Always (5 page)

Was it her imagination or did she feel a whisper-soft caress as he brushed a curl away from her temple? “It’s too late, Lisa.” The words came out of the hovering darkness, blurred but unmistakable. “You’ll never get away from me.”

When she opened her eyes again it wasn’t Donahue’s face she saw, but one that was far less intimidating. The man who was grinning appealingly down at her was much younger and as all-American as apple pie. He was
dressed casually in jeans, a wildly flowered Hawaiian shirt, and tennis shoes.

“Hi, I’m John Galbraith, Miss Landon. I hope to hell you’re feeling better. Clancy has been spitting like a cat for the last hour or so. He’s telephoning the lab now to yell at them for not calling the shots more accurately about your reaction to the drug.” He made a face. “Better them than me. I nearly got myself mutilated when I brought you in here in that comatose state.”

The breezily casual statement issuing out of that boyishly appealing face shocked her into full consciousness.
“You
brought me here?”

“I get all the really quality assignments,” he said sarcastically. “Kidnapping an American citizen was a natural for me.”

She sat up in bed. Her dizziness was gone now, though there was still the trace of a headache. “A criminal assignment,” she said. “You’re going to go to prison for a long time, Mr. Galbraith.”

“I won’t, you know,” he said softly. “Clancy
wouldn’t have sent me on the job if he hadn’t had me covered. He protects his men.”

“He’ll have trouble protecting himself this time.”

A tiny frown wrinkled his brow. “Look, Miss Landon, I know you’re upset, but don’t make the mistake of going against Clancy. He has no intention of hurting you, but he’s not about to let you go until Baldwin surfaces. It will be a good deal pleasanter for you if you’ll accept that. Clancy is the toughest bastard I’ve ever run across. You don’t want to cross him.”

“The hell I don’t.” Lisa could feel her anger igniting once again as she remembered the sheer arrogance, the outrageous illegality of Donahue’s actions. “At the moment, I not only want to cross him—I damn well want to draw and quarter him.” Her voice dropped to an ominously low pitch. “After I finish with you.”

Galbraith flinched. “I’m easier meat than Clancy, but I don’t think I’d like that. You seem to be a little bloodthirsty at present. I think I’d better feed you.” He rose to his feet. “You haven’t had anything to eat for nearly twenty-four
hours. I’ll go to the kitchen and see what I can whip up. You’ll find all your clothes in the closet and in the drawers of the bureau.” He gestured to a door to the right of the bed. “The bathroom’s right there. I’ll tell Clancy you’re feeling much better … well, better enough to create a little mayhem.” He was strolling toward the door across the room. “I’ll be right back with your dinner.”

Dinner? Her gaze flew to the French doors across the room. The sky was flushed with the scarlet and pink of sunset. She must have been unconscious almost an entire day. No wonder Clancy Donahue had been concerned, she thought grimly. He’d probably thought he was going to have to face a murder charge as well as the one for kidnapping. He
would
face those charges as soon as she found a way out of here. There was no way he was going to get away with this!

The French doors. Lisa acted without thinking, tossing the covers aside, slipping out of bed, and running toward the doors. They were unlocked! The tiles still held the afternoon heat and were hot beneath her bare feet as she
dashed across the courtyard. There was a brass-bracketed mahogany door in the stone wall surrounding the yard, but she ignored it. Donahue had said there would be guards at all the entrances, but they wouldn’t expect her to go over that seven-foot wall. The wall was covered with a thick blanket of fragrant honeysuckle that just might give her enough purchase to climb to the top. She scrambled recklessly up the vines, ignoring the fact that her slight weight was tearing them off the wall. Let Donahue get a gardener to repair the damage. She hoped it cost him a bundle.

When she had reached the top of the wall, she paused a moment to catch her breath—and then lost it again. There were two men below, only a scant ten feet from where she crouched! Their backs were turned to her, thank goodness. If she was lucky … The wall bordered a stretch of private beach, and the surf was a hushed roar only a few yards from where the guards were standing. She’d be leaping down onto a soft cushion of sand and they might not hear her. Lisa murmured a fervent prayer,
jumped to the ground, and set off running without looking around to see if she’d been heard by the guards.

