Beyond Control, page 8
Opening the apartment door, he stepped into the hall, then watched her get off the elevator and smooth her skirt. The gesture told him she was as nervous as he.
As she leaned down, her dark hair swung in a curtain in front of her face. He wanted to brush it back. Hell, he just wanted some excuse to touch her, stroke her, kiss her. His stomach knotted painfully, but he stayed where he was, then saw her glance up and spy him watching her.
She covered her look of surprise, then walked toward him, and he didn’t need to read her mind to know she was pretending that her nerves weren’t jumping.
When she reached the door, he cleared his throat and said, “So you didn’t stand me up.”
“It was a close call.”
The way she said it made his stomach clench.
“Come on in,” he managed.
They were careful not to touch each other as he moved aside to usher her into the small foyer.
As she stepped into the living room, she looked around at his furniture, and he suddenly saw the room as sterile—soulless. When she laughed, he cringed. “You think this place looks like an upscale hotel room?”
She turned to face him. “No. I think we just discovered another trait in common—neatnik.”
He expelled a breath. “So why do you feel the need to keep your environment orderly?”
“It gives me the illusion of control.”
“The illusion?”
She answered with a little shrug. “You can phrase it differently if you want.”
He didn’t want to stand here arguing with her, not when her proximity had his body tingling.
He had never wanted a woman with such urgency—such violence, if he was honest. But the need wasn’t simply physical. There was so much more below the surface of his sexual desire that he could barely breathe. Yet he forced himself to keep his arms at his sides.
“Do you want a drink?”
“No, thanks. You were going to tell me about . . . Granite Wall,” she answered. “That’s the weapons program you think has gone back online?”
“Shit.”
“And you have some papers to show me.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. It was almost impossible to keep from reaching for her and wrapping her in his arms. But he had also been wondering what he would say when she asked him about the secret project. This was the moment when he had to decide how much to trust her.
He knew he had made a decision when he said, “I’ll be right back.”
He walked rapidly into his office and opened the locked lower right-hand drawer, where he’d stowed the folder of material that Herb had sent him. When he returned to the living room and saw the eager look in her eyes, he knew that giving her the folder would be as irrevocable as touching her again.
“Maybe you shouldn’t get involved in this.”
“It seems I already am.”
His mouth hardened. “I didn’t know you were going to pick up so much from my mind. I told you two men died because of this information, but the number is really three. Two in March. And the man I tried to call this morning—Dr. Charles Lucas.”
He saw her swallow hard. While he had her off balance, he added, “If I show you this stuff, you have to agree not to tell anyone—that includes your boss, Bridgewater.”
“No agreements in advance. I have to be free to judge what I do. Maybe it’s something the senator needs to know.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want either of us to join the other three—because this information got into the wrong hands.”
She blanched.
“I’m counting on your native intelligence,” he added, handing over the folder.
She took it to the sofa and sat down.
He moved to the window, propping his hips against the ledge as he watched her open the clasp and sift through the contents before settling down to read Herb’s letter.
When she lifted her gaze, her features were frozen in shock.
“Is this a medical report on one of the people who died?”
“Yes.”
He watched her process the information. “So the chemical agent . . . called Granite Wall . . . killed this guy—and his friend?”
“Yeah.”
“A chemical accident?”
“Or a deliberate attack.”
“And a cover-up,” she added.
“It looks like someone wants the threads clipped off.”
She leaned toward him. “But you got away from that drugstore without being followed.”
“I’m satisfied nobody picked up my trail,” he answered, gratified that she’d been concerned for him.
Her next words and her tone of voice helped dissipate the warm fuzzy feeling. “And now you’re hoping to use my connections.” Closing the folder, she set it down on the coffee table.
“I wouldn’t do it, if I had a choice.”
“That’s a lie, isn’t it?”
He kept his features bland. “Why do you think so?”
“Because you get a bonus out of this. You like having an excuse to get together with me again.”
He gave a little nod. “Yeah, I want to get to know you better. But I’m also worried about sucking you into something dangerous.”
“Working on the Hill has taught me a lot about being discreet.”
“Good.” As he answered, he knew that he had postponed the other element of this meeting for as long as humanly possible—at least for him. While she’d read the report, the tension had been building inside him, and he felt like he was teetering on the edge of a sheer cliff. If he took a leap off into space, would he find out that he could fly?
Slowly he crossed the room and sat down on the couch. Not next to Lindsay but a foot and a half away. Deliberately he pressed his hand against the cushion between them, his fingers spread.
CHAPTER
NINE
LINDSAY HAD TOLD herself she was coming to Jordan’s apartment for a business discussion. And she was still trying to decide whether to tell him about her talk with Sid.
As she stared at his hand, she figured he was finished with the business part of the meeting.
