Since I Saw You (18 page)

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You just did something to calm yourself,” he said, switching his gaze from the computer to her face. “What?”

Was it her imagination, or did one of those moving lines on the screen jump at his question? “I just . . . pictured a difficult dance sequence.”

He nodded as if her explanation made perfect sense. “That’s good. Do you think you can do that when we demonstrate it to the watchmakers? Exhibit a relaxation response at will?”

She blinked, horror striking her in a wave. He gave a lopsided grin as if he’d read her mind. “You’ll only have on the wrist mechanism. Every stitch of clothing in place. I told you we’re just gathering baseline data for you today,” he murmured, his accented, deep voice the equivalent of a caress on her cheek.

“I think I probably could,” Lin said dubiously. If she could calm her responses while standing nearly naked here in front of Kam as he probed her most hidden, subtle responses, surely she could do so fully clothed with only a wrist sensor.

“Good,” he picked up the last electrode. “I have to move aside the towel now.”

He stood in front of the computer screen so she couldn’t see it, but she was quite sure all those various lines spiked a mile high at his words.

“Where?” she asked, meaning where was he going to place this incendiary electrode.

He held her gaze and answered by placing his fingertips on his jeans just to the left of his fly. Her eyes sprung wide. Things looked very full in his crotch area. He wasn’t as immune to touching her as he’d led her to believe.

“There’s not a pulse point there, is there?” she asked shakily.

He dropped his hand. “An extremely important one, on the femoral artery.”

She nodded, her mouth too dry to speak. Still clutching the towel between her breasts, she tried to move aside the fabric in as modest a fashion as possible, but the wires on her arm made her clumsy. Her sex was still tender and sensitive from their intense lovemaking last night, but in that moment, the slightly abraded sensation only served to excite her more, increasing the tingling, tight feeling.

“I’ve got it,” he assured gruffly, crouching so that his face was at the level of her pelvis. Lin stared out the windows on to an azure, sun-infused Lake Michigan, but saw little. Her awareness was all being used up on attending to the feeling of Kam’s hand sweeping aside the fabric of the towel, exposing her naked hip. A flap of material still hung over her genitals, but she felt cool air against her pussy.

Cold against hot.

He moved his fingers over that sensitive, naked patch of skin just to the side of her pussy, searching for the artery. A wave of dizziness struck her. Or was it lust? She had a sudden, vivid image of him moving aside the flap of the towel and dipping his tongue between her labia. She recalled in perfect detail how expert he’d been at that particular skill as well.

Arousal stabbed at her. She barely stopped herself from moaning.

“Lin.”

She opened her clamped eyelids with effort. He looked up at her, his face just inches from her pussy. His nostrils flared slightly.

“Are you sore? From last night?”

“A little,” she admitted through numb lips. Had he been reading her mind?

He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m as much to blame as you are,” she said in a hushed tone.

He blinked as if coming out of a trance.

“Maybe you should think of the dance,” he said so quietly, she almost thought she’d imagined what he said. How mortifying. He
knew.
He knew that her body was zinging with arousal. She shut her eyes. He knew what he was doing to her. He wasn’t catching her scent, was he? she thought with rising panic.

Think of the dance
. Despite her vulnerability in that moment, she valued his advice. Disciplining her mind and body had never before failed her. She pictured herself taking the subtle, difficult poses, heard the music . . . lost herself to it. She knew the moment when he attached the electrode so near her naked sex, but she’d bought a little distance for herself with her focus. Even when she felt the fabric of the towel fall back in place, she continued to meditate on the dance.

“You can sit down on the couch now. They’re all attached.” She opened her eyes. Kam stood before her. He put his hand on her free arm, guiding her down to a sitting position, mindful of the attached wires. She self-consciously arranged the towel, making sure she was modestly covered.

“What do we do now?” she asked him when he sat down on the couch, a cushion and the two computers between them.

“I’m going to show you some images on the computer and then ask you a series of questions. All of these things are designed to evoke emotional and physiological responses. Don’t try to control yourself for this part.” He told her pointedly. “That’s very important. I’m going to ask you to evoke a relaxation response later, which fortunately, you seem to have a talent for. But don’t relax now. Don’t think. Just react to the stimuli. Okay?”

