Hotter Than Wildfire

  “I, ah…” Ellen didn’t know what to do with her empty hands. They felt clumsy and tingly. She missed the silky feeling of the underwear that had flowed like multicolored water through her fingers, and it occurred to her in a rush of embarrassment that the only thing better than the feel of the silk and lace would be Harry’s skin.

  She traced the thick line of his ash-brown eyebrows, uptilted in the center as if he were perpetually skeptical, followed the line of his whiskers down to his neck, where ash-brown chest hairs peeked out from his open-necked shirt.

  She had to distract herself, do something.

  First, manners.

  She smiled at Nicole. “I can’t thank you enough for those clothes and for this.” She swept her hand down at herself. Nicole had lent her a dark-green linen shift that came to mid-calf. On Nicole, who was tall and willowy, it probably came to just below the knee. Ellen had nearly wept when Harry had shown up with the shift. The shift made her feel female again. Womanly. Particularly when she saw Harry’s eyes widen as she came out of the bathroom.

  She hadn’t had much to work with, but she always carried bobby pins in her purse and had put up her hair and put on some lipstick. You’d think from his look that she was ready for the red carpet at Oscar time. He’d actually held out his arm like some nineteenth-century romance hero and they’d walked into Sam and Nicole’s huge apartment arm-in-arm.

  The dinner had been fun, relaxed and relaxing. Sam and Nicole were a great couple, obviously deeply in love. Even though Nicole had an almost intimidating level of beauty, the kind that turned heads, she was so friendly that after five minutes Ellen almost forgot how gorgeous she was.

  Her husband never did, though. His eyes were locked on to his wife and he rarely let go an opportunity to touch her, even if only to lay a big hand on her shoulder or a quick caress to her cheek. Nicole was just as much in love as he was and smiled at him often.

  It was new to Ellen, this degree of marital devotion. Her mother had specialized in either pathetic drunks or manipulating womanizers. Sometimes both at once. She’d had dozens of lovers throughout Ellen’s childhood, and not once had a man ever looked at her mother with love.

  Mike was much shorter than the other two but looked almost twice as broad. He was fun and had coaxed her into eating more than she wanted. He behaved like a big brother—lighthearted and teasing.

  Only Harry had sat throughout dinner silent and brooding, his eyes never leaving her.

  All of them had made a huge effort for her.

  She turned to Nicole, who was folding the underwear, placing the pretty, delicate items back into the thin wrapping paper and putting them back in the elegant bag.

  “Thanks so much, Nicole. Of course I’ll pay you back, just as soon as I can access my money.”

  Nicole waved an elegant hand. “Absolutely not, my dear. I can’t tell you the fun I had this afternoon, shopping for you. I’m getting out of the habit of nice underwear, unfortunately.” She smiled and rubbed her belly. “I’m getting as big as a whale. Pretty soon I’ll just dress in sheets. Who knows if I’ll remember what nice underwear is like after giving birth?”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “You’re not as big as a whale,” he growled. “You’re pregnant. There’s a difference.” He lay his big hand over her belly, nearly covering it entirely. “And you’re more beautiful than ever.” She smiled into his eyes and silence descended on the room. Ellen could tell that she’d disappeared for Sam and Nicole. They were wrapped up in their own world.

  Mike broke the silence. “Whoa.” He held his broad, callused hands up in a time out sign. “Major mush alert. Cut it out, you two. Come back to earth.” He turned to Ellen. “Okay, Nicole doesn’t want your money, but I know how you can pay her back.”

  Harry glared at him. “Mike…”

  “Shut up.” He smiled at Ellen. “Sing for us.”

  “What?”

  “Sing for us. And you can play, right? There’s a piano in the library. You’re this big-shot singer, right? I don’t know anything about music, but Harry here listened to you for about forty-eight hours a day, day in day out. So you’ve got to be good.”