The familiar skyscraper of the hotel casino towered on the horizon. If she could make it there, surely she could appeal to one of the guests for help, even if most of the staff were under Donahue’s control. She felt a sharp pain in the arch of her right foot as a shell cut into it, but she didn’t have time to stop and worry about it.

“Lisa, stop, dammit!”

Donahue! Her heart jerked and then started pounding wildly. Her pace increased, her bare feet flying over the sand.

“Blast it, Lisa, stop! I don’t want to hurt you.”

Oh, Lord, he sounded as if he were right on top of her. She couldn’t go any faster. Her lungs were aching now, and there was an agonizing stitch in her side. The hotel seemed closer. If she could just block out the pain and keep runn—

She pitched forward into the sand, felled by a neat tackle behind her knees. The little breath
she had remaining was knocked out of her, and for a moment she struggled wildly to regain it. She was vaguely aware of being flipped over and of powerful thighs straddling her own. Instinctively she started struggling and was immediately punished by having her wrists pinned above her head.

“Give it up!” Donahue’s voice was rough. “Don’t you know when you’re beaten? I realized the second John told me you were awake that I’d better get back to you. I came just in time to see you perched on the wall like a seagull.”

“I’m
not
beaten.” She’d gained enough breath back to gasp that out, at least. She tried to lift her leg to knee him, but his weight was too great to budge. “I’m never going to let you beat me, Donahue.”

“And to think I was worrying about how fragile you were a few hours ago,” Clancy muttered. “You’d think I would have learned by now how deadly the female of the species can be.”

“Let me go!” Lisa tugged desperately, but his
grip was manacle hard about her wrists. “I’ll show you how deadly I can be. I’m going to murder you, Donahue.”

“So John informed me.”

“Your baby-faced hoodlum friend?” Her eyes blazed into his. “He at least had the intelligence to believe I meant it.”

“If he’d had any intelligence, he wouldn’t have left you alone. I told him to stay with you until I came back. I was afraid you’d do something stupid like this when you regained consciousness.”

“Stupid? You think trying to escape is stupid?”

“I think fighting any lost cause is stupid,” he said harshly. “And this is a lost cause, Lisa. I’m not letting you go.”

She had a vague memory of hearing him say something similar before … but it had sounded different somehow. Impatiently she dismissed the thought. It had probably been her imagination or that damn drug Donahue had given her. “I’ll get away. If not now, then later. I won’t let you do this to me.”

“Lisa …” His blue eyes gazed into her own, and she inhaled sharply as a wave of heat washed over her, drowning her anger with an entirely new emotion. She was suddenly conscious of the power of his muscled thighs as they effortlessly held her own limbs still. He was so big, so powerful; she was so weak and ineffectual by comparison. Her heart started to beat wildly again as if with fear, but it wasn’t fear she was experiencing.

No! She wouldn’t feel like this. She had heard hostages sometimes developed kinky sexual desires for their captors, but she wasn’t like that. Yet her breasts beneath the satin pajama top were moving up and down with the force of her breathing, and she saw Donahue’s eyes move compulsively to that betraying disturbance. “Don’t fight me,” he said hoarsely. She could see his own pulse drumming wildly in the hollow of his throat. “I’d never hurt you. Don’t you know that?”

“I don’t know anything about you.” Lisa closed her eyes to escape the sight of him. That was worse somehow, for now that she couldn’t
see him, she was more aware of the scents of musk and soap that emanated from him and the burning touch of his thigh through the layers of material that separated them. She opened her eyes again and met his with a fresh sense of shock. So intense. Smoky, intimate, wanting. “I don’t want to know anything about you,” she murmured.

“I think you’re lying.” His thumb on her left wrist was absently stroking the sensitive pulse point.

Lisa felt a flash of heat tingle through her. Oh, dear heaven, she doubted if he was even aware of what he was doing to her. A surge of intense desire set her trembling.

“I think you’re feeling the same thing I am. In the physical sense, at least, I think you want to know everything about me.”

“No, I—” She broke off. It was no use denying it. They weren’t children who had no knowledge of sex. She was sure the signs were unmistakable to a man of his experience. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said fiercely. “It’s
a biological reaction that’s totally irrelevant. Get off me, Donahue.”

