Burning Darkness Read online

  “Unless you don’t think you can handle it . . .” He slid her a look that reeked of challenge.

  Oh yeah, they were alike all right. He knew exactly how to get to her. Keep that in mind, little girl. Uh, girl!

  “It won’t be a problem.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Good.” She couldn’t leave well enough alone. “Because we’re not going there, you and me. Maybe we’re working together, but we are not going there.”

  His fingers tightened on the wheel. “Remember those examples I gave you of what Lucas and Nicholas did to prove their love for their women? They put their asses on the line because they were all wrapped up in their feelings. Romantic? Sure. Brave? Yes. Stupid? Definitely. They lost their minds. I have no intention of doing that. So fear not that my hand—or anything else—will go roaming over to your side of the bed during the night. What’s going on right now is way too serious for us to get sidetracked, whether we want to or not.”

  Did he want to?

  Forget that.

  “What do you mean, ‘your side of the bed’? Don’t you mean, my bed?”

  “Sure, whatever.”

  “We’re not sharing a bed.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Glad we got that settled.” She glanced at him. “ ’Cause we’re not.” Okay, you’ve made your point. “What will Sayre do if he gets into my head?”

  “I can only guess based on his past actions. He’ll have you come on to me so he can vicariously have sex. Or he’ll have you try to kill me. Maybe both.”

  “Holy crap.”

  Chapter 11

  Fonda and Eric were a half hour closer to Annapolis when they pulled into the gravel parking lot of another cheap motel.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. This place offers the rooms by the hour.”

  He grinned as he read the sign: THE LOVE SHACK. “It’s perfect. They won’t need a credit card and they won’t take notice of us. We’re just two more horny people in for a quickie.”

  Okay, he really hadn’t needed to say that. Not on the heels of that kiss. Even now she involuntarily rubbed her fingers over her mouth.

  So the first problem was, as they stood at the nicked-up desk in the office, that the fat, greasy man they’d roused from sleep gave them a fat, greasy smile after taking them in, and her in particular.

  The second problem: no room had two beds. Of course.

  “Don’t get a lot of call for twin beds here,” he said, now eyeing them with an odder look than he had when they rang the bell at two in the morning, disheveled and dirt-smeared.

  “We’ll take whatever you’ve got,” Eric said, slapping cash on the counter.

  Easy for him to say.

  The man gave them a key, sliding a look to her but addressing Eric. “Porn channels are extra. If you want to watch, I’ll need your card.”

  “Pass. But I’ll need an extra set of sheets.”

  The man raised his thick dark eyebrow. He pushed a piece of paper at him and pointed at Rule 5. “No ripping of the sheets to be used as ties. You have to bring your own. Or . . .” He ducked down and produced a pair of fuzzy handcuffs. “ . . . you can buy these for fifteen bucks. I’ve got other toys—”

  Eric held out his hand to stop him. “No . . . thanks.”

  “You have to sign here that you’ve read the rules and will abide by them. No using chocolate syrup. We lost a room for a whole day because the stuff looks like blood when it dries, and the crime scene unit had to come out.”

  She got stuck on the chocolate syrup part, dripping it over a hard male body, licking it off.

  The man continued, “No—”

  “Give me the thing to sign.” Impatience saturated Eric’s voice.

  She peeked at the rules. No lit candles for those who wanted to drip hot wax onto their lover’s bodies. No use of oils for lubricants. Oh, boy.

  He scribbled his name and took the extra set of sheets from the man.

  “Five dollars.”

  “You’re kidding,” Eric said in a voice an octave deeper than usual, nailing him with a dark look.

  “Uh, yes.” The man giggled without a smile. “Have a nice night.”

  They walked out, grabbed their bags from the truck, and headed to the room. Where one bed awaited them. She hoped the place looked nothing like that first room. The memory of drugging him and trying to kill him struck an ache in the pit of her stomach.

  “What are the extra sheets for?” she asked. “You’re not sleeping on the floor.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re up for sharing a bed?”

