Deep Waters (26 page)

The feel of her palm curled around him almost sent him over the edge. He closed his eyes briefly and gathered himself.

“You planned this?” She sounded half amused, half shocked as she removed the packet from his pocket.

He opened his eyes and met hers. “Let's just say I wanted to be prepared.”

“You must have been a Boy Scout.”

“No.” He teased her swollen clitoris. “One thing you can be sure of. I was never a Boy Scout.”

“Elias.”
Her legs scissored around him.

He felt her fingers tremble. She was in no condition to handle the small chore. “Give it to me.”

She quickly surrendered the small packet. He tore it open with his teeth and eased the condom into place with one hand. He watched her eyes widen as he lowered her slowly onto his erection.

Her nails sank into his shoulders. Her head fell back. Her whispered gasp was incredibly erotic. It took every ounce of control Elias possessed to hold himself back from the brink. The pull of her snug body was irresistible.

He went to his knees with Charity wrapped around
his waist. He eased her back onto the wooden floor and buried himself completely inside her. She closed around him with such seductive strength that he thought he would explode.

“Yes. Yes, Elias. Just like that. I want you so much.”

A wild desperation seized him without warning. It severed the last remaining bonds of his control. He sank himself into her again and again until he felt her clench even more fiercely around him.

Her climax ripped through her, compelling his own. He covered her mouth in order to savor her soft shriek.

The release that tore through him was both surrender and victory. It was impossible to tell where one left off and the other took hold. The only thing he cared about in that moment was that he was as close to Charity as it was possible to get.

A long while later she stirred beneath him. “Okay, so it's not sweet.”

Elias lifted his head. He cradled her face between his palms. “No.”

Her smile was infinitely mysterious. “What is it, then?”

The question stunned him. He did not know the answer. He took refuge in the sanctuary that had never failed him, the place where he knew he was strong, where all the questions had answers, Tal Kek Chara.

“The transparency of water is most often described by saying what it is not, rather than what it is.”

She put her fingers over his mouth. “Forget I asked.”

She was still smiling, but there was a wistfulness in her eyes that worried him. Elias got to his feet, helped
Charity up, and walked with his arm around her toward the darkened bedroom. He paused beside Otis's cage to cover the bird for the night. Otis was already inside. He kept his back to Charity and Elias and muttered darkly.

“I think we embarrassed him,” Charity murmured.

“He's actually a very straitlaced sort of bird,” Elias said as he adjusted the cage cover. “Hayden's influence, I think.”

The panic swirled out of a dream, a dream in which she could not breathe. The old claustrophobia seized her in a nightmarish grip.

Charity came awake with unnatural suddenness, every sense shrieking. She opened her mouth to scream, but the cry was blocked in her throat.

Elias's palm clamped over her mouth was her first clue that this was not just another routine panic attack. Something really was terribly wrong.

She opened her eyes and stared up at him. Fear lanced through her. He was pressed against her, holding her very still on the futon. In the darkness, she could just barely make out the shadowed profile of his face. He was looking toward the bedroom door.

Charity heard the sliding squeak. Wood on wood. An aging double-hung window made that kind of noise when it was slowly pried opened. Otis gave a soft, inquiring whistle from inside his covered cage. The sliding squeak halted for a few seconds.

Then it came again.

Elias lowered his head and put his mouth to Charity's ear. “Stay here.”

She nodded quickly to let him know she understood. For some odd reason, the fact that there was a genuine focus for her fear had a steadying effect on her senses. Her body could deal with the real thing. She was pain
fully alert, her fingers shook, but she was not on the verge of hysteria.

Elias removed his palm from her lips and rose from the futon without a sound. As he passed in front of the window she saw something in his hand, something he had picked up as he got to his feet. It looked like the strip of leather that he habitually wore around his waist.

There was a very soft thud in the other room. Someone was sneaking into the house through the front window.

Charity stared at the shadow that was Elias. He was flattened against the wall just to the side of the partially open door. She could barely make out the curve of his naked shoulder and thigh.

