Keeping Watch: Heart of the Night\Accidental Bodyguard (31 page)

They stood together by the door, as awkward as she and Kahler had once been. She didn’t want to open it. Despite the strain, despite the awkwardness that seemed to be all that was left, she was reluctant to let him leave.

“Thanks for coming,” she said.

“What are you crying for?” He raised his hand and brushed the tear off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “There’s nothing to cry about.”

She hadn’t even realized she’d been crying. Embarrassed, she rubbed at the place he’d touched with her fingertips.

“Why the hell didn’t you call me? You could have let me know you were okay.”

That had slipped out, just like the tears, past her control. She hated crying women. About as much as she figured he’d hate a nagging one. He had given her no right to question what he did. They had made no commitment. Except it had felt as if they had. A whole lot of commitment.

“For a while…” He began and then he hesitated. “I wasn’t in any condition to make my own decisions. I didn’t understand why you weren’t there. I knew I wanted you there.”

“I tried,” she said.

He smiled at her tone. “Greg probably did what he thought was best. He read your press release. Maybe he thought…” Again he hesitated.

“That I shouldn’t have told them anything? That I had only made it worse?”

“Maybe.”

She shook her head, knowing that wasn’t true. The security Sandifer had imposed around Thorne Barrington had ensured that the press would come after her. Her statement had been necessary, and she knew it. He should have known it. That was the way things were done.

“The fact that none of you guys would talk to them made it worse. I was the only one left. They would never have given up without something.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said.

“And later? You could have called me later.”

Why didn’t she just tell him everything? she thought in disgust. Go ahead and confess the sleepless nights she’d spent worrying about him, her inability to work, the tears. Lay it all out there for him to smile at the next time he thought about her and her stupid obsession.

“There were some things I was learning to deal with,” he said.

“What kind of things?” she asked, a small flutter of fear in her stomach.

“I haven’t had another migraine. Not since that night.”

She waited a moment, trying to think what that meant, what his tone meant. “And that’s bad?” she asked, shaking her head. “You sound like that’s bad.”

He smiled at her, and his hand lifted to brush away another tear. “It probably means that they were right, that the headaches were…” He stopped and she could hear the breath he drew.

“Emotional,” she said, finally understanding what he was thinking.

He nodded again.

“Do you think I care?” she asked. “Even if that were true, do you think I would care?”

“I think
I
would.”

“Okay,” she said. “
You
care. I don’t. I’m glad they’re gone.”

He didn’t say anything, and she reached up to put her fingers against the slash of the scar. He didn’t avoid her touch.

“Maybe this had something to do with the headaches going away. Maybe it…rearranged whatever had been damaged before.”

He laughed, and she smiled at the sound.

“It’s a reasonable explanation to me,” she said. “Are you telling me no one else thinks so?”

“Greg said it’s possible.”

“But you decided not to believe him because…”

He shook his head, the glasses again a barrier to reading his eyes. It didn’t matter because she knew, of course, what he was thinking. He had already told her—that even the possibility that the bombing had affected him psychologically somehow made him something less than he had thought he was.

She
knew
the kind of person he was—the kind who would run toward a madman pointing a gun at him because she was in danger. And she didn’t understand why the other would even matter.

“Is this some macho kind of crap?” she asked. “You get a bomb that blows off half your hand and damages your eyes and cracks your skull, and you think it’s
not
supposed to make any kind of impact on your life?”

“Kate,” he said.

“Is that what you think? You been reading your own press? You think you’re a hero, Barrington? Is that what this is? You think you’re different from the rest of us?”

“I don’t think that—”

“That bastard put a little confetti in my bed, and I didn’t sleep for a week. Does that make me a coward?”

“Of course not, but—”

“I think you’re bright enough to figure this out. You’re supposed to be so damn brilliant. Figure it out,” she ordered.

“Kate.”