  Whoa. She hadn’t actually thought that through, only that no way was he going to lay on what she assumed would be the grossest carpet in the whole world. “It’s no big deal.”

  “I’ll still use the extra sheets. I don’t have anything to sleep in, and I’m not sure I could sleep in clothing anyway.” He tugged his thumb on the waistband of his jeans. “Too constricting. So we’ll each have our own sheets.”

  The cat slept in the nude, that’s what he was saying. Flippin’ great. He seemed to think that because she’d seen him naked, seeing him naked again wouldn’t bother her. She couldn’t tell him that, yes, it would bother her very much, thank you. As tired as her brain was, her body was awake and prickling like electricity in all the wrong places.

  He slid the key into the lock and opened the door. “Nice,” he said, drawing out the word.

  Oh, boy.

  He swept his arm toward the open door. “Ladies first.”

  She stepped in, her eyes going right to the round bed with the faded leopard-print bedspread. The bed that meant he was going to have to sleep in the middle because his feet would be hanging off the edge otherwise. Even worse, there was a large mirror above it. Metal loops sprung from the ceiling. There were pictures on the wall depicting hearts but on close inspection were actually composed of tiny pictures of erotic parts of the body.

  Oh, boy.

  Around the television were placards advertising the porn movies available on the pay channel. The pictures weren’t exactly modest: a man dipping his tongue into a woman’s cleavage in one, another man’s face buried in ginormous boobs in another.

  Even with the phony, sweet smell coming from an air freshener, the most erotic thing was still the smell of Eric and earth.

  She glanced at him, also taking it all in with bemusement. He shook his head and his expression grew serious as he walked around the room, running his hands across the ceiling tiles and the fire sprinkler head. He cut the lights and studied the mirror on the ceiling.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Checking for cameras.”

  “Eww. You think someone might be taping us?”

  “Never know with these kinds of places.” He went into the bathroom and even looked under the toilet lid.

  “And you would know this because . . . ?” She didn’t want to think he hung around in sex spots like this.

  He came out. “No, I don’t frequent these kinds of places.” He glanced around. “I’d rather have sex in the dugout of a ball field or a patch of woods in the park than a place like this.”

  Don’t ask. Don’t ask. “And I take it you have?”

  His mouth curved in a half smile. “I like doing it in places that are just public enough to be risky. Got arrested once doing it on a bench in a ritzy neighborhood. Doing it in a place like this, that’s so staged . . .” He shuddered theatrically. “Much better to be spontaneous, out in the open, breathing fresh air, even better to feel summer rain hitting your bare ass . . .”

  He wasn’t reminiscing about whatever woman he’d done that with. He was looking at her, his gaze sliding down her body. Her eyes filled with the heat of imagining him making love in the rain, his bare ass . . .

  “I need a shower,” he said, turning abruptly.

  And wash off that intoxicating mix of male and earth? “No.” He turned at her harsh order. Because she’d actually said it alou
d. For all to hear. For him to hear. “Uh, I want to take one first.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Even through the jeans, she could see his erection straining against the denim. He walked to the curtains and looked out. She remembered the heady feeling of arousing him when she’d astrally projected to him, but she should not be feeling that now. Shouldn’t have felt it then either.

  She pulled out the fluffy Marilyn-Monroe-like nightie she’d taken from the wardrobe, all Magnus’s mother had for nightwear. She took a shower, and even the flow of the water seemed more sensual, like hands moving over her skin.

  Get a grip. You heard him. Getting involved is a bad idea twenty ways around. Yeah, he’s nice to have around while that psycho creep is out there, but after that, there’s no need to see him again. Then you can go find that cute guy who works at the bookstore who’s always hinting about getting together and get the horny out of your system.

  Except that guy wasn’t big and muscular and gorgeous and dangerous.

  She finished, put on the nightgown, made sure the fabric didn’t reveal too much, and walked out.

