Shock Waves (13 page)

The other time had been fast, sudden, unbearably dark.

“Brenna,” he murmured, again lifting a hand to the side of her face. His touch was punishingly gentle. Her gaze focused on his mouth, those lips that could appear hard and unyielding but now looked surprisingly soft. Soon they would be on hers.

“Do you have any idea?” he ground out. “Any idea at all how much I want to make love to you?”

The quiet words stopped her heart. And her breath. Any trace of coherent thought. It was cruel, so horribly cruel, to have to act out her sweetest fantasy.

“To feel you in my arms,” he went on, feathering his fingers along her face. She waited for the bite of dread, the flood of darkness, but found only yearning. “Show you just how sorry I am about everything that’s happened.”

She looked away from his eyes, realized her mistake too late. Away from his face she found his chest, lower still to his abdomen, where the arrow of dark blond springy hair vanished beneath his shorts, which weren’t quite so loose anymore.

A finger to her chin, the tilt of her face back to his. “But I know you’re tired,” he said, more loudly this time, and just like that she realized another truth, that he spoke softly when he spoke of the truth, more loudly when he voiced a lie. If cameras watched the room, then bugs could be recording their conversations. “You need to sleep more than I need to be inside of you.”

Her mouth went dry. My God, she thought maniacally. My God. Ethan the hard, driven prosecutor hid more behind his sharp suits than just a mouthwatering body. The man packed a seductive punch she’d never seen coming.

“It might be our only chance,” she stunned herself by saying. Acting, she told herself. She was just playing the game.

He went very still. “Not if I have a damn thing to say about it.”

Her heart beat cruelly against the confines of her chest. “I’ll hold you to that,” she said, lifting a hand to his face. She’d never touched like this before, never skimmed her fingers along a firm jaw and soft whiskers. She’d never let herself.

He grabbed her wrist. “You’re killing me,” he said, and his smile looked pained. “Just sleep, angel.” He patted the pillow.

Heart in her throat, she slid back against the cool, crisp sheets and watched him pull the covers over her chest. “I’m here if you need me,” he said, feathering a kiss across her lips.

And then he was gone. He strolled from her side of the big poster bed to the switch by the door, flicked it and immersed the room in darkness. She blinked, opened her eyes to the wash of soft moonlight, saw the shadowy form of his body move to the other side of the bed. He yanked the covers back and lay down, made no move to pull the sheet over himself.

Brenna lay there a long time, listening to the heavy, irregular rhythm of his breathing. He shifted back and forth from his left side to his right, periodically punching his pillow. Even all the way across the big bed, she felt the heat of his body wash over her.

She’d never shared a bed with a man before. Never shared her body. Once, she’d come close. Once, she’d gotten naked for a man, let him cover her body with his. Once, she’d seen the darkness too late.

For as long as she lived, she’d never forget the broken moments that followed, the desperate groping for the gun, the frantic run for the door, the endless drive back to her house.

The blood waiting on her porch.

“Come here.”

The rough words startled her. She blinked against the darkness, turned to see Ethan facing her. “You’re restless,” he said. “Maybe if you let me hold you, you can go to sleep.”

God. She didn’t want that. Didn’t want him to hold her, lull her to sleep. Didn’t want to play the game one second longer than she had to. But she found herself sliding toward him anyway, drawn by a need she neither understood nor trusted.

“Like this,” he said, pulling her closer, so close her head rested on his chest. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

She wanted to believe that, but she’d seen the truth in her dreams. She wasn’t the one in danger. Ethan was. And if anyone in this bed carried the role of protector, it was her, not him.

But she said nothing, knew that just because he believed she didn’t work for Jorak didn’t mean he believed what she’d seen in the darkness. Didn’t mean he trusted the dark light she saw in his eyes. Something had happened to this man. Something had hardened him, twisted him. Something had robbed him of his fundamental ability to trust, not in the world around him, but the world within him.

And that, Brenna knew, was more dangerous than any prophecy she could voice.

Throat tight, she lay against his body and resisted the urge to tangle her legs with his, concentrating instead on the steady thrum of his heart, the feel of his chest hairs tickling the side of her face.

She didn’t want to sleep. She didn’t want to let go. She knew what would happen if she did. But gradually, with the feel of his hand stroking her back and playing lazily with her hair, lethargy overcame her, and she began to drift.

* * *

How long, Eth? How long since you’ve slept through the night?

He lay there in the smothering darkness, with Brenna’s impossibly soft body sprawled over his, and concentrated on the answer he’d refused to give his sister, Elizabeth. His twin, she knew him inside out. She’d shared a special bond with her sisters, that was true, but nothing compared to the unspoken understanding the two of them had always shared. When their older sister, Kristina, had died, Ethan had mourned the loss of two sisters, because he’d lost part of Elizabeth that brutally cold night, as well.

Until bold, brash, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants Wesley “Hawk” Monroe stormed into her life and turned it upside down, bringing her back to the land of the living.

No one had brought Ethan back.

Through the darkness he felt a dark smile curve his lips. He let his hand explore Brenna’s back, absently keeping time with the gentle swishing of the surf beyond. The open slats of the high windows let in sound as well as the cool evening breeze.

Seven years. Eight months. Two days. That’s how long it had been since he’d slept the night through. Before then he’d never had a problem sleeping, had, in fact, frequently found himself facing his father’s gruff stare at nine in the morning when he would rip open Ethan’s curtains and let in a swath of sunlight. Military school had been brutal. Not only had they had to rise early, but frequently the upper classmen got their kicks by tormenting the green-bellies at all hours of the night.

But it wasn’t until that cold night seven years before that Ethan had quit being able to sleep. It had started out innocently enough. A phone call. A deep, garbled voice. A request for a twilight meeting along the shores of the James.

