Blue Dawn (5 page)

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

The glimmer of compassion in her eyes and voice struck Eric with surprise and wonder. How could she so quickly recognize and identify with the sorrow he’d tried so hard to suppress?

“It’s all right. It’s been a while,” he said from a throat suddenly tight. Likely because of his mixed heritage, he’d had to work harder than most to suppress the grief he’d experienced when his mother and father had been killed. Especially his grief for his mother. She was the only one who’d ever given a hint she understood when, as a child, he’d failed to live up to Zalia’s stringent expectations. But he’d masked his grief and carried on, as any good Zalian would.

“When did they die?” she asked, her voice now filled with a gentleness so different from her usual tone.

“It was five years ago. An explosion destroyed the laboratory where they both worked . . . and them too.” He struggled to control the unseemly emotion wrenched from deep within him by her unexpected concern.

“That must have been really hard for you.” Her wide green eyes misted with sympathy, a sympathy her next words explained. “My . . . my parents died quite suddenly too, within a week of each other. It was a year and a half ago. My father died of a stroke, and then my mother from a heart attack right after the funeral.”

Allie’s eyes glittered with tears. Dismay spurted through Erik.
Don’t cry
, he implored her mentally.
Whatever you do, don’t cry!
He’d rather face a phalanx of armed men than the tears he had no idea how to handle.

Whether in response to his telepathic plea, or to the reassertion of her own self-control, Allie straightened and cleared her throat. Abruptly she changed the subject. “Why are you a photographer?”

Erik relaxed. Then, using the weapon whose effectiveness he’d just discovered, he forced his lips upward into a smile. It wasn’t that hard and, curiously, he rather enjoyed it. “You ask a lot of questions. You must be a reporter,” he quipped.

She responded with a conspiratorial smile that lightened his tension and sent another spurt of heat flashing through his blood. “I guess so. And a damned good one too. Just like you’re a good photographer. C’mon, let’s go inside before they close the building.”

They passed through the heavy glass doors and were immediately submerged in darkness alleviated only by the light from skylights high overhead. Animal noises and calls Erik did not recognize echoed through the building.

“The exhibits are amplified.” Allie, standing at his elbow, answered his unasked question, then started to guide him to the right and up a darkened ramp. “The animals are all in the middle behind two-inch thick glass. The ramp takes us around the outside.”

As they climbed, Erik’s eyes adjusted to the low light. He peered through the glass, searching for signs of life. How strange to encase inferior animals in display cases. On Zura, such animals were used strictly for food or medical purposes.

Humans were indeed different from the citizens of his planet.

An explosive crash just to his left rattled the glass and set off a cacophony of amplified screeching and chattering that echoed through the building.

Erik leaped back, his fists raised, his gaze darting from side to side, ready to defend himself and his destined one against assault.

His eyes narrowed and focused on a massive shape on the other side of the glass. A black, hairy shape that stood almost as tall as him and twice as wide, but with arms that seemed to hang to the floor. A shape whose awesome brow was marked by two small eyes—eyes staring at him with the unmistakable challenge of a king to a lowly intruder.

A giggle beside him broke Erik’s concentration.

He glanced at Allie to find her shoulders shaking with mirth.

He lowered his fists. “What’s so funny?”

Allie sputtered, then bit her lip. “You. The gorilla,” she said in a strangled voice. “You should see yourself. You look just like him. All puffed up and ready to fight. Primal man defending his turf.”

She giggled. “Real soul brothers.”

“Hmph.” Erik didn’t like it when she compared him to a lower form of life. He forced himself to unclench his fists and lower them to his side. He took a deep breath. “The animal startled me, that was all.”

“Yeah.” Allie giggled again, then looked from Erik to the ape. “Seeing you like this, it’s not hard to believe they really were our ancestors.”

“What?” Erik jerked away. With consternation he stared at the huge silverback still regarding him with menace.
Ancestors?
She couldn’t actually mean that humans were evolved from these . . . these things? Could she?

Allie patted his arm, her eyes glinting with humor, her lips twitching with suppressed laughter. “But don’t take it so hard, Erik. It’s been a few years. For my family, anyway.”

