beneath her feet ceased to exist. She felt her legs buckle and might have fallen if she hadn't been wrapped so tightly in his arms.
He ended the kiss as abruptly as he'd begun it. tearing his mouth from hers with a gasp that was like a small explosion, an escape of passionate and powerful emotions held prisoner too long. Heedless of clips and fastenings, he clutched a handful of her hair in one big hand and buried his face in the curve of her neck. He groaned softly. 'Ah…Rhee. You have no idea how much I've needed to do that.'
'Yes…I do.' Her lips felt numb; she could hardly get the words out. 'Because I've needed it, too. Dammit.' She could feel herself trembling. Furious with herself for her inability to stop it. she pounded the hard, ungiving muscle of his arm with her fist. 'But don't think this is going to distract me, Donovan. I still want to know what it was about that box that upset you. Tell me, dammit. Or-'
He cut her off with another kiss, this one almost playful. 'God, I love it when you're assertive.' he said huskily against her mouth, sounding like the Nikolas she knew. 'It's such a turn-on.' He kissed her again, long and slow and deep. Her insides went liquid and warm and she could feel a moan rising dangerously in her throat.
Then he drew back and looked down at her. and his eyes were shadowed and grave. 'I wish I could, but I can't. Not now. Not yet. I don't know myself… there's something I need-' He broke off. dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose and said firmly. 'I need you to taist me. luv. okay? And…I need your chopper. D'you think Corbett Lazlo would mind if we kept it just a bit longer?'
'It's yours to command.' Rhia said, but her voice was bumpy as he turned her and pulled her against his side. He held her close with one arm while they continued along the path.
'Good-let's go wake up our pilot, shall we?' His tone was light again, but his eyes were hard, and she could see the tiny muscle working in his jaw.
'The old Perthegon Estate? Sure, yeah. I know where it is. No problem.' The helicopter pilot, whose name was Elliot, spoke with an American accent-from New York or thereabouts. Nikolas guessed. The pilot tucked the wrapper from a package of cream-filled cupcakes into the pocket of his uniform shirt and levered himself nimbly up from his lounging position in the doorway of the chopper. 'Hop in and buckle up. I can have you there in a jiff.'
Nikolas waited for Rhia to climb aboard, then followed.
She took the jump seat opposite the door, leaving the seat beside the pilot for him. The chopper's rotors began to spin while he was still strapping himself in.
'That old place is pretty much a ruin, now, but from what I hear it used to be somethin' else.' Elliot shouted above the noise of the chopper's turbine engine. 'Ever been there?'
Nikolas shook his head. 'Seen pictures-that's about it.'
'Real showplace. I guess it was like something out of Disneyland.'
'Yeah.' Nikolas said.
Elliot spoke into his radio and the helicopter lifted into the air. Nikolas's stomach and the golden meadow dropped away, and in minutes the forest had vanished into cloud haze.
As they left the mountains behind, the clouds thickened, becoming patchy fog as they neared the capital city. Situated as it was, on the Kairn River plain just thirty kilometers or so inland from Kairn Bay and the Port of Perth. Silverton was frequently blanketed by the marine layer as it crept inland following the low river valley like a crooked, beckoning finger. Elliot spoke often into his radio mike now. in constant touch with the tower at Silvershire International.
Once across the river and out of the city's busy airspace. Elliot keyed off the mike and jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. 'Gonna need to gas this thing up-we're runnin' on fumes. After I drop you guys off at the castle, I'm gonna head on back here to the airport and refuel.'
Nikolas nodded. Rhia leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder.
'Tell him to bring us back some burgers and fries-I'm starving.'
He gave a little laugh half of surprise, half chagrin. He was hungry, too, and hadn't realized it. He'd been too tense, his stomach tied in too many knots to feel anything so mundane as hunger.
As if awakened by the power of suggestion, or out of pure contrariness, his stomach gave a loud growl.
Elliot did another thumb-jerk. 'Got a buncha stuff back there in my duffel-keep it handy for times like this when I don't get to make a pit stop. Help yourselves-in fact, take it with you if you want. I can grab a bite at the airport.'
'What kind of stuff?' Rhia was already reaching for the duffel.
Elliot grinned. 'Junk, mostly. Chips, chocolate bars…stuff like that.'
'Yum,' said Rhia happily.
The helicopter banked sharply and plunged down through a hole in the clouds.
Elliot deposited them in a field of waving grass plumes and fading meadow flowers on the back side of the house-or castle, more like-and immediately took off again. Holding her hair with one hand against the chopper's turbulence. Rhia turned in a slow circle and said. 'Wow.'
Nikolas didn't reply. He took off his sunglasses and tucked them in his jacket pocket, then stood gazing at the castle-Perth Castle, ancestral home of Lord Benton Vladimir, the Duke of Perthegon. He didn't know what he'd expected-some kind of blinding revelation, maybe? A vision? At the very least, a clue that would help provide answers to the questions swirling inside his head. Instead there was the same restless stirring all through his body, that had been with him since he'd boarded the Lazlo Group's helicopter in Paris. And at the same time a cold hollow feeling of dread.
The day, it seemed, had turned to match his mood. Tendrils of gray-white fog were coiling up from the river, wrapping themselves around the castle's stone turrets and cupolas and blotting out what was left of the sun. A damp chilly breeze touched the back of his neck like ghost-fingers.
'I don't know about Disneyland,' Rhia said, gazing up at the castle, head back, thumbs hooked in her belt. 'I'm thinking more along the lines of Dracula.'
'The fog does lend it a certain atmosphere.' Nikolas said absently. He nodded toward some scaffolding that could be seen climbing the wall far off to their right. 'Looks like someone's been doing a bit of work on the place, at least.'
'Doesn't appear to be a soul around at the moment, though.' There was a pause, and then: 'Are you going to tell me now just what it is we're doing here? Because whatever it is, I vote we explore whatever's in that goody bag of Elliot's before we do anything else.'
He let go of a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and to his surprise, a laugh came with it. Peeling his gaze away from the castle, he looked at Rhia instead, and felt the knots in his stomach begin to loosen. Her tilted green eyes were studying him intently, and he had the feeling that if she'd had a tail it would have been twitching. Laughing softly, he reached for her with one arm and pulled her against his side.
'That's not what I'd like to explore,' he murmured into her hair. His hand crept around her waist and flattened over her stomach…then inched its way upward under her jacket to cradle and measure the weight of one firm round breast.
She socked him smartly on one of his pecs-though her nipple had already hardened treasonously beneath his palm.
'Ow. That's hardly the response I was hoping for.,luv.' But he'd felt a shudder ripple through her body-just before she twisted away and out of his reach.
'Stop trying to distract me, damn you. I told you, that's not going to get you off the hook with me. I want to know what we're doing here. What is it you're looking for? If you'd tell me, maybe I could help you find it.'
'That would be somewhat difficult.' Nikolas said in a musing tone, 'considering I haven't got a clue myself.'
He turned his back on the castle and gazed out across the meadow, which lay like a messy bed coverlet on the gentle slope. Farther down, closer to the river, it was dotted with copses of trees that almost hid the marshes and the island where the pavilion had once stood, the ruined pavilion where Zara said she and Walker Shaw had found the chest.
The pavilion had been demolished and the vault beneath it filled in, Zara had told him. There was nothing left there now. And in any case, he wasn't keen on the idea of wading through a swamp just to look at an empty ruin,
