Sins of the Flesh (20 page)

Puzzlement traveled across her features, followed by confusion and possibly disappointment. “You don’t want—”

“I do want, but not like this,” he explained.

He’d had one too many cases of want with little else attached to it.

She was a case of too much want with too much luggage, none of it good.

Until it could be more and be something less dangerous, she was off limits, he told himself.

“Let’s go in,” he said, noting that her body had returned to normal during their interlude.

She confirmed his instruction with a nod of her head. With a kick and one strong swipe of his arm he propelled them from the deeper end of the pool to where they could stand.

Side by side they walked to the stairs and stepped out onto the pool deck, the summer night air balmy against their skin. The wet oversized T-shirt clung to her body, shaping every curve. Exposing her long legs and the graceful sweep of her neck and one shoulder as the shirt slipped downward from the pull of the sodden fabric.

His own state was too obvious through the boxers he wore.

A bright flush stained her cheeks as she noticed. With
a quick pivot on one heel, she raced back into the house, leaving him to mutter a curse and hurriedly scoop up his clothing and cell phone.

Inside the house, he re-armed the alarm system before snagging a beach towel from the mudroom off the kitchen. He wrapped it around his body, grabbed another towel, and followed the trail of wet footprints up the stairs.

The door to the bathroom was closed and he knocked on it. Caterina only partially opened the door, but it was enough for him to see that she was now totally naked. He thrust the towel through the opening in the door and stalked to his room, where he changed into dry sweats.

With Caterina’s fever, she needed something more lightweight to wear. He located an old cotton robe that would do.

He exited his room and found she was already back in the guest room, sitting on the bed, her knees tucked up to her chest and the beach towel encircling her body. Arms wrapped around herself in a defensive gesture.

She had brushed her hair and it was slicked back from her face, bringing to stark notice her wide eyes and classically perfect features.

Mick stalked to the recliner, held out the robe, and sat down.

She took the robe from him, eased it on, and tied it closed. She then proceeded to do that shimmy thing that all women seemed to learn as some part of the growing-up ritual, shifting a bit here and there to slip the towel off without dislodging the protection of the robe.

“What were you thinking?” he said.

She looked away toward the window at the far side
of the room and shrugged. “I felt so hot and all that cool water was out there….”

Her voice trailed off and she faced him once again. “I won’t do it again.”

It was difficult to be angry when she was so damned agreeable and innocent-looking, sitting there with her arms wrapped around her bent knees. Head leaning on those knees as those damned blue eyes locked on him. The black of the waterproof ankle bracelet glaring against her creamy skin.

“When you trip the alarms, remember that it may not all be White Hats that answer,” he said, forcing a roughness to his voice to reinforce his concern.

“Are you a White Hat?” she asked, but beneath the innocent tones of her voice lay challenge. She suspected that on occasion he walked the line between black and white.

“It depends,” he said, confirming her suspicion. And because he was becoming too interested in her as something more than his target, he inched to the edge of the recliner and placed his hand on the crook of her neck. One hand was all it took to almost encircle that fragile column as he slid his thumb over her larynx.

He tightened his grip just a bit, enough for her to realize his intent. Her eyes widened with apprehension and she grabbed hold of his wrist with both hands.

“You won’t hurt me.”

“
I
won’t?” Mick replied, increasing the pressure on her throat even though doing so made him cringe inside. Still, he achieved the result he’d wanted.

Caterina’s fight-or-flight response kicked in. Her skin erupted with the deep maroon color of his cotton robe and her hands tightened on his wrist, almost painfully so.

He could handle her like this, he thought. He could handle her when she wasn’t all soft enticing female.

“You want me to believe you’re a killer, but you’re not,” Caterina said, her grip as firm as his.

Reason told Mick to increase the pressure at her throat, to disprove her belief. But he couldn’t, because she was right.

Caterina met his gaze as her heart thumped in quick allegro beats. She held fast to his wrist and as she did so, the weird halo sight she had battled earlier returned, outlining his body in a bright blue, while his center appeared as a combination of other colors, communicating to her brain the heat of his body.

Like one of those cheap gum machine love-test strips, she saw the cooler outside edges of his limbs and the increasing warmth toward his core. In the middle of his
chest, the brightest of all the colors. The most intense spot of heat.

Caterina shifted one hand from his wrist to that spot. Absorbed the thump-thump of his heart against the sensitized pads of her fingers. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. A steady reliable beat like that of a conductor’s baton.

Splaying her hand against that beat, she closed her eyes and concentrated on it. As she did so, the pressure at her throat eased until Mick finally moved his hand completely away.

But she didn’t remove hers.

Opening her eyes, she met his gaze. The color of his dark brown eyes had deepened to almost black. Beneath her hand, the thump-thump remained steady, but tension had crept into his body.

Finally she pulled her hand away and wrapped her arms around her knees once again.

“You know what I think?” she said, alternately confused and accepting of what was happening between them.

“I don’t care what you think,” Mick replied, still obviously struggling to convince her that he was dangerous.

“I think you’re a White Hat, only you’re afraid to admit it because you won’t be able to control people if they think you might actually have a heart.”

She’d learned about fear and control from her father. She understood it well.

Amazingly he saw past her words to the emotion that drove her. “Not all control is bad, Cat. And you will do what I tell you.”

On some level, she knew he only meant well. That he wanted to protect her and his sister and anyone else who came under his charge. But she had struggled to be free for
too long. She had lost that precious freedom at Wardwell and she’d be damned if that happened again.

