Standing in the Shadows (23 page)

"No," she lied.

He slid his arms beneath her, gathering her tightly against him. "Then give it to me," he urged. "Just one more."

"Connor, you promised you would stop if I—"

"Give it to me, Erin," he commanded. "I want it." His voice rang with all the force of his will. It was not just her body he wanted to conquer. He was grasping for a bigger prize.

He drove her ruthlessly onward, and took what he wanted with a shout of triumph. She shattered, and flew to pieces.

She was weeping softly when she finally remembered who she was, and too exhausted even to be embarrassed. Connor turned out the light and pulled her against his chest. She lay in his arms, feeling the deep drum of his heart gradually slow.

Her eyes stung. What an idiot, to think she could control this, or him. Use him for sex, hah. She had thrown herself at him, and now she was all his. He could use her any way he pleased, and he knew it.

She was his, but she had no idea if he was hers.

Connor jerked awake when the phone rang. He reached for it, but Erin was closer, and she grabbed it first.

"Hello?" She waited. "Hello? Hello!" She rattled the lever, hung up, and fell back onto the bed. "Must be a glitch in their wake-up call system," she said sleepily. "Did you ask for a wake-up call?"

"At three-seventeen in the morning? Like hell."

Every moment that passed, his eyes picked more details out of the gloom: the curves and contours and lovely shadows of her face. He pulled her close to his body, which sprang to throbbing attention at the contact with her silky, flower-petal heat. He was contemplating whether seducing her again would be overdoing it when she let out a soft snore.

There was his answer. He nuzzled his nose into her hair, and concentrated on the yogic breathing exercises Davy had inflicted on him when he was wrestling with pain management and weaning himself off Percocet. Fill the abdomen, then the chest. Hold it in, one… two… three, then slowly release. Each breath relaxing more deeply, letting the tension melt away, the heart rate slow, each muscle let go—

The phone shrilled again. He sprang for it, and Erin jerked into shocked wakefulness. "Who the fuck is this?" he snarled.

There was a pause, not dead air, but a live line in which he knew someone was listening. Then the person on the other end started to laugh. A low, rasping chuckle. "Hello, McCloud. I understand you are enjoying yourself. Very wise. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?"

"Who is this?" he demanded.

"You know who I am," the man said. "You know my voice, no?"

Erin turned on the light before he could stop her. He turned his face away. He didn't want her to see how scared he was. "What do you want?"

That hideous, theatrical laugh again. "You know what I want, McCloud. You took something from me. I want it back."

"Where are you?" he asked, just for the hell of it.

Click. The phone went dead.

He let the phone drop to the bed. Erin touched his shoulder, and he jerked as if her hand were a live wire.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"Novak," he said.

Her hand dropped. "That's not possible."

"I know," he snarled. "But it was him. I know his voice."

"But how… who knew that we were coming here?"

"No one," he said. "Not even my brothers."

He hung up, and called the front desk. It rang six times before a sleepy, youthful male voice answered. "Uh… uh, good evening, Crow's Nest Inn, can I help—"

"Did you just put through a call to Room 404?"

The kid yawned. "Uh… actually, I was asleep, so no. There haven't been any calls since before midnight."

"Could the call have gone to an automated voice mail system?"

"No, sir, we don't have one of those." The kid was waking up, his voice getting strident and defensive. "If somebody called you, it woulda had to have been from inside the hotel. Room to room."

That would have made his blood run cold, if it had not already been subzero. "Did you give our room number
to
any other guests?"

"No way!" The kid's voice was shrill with outrage. "That's not allowed! We'll put a call through, but we never give out room numbers!"

He was stupid to alienate the guy, but too freaked out to care. "Then I need a list of all the guests in the hotel. Right now."

"I'm gonna have to talk to the manager about that. I'm not authorized to do that."

"Get him," Connor ordered. "Now."

"I can't." The kid's voice was triumphant. "He won't be in till nine o'clock tomorrow morning, and besides—"

Connor slammed the phone down. Only Erin's big, worried eyes kept him from hurling the fucking thing against the wall.

He was losing it, and Erin was staring at him, clutching the sheet to her chest. Afraid for him. Or worse,
of him
. He dropped his face into his hands, and groped for a plan. He was tempted to call Nick, but he knew how that would play. Even if Nick believed him, which was doubtful, and even if Nick could get someone out here relatively quickly with a warrant to scour the hotel, Novak would never make it so easy. Connor would end up looking like a bozo with his head up his ass, and matters would be worse. And Erin would end up going to meet this Mueller asshole. Alone.

You have something that I want
. He shuddered.

Erin scrambled across the bed and draped her soft, comforting warmth against his shaking shoulders. "There's no way that Novak could know that we're here."

"I heard him, Erin," he said grimly. "I know that guy's voice."

"Voices can be deceiving, particularly on the telephone." she said. "Did he say who he was? Did he actually say the name Kurt Novak?"

