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She awoke feeling as if she&039;d been in a fight with a freight train and had lost Her head throbbed Her body ached Her throat had been scrubbed with steel wool Her tongue had doubled in size and dehydrated She squeezed her eyes tighter against the shiainst her lids, and burroweddowny pillow Its satin case caressed her cheek When she inhaled, her lungs filled with potpourri-tinged air She hugged the luxuriant, fluffy comforter more closely around her--
Her eyes opened wide She stilled utterly as a snowball of foreboding rolled up and down her spine This was not her bed She&039;d never ohite satin sheets or a down-filled co until her bleary eyes focused This was not her roo dresser with its gold tri over a white candle on the stand near her head None of this was hers
"What in hell" She tossed the covers aside and got up Plush white pile hugged her bare feet, enveloped her toes She blinked and shook off this through-the-looking-glass sensation The roo black door opposite her was its point Where on earth was she? For the briefest second she wondered if she&039;d died and proceeded on to so room between heaven and hell But that wasn&039;t it That couldn&039;t be it She felt too daripped the knob, twisted It refused to budge She jiggled it, tugged again and pounded on the wood "Hey, what&039;s going on? Let me out!" Her heart pattered harder as she awaited a response that didn&039;t co silence that closed in around her like a shroud She willed her pulse to slow, pushed a hand through her hair, tried to calm herself It wasn&039;t a dream She was sure she ake Okay So what happened?
The ht before returned slowly, but clearly She&039;d had an episode A bad one, worse than any so far And then Damien had been there A slow breath worked its way into her lungs She&039;d been afraid he&039;d come to kill her But he hadn&039;t He&039;d actually he&039;d tried to help
"Yeah, solanced around the roo no doubt it was souy ainst plain old square roo open the door in one angled wall and seeing a triangular bathrooular closet Actually, the whole thing would have been a square if the three rooe bed, black lacquer like every other piece of furniture here, reclined like a decadent goddess in the center of the triangle&039;s base Tall narros stood sentry duty on either side of it, their livery, black satin, held apart by white bows She parted the luxurious drapes and glanced outside to confirht before stood watch in the distance Sloping roofs, at varying heights, looles, and the vine-covered brick walls were faood as an escape route Looked as if she was at least three stories up, with nothing but sheer wall and the grassy ground, carpeted in decaying autumn leaves, below her The sun was low She&039;d slept most of the day
"Damn him" Shannon jerked the drape back into place, and stalked back to the bathroo duct Anything
Nothing Just glea chrome and sinfully thick terry cloth Spotless Expensive The hot tub was big enough to hold the De fro back into the bedroom, she yanked open the door of the closet, only to seeneatly inside A pair of jeans, a button-down blouse, her brown suede jacket Her favorite running shoes stood innocently on the floor Her purse perched on a shelf
"That son of a--what the hell does he think he&039;s doing?" She paced back toward the bed, and that&039;s when she saw the picnic basket on the floor beside it She narrowed her eyes, moved cautiously closer, flipped it open A pile of fruit She looked closer, lifted the other lid A half-dozen assorted ar bowl Her sto into the food Another part wondered why he&039;d bother If he&039;d wanted to hurt her, he&039;d had his chance last night
She disliked this situation Everything in her rebelled against it, and if she&039;d cared to analyze herself this , she would knohy Her choices had been taken away It was alain She was not in control of anything at this ht her here without her consent, locked her in for some insane reason, chosen the clothes she&039;d wear today, the food she&039;d eat for breakfast, the soap she&039;d use in the daain, she would probably kill him
In the h last night had drained her And while he had chosen the food, it was entirely up to her whether or not to eat it
She threw caution to the wind and reached for a , ultracaffeinated coffee
It did, piping hot Aromatic steam rolled from the brew as she poured It tasted even better than it s her head in frustration "I don&039;t knohat you&039;re up to, Daet aith it"
Damien had decided there were only three possibilities One, that he&039;d lost control of his own er of death, his hated ene the streets of Arista Or, three, that an ordinary s, and for some sick reason, wanted theh how any huuess The killer ht be someone anted Damien to be blarave danger And much as Damien had sworn never to do it, he was inclined to protect her The blood ties, danore He could hate the instinct all he wanted, but he couldn&039;t resist it No ravitational pull of the earth, and go floating off into never-never land He had no choice, no matter how he looked at it And he resented the intrusion on his solitude
"The lady&039;s awake, sir"
Dalance up The deck of cards he&039;d been shuffling went still in his hands Netty tilted her small head to one side and the other, like a little, curious bird He forced a s one She had the frail build of a music- box dancer, and the temperament of a saint Where else would he ever find someone to take care of the everyday needs of this place, to deal with the repairardeners and the salese requests, all without question or complaint? What the hell would he do when death crept up to clai what he&039;d say to Shannon when he went up the stairs
"Been awake for quite a while, now Pacin&039; Nervous like"
Her head tilted again, and he knew she&039;d like nothing better than an explanation for the unheard-of circuer, much less a woman, in the house She&039;d never lower her proper British ways enough to pry, though, no matter how curious she was
"You left the food for her?"
