tried to slow her steps. Anything to delay their progression. She was not going back into that bedroom with him. She’d gotten away fairly unscathed the first time. She wasn’t going back for a second helping of Nick Cutter.

Just because he warmed up to tolerable under certain situations didn’t mean she liked his attitude the rest of the time.

He frog-marched her into his office, and once more, she was struck by how much it looked nothing like the rest of his sleek, modern ship. She could live in here. It was cluttered, a little dusty, and filled with warmth and personality and color. Completely unlike the man who was gripping her neck as if he were about to do a Vulcan mind-meld.

Nick kicked the office door shut behind him, then spun her around to sandwich her between his hard, practically naked, damn him, body and the cool glossy mahogany.

Her temperature shot to a hundred and fifty.

“We have unfinished business,” he said softly. “Princess.”

Oh. Hell. No.

She was almost eye level with his mouth. Her gaze snagged there for a second. Another. Then slid up to meet his laser blue eyes head-on. “No, we don’t.” She was pleased she was still able to command a level, no-nonsense tone with him.

“Yes.” Slowly he slid his hand from the back of her neck, eased it out from under her hair—making the sensitive follicles stand to attention—then spread his fingers across her throat where her pulse throbbed a crazy beat. “Yes, we do.”

Bria flattened her hand on his chest to hold him at bay. Big mistake. Huge. His chest was bare, hot satin against her palm. Her fingers involuntarily curled against solid muscle covered by crisp hair.

Like petting a live wire.

She shoved as hard as she could. She might as well have been shoving the ship itself, because he didn’t budge. And she didn’t have anywhere to go. She frowned up at him. “I already told you no.”

“You panicked,” he countered, the self-assurance of his voice making the temperature in her blood spike.

God, yes. But she didn’t want him to know that. The knowledge would give him power. Bria made a rude noise. “I did no such thing.”

“Freaked out like a virgin.”

“I can assure you,” she said, responding to his taunt with a lift of her chin and slitted eyes, “I’m not.”

“Let me guess.” His thumb stroked a maddening line along the sensitive skin under her jaw. “Two lovers. One in high school, who was as inexperienced and inept as you were, one because you wanted to see what sex between two consenting adults was like, but he was too selfish to do the job properly.”

Close enough. She swallowed hard. “Wrong,” Bria denied stoutly as he lowered his head. She made a feeble attempt at shifting her mouth out of his reach, but her nanosecond of triumph turned to a small moan as, instead of kissing her, Nick put his open mouth on her bare shoulder. A shiver traveled under her skin as he lightly bit down.

“I’ve had dozens of lovers,” Bria lied, not daring to move, hoping to brazen this encounter unscathed. Her nipples tightened under the thin linen of the dress as his teeth raked across her shoulder. “I’m a princess. We’re mad for lovers.” Her mind fractured beneath the hard edge of his teeth. “Not,” she added tartly, “that it’s any of your damn business.”

He pushed several strands of her hair out of his way, and she felt the heated wetness of his tongue as he tasted her skin. He slipped his other hand around her waist, his hand curving up between her shoulder blades. “You’re on my ship.”

“So what? You think that entitles you to special privileges?” Surrounded by the heat of him, overwhelmed by the fresh-air smell of his skin, Bria kept her head upright with effort. Everything in her wanted to arch her throat to give him better access.

She didn’t dare.

“News flash,” she continued, aware it came out more breathy than she’d intended and powerless to help it. “You do not have a feudal system on board. And just because I’m the only female, doesn’t mean you can pull rank and claim me as your own sexual plaything.”

The very thought of that gave Bria a fresh case of goose bumps.

His lips moved against her skin as he said, all too freaking rationally, “Officially, as captain, Jonah has rank.” His damp mouth traveled slowly up the straining cords of her throat. “But yes,” he whispered against her ear, making her internal organs clench.

Bria blinked. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, Princess, I’m pulling rank.”

“That’s outrageous!” Her indignation would have sounded more sincere if her voice hadn’t gone up several octaves, and her pulse skidded into overdrive. “I didn’t want you to kiss me, why would I sleep with you?”

“Oh, there won’t be much sleeping, I promise.”

Oh God, oh God, she was so out of her depth, she could feel the water closing over her head. “Excuse me. Don’t I get a vote on this?”

“Of course,” he said nibbling her earlobe. The small nip was hard enough to sting. The way he sucked it, smoothed the small pain better, made a whole raft of other sensations suffuse her body with pulsing heat. Her fingers curled defensively against his chest.

His lips moved up to her temple where she knew he’d feel the manic racing of her heart. “Now?” he murmured. “Or later?”

Damn it. It was impossible to think clearly when he was moving his mouth like that. “Now or later?” she repeated blankly.

“Right. Now.” He swept her up in his arms. The room spun.

Bria punched his shoulder. “Put me down.” He strode through to the bedroom. And the bed. She punched him harder. “I’m warning you, Nick—” She shrieked as he dumped her from a dizzying height onto the freshly made bed, where she bounced gracelessly.

He straightened. “There’s a killer on board,” he told her, his tone uncompromising as hell. His eyes pinned her to the bed. “Until I can ensure your safety you’re to stay put. Here, Princess.” He turned his back and walked to the door.

