darkly brilliant eyes.
Silence stretched between them, taut and heated. After a moment he drew a slow, controlled breath and let it out the same way. “Can you listen to me now?” he finally asked. “Or do I have tie you down and gag you?”
Surprise sparked through her, and she stared at him in confusion. If he was going to kill her, he could just do it, he didn’t have to tie her down and gag her. He’d won; she was at his mercy-if he had any, that is.
Could he have meant…had he possibly meant that he wasn’t going to kill her, period?
He hadn’t had to jump her, she realized. He could have shot her at any time, if killing her had been his purpose. She had operated for so long under the assumption that he intended to do exactly that, that she felt as if the ground had evaporated beneath her. If what she’d thought was reality wasn’t real at all, then what the hell was?
If his hand hadn’t been over her mouth, her jaw would have fallen open. Slowly, carefully, her movements hampered by his grip, she first nodded her head, once, up and down, then just as slowly shook it.
Taking the movements exactly for what they were, her answers to his questions, in order, he said, “Then pay attention. I’m not going to hurt you
She nodded again, the motion just as restricted as it had been the first time. He hadn’t relaxed his grip one iota.
“All right. I’m going to let you up now. Do you need help?”
She shook her head, though she honestly didn’t know. Slowly he released her, massaging the pressure points in her jaws as he did so, easing her through what could have been a spike of agony. He rolled lithely to a crouching motion and slid an arm behind her shoulders, lifting her to a sitting position.
Completely stunned, Andie sat silently on the floor. After supporting her for a moment he asked, “All right?” When she nodded, he stood in that graceful, controlled way of his and went to the sink, turning on the water and holding his arm under the flow. “Turn on the light,” he said, not looking at her.
Still in shocked silence, she scrambled up and went to the doorway, where she flipped the wall switch. After the relative darkness, the sudden flood of light was so bright she stood blinking, trying to take in the unbelievable fact that the man who had so terrified her for months was standing calmly at her kitchen sink, soaping the blood from his arm and hand.
Hesitantly she approached, stopping several feet away because she couldn’t quite bring herself to get within reaching distance. She stared at the wound on his arm, the dark, purpling edges where her teeth had punctured his skin. Her head swam and she reached out, gripping the edge of the counter for support. She had done that, she who had never before been violent in any way.
She began trembling as the adrenaline that had flooded her body began to dissipate. The shaking started at her ankles and climbed to her knees, then rapidly filled her so that even her internal organs felt as if they were quaking and shivering. Her teeth clattered like marbles bouncing down a brick path. He continued running water over his arm, not looking at her even though he had to hear the rapid clicking of her teeth. Icy with reaction, she hugged herself and clenched her jaw in an effort to still the motion and quiet the noise. “Do-do you really need a tetanus shot?” she finally asked, her voice small. Of all the asinine things she could have said, why she picked that one was beyond her understanding.
“No,” he said briefly. “My vaccinations are up to date.”
She stared at him, going under for the third time in the sea of confusion. He couldn’t mean childhood vaccinations, like for measles and chicken pox, and the only other kind of vaccinations that came to mind were like rabies shots for animals. Nothing was making sense; either she was in shock, or she was in an alternate universe. The alternate universe had her vote, because it was impossible that he was standing there in her kitchen. The edges of reality blurred when he was anywhere around; his presence was so intense that he seemed to draw all of her attention the way a magnet drew steel shavings, leaving everything else faded and out of focus.
“V-vaccinations?” She sounded like a stammering idiot, but she was still shivering, and it was all she could do to control her chattering teeth.
“For going out of the country.”
She felt like an idiot, because of course she knew that he did a lot of his “work” outside the country, and smart people going into third-world countries made certain they had all the appropriate vaccinations. Then she felt like an idiot all over again, for focusing on mundane stuff like whether or not his shots were up to date, but the shift in her reality was so abrupt and so drastic that she couldn’t absorb it all at once, and she felt capable only of taking in the small stuff.
Her gaze drifted over him, outlining his height, the broad set of his muscled shoulders. The short sleeves of his dark green polo shirt revealed the corded strength of his arms, but she didn’t have to see his muscles to know how strong he was. He was a neat, well-dressed man, his shirttail tucked in, a thin black belt buckled around his trim waist. His black pants had a sharp crease in them, and his black soft-soled shoes were clean, despite the fact that earlier he’d been standing in the rain. Almost hungrily she stared at his thick dark hair, still cut short, and the darkening of beard stubble on his jaw; she drank in the details of his appearance, and this freshening of her memories was both painful and a relief.
She knew the scent of his skin, as if she smelled it every day, as if she woke up to see his dark head on the pillow beside her. She knew the timbre of his voice, low and ever-so-faintly raspy. She knew his taste, how he kissed, the softness of his lips, the shape and length and thickness of his penis. She knew he still scared her more than anyone she’d ever met-but she didn’t know his name, he didn’t want her to know even that much about him, and she was damned if she’d ask again even though the pain of not knowing almost choked her. That was where at least half of her fear came from, not just because he was cold and lethal but because somehow, for some insane reason, he could break her heart and she’d always sensed that.
She had to ask. Even knowing she was setting herself up for more pain, she had to try one more time, and if he wouldn’t tell her anything this time then she’d know that she had to stop this stupid yearning after the impossible. She might not be able to stop the feelings but she could stop the hopeful expectations that led her to stare at him like a teenager staring at a rock star.
“I don’t know who you are,” she whispered, the sound thready and broken.
He glanced briefly at her, then tore a paper towel from the roll beside the sink and began drying his arm and hands. “Simon Goodnight.”
She was so startled that she said, “That’s not your name!” and almost laughed, then she almost cried, because at least he’d said
He shrugged. “It is for now, just the way you’re Andie Pearson, for now.”
“Andie is my real name. Well, Andrea is. I was always called Andie, when I was a kid.”
“Simon’s my real name,” he replied, blotting the blood that welled in the puncture wounds.
Which meant the Goodnight wasn’t, and she was glad, because that was a helluva name to carry around. Why had he chosen it? Out of some sly sense of humor, or because it was so unlike him that it was, in a way, another layer of camouflage? She almost laughed again. Forget about Smith and Jones; they were Butts and Goodnight, and if that didn’t sound like a vaudeville team she didn’t know what did.
Then she stared at the blood on the paper towel, and the urge to laugh immediately shriveled to dust. “You need stitches. I’ll take you to the ER.”
“I can do it myself, when I leave here,” he said in dismissal.
“Sure, why not do a Rambo?” she snapped, turning to the battered refrigerator and jerking open the freezer door. Taking out a pack of frozen peas, she tossed it to him. He’d turned to watch her, probably to make sure she didn’t do anything other than what he was willing to allow, so he wasn’t surprised by the toss and easily fielded the peas. “Then put that on the punctures so the edges won’t swell, or you won’t be able to show how tough you are.”
He looked amused, not because he actually smiled, but just for a second the corners of his eyes creased a little. “Not that tough; I use an analgesic spray to deaden the area first.”
Meaning he’d sutured himself before. Before she could quite get her head around that, he tilted his head toward the table.
“Sit down. We need to talk.”
Automatically she started to take the nearest chair, but he took her arm with his left hand, picked up the overturned chair with his right, and positioned it on the far side of the table, closest to the wall, before urging her into it and taking the other chair himself. That placed him between her and the door, a habit that might have been
