Beholden (28 page)

His gaze had traveled down her but seconds, yet it had been long enough for all her insecurities to return. “Are you fishing?”

“No, it’s just that I…”

Needing to silence her, his hands framed her face before his mouth devoured hers in a stunning kiss, his tongue dominating
hers. When he drew back, he saw the haze of passion tinting her skin, replacing the heat of embarrassment. The
accident and her injuries had robbed her of her feminine confidence. He wanted to do his best to give it back to her. “How
many times do I have to tell you how terrific I think you look, how beautiful you are? Inside. Outside. Everywhere.”

Her eyes wide and wanting to believe, she watched him.

He took her hand and guided it to his erection, and heard her gasp. “Can you tell how much I want you? Can you feel how much
I need you? Is this enough proof?”

Beneath her quivering fingers, he throbbed with life. An almost-painful need rose deep within her as her lower body leaned
toward his heat. “Oh, Luke,” she whispered, touching her forehead to his chest as her hand caressed him.

She hadn’t consciously planned nor hardly allowed herself to imagine how he’d feel, how she’d feel touching him. But she’d
wanted him almost from the start. She needed his strength, the safety net of his arms. And she desperately needed to know
she wasn’t longing alone. The proof that she wasn’t was in her trembling hand.

All the warnings he’d been given, all the cautions he’d lived by echoed in the back of Luke’s mind. It was too late. He wouldn’t
listen to them, unable to turn from her. Responding to his need alone would have been wrong, but the hunger, the invitation
in her touch was his undoing.

Tenderness. This fragile woman who’d endured so much deserved tenderness. He would have to curb the need to ravage, to plunge,
to take her quickly, though that was exactly what he wanted to do. This kiss was longer as he took her deeper, letting the
giddy sensations swamp his already foggy brain.

He took his hands down her sides and back up again, feeling her skin jump and quiver.

“Luke, I… ” She shifted restlessly, her fingers reaching but missing the mark as he deftly evaded her. Frustration had her
hands bunching the sheets. His mouth trailed along her jawline, her throat, pausing at the pulse that pounded in double time.
She drew in a quivery breath that ended on a moan.
His hands were on her breasts, and then he bent to take a nipple into his mouth. She arched spontaneously as he brought first
one then the other to life. Again he returned to kiss her hungrily while he skimmed his hair-covered chest along her swollen
breasts, the tingling sensation causing her to shiver.

His breathing ragged, Luke buried his face in her neck, murmuring hungry, hot, exciting things in her ear. Her eyes were half-closed
as she lay back, absorbing each new sensation, as with lips and teeth and tongue, he pleasured her.

No longer content to be a languid recipient, Terry shifted and they rolled together on the tangled sheets, panting now. She
raised herself and touched her mouth to his, her tongue taking possession, her hands diving into his hair, her face buried
in the softness of his beard. She drew in the dark male flavors, glorying in her freedom to touch as she had only in her restive
dreams.

She moved lower, her lips trailing kisses along the solid planes of his chest, shoving aside the silver pendant and chain.
The rain slammed against the window, the sound almost drowning out a groan he couldn’t suppress. Her hands learned him, as
curious as his had been to know her, to know everything.

Luke knew he was close to losing control. Again, he shifted positions, kissing her eyes closed, the small scars she fretted
over, and always returning to her mouth that drew him like a magnet. While his tongue dueled with hers, his fingers found
her, warm and wet and welcoming. Unable to resist watching her, he lifted his head and began to stroke her.

Terry knew it couldn’t be so, yet his hands felt as if they knew her body better than she, knew what she needed and when.
Her own hands fluttered, then gripped the sheet as she closed her eyes. She felt a whimper build as her body demanded the
release not yet within reach. Unashamed, oddly uninhibited, she gave herself up to the increasing
rhythm. When the first hard wave hit her, she cried out, stunned at the intensity that swamped her.

Head reeling, breath coming in spurts, she opened her eyes and saw more than his passion. In the warm gray of his gaze she
saw a compassion he would probably deny. It was precisely then she knew she was in love with Luke Tanner. And knew that it
was probably a mistake.