  Ellen looked around at everyone except Harry. If she looked at him, she’d just drop right down into his golden gaze and never come up for air. “Nicole? Sam? Is that what you want?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Nicole smiled. “I didn’t have the nerve to ask. It’s a good thing that Mike doesn’t know the meaning of the word embarrassment. But now that he’s asked…yes. We have a piano in the library. It was my mother’s, and we had it tuned a couple of months ago. I took lessons on that piano for ten painful years and all I have to show for it is the ability to play a truly awful ‘Für Elise’ on it. And I need a metronome to do it.” She beamed at Ellen, her smile lighting up the room. “Please,” she said softly, glancing at her husband, at Mike and at Harry. “We’d love it. Even Harry, who has forgotten how to talk.” He switched his glare to her and she laughed.

  You could cut a steak with Harry’s jawline.

  “She’s been wounded,” he said tightly. “She’s just out of bed. I don’t think it’s fair to ask her—”

  “I’d love to,” Ellen interrupted. She rolled her shoulder. She couldn’t even feel the stitches. “I’m a little stiff in the arm but my hands are okay. And presumably you guys are not going to throw me off the island for a missed note, right?”

  These people had taken her in unquestioningly, Nicole had put herself out, shopped for her. Singing for them in return was nothing.

  “Come on, then.” Nicole led the way into another huge room, this one lined with bookshelves. One thing for sure, this baby was going to grow up with room to play in. Sam was right by his wife’s side, followed by Mike. Harry walked in with her.

  He bent down. “Are you up to this?” He sounded tense and worried. As if she’d been asked to plow the back forty without benefit of mule instead of playing and singing, which she loved.

  She smiled up at him. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

  He walked her to the piano and sat her down with as much formality as if she were about to sing at Carnegie Hall.

  To her surprise, the piano wasn’t an old family upright but a real grand piano. A Steinway, no less, and beautifully in tune, she found, as she tried a scale from C with her right hand.

  Unlike Nicole, she hadn’t had formal piano lessons. The only lessons she’d had had come from Buzz Longley, an old honky-tonk guy who’d lived with them for about eight months when she’d been twelve. He’d been an alcoholic and a skirt chaser and a deadbeat, but he knew his music. He’d have been famous if he’d been able to show up on time and sober for gigs, but he was never able to master the art of reliability, or sobriety.

  For some reason, he’d taken it upon himself to teach her how to “tickle the keys,” as he put it. It hadn’t felt like lessons, but they were, she realized now. He’d casually corrected her fingering, made her do scales she hadn’t realized were scales because he kept her laughing telling bawdy stories of the Nashville circuit. But he’d taught. And she’d learned.

  Buzz had been a man who traveled light: a duffel bag, his snakeskin boots and a keyboard. When he left in the middle of the night, she discovered he’d left her the keyboard.

  So though she didn’t have formal training, she certainly knew how to accompany herself.

  Without really thinking about it, Ellen put together a little RBK playlist. Songs that played well in a large room that didn’t have great acoustics, songs that the three men and Nicole might be familiar with and enjoy.

  But first, one of her favorites, one that few people knew.

  A chord, another chord, a riff, and she segued into an old Celtic song, “Home of the Heart.” Like most Celtic songs, it broke your heart, just ripped it in two. Ellen had always loved it because she suspected that the composer, like her, didn’t have a home of the heart. It wasn’t a remembrance of something lost but a dirge for something never known. Something eternally
beyond your grasp.

  When the last note had disappeared into the quiet room, she changed gears, plunging into the exuberant notes of “Sweet Caroline.” It wasn’t a song women sang often, so her soprano rendering took people by surprise. She’d always loved the song, loved its hopefulness and verve.

  Without missing a beat, she moved into “Honky-Tonk Woman,” then “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” then a song she’d composed years ago in college, where she’d stayed in her dorm every weekend studying because she couldn’t afford to let any grades drop, while her roommates were having fun outside. It was called “Listening at the Window.” It was funny and bittersweet, with an undertone of regret. She followed that with “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “New York State of Mind,” “The River of Dreams” and then, because she loved Billy Joel so much and couldn’t get enough of his songs, “Piano Man.”