She was cold. Tension gripped her from head to foot. Her palms tingled. Her stomach felt weird. But she was not going out of her mind.

The narrow beam of a small pinpoint flashlight swept past the doorway. Otis muttered again, a soft, curious hiss.

Elias waited until the ray of light had moved on, and then he slipped through the doorway.

Charity nearly screamed then. Her mouth opened. Everything inside her wanted to cry out for him to come back to the safety of the bedroom.

She bit back the useless words. There was no safety in the bedroom.

“What the fuck? Lenny, watch it. There's someone—”

“Sounds like a bird.”

“It's no goddamned bird.” A man's voice broke off on a sharp exclamation.

“Christ, what the hell? Get him. Get him, damn it.”

Charity heard a resounding crash. She scrambled up from the futon and grabbed the shirt Elias had left
draped over the carved wooden chest. The garment fell to mid-thigh on her.

“Lenny? Lenny? Where the fuck are you?”

Silence from Lenny.

Silence from Elias.

Another thud.

Charity remembered the heavy glass bowl that sat on the low table in the front room. It was the only thing she could think of at that moment that might serve as a weapon.

She took a deep breath and plunged through the bedroom door. She veered awkwardly to the right, tripped over a cushion, and sprawled painfully on the low table.

She heard a shuffling sound on the floor behind her. Just as her fingers brushed against the rim of the bowl, a man's arm locked around her throat.

“No. Let me go.” Charity clawed at the imprisoning arm.

She was hauled forcibly to her feet and pinned against a sweating male body.

“Freeze, you sonofabitch,” the man named Lenny shouted into the darkness. “I've got your girlfriend. Move and I'll break her neck, I swear it.”

Everything went still. Charity fought for breath. Lenny was a hulking bear of a man. The panic welled up inside her.

“Okay,” Elias said in an oddly calm voice. “I'm not moving.”

“Turn on the light,” Lenny ordered. He sounded shaken. “Do it slow.”

There was a sharp click. The lights came on. Charity blinked against the glare. Lenny's arm tightened spasmodically around her.

“Let her go.” Elias stood next to the door, near the
wall switch. The prone figure of a man lay on the floor, unmoving.

Charity felt an insane urge to laugh. Elias was the only one in the room who wasn't wearing clothes, but he somehow managed to make everyone else look overdressed for the occasion. The harmless-looking strip of leather that he usually wore around his waist still dangled from one wrist.

“I ain't lettin' her go.” Lenny edged back a step, dragging Charity with him. “What d'you think I am? Stupid?”

“You won't get far if you try to take her with you. Let her go and make a run for it.”

“I need her to keep you from following. Get away from the door,” Lenny snapped. “Move.”

Elias took two steps away from the door.

Lenny started to haul Charity toward the entrance. She tried to make herself a dead weight.

“Stop it, bitch.” Lenny jerked his arm around her throat. He looked at Elias. “Go on. Back. Farther. I don't want you gettin' any ideas.”

Elias took another step away from the door. He glanced briefly at Charity as Lenny dragged her past. She looked into his eyes and did not know whether to be reassured or completely panicked by the controlled savagery she saw there. He switched his attention back to Lenny before she could decide.

Lenny stretched out his hand and groped for the door handle.

Elias moved. The leather thong that had hung from his wrist flicked out so swiftly that Charity never even saw exactly what happened.

She felt the violent jolt that went through Lenny as the leather whipped around his extended arm. He screamed, reflexively releasing her in order to free himself.

Charity leaped to one side. Elias brushed past her to get at Lenny.

It was all over in a few stunning seconds. Charity turned in time to see Lenny fly through the air. He crashed against the kitchen counter and slid silently to the floor. He did not move again.

Charity touched her throat as she stared at the two prone figures. A baseball bat and what looked like a tire iron littered the front room.

“Are you all right?” Elias asked. His voice still sounded strangely neutral.

“What?” She turned to gaze at him. “Yes. Yes, I'm all right.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. I'm okay. Really. Oh, Elias.” With a cry, she threw herself against him.