She took his arm. “C’mon, let’s see the rest of the animals.”

The immense stone steps down to Lake Michigan at the base of Fullerton Street shimmered with bodies sitting, walking, rollerblading and talking in the fading sun of the late June evening.

Allie bumped into Erik, then leapt away as if she’d been stung. What was wrong with her tonight? It had to be the fifth time she’d walked into Erik in the last hour. Between that and babbling like a maniac, she wasn’t herself at all.

And she couldn’t seem to help it. Whenever she stopped concentrating on keeping a foot or two away from him, she gravitated towards him as if he were a magnet and she a hapless piece of metal, unable to resist his pull.

But that was ridiculous
. Yes, he was a handsome man. But she had sworn off men, particularly good-looking men she suspected were womanizers. And while she often regretted her impulsiveness, she wasn’t exactly weak-willed.

But this feeling, this overwhelming tug towards Erik, was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

She studied him again as they walked along in the last rays of the sun. She did like his broad cheekbones, his sun-streaked hair, his generous mouth. She especially liked it when he smiled, awkwardly and off-kilter, as if the smile surprised him as much as it surprised her. She liked it when her comments startled him, and she couldn’t resist making outrageous statements in the hopes of coaxing another smile, another jarring halt out of him. She wondered why he seemed so ill-at-ease, so tightly-held in check.

She raised her hand to push back a lock of wayward hair from Erik’s forehead. Then she snapped her hand back.
She was doing it again!

She couldn’t keep her hands to herself. She
wanted
to touch him. And not just touch him.

That was the worst part. Thoughts and images of what it would be like holding him and kissing him kept sneaking up on her. Images of taking off his clothes and pulling his naked body close to hers.

Totally inappropriate images for a stranger she’d just met and wasn’t even sure she liked.

She shut her eyes, her thoughts whirling in confusion.
Could this be Cody withdrawal
symptoms?
But she hadn’t thought of Cody all night, or of their short-lived engagement. A low moan of frustration escaped her.

Suddenly a hand grasped her upper arm. A firm, warm, hand, whose grip sent an electric shock through her. Her eyes flashed open and her heart started to hammer in her chest.

“Is something wrong?” Erik held her arm and looked at her, frowning.

Allie blinked. “Yes, no, um. Don’t you find it awfully hot?”

Erik shook his head. “Not anymore. The breeze off the lake is pretty cool now.”

Allie grimaced. “Then it must be me.” She raised a hand. To the touch, her forehead felt normal. But inside it was a different story. Now she was burning like a furnace at full blast. And the humming. There was a humming inside her head like the singing of overhead electrical wires on a hot summer day. A burning and humming that made her want to inch even closer to Erik.

“Here,” she said, ”feel my forehead.” She grabbed his free hand and pressed it to her brow.

His touch was cool and light, but it did nothing to relieve the burning inside. Her breath started to come in short gasps and she shut her eyes again, almost unable to breathe.

What she wanted, she realized with a start, was for Erik to move his hand from her forehead to her breasts, and then lower still, where she was pulsating with need for him. Where she could hardly wait for him to touch her.

She gasped and her eyes flashed open. Erik regarded her expectantly. She swallowed. “What did you say?”

“I said you don’t feel hot to me.”

Allie almost groaned. She bit her lip. “Well, maybe not, but I must be coming down with something.”
I have to be coming down with
something,
she thought in desperation. It was the only way to explain this sudden and uncharacteristic urge to throw herself on the man beside her. Either that, or she was turning into a nymphomaniac.

“I think we’d better go back to the car,” she said abruptly. She turned away and ran up the steps to where her car was parked farther down the street.

Erik caught up with her at the car. “I’ll drop you off at your hotel,” she said without looking at him.

“No.” Calmly he took the keys from her and opened the passenger door. “If you’re sick, you shouldn’t drive. I’ll take you home, and then I can just catch a cab from there.”