  While she sang, it happened. It didn’t always happen, so she was thrilled when it did.

  She lost herself completely in the music. Totally. The entire world fell away. She forgot her troubles, the danger she was in, the fact that she was on the run and had found only temporary refuge here, the loss of her old life, her loneliness and despair…all gone.

  There was nothing in her head but the beautiful music, her hands playing completely on their own. She didn’t have to think of the playing at all. Buzz had called her a natural, and maybe she was. It felt as if the music flowed from her fingers like water from a natural spring. It came from her heart, sure, but it came from the sun and the earth and the very air around her.

  She had no idea where she was, who was listening. It didn’t make any difference whether there was one person or a thousand or even no one. The music was hers, now and forever, and her soul took ease for the space of the songs.

  She finished with her favorite song in all the world: “Stand by Me.” It had always seemed like one of those phrases that said it all. Stand by me. All you needed in this life was someone to stand by you.

  She sang it slow, like a ballad, a ballad for the lost ones, for all those who’d never had a loved one stand by them, and she sang it like a requiem, because it was a world in which so few stood by anyone. Because so few people were loved.

  The last note echoed in the room. She often sang with her eyes closed, completely absorbed in the music. But eventually, as all good things must, the music finished and she came slowly back into the world.

  A little sadly and a little reluctantly, because the music had been like spending time in a sun-dappled garden where nothing bad could ever happen. And now she had to return to the world, the real world, full of danger and cruelty.

  Her hands fell from the keyboard and she opened her eyes and looked at her little audience, expecting polite smiles, maybe a little light applause.

  Instead, Sam and Mike were looking stunned. Harry was looking hard, grim. Nicole wiped a tear from her face.

  Ellen was alarmed, particularly at what she saw in the men’s expressions. “What?” She looked at Nicole. “It was that bad?”

  “God. No, not at all.” Nicole gave a watery smile. It was a good thing Ellen liked her so much, otherwise she’d hate her for looking so great even when she was crying. “It was—it was just so moving, so beautiful. Your voice—I can’t describe it. And that last song. I never really thought of it that way before. It made me think of my father. You’re so talented, Ellen. No wonder Harry listened to you for hours on end.”

  Ellen looked at Harry, startled as he suddenly stood up and crossed to her. “Time to go home,” he said, putting his huge hand under her elbow and lifting. She rose, because it was either that or leave her elbow behind.

  Before she knew it, they were at the front door. Harry didn’t appear to move fast, but she scrambled to keep up.

  “Thanks for dinner!” Ellen managed to call out over her shoulder at three utterly surprised faces. She and Harry stepped over the threshold, the door whooshed shut behind them and they were alone in the hallway.

  Chapter 9

  San Diego

  Harry stood in the elevator with Ellen, going down to his apartment, concentrating on the word down because his boner was about ready to punch a hole through his pants.

  He stared straight ahead, willing Ellen to stare straight ahead, too, because if she looked down, she’d understand exactly what that abrupt exit from Sam’s house really meant.

  Harry was sorry for the way he acted. Or he’d be sorry tomorrow, just as soon as some blood returned to his head. Or he fucked her.

  Whichever came first.

  He didn’t even recognize himself. He knew he could be as rude as he wanted to his two brothers; rudeness bounced right off their broad backs. But he’d behaved abominably to Nicole, who’d arranged a nice relaxing evening for them, never expecting that it would be cut short by a maniac. Nicole deserved better.

  And man, Ellen deserved better, too.

  He thought his heart would explode listening to her, listening to Eve, in the flesh. Singing live, for him, something he’d never even thought of asking from whoever was up there, because it was too absurd to even contemplate.

  And yet, there she’d been, in Nicole and Sam’s beautiful library, weaving her spell. Listening to her music in the dark—that had saved his life. Listening to her playing live, not five feet from him—well, that had been magic.

  And it turned out that this magical voice was attached to a gorgeous face and a stunning little body that had awakened his long-dormant libido.