“Don’t ‘Kate’ me. Don’t talk to me like I’m some kind of hysterical child. You don’t have migraines anymore, and we should be celebrating, and instead we’re standing here yelling at each other.”

“I’m not yelling,” he said.

“You go to hell, Thorne Barrington. You go back to that damn mausoleum where you holed up for three years and you hide in the dark. I don’t give a damn if you do. If you think I give a damn, then you can just…”

“I wasn’t hiding,” he said.

“Yeah?” she said, derisively. “Except you can’t have it both ways. And I don’t care if you were. It doesn’t matter. Why don’t you understand that? I’m no bargain, Barrington. I’ll probably not ever be able to hear a backfire without being scared spitless. Some nights I sleep with the lights on. Does that mean you don’t want to sleep with me?”

“No,” he said.

The single syllable took her breath. She didn’t know how his voice could be so different, but whatever had been there the night Kahler had interrupted them was back.

“It doesn’t?” she asked, her mouth suddenly dry.

“No.”

“Then I guess that means you do.”

“I told you a long time ago I want to make love to you.”

She nodded.

“Nothing’s changed about the way I feel.”

She nodded again. And then she said it out loud. “Nothing’s changed about how I feel about you either.”

She didn’t make a conscious decision to step into his arms, but they closed around her when she did. Closed and held her tightly enough to put to rest any doubts she might have had about whether he wanted her there. It felt so good being held. So good to be safe. She hadn’t known until she was here that this was the only thing that would truly ever make her feel safe again—being held in Thorne Barrington’s arms.

S
HE WISHED
she had cut the lights off in her bedroom. It was so bright, stark as daylight—not like the welcoming, moon-touched darkness of his that night. It hadn’t been difficult then to undress, to expose her body for him. He had asked her and she had wanted to.

She stopped at the foot of the bed and turned around to find him still standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. As she watched, he reached up and removed the dark glasses. He folded them and held them in his hand. His eyes were as dark as she had remembered. His gaze intense. Waiting. Too polite maybe to make the first move. She smiled at that thought.

His head tilted, questioning the smile.

“If the headaches are gone, why did you wear those?” she asked.

“Hiding from the guys outside, I guess.”

She nodded. “It must have worked.”

“And maybe because I’m not convinced the other is over.”

“Maybe we ought to cut off the lights,” she suggested.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. “I’d rather leave them on,” he said finally. “If you don’t mind, of course.”

“It’s a little scary making love for the first time with the lights on,” she admitted.

“I’ve been in the dark a long time, Kate.”

A long time since he’d made love to anyone? she wondered. He had implied that before.

“And I’m…a little beat up,” he added. “A few nicks and craters.”

She smiled at him. “That’s okay. I’ve got a few nicks of my own. Not bomb scars, of course. Life scars, I guess.”

“I’d be more than willing to kiss them and make them better,” he said softly. Whether it was the depth of his voice or the accent, she didn’t know, but that didn’t sound nearly as dumb as it should have. It sounded…interesting. Romantic. Old-fashioned and so damned romantic. Just like Barrington.

“I think I’d like that,” she invited.

So he straightened and stepped into her room.

Epilogue

It was dark now. Some time during the long night through which he’d made love to her, Thorne had cut off the low lamp beside the bed. She had a memory of his long arm reaching upward, plunging the room into sudden darkness. And that wasn’t, of course, the only memory she had.

She knew him intimately now. How his hands felt, both of them, tantalizing against her body, examining contours that had never to her seemed worthy of such a prolonged exploration. She knew his mouth and his tongue, trailing moisture over her shivering skin, caressing every guarded, secret place from which he could coax sensation. She knew the texture of his skin, even the scars he had warned her about, old and fading into paleness against his darkness or hidden by the thick hair on his chest.

She had wondered that night how his body would feel against hers, dark, hair-roughened skin moving over the wanting smoothness of her breasts, her nipples hardening under the gliding touch of his. She
had
wondered, but now she knew.

