Standing in the Shadows (44 page)

Even the struggle to get his clothes off, the muffled laughter, was imbued with reverent wonder. They were as awkward as if it truly were the first time. Connor's fingers trembled so much that he dropped the condom. When Erin knelt to retrieve it for him, she got sidetracked, allured by his phallus: hot and smooth and hard to bursting, weeping delicious, salty drops of passionate need. AH hers to caress and cherish. He gasped with agonized pleasure when she took him in her mouth, but after only a few tender, sliding strokes he pulled her back up.

"None of that, sweetheart. Tonight's all about you," he said. He rolled the condom over himself, pulled down the duvet and pressed her into the cool sheets. His body shook.

She stroked his hair. "Are you OK?" she asked.

"I'm scared." His voice was low and tense. "This has to be perfect for you. This sets the tone for the rest of forever. I think I'm entitled to be a little nervous."

She pulled him tighter. "But you can't go wrong," she assured him. "It's like you were made for me. Everything you do is perfect."

"God. You are such a sweetheart." He smiled at her. "The way you stroke my ego. Stroke away. Let it swell up like a hot air balloon. I love it. Can't get enough of it."

"But it's true, Connor," she protested. "Every time you kiss me, every time you touch me, I—oh, God…"

Her words choked off as he pushed her legs wider and nudged himself inside. "Are you ready?" he asked. "Do you want me now?"

Pleasure bloomed around his gentle invasion. Every point of contact glowed, incandescent. She wrapped her arms and legs around him as he pushed inside. The yielding rush of emotion was so strong, so sweet. It echoed in his eyes, reverberating between them until she wanted to cry out at the sheer beauty of it. Her man, her mate.

She reached up to brush away the hair that had fallen across his face. Her hand came away wet. She pulled his face to hers and kissed away his tears, moved beyond words. She tasted their hot, salty magic, and the spell was complete. They were bound for all eternity.

They began to move, rocking together in delicious, liquid accord.

He froze. "Oh, no. Not possible. This is so fucking cruel."

Her eyes popped open, alarmed. "What's not possible?"

"This bed squeaks!" He was outraged. "You didn't tell me you had a squeaky bed when you lured me up here with salacious promises!"

"I didn't know," she said defensively. "I've never had sex in this bed! How would I know? And what do we care?"

"Easy for you to say," he scoffed. "You're not the one who gets bludgeoned to death if your mom hears us."

She started to shake, with soft, helpless giggles that could melt into tears in an instant, and Connor clapped his hand over her mouth.

"I hate to put a damper on our romantic fantasy, because I was really getting off on it myself, but we have to make some modifications," he said. "Parental participation would seriously wreck the mood."

He pulled himself out of her clinging body with a groan of pleasure and slid off the bed. He tossed the comforter onto the rug, and arranged it into a soft, puffy nest. He grabbed a pillow and sank down onto his knees, holding out his hand to her. His smile was radiant and beautiful. "The floor doesn't squeak," he said. "Come here."

She scrambled into his arms. They both cried out with pleasure at the sweet shock of contact. She had no barriers at all, nor did he. He had offered his whole self to her with extravagant, childlike abandon, and it almost frightened her, how vulnerable he'd made himself, how enormous his trust. It was a vast responsibility, but she couldn't examine the thought. It exploded like a shower of sparks and gave way to the next wave of pure emotion.

"You want to be up or down?" he asked between kisses.

"Do I have to choose? Can't we do them all?"

"You're the enchanted princess. I am yours to command."

She leaned back against the pillows and pulled him down on top of her. "I want this, for now. I like your warmth, and your weight."

"Anything," he muttered, and he scooped her body up tightly against his, cradling her. He entered her again, and pulsed against her hips with lazy, sinuous skill until passion seized them and they heaved and writhed together, twining around each other like flames.

It was everything she could have desired More than she had ever dreamed of. Each kiss, each worshipful caress and whispered word of love deepened their surrender to each other. They made love until she was limp and soft, her whole body one glowing smile.

She must have dozed at some point, although the whole night seemed like a sweet, feverish blur. She opened her eyes and found him gazing at her, a small piece of folded paper in his hands.

"You're not sleepy?" she asked.