  Nicole was a beautiful woman, almost outrageously so. She had a head-turning, traffic-stopping kind of beauty. Ellen’s beauty was quieter, more delicate. She didn’t turn heads, or at least not right away. And yet, Harry had barely been able to look at Nicole when Ellen was in the room.

  Everything about her fascinated him—her delicate manners, that soft, compelling voice with a smile in it, the clear, porcelain skin and uptilted green eyes. She was a little too thin, making her look incredibly fragile. But that was probably because she’d spent the past year in hiding with murderous thugs after her.

  Harry’s fists tightened and he saw Ellen look up at him, startled. That was another thing about her, besides looks and talent. She seemed to have an extra sense, another gear to her.

  That was great, because it had probably saved her life, but it had also made her run from Sam and him. And now she was picking up on the violent emotions coursing through him at the thought of Gerald Montez after her.

  He was emoting aggression and violence and she picked up on that. It wasn’t directed against her. God, no. He’d rather shoot himself in the chest than hurt her in any way. But how could she know that?

  Harry forced himself to relax, muscle by muscle. Wrenched the hatred of Gerald Montez out of his head, like ripping out a strong weed with deep roots. There would be a time to savor killing the sick fuck, but that time was not now.

  Now was the time for sex, and he had to get the violence out of his system before he even thought of touching Eve. Ellen.

  Killing and fucking were related. He didn’t particularly like the thought, but there it was. Soldiers needed sex after a fight—hard, fast, rough sex. Preferably not with a wife or a girlfriend, because what they were getting out of their systems was not nice and not gentle.

  Harry rarely trusted himself with a woman after extreme violence because the thought of hurting a woman, even a little, even if she wanted rough sex, even if she asked for it—man, no. Just couldn’t do it. He steered clear of the ladies when the adrenaline of violence was still sloshing around his system. He either drank or ran or used his fist.

  Unlike Sam and Mike, who were lions hitting the bars where women congregated like gazelles at the watering trough. Well, not Sam, not anymore. Harry didn’t think Sam was even aware of other women now that he was married to Nicole.

  Mike…well, Mike was a slut. He’d fuck anything female that held still long enough.

  Harry had to eject every ounce of violence from his system right no
w. He wanted to take Ellen to his bed with a ferocity that scared him. He wanted her bad and he wanted her now.

  He had to tie her to him with sex. Make her his.

  Sweat trickled down his back, and it wasn’t the sweat of sexual excitement. No, it was the greasy sweat of imagining this amazing woman with her fingernails pulled out one by one and then her fingers cut off with shears, knuckle by knuckle. Imagining her waterboarded, gang raped…the horror was coming off him in waves.

  That wasn’t going to happen. If he had to handcuff her to him, so be it. No one was going to touch her, ever again, unless it was him.

  But to be absolutely certain that he could keep her safe, that nothing bad would happen to her, he had to bind her to him. Make sure she obeyed him instantly. No more bolting because he’d slanted a glance at Sam.

  So she had to obey him, stay put where he put her, and not take matters into her own hands. A year ago, she’d stepped off earth and had landed on a vicious planet where all the inhabitants were predators. The usual rules didn’t apply. The usual rules got you killed, and you died badly. Harry knew that planet intimately. It was where he had been born—his native land.

  The best way to keep her safe, tie her to him, to make her do exactly as he said, when he said it, was sex. Hot, intense sex. And lots of it. So much she couldn’t even begin to imagine being separate from him. So much so that in danger, she’d do what he said instantly, instinctively.

  Because back at that hotel, it had been so close. If she’d zigged instead of zagged, if she’d arrived one minute earlier or he’d arrived one minute later, she’d be dead right now instead of messing with his head.

  The elevator pinged, the doors opened onto his floor and like a switch being thrown, the sweat of fear turned into the sweat of lust.

  Approaching Sea-Tac Airport

  “The pilot’s started his descent,” Montez said, and Piet grunted.

  Montez had slept, eaten two gourmet sandwiches chased with an excellent half-bottle of Shiraz, and watched a movie.