Angel of Desire (13 page)

He ran his hand down her hair, which, freed of its pins, tumbled over her bare shoulders, gleaming like winter wheat beneath a benevolent sun. His same hand, which could so expertly stroke a woman to climax, now seemed to Shade frustratingly large and clumsy.

"I have to…" She looked around, still disoriented. "I need to… I have to go…" Her mind was as empty as a child's slate on the first day of school; her voice drifted off on a soft, shimmering little sigh.

"You don't have to do anything." He pressed his lips against the top of her head. "You don't have to go anywhere." His arms circled her trembling shoulders.

She straightened, shook her head and gave him a small, fragile smile. "I'm sorry."

As he looked down into her glittering eyes, Shade realized that Rachel had unwittingly discovered a weakness even he had not known he possessed.

He'd wanted her nearly from the beginning. He would not apologize for that. He was, after all, a healthy, thirty-five-year-old male with a strong sex drive. And even in her sober little nun's garb, Rachel was a desirable woman.

If he were to be perfectly honest with himself, he'd admit that the fact the lady represented a danger that could prove fatal if he wasn't careful only added to her appeal.

Shade had, after all, always enjoyed playing with fire. The trick, he'd learned, was not to get burned.

With that end in mind, he'd steeled himself against allowing himself to trust her. What Shade hadn't suspected was that it would be Rachel's unexpected vulnerability that would prove his downfall.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. Her voice was thin and frail. "I feel so foolish."

"I don't need an apology. But I think an explanation might be in order."

What could she say? That his words, meant merely as a compliment, had brought back the darkest moment of her life? That they'd forced her to relive, for the first time in all these centuries, the horrifying details of her death?

Once again it crossed her mind that if she did dare to tell Shade the absolute truth, he'd undoubtedly lock her away in the local asylum.

"It was just a dream."

"You were wide-awake. At least in the beginning." He couldn't vouch for where she'd gone after the tremors had taken hold.

"You've never heard of daydreams?"

His eyes narrowed with the intrinsic skepticism she'd come to expect from him. "I thought daydreams were supposed to be pleasant."

She shrugged. "They can be. But sometimes they're bad dreams. More like nightmares."

He wasn't buying it. Not for a second. But although her flesh no longer felt like ice and her eyes had regained a bit of their spark, Shade reluctantly decided she was still too pale and too shaken to argue the point right now.

"Did Liz happen to toss in any casual clothes along with the femme fatale stuff?"

"Yes." She did not add that she'd been forced to lie on her back on the bed to fasten the embarrassingly snug jeans.

"Terrific." He traced her lips with his finger, tugging the corners of her vermilion-tinted lips up into a semi-smile. "As delectable as you look in this dress, I think it might be a good idea if you change. And wash your face. Then we'll take a walk before dinner."

"A walk?" She glanced over toward the window. While she'd been trapped in the treacherous past, the sun had sunk into the tops of the spring green trees, turning the sky a brilliant gold, then amethyst, then gray. The bedroom was currently draped in dark purple shadows. "Won't it be dark soon?"

"Soon. But there's still time to walk down to the lake. It's a popular place at twilight. If we're lucky, we'll see some deer. Or maybe a beaver or two."

A walk in the brisk spring evening air was just what she needed, Rachel decided. It would clear her head, brush away any lingering cobwebs.

"I'd like that."

"Good." Reluctant to release her, he nevertheless backed away.

In the beginning, the plan had been simple. Get into Yaznovia on his false papers, break Conlan out of prison, slice that murderous dictator's throat, return Conlan to his pregnant wife, then go back to his new home and watch the jungle of weeds grow.

But now, looking down at this unfathomable woman who was part angel, part witch, Shade knew that the next few days could prove to be the most difficult, not to mention the most dangerous, of his life.

Chapter Seven

TO RACHEL'S RELIEF, Shade didn't mention her humiliating loss of emotional control again. Nor, surprisingly, did he resume his seduction attempts.

Indeed, if she hadn't been able to remember every exquisite detail of his heated kisses, of his touch, she might have thought she'd imagined the entire thing.

Over the next three days an unspoken truce was forged. As they waited for their false papers and Shade fine-tuned his plan to get them into Yaznovia, and Conlan out of the country, he was polite, even cordial. But not once did he display the slightest interest in her as a woman.

Rachel told herself she should be grateful that he obviously no longer found her attractive. The problem was, she couldn't lie, not even to herself. Especially to herself.

Each night, as she retired to her room and lay alone in the dark, knowing that Shade was sleeping on the other side of the wall, she thought about how much she looked forward to coming downstairs and sharing a morning cup of coffee with him as they sat on the back porch and watched the sun rise over the tops of the flowering apple trees. How much she enjoyed their surprisingly peaceful evening walks. And, heaven help her, all the hours in between.