Lin nodded. At least he wasn’t going to be touching her during the process. That was something.

For the next forty-five minutes, he showed her a series of photographs and short videos that were clearly designed to evoke a range of emotions from anxiety to outrage to fondness to fear. Afterward, he asked her a number of questions, some of which were boring and mundane, and some of which did everything from embarrass her to make her laugh to cause her to blush. It was anxiety provoking, yes, but she recognized the universality of the stimuli. They were meant for any human test subject, not just her. That knowledge went a long way to calm her panic.

“Okay. We’re done with that part,” Kam said, tapping his fingers on the computer screen a few times. “Now I want you to do what you did before to calm yourself. Focus on the dance and relax while I take some readings.”

“Okay,” she said, wondering if she could do again what she’d reached out blindly to do during a panic. As it turned out, she could do it even easier without high anxiety edging her consciousness.

“Good. That’s it,” Kam said after a moment, sounding distracted. She opened her eyes. He tapped his fingers on the screen. “We’re done.”

“Really?” she asked gratefully, focusing on him where he sat at the end of the couch, one of the computers balanced on a muscular thigh. She could see some russet highlights glinting in his dark, waving hair. A loose lock had fallen onto his forehead.
Sexy as the devil.

“Yes. It wasn’t that bad, was it?” he asked, his gaze sliding over to her.

Lin repressed her genuine answer, which was,
about a hundred times worse than having all my wisdom teeth removed in one afternoon
. “I guess not,” she said.

“Are you going to tell me now what got you so uptight before you came here today?”

His tone was so mild, it took a second for his words—his intention—to sink in. When they did, she felt the electrode at her throat give a little leap. He watched her calmly, waiting.

“Did you ask me that when I was unprepared just to get an anxiety response out of me? To
probe
me? That’s an unethical use of your invention!” she accused.

Holding her gaze, he turned the computer in his lap. The computer was shut down. Lin blushed in embarrassment.

“Do you really think I need to use a machine to figure out that something was irritating you? I knew it two seconds after you walked in the door. Now are you going to tell me what’s got your knickers in a twist or not? What the hell did I do?”

Her breath caught in her lungs and burned. Slowly, she exhaled, striving to get control of herself. She began to remove the electrodes methodically from her face, arm, and leg. “Nothing,” she said quietly after a tense moment. “You didn’t do anything but be yourself.”

“Oh, that’s helpful information. So you’re pissed off at something I can’t change?” he asked, his frown deepening, his eyes narrowing. “Can you at least tell me what this irredeemable character flaw is?”

Lin yanked at that incendiary wire that disappeared beneath the towel. She was free to go now. Instead, she met his fiery stare across the several feet that separated them. Didn’t he deserve to know the truth? But if she told him the truth about how she’d found out private information about Phoebe Cane, she’d have to explain about Angus. She still wanted Angus’s arrival to be special for him.

As she looked into his piercing eyes, she again experienced that familiar heavy, warm sensation in her lower belly. Things felt
very
damp between her thighs.

“It’s not a horrible character flaw,” she finally replied honestly. Suddenly, she felt tired. “And I’m not mad at you. Not anymore. I’m going to go change,” she said wearily.

“Wait a second,” Kam called when she stood. He sounded angry. “Don’t just cut me off like that.”

“I’m not cutting you off,” she said levelly, clutching the towel between her breasts. “Look, I’m sorry. Just forget about it, okay?”

He didn’t reply when she walked out of the room, but she could feel his stare boring into her back. Frustration set her teeth on edge. She didn’t want to fight with him. She didn’t want to feel so vulnerable where he was concerned.

The truth was, she just
wanted
him. Period.

She retreated to the bathroom to change, grabbing her underwear and letting the towel drop to the tile floor. The bathroom was quite large, featuring a massive antique carved wood mirror over the sink and countertop. Clutching her panties, Lin studied her reflection closely. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes looked bright. Of course Kam had been reading her like an open book. It wasn’t even possible to fool that sharp, quicksilver gaze of his.