  Eric was lying on the bed, wearing only his jeans, eyes closed, hands behind his head. Which made his biceps look even bigger. A sigh escaped her mouth, soft as a whisper. Being able to look at him like this, without him knowing, made the hunger yawn as it came fully awake. She had this illogical urge to run her fingers along the bottom edge of his rib cage and then the waistband of that too-constricting pair of jeans. Why couldn’t he have been a scrawny, ugly guy? Would that be too much to ask?

  She cleared her throat. “Shower’s all yours.”

  He cracked his eyes open, and then they opened completely. He shot to a sitting position. “Oh, no, you are not wearing that.”

  Heat flushed in her cheeks, and she walked to her duffel bag.

  “It’s all I have. I wasn’t planning to share a room with you. As you say, what’s the big deal?”

  “Do you have to ask? Oversexed male with blue balls who was recently teased by a sexy nymph. A man can only take so much, and I’m stretched as tight as a rubber band that’s been pulled a hundred feet apart.” He jabbed his finger at her. “You prance around in that at your own risk.”

  “I’m not ‘prancing’ around.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re sleeping naked. It’s hardly fair that I can’t wear what I want and you can.”

  “Look, if you can’t help yourself, I’m all for being sexually attacked in the night. Can you say the same?”

  The image of his hands sliding over her breasts rocketed through her mind. “Fine, I’ll change.”

  He pushed to his feet and walked to the bathroom. She inhaled softly as he passed. Dreamy . . .

  It was lust, a purely physical need for touch, for connection. Maybe it was her reckless streak. Damn. A part of her wanted him. Well, you’re not going to get him, she told it. Besides, he’s not going there either.

  She listened to the water hitting his body, imagining him running a soapy cloth across his stomach and his chest, the bubbles sliding down his skin. It was only because she’d seen him naked that she could imagine it so damned well.

  She put on one of the other dresses and went to work pulling down the comforter and inspecting the sheets. They smelled fresh and clean, no stains. No signs of bed bugs in the creases of the mattress. It was while she was crawling across the bed doing her inspections, with her butt facing the bathroom door, that Eric walked out.

  She heard something like a groan as she spun around, and had to swallow hard at the flare of hunger in his eyes. “Checking for . . . bugs. Didn’t find any. You know, bed bugs,” she finished lamely.

  Holy crap. He was wearing a towel wrapped around his waist, and the terry cloth didn’t even begin to camouflage what the denim did. She quickly averted her gaze up his chest, water still dripping down from towel-dried blond hair. This sharing a room business suddenly became a really bad idea. Then her gaze hit on the bruise on his stomach.

  “Holy crap.” She got to her feet and came closer. “Sayre did that when he kicked you.”

  “No big deal.” He turned and tried to look at his back. “What’s the scratch look like?”

  “Not horrible, won’t need stitches, but . . . ouch.” She ran her finger alongside the long scratch. “It’s clean.” He smelled clean. She’d never been aroused by a man’s scent before, but the mix of soap and clean skin tickled through her body. Not a bad substitute for earth and male, actually.

  “What’s the story with the eye tattoo?” she asked, because talking about anything was better than standing there sniffing him and touching his back.

  He turned his right arm to look at the tattoo, inadvertently flexing the muscles. “Zoe had a dream about this symbol, and we decided to adopt it as our logo. The program our parents were in was called BLUE EYES. The O is for Offspring. The slashes in the iris look like an R, for Rogues.”

  “Far out.” Now she was touching the lines of the tattoo, and quickly stopped herself and stepped back.

  He picked up the stack of sheets. “You have any tattoos? I was a tattoo virgin before this.”

  She nodded. “Mine aren’t for public viewing.”

  He raised an eyebrow and smiled in that way he did whenever something sensual came up. Slightly crooked, devilish, heat flaring into his eyes. His gaze dropped down to see if he could catch a glimpse, and she felt his eyes slide over her. His smile and the spark disappeared, though, when he looked at her thighs. The scars.