“We’ll see,” she said.

Dog tired, Liliana plodded up the three steps, stumbling on the last one despite the post lantern lighting up the walk in the late dawn hours. She caught herself before she fell and continued up the walk.

At the door, she fumbled to find the keys in the bottom of her purse.

A big mistake.

Someone covered her mouth with a large masculine hand and wrapped an arm around her midsection, trapping her arms against her sides. Her purse and medical bag fell to the ground with a noisy clatter. She prayed someone inside would hear the ruckus.

With little effort, her assailant picked her up off the ground and moved toward the side of the wraparound porch. She tried to scream but she could barely breathe, much less muster any kind of noise. Mick’s words reverberated in her brain about being careful. About the danger they all might be in. She’d let fatigue make her careless, but knew she had to act now.

Twisting and turning her body, she managed to free one arm. Curling her hand into a claw, she reached behind her, raked her assailant’s face, and heard his surprised yell. His grip on her mouth loosened with her attack and she followed up with a sharp backward elbow to his midsection.

He grunted and released her, freeing her to swing around with her other elbow. The blow connected with his nose, the sound a sickening crunch.

Her attacker released a groan and fell away from her.

Liliana didn’t wait to see who it was.

She raced to the door just as Mick flung it open and stepped out onto the porch, barefoot and bare-chested, Glock in his hand. If the weapon wasn’t scary enough, the bruises and scars on his body screamed,
Don’t mess with me
.

Mick immediately pulled her behind him, using his body as a shield. Then she heard his amused chuckle.

“Always thought you were no match for my lil’ sis.”

At that comment, she poked her head around Mick’s broad back in time to see her fiancé… no, make that
ex
-fiancé rising from the floor of the porch.

Three angry scratches ran down the left side of his handsome face. Bright red blood streamed from his nose and down onto the expensive Brooks Brothers suit and shirt he wore.

“I just came to talk to her,” he said, whipping out a handkerchief from his pocket and gingerly placing it against his abused nose to stem the flow of blood.

“I should press charges,” Harrison added, glaring at her as she finally took a step to stand beside her brother.

Mick tucked his gun into the waistband of his jeans and crossed his arms against his chest.

“
Por favor
, press charges. I’d love to explain to the police how you assaulted me,” Liliana shot back.

Harrison took a menacing step toward them, and then, glancing at Mick, seemed to reconsider. “You think they’ll believe you?” he said, his face contorted into a sneer.

Mick chuckled, surprising her by the mirth until he pointed to a spot just above and to the right of the door frame, where a small camera was trained on the front door and porch.

“It’s all recorded, Harrison. I’d consider seeing a lawyer if I were you.”

Harrison’s face first paled and then erupted in a flare of angry red. Liliana worried he might stroke out, there was so much tension visible in his body, but instead he merely turned and rushed down the walk. After he crossed the street, she noticed his car parked there for the first time.

Had he followed her home or had he been there all along? she thought, the terror of the attack finally setting in. She was shaking as she retrieved her purse and bag from the ground.

“You’re lucky it was just Harrison,” Mick admonished.

“
Yo sé
. I won’t let it happen again,” she replied, her hands trembling while she put to right the contents of her purse.

Mick nodded, seemed about to chastise her again, but then enveloped her in a big bear hug. “You did fine,
hermanita
.”

Liliana let herself linger for a moment in his protective embrace before shaking off the nervous energy pumping through her body and walking into the house. She glanced up to the second-floor landing, wondering about Caterina.

“She was running a high fever. Had to cool her down,” Mick explained, as if reading his sister’s thoughts.

Liliana tossed her things onto a chair by the front door and faced him, her arms encircling her waist as she willed away the last remnants of fear from the attack.

“Is the fever gone?”

Mick shook his head. “Still low grade. Her sleep is really erratic. She’s having nightmares.”

“Or post-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe what she’s seeing is a replay of what happened in the lab that night or whatever else was done to her.”

Feeling more in control of herself, Liliana placed a hand at her side and stretched to work out a kink in the small of her back from the many hours she had been on her feet during her shift.

“Let’s hope she can replay that night. I’ve got nothing to say she did it, but nothing to say that she didn’t,” Mick said.

Liliana thought about the condition Caterina had been in when Mick had first brought her home. Barely aware of who or what she was. Lacking control and understanding.

Liliana
tsk
ed. “Even if she did kill Wells, she probably lacked the mental capacity to understand what she was doing. You know how she was when you found her.”

Mick knew. He also knew how she was now.

The latter was more dangerous to him than the former.

“What do we do if the fever continues?” he asked.

Liliana shrugged. “Her file mentioned the plasmapheresis was undertaken after a couple of doses of the inhibitor. Maybe the treatment isn’t to deal with the gene replication. Maybe it’s to clear her blood of whatever is left after the inhibitor drug takes effect.”

Mick shot a quick glance up the stairs and dragged a hand through his hair. “Do you think it’s possible that what’s left behind is what’s causing the fever?”

Something strong enough to stop or maybe undo the wild gene replication could possibly leave behind remnants that could contaminate her blood and cause a reaction, Mick thought.

“The fever could be from her body fighting off some byproduct of the inhibitor drug. With each treatment, more byproduct remains behind until the patient’s blood needs to be cleansed.”

Mick recalled the size of the cell separator necessary for the plasmapheresis, not to mention Liliana’s earlier comments about the need to know just what to pull out of Caterina’s blood. Neither could be done here, but he couldn’t risk Caterina going out in public.