Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
The comment had been a calculated risk.
Jake’s expression darkened, and Rachel knew she’d insulted a man who prided himself on his courage.
And he wasn’t going to let the remark go. His eyes glittered dangerously, making her want to spring off the couch, but she stayed where she was as he slid across the space that separated them and reached for her.
She let her head drop to his shoulder, closed her eyes and held on to him. It was a unique experience. As his arms came up to enfold her, she felt such a confusing rush of emotions that she could hardly cope with them.
Safety was part of it. She was safe in his arms. Along with that came the most overwhelming sexual need she had ever experienced. But she knew that was only one component. She was also keenly aware of the danger simmering below the surface.
It came from the situation they were in. And also the intimacy.
Why? he asked.
I don’t know.
In addition to the word he had spoken in her mind, she could read the emotions churning within him just as clearly as her own needs and doubts.
If we go any farther, there’s no going back, he warned.
She didn’t have to ask how he knew that. It was as clear to her as it was to him.
Her answer didn’t come in words. She lifted her head, staring at him, letting him make the final decision.
He did, lowering his mouth to hers, rubbing his lips gently against hers. It was only a light touch but it sent heat shimmering over her nerve endings and beaded her nipples to tight points of sensation.
With any other lover, there had always been the question of how fast to go.
In terms of days and hours, she and Jake Harper still hardly knew each other, but in this case, time was the least important factor.
She had confessed her inability to connect with anyone on a deep level. He had said the same thing.
Not now.
When he lifted a hand, brushed it lightly over the swell of her breast, it felt right.
His touch sent heat shooting downward through her body as wayward thoughts shimmered through her brain. Memories that he would rather her not know. Yet he had no way to hide them.
She gasped. A junkie almost killed you.
He didn’t speak, but she saw him clawing his way out of the man’s clutches, then striking back with fists and feet.
As she was absorbing that, another long-ago scene leaped into her mind. A well-dressed man trying to pick up the good-looking boy. Offering money if Jake would come home with him.
She felt the clogging sensation in his throat as he’d backed away and run.
Next she watched him taking a valuable pitcher to a flea market and having a dealer knock it off a table–only to blame the clumsy kid.
I got back at him a few years later by scoring a whole house-load of goods that he’d thought were going to be his.
But it wasn’t one-way communication. If his mind was open to her, hers was to him. Her life hadn’t been as shocking, but it hadn’t been wonderful, either.
She saw herself again in sixth grade, trying to explain why she’d done so well on a book report. And Jake was right along with her, eavesdropping on the memories.
The teacher thought you cheated.
I didn’t.
I know. You were so upset.
She tried to pull away from the aftermath, when she’d closed herself in her room, weeping with impotent indignation, but she couldn’t shut off the memory until the scene had run its course.
She was open and vulnerable in a way she had never been before.
And while she was so unguarded, she wanted him to know something.
I didn’t have anything to do with Evelyn’s death.
I know. I think I was using that as an excuse to put distance between us.
Thank you for admitting that.
She had never been so certain of another person’s truthfulness, and she knew it was the same for him, too.
The physical contact, the arousal opened the gate between his mind and hers in a way she had never imagined. Not with anyone.
She had been afraid. The fear receded because she knew that he wanted her to trust him.
More than he wanted to make love with her.
That knowledge made her heart squeeze. He was a tough guy on the outside.
But inside . . . she knew him better than anyone else in the world, because it was impossible to hide the tender core of his soul that he was afraid to reveal.
She wanted him to know how much that meant to her, but she didn’t have to tell him. The knowledge was there for his taking. His alone.
When he wrapped his arms around her and leaned back on the sofa, she came with him, sprawling on top of him the way she had in his office.
Last time she’d been fighting what she felt.
Now she was free to admit she loved the way the length of her body fit against his, starting with the way her breasts molded against his broad chest and moving downward to the erection wedged against her middle.
She let herself feel it and at the same time reached out to know what it was like. For him.
She felt the pleasure radiating from that part of his body as it filled with blood and became hard, the pressure building toward an explosion.
“That’s how it is for a man,” she murmured, knowing he was doing the same thing, tapping into the sensations of her woman’s body. Secret sensations that she didn’t know how to describe.
Tingly, he supplied. Needy. Ripe.
Ripe! That’s a guy word.
She smiled as she said it, with her lips and inside her mind.
He stroked one hand down her body, pressing her closer as he cupped his other hand around the back of her head and brought her mouth to his, lightly at first and then with more urgency.
Urgency they shared.
Never before. Never like this.
I know.
She made a small sound as he deepened the contact, and she drank in the masculine taste of him.
Her mind and body were flooded with sensuality. And something else. Pressure that bordered on pain in her head.
“It’s not all good,” she whispered.
“It will be.”
A man’s response. He shifted them to their sides, then cupped his hand around her breast, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the hardened nipple.
Not like this. I want to make love with you for the first time in a bed.
Where?
At the back of the loft.
Her head was pounding, the pain competing with her arousal.
She wanted to tell him to slow down. Or was that what she really wanted?
He climbed to his feet and helped her up. It was dark in the room now, and she felt disoriented.
Of course, he knew that.
“I’ll turn on the light.”
He crossed the room and flipped the switch.
“Hold it right there,” a rough voice said.
She gasped, whirling to confront the man who had been in her shop. The man Jake had knocked out. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been lying unconscious on the floor. Then he’d managed to get free and disappear, leaving a pool of blood behind.
