Strangers in Paradise (23 page)

“Marry me,” he said.

“What?”

Rex wasn't at all sure what had made him say that. He wanted her; he wanted her forever. And he wanted to keep her here, far from the Brandywine house. But marriage...

He really didn't know where the words had come from, but once they were out, he knew it was what he wanted. It was exactly what he wanted. She was beautiful, she was sweet, she was fire, she was a tranquil pool where he found peace.

“Marry me.”

“Rex—you're crazy.”

He stepped from the car and came around to her side, jerking the door open. None too gently, he caught her hands and pulled her up and into his arms and kissed her slowly and heatedly, holding her tightly to him. He lifted his lips a bare half inch from hers.

“Marry me.”

“You're a temperamental bastard,” she whispered in return. “You think you're some he-man. You think you can tell me what to do all of the time. I still don't believe you trust me—”

“I want your property,” he told her, smiling.

“I don't even own it.”

“Close enough.”

He picked her up and smiled at her as he started for the house. She curled her arms around his neck, but she still watched him skeptically. “Rex, I'm going home.”

“Later.”

“Rex—”

“Please, Alexi. Please. I want you.... I need you.”

“You're hardly deprived at the moment,” she murmured. “We've been off together alone—playing—for three days now.”

His arms tightened around her. She felt the keen burning flames in his eyes, glitter against ebony. It was crazy; it was mad—but she felt the touch of his eyes and the heat of his arms, and it was something that came to her, that built in her, and it was as if they had been apart for days, for months, for years. She felt the rapidly spreading wings of desire take flight, deep inside her, at her very core.

As he opened the door and brought them into the house, she was caught by the flare in his eyes, and was held by it as he headed for the bedroom. The shades were drawn and it was dark and cool, and when he put her down she couldn't remember why it had been imperative that she leave; now leaving was the last thing on her mind. He set her down upon the spread, and she was still, watching in silent fascination as he quickly stripped. She shivered in a whirlwind of anticipation and sensation then as he lay down beside her and removed her clothing with the same careless, nearly desperate abandon with which he had shed his own. She melded quickly with him in that same fierce, desperate heat. The urgency remained with them.... In moments, the culmination of something so fiercely desired burst upon them, sweet and exciting and exhausting. Alexi curled up at his side.

“Marry me,” he repeated softly after a moment.

Yes! she wanted to shout. But she didn't know whether or not it was right; she knew he feared the commitment, and the question had been so sudden. And she still couldn't begin to figure out what made him tick—she had no idea why he had been so angry at the restaurant or why he had been determined to keep her away from the Brandywine house.

“I do love you,” she whispered.

He turned to her, fierce, protective and somehow frightening in the shadows. “I love you, Alexi.” He said it slowly, as if professing the words without qualification was difficult. “I do. I love you.”

He kissed her again, running his fingers sensually over her lower abdomen and curling his naked feet around hers. Instantly she felt little flaming licks of desire light along her spine. She pulled away from him and threw her legs over the side of the bed to sit up. She and Rex should rise, she thought.

Softly, throatily, he whispered her name. He rose on his knees behind her, and she felt his lips against her shoulders. He turned her in his arms...and she was lost. This time he was very, very slow, making love like an artist. They'd been so hurried before, but now he took his time. He touched her....

And touched her. Stroking the soles of her feet, finding a fascination with the curve of her hip, laving her breasts with endless kisses that each sent waves of sensation flooding through her. He said the words to her again and again.

“I love you....”

She didn't know quite what it was about those three simple words. When the climax exploded upon her that time, it was as if a nova had burst across the heavens.

Three little words—difficult for him to say, but whispered with a joyous sureness. Difficult for him to say, and so incredibly special because of that. She whispered them in return. Sweetly and slowly and savoringly, she whispered them against his flesh. Then she curled against him and slept.

Later, she vaguely heard the phone ring. She even knew, because the warmth was gone, that he had left her. But she was so very drained and tired. She just kept sleeping.