Luke watched her slowly return to herself, reining in his own raging need with iron control. In the back of his mind was the
nagging thought that he’d never before been so concerned with a woman’s pleasure. To admit that would be to admit that she’d
become more of a part of him than he was comfortable acknowledging.

He smoothed back her soft, damp hair. “Was that, as they say, good for you?” he asked, his voice husky with just a touch of
amusement.

Terry smiled, then licked her dry lips, aware that her tongue tasted him on her bruised mouth. “Oh,” she began, sounding breathy,
“it was all right, I guess.” She watched a slow smile form. “But I want more. I want you.”

A frown skittered over his features. She was so small and he knew how much heavier he was, how easily he could injure her
delicate form. “I don’t want to hurt you. Maybe you should come on top.”

She knew what concerned him. She’d been recovering from the accident ever since they’d met. “Luke, I’m not fragile. I won’t
break. Nothing hurts anymore and I need you so much.” Again, her hand caressed him intimately and she felt him jerk in response.
“I want you inside me, now.”

He hadn’t been waiting for permission as much as assurance that she could handle his weight. Removing her hand, he braced
himself above her. Then he was on her, slipping inside as easily as an old lover might. He shifted her hips, delving in deeper,
starting out slowly.

His gaze fastened on her face, he picked up the tempo. Her eyes were huge and a little glazed, her cheeks damp with
perspiration. His own skin was slick, his concentration total, his breathing more raspy with each rapid plunge. He gritted
his teeth, exerting every ounce of control he could muster as he watched her climb back up, his own body screaming for release.

Terry had never felt so much a part of someone as she watched him holding off, his thrusts steady and deep, patiently taking
her where he knew she wanted to go. She gave herself up to him entirely, letting him set the pace, emptying her mind of everyone
and everything except Luke.

Luke, who was joined with her more completely than any man ever had been. Luke, who wouldn’t leave her wanting while he sailed
off the edge alone. Luke, who was the hardest man she’d ever known, and the most tender. She tried to speak, to tell him,
but didn’t have the breath to utter a word. And then she felt herself spinning away.

He saw it coming, saw the wild, pounding wind tunnel take her and whirl her away. The strength of her orgasm had her muscles
tightening around him, sending him flying and finally shattering. His braced arms folded and he collapsed onto her while the
waves continued to ripple through him.

“I found her.” Seated on the bed, Luke shifted the phone to his other ear as he glanced over his shoulder. Terry was asleep,
lying on her stomach, her short blond hair tucked into the pillow. She was exhausted from her days on the run alone, a story
he’d gotten out of her as she’d lain in his arms afterward. In sleep, her face was untroubled and as innocent as a young girl’s.
But she hadn’t made love like a girl.

“Is she all right?” Bob Jones asked, his voice tinged with both relief and concern.

“Tired but otherwise fine.”

“Where did she go?”

He repeated Terry’s story about the first night spent in the movie theater, the bus trip to San Jose, taking a bed at Safe
Harbor Women’s Shelter, and her job at the Metropolitan
Café. “This afternoon, a customer came in resembling Ozzie Swain, complete with pockmarked face. He reached into his pocket
and she freaked out, dropping a tray of drinks. The guy had been reaching for his cigarettes. She was afraid to trust her
memory of what he looked like, so she bolted out the back door. That’s when I saw her running down the street and recognized
her.”

“Lucky you happened along,” Bob stated, listening hard, trying to read between the lines.

“Luck, hell. I’d been walking those streets night and day, stopping in every hotel, motel, coffee shop, fast-food joint. I
must’ve talked to two hundred people.”

“And did she say why she took off?”

“Just like I’d told you, she can’t face more surgery right now.” He and Terry had talked about that again and he’d renewed
his promise to take her side against Bob on that issue. She’d fallen asleep then, trusting him. He felt the weight of that
trust sit heavily on him now.

“Damn it,” Jones said softly. He wasn’t a man to raise his voice, his anger more the quiet, deadly kind. “I’d hoped you could
change her mind. As long as she has that face, she’s in danger. We can’t change her height or her body shape. But… ’

“Forget it, Bob. We’ll take our chances.”