His arm closed around her, fiercely protective. The panic receded.

After a moment, Charity raised her head and stared at the loop of leather. “What is that thing?”

“It's called Tal Kek Chara. I'll tell you about it some other time.” Elias released her gently. He eyed the shirt she had loosely buttoned around herself. “Why don't you call Tybern? And then you'd better get dressed.”

Crazy Otis snorted. Charity glanced at him and saw that his cage cover had come partially off during the struggle. He leered at her.

“Dirty bird.” Charity shook off the dazed sensation that had settled on her. “Tybern. Right.” She lunged for the phone on the kitchen wall. “By the way, I'm not the only one who should put on some clothes before the cops get here, Elias. That Tal Kek Chara thing doesn't even qualify as a thong bikini.”

“I'll get dressed in a minute.” Elias crouched beside one of the fallen men.

Charity hesitated, her hand hovering over the phone. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“Hayden and I moved around a lot out in the Pacific. Some of the places we did business were not what you'd call tropical paradises.”

“I see.” Charity swallowed and started to punch in the telephone number that would summon Hank Tybern.

“I don't like guests who fail to remove their shoes before they come into my house,” Elias said as he began to go through the pockets of his victims.

Crazy Otis peered out through the bars of his cage. “Heh, heh, heh.”

Half an hour later Charity stood with Elias and Hank Tybern in the front drive. They all watched as Jeff Collings, Hank's only officer, bundled the handcuffed intruders into the backseat of one of the town's two police cars.

“A couple of small-time thugs,” Hank said. “Not what you'd call pros.”

“That's Swinton's style,” Elias said. “Small time. He wouldn't have the kind of contacts it takes to find heavy muscle. And even if he did, he wouldn't want to pay for it.”

“Swinton?” Charity whirled around to look at him. “You think Rick Swinton was behind this?”

He shrugged. “That's my best guess.”

Hank studied him with a shrewd look. “Be my guess, too. Unless you've got some other enemies you forgot to tell me about?”

“None that would go this route.”

Charity scowled at him. He sounded far too philosophical on the subject for her taste. “What does that mean?”

Elias gave her a humorless smile. “It's a good policy to study the reflections of your enemies in still water.
I've always made it a habit to know mine well. This was an act of simple revenge, nothing more. Swinton, being Swinton, wouldn't want to take any personal risks, so he hired someone else to do the heavy lifting.”

Hank folded his notebook and stuffed it back into his shirt pocket. “Got to admit Swinton's the most likely candidate. Probably wanted to teach you a lesson. He wasn't real happy with the Mr. Nice Guy role you convinced him to play.”

“No,” Elias agreed. “He wasn't happy.”

Hank nodded. “I'll go out to the campground and have a talk with him.”

“I'll go with you,” Elias said.

“The hell you will,” Hank said dryly. “You let me do my job, Winters. You've already done enough tonight. It hasn't escaped my notice that we've had more trouble around here since you hit town than we've had in the past ten years.”

Charity was incensed. “You can't blame any of this on Elias. You said, yourself, he did everyone a favor when he forced Rick Swinton to pay back the money. And it's hardly Elias's fault that those two vicious men broke into his house and tried to brain him with a baseball bat and a tire iron. If you think for one minute—”

“It's all right, Charity.” Elias looked amused. “I'm sure Hank was just making a casual observation.”

“It sounded more like a nasty insinuation to me,” she snapped.

Hank grinned briefly. “Winters is right. I wasn't implying a cause and effect connection. Just a simple observation.”

Charity glared at him. “Well, it would be more accurate to observe that the real trouble in Whispering Waters Cove started after the Voyagers hit town.”

Hank nodded. “Can't argue with that. Gwen Pitt and Swinton have plenty to answer for around here, and now one of 'em's dead. An interesting turn of events.” He started toward his car and then paused. “Looks like I'll need you to stop by my office again, Winters. More paperwork. Say tomorrow morning?”