* * *

He hadn't meant to sleep. He'd planned on Alexi doing so, but he hadn't counted on winding up quite so exhausted himself. But certain things just had a way of leading to certain other things.

The phone woke him. At first he didn't even recognize the ringing sound. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair, dimly aware that the machine in his office would pick it up. He heard Mark Eliot's voice, though, and leaped to his feet, anxious to catch the bedroom extension before Mark could hang up.

“Mark!”

“Rex. You know the guy you're so worried about, this Vinto character?”

“Yeah, what have you got?”

“He's out there somewhere. On the peninsula. I got a make on a rental car—a blue Mazda—and Harry Reese just told me he saw a blue Mazda turn down the road for the peninsula about half an hour ago.”

“I'll be damned,” Rex murmured. “Mark—thanks a lot. I'm going to get over there now—before Alexi can find out anything about him being here.”

“Oh,” Mark said. “
Oh!
That's the John Vinto on the pictures of the magazines! The photographer. The ex-husband!”

“Yes!” Rex said. “I'm going to run, Mark. Thanks again. I'll talk to you soon.”

He hung up and glanced over at Alexi. She murmured something, curling deeper into her pillow. Her hair was a spill of gold over his sheets; her form, half draped beneath covers and half bare, was both evocative and sweet. Emotions unlike anything he had ever known rose and swirled in a tumult inside him. Rex pulled the covers up around her and kissed her on the forehead.

He'd be damned if he'd let John Vinto anywhere near her again. Ever.

Rex dressed quickly in dark jeans and a pullover, grabbed a flashlight from his drawer and glanced at Alexi one more time. She was still sleeping. He hurried out of the house. Deciding not to take the car, he began a slow jog down the path. It was windy, he noticed, and the air had grown cool. Looking up at the sky as it grew dark with the coming of night, Rex noticed black patches against the gray. There was a storm brewing. A big one. He started running faster.

The porch and hallway lights had been left on at the Brandywine house; Emily had been taking care of the animals, and it seemed reasonable that she would leave lights on. Rex thought absently that he should have called Emily to tell her that he was back.

He saw the blue Mazda, sitting right before the path to the house. Then, right behind it, he noticed Emily's little red Toyota.

His heart began to beat too quickly. Emily. What if John Vinto
was
dangerous?

“Emily!” he called and charged up the path to the house. He swore, aware that he had forgotten his key. It didn't matter; the door was open. He pushed it inward.

“Emily! Samson! Vinto!” With a sense of déjà vu, Rex tore up the stairs. There was no one in any of the bedrooms. What really worried him the most was that Samson didn't answer his calls.

He searched the downstairs, absently noticing that the wall beneath Pierre's portrait had been torn apart. Something must have started to fall, he thought, and Emily had called in help. What the hell difference did it make now? Vinto might well be a psychopath, and he was missing, along with Emily, one massive shepherd and two kittens.

Where the hell could they be?

Rex tore out of the house and raced toward the beach, trying to search through the trees. He traveled all the way through the trail of pines until the waves of the Atlantic crashed before him. He turned back. They had to be the other way.

His gaze fell on his own house. The lights were all on upstairs.

A streak of lightning suddenly lit up the sky; a crack of thunder boomed immediately after. Through the pines, Rex saw a jagged flare of fire catch, sizzle...and fade.

And then the lights in both houses went out. “Alexi!” he screamed. The rain began to fall as he raced back toward his house. He threw open the front door. “Alexi! Alexi! Alexi!”

There was no answer but the sure and ceaseless patter of the rain. He'd known she was gone. She was somewhere within the darkened Brandywine house.

“Alexi!” He started to run.

* * *

The bed was still warm beside her when Alexi awoke. She smiled. He was up, but he had to be nearby.

It had grown dark. She reached over to switch on the bedside lamp. “Rex?”

