alternative was even scarier—at least to him. That what he'd heard wasn't real. He turned on the water and splashed his face again. He was afraid to go out and face her. Ashamed that she might think that he was…
He had promised to wash her. He ran hot water over one of the washcloths hanging on the rack, and shoved the door open.
Erin was perched on the bed, knees drawn up to her chest. He knelt in front of her and sponged every trace of his come off her belly, her breasts. She stretched and smiled, opening to his touch. He wanted to sponge her between her legs, too, but the washcloth was sticky. He flung it aside. His tongue was warm and wet, and would do just as well.
She gasped as he pushed her legs open and put his mouth to her again. 'Connor! For God's sake—'
'Let me.' God, she was juicy and sweet.
Erin sagged back onto the bed. She was tugging at his hair, saying something urgent, pleading, but it degenerated into shocked gasps of pleasure soon enough. He owed her an orgasm after his latest caveman performance. It was a matter of pride.
He laved her with his mouth, every precious pink fold, every delicate detail. He fastened his lips and tongue around her clit, and the taut, swollen nub thrummed against his mouth. He suckled and nibbled and insisted until she came, right against his face.
He slid up into her arms and hid his face against her breasts. She pulled the blankets over them, murmuring sweet words that almost untangled the knot of fear in his chest.
The world was getting weirder by the minute, but this, at least, was amazing and sweet. He would take all the comfort he could from it.
He waited until she was fast asleep, and gently untangled himself from her slender limbs. He propped his back against the headboard and stared with hot, suspicious eyes into the ominous shadows. Sleep was a million miles away. His gun was inches from his hand. He monitored the soft rise and fall of her breath with his other hand.
He had come down here to guard her, so by God, he would do it.
Tamara stretched her perfect body, well aware of the effect she made in the rumpled sheets. She smiled through her lashes at the man lying beside her. He was playing with a strand of her fiery hair, his face relaxed and calm, but that could change in an instant. A raised eyebrow, a smile that struck him as false, and the world could explode.
She was well used to living in several different realities at once, but this was the finest line she had ever walked.
She channeled the emotional energy of that rush of fear into a sensual wiggle and a satisfied smile, and struggled to remember why she had decided to do this, why it had seemed so incredibly important at the time. Usually she loved risk, even craved it. But as the days with Novak crawled by, she was loving it less and less.
Stultifying tedium looked very attractive to her right now.
'You were inspired tonight,' she murmured. Her voice was throaty and relaxed. Whore's talk had always come easily to her.
'Perhaps Nigel's report inspired me.' His lips curved in a dimpled, deceptively sweet smile. 'He could hear McCloud halfway down the corridor. Like a wild boar in rut. Poor Erin.'
She chuckled. 'Surprising. I would have thought that your phone call would put a damper on things.'
'Not at all. He reacted just as I would have expected. Fear and anger leads directly to the desire to conquer and punish and control.' He wrapped the lock of hair around his finger and tugged it. She winced, and cried out. She had learned, to her cost, that hiding pain was a big mistake. 'I studied him, you know,' he went on. 'I profiled him, just as he has profiled me. We have a great deal in common.'
'Really? What?'
He let go of her hair, to her relief, and stared up at the ceiling. 'Unusual childhoods, for one thing. We both suffered the traumatic loss of our mothers at an early age, for instance.'
She made a soft, distressed sound, but he was not trolling for sympathy. His eyes were remote. 'We both had mentally unbalanced fathers. We both have physical defects. His were inflicted by me, and mine, indirectly, by him.' He held up his maimed hand, and passed it over the puckered bullet scar that marred his pale thigh.
'Fascinating,' she murmured. 'I never thought of the symmetry. The matching injuries. Hand and thigh.' She leaned over, ran her hand over the scar on his thigh, and took a calculated risk. She drew his hand to her lips and kissed each scarred stump.
He smiled his appreciation of the gesture, and she shuddered with her relief. 'What else?' she urged.
'Intensity,' he mused. 'Inability to compromise. He is a good enemy. I will be sorry to lose him. It will be almost like losing a friend.'
The dangerous thought flitted through her mind before she could suppress it, and fear followed in its wake. She could not afford to let such things float to the surface of her conscious mind. He was supernaturally acute, sniffing out every slightest scent of treachery.
His eyes focused on her with unnerving intensity. 'I have always been good at sensing fault lines, exploiting them,' he said. 'So was Victor. He actually had the gall to try it on me. Remember?'
'Yes,' she said quietly. 'That was why you killed him.'
'I found his weak point, and then tap, tap, crack, and he came apart. That is how I will destroy them all. Tap, tap, Tamara. That's all it takes, and they will fall over their own feet to destroy themselves.'
She hoped her smile was not shaking. 'Brilliant,' she said.
'Erin will be the hardest, but I think I have the key to her now.'
'Her weakness is Connor McCloud, obviously,' Tamara said.
'Look deeper than the obvious,' he snapped. 'Erin likes order. Chaos makes her frantic. Her father's disgrace, what happened at Crystal Mountain, it shook her to her foundations. When the rest of her world falls to pieces, we will see what she is really made of.'
'Brilliant.' Her voice sounded mechanical to her own ears.
'This is moving fast,' he said. 'We must accelerate things, to keep up with McCloud's and Erin's immoderate lust.'
'I spoke to our operative in Marseilles earlier, right before you came to me,' she told him.
He seized a lock of her hair and tugged it again, cruelly hard. 'You should have told me immediately.'
She forced herself to whimper and cringe. Her own nature would have dictated stoic silence, but she did not want to challenge him. Oh, no, no, no. Even she knew when to bend. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'You were so passionate… it drove it right out of my mind. Please…'
He let go of her hair and backhanded her across the face. 'What did he say?'
She touched her throbbing cheek. Another bruise. She was brilliant with paints and powders, but there were limits even to her genius. 'Martin Olivier is ready to play his part,' she said. 'They've coached him carefully. He will be captured by the police, and confess to seeing you and Georg at the rendezvous point outside Marseilles. Whenever you want him to.'
'Call them,' he said slowly. 'It must happen the day after tomorrow. That gives Ingrid and Matthieu time to arrange poor Claude's transport to Marseilles.'
'Isn't it dangerous to move a man in a coma?' she asked timidly.
Novak shrugged. 'Claude has never disobliged me in his life. He would not dare to die before it is convenient for me. Yes, Tuesday morning would be best. That will also give Erin and McCloud time to generate some titillating X-rated video footage for us when they get back to Seattle. I need it for the grand finale. Speaking of which, Rolf Hauer is in place to take care of Claude? That has to happen shortly after Martin's confession. Preferably the same day.'
'He is in Marseilles, awaiting orders,' she assured him. 'All the pieces are in place. Your choreography is absolutely brilliant.'
He stared at her for a long, uncomfortable moment. 'You flatter me, Tamara,' he said slowly. 'I hope very much that you don't ever presume to manipulate me with flattery. I dislike that.'
The white-hot glow in his eyes terrified her. 'God, no. Really, I—'