"Oh, yes Sleepin&039; like the dead, she hen I went in Lovely thing, don&039;t you think? All that angel&039;s hair spread around her--"
"You can go now, Netty You&039;re through for the day"
She bit her lip, bobbed her head and hurried from the room with quick little steps See He heard the back door, then the lanced toward the staircase He didn&039;t have to open hishers to feel the fury e from Shannon It was palpable It filled every recess of the house, and all of it was directed toward hihed heavily, cut the deck one-handed, then fanned the cards facedown on the table With exaggerated grace, he extracted four cards and flipped them over Four aces One rimaced as he rose and started for the stairs
When he reached the door, he paused, startled to realize there was so like a South Sea tide in his belly Anu forbid, he was looking forward to seeing her! That worried hi his "
He freed the lock with histhat hit him was the clean, moist smell of her She&039;d bathed He could feel the stea on her skin, al at the ends She wore jeans and a green button-down cotton shirt She was in the process of rolling the sleeves, when she whirled to face hile button didn&039;t seeold and her jaent taut beneath the s to her lashes
"It&039;s about time you showed up Just what the hell do you think you&039;re doing, bringingme in! That&039;s unlawful imprisonment, mister, and I can tell you, you&039;ll find yourself in a cell thefinally noticed where his gaze was focused The frilly white edges of the bra caressed the ers, and he couldn&039;t for the life of him look away She was beautiful He hadn&039;t taken the ti He satisfied his needs in darkness, with hurried encounters and no words exchanged He realized just what an oversight that had been, as he traced her flat belly, the dark well of her navel, the swollen curves of her breasts, with his eyes He stared long and hard at the darker circles at their centers, just visible through the white material Their peaks caed blade of desire run hi up "I want a phone I&039; the hell out of here, and when I get back to my apart, just watched her She tucked the shirt tails into the jeans before facing hie and her eyes sparkled Her breaths came a little too fast, and her fists were clenched
"You look a lot better How do you feel?"
She threw her hands in the air, rolled her eyes "Fine Perfect Where the hell&039;s that phone?" She walked past hih the door and into the wide hallway She looked up and down it, obviously not sure which way to go
"Do those attacks come often?"
She started, as if she didn&039;t know he&039;d walked along behind her "None of your business Which way is the phone?"
"Answer my questions and I&039;ll take you to it"
If her eyes could shoot daggers through his heart, they would have When she spun on hi his heated face "Why did you bring htly for just an instant as the obvious answer occurred to her "I was unconscious, wasn&039;t I? Did you do anything to o around ht you here because I was afraid to leave you alone You were sicker than hell I&039;d have called some of your family to take care of you if I&039;d knohere to reach them But I didn&039;t, so I decided to do it myself"
"I don&039;t have any family" Her eyes narrowed to slits as she studied him
"It&039;s happened before, hasn&039;t it?"
"Once or twice" She turned her back on hi direction
"How often?"
She shrugged "What&039;s it to you, anyway?" She stopped a few yards away, turned and cao the other way
When she passed hi," he re The phone is downstairs, but you don&039;t need it I&039;ll drive you anywhere you want to go"
She blinked up at hi in their trek toward the stairhich was now in sight "You will? I aze fell to the floor and she shook her head
"What did you think--that I was holding you prisoner?"
She ain "You locked me in"
"There was a reason" He started down the stairs, led her through the narrower hall to the second staircase and then down that When they finally euided her into his oval library, waved her toward a leather sofa
She stiffened, re in the doorway "What is this? I said I wanted out"
"Shannon, when you broke in here and asked for tenyou to return the favor"
Her head tilted to one side, a wary ani up its chances with a predator She didn&039;t trust hiood instincts
"You can leave whenever you want to I won&039;t stop you There&039;s a phone on the desk over there" He pointed She looked, licked her lips, nodded
"All right Okay Ten minutes No oing to be more A lot more And he&039;d keep her with him by force if he had to But first he&039;d try to talk her around to his way of thinking
And he&039;d pray he wasn&039;t worthy of all her fear
Why the hell did she agree to sit here and listen to hi swampland in the desert if he applied hi about him
She walked into the library, took a look around The roo walls were lined with books, htly musty smell that old books always have The sofa and chairs were rich brown leather New Their aroled with that of the books, and that lanced over her shoulder at hi her intently It was his eyes--that&039;s what it was They were so huge and deep and expressive So dark Co of his
"So, talk," she said, trying to sound callous, wishing she felt that way She didn&039;t want to thinkabout him She didn&039;t want to let her defenses down And she sure as hell wasn&039;t going to trust the man She didn&039;t trust anyone She and Tawny they&039;d trusted no one but each other
"What was that?" His sable brows rose slightly, and his jet eyes probed He came toward her, then stopped
"What?"
"You looked" He licked his lips, shook his head "Nothing Never mind It&039;s none of ers over the dusty spines, glanced at titles Suamesh
"I know you think I killed your friend But since I know ree"