Chapter 8
When Nick walked through the third-floor study and found the bookcase standing slightly away from the wall, all the blood rushed to his feet. He moved quickly into the apartment, knowing already that he wouldn't find her there. He felt the emptiness in every room as if it were a presence in itself. He didn't need the flashing light to confirm it. He shut off the system before the alarm bell could start in.
Where the hell was she? Somewhere on the grounds, he rationalized. She had to be—she wouldn't take off. Not now. Unless... Nick's gaze moved to the monitor. Unless she'd overheard his conversation with Lou and believed his act. But she couldn't have. He had taken the remote...
...and dropped it on the table in the study as he rushed through. He turned now and went to find it still resting there, beside the unplugged telephone. He grabbed both items and ducked back into the apartment. He inserted the phone's cord into its jack, punched in Carl's number with one hand, thumbed the monitor to life with the other. He was scanning each room for a sign of Toni when Carl picked up.
“I'm calling it,” he said without prelude. “Pull out, Carl.”
“What do you mean, 'pull out'? Are you nuts? We just—”
Nick continued flicking buttons on the remote, his gaze intent on the screen. “Lou's too damn unconcerned about losing that shipment. Almost like he expected it. It stinks of a setup, Carl. He staged it. A loyalty test. And I don’t know which of us he was testing. But he’s gotta know one of the men who was at that warehouse last night tipped off the cops. Pull out now, and watch your back.”
Carl swore. “Okay. All right, if you say so. Listen, how's the leg? I—”
“Later. I have to move.” Nick replaced the receiver slowly. He'd stopped flicking buttons when he'd seen the small sitting room with the smashed window. “My God, if she was in there...”
He closed his eyes slowly, opened them again. She had heard everything. And she'd obviously believed every word he'd said to Lou. He shook himself and went into the bedroom, yanked a dresser drawer completely out and flipped it upside down on the bed. Now that it didn't matter, she believed his cover story. Her timing was damn near awful. He tore free the envelope taped to the bottom of the drawer, ripped it open and took from it a small leather folder the size of a wallet. Slipping it into his pocket, he ran unevenly back through the apartment and down the stairs, ignoring the stabbing pain each step sent shooting through his leg.
In the little sitting room at the bottom of the stairs, the wind blew the curtains wildly. Rain slanted in, wetting the floor and the wall beneath the window. Nick paused only long enough to find a flashlight and then he climbed out the same way Toni had, noting the trace of blood on a pointed finger of glass. On the ground, he squinted through the downpour to try to make out her shape in the darkness. He aimed the flashlight’s beam onto the muddied ground in search of her small footprints. If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself.
Toni slipped in the rain-slick grass more than once as she ran from the mansion. She decided not to go near the front gate, certain that would be the first place Nick would look for her, and instead, headed for the woods behind the house. Maybe the place wasn't as secure as he'd said. There might not be fencing all the way around, and even if there was, there might be some way over or under or through it.
The trees closed themselves behind her as soon as she breached the first cluster of them, hiding the house from her view. She stumbled onward, rain streaming between her shoulder blades. It had plastered the hockey jersey she wore to her skin and soaked her hair within minutes. Her limp curls stuck to her face and neck, heavy and wet and cold. She had to blink raindrops from her eyes every few steps just to see where she was going, but she pushed on, trying to keep to a straight course, refusing to think or to feel. Her every sense was focused on moving, on seeing through the rain and on putting as much distance between herself and Nick Manelli as she could.
She resisted the subconscious masochist that wanted to replay, over and over in her mind, the horrible things she'd heard Nick say. She didn't want to hear again the change in his voice from the moment Taranto had told him who she really was. She didn't want to wonder if that knowledge had made a difference to him...had made him hate her as much as it sounded like he did.
A sob tore at her throat as those thoughts ran through her mind, despite her determination not to let them. The seed of doubt grew larger. As the trees grew closer together, they blunted the force of the rain. Pines, she realized dully as their needles continued brushing her arms and their scent reached out to offer solace. The wind couldn't slash at her there. The rain still came through, but more gently, filtered through the boughs. The ground seemed to sink under her feet, as if she was walking on soft sponges instead of several inches of wet, browning needles. They made a carpet for her cold, bare feet.