He didn't answer her. Alexi crawled out of bed and scrambled into her clothing. “Rex!” she called, zipping up her shorts. She started down the stairs and headed for his office. He wasn't there, and some sixth sense told her that he was nowhere in the house. She noticed that his answering machine was blinking. Curious, she went over and pressed the playback button, hoping that a message might give her a clue to his whereabouts. Maybe Gene had called. Maybe Rex had gone to meet him at the house.

Rex seemed to have a dozen messages. She sat through six business calls, two friends saying “hi” and then a call from Mark Eliot—a call that made her start in surprise. Rex's answers had been recorded, along with Mark's information.

Listening to the exchange, Alexi felt a numbness of fear sweep over her. John was there, on the peninsula. Why? Had he been there all along, watching her, spying on her, stalking her?

She gasped aloud, suddenly more afraid of the sound of Rex's voice.
He meant to meet John.
And God only knew what he meant to do. “No, oh, no!” She hurried toward the door. She didn't know what to do; she was too frightened to really think. John was her problem, though. Rex shouldn't be dealing with him. And she was afraid to think about just how Rex might be dealing with the man.

She ran, barefoot, toward the Brandywine house. Against the darkness of night, it seemed ablaze.

She hadn't noticed the coming storm. She screamed out, startled and cringing, as a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Thunder cracked immediately, and then she saw a flash of fire. The fire sizzled out—and the world was pitched into an ebony darkness.

Rain started to fall against the earth in great, heavy plops.

Alexi swore softly and raced on toward the house. In a flash of lightning she saw an unfamiliar blue car and Emily's red Toyota. She kept going up the path. The front door was ajar; Alexi pushed it inward.

“Rex! Emily? Samson!” She swallowed, straining to see in the darkness. “John...?”

Alexi stumbled into the kitchen. She groped around the cabinets, reaching to the top to find a candle, then swore vociferously in her efforts to find matches. At last she came across a book of them and managed to light one with her chilled, dripping fingers. She cajoled the wick into catching, then raised the candle high. The kitchen seemed eerie in the darkness.

Something drifted over her bare foot. Alexi screamed and nearly dropped the candle, and for one instant she was convinced that her ancestral home was haunted—and that a ghost had wafted over her. Then she heard a soft, plaintive mewling.

“A kitten!” she whispered, stooping to find the little pile of fluff that had rubbed against her. She picked it up and smiled at the brilliant, scared eyes that met hers. “Silver. Where's your cohort? And where in heck is Samson? Hey, you're all wet....”

Alexi frowned and raised the candle higher. She gasped then, realizing that the back door was open. She stepped toward it and the porch beyond it, her frown deepening as she noticed a large, huddled form there. Her heart quickened with fear.

“Rex?”

She kept going. She wanted to scream, and she wanted to stop—and she could not. She set the kitten down in the kitchen and stepped out onto the back porch.

The huddled form was a body. She began to shake, terrified. She had to touch it.... Someone was hurt; someone needed help.

She went down on her knees, and her eyes widened. She saw a patch of blond hair.

“John!” She gasped. She touched his shoulder nervously. “John?” She pulled her hand away and began to shake in earnest. There was blood all over her hand.

“Oh, my God!” she breathed. She heard the front door slam. Then she heard footsteps racing through the house. A scream of terror rose to her throat.

Rex. Rex had come here, and Rex had killed John. It was her fault. John was dead. She'd hated him; she'd feared him—but, oh God, she'd never expected this....

She screamed as a figure burst out upon her.

“Alexi!”

It was Rex. He raced over to her and paused, staring at her, then at the body. He dropped to his knees beside the body and pressed a finger against John's throat. He looked at Alexi again.

“This is Vinto?” His voice had a harsh, strangling sound. Alexi gazed at him blankly. He
knew
this was John.
He had done this thing to him.

“You...you...”

“We've got to get help out here right away,” he muttered.

“Oh, Rex! Oh, God!”

“Alexi, you're going to have to tell the police everything that happened between you. Everything. From before.”

“What?”

“I love you, Alexi. Whatever happens, I'll be by your side.”