Had he hidden outside and followed them here? However he’d found them, he stood in the doorway, a gun in his hand.
It was hard to think over the pounding in her head. The pain was worse than it had been moments ago.
“Now I’ve got you both, and you’re going to be very sorry you messed with me,” he said.
Cold fear was like a glacier in the pit of Rachel’s stomach. This man had already tried to handcuff her. Then Jake had come in and hit him over the head. Now he was back and roaring mad.
The guy kept his distance, looking from Rachel to Jake and back again. He picked up the gun Jake had left on the table and put it in his own waistband, but somehow he’d acquired a second weapon.
She stood where she was, desperately trying to contact Jake the way they’d done before. Maybe together they could do something. A few minutes ago they’d been inside each other’s minds, but they’d been touching intimately and she was sure that had made the difference.
They were separated by nine feet of space, and there was no way she could achieve the kind of contact that they’d had on the sofa.
She saw the strained expression on his face and knew he was trying to reach out to her. But it seemed he couldn’t do it either. His thoughts just weren’t available to her. Maybe the headache had wiped the ability away.
“We’re not taking any chances,” the man with the gun said. “First you’re going to tie up your lover boy. Then I’ll cuff you, and he can watch the questioning.”
“Stay the hell away from her!” Jake growled.
“I don’t think you can do much about it, smart guy.”
He looked around the room and spotted a table and two wooden chairs.
“Pull out one of the chairs,” he said to Jake. “And sit down so your girlfriend can tie you up. Move slowly, and don’t try anything tricky.”
As a sliver of hope bloomed inside Rachel, she struggled to keep her face a mask of fear. If she and Jake were going to do anything . . . mental to get away, they’d have to be touching, and their captor had just given them the opportunity to do that.
Jake was still glaring at the guy, but Rachel had come to know him very well, and she sensed the defiance in his eyes.
The guy had a coil of rope under his jacket. He tossed it toward Rachel. When it landed on the floor, she stood staring at it like she was afraid of what was coming next.
She was afraid, but not for the reason he assumed.
“Pick it up!”
She bent and picked up the rope, then walked stiff-legged toward Jake.
“Tie his hands behind him. And no playing around this time. Or I will shoot.”
She made a sound of protest, then walked in back of Jake who slung his hands behind him.
Kneeling, she grabbed his wrist. For a moment nothing happened, and she was afraid she was too frightened to activate the link between them.
Then she heard his voice in her head.
Rachel!
Thank God. What are we going to do?
Work together.
“Don’t just kneel there. Tie him up,” the guy ordered in a grating voice.
She wound some of the rope around Jake’s right wrist, striving to keep the connection with him when her heart was pounding so hard that she could barely think.
She caught a mental picture that she knew wasn’t her own thought. A picture of the man rushing across the room and smashing his head into the window. It was so vivid, that she glanced up to make sure the guy was still holding the gun on them.
Help me.
I don’t know how.
Neither do I, but we have to get that picture into his mind. Unless you’ve got a better idea.
She didn’t.
Bending her head so her face didn’t show, she pretended to work on tying Jake.
Help me send him the picture.
How?
I don’t know!
She caught the frustration in Jake’s inner voice.
Just see it the way I’m seeing it and blast it toward him. Like you were throwing a baseball.
Was there a hope in heaven of that working? It had to! Because once they were restrained, the man with the gun could do whatever he wanted to them.
She had never tried to do anything like what Jake was asking. Not in her life. But she did her best to follow his lead. It was like feeling around in the dark looking for a needle she’d dropped on the floor, and she had no idea where it was.
When she made a frustrated sound, he answered, It’s our only chance.
The mental warning galvanized her. They had to get away from this guy, or he was going to do something horrible–to both of them. Like he’d done to Evelyn.
She thrust that terrible thought from her mind. All that mattered was getting away, and Jake had given them a way to do it, if they could pull it off.
With every shred of will she possessed, she focused on the picture Jake had given her–of the man rushing across the room and slamming his head into the window. At the same time as she drilled the picture into her brain cells, she tried to aim it toward their captor.
When she dared to glance up, she saw that his face had turned pale. At least he must be getting the image. But was he going to act on it?
Everything you’ve got, Jake whispered in her mind, and she felt the resolve pouring out of him. She could see drops of moisture on the back of his neck as he strained to do the impossible.
No, not impossible, because they were doing it.
“Quit stalling,” the guy said, but his voice had taken on a strangled quality.
Because she knew he couldn’t see what she was doing, she stopped working with the rope so that her total attention was on the mental mission.
The gunman looked toward the window, then back at Jake.
“What . . . are you doing?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re putting thoughts in my head.”
“How could I do that?”
“I don’t know.” He raised the gun. “Stop it. Stop it right now or you’re going to be missing a kneecap.”
Fear leaped inside Rachel, and she lost her focus.
The guy’s expression changed. Suddenly he looked more confident. Addressing her, he said, “Finish what you’re doing.”
“I will,” she whispered through gritted teeth as her resolve strengthened. Jake was right. They could do this–because they had to.
Grimly, she poured her will into the picture that Jake had conjured up.
The guy looked from them to the window again. Then he steadied the gun on Jake.
“It’s you. You’re doing this.”
In that terrible moment, Rachel knew he was going to pull the trigger.