He ran the brief conversation through his mind. "No," he admitted reluctantly. "But he called me by name."

"Hmm," she murmured. "And what else did he say?"

"He said, 'You know who I am.' And he said I took something from him, and he wanted it back. I assume he was referring to you. Then he hung up."

"But he did not say who he was," she-repeated.

"Erin, goddamn it—"

"Is there any way at all that you might have dreamed some of it? Projected Novak's voice onto some silly prank call?"

"You saw me talk to him," he snapped. "Did I look like I was dreaming? What are the odds that we would get a call like that tonight?"

She laid her hot cheek against his back. "I'm a deep sleeper," she said. "I've seen and heard strange things while coming out of a dream. You're so worried and stressed, it would be understandable if you—"

"I am not losing it." He bit the words out viciously.

She went very still. "I never said that you were." Her voice was crisp. "Don't you dare get huffy on me, Connor McCloud."

He groped for her hand, which was still resting on her shoulder, and pressed it to his lips. As much of an apology as he could manage.

It seemed to satisfy her. Her hands began to move again, sliding over his chest. "OK. Let's try this from another angle," she said. "Could he have found us by following the trail of your credit card?"

He could tell from her tone that she was just humoring him, but he appreciated the effort. Almost as much as he appreciated her sweet, stroking hands. He shook his head. "I used a fake ID. Complete with Social Security number, credit history, driver's license."

Her hands stopped moving. "Isn't that, urn… against the law?"

"Sure it is. My buddy Seth set it up for me. For my birthday present, believe it or not. Trust Seth, to come up with the perfect gift."

"Oh." Her voice was small and thoughtful.

"I gave him all kinds of moralistic shit about it at the time. He just laughed and said, 'Happy birthday, tight-ass. Your day will come.'"

Her soft lips moved against his neck. He wanted to tell her that he didn't need to be gentled like a skittish horse, but it would be a lie. She scooted around until she was facing him, and put her arms around him. Hugged him, her lush tits pressed against his chest.

His physical reaction was immediate, and predictable. He struggled to focus on his problem through the rising haze of lust. "Maybe… maybe they, uh, tagged my car," he mumbled.

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "That's enough of that," she said. "It's three-thirty in the morning, and you need to get some rest, no matter who was on the other end of that phone."

He settled his hands in the curve of her slender waist. "Erin—"

"You've got alarms on the doors and windows. You've got your gun right at your elbow. If you can't relax now, then when can you?"

"Never," he said. "How am I supposed to sleep? I'm as pumped up as a racehorse at the starting gate."

She curled her fingers around his stiff cock, and squeezed him with seductive tenderness. Her siren's smile made his brain melt down to molten lava. "Could you if we, ah…"

"Don't tempt me," he growled. "We've been at it for hours. I don't want to hurt you."

She laughed softly. "That is so sweet of you," she whispered against his mouth. "And so misguided. You are so cute, Connor."

She kissed him. Her lips were so delicate and soft, her tongue flicking against his with shy insistence. She cut through his resistance with no effort at all. He dragged her closer and kissed her back. Frantically, like someone was trying to take her from him.

Someone is
, a laconic voice in his mind observed.

He shoved the voice away. This moment was his, and he would allow nothing to diminish it. She flung her thigh over his lap, and her wiggling and writhing almost got him off then and there. He fought the excitement down to a dull, pounding roar in his ears.

Then she seized his cock and attempted to push him inside her. He flung his head back with a startled gasp, and hung on to his self-control. She was too tight to take in much of him in this position, but it was amazing. A hot, suckling kiss, just the head of his cock gripped tightly inside her. She moved against him, tentative and awkward, and his heart practically exploded with tenderness. She was so generous and sexy and gorgeous. All he wanted was to sprawl over backwards on the bed and let her have her wicked way with him, but he didn't dare, not without a condom. He had to be on top, to control the timing and the angle. He was on the brink of exploding inside her right now.

He was still shaking with adrenaline, but Erin had shoved that hellish phone call into another room in his mind and slammed the door on it. It waited for him, grim and patient. It wasn't going anywhere.

Let it wait. He cupped the curves of her ass cheeks, and stood, lifting her with him. Still joined just a couple of wet, tantalizing inches. He turned around and laid her down on the rumpled bed, never once breaking that hot, clinging contact. He stayed on his feet as he sank his full length into her welcoming body.

Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe just the sight of her smiling, holding out her arms to him, but the whole thing flew right out of control. Out of nowhere, he found himself panting and heaving and pumping against her; she was making those soft, sobbing sounds, and the bed was rattling and shaking. He knew he should slow down and make her come first, but it was beyond him. He would make it up to her later a thousand times over. This time was all for him. He craved the oblivion of this hot, slick, mindless thrusting, the deafening crash and roar as his orgasm blasted through him, obliterating thought.