Now he stared up at the ceiling, watched the lazy swish of the ceiling fan and realized the truth. That’s why he’d been so certain Brenna worked for Jorak. Because she’d replicated, down to the detail, the phone call, the request, the meeting, that had started this game all those years ago.

That night he’d driven to the river, ready for a long run, with absolutely no idea his life, the world as it he knew it, was about to end.

This time he’d driven to the river filled with a hot, pulsing anticipation.

And in the process he’d dragged an innocent woman into the darkness he’d lived with for seven years.

She shifted against him, the open fingers of her hand closing to tighten around a fistful of chest hair. He winced at the tug, but made no move to stop her.

“Don’t,” she muttered, and the broken sound of her voice cut right through him. He looked down at the shadows playing across her face, as he’d done so often for the past two hours, but no longer saw soft lines of relaxation. Her mouth and jaw were tight. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

“No,” she ground out, and this time, she started to thrash. Her legs kicked against his body with surprising force. Her hand, curled around his chest hair, pulled viciously. The other scratched. “No!”

“Brenna.” He slid from beneath her and hovered over her, put a hand to her face. The blast of heat staggered him. She’d been resting on his chest, but he hadn’t realized how hot she’d become, that her hair had become damp and plastered to the sides of her face.

“Stand down!” The words were hard, violent, and she bucked beneath him, jammed a knee into his thigh. “Never … let … you … win…”

Fighting her, fighting himself, he held her against the bed, but she thrashed harder, twisting against his hold.

“Brenna, baby,” he said, pushing the hair back from her face. “Come on, angel. You’re scaring me.”

The scream stopped his heart. It split the night, tore into some place deep inside.

“Jesus,” he swore, pulling her upright and giving her shoulders a gentle shake. “Brenna.” He said her name firmly, stripped all the emotion from his voice. “It’s just a dream.”

She jerked violently, and her lids flew open, revealing eyes drenched in absolute horror. “Kill … you…”

Ethan reacted without thinking, just pulled her into his arms and started to rock. She crawled into his lap and stunned him by wrapping her hot, sweaty body around his and holding him back, holding on tight. They stayed that way for a long, long time, shock waves lingering as they rocked in the darkness.

* * *

Music. Aching. Dramatic. The haunting sounds drifted from the parted doors at the end of the interior hallway, echoed off the walls and floor of misshapen tiles of gray slate. Piano, Brenna recognized. Classical. Familiar. Drenched with emotion. Beethoven, maybe. Perhaps Copland. She concentrated on the melody, grateful for a reprieve from the oppressive silence that had settled between her and Ethan the moment she’d awoken sprawled all over his hot, hard body.

Dear God. Dear. God. She’d slept with the man. Not sexually, not in the sense of body joined to body, but she’d shared another kind of intimacy with him, one that penetrated beyond the confines of the flesh to that dark place she’d walled away two years before.

The music grew louder, crashing now, resounding with a raw edge she recognized too easily. The two armed guards leading them down the hall pushed open the massive double doors, then a third nudged Ethan and Brenna inside.

The glare of the bright morning sunshine, after the shadows of the hallway, momentarily blinded her. She blinked rapidly, brought the room of all white into focus. It looked just as it had the night before, not even the bright wash of daylight able to chase away the aura of darkness.

Her heart tattooed a frenetic rhythm. Familiarity drilled through her. This was it. Not just the room but the moment. The moment from her dreams. The moment of choice, when the man she’d shared a bed with the night before, the man who’d honored the cameras in the room by holding her against his body, who’d murmured words of comfort, the man who was willing to put his own life on the line to protect his family, would have to throw someone to the wolves. Her or the informant who’d betrayed Jorak all those years ago.

She turned to look at him now, as she’d not let herself do since opening her eyes to the sight of dark gold chest hair and one flat nipple resting beneath her fingertips. She’d excused herself to the shower with a curtness she hadn’t come close to feeling, not when her body still tingled from his touch. Standing naked beneath the warm spray of water had been torture. Every time she’d touched herself, slid a bar of soap along her stomach or rubbed the shampoo into her hair, she’d imagined another pair of hands, stronger fingers.

The sight of him now, standing next to her in Jorak Zhukov’s whitewashed room, made her heart bleed in a way she instinctively mistrusted. He’d showered but not shaven, dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a black knit shirt. His raven hair was damp, but not long enough to curl. The subtle aroma of musk and citrus drifted toward her.

But none of that masked the truth she saw etched into every hard line of his body, the fact he’d not slept for more than a minute the night before. Neither had she. Not after the dream.

She followed his gaze to the right, where the white baby grand dominated a corner of the room. She saw the picture first, a picture she hadn’t noticed the night before. A silver frame embraced the black-and-white image of a woman. She was smiling, her long, blond hair soft and wavy around a face aglow with what could only be love.

Then she saw Jorak Zhukov.

He sat on the bench before the baby grand, his eyes closed, his long, tanned fingers dancing gracefully along the ivory keys. The music came from him. The dramatic, aching sounds that touched some place deep inside her came from this man in the suit of spotless white but with a heart of pure darkness.

The tempo swelled, crashed, like the frothy white waves visible through the wall of windows.

Throat tight, she looked up at Ethan again, standing rigidly by her side, and saw the shadows in his eyes, the hard clench of his jaw. The emotion emanating from this man who pretended to feel none nearly choked her.

With one final crescendo, the music stopped, and Jorak sat there a moment, shoulders erect, fingers on the keys. His breathing was heavy, choppy. The lines of his face were hard.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Ethan drawled with an insolence she’d rarely heard from him.

Jorak’s coal-black eyes snapped open, but they weren’t as razor sharp as they’d been the night before. There was a haze there, the noncomprehending blur of someone jarred from a deep sleep.