Jones heard the finality in Luke’s voice. He also heard more.
We. Our
. Two against one, against the world. When had his best agent begun to side with the witness instead of the chief? Something
had happened to shift things, and Jones thought he knew exactly what had transpired. “You’ve fallen for her,” he said, and
it wasn’t a question.

“Hell, no.” Swearing more inventively under his breath, Luke got up, dragging the phone wire across the room as he walked
over to the window. “You know better than that. I don’t buy into that crap.”

Everyone buys into that crap when the right person comes along, Bob thought. He, too, had been a loner all his
life until Laura had come along and made him want more. Now, married six years, he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’d suspected
that one day the same thing would happen to Luke. Ordinarily, Bob would be pleased for his friend, despite the denial he was
professing right now. But caring for a witness he was assigned to protect could make an agent careless. As the chief, he couldn’t
afford to lose a good agent or the only witness in an important case.

There was only one thing to do. He’d have to pay a visit to Luke and his charge as soon as they were resettled and see for
himself. If, in his judgment, the case was in jeopardy and lives at risk, he’d replace Luke. There’d be hell to pay, for Tanner
wasn’t an easy man to confront, but Bob would have to pull rank.

There were days, more than a few, when he hated his job.

“Are you still there, or did you fall asleep?” Luke asked, knowing full well that Bob had lapsed into silence only because
he was trying to assess the situation.

Jones ignored the prod. “Are you sure the man she saw at the cafe wasn’t Ozzie?”

“Yes. I had her go over everything that happened. If that had been Ozzie, he’d have had ample opportunity to take her out.
No one else was following her when I ran after her. A case of mistaken identity brought on by nerves.”

“All right. The cabin outside Truckee is all set, electricity on. When can you leave?”

Luke moved the drape aside. It was evening and a steady rain was still coming down, apt to last all night. Terry needed a
good night’s sleep. And he needed to hold her. “In the morning.”

“That’ll give me time to fax to your motel a map of how to find this place. It’s way up there, almost to the Donner Pass,
off Highway 80. Weather report says the rain you’re getting down there may well turn into snow up that way soon. Elevation’s
about eight thousand feet. You might want
to get chains for the van and pick up some supplies. You could get snowed in.”

The way he felt right now, that would be the best thing that could happen to them, Luke thought. Car tracks and footsteps
could be spotted more easily in snow. He’d visited that area west of Reno before and knew that many of the roads could be
difficult to navigate in winter. That could only help them if someone got wind of their whereabouts and tried to reach them.
“Sounds good to me.”

“How’s the money holding up?”

“I got a cash advance on the card just yesterday. We’ll be all right.”

There was that
we
again. “There’s a secure phone line in the place. Call when you get there.”

“Will do.” Luke hung up and listened to his stomach growling. He turned around and saw that Terry was awake, the sheet tucked
in around her body. He wondered how much she’d heard.

She smiled at him lazily. “Hey, officer. There’s a naked man in my room.” And what a naked man. Tall, weathered, strong. Imperfections,
sure. More scars than she had along that long, lean torso. But unabashedly male as he strolled back to replace the phone.
She drank in the sight of him as warmth spread through her.

Luke lay down on top of the covers and rolled to face her. “Shall I have him thrown out, miss?”

She trailed her fingers along his chest, loving the feel of the soft hair, the smooth skin, the hard muscles beneath. “Mmm,
I think I have something else in mind for him.” Leaning over, she touched her mouth to his.

No going back, Terry thought as he took over the kiss. Once a man and woman crossed the line in their relationship, there
was no going back. Not that she wanted to. But what, she wondered, did Luke want?

Easing back, he saw that the short nap had done some good. She looked a little less tired, less strained. Her lips
were still a little puffy from his kisses and her eyes still contained the remnants of sleep. She looked lazy and contented
and very beautiful. He felt the stirring of fresh desire. “Do you feel better?”

Stretching languidly, she all but purred. “I don’t know how I could feel any better than I do right now.” Perhaps if this
whole thing with the Russo brothers was behind them, if she could come out of hiding, put them away with her testimony and
get on with her life, maybe then she’d feel permanently better. But maybe then, she’d lose the only good that had come out
of the whole tragic mess: Luke.