One raven brow rose inquiringly. “You doubt what I know to be true?” He stared at her, and she saw an iridescent shimmer, as if the jet irises were suddenly translucent and the swirling light behind them came through. She felt her mind turn to water, and the hot whirlwind began to stir around her ankles, gaining force as it rose until it surrounded her like a twister. Her hair whipped her face. The satin robe flagellated her legs from calf to thigh. The wind moved, forcing her forward until only millimeters separated her from him.
He put his hands on her throat, his thumbs caressing the hollows above her clavicle. His fingers slipped beneath the material of the robe at her shoulders. The wind whipped the sash free, seemingly at his command. Slowly he pushed the scarlet satin from her shoulders, and it fell, to her horror, in a shimmering cascade at her feet. Yet she was incapable of lifting her arms to prevent it. She tried to tell her body to move. He wasn’t holding her to him by force. Her arms hadn’t been pinioned to her sides by his iron grip. They only hung limply there, abnormally heavy, unable to move. Her feet seemed to have the same mysterious malady. She could not make them take her a single step away from him.
Her eyes had followed the soft red cloth as it fell, but he caught her chin now and lifted it. He stared down into her eyes, but his gaze shifted every few seconds to her throat.
Part of her mind screamed in protest. Another, primal part screamed for his touch. He lowered his head and caught her earlobe between his lips. He nibbled it so lightly his touch was almost imperceptible, yet desire shot through her in fiery jolts. His lips trailed a path around her face and stopped only when they reached hers. They lingered there, barely touching. His hands touched the backs of her thighs and rose slowly, cupping her buttocks, squeezing, parting. One slipped around her hips, to cup her most intimate place, while the other remained behind her, to hold her immobile. She felt his fingers touch lightly, part her, probe her, and she heard a stifled whimper that must have been hers. Fire coursed through her veins, heating her blood until it boiled. She wanted this…damn him, he was making her want it!
Both hands flattened against her stomach and inched slowly upward. She trembled violently, knowing what was next. Awaiting it with a burning need that came against her will. Still his lips worked hers, sucking at them, first upper, then lower. Biting them softly, licking them with quick tiny flicks of his tongue, followed by slow, languorous laps that traced their shape. His fingers finally reached her breasts. He positioned a thumb and forefinger at each nipple, barely touching. She moaned low and hoarsely in supplication, and he closed them, pinching, rolling the erect nubs between his fingers until they pulsed like the rest of her.
She realized she’d regained use of her arms when she found them linking behind his head and pulling him closer. Her mouth opened wide to him, and his tongue plunged into it, stroking hers, twining with hers, tugging at it. He pulled it into his own silken moistness, and suckled the way she wished he would suckle her breasts. They throbbed for his mouth.
Before she’d completed the thought his hands were at her back, between her shoulder blades. His lips burned a path of liquid heat down over her chin, over her throat, along her chest. She arched backward, supported by his hands behind her, one at her back, one at her buttocks. He bent over her and unerringly found one swollen crest with his mouth. Mercilessly he worried it, licking until she whimpered, sucking until she cried out and biting until her hands tangled in his hair, holding him to her.
She couldn’t catch her breath. She wanted him so badly it was out of control. Her center throbbed with hot moisture, and longed to be filled…with him.
He lifted his head and eased her upward until she had her balance. At some point during the rapacious seduction he had released her mind. She was unsure when, exactly, but at some time she had been free to object, to pull away, to slap him. She hadn’t. Instead she’d responded like an animal. She was angry, with herself, with him and with her mind for refusing to give her the memory she needed to make sense of all of this.
He bent down, retrieved her robe and straightened again, slipping it over her shoulders. “You see?” He said it very softly.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Her voice cracked as she asked the question. She tugged her robe together, yanking the sash tight. She couldn’t look him in the eyes.
“Not to you, Tamara. I came tonight for you. To help you, if you’ll permit it.”
“Was what you just did to me supposed to help me, too?”
When he didn’t answer right away she looked at him. To her surprise his gaze fell before hers. “No,” he finally whispered. “I meant to demonstrate…. I did not intend to go so far.”
She frowned, looking at him—really looking at him—for the first time since he’d peeled his body from hers. His eyes fairly glowed with passion and were still hooded. His breaths came in short, shallow gasps, just as hers did. My God, he’d been as swept away by what had happened between them as she had! He moved past her, his hands trembling as he gripped the iron rail and looked down over it into the blue-black night, and the illuminating snow-covered ground below. His back was presented to her, its broad strength slightly bowed. Nothing prevented her going back inside.
“I am afraid I’ve handled this badly,” he said slowly and carefully, though his voice was still hoarse. “It is not my wish to frighten you, or to make you loathe me. I care for you, Tamara. I have for a very long time.”
She allowed his words to penetrate the confusion in her mind. “I think I believe that.”
He turned, faced her and seemed to search for the correct words. “I truly came to you because I heard your cries. I had no other motive. Can you believe that, as well?”
She drew a slow breath. “I work with a young boy who has, on occasion, demonstrated some psychic ability. Several operatives have had sessions with him, besides me. But his powers, however slight, are always a good deal more evident when he is with me. I suppose there’s a chance I might have some latent clairvoyant tendency that’s been enhancing his. Maybe you did somehow hear my dreams. I won’t say it’s impossible.”
She was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, no matter how outrageous his claims seemed to be. Besides, how else could she explain what had been happening?
Encouraged, it seemed, he went on. “I came to you only because of the desperation in your cries. I swear this to you. I had no idea St. Claire was your guardian.” He took a step forward, one hand lifting, palm up, a gesture of entreaty. “Try to imagine how I felt when I discovered it, Tamara. The woman who’d been calling me to her, living under the same roof as the man who has doggedly pursued me for months. How could I not suspect a conspiracy to entrap me?”
She listened as he presented his case. She supposed he had a point. She would have thought the same if she’d been in his place. “I suppose you had cause to be suspicious.” She looked at the floor, bit her lip. She could reassure him without revealing any sensitive information. The truth was, she knew very little that was classified. “I have a low security clearance. Sometimes I think they invented a new one, just for me, it’s so low.” She smiled slightly when she said that, and she faced him. “I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to argue Daniel out of this crazy idea that you’re…” Why couldn’t she finish the sentence? She swallowed and went on. “He always counters my rationale with the claim that he has loads of evidence to prove his theories. And I always respond by asking to see the files. The answer never changes. My clearance isn’t high enough.” She studied his face, but it gave no evidence of whether he believed her. He listened attentively. “I never told him about the dreams. I didn’t want to worry him.”
He nodded. “Is there a chance he might’ve found out in another way?”
“How could he, short of reading my mind?” She blinked and looked away suddenly. “Unless…” He waited expectantly. She made up her mind. What she had to say couldn’t hurt Daniel. If anything, it might help him avoid a lawsuit if she could stay on good terms with Marquand. She tried to avoid the burning knowledge of her own powerful feelings for a man she barely knew. “There were times when I