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  “You’re welcome,” she murmured, feeling a twinge of surprise at his display of manners. Glancing up into his hooded green eyes, she once again found herself wondering about him.

  Where did he live when he wasn’t terrorizing fugitive booksellers? Was he single, divorced or—she felt an inexplicable little pang—married? Did he have kids or other family? Did he ever smile?

  Finishing the last spoonful of her soup, she watched him retreat, then retrieved the tray, added her dishes to it and hauled everything over to the counter.

  She frowned as she saw that he’d eaten every scrap she’d served him. Suddenly wondering if maybe he felt well enough for more but pride wouldn’t let him ask, she swiveled around, only to find him perched on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his gray flannel shirt. She watched, mesmerized, as the shirt parted down the middle, then gave herself a sharp mental shake. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready for bed.” He shrugged out of the garment, exposing the sleeveless black tank beneath. The dark color was the perfect contrast to the gold-tinted olive skin stretched over an acre of to-die-for muscle that bunched and flexed with his every breath.

  She swallowed. “Already? It’s only eight.” She wasn’t sure why she was protesting; she was tired, too.

  “Yeah, well, if you have to know, my head hurts.” He scowled at the flannel as it dangled from the chain by the right sleeve, then shook his head and slid it away.

  “Oh.” In contrast to his flat stomach and ridiculously narrow hips, both faithfully delineated by the clinging black knit, his shoulders looked immense. “Of course.”

  “Don’t worry.” Oblivious to her sudden paralysis, he carefully stood and stripped off his jeans, exposing an impressive length of hairy leg between his gray wool socks and black BVDs. “I promise not to slip into a coma and die in my sleep.”

  Oh, God. She hadn’t even thought of that, she realized, as she tried—and failed—not to stare at the impressive bulge straining the front of his clingy cotton briefs. “No. Certainly not.”

  To her profound thankfulness, she managed to drag her gaze away a heartbeat before he glanced her way and gave her a critical once-over of his own. His eyes, the color of new leaves in the room’s soft light, narrowed. “You look beat. I’d suggest you get some rest yourself.”

  Their gazes meshed and for an instant she saw her surprise at his concern mirrored in his face. Then his expression closed like a slamming door and he looked away.

  “Or not. Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.”

  His abrupt change of attitude was like a bucket of ice water, snapping her out of her distraction with his physique. A sharp retort rose to her lips, but before she could get out so much as a single word, he flipped back the covers, climbed into bed and turned his back.

  Shaking her head, she walked over to the closet, yanked down the sleeping bag and extra pillow and carried them over to the sofa. Killer bod or not, she thought, as she dug her nightshirt out of her bag, Taggart was, without doubt, the most impossible, arrogant, exasperating man she’d ever met.

  If she were a different kind of woman, she’d be out of here so fast tomorrow morning the draft would probably blow him against the wall.

  Whether he was better or not, she mused as she washed her face and brushed her teeth in the kitchen sink.

  It was therefore beyond annoying that when she climbed into her makeshift bed, she couldn’t make herself forget her first aid book’s warning that the first twenty-four hours after a head injury were crucial. Although she could probably safely cut that time in half for Taggart, who was harder headed than anyone she’d ever known. In the meantime, however…

  She threw off the covers and climbed back out of bed to set the oven timer for two hours. In the meantime, she supposed she had no choice but to keep an eye on him.

  Slipping back into the sleeping bag a moment later, she switched off the light and tried to settle into sleep. Only to have Taggart’s image—bare legged, broad chested, unmistakably, blatantly male—promptly muscle its way into her mind. She fought to cast it out, but like the man himself, it obstinately refused to leave.

  She huffed out a heartfelt sigh.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Five

  T aggart jolted awake.

  Muscles flexed, he braced for attack, his heart pounding painfully in the half second before reality rushed in and he remembered where he was.

  The mountains. Montana. In a cabin. With Genevieve.

  He sagged back against the mattress. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed away the images crowding him of another ink-black night, of another set of mountains in a country half a world away, where he’d found himself in a nightmare from which there’d been no escape.

  Don’t go there, he ordered himself. Think about something, anything else. The trip to Africa you’ve always meant to make. How pissed Dom is going to be when he finds out there’s a Steele Security pool on how long it’ll take him to make us all uncles. Or—what the hell—think about…Genevieve. Even she has to be a better choice than anything that pertains to Dominic’s sex life.

  Genevieve. Who, judging by the kitchen clock that showed it was coming up on 2:00 a.m., would soon be joining him for what would be the third of their bedside encounters tonight.

  “Taggart?” she’d whisper, after she tumbled out of bed and flipped on the light above the stove so she could see to switch off the trusty oven timer. “You awake?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he’d answer, having learned the hard way that ignoring her would earn him a jab with the broom.

  “Do you know who you are? Where you are?”

  “Yeah, Genevieve, I do.” Suppressing a sigh, he’d rattle off the desired information since he’d also discovered she wouldn’t leave him alone until he did. It was galling to admit, but it really did seem she was hell-bent on doing what was best for him. And since somewhere in one of her damn books she’d read that periodic checks were necessary to ensure he didn’t slip into a coma, interrogating him every few hours appeared to be her mission for the night.

  Even though it was obvious she was exhausted. That she was finding it harder as the hours passed to shake off the steadily increasing cold. Although he supposed, in light of her persistent death grip on the broom, that at least part of the reason for her shivering might be that on some level she sensed the growing danger of poking at him as if he were a caged bear.

  Oh, not for the reason she no doubt supposed—that as adversaries, for one of them to win the other had to lose. Although that was true.

