Raintree Read online

  The conversation continued for a minute, and he kept reassuring whoever was on the other end that no, he didn’t need help; everything was fine—well, not fine, but under control. There had been at least one fatality. The casino was a total loss, but the hotel had suffered only minor damage.

  He ended the call, and a moment later Lorna heard a savage, muttered curse, then a thud, as if he’d punched the wall.

  He didn’t seem like the wall-punching type, she thought. Then again, she didn’t know him. He might be a serial wall-puncher. Or maybe he’d fainted or something, and the thud had been his body hitting the floor.

  She liked that idea. She would seize the chance to kick him while he was down. Literally.

  The only way to see if he was lying there unconscious was to leave the bathroom. Reluctantly, she flushed, then went to the vanity to wash her hands—a vanity with a dark, golden-brown granite top and gold fixtures. When she reached out to turn on the water, the contrast between the richness of the vanity and her absolutely filthy, black-sooted hand made her inwardly cringe as she lifted her head.

  A grimy nightmare loomed in the mirror in front of her. Her hair was matted to her head with soot and water, and stank of smoke. Her face was so black only her eyes had any real definition, and they were bloodshot. With her red eyes, she looked like some demon from hell.

  She shuddered, remembering how close the flames had gotten. Given that, she couldn’t imagine how she had any hair left on her head at all, so she shouldn’t complain about it being matted. Shampoo—a lot of it—would take care of that. The soot would scrub off. Her clothes were ruined, but she had others. She was alive and unharmed, and she didn’t know how.

  As she soaped her grimy hands, rinsed, then soaped again, she tried to reconstruct an exact sequence of events. Her headache, which had subsided, roared back so fiercely she had to brace her soapy hands on the edge of the bowl.

  Thoughts whirled, trying to connect in a coherent sequence, but then the segments would whirl out of touch again.

  —she should have been burned—

  —hair singed off—

  —bubble—

  —no smoke—

  —agony—

  Whimpering from the pain in her head, she sank to her knees.

  Raintree cursing.

  Something about that reminded her of something. Of being held in front of him, his arms locked around her, while his curses rang out over her head and his…his—

  The memory was gone, eluding her grasp. Pain made her vision swim, and she stared at the soap bubbles on her hands, trying to summon the energy to stand. Was she having a stroke? The pain was so intense, burning, and it filled her head until she thought her skull might explode from the pressure.

  Soap bubbles.

  The shimmery bubbles…something about them reminded her…there had been something around her….

  A shimmering bubble. The memory burst into her aching brain, so clear it brought tears to her eyes. She’d seen it, surrounding them, holding the heat and smoke at bay.

  Her head had felt as if it really were exploding then. There had been an impact so huge she couldn’t compare it to anything in her experience, but she imagined the sensation was the same as if she’d been run over by a train—or struck by a meteor. It was as if all the cellular walls in her brain had dissolved, as if everything she had been, was, and would be, had been sucked out, taken over and used. She’d been helpless, as completely helpless as a newborn, to resist the pain or the man who had ruthlessly taken everything.

  With a crash, everything fell back into place, as if that memory had been the one piece she needed to put the puzzle together.

  She remembered it all: every moment of unspeakable terror, her inability to act, the way he had used her.

  Everything.

  “You’ve had enough time,” he called from the kitchen. “I heard you flush. Come here, Lorna.”

  Like a puppet, she got to her feet and walked out of the bathroom, soap still clinging to her hands and her temper flaring. He looked grim, standing there waiting for her. With every unwilling step she took, her temper soared into another level of the stratosphere.

  “You jerk!” she shouted, and kicked his ankle as she walked by. She could go only a couple of steps past him before that invisible wall stopped her, so she whirled around and stalked past him again. “You ass!” She threw an elbow into his ribs.

  She must not have hurt him very much because he looked more astonished than pained. That infuriated her even more, and when the wall forced her to turn around yet again, she reached a whole new level of temper as she began marching back and forth within the confines of his will.

  “You made me go into fire—” A snake-fast pinch at his waist.

  “I’m terrified of fire, but did you care?” Another kick, this one sideways into his knee.

  “Oh, no, I had to stand there while you did your mumbo jumbo—” On that pass, she leveled a punch at his solar plexus.

  “Then you brain-raped me, you jerk, you gorilla, you freakin’ witch doctor—” On the return trip, she went for a kidney punch.

  “Then, to top it all off, the whole time you were grinding your hard-on against my butt!” She was so incensed that she shrieked that last bit at him, and this time put everything she had into a punch straight to his chin.

  He blocked it with a swift movement of his forearm, so she stomped on his foot instead.

  “Ouch!” he yelped, but the jerk was laughing, damn him, and in another of his lightning moves, he captured her in his arms, pulling her solidly against him. She opened her mouth to screech at him, and he bent his head and kissed her.

  In contrast to the strong-arm tactics he’d used against her all night, the kiss was soft and feather-light, almost sweet. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and kissed her again. He stank as much as she did, maybe even more, but the body beneath his ruined clothing was rock solid with muscle and very warm in the air-conditioned coolness of the house. “I know it hurt…I didn’t have time to explain—” Between phrases, he kept on kissing her, each successive touch of his lips becoming a little deeper, lingering a little longer.

  Shock held her still: shock that he would be kissing her; shock that she would let him kiss her, after all the antagonism between them; after he’d done everything he’d done to her; after she’d subjected him to that battery of drive-by attacks. He wasn’t forcing her to let him kiss her; this was nothing like wanting to walk and not being able to. Her hands were on his muscled chest, but she wasn’t making any effort to push him away, not even a mental one.

  His mouth slid to the soft hollow beneath her ear, deposited a gentle bite on the site of her neck. “I’d much rather have been grinding my hard-on against your front,” he said, and went back to her mouth for a kiss that had nothing light or sweet about it. His tongue swept in, acquainting him with her taste, while his right hand went down to her bottom, slid caressingly over the curves, then pressed her hips forward to meet his.

  He was doing exactly what he’d said he would much rather have been doing.

  Lorna didn’t trust passion. From what she had seen, passion was selfish and self-centered. She wasn’t immune to it, but she didn’t trust it—didn’t trust men, who in her experience would tell lies just to get laid. She didn’t trust anyone else to care about her, to look out for her interests. She opened herself to passion slowly, warily, if at all.

  If she hadn’t been so tired, so stressed, so traumatized, she would have had complete control of herself, but she’d been off balance from the minute his chief of security had escorted her into his office. She was off balance now, as dizzy as if the kitchen were rotating around her, as if the floor had slanted beneath her feet. In contrast, he was solid and so very warm, his arms stronger than any that had ever held her before, and her body responded to him as if nothing else existed beyond the simple pleasure of the moment. Being held against him felt good. His incredible body heat felt good. The thick length of his erection,