“All right, all right.” Allie didn’t fight it. It would have been better if she drove—then she’d be too busy to jump Erik—but as long as he drove her straight home, she’d be fine. She hoped. Because she’d never been so hot before. Certainly not for a stranger, and at a time when she
knew
she didn’t want a man, and couldn’t possibly handle one. The tidal wave of desire had come out of nowhere, for no reason she could understand.

But if the urge had come from nowhere, she was going to send it right back there, she thought.

She bit her lips and clasped her hands in a death grip as Erik eased his lean frame into the driver’s seat. As he settled in, his shoulder brushed hers.

Immediately Allie’s breasts started to tingle and her breath grew faint. She clamped her legs together. “Get me home right away,” she muttered in a strangled voice.

Erik merely nodded. For a second, Allie thought she saw a glimmer of a smile on his lips. She shut her eyes. Impossible! Erik rarely smiled. She must have imagined it. Along with all the other things she was imagining him doing. With her. To her.

The trip home took forever. The Honda had just coasted to a stop in her parking space in the underground garage when Allie flung open the door and sprinted towards the elevator.

“Hey wait.”

Her fingers hovered over the elevator control buttons as Erik caught up to her, his camera-bag slung over one shoulder. “Your keys,” he said, holding them out to her. “You forgot your keys.”

“Thanks.” She grabbed them, then punched the button. The elevator doors slid open and she darted inside. The doors started to close behind her.

“Hey.” Erik stuck his hand between the closing doors and forced them apart. He stepped inside.

“I’m seeing you to the door.”

“Oh.” Allie tried to keep her voice from coming out in a squeak. She pressed herself against the wall of the elevator farthest away from Erik.

Doesn’t he know it’s dangerous to shut himself up in
a small space with a woman lusting uncontrollably
after his body?
She grimaced, her nerves screaming for release, the hum inside her droning louder and more insistently. Only five floors.

Surely she could last five floors without doing something regrettable?

The doors slid open. Allie sprang out as if she’d been shot from a cannon. She sprinted to the door of her apartment halfway down the hall. She didn’t look to see if Erik followed. She knew he did. Every sense, every cell in her body was tuned to a fever pitch of excruciating awareness of the man silently following her down the hall. She could smell him, taste him and feel him. Desperately she wanted to touch him.

She tried to insert the key in the door, but couldn’t focus on the lock well enough to connect.

After a third abortive attempt, Erik took her hand and removed the keys.

He unlocked the door, then opened it and stood aside. Reeling incomprehensibly from the brush of his fingers on hers, Allie staggered through the door and to the far side of the room. “Well goodnight,” she said with the brightness of a plastic chipmunk. “See you tomorrow.”

“The phone, Allie. I’d like to use your phone.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Allie picked up the portable phone from the coffee table and tossed it at Erik.

Startled, he caught it, then frowned.
My
, Allie thought,
he’s even more appealing when he frowns.

The tension and humming inside her rose higher.

She swallowed again and stepped back further.

She didn’t understand what was happening to her.

Was she going crazy?

“I need the phone book, too. Unless you know the number.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Allie had memorized more than one taxi company’s number. But at the moment, she couldn’t remember any of them. She retrieved the Yellow Pages, opened it to the taxi section, and rattled off a number.

Erik looked at the portable phone in his hand.

His brow creased. “I haven’t seen this model before. How do I turn it on?”

Allie almost screamed. Why couldn’t he just leave? She grimaced again and inched towards him. She didn’t dare get too close. When she was about a yard away, she extended her arm. “Here, give me the phone.”

Erik handed it to her, but when she took it he didn’t let go. She looked up at him in surprise.

His eyes, always so cool and serious, flared now with the flames of a thousand tiny fires, turning the grey into a flowing molten metal whose heat she could feel from three feet away.

The flames were reflected in the light streaks in his hair, now flaming with the same burning fires as his eyes. Though he didn’t smile, his wide mouth with the generous lips glistened with an invitation she could feel on her lips.

Still linked by the phone, Erik drew her slowly forward. She couldn’t take her eyes from his broad face, from the fire in his eyes, from the lips whose touch she craved. The humming in her head sounded deafeningly.