“Um.” Zach quickly typed a response to Lucas’s reprimand.
“Have permission, do you?” Teddy murmured, watching words appear on the screen. Then she added, “I don’t think your friend is buying that.”
Zach typed a final decisive sentence, then turned the computer off before Lucas could berate him anymore.
“Will he deliver the message to Jennifer?” Teddy asked, straightening as she abruptly reminded herself this man was still wearing a gun.
“He’ll deliver it. And he has the charm to reassure her that you’re fine.”
Teddy hastily removed her arm from his shoulder. “Oh. Good.” She looked around, spotting a narrow door at the back of the cabin. “That wouldn’t happen to be a bathroom, would it?”
“It would, such as it is.”
She went to check out the room, looking around the doorjamb a moment later to say resignedly, “There’s no shower or tub.”
“Sorry. There’s a stream not too far away.”
Teddy looked at him with the obvious horror of a city girl asked to do the unthinkable. “You mean you bathe in a freezing mountain stream?”
“Sure.”
She shivered elaborately, muttered, “No way,” and vanished back into the tiny room, closing the door behind her.
Zach wasn’t worried she’d escape; there was no window in there. Besides, he had a feeling he could leave the front door wide open and she wouldn’t try to get away. Not in her current mood, at any rate. She had fallen asleep last night with the suddenness of a child and slept deeply until morning. An unconscious sign of trust, he thought. And she had certainly accepted him to the extent of leaning on him companionably for long minutes while watching him work at the computer.
It had been unconscious, and he had shrewdly noted the moment she’d become aware of her action and had somewhat hastily withdrawn from that closeness. Zach looked down at the large hands resting on either side of the keyboard, and his jaw tightened.
With a movement that was almost savage, he turned the computer back on. Useless, he thought, to wish again they’d met in another place and time. And useless to hope this entire situation turned out happily for all concerned.
Zach didn’t believe in fairy-tale endings.
He was busy working at the console when she came out of the bathroom to get a few things from her suitcase, so Teddy didn’t disturb him. She dug out a change of clothes, her toothbrush and toilet articles, then returned to the bathroom and did the best she could to freshen up.
Her movements were automatic, and she hardly looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror above the bare porcelain sink. She was thinking, and since she was surprisingly logical for so emotional a woman, she was listing her conclusions mentally.
She believed Zach Steele wouldn’t hurt her. She had gone to sleep naturally in his presence, which meant she instinctively trusted him. He had gone out of his way to find some means of contacting her sister to provide reassurance—granted, though, that could have been merely because he didn’t want an alarm raised.
Teddy was intrigued. She stopped brushing her unruly hair and gazed blindly into the mirror. She had dreamed about Zach. And the dream had left her with a feeling of safety and security—but there had also been a peculiar excitement and an unfamiliar, vivid awareness of the man.
He certainly wasn’t a man one could ignore.
And her reaction to him was … confusing. It was a combination of three separate responses. Intellectually, she was intrigued by the puzzle of what he was up to and frustrated by how taciturn he was; physically, she was highly conscious of the raw, almost animal virility of his big body; and emotionally—what? Emotionally, she was powerfully drawn to him.
Why? Why? What had happened during their brief hours together that had destroyed her fear and created these other feelings?
Had it been because the marks on her wrists had obviously disturbed him? Because he had hesitated to look into her purse? Because he had seemed to believe almost automatically that the faint scar on his face had frightened her? Because there were no pictures, no indications of his past or personality in his wallet?
Teddy swore quietly and set her brush aside. She looked into the cracked mirror, really looked, and the slightly distorted reflection of her face was disquieting.
She didn’t recognize herself.
When she went back into the main room of the cabin, he was still working at the computer. Keeping her distance from him, she asked tentatively, “I don’t suppose I can watch what you’re doing?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he answered immediately, without turning around.
“Well, then, d’you mind if I do something about breakfast?”
“No, go ahead.” He glanced around at her then, and for an instant there was a flicker of humor in his gray eyes. “When this is over, you can write a book about being held hostage and forced to cook your own breakfast.”
“Don’t think I don’t appreciate the irony of the situation,” she told him, walking over to study the small stove and shelf of canned and dry goods. Continuing absently, she said, “I guess I could make things harder on us both, but that idea doesn’t appeal to me much. By the way—why is there only a pump out here but a regular faucet in the bathroom?”
“Beats me. I think this used to be a hunter’s cabin, built twenty or thirty years ago from the look of it. The bathroom is a recent addition. I suppose there could have been some idea of turning this place into a guest cottage or something when the house was built—” He broke off abruptly, a mixture of surprise and irritation flashing briefly across his face.
Teddy looked at him but didn’t ask the natural question, “What house?” Instead, she said merely, “Oh. Any preference as to breakfast?”
“Suit yourself.” He returned his attention to the computer, still annoyed with himself for mentioning the house. Behind him, Teddy worked quietly, humming all the while. Zach found himself thinking of what a lovely voice she had, and his irritation grew. He frowned at the screen, absorbing the detailed descriptions of a dozen paintings, four necklaces, six rings, and a score of unset gemstones that had been stolen the previous week.