  But because the longer he lay in the dark and the more tired he became, the greater the likelihood that sometime in the next few hours she was going to startle him out of a sound sleep.

  And God help them both, he couldn’t predict how he might react or what he might do, whether in a moment of sleep-fogged confusion he might surge up off the bed and go for her throat…. That uncertainty was why he always slept alone, and always kept more than one light on. It was the same reason he’d forced himself to accept that he’d never marry. Much less find the sort of blazing happiness Dom and Lilah had—

  The timer sounded, shattering the silence. Even though he’d expected it, he couldn’t stop the way his pulse spiked and his muscles jumped. It was a testament to the deteriorating state of his nerves, he realized. His gut twisting with self-disgust, he shifted onto his side and latched onto the only distraction available.

  With a rustle of fabric and a harsh whine of her sleeping bag’s metal teeth, Genevieve emerged from her cocoon on the couch. Backlit by the glow from the fireplace, her hair gleamed, as shiny as a child’s. There was nothing childlike about the body momentarily revealed in silhouette as she stood, however. The upward tilt to her breasts, the lissome curve where her waist nipped in, the delicate dip at the small of her back that flared into a tight little rear end that would fit perfectly in his hands….

  “Taggart?” Yawning, she pushed the thick, silky tendrils of her
hair off her face and glanced in his direction.

  Unsure why he did it, except that the sight of her and the undeniable response of his body made it even harder to decide what to do about the situation, he closed his eyes and feigned sleep.

  He sensed more than heard her sigh. Then came the muted thump of her feet as she crossed the floor, the click of the oven light and the merciful return to relative silence as she switched off the buzzer.

  Except for his slow, measured breathing, he lay perfectly still.

  “Hey, come on.” He heard the faint swish as she picked up the broom, felt the air around him stir at her approach. “Say something.”

  He forced himself not to react to the gentle poke in the shoulder.

  “I know you’re awake.” She was quiet for a moment, then prodded him again moving closer. “Damn it, Taggart, this isn’t funny.” The first faint note of panic sounded in her voice. “It’s cold out here and—”

  Without warning, he snatched at the broom handle and yanked.

  He wasn’t sure who was more surprised. Him, since he didn’t know what he was planning to do until he did it. Or Genevieve, who was so stunned she forgot to let go until it was too late.

  With a startled shriek, she toppled forward into his waiting arms. There was a second’s stunned silence as they lay face-to-face, bodies intimately nestled together, gazes locked.

  A second after that, she started to struggle, kicking and thrashing and letting him know in impressively graphic terms exactly what she thought of him.

  Face set, Taggart took it as long as he could. Then, not knowing what else to do, he took a grip on the chain, rolled her beneath him and silenced her the only way he could.

  Catching her flailing hands, he pressed them into the bed, lowered his head and covered her mouth with his own.

  Genevieve gave a choked cry as Taggart molded his hard lips to her softer ones. His big, muscular body was hot and heavy as he pinned her to the bed, and there was no doubt, as he hitched himself higher and increased the heated pressure against her mouth, that he was all man.

  Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t…this. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined someone so closely guarded could kiss with such reckless abandon.

  But oh, he could. And though his embrace was raw and unyielding, it was also the most exciting thing she’d ever experienced.

  Are you out of your mind? she asked herself hazily. You barely know him. And what you do know, you don’t like. And even if you were the sort of woman to jump into bed with a big, brooding, disagreeable stranger, this one should be your very last choice.

  Chained and injured, he was a threat. Up close and on the mend he was guaranteed trouble.

  Yet as she’d already acknowledged, her fear of him wasn’t physical. And really, what could he do? The key to the handcuffs was across the room in her pants pocket.

  She told herself she ought to resist anyway. She should press her lips together, hold herself rigid, avert her head, do whatever she could to make it clear she didn’t want this or him.

  Except…it would be a lie—and she knew it. Which she proved when he slid his hands from her wrists to entangle their fingers, and instead of trying to escape, she held onto him with all her strength.

  She could tell herself anything she chose, but the fact was her body was on fire. Hard as it was to admit, she’d never wanted anyone the way she wanted John Taggart Steele.

  The realization was staggering. Stupefying. Sex had never impressed her much. Her first time had been quick, awkward and had left her feeling exposed, empty and dissatisfied. A handful of subsequent encounters hadn’t been much better. When her last experience had ended with a very nice man regretfully informing her she lacked whatever it took to achieve satisfaction, she’d swallowed her hurt and humiliation and decided he was probably right.

  She’d certainly never believed herself capable of the kind of breathless need that was blowing through her now like a hurricane.

  But oh, wonder of wonders, she burned to wrap herself around Taggart and soak him up. She ached to stroke and taste, to burrow even closer. She wanted—oh, how she wanted—to explore every hot, powerful inch of him.

  Never had she been so aware of a man. With his weight bearing down on her, she could feel the ridges of his washboard abs, the slabs of his pectoral muscles, the sinew roping his heavy thighs, the thick, solid proof of his arousal.

  She probably ought to be alarmed by all that hot flesh and blatant masculinity pressed against her.

  Instead, she felt a fierce gratification. And a desperate desire to experience more. Much more.

  The realization stole what was left of her breath along with the last of her caution. When the tip of his tongue seared the seam of her mouth—probing, promising, demanding—she parted her lips and drank him in.

  He groaned and thrust his tongue deeper. He tasted darkly exotic, his sheer, overpowering maleness as foreign to her as uncharted territory. Her head went light, as if she’d just chugged a bