Dangerous to Know (9 page)

They'd work them through now, he decided with grim determination. The way they'd worked through their minor differences in the past. With a calm meeting of their minds and a slow, sweet joining of their bodies. Anticipation curled low in his groin as he took another swallow, then set the snifter aside.

Without taking his eyes off Paige, he lifted his chin and spoke
over his shoulder. “You can switch off the cameras and the microphone, Chameleon. I'll send you an emergency signal if I need you.”

“You sure, Doc?”

Paige gave a little start as Maggie's voice floated out of the bronze bust of some long-dead Roman emperor that sat on a pedestal by the foyer.

“I'm sure.” Doc's shadowed gaze drifted over the woman facing him. “I'll provide Jezebel cover for the rest of the night.”

After a slight pause, Maggie murmured, “Right.”

Doc signed off, watching with silent amusement the bright wash of color that flooded Paige's delicate face.

“If that means what I think you meant it to mean,” she said, wrapping both arms around her waist, “you're getting way ahead of yourself, David. We need to talk.”

Doc's brief amusement disappeared as her movement caused her creamy breasts to swell above that damned pink-and-black thing. He'd never considered himself a particularly possessive or primitive type, but Paige's repeated appearances in Meredith's working clothes were stirring some deep, surprisingly atavistic urges. This was the twentieth century A.D., not B.C., he reminded himself savagely. He couldn't just sling her over his shoulder and carry her off to his cave. Not until they'd had their talk, anyway.

Paige drew in a slow breath, unaware that the simple act ripped away one more layer of Doc's civilized veneer. Swearing under his breath, he reached up to loosen the top stud on his dress shirt.

“I'm not going to sleep with you, David,” she announced, in a small, determined voice. “Not until I know who you are.”

“You know who I am.”

“No, I don't! Until a few hours ago, I thought you were an engineer.”

“I am an engineer. I've never lied to you, Paige. Except by omission.”

“Well, you omitted a few rather significant details. A whole secret identity, in fact. A life completely apart from me. How
could you do that, David? How could you deliberately exclude me from this part of yourself?”

She searched his face, her eyes cloudy with the need to understand. “Didn't you trust me?”

“It's not a matter of trust.”

“Then what? Have I been indiscreet? Am I too stupid? Were you afraid I might give you away?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then what?”

Doc raked a hand through his hair, knowing that he owed her an explanation. “I wanted to keep you separate from this side of my life. It's too dark. Too dangerous.”

She hugged herself more tightly.

Doc gritted his teeth as the creamy flesh swelled higher.

“I…I see,” she said. “So you divided your life into nice neat compartments labeled Engineering, Undercover Work, and, oh, yes, Paige.”

“That's one way of putting it.”

“I see,” she repeated in a small voice.

He waited while she struggled with the hard, undeniable truth. There was a part of him he'd withheld from her. A part he would always withhold.

Even if he'd wanted to, Doc wasn't cleared to tell her about his work with OMEGA. About the dark, twisted people he dealt with. The lonely days and weeks in the field, when an agent lived on the knife edge of danger, with only his wits and his skills to keep him alive. He couldn't even tell her about the debt he owed Adam Ridgeway, who had personally recruited him for OMEGA.

That debt originated far back in their navy days, when Doc had commanded an underwater demolition team and Adam had flown carrier-based jets. Most of the world assumed the wealthy Bostonian had simply been pulling a well-publicized stint in the military before dabbling in politics. Yet Doc could recall in vivid, minute detail the day his team had come under hostile fire while clearing a mine field in the Persian Gulf. Although low on fuel, Adam had coolly disregarded orders to return to his
ship. Single-handedly he'd held the attacking small boats at bay until reinforcements arrived and a rescue helo was able to pluck the demolition team out of danger.

Since the attackers were at that time supposedly U.S. allies, frantic diplomatic efforts had hushed up the incident. All participants were sworn to secrecy. But Doc would never forget those moments when bullets had sliced through the waters all around him and a lone navy jet had repeatedly dived out of the skies overhead.

He couldn't speak of that day to Paige, any more than he could tell her about the missions he'd undertaken since joining OMEGA. Not just because she wasn't cleared for such information. Because he didn't want her to know.

Maybe he'd been wrong to try to shield her, he acknowledged silently, studying her pale, set face. Maybe he shouldn't have tried to protect her. But she symbolized all that was good and pure and innocent in his life. He hadn't wanted to contaminate that purity with what he did for OMEGA.

Not that she looked particularly innocent at this moment, he thought wryly. Not in that blasted pink contraption.

As she stared at his shadowed face, Paige tried desperately to contain her hurt. Even now, even after her brief foray into his world, David wanted to shut her out. To shield her from the man he really was.

Maybe she should let him, she thought with a touch of despair. Maybe she wouldn't even like the unknown David once the layers of his varied identities were peeled back to reveal the man beneath.

No! No! She couldn't spend the rest of her life wondering, unsure of him or herself.

As she grappled with her hurt and confusion, Paige tried to find a way to bridge the gap between the David she knew and the stranger he seemed to be. Maybe, she thought hesitantly, she had to show David a side of herself he'd never seen before he would risk opening those closed, secret compartments of his. Maybe he needed to discover she wasn't all sweetness and light. Maybe she needed to discover it herself.

“Look at me, David,” she whispered.

A faint half smile curved his lips. “I'm looking.”

She wet her lips. “What do you see? Who do you see? Paige? Or Meredith?”

The smile faded.

“Maybe I'm not quite the woman you thought you knew, either.”

She was.

And she wasn't.

Until this moment, Doc had believed he could identify Paige in a crowded room by her scent alone. That he'd explored every nuance of her personality. That he'd discovered all her strengths. Accounted for all her weaknesses.

Yet now, as his gaze slid down her throat to the narrow velvet ribbon that banded it, he saw a tiny vein throbbing just beneath the circlet of black. He'd never noticed that vein before, and he'd sure as hell never felt anything as potent as the raw need that slammed into him as he watched that fluttering pulse.

“Do you want me, David?” Her whisper held a nervous, totally erotic huskiness. “You can have me…if you can afford me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you willing to pay for your pleasures?”

Afraid she was going to lose her nerve, Paige turned away. Her eyes sought his rigid figure, reflected in the huge Italian giltwood mirror that hung above the table directly in front of her.

“You can have the woman you see in this mirror,” she told his shadowy image. “For a fee.”

She stated the staggering figure Henri had suggested just moments ago. At least she hoped it was the figure. The swift narrowing of David's eyes made her fear she might have mixed the numbers up.

For long moments, he didn't move. Didn't speak. Then he moved slightly, and the light from the single lamp illuminated his expression.

At the expression in his eyes, Paige felt a sudden tiny dart of
sensation. Not fear, exactly. Not apprehension. Just a shivery, nerve-tingling ripple of something similar to it.

He slid one hand into his pants pocket. Without speaking, he tossed a neat fold of notes onto the table.

“That should cover it.”

Henri would be proud of her, Paige thought wildly. She'd negotiated her contact and even been paid in advance. Or was about to be.

Moving slowly, David came to stand behind her. Her pale hair and bare shoulders gleamed in soft contrast to the stark whiteness of his shirt. The only color in the shadowed scene portrayed in the huge mirror was the deep rose of her bodice. Paige stared at his image in the silvered glass, sure he would say something. Anything.

Instead, he placed his hands on the curve of her waist.

It was such a simple gesture. Such a small touch. But so warm, even through the layers of satin and stiff boning. So firm. So familiar.

This was David, her heart cried.
Her
David, at least as much of him as he allowed her to possess. She stared at the big blunt-tipped fingers that shaped her waist, then lifted her eyes to his.

The man who stared back at her wasn't her David, she realized with a shock. His face was taut with a need she'd never seen before. His eyes glittered with an intensity he'd never shown her before. His hands, those strong, safe hands that had caressed her so tenderly in the past, now tightened around her waist like an iron band.

Paige had wanted to discover what lay beneath the assured, loving exterior David had always shown her. She saw it now in the mirror. And her pulse leapt in wild, unfettered response to this stranger's blatant desire.

His fingers splayed downward, following the V-shaped bottom edge of her corset. The taffeta skirt whispered a protest as he spread his hands over her stomach and pressed her back against the rock-hardness of his body.

Then his hands, those sure, strong hands, moved to the bottom
hook on the stiff-boned bustier. The hook gave with a soft snicker of sound.

“You're every man's secret fantasy in this thing,” he growled, his warm breath stirring the fine hairs at her temple.

The second hook separated, and his hands slid up to the third.

“Your waist is so small.”

Unconsciously Paige sucked in her breath to make it even smaller.

The third hook gave.

“That pulse in your throat is driving me crazy.”

He bent and brushed her neck with a kiss.

Another hook came open.

“And your breasts, my sweet, seductive Jezebel, your breasts have made me ache with wanting you all night.”

The last hook came undone, baring her from the waist up. She kept her arms stiff, her fists buried in her skirt as he eased the stiff corset from between their bodies. It dropped to the carpet, unheeded.

Her breath suspended, Paige watched him watching her. Their images seemed to blur. To merge in the dimness.

Her nipples peaked, either from the cool air or from the fierce masculine hunger in his eyes.

She thought he'd touch her then. She wanted him to touch her. She arched her back a little, offering herself.

Yet when his hands reached for her, they flattened against her midriff. With slow, sure strokes, he soothed the red marks left by the bodice's stiff ribs. His touch was gentle, so gentle, and erotically possessive.

Then his fingers brushed the underside of one breast, and she shivered.

“David…”

His name on her lips was a sigh. A plea. A promise.

“No, little Jezebel,” he told her, bending down to nuzzle her neck once again. “Not yet.”

His mouth and teeth and tongue played with the soft skin of her throat. His breath was warm and moist in her ear, his lips were firm. Fires curled in her belly. When she thought she would
go wild from wanting more than just his lips, he kissed the spot at the base of her hairline where the tiny chip had been inserted, then moved back half a step.

Paige felt his fingers at the small of her back. The skirt's buttons slipped free, and then the taffeta slithered to a black pool at her feet.

Embarrassed and more than a little shocked by the image in the silvered glass, Paige fought the urge to close her eyes. Never, not even in her most secret fantasies, had she imagined herself standing before David clothed only in sheer black bikini panties, a black lace garter belt, thigh-high stockings and a velvet ribbon around her throat.

His palms planed her hips, her bottom, then slid around to her stomach. One moved up to cup her breast and played with the stiff, throbbing nipple. The other moved down to shape her mound. Paige felt the heat of his hand through her sheer panties.

“Open for me,” he ordered softly.

Laying her head back against his shoulder, she eased her legs apart. He tugged the nylon aside, exploring her, preparing her. The pressure of his fingers against her core sent hot, liquid desire spiraling through her loins. She gasped and pressed her bottom back against his rampant arousal.

Was this really her? she wondered wildly. Was she really standing here like a…like a high-class call girl, in diamonds and velvet and black lace, while this shadowy stranger played with her body?

“I told you we might not recognize ourselves when this is all over,” David murmured, as if reading her mind.

His fingers probed deeper, and suddenly the thought that a stranger was touching her so intimately frightened her. Suddenly she didn't want to uncover any more of the man in the mirror. She wanted David.
Her
David.

Twisting around, Paige flung herself against him. The diamond studs cut into her flesh as she dragged his head down. Her mouth was demanding, insistent, anxious.

With a low, savage sound, he wrapped his arms around her waist. She strained into him, both relieved and excited by the
faint tremor in the muscles of his shoulders as he fought to control his passion. Whoever she might have seen so briefly in the mirror, this was
her
David.

She felt his rigid member against her stomach. She tasted the raw hunger in his mouth. She was gasping with need when he swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. He dumped her on the wide bed with a noticeable lack of his usual gentleness and ripped off her panties.