Mission: Irresistible Page 11

Perfect lips, sealed with a kiss. A stark reminder of how he had lost control.

  He reached up to guiltily swipe the imprint away with a hand. The lipstick came off, but he could not so casually erase the taste of Cassie from his tongue or rid the smell of her from his nose or eliminate the primal stirrings in his body.

  As he walked Lashaundra to her car, he mentally berated himself. Kissing Cassie was a huge mistake. You will not let it happen again.

  What a mess!

  He was stuck with Cassie until Saturday night, and yet it was almost impossible to resist her. He had to find a way. There could not be a repeat performance of what had happened in the car. He’d been so swept up by their passion for one another that if it had been a loan shark or a carjacker or even, as laughable as it seemed, a member of the Minoan Order at his window instead of the Star-Telegram reporter, both he and Cassie could be dead at this very moment.

  From now on, for the duration of their time together, it was totally hands off. No matter what the sacrifice might cost.

  CHAPTER 10

  Keep your lips to yourself. Absolutely, positively no more kissing Harrison Standish.

  Because when his mouth had landed on hers and his tongue had skimmed along her lips and her pulse had knocked with anticipation, Cassie realized she was traversing a paper-thin ledge in six-inch stilettos.

  Tightrope act deluxe.

  Her stomach quivered and her hands shook. Her brain scorched hot and her lungs squeezed breathlessly out of control. All the wonderful sensations she loved rained over her. It felt like romance, and nothing got Cassie into trouble quicker than the thrill of the chase.

  She couldn’t risk pursuing this feeling. There was too much at stake. Her job. Harrison’s future. Maybe even Adam’s life. They had to stay focused on the mystery. They couldn’t afford the distraction of attraction.

  They drove in silence. He kept both hands on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road, unaware of what she was thinking, oblivious to the excitement throbbing inside her.

  Maybe, she thought, her precognitive brain burn had nothing to do with outside danger and everything to do with Harrison. Perhaps he was the threat.

  They were inhaling the same air, sharing the same closed, dark space. He had never looked as sexy to her as he did right now. He’d been prepared to risk life and limb to protect her. Underneath the glasses and the mismatched clothes beat the heart of a hero.

  Don’t go there. Don’t romanticize the dude. Remember how much he gets on your nerves? Just think about his dirty socks on your kitchen table.

  Socks, smocks. Who cared about socks when a bona fide hero was driving her home?

  And the very fact that he was so smart and private and respectful and he’d kissed her like he really meant it was a total turn-on. She’d never been with a brainy guy before, and she wriggled joyously at the thought of bedding him.

  “You okay?”

  “Uh-huh.” She forced herself not to squirm. She could not let him know how much he affected her. She might have the hots for him, but she wasn’t about to hand him that much power.

  Harrison parked the Volvo outside her apartment. “I’ll see you to the door.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly, even though she was accustomed to men waiting on her, treating her like a princess.

  Cassie had to get out of the car before she did something totally stupid.

  Like lick him.

  She jumped from the Volvo, red leather handbag slung across her shoulder, and was halfway up the sidewalk before he caught her.

  “Whoa, slow down.” He took her elbow.

  She jerked away. “It’s okay. I’m all right. No need for an escort. Ta-ta, bye-bye, thanks for everything. See ya tomorrow.”

  Babbling. She was babbling and she knew it. Babble, babble, babble. But the last thing she wanted was to let this man into her house. Because if she let him in, she absolutely knew she could not be trusted to keep her lips to herself.

  “I’m not going to let you walk into an empty house at one-thirty in the morning.”

  “No big deal. I do it all the time.”

  “Not when you’re out with me.”

  “Excuse me, but I did not hire you as my protector. Buzz off.” She waved a hand.

  “Give me your keys.” He put out his palm.

  “No.” Damn, why wouldn’t that sensitive spot at the base of her skull stop the infernal burning?

  “Cassie,” he said, “I’m going to unlock your door for you, wait until you get across the threshold, and then I’ll take off. I’m not going to shoulder my way inside and rob you of your virtue.”

  No? Rats. She was big into having her virtue robbed by guys who flipped her switch.

  “Listen, Harry … ,” she started to argue, desperate to get him to step away before she kissed him again. But she stopped midsentence when she realized her front door was ajar.

  He saw it at the same time she did.

  Without another word, he grabbed her by the shoulders and moved her away from the door.

  “Stay behind me.”

  She wrapped her arms around his slim, muscular waist and held on tight. Nice.

  He moved forward and she went with him in a bizarre, backward waltz. He toed the door open wider and reached an arm around to search for the light plate.

  A second later the kitchen lit up.

  “My God.” Harrison audibly sucked in his breath.

  His muscles bunched and Cassie felt his tension slip right up her arms, to her shoulders, and then lodge hard against the fiery section of her brain.

  What had he seen?

  She stood on tiptoes and peeked over his shoulder with one eye shut to lessen the blow of what she might witness.

  Aha.

  This was the reason her quirky ESP had been sizzling off and on all night. The danger hadn’t been at the airport. Nor was it in the car that’d been following them. Nor was it even Harry’s sexy proximity that had lit up her brain like a Christmas tree. The menace had been right here in her home.