She wasn’t really surprised when he called her name and rapped once on the door.

“Yes?” she asked, frozen to the spot, every nerve in her body leaping to life.

The bathroom door clicked open. He met her gaze in the bathroom mirror, his expression hard and unreadable, his eyes gleaming. She felt pinned by his stare, unable to move. Unable to breathe. He stepped behind her. She was naked, save her bra. She felt the fabric of his shirt brush against her back and the fly of his jeans skim against the sensitive patch of skin at the very base of her spine. Hard, denim-covered thighs touched her bare ass.

He silently brushed her long hair over one shoulder, exposing the skin of her back. He slid one hand beneath her hair, settling his large hands on her naked shoulders. Her nipples prickled in awareness at his touch.

“I found out that you have a lover in France,” she explained quietly. It hadn’t been his touch that had popped the truth out of her lungs, but his scoring, inescapable gaze. His hands tightened slightly on her shoulders.

“What are you talking about?” he demanded after a stunned pause.

“Phoebe Cane. Isn’t that her name?” Lin said in a hushed tone. “I realize I have no right to be angry about it. In fact, anything I felt when I first found out has faded now. You don’t have anything to worry about. I just thought you deserved to know why I was acting . . .” She faded off, unable to find the right word for how she’d been acting, although
like a fool
popped into her brain after a second.

“Hold on,” he growled, his nostrils flaring, his gaze narrowing on her through the mirror. “How do you know who Phoebe Cane is? Have you been talking to Ian about that time he walked in on us at Aurore?”

Lin blanched. “No. Of course not. Ian walked in on Phoebe and you?”

Kam’s mouth went hard. Lin thought of turning around and studying his face, but his reflection seemed easier to face somehow. Not safe, just
safer.

“Not on purpose,” Kam eventually said. “And not just Phoebe and I. Phoebe and I . . . and one of her friends, Eloise,” he admitted bluntly.

Heat rushed through her face and chest in the silence that followed. Wonderful. This was even worse than she’d suspected. “You have
two
lovers in France?” she asked after a moment. “You’re . . . uh . . . involved in a ménage à trois?”

“No,” he insisted with quiet scorn. “I’m not
involved
in anything. I only saw Eloise that one time. She was visiting Phoebe from Germany. They pounced on me at Aurore one night with a case of beer. They’d been out partying earlier, and I was some kind of girls-night-out bet. We were just having a good time. Ian accidentally interrupted us, and took it as proof that I’m a sex-starved degenerate. Like he lived his life like an altar boy before he met Francesca,” he added derisively under his breath.

“I see,” Lin said hollowly. “But Phoebe doesn’t live far away. She’s in the village, isn’t that right?”

His face looked as hard as carved rock in the reflection in the mirror. His thumbs moved on her shoulders.

“Listen to me,” he said quietly. “I am not involved in a relationship with Phoebe Cane. If you want me to profess to being celibate, I can’t. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been honest with you. Yes. Phoebe lives in the village, and we’ve been known to get together on and off over the years. We’ve also both seen other people. Neither one of us is perfect, but at least we’re honest with each other about what we’re doing.”

“About the fact that you just want sex from each other,” Lin said in a hushed voice.

His eyes glittered. “Yeah. About the fact that we just want sex from each other.”

“She sounds very eager for you to return.”

“Why in the hell have you been
talking
to her?” he demanded, an incredulous expression spreading on his features. “Don’t tell me you’ve been doing more
research
for Ian.”

“No. It’s nothing like that. And I haven’t been speaking with Phoebe, not directly. Maria, one of our admins, speaks French much better than I do,” she said.

He did a small double take. Belatedly, she realized she was smiling. Could this situation be any odder? She was standing here nearly stark naked talking to Kam about his love affairs through a mirror. Strangely, she had no wild urge to cover herself. It was like a spell of honesty had come over her following her former unsuccessful subterfuge. There was something about Kam that just
inspired
honesty.