And then there was the way she couldn't stop herself from touching him. Always fleetingly. Never sexually. But it was as if her fingertips were constantly tingling with the need to reach out and make contact.

Shade had always meant a great deal to her. Indeed, he'd been the single most important thing in her life for all his thirty-five tempestuous years. The problem was that this time alone with him was forcing her to face some very unnerving truths.

She'd taken personal interest in her charges before; indeed, she'd wept buckets when her Continental soldier had received a near-fatal wound in the battle of Yorktown near the end of the revolutionary war.

She'd mourned again when there was nothing she could do to prevent a silent-film star from tragically drowning in her bathtub on the eve of her wedding. And, of course, children's deaths were always difficult, even knowing that they were destined for a kinder, gentler place.

But her feelings for Shade went beyond mere professional concern. They even surpassed compassion.

The truth was, Rachel admitted on the night before they were to leave for Yaznovia, she loved Shade Blackstone. She had always loved him. In a way that was distressingly mortal.

She also knew that leaving him, as she eventually must, would be the hardest, most painful thing she'd ever done.

Aware of Rachel's intense introspection, and frustrated at his inability to discern what the hell she was thinking, Shade struggled to keep his mind on his mission, even as he fought his increasing attraction to this woman who had become nothing less than an obsession.

Everything about Rachel Parrish fascinated him. He marveled at her serenity, that seemingly innate calm that enabled her to sit quietly for amazingly long periods of time and was such an intriguing contrast to the heated passion he'd already tapped.

He knew how her teeth worried her full bottom lip when she was thinking, he loved the way she absently put her arm through his as they walked down to the pond each night, he was intoxicated by the sound of her laugh, and just the memory of her taste or the silken texture of her porcelain skin was enough to make him hard.

She was a remarkable listener, never interrupting, always making eye contact, constantly touching him in nonsexual, encouraging ways: she'd place her hand fleetingly on his arm, or stroke a feathery fingertip against the back of his hand, or lean forward, her eyes not wavering from his as she brushed a dark lock of hair from his forehead.

Although he wasn't quite sure how she had managed it, she'd gotten him to talk about himself—about his rocky childhood—more during their three days together than he had his entire life. She never pried. She didn't have to, he admitted grimly. All she had to do was to make some casual comment, or ask an offhanded question and pretty soon, before he knew it, he was spilling his guts.

In turn, she frustrated the hell out of him by continuing to refuse to give him any more than the sketchiest information about her reason for going to "Yaznovia. He damn well didn't need to hook her up to a lie detector to know that she wasn't telling him the truth.

It wasn't that Shade had any moral constraints about lying. Hell, in his line of work, it came with the territory, lies, evasions, misrepresentations—all were as common as air.

Whenever he'd question her, she'd calmly look him straight in the eye. And then she'd hedge. Or worse yet, simply answer that she couldn't tell him. Having always prided himself on his ability to separate fact from fiction, he was sick to death of her constant evasions, sick of looking into her lovely face, her remarkable eyes, and knowing mat he would not see the truth there.

And if that wasn't bad enough, once he'd let slip his intention to assassinate the general, she'd been after him like a bullterrier with a bone, insisting that if he actually went through with his plan to commit coldblooded murder, he'd be no better than that despot himself.

And even though he knew that Rachel had a valid point, Shade steadfastly refused to change his mind. The general was going to die. And that, he insisted, was that. Most people, especially those of the female persuasion, were quick to back off when he laid down the law. But it was more than a little apparent that Rachel had never learned the lesson of female acquiescence.

Neither did she seem to possess any feminine guile. Shade waited fatalistically for her to pull out her not inconsiderable womanly wiles in an attempt to convince him to forgo the assassination plot.

By the time they boarded the international flight at Dulles airport, he realized he'd have to wait a very long time for that seduction scenario. like forever.

The first part of the plan, as Shade had conceived it, involved an overnight stop in the European country of Montacroix, which shared a border with Yaznovia. Fortunately for the peaceful Montacroix citizens, the principality was separated from the warring nation by the Alps.

The royal family, generous supporters of the Rescue the Children Fund, for which Conlan had been working when captured, had offered much-needed financial support to Shade's mission.

"MAY I ASK A QUESTION?" Rachel asked. They were standing at the railing on the deck of a boat that was speeding across Lake Losange, headed toward the palace. "About your plans once we arrive in Yaznovia?"

Shade frowned. Dammit, they'd been over this before. Too many times. "If it's about the general—"

"No." She placed a placating hand on his arm. "It's too lovely a day to get into another argument about that." She said a silent, fervent prayer that she'd still have time to change his mind.

"Actually, I was wondering what you intend to do when the general realizes you're in the country. You're certainly not going to be able to fool him with this false identity."