  Her kitchen had been trashed.

  Not that it was really all that easy to tell. Cassie wasn’t much of a neatnik. The dirty dishes piled in the sink were hers, as well as the stacks of books, Blockbuster movies, and CDs crowding the kitchen table. The clutter of cooking hardware—blender, food processor, bread maker, etcetera—was strewn across the counter because she’d been too lazy to bother stuffing it into the cabinets after her last cookfest.

  But what wasn’t her own doing were the drawers hanging open and the dish towels tossed around the room and the bottle of Dawn tipped over and dribbling soap down the front of the microwave. Nor was she responsible for the box of smashed sugar-frosted cornflakes littered across the tile floor or the upended garbage can or the broken jar of Russian caviar pooling next to the open pantry door.

  Dammit! An admirer had given her that caviar, and she’d been saving it for a special occasion.

  And then all at once the reality of the situation smacked her hard. Her place had been ransacked. Her valuables either stolen or destroyed or both.

  “My collage wall,” she cried, shoving Harrison aside as she zigzagged around the land mines of spilled delicacies and sprinted for the bedroom.

  Wishing she had a shot of tequila to brace her for what lay inside, Cassie flicked on the light.

  Not even a quart of Cabo Wabo Milenio could have prepared her for this. The shelving had been ripped off the wall. Her collection of candles lay shattered, the collages yanked from their picture frames and scattered across the room.

  Someone had been viciously searching for something. But she had no idea who or for what.

  Helplessly, she stared at the destruction. She felt as if she’d stepped into a morgue, surrounded by the corpses of her previous relationships. She stumbled across the room, fell to her knees in the middle of the devastation, and bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from crying.

  The wall was silly nostalgia. She kn
ew it. Maddie had lectured her for years about clinging to the past. But her twin sister had never really understood what the collage wall stood for.

  It wasn’t that Cassie lived in the past. On the contrary, she was definitely a live-for-the-moment kind of gal. But her memories of the men she had once loved echoed throughout the collages.

  It was difficult to explain, but when she had been in those relationships, the anticipation and the passion and the intensity had prevented her from savoring the actual experience. It was only upon reflection when she looked at the collage wall that she realized what an incredible, fun, adventuresome life she’d led.

  With time and distance, she could linger in the variety of her experiences. Relish what had been without the pressure of what could be. In a glance, the wall gave her a clear visual of who she was, where she’d come from, the things she valued, and what she believed in.

  She’d dated tall men and short ones. Brunets and blonds and even a redhead. Slim men and chubby men. Atheists and Christians. Men from other countries. Men of other races. Scoundrels and saints. Rebels and reactionaries. Crusaders and crackpots.

  Some of the relationships had been strictly intellectual. Others only emotional. A few had been purely sexual. But no one guy had ever been able to meet all her needs.

  She was driven to seek fulfillment for all the different sides of herself. She could not resist. Her energy was cycled and replenished by the diversity of her men. She was always looking for something better. Scoping out her options.

  Cassie knew she could never commit to just one guy. Marriage wasn’t in the cards for her. That’s why she bailed out of relationships before they got serious. She’d always been the dumper, never the dumpee.

  And that’s the way she liked it.

  No one had to tell her that almost drowning when she was a kid, spending three months in a coma and then nine months in a rehab hospital, had contributed to her need for variety.

  She reached for a picture. Peyton Shriver. The charming art thief she’d spent several intense days with in Europe the previous year. She had known he was a very bad boy, and because of that, she’d never slept with him. But she couldn’t say she’d regretted their time together. She’d learned a lot about herself from Peyton.

  “This wasn’t an isolated incident,” Harrison said from the doorway. “This breakin is connected to what’s been going on. Someone must think you’ve got something or know something that you’re not even aware of, Cassie.”

  But she wasn’t paying him much attention.

  The invitation to her junior prom was ripped in two, as was the playbill to her first Broadway play, Phantom of the Opera. There was a partial sneaker print stamped across an old love letter, from the guy who’d taken her virginity. Cassie could even make out the brand name of the sorry scumbag’s right shoe.

  Nike.

  Cruel bastard.

  Who could have done this, and why? A tear slipped down her cheek. Then another and another.

  Oh, crap. She wasn’t supposed to do this. She swiped at her eyes and swallowed back a sob.

  Distantly, she heard Harrison walk closer, but his presence really didn’t register until he crouched down in front of her, his eyes level with hers. “It’s okay. I’ll help you piece everything back together.”

  But she couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want him to see her crying.

  Carefully, he reached out and touched her forearm, as if initiating such contact wasn’t something he usually did and he wasn’t quite sure if he was making a mistake or not. His fingers were hesitant yet firm, his palm warm. He stroked his thumb along the underside of her arm.

  “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

  Sweetheart.

  Her chest squeezed. What a lovely, kind word and so unexpected coming from Standoffish.