“Soon.” His gaze traveled lingeringly over the gentle swell of her breasts. Lisa felt an immediate peaking and knew it was visible through the thin satin. She looked at his face, expecting to see triumph. Instead there was only desire and heat and a curious sense of wonder. “How lovely that is. I wish I could see just how beautiful you are.”

She felt the air leave her lungs as abruptly as the moment he’d tackled her. “No!”

Reluctantly Clancy pulled his gaze up to meet her own. “No,” he agreed. “I know I can’t do that. I just said that I wanted to. There’s a difference between wanting and taking.” He released her wrists. “It’s been a long time since I found it necessary to take. I don’t think I’d find it satisfying any longer. You don’t have to worry about me forcing you into my bed. I want you to want me.” His lips tightened. “For God’s sake, don’t be afraid of me. I couldn’t stand that.”

She shook her head. “This is insane. Why
shouldn’t I be afraid of you? You kidnapped me and now you tell me you want me to go to bed with you.”

Clancy stood up and reached down to pull her to her feet. “What is there to be afraid of?” He smiled faintly. “You want me, too. I’ll wait until you’re ready for me. I can be very patient when I want something.” He took her elbow and pushed her gently in the direction of the villa. “Don’t you think we’d better go back to the house? We have some talking to do.”

Automatically she fell into step with him. Why wasn’t she fighting him? His grip on her arm was almost gentle despite its firmness, yet she had the impression any resistance would be instantly quelled. She would have to bide her time until she had another opportunity to escape. She had almost made it. Surely she would succeed in eluding him next time.

“You’re suddenly very docile. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m not docile.” Lisa looked straight ahead. “Like you, I can be very patient when I want something.”

He chuckled. “I should have known. My first impression of you was of gentle fragility. Who would have guessed there was such a tigress beneath that serene exterior?”

She felt a little shiver of shock run through her when she realized he was right. She had always been tranquil even in her moments of greatest happiness. Yet she had been acting with a primitive passion that was almost explosive since Donahue had walked into her dressing room. She had never before known fear, rage, or desire in such violent proportions. It made her a little uneasy to realize a stranger could arouse those emotions within her—particularly a stranger as lawless and ruthlessly determined as Donahue.

“What’s wrong?” His eyes were narrowed on her face. “Is it something I said? Have I hurt you?”

“No.” She avoided his gaze. “What could you possibly have said that would have had an effect on me? Your opinions don’t mean a thing to me, Donahue.”

His fingers tightened on her elbow. “You
have the tongue of a wasp,” he said curtly. “Do you suppose you could keep your stinger out of me until we have that talk? I’m not feeling any too stable myself at the moment.”

They had arrived back at the villa and found Galbraith and the other two young men waiting apprehensively at the courtyard door. Galbraith was staring at her with an almost comical look of mournful reproach. “That wasn’t very nice, Miss Landon,” he said as he opened the door and stepped aside for her to precede him. “You were supposed to be a weak, languishing female, not Sheena of the Jungle, climbing vines and leaping seven-foot walls at a single bound. Now I’m in big trouble.”

“You’re damn right you are,” Clancy said. “You weren’t only stupid, you were careless. I’m tempted to send you back to Sedikhan. A rookie operative would have shown more savvy.” He jerked his thumb at the two guards. “Replace them, and see if you can find anyone on the island with eyes in their heads.” He was propelling Lisa across the courtyard toward the
French doors that led to the bedroom. “And until you can find someone, I expect you to roost outside these doors yourself. Understand?”

Galbraith nodded. “I won’t be able to replace them until tomorrow. I hope to hell we don’t get one of those charming tropical showers tonight.”

“Maybe it would wash some sense into that head of yours. Looking like a schoolboy is a professional advantage, acting like one is professional suicide.” He ignored Galbraith’s grimace as he closed the French doors behind them.

He released Lisa’s arm and turned away. “Galbraith won’t make that mistake again. You won’t even be allowed into the courtyard without permission.” He strode toward the door across the room. “This is the only other exit, and I’ll be on the other side. I assure you that I’ll be a hell of a lot more careful than Galbraith.” He looked over his shoulder, and for an instant there was the hint of a smile lighting
the grimness of his expression. “I know you better.”