"I can't sleep," he said, smiling at her. "I'm too happy."

"What's that you're doing?" she asked.

He made one careful, final adjustment, and handed it to her.

It was an origami unicorn. She gazed at its miniature, angular perfection, astonished. "It's beautiful. Where did you learn to do that?"

"Davy taught me, when I was recuperating. Davy goes for that slow, meditative stuff. Tai chi and meditation and cosmic harmony, yada yada. I was going nuts with boredom, so one day he comes in with some paper and a book on origami. He said hey, it's about time you learned to concentrate, Con. So I did. I had nothing better to do."

"It's so beautiful," she whispered. "I love it."

"It's yours," he offered. "I'd better go on out to the car."

She reached out in blind protest, but he blocked her words with a kiss. "This is all we get for tonight, sweetheart," he said. "It's almost five o'clock. God. I feel like a horny teenager, sneaking around like this. What's the password for the alarm?"

"It's katherine323jane," she said. "Katherine with a k, mind you. Those are our middle names. Mine and Cindy's."

He extricated himself from their tangled nest and scooped her up into his arms. "Erin Katherine," he murmured. "That's so pretty."

She was utterly limp and smiling as he carried her to the bed and tucked her in. "What's your middle name?" she asked.

He spread the duvet over her. "I don't have one," he said. "I'm just Connor. It was my mother's maiden name. Jeannie Connor."

He kissed her again like he couldn't bear to stop, sending diffuse ripples of pleasure through her exhausted body.

He pulled on his clothes, shrugged on his coat, bent over to blow out her candles. She hated to see him leave, but the second the door clicked shut behind him, something inside her finally let go.

Sleep rolled over her like a shadowy tide and carried her away.

The man who was no longer Novak hung up the phone, stared at it blankly, and went looking for Tamara. He could have summoned her to him, but he wanted to catch her unaware.

It was not every day that a man got news of his own death. He observed his feelings with detachment. The news did not elate him. He felt lost, drifting. The flip side of freedom. The price he must pay.

He found Tamara in her office, wearing a pair of glasses, of all things, as she peered into a computer screen. She gasped, whipped the glasses off, and assumed her most seductive expression. Obviously she thought she had fooled him. She could keep her illusions. They cost him nothing.

"I just got some news," he told her. "Kurt Novak is dead, together with his employees, Ingrid Nagle and Matthieu Rousse. They were murdered some hours ago, near Marseilles. The building was blown up. A crime lord, Pavel Novak's rival, striking a blow at him through his son, they say. Live by the sword and die by the sword, as they say."

Her sensual mouth opened, closed, opened again. "Oh… I'm not sure whether I should congratulate you or offer my condolences, boss."

He considered the question for a moment. "You may congratulate me, Tamara, by removing your clothing."

Fifteen sweaty minutes later, Tamara's office was in considerable disarray, and he was feeling somewhat better, for a man six hours dead.

Tamara slid down the wall onto the floor when he detached himself from her body. She started to say something, and stopped.

It piqued his curiosity. "What? Ask me anything," he urged.

She eyed him warily. "I was wondering… how you did it."

"Ah. My transformation into Claude Mueller, you mean." He sank down beside her, naked, and threaded his arm through hers. "I met him at the Sorbonne, years ago. He fell in love with me, and became tiresome, but he was so rich, I was sure he would come in handy one day, so I tolerated him. One night, when drunk, he confessed that he wanted to be me." He smiled at her. "And the idea was born. It's never too early to plan ahead."

Tamara was rapt. "You just… stole his life?"

"Claude was sickly, and naive. He had no friends but me. It was easy to cut him off from his few social contacts. A doctor with a shady past was enlisted to make him ill, with the aid of a criminal cook. And then I arranged for his parents to be removed from the picture. No one seemed to care what happened to him then. He was weak-willed, forgettable to look at. When I finally put him into a coma, no one noticed. But I, posing as Claude, have become quite a personage on the Internet. Everyone knows of Claude's generosity, his passionate love for collecting. Everyone loves him and courts him."

"Brilliant," she murmured.

"Claude's wish has come true. He is me. And I will live his life for him. Far better than he ever could have lived it himself."

She was silent for so long that he turned and looked. Her eyes looked haunted. "What?" he demanded. "What is it?"

She swallowed several times before she answered, a sure sign that she was going to risk telling him the truth. "When you tell me so many details, I'm afraid that you're planning…" Her voice trailed off.

"That I plan to kill you?" He was touched by her honesty. "Every man needs someone with whom he can speak freely, no?"

"Of course," she said automatically. "But—is this wise? To risk this new identity, just to punish Connor McCloud for—"

"Do not question my wisdom ever again."

He got up and began to pull on his clothing. Tamara reached for her blouse. "No," he said. "Stay that way. I like to see you naked."

The blouse dropped silently from her trembling hand.

He glanced at her computer. "What were you doing, at this hour?"

"I was checking McCloud's car," she said. "I got a call from Marc. The McCloud brothers descended upon Billy Vega tonight like avenging angels. They snatched Cindy and left Vega in a bloody heap."

He blinked. "Ah. That changes things."

"Yes. It also appears that McCloud has undermined what you were trying to accomplish with Barbara Riggs. She's rallied. To the point of smashing all the windows out of Vega's car with McCloud's cane."

He began to laugh. "You can't be serious."

"I promise, I am. He's at the Riggs house now. The house vidcams showed him creeping up the stairs, to play with Erin."

He stared out the window as he buttoned his shirt, letting his plans shift and flow into new patterns. Barbara and Cindy Riggs were doomed anyway, a few days more or less hardly mattered. But this news of Billy Vega's defeat gave him an amusing idea that could move the whole thing briskly forward. "Call Georg, Tamara," he said.

She rummaged on the devastated desk for her communicator, and pressed the button. "Georg? The boss wants you in my office, please." She clicked the line shut, and reached for her skirt.

"No," he said silkily. "Stay just as you are, please."

Her constant smile faltered. It was faltering quite often lately.

When Georg walked into the office, she gasped, so startled that she forgot her nudity. Georg had shaved his head and brows, and plucked out his eyelashes. Blue veins traced across his smooth skull; his blue eyes were feverish in deep, bruised pits. He seemed a ghoul, a misbegotten thing that had crawled out of a sewer. The man who was no longer Novak nodded in approval. "I see you have followed my instructions. Did you exfoliate?"

"Three times a day," Georg said. "Just as you said. I am ready."

He embraced Georg, and kissed him on both cheeks. "Excellent. You are a vicious, loyal hound, and tonight, you will taste fresh blood."

After Novak explained what was expected of him later that night, Georg turned to Tamara. Scarred lips drew back from his ruined teeth as he looked her up and down. "When I return, I will want sex," he said.

The man who was no longer Novak shrugged. "Obviously," he said. "You will be happy to oblige him, of course, Tamara?"

Tamara hesitated, longer than usual. He waited… ah, there it was. That bright smile, ever at the ready. "Of course," she said faintly.

He advanced upon her again once Georg departed. Tamara's smile was a challenge. She tried to hide behind it, but he knew how much she loathed being intimate with Georg. He knew that power and danger excited her, that she was testing her limits, that she was too intelligent not to sense how close she was to death. Layer upon layer of lies, and twisted motives. Her complexity aroused him.

He opened his clothing and availed himself of her body again. He wished to get past all of Tamara's layers, all the way to her tender, shrinking center before he added her to his legions of angels. She must be punished, for thinking she could hide her secrets behind a smile.

Punishment exalted. His angels knew this, and so would she. The Riggs family would learn it, the McCloud brothers would learn it.

Just as he had learned it. The day was always with him, frozen in his memory. The day that his father had strangled his mother. She had betrayed him. He had been five years old, too young to understand the nature of her betrayal, but not too young to understand empty eyes, slack limbs. He understood death. He understood punishment.

His father had not been a heartless man. He had wept, had cradled his dead wife's body in his arms and sobbed.

"Never betray me," he had begged his small son. "Never."

"
Never
," the little boy had whispered. "
Never
."

Someone was clutching, clawing at his hands. Wild-eyed. Red hair, green eyes, gasping mouth wide open. Tamara. He realized, with a start of surprise, that his hands were clamped around her slender neck.