Something had happened when they’d touched. Something she couldn’t explain. And he couldn’t either—another masterpiece of deductive reasoning.
She’d assured herself she had a choice about what happened next.
Now she knew she’d been deceiving herself. Moving slowly, as though she were swimming underwater, she slid her hand across the sofa cushion, feeling the nubby fibers abrade her fingertips.
The action was deliberate, yet she had the sense that both her hand and Jordan’s had become magnetized—that some invisible force was pulling her toward him. And him toward her.
As if they had made a secret pact, they both stopped millimeters from touching. This time she was more tuned to what was happening, and she had the strange sensation of energy leaping back and forth between them, like a spark jumping a gap between electrodes.
Her gaze shot to Jordan, and she knew from the shocked expression on his face that he felt it, too.
He made a low sound and closed the space, pressing the side of his hand to hers. Only that. Only that small but significant point of skin-to-skin contact.
Thoughts flickered in her brain. None of them was clear.
When she’d read the letter in the folder, she’d noted that it was written by a man named Herb. Now she got a quick image of what she thought was his face.
Herb Goldman?
She felt Jordan’s hand jump, the contact wavering for an instant before the pressure of flesh on flesh settled down again.
Yeah.
Another image flickered in his mind. An old man’s face. But she couldn’t bring it into sharp focus. He was important.
Don’t go there.
She sensed his anxiety and did as he asked. Unfortunately, the next thing she thought of was Sid’s visit to her.
He asked you about a chemical weapons accident?
I can’t talk about it.
SHE snatched her hand away—breaking the contact. And she and Jordan were left staring at each other, breathing hard.
“You were in my head,” she gasped. “Talking in my head.”
“Yeah, well, you were in mine. It happens when we touch, in case you haven’t figured that out.”
“Of course I figured it out,” she snapped, hating the sensation and at the same time craving it. “I don’t like it,” she whispered.
“Now who’s lying? It made you feel . . . complete.”
Her gaze shot to him. “How do you know?”
“Because I feel the same thing. I mean—inside myself.”
“Why is this happening?” she murmured.
“I don’t know.” As he spoke, he reached toward her with deliberate purpose.
She might have scrambled away; instead she swayed forward as he gathered her into his arms. She gasped at the sudden intensity of emotions sweeping through her. Fear. Lust. Hope. Need. Not just for sexual gratification. For something so much more that she wanted to run and hide—from herself. From him.
“Don’t!” she gasped.
“We have to see how far we can take this.”
“I don’t think so,” she managed to say, then made a low, needy sound as he turned her in his arms, pressing her breasts against his chest.
She clung to him because his body was her only anchor in a wildly tilting ocean, where a large wave could sweep her under, choke off her breath.
Before she could speak, he brought his lips down on hers, and a jolt of hot sensation went through her.
It was like stepping from the real world into a blast furnace with flames licking at her skin and searing her nerve endings, yet the fire didn’t turn her to ash.
She became one with the fire. One with the man who held her in his arms, his lips moving over hers.
She knew that if she didn’t make love with him, she would die. Yet at the same time she understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that if his body joined with hers in the most intimate man-woman embrace, the contact might be the death of her. The death of them both.
Fear should have sent her running from the room. But if Jordan Walker was her downfall, he was her savior as well.
His mouth moved over hers, sending heat blazing through her. Heat she had never felt with any other man. She tried to tell herself it was only pure lust. But that was a lie. It was so much more. And not just on the physical level.
From deep in her mind a memory surfaced—a memory of terror from her childhood, when she’d awakened in a strange bedroom and had no idea where she was.
She’d cried out, but no one had come. And she’d lain there whimpering.
She whimpered now, and Jordan spoke against her mouth, his hands soothing over her back and down her arms.
She still felt the scorching heat of the physical contact. Now it was overlaid with another level of communication.
“You were so scared. But it was a long time ago.”
“Yes.”
What happened?
He didn’t speak that part. But she heard the question in her mind, as she had moments earlier.
We had gone to my aunt’s. Well, not my real aunt’s. She was my stepfather’s sister.
You have a stepfather?
Yes. I had never been to his sister’s house before. I fell asleep in the car. So I didn’t know where I was when I woke up.
He lifted his head and stared down at her. “They should have stayed with you.”
She looked at him, blinked. “We were . . .”
“Yeah. Talking in our heads again.”
“How?”
I don’t know, he answered, then lowered his mouth once more. This time his lips were gentle, exploring, coaxing—calling forth a response that was no less sexual. Yet at the same time she felt the tender side of him. The side he kept hidden from the world. The side that had begged his father to let him bury his dead dog. But his father had put Digger into a plastic trash bag and left him for the garbage pickup.
She felt that small boy’s emotion. Wept for them. As Jordan had wept, alone in his bed at night.
She barely knew this man, but she felt a connection between them that was stronger than she had to any other human being. Parents, friends, lovers.