  Cassie raised her head, met his steadfast gaze. Here he was, offering to help her recreate her past with other men. His smile was faint, but considerate. He looked at her with such empathy that she knew, without another word passing between them, somehow, he understood.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.” The look in his eyes, the touch of his fingers against her skin, the tenderness in his voice made her feel a lot better. For the first time since Maddie had moved to D.C., Cassie felt as if she wasn’t alone.

  And when Harrison knelt to pick up broken glass, mindful of the photos and memorabilia, Cassie just knew she had to kiss this man again.

  He had to escape.

  If he didn’t, the mummy knew they would kill him. He realized this as surely as he could not remember his own name.

  Faint fingers of daylight were pushing through the high, dirt-smudged windows of the warehouse. He had no idea when the men would return, but the consequences would not be good.

  The throbbing in his back had dulled slightly, but the fresh wounds Demitri had inflicted upon him with the metal file stung with a fierce and fiery ache. He felt hot and sweaty and dizzy, and whenever he gazed into the distance his vision blurred.

  He wondered if he had a fever. Was he delirious? Was this just some bizarre dream?

  But no, the sharp teeth of pain tearing through him whenever he tried to drag himself to his feet assured the mummy that this was no dream.

  It was a nightmare.

  He gritted his teeth and rolled over onto his back. He ended up lying on his bound hands. His wrists were chafed raw from the too-tight duct tape, and his fingers were scarily cold.

  Grunting against the pain, he made several attempts and finally managed to get into a sitting position with his shoulders propped against the wall. He sat panting from the effort that tiny accomplishment extracted.

  The coppery scent of blood filled the air, and a warm wetness spread over the crusty dryness at the back of his shirt. Bile rose in his throat, and he gagged but did not throw up. He’d aggravated the stab wound, and it was bleeding again.

  Once he’d rested enough that the dizziness and nausea abated, he glanced around for an escape route. After the men had tortured him and left the warehouse, he’d heard the heavy snap of a padlock latching the double-rollered doors.

  He was locked in. The window was his only way out.

  Up, up, up he stared. At the window looming far above his head.

  It was only ten feet, but it might as well have been a million miles. He was that weak and debilitated. It was all he could do to keep breathing. How was he supposed to scale a wall with his hands duct-taped behind his back?

  He was almost ready to say “Fuck it” and opt for death. At least if they came back and killed him, he would be out of his misery.

  But something much stronger than the fear of those thugs and the pain in his body would not allow him to wallow in self-pity. A determination he didn’t fully understand spurred him onward.

  There was something very important he must do. He felt it straight to his bones. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember what it was.

  Think, think. Who are you? What is it that you must do?

  He closed his eyes. He needed a name. He needed a motivation to keep from giving up and surrendering to the relentless pain.

  Froggy Voice had kept asking him about an amulet. Demanding to know where the thing was. He had no idea what the man had been talking about, but each time Froggy asked a question and he did not know the answer, Demitri would twist the metal file deeper into his skin.

  A dark voice in the back of his brain murmured, Find her.

  Find who?

  Think, dammit. Think.

  The harder he pushed, the more it felt as if his brain had broken into a thousand fragmented pieces, each walled off from the rest. He got snippets but could make no connections. He could not understand how it all fit into a whole.

  The sound of a garbage truck rumbled in the alley outside the warehouse. The mummy tried to yell, but his voice stuck in his throat. When he finally forced out a sound, he was alarmed to discover he could not speak ab
ove a whisper.

  On your feet.

  He braced his shoes against the cement floor strewn with metal shavings and pushed himself up the wall.

  Intense pain grabbed him in a vise. He stopped halfway to a standing position, hands bound behind his back, panting and sweating and sick to his stomach.

  His knees wobbled. His stomach lurched. An icy-cold chill belied the sweat drenching his brow. His eyelids fluttered closed. He tasted the bile in his mouth again and almost lost consciousness.

  And then a name popped into his head.

  Kiya.

  His beloved.

  Heart strumming, he suddenly knew who he was and what he had to do.

  His name was Solen.

  And he had to get to Kiya.

  He had to find his secret bride before she drank the poisoned wine.

  CHAPTER 11

  This time, he saw it coming.

  The look in Cassie’s eyes, the way she leaned close and puckered up those lush, glossy lips, left no doubt as to her intention. Panic-stricken, he sprang to his feet, leaving her blinking at the spot where he had just been kneeling beside her. She fingered her bottom lip, hurt and confusion on her face.

  Had he been unconsciously leading her on? He shouldn’t have touched her. He shouldn’t express such sympathy for her plight. Intimate emotions just got you into trouble. Hadn’t that message been hammered home enough times?

  He cleared his throat. He wanted to tell her they needed to leave. That it was important they get a few hours’ sleep so they could start looking for Adam again as soon as possible. But instead he said, “I’ll help reconstruct your collage. But you have to promise you won’t keep trying to kiss me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Be … because,” he sputtered.

  “Because why?”

  “Because I don’t want you to.”

  “Oh.” She considered that for a moment. “Do I have bad breath? I could go brush my teeth.”

  He raised both palms. Would he ever understand the way her mind worked? “It’s not your breath. Your breath is minty fresh.”

  “So it’s me? If I were someone else, then would you want to kiss me?”