James, Stephanie (20 page)

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“Haven’t worn one for several days,” she retorted from inside the shower, where she was leaning

precariously against the tile wall. “It’s part of the new me.

“You’re only supposed to go without one when you’re trying to seduce me,” he flung back in

annoyance. “Damn it, forget it. We’ll discuss this later. How’s your head?”

“Hurts.”

“Here, I found this in your medicine cupboard.” He opened the shower door and pushed two tablets

into her mouth. Then he handed her a glass of water and watched while she obediently swallowed them.

“Ever had a hangover before?” he demanded critically, surveying her gently rounded body with a kind of

professional interest. She was so soft and inviting. He’d been dreaming about her for days. It was hard to

believe he had her back within reach finally.

When she became aware of his scrutiny her hands went up to cover her full breasts and she deliberately

turned her back to him. “No,” she mumbled. “I’ve never had a hangover.”

“What the hell got into you, Tabby?” he groaned, his eyes on the curve of her backside. Unable to resist,

he put out a hand and shaped the wet, tantalizing globe of her buttock. She flinched and stepped

nervously out of reach but continued to keep her back to him.

“I told you, it was my birthday party. I decided to make a new start. I was going to be a phoenix rising

from the ashes.”

Dev set his teeth and shut the shower door. He really didn’t have the heart to grill her when she looked

so washed out and weak. Later, he vowed, as he selected a huge towel from the closet. Later he would

finish reading her the riot act. He glanced down at the towel and saw that it was embroidered with the

head of a unicorn.

Inside the shower Tabitha turned her face up to the pounding water and tried to think. She really was

feeling much better but it seemed safer somehow to go on pretending to be quite weak. Ever since she

had warned him she was going to be sick, Dev had been treating her with great gentleness. His touch had

been reassuring and kind; she had to admire a man who could deal with a sick woman. Most men were

far too squeamish to handle that kind of scene.

Of course, a man who went around slicing people with his sword cane probably didn’t have a squeamish

attitude toward much of anything, she told herself violently. On the other hand, you wouldn’t expect such

a man to be quite so gentle with someone who was genuinely ill, either.

Well, she couldn’t stay in the shower forever. Sooner or later she was going to have to emerge and find

out exactly what Devlin Colter was doing in Port Townsend. With a groan she turned off the taps and

opened the door a couple of inches. “Would you please hand me a towel?” she asked very politely.

“Come on out, honey. I’ll dry you off.”

“No, Dev, really, I’d rather…” But he was already pushing open the door and hauling her carefully out.

There was nothing else she could do except stand quietly while he began to rub her down. He stood with

his legs braced a couple of feet apart, and she realized that was the way he balanced himself when he

didn’t have his cane.

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His hands on her body were intimate but they made no demands. It was the touch of a lover who wasn’t

intent on making love just at the moment but who still felt possessive. Tabitha shivered.

“Relax,” he growled. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You were threatening to beat me,” she reminded him.

“I still might, but not until you’re feeling more normal,” he grunted. “There.” He folded the towel around

her breasts, his hands lingering on the full curves for a few seconds. “You go get dressed while I see

about something for breakfast.”

Tabitha nodded, turning gratefully away to make her escape.

“And this time put on a bra!”

She emerged cautiously from the bedroom after delaying the inevitable as long as possible. Feeling more

normal in a pair of jeans and a loose turquoise and yellow striped long-sleeved top, she peered around

the corner into the kitchen before entering. Dev had collected his cane again, hooking it over a kitchen

chair while he worked industriously on an omelette.

“Come on in, I’m not going to bite you. Not yet, at any rate.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she muttered. Deliberately she sauntered into the room and sat down with what

she hoped was a careless sprawl.

“Maybe you should be,” he advised laconically. “Finding you standing amid the aftermath of an orgy has

not put me into a good frame of mind.”

“It wasn’t an orgy! I keep telling you, it was my birthday party.”

“What did you do? Invite every young male in town so you could pick and choose among them?”

“I invited everyone I knew. Period. Some of that crowd included young men, yes.” She lifted her chin

defiantly. “I decided to take a few lessons from my recent cruise.”

“Decided to try your hand at seducing everything in trousers?”

“Why not? I had so much luck with you!” she tossed back lightly.

“Really? If you were getting so good at that sort of thing, what went wrong last night?”

Tabitha winced. “That’s none of your business.”

Dev glanced up, one brow rising curiously. He didn’t seem so angry now, Tabitha decided. Why not?

Or perhaps a better question would be, why had he been so angry in the first place? Why was he even

here, come to that?

“Did you really tell that kid that I made love magnificently?” he drawled, sliding the omelette out of the

pan and onto a plate.

“We were discussing dragons at the time, not you!”

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“The hell you were,” he contradicted gently, setting the food in front of her. “I’m the only dragon whose

mating habits you’re familiar with. You told me yourself the bestiaries don’t have much information on the

topic.”

“Dev, why are you here?” she demanded roughly, eyeing the omelette with caution. Was her stomach

really steady enough for food now?

“I’m here to collect you, tabby cat.” He poured himself a cup of coffee, shoved aside a tray of leftover

cheese sticks which was sitting on his side of the table and sat down.

Tabitha heard the resolute note in his voice and bit nervously into a forkful of omelette. She would not let

him put her off stride again. “Why?”

“Because I want you,” he said simply and then leaned back to sip his coffee just as if he were discussing

the weather. He watched her intently over the rim of the cup. “And I need you, Tabby.”

“Need me! Men who carry swords in their canes don’t need people like me!”