She knew so much about him. His strength. And his gentleness. His patience, she remembered with wonder. Infinitely patient. Taking an eternity over everything. Never hurrying. Learning the subtle differences in her needs, her responses. Enjoying her. She had known that because he had
wanted
her to know it.

He had taken pains to let her know that he delighted in every trembling breath he forced her to take, every uncontrolled movement, every sigh, every gasping word she whispered against his throat or his shoulder as he had moved above her. Patient. Endlessly patient with her pleasure.

There was definitely something to be said for making love with a Southern gentleman. The old regional analogies stole into her consciousness. Slow as molasses, hot as a summer’s day, and as enduring as the land. Thorne Barrington was every bit as good as he was cracked up to be, she thought, her lips lifting into a small smile against the smooth, brown skin of his shoulder.

One long leg lay sprawled across one of hers. She bent the knee of her other leg to run the arch of her foot up his calf, the hair coarse and pleasant under her instep, the muscle firm. He shifted, his body moving over hers as it had so many times last night.

She felt the rush of moisture, anticipating his entry, wanting the now familiar invasion. He slipped his palms under her thighs, lifting, positioning her, and more than willing to obey, she wrapped her legs around his narrow hips, and felt him push into the slick, wet heat of her body.

She gasped, surprised as she had been before that her body could be so ready for him, so wanting, and yet he could fill her so strongly that it seemed he threatened the walls of her soul, the limits of what she was, of what she could ever be. Full and so deep. Entering and retreating, and then moving deeper still, past inhibitions and hesitations. Pushing toward the center of her desire that seemed to expand even as he moved within her. It had been this way from the beginning. As it had been with no one else. Ever.

She belonged to him. She had known it since she had seen the pictures. Obsessed with him. Obsessed now with this, with possessing him and being possessed.

His mouth was over hers, his tongue echoing the slow, deliberate movements of his body. Control. His was the control, and she was lost in it. He had given her permission to be lost in it. Making love to her. This was the reality of that oft-misused phrase—the reason it was new and different and so powerful. Thorne made love to her. And there were no demands except that she let him, that she accept what he wanted to give.

She could feel her body responding, lifting to meet his, to arch into the strength of each downward stroke, its power seeping into her body. Upward to make her heart pound and her breath a panting rhythm. Downward to tighten the muscles of her legs around his body, drawing him to her. Closer. Deeper. Always deeper and more powerful, moving within her. Forever. Endless. Until finally, after an eternity, she exploded, her frame rocking against him with the force of her release. She dug her nails into his back, unaware of what she was doing. On some level, she felt his skin moving against hers, wet and trembling, the heat of it burning against the sudden coldness of hers.

“Now,” she said hoarsely. A request or permission. She didn’t know, but she felt the response, hot and sudden within her arching body. She had wanted that. Together. Always together. As they were meant to be. As she had known from the first.

She lay exhausted in his arms. Somehow he had known that was important. To hold her. To keep her safe in the darkness. Once he had belonged to the darkness, and so long as she was with him there was nothing frightening about the night. Not any longer.

The sheets beneath her were damp and twisted. They should have been uncomfortable, but in the pleasant lethargy after his lovemaking, which left her body boneless and unmoving, there was only comfort and safety. Her breathing was beginning to even again, and her heart rate to slow.

He lifted away from her onto his elbows, dark eyes looking down at her face.

“I knew the first night you came to my house that I was going to make love to you,” he said.

“Did you know it would be like this?” she asked.

“I knew I wanted it to be, but nothing has ever been like this.”

“I thought—” she began and then realized that wasn’t something she should say to him, even after the intimacies they’d just shared.

“What did you think?” he asked when she didn’t continue. He leaned down to brush his lips against her throat, his breath warm over the film of perspiration that had captured floating tendrils of her hair to curl against her neck.

“That you couldn’t possibly live up to your reputation,” she admitted, smiling again. She was glad he wasn’t looking at her.