She slowed her pace, beginning to feel the biting shards of glass she'd stepped on, and the painful cut in her right shoulder. Eventually she had to stop. She'd walked for what seemed a very long distance and still hadn't come to a fence demarcating the border of the property. Bracing one hand against the sticky trunk of a pine, she heard its needles whispering above her head as the rain hissed down through them to sprinkle her. She glanced around but could see no farther than two or three trees in any direction. The glimpses of sky she could catch between the sheltering arms of the pines showed her only a bleak, gray thing—the perfect sky to match the way she felt. She couldn't understand the intense pain that seemed lodged in the center of her chest. But she knew it grew with every step she took...and each time she felt herself doubting Nick, it grew even more.
She bit her lower lip, and a chill rushed through her as the wind found its way to her bare legs. Had she allowed herself to indulge in a silly infatuation? Had she deluded herself with a fantasy image of a man who didn't exist?
She thought about last night when her heart had iced over at the sight of his blood-soaked leg. All she’d wanted was to ease his pain, to make him all right. She'd held him when his fever had climbed. She'd rocked him in her arms as she would her own child, and she'd felt the wrenching pain in him when he'd dreamed of his brother. Toni had convinced herself that no man who'd loved a brother as he had could work for Lou Taranto.
It couldn’t have all been in her imagination. Even now, she wished she could turn around and run back to him, fall into those big, strong arms and pour out her fears as he held her and promised her that everything would be all right. Only fear for her sister kept her from doing just that...fear and a kernel of doubt that wouldn't let go.
She folded her arms against the tree and lowered her head to them. “God,” she moaned softly. “How could I have been so wrong about him all along?”
“You weren't wrong, Toni.”
His voice was so near her ear that she stiffened in shock, then pivoted, flattening her back to the wet, stringy bark to see him standing mere inches from her. “Don't try to take me back, Nick. I have to go to her...I have to—”
He caught her hand in one of his, turned it slowly and pressed the flashlight he held into it. He folded her fingers around it as Toni frowned and shook her head, not understanding. She opened her mouth to ask what he wanted from her, but his finger pressed to her lips and silenced her. He caught her other hand and lifted it, palm up. He took something from his pocket and lay it flat on her palm.
Her fingers closed over the leather, brought it to her face for a better look and caught the scent of it. It was folded in half. She looked at Nick, and a crazy hope leapt up in her breast as she opened the folder and lifted the light to it. The shield glowed in the white light, right beside the photo ID. Nick's face, unsmiling, beside his full name, Nicholas Anthony Manelli, and the words Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Every muscle went limp and Toni swore her bones melted. Her hands fell to her sides, and her eyes closed. Nick took the folder from her unresisting fingers and then the light. His hands came back to her, huge and strong
, closing on her shoulders, pulling her away from the solid tree. She gladly traded its support for that of his equally solid chest as his arms closed around her. Feeling as if she'd been standing alone in a hurricane, she encircled his neck with her arms, pressed her head to his chest so that it rose and fell with every breath he took. Her goose-bump-covered legs were flush with his, separated only by a thin barrier of wet cloth.
When his arms loosened from her waist, she knew he would lead her back to the house. She didn't want to go. She didn't feel strong enough to stand if he stopped holding her, and clung shamelessly. His head tipped backward, as if he were seeking help from above. A moment later his big hand cupped her head, cradling it more securely to his chest. His other arm closed once more around her waist, providing her with the support she'd sought, holding her tight against him. His head came down, and she felt his lips in her hair, at the very top of her head.
Toni looked up into his eyes, and found them even darker than the stormy predawn sky. The emotion in them reached her and found its mate within her. She felt her response begin deep in the pit of her stomach before his lips claimed hers. And when they did, it became a fire that tried to consume them both.
Clutching at his shoulder with one hand, she buried the other in his hair and pulled him closer. She kissed him hungrily, unable to get enough of him. He groaned as his hands slid down over her hips and beyond the edge of the shirt to her rain-slick thighs. And when she arched against him and he shuddered in response, she wondered at her ability to inspire such a reaction in him—a man so beautiful it hurt to look at him.
She worked one of her hands between them and flicked open the buttons of his shirt. When she gained access, she ran her hand over his chest, dragging her nails lightly over his skin and hearing his ragged breath. Impatient now that she was sure of herself, she pushed his shirt down over his shoulders and seared his chest with her kisses and her rapid, shallow breaths. She felt the cool rain on her flushed skin, her upturned face, and the chill breeze that played across her thighs. She felt everything.