“Yes, we do. I do, at any rate,” he countered softly. “You were falling in love with me on that ship,

weren’t you, Tabby?”

She flinched. “What if I was? I got over it in a hurry just as soon as I found out you had lied to me and

used me.”

“I didn’t use you! What exactly did Waverly tell you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “That you were a government agent and that you had made a routine pickup for

your department on St. Regis. He had decided to relieve you of the film you collected in that alley. What

did happen in that alley, Dev? Who was it you left stuffed into the trash container?”

Dev hesitated and then lifted one shoulder indifferently. “Someone who tried to intercept the film.”

“That’s why you were all beaten up?”

Dev nodded once, watching her warily. “I very nearly lost, Tabby. With a little less luck it would have

been me who got stuffed into that trash bin. I’m getting too old for that kind of work. I’d been telling

Delaney that for two years.”

“Who’s Delaney?”

“Washington, D.C. type. You know, I told you how they were. Hard and cold. I used to work for him

until my accident.”

“Oh, yes, the famous accident. Did you lie to me about that, too? Were you really in a car wreck?” she

demanded scathingly.

“Tabby…”

“Answer me!”

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“Not exactly,” he grated harshly. “On my last assignment for Delaney I had a little trouble with a couple

of terrorists I’d been told to stop. They nearly stopped me, instead.”

Tabitha winced in spite of her resolution to remain implacable. “Oh, Dev! What happened?” Her eyes

betrayed the flash of concern she was trying to stifle.

“Against my better judgment, against my
instincts
, I agreed to meet with an informer. The guy was

supposed to be supplying us with reliable information. The night I turned up for the rendezvous he turned

up with the two guys I’d been trailing. I wound up with a bullet in my left knee and a few other assorted

bruises.”

“What happened to them?” she asked quietly.

“One escaped. The informer. A friend of mine got him for me later.”

“And the two terrorists?” she whispered.

“Tabby…” he began.

“What happened to them?”

Dev sighed. “I shot both of them. There, are you satisfied? It’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it? That

I’m a violent sort of man? Capable of shooting people or slicing their throats? Tabby, that rendezvous

was miles from the nearest town. I nearly bled to death before I got help. As it was, the doctor wanted to

amputate my leg. I didn’t dare let him give me any anesthetic for fear he’d go ahead and cut it off while I

was under! I had to fight to keep him from doing anything drastic until Delaney got me to a decent

hospital!”

“My God, Dev,” she breathed, horrified at the bleak, remembered pain she could see in his silver eyes.

“I didn’t realize…”

“Afterward I told Delaney I’d had enough. I wanted out. He said all I needed was a few months to

recover and I’d be chomping at the bit to get back to work. Tabby, I really am a travel agent. I opened

the business after I got back on my feet. I had done a lot of traveling in my work for Delaney’s

department, and I figured if there was one thing I knew about, it was globe-trotting. I’ve been working

hard for months to establish the business.” Dev broke off and sighed. “Then Delaney contacted me a few

weeks ago and asked if I’d make the pickup for him on St. Regis. The film was important, he said. It’s

got something to do with laser technology. Delaney thought it would be simple for me to take the cruise

under my legitimate cover as a travel agent. And I…”

“You what?” she prompted grimly.

“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe I was curious to see if he was right. He claimed that once I got my feet wet

again, I’d be ready to go back to work on a full-time basis. I don’t know, Tabby. I only knew that

something was missing in my life. I was putting the travel business together all right, but it wasn’t enough.

I wasn’t satisfied. And Delaney had once been a good friend. I agreed to do the job for him. But I

started regretting it as soon as I got on the boat. I knew I was no longer cut out for that kind of work.

Then you came to my rescue in that alley, and I began to realize what it was that had been missing in my

life. It wasn’t the excitement of working for Delaney. It was having someone care for me and love me

and shower me with attention. What I really wanted was a sweet, gentle tabby cat who would curl up in

my lap and make love to me.”

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Tabitha felt the warm flush rise in her face as she steadfastly refused to meet his glance. “I’m not going to

play tabby cat any longer, Dev. I felt like an absolute fool the last time. You used me. Oh, maybe not as

a cover for your work, although I have a hunch it suited your purposes to have me hanging around for

that reason, too. But you took advantage of my unquestioning assumption that you and I were two of a

kind. You more or less lied to me, Dev. When I think of what an idiot I was…”

“You weren’t an idiot!”

Her head came up swiftly. “Oh, yes, I was. Do you know how I feel every time I think back to that night

when I supposedly seduced you? I actually thought you were too shy to make the first move, did you

know that? I thought you were such a sensitive man you were terrified of forcing yourself on me!”

“I
was
terrified of doing exactly that,” he cut in savagely. “I knew you’d run for cover if I came on too

strong. It seemed safest to let you set the pace until you felt comfortable with me.”

“You mean you decided to let me wander so far into the trap I wouldn’t be able to escape when you

shut the door! But I’m out now, Dev, and I’m a different woman from the one who wandered so blithely

inside. I learned a lot on that cruise!”

“Don’t ever forget that what you learned, you learned from me!” he snapped abruptly. “I know what the

problem is here: you’ve discovered the passionate side of your nature and now you’re determined to find

out what you’ve been missing. You want to be free to explore the side of you that’s been locked up all

these years. But if you think I set that side of you free just so you could turn around and throw yourself at

every young stud who comes along, you’re out of your head! You belong to me now!” The coffee cup

crashed down onto the table as Dev straightened and leaned forward in his chair. His hard face was set