Bria scrambled to her knees. “I can protect myself, you egotistical … jerk!” Grabbing a book off the bedside table, she hiked back her arm and let it fly. It missed him by two feet and fell to the floor. She grabbed the other book and launched it after the first. He turned, hand on the door handle.

Just in time. The second book, bigger and heavier, hit him squarely in the middle of his chest. He looked from the projectile to her. “Childish.”

“Really?” Bria huffed out a furious laugh. “And not two seconds ago you wanted to have wild monkey sex with me!”

“Wild monkey sex? Sounds intriguing, but I don’t recall making that offer.”

With an infuriated growl she threw the small stone dish holding his watch and a few coins. Everything scattered on the wood floor between them.

He shook his head and arched a condescending brow. “My father gave me that watch for my twenty-fifth birthday.”

She bared her teeth. “My father was murdered right in front of my eyes when I was seven.” She looked around for something else to throw at the son of a bitch, rat fink bastard. Finding nothing, she rolled off the bed in a flurry of white sundress and bare legs and sprinted toward him. “You’re violating my civil rights! And I won’t tolerate being kept a pris—”

He slipped through the door, slammed and locked it before her race across the room could stop him. “Damn you!” she pounded both fists on the solid wood surface. “Get back in here, you— You—” There weren’t words vile enough. Her voice rose. “Damn it, Nick Cutter. Open this door immediately!”

“Calm down before you hurt yourself,” he said, his voice muffled by three inches of polished wood. “I’ll be—”

“Open the door and tell me to calm down again to my face!” she yelled, temper flaring white-hot. “Go on, I dare you.” She slapped her open hand on the door, which only made her fingers sting. “Nick, I’m warning you—”

To no avail. She heard the outer door of his office snick shut.

He’d gone. Just walked out.

She screamed out her fury and frustration at full throttle.

Then again, because yelling made her feel better.

She swore in Italian. At the top of her voice. But it wasn’t very satisfying. She only knew two curses. She knew three in French and she let those fly, multiple times. Then she gave English a shot.

Eventually, she got tired of yelling.

Muttering every swear word she knew in whatever languages she hadn’t exhausted yet, making them up when her twisted fury couldn’t find an apt enough outlet, Bria paced the room. To the bed.

She kicked off her shoes. Bastard.

That hadn’t been heat he’d shown her, it had been mirroring back what he thought
she
wanted to get her to do what
he
wanted.

Bria stormed to the window. That made some sort of convoluted sense. To the bathroom, where there were all sorts of breakables to throw—but knowing Nick, she’d be on her hands and knees cleaning up shampoo and debris until every shard and sudsy bubble were gone. Marv had made her do it enough times that she knew the drill.

She left the pristine bathroom to storm back to the door, where she pounded on it with both fists. “Bully!”

Her hands hurt. Finally, Bria walked to the chair by the window and stared out at the beauty of the sunlight sparkling on Cutter blue water. Growling low in her throat didn’t do anything to assuage the temper eating at her hard-won—and so easily lost—calm. She sucked in a ragged breath and yelled to her absent jailer, “You can’t keep me locked in here forever!”

Could he?

Spreading her fingers on the window, Bria acknowledged that she was having a meltdown. She needed to get a grip. But damn it. She was so … so … furious—and worse! Aroused.

She heard Marv’s voice in her head as if he were in the room with her. “You’re never gonna catch a man if you lose your temper like that, honey,” he’d said, over and over. “You gotta learn to control yourself.”

Thinking about the man who’d been like a father to her for most of her life made tears sting Bria’s eyes.

Someone had tried to kill her. All right. Fine, she could work with that. Her fingertips pressed against the cool glass as she stared fiercely out over the water. She could practically hear Marv’s answer; she knew exactly what he’d say: Cutter put you somewhere safe while he worked it out.

Fine. She was somewhere safe. She got that. But she didn’t need her foster father’s kind, gruff words to know what the real problem was. It wasn’t some unknown killer that had her twisted up inside.

“You’re scared all right,” she murmured, resting her forehead against the glass and closing her eyes.

But it was
Nick
who scared her.

“He’s too … complicated.” A cipher. Unreadable. Not controllable.

A challenge. Her lips curved as she thought about what Marvin might say. He’s a real man, honey. Not one of those nonthreatening, easily-led-by-the-nose types you always go after.

He—that is, her subconscious had it right. Marvin’s voice or not, she realized that was exactly the problem. No, not the problem … The lure. The draw, the—the spark.

Nick kept people at a distance with his cold, hard shell. Bria kept them at arm’s length with a sunny, flirty persona that hid the scared little girl, afraid of abandonment, inside.

Deep down she felt like a sham, from her polished toes to her manicured fingertips. She’d been trying to figure out who she was since she was seven and on the run.

Her parents’ death had traumatized her, and she still had nightmares. For the first seven years of her life, she’d been raised to be a princess. But that lifestyle had been abruptly shredded.

Marv had taught her everything he knew. And he’d known a lot. She could fieldstrip a variety of guns. She knew several forms of martial arts. But he’d also made sure she had all the skills necessary to be a princess, should she ever be called back home to Marrezo. She could talk as easily to a head of state as to a sick child in a hospital bed. She could ride, play tennis, and play the piano. She spoke several languages.