Nick lowered her down with him, onto the cool wet blanket of needles until they knelt there together. He peeled her jersey off over her head, and spread it on the ground behind her.
When his eyes met hers, she felt no shyness. His hungry gaze moved over her, leaving no part of her untouched. She felt feminine in every cell of her body because of that gaze. She felt more attractive, more female, more powerful than she had in her life. And when he lay down, pulling her on top of him, wrapping himself around her, rocking her slowly, she felt as if she’d come home. They made love there in the pouring rain, tenderly and slowly, exploring and learning each other, whispering and caressing. Their mouths barely parted, and the passion grew. He was so careful with her, and until she didn’t want him to be. And then he took her to the stars.
Toni lay there, relaxed on top of him, cradled is his arms that were so big they protected her from the rain. She heard his heard pounding, felt the heat of his skin, and closed her eyes. It was perfection. It was bliss. And she would never forget this time, or this man, no matter what might lie ahead for them.
His mind kept telling him it was not possible. His body disagreed. It made no sense. It couldn't have been as explosive as it had seemed. Nothing could be. It had felt like being caught in a hurricane and carried through its violence to the paradise at its eye.
Now he had the craziest urge to rock her small body against his—to kiss every inch of her until she either fell asleep in his arms or asked for more—to brush some of that wet, wavy hair away from her face and look into her eyes and tell her—
“What am I, insane?”
He rolled away from her as the words burst from him without permission. He sat up and held his head in his hands.
She sat up beside him, her shoulder pressed to his. “You think it was insane to make love to me?”
Make love. God, he wished she wouldn't call it that. It hadn't been that. He wasn't stupid enough to have let it be that. He said the first thing that came to mind, realizing she expected some kind of answer. “Out here, like this, yeah. Insane. You'll probably have pneumonia.”
He turned toward her to see what she thought of that answer. She was sitting with her knees slightly bent, toes playing in the pine needles. Her breasts were already dotted with raindrops again. Nick closed his eyes. “Put your shirt on, Toni, you've got to be chilled through.”
Frowning a little, she stood, shook out the shirt and pulled it on. When she reached for her panties, he turned his back and busied himself replacing his own clothes. They were wet, which made it difficult, but he wasn't about to march back to the house stark naked. The way he felt every time he looked at her, he'd never make it. When he turned again, she was watching him, a puzzled expression on her face.
“Is something wrong?”
Good question, Nick thought. No, nothing's wrong; everything's just the way it should be. Good ol' gullible Nick has let himself care again, and sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, he's going to get left high and dry again. Toni would walk away from him. One way or another, she'd leave him. He had no one to blame but himself, because he'd known it would happen. He'd told himself not to feel anything for her. The problem was, his self hadn't listened. The only thing left to do now was to prepare for the blow. He had a feeling it was going to be a tough one to take. Maybe too tough. Maybe this would be the one that brought him down.
“Nick?”
Her hand on his face sent a shaft of bleak pain through him. He nearly winced at the strength of it. The most he could hope for now, he realized, was a little damage control. He could only avoid total devastation by keeping his feelings for her from growing any stronger. He'd always been a man of action—never content to let anything slip beyond his ability to control it. He could do this, he told himself. He could keep this thing on a purely physical level. He could force his feelings for her to die quietly, before she had the chance to throw them back in his face. She couldn't reject something she'd never been offered. Right?
He cleared his throat and pushed the damp hair off his forehead. “We have to get back. It'll be light soon.”
He didn't miss the slight sigh or the little shake of her head. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again without saying a word, before she turned and started to walk away from him. When she put her foot down, he heard her suck air through her teeth. She didn't stop, though. She kept going, despite the limp.
He caught up to her. “Glass in your foot?”
She nodded, and Nick scooped her into his arms and strode toward the house.
“Put me down, Nick. Your leg—”
“Relax,” was his curt reply. He tried not to smell the scent of her hair drifting up to him or feel the curve of her hip against his groin. “Just relax.” His tone was gentler the second time, and she complied, linking her arms around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. Nick gave up trying not to notice her—the feel of her in his arms was too much not to notice. The pain in his thigh as he walked back through the woods was minor compared to the exquisite torture this woman was dishing up.