“Interpol?” she exclaimed from just behind him.
Zach turned quickly.
“All right, I snooped,” she agreed hastily, “but I couldn’t help it.” She was standing a foot away, her eyes flickering from his face to the computer screen. “Interpol has a computer? I didn’t know that. I guess they’d have to, though, wouldn’t they? I mean, since they’re an international organization?” She was babbling nervously and knew it. There was something about the expression on Zach’s face that unnerved her.
“Shut it off,” he said softly.
Instantly, she did, falling silent and staring at him.
Zach drew a deep breath, holding her gaze steadily. “Look, I know you didn’t ask to get mixed up in this, but the fact remains that you’re stuck here for the duration. How long that’ll be depends on several factors beyond my control, but you can help shorten the time by leaving me alone to do what I have to—and by not asking questions. I know you’re curious, I know that’s natural, but I simply can’t afford to satisfy your curiosity. And, to be blunt, it’ll be better for you to know as little as possible. Now, if you can’t live with that, I’ll have to waste a hell of a lot of valuable time and probably ruin weeks of work by getting you out of here and having a friend of mine keep you under house arrest somewhere until I’ve finished what I came here to do. Understand?”
It was the most she’d heard him say, but it was the faint chill in his gray eyes and the snap to his voice that had the stronger effect. She nodded, then went back to her work at the stove, utterly silent.
Zach ran the fingers of his right hand through his thick black hair, unsettled by his own display of temper. He was rarely irritable; his anger, when it was roused at all, took the form of usually violent action with little words.
He gazed at her slender, stiff back,
wondering what had happened to his intentions of being low-key and reasonable. Even though his reasoning had been accurate, he hadn’t meant to scare her. He could hardly fault her for having no idea what she’d stumbled into, and it was perfectly natural for her to be curious.
And he just might have wrecked even her unconscious trust in him—which he didn’t know how he’d earned in the first place—and put them right back where they’d started.
He hesitated only a moment, then rose and moved to stand just behind her. “Teddy? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
She had made a batter from flour and thinned evaporated milk, and was preparing pancakes. She didn’t turn to face him. “You were right, it isn’t any of my business. I’m just the hostage.” Her voice wasn’t meek or frightened—it was tight and furious.
Zach was almost relieved but also wary. He was certain her spirited temperament would see her through this with a minimum of emotional scars, but it seemed likely that he’d find a few new marks on his own hide before they were through.
He responded carefully. “The door’s unlocked, and I neither tied you up nor locked the door when I left earlier to patch into the phone lines. I’m trusting you, Teddy.”
Some of the stiffness left her shoulders, but she didn’t turn around. “Sure you are,” she said sardonically.
He reached over her to set the pan off the burner, then turned her around, his hands on her shoulders, dimly surprised that he was so intent on convincing her. “Teddy …” His voice deepened and a fierce note entered it. “If the timing weren’t so critical, I’d get you out of here, someplace safe. But I can’t afford to leave. And that means you have to stay here and do as I say.”
Eyes stormy, she said, “So I have to accept blindly and follow orders? If that’s the kind of macho crap you’re used to, pal, you’re in for a sur—”
He shook her, hard. “It’s got nothing to do with being macho, dammit,” he growled. “It concerns keeping your pretty little butt out of one hell of a dangerous sling.”
“That’s right,” she said mockingly, “scare the poor silly woman to keep her quiet and obedient. Just what century did you grow up in, anyway? I can take care of myself, dammit. I don’t need some overgrown, overbearing, arrogant, son of a sexist dog telling me what to do!” She was almost shouting on the last words, angrier than she could ever remember being and not exactly sure why, especially since she wasn’t a feminist and knew perfectly well that he wasn’t being sexist.
It was very puzzling.
When she drew a breath to continue her tirade, Zach muttered, “Ahhh—hell!” and used a rather old, timeworn, and arguably sexist solution to the problem of her noisy defiance: He kissed her.
Teddy found herself lifted completely off her feet and held against his massive chest in an immensely disconcerting bear hug. It wasn’t painful, but her senses hadn’t suffered a shock like this since—Her senses had never been shocked like this.
Out of sheer automatic self-preservation she fought him, but it was like a puppy yapping at the heels of a lumbering bear: The ammunition was hardly adequate for the battle.
The layers of muscle padding his shoulders easily absorbed the blows of her small fists, and she couldn’t seem to get the necessary leverage to kick him. And struggling out of his grasp was impossible, given his enormous strength.
In any case, the battle lasted all of five seconds. Teddy felt her own strength draining away, as if he’d managed to uncork a dam inside her, and she became vividly conscious of her body’s response to his. There was an instant of shocked immobility, and then a passion she’d never known before rose in a tidal wave. Her mouth opened almost wildly to the fierce insistence of his, and the possessive thrust of his tongue sent a curl of fire licking at her senses.
Teddy promptly forgot everything else. Her arms curved around his neck, her fingers delighting in the thick silk of his hair. His arms were around her, one hand curving around the swell of her bottom to hold her against him and the other across her back so that his fingers lay beneath her arm, touching her breast.
She was hardly aware that the outer curve of her other breast was pressed against the gun he wore.
The searing demand of his mouth branded her, and she could feel the most deeply buried responses her body could claim rising to meet him, to give what he demanded of her. Her breasts throbbed and ached intolerably, and when she felt the swelling response of his body, her own quivered with readiness. For the first time in her life a hollow need whispered yearningly that her female body had been designed for this, intended, fated for this, and that instinct was a seduction she couldn’t fight.
It was insane, of course, wild, mad, inescapably crazy. It was something that didn’t happen. Not like this, not so quickly and violently. Not with a stranger—and a dangerous one, at that. But Teddy could no more fight the turbulent awakening of her body than she could move mountains or halt an earthquake. It was a force of nature, one never intended to be understood or mastered by so frail a thing as a human.
The realization flitted briefly through Teddy’s mind, and she accepted it. Her body knew more certainly than her intellect that this was right.
She held back nothing. Her small, slender body moved sensuously against his hard frame, and her mouth fed his hunger while demanding with her own. She wanted him.
Zach had acted on impulse, kissing her because it would quiet her and because he wanted to kiss her, had wanted to since the middle of the night while he sat and watched her sleep. But he had not been prepared for this. This explosion. This detonation of something raw and devastating.
If it had been only his own response, he might have been able to fight it, but her fiery reaction was more than even his great strength and control could master. Though generally holding himself aloof, he was a physical, sensual man and not in the habit of denying himself. And with this slender, feminine woman moving seductively against him, he wasn’t prepared to start now.
Teddy wasn’t aware of movement but automatically identified the softness of the cot when she was lowered onto it. A dull thud told her he had managed to get out of his shoulder harness and had dropped the gun to the floor. She felt bereft when his mouth left hers, but instant pleasure replaced the loss as his lips trailed down her neck. She could feel the heavy weight of his leg thrown across hers, and her fingers delightedly explored the corded power of his muscled back.
He was raised on an elbow, one hand beneath her neck and the other parting the buttons of her flannel shirt and tugging it from the waistband of her jeans.
Teddy had wondered how she might respond in sexual passion—or even if she would. Since she had never felt more than a mild tingle, she had begun to wonder if that was in the cards at all for her. But she had thought about it, as women do, wondered if she would be awkward or self-conscious. Wondered if she would be passive or passionate, mindless or detached and analytical. It had always been the latter during the kisses and fumbling caresses of the past.
Now she knew. She hadn’t imagined herself frantically coping with stubborn buttons, hadn’t dreamed that the sounds of an overpowering need could tear loose from her throat as if they were alive and on the wing.
She felt his hand deal with the final button and sweep the flannel aside, and her eyes opened, dazed, to fix themselves on his taut face. Out of habit she had worn no bra, and Zach caught his breath when her small, full breasts were bared to his hungry gaze. His hand slid slowly up over her quivering middle until it closed gently, fiercely, on one creamy mound, and Teddy gasped at the instant, searing pleasure of that touch.
Her eyes closed briefly as a surge of hot weakness flowed through her, and a moan followed the gasp when he drew a tightening coral nipple into his mouth. Wildly, she pushed his unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders, and as he yanked the garment off and tossed it aside, she was exploring the powerful, hair-roughened expanse of his chest with fascinated hands.
She wanted to touch him, had to touch him, but the se
nsations rocketing through her body sparked a total absorption in what his touch was doing to her. She could only hold on to him, her nails digging into his shoulders, while wave after wave of pleasure assaulted her.
Her body had a mind of its own. The hungry pull of his mouth seemed to be drawing something out of her and replacing it with fire, and she moved restlessly, impatient. The deep muscles of her belly contracted strongly when his hand slid caressingly downward, and she didn’t realize he had unfastened her jeans until his hand slid beneath them to toy with the elastic edge of her panties.
She felt as well as heard him speak, the vibration of his words a new pleasure against her breast.
“This isn’t the time or place,” he murmured huskily, “but I want you, Teddy. Right now … I have to have you.”
She bit her lip and forced a heartfelt agreement out of her tight throat. “Yes. Yes, Zach …”
His lips were still at her breast, stringing hot kisses and tiny stinging bites that were driving her mad, and his voice was deeper, more hoarse, when he spoke again.
“I didn’t come up here prepared for this. I can’t protect you.”
Teddy didn’t much care, but the question in his voice was clear, and she answered it honestly, warmed by his concern and concentrating on just getting the words out. “I’ve never had a reason to worry about that. But it’s all right, I think—it’s the wrong time.”
If she’d had the breath, she would have confided that the women in her family had difficulty in conceiving, anyway, and that her doctor had warned her she would probably have the same difficulty. But she didn’t have the breath or the patience to explain about that.
“Zach …” Something was wrong, she realized. He was lifting his head, staring down at her with something wild in his eyes.
“What are you saying?” he asked tightly.
She looked at him, a chill of bewilderment cooling her passion. “I—that it’s all right.”
“You said you’d never had to worry about it before. Why?” he bit out.