She had come alive in his arms, every sense sharp and crystal clear.
She drank in the taste of him—new and yet familiar. The unique scent of his body. The pounding of his heart against her breasts. The low, satisfied sound that came from him—no, from both of them.
“I want to feel your weight on top of me,” he growled, then eased back, stretching out on the sofa and taking her with him. She kicked off her shoes as she came down on top of him, ending up sprawled with his erection like an exclamation mark against her middle.
He adjusted her position, moving her body along his until that hard shaft nestled in the cleft at the top of her legs.
“Oh!”
His arms came around her, holding her to him, his ragged breathing mingling with hers.
When she moved against him, he stilled her. “Don’t.” His voice was low and urgent, and she obeyed.
“Why are you doing this?”
“To find out.” His hands stroked up and down her back, pressing her breasts against his chest.
To find out what?
How far this goes. His lips teased hers, gently, erotically, as he reached to tangle his fingers in her hair. As he stroked his fingers through the dark strands, the sense of connection strengthened. And this time she deliberately reached out, diving into his memories—finding the time when he’d saved up to buy a used dirt bike. His father had said it was dangerous and forbade him to ride it.
She felt his sadness. His anger. His resignation. He hadn’t defied the old man because he’d been smart enough to know that would only lead to further conflict.
“You had the sense to back down.”
“I hated doing it. But I was always pragmatic.”
He punished you—for not being the son he wanted.
Yeah. His lips nibbled at hers.
I couldn’t do it, either. Be the daughter they wanted, I mean. Lucky for me, my family was different from yours. I guess my mom and my stepfather would have been embarrassed to admit that I disappointed them. So they put up a good front to their friends—and me.
But you couldn’t explain that the way you were wasn’t your fault. It was just the way you were made, and you didn’t know how to communicate what you felt.
Yes!
His understanding was like a balm. But that was only part of the experience. His hand moved over her back, stroking her through her suit jacket and blouse, increasing her arousal but not the special sense of connection.
“The fabric makes a difference,” he muttered.
“What do you mean?”
“Touching you through your blouse makes us both hot—but it doesn’t increase the . . .” He grinned. “The Vulcan mind meld.”
“I think you’re right,” she answered, astonished that they could still hold a coherent conversation when they were both as hot as molten lava.
He clasped the back of her head, bringing her mouth back to his, kissing her with lips and teeth and tongue, making her head swim with desire—and at the same time with an overload of thoughts and memories.
She struggled to blot out the thoughts and enjoy the sensations of arousal.
She knew he was doing the same thing as he reached under her suit jacket and tugged her blouse from the waistband of her skirt so that he could slip his hands under the fabric and press them against her hot flesh.
They both made a greedy sound as his hands stroked over her skin. When he played with the sides of her breasts, she knew she would go up in flames if she didn’t move against him.
The motion of her hips didn’t quench the fire—it only increased her need.
The layers of clothing separating their lower bodies were intolerable. She wanted to feel his naked flesh pressed to hers. His wonderful erection where it belonged—inside her. Yet she felt another pressure—within her own head—like blood vessels threatening to burst.
The pain was almost as powerful as the arousal. Too much too soon.
No.
Ignoring his protest, she wrenched herself away, out of his arms, off the couch, then reached out to steady herself against the sofa arm as she swayed on unsteady feet, her temples pounding.
They were both gasping for breath as he sat up and ran a shaky hand through his dark hair.
“Christ!” he growled.
“We can’t . . . make love,” she managed. “Not yet. Not until we understand this better.”
“Does your head feel like it’s going to explode?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We’ll take it slow.”
“Not tonight. I have to go,” she said, “before we do something . . . impulsive.”
“You don’t know how much I want to lock you in the bedroom . . . so you can’t leave.”
“Yes, I do know.”
“Are you picking up my wicked thoughts?” he asked, managing a suggestive grin.
“No. I want to stay. Badly.” She swallowed. “I want to get as close to you as . . . as two people can get.”
“Jesus. Don’t say that and walk away.”
“I have to. For now. We have to take some time to cool off.”
“Are you going to tell me about your friend, Sid?”
“He’s worried about his cousin Mark. He’s a guard at a secure facility called Maple Creek. Sid hasn’t heard from him in over a week. He thinks there could have been a chemical or biological accident.”
“Jesus,” he said again. “Like that Stephen King novel, The Stand.”
Suddenly the air inside the apartment felt thick. “We’d know if anything like that had happened,” she argued.
“Would we?” he countered.
“You can’t hide an epidemic from the press. Not in this country.”
“But you can hide a few deaths.”
They stared at each other in silence.
“I’ll get back to you if I find out anything.” Before she did something she knew was foolish, she scuffed into her shoes. “I’m going down to the lobby to call a cab.”