  She slipped beneath the comforter completely, not wanting to give him the opportunity to pry. “We should get some rest. It’s already late.”

  He apparently got the hint. “Yeah.”

  He walked to the window and looked out again, giving her a view of his broad back, tapering down to a narrow waist, and that ass tightly wrapped in a blue towel. He turned back and walked over to his bag. The juxtaposition of the package of Ho Hos and the gun was jarring. He held out the package to her, offering it. She shook her head. He set the gun on the nightstand within easy grasp.

  Suddenly she was very glad they were sharing a room. She felt safer with him there, next to her.

  Eric tore open the cellophane and sank his teeth into the chocolate cake, checking out the front window again. After a few seconds, he flicked off the light, having left the one in the bathroom on. He laid out his sheets, untied the towel, and got into bed. She saw a flash of pale skin, the curve of his behind, and then he tossed the top sheet over him. She could smell chocolate, and it made her mouth water.

  He flopped onto his back with a sigh, looking at the ceiling. “Now that’s different.”

  She looked up, too, startled to see the two of them lying in bed together. Like people about to have sex. Or people who had just had sex. Except they looked too tense to have just had sex. He looked too . . . hard. The sheet was draped across his waist, but she couldn’t mistake the rise in the fabric.

  Stop looking!

  Mm, touch instead.

  She blinked at the naughty voice in her head, rolled over and faced the other direction.

  “Are you sure you’re comfortable sharing a bed?” he asked, damn him, tuning into her discomfort.

  She rolled back over. “It’s weird, that’s all. Being in bed with a man . . .”

  “You’re not having sex with,” he finished.

  “That and . . . I’ve never slept with a guy before. I mean, spent the night.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You never spent the night with Jerryl?”

  She shook her head. “He had this thing about sleeping alone.”

  He looked at her, and she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Finally he said, “What about other guys?”

  “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you.” She shook her head, but he was still waiting for an answer, and what did she care if he knew? “I’ve only been with two guys before Jerryl. They weren’t special.” Just a way to connect with another human being. “I di
dn’t want to spend the night with them. Didn’t seem right somehow.”

  She saw the slightest smile on his face. Not the sensual one, but an intrigued one. Why the hell should that intrigue him?

  “Anyway, it’s just weird.” She scooted as far to the edge as she could get. The reflection startled her, him laying on his back, their hands only an inch apart.

  He had never been in love before. Neither had she. So they were even on that score. She was sure he’d probably spent the night with loads of women, though. Probably held them, curled his body around theirs, the scent of heated sex on their skin. Even though she was imagining it about other women, the image stirred her body.

  But he’d never loved a woman, and for some reason that made a smile tug at her mouth. She turned to her side, facing him. She watched the rise and fall of his chest, the way his exhalation sank his stomach into a hollow. His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. His eyelashes flicked when he blinked.

  The words from her favorite Metric song pounded through her mind, Help, I’m alive. Her heart was beating like a hammer. And it was hard to be soft, tough to be tender.

  For so long she wanted him dead. Here he was, alive, breathing, and all she could feel was gratitude that he was.

  “I’m glad I didn’t kill you.”

  The words hung in the air, and then he turned his head to her. “What?”

  “I’m glad I didn’t kill you.”

  He smiled. “I’ll bet you say that to all the guys.” The absurdity of that made her smile, and his smile grew even wider. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile. You’ve got dimples.”

  She was smiling way too much, and oh, yes, heart definitely beating like a hammer. “Good night.” She flipped over, squeezing her eyes shut. Don’t, don’t, don’t get pulled into him. It’s got wrong all over it. There was a more dangerous pull beyond the physical one. The part that responded to his tenderness, his protectiveness. Those two parts mixed together were an explosive, intoxicating brew. Damn him, why couldn’t he just be an asshole? That’s what she’d expected, even what he’d said he was. But he’d shown her moments of tenderness that had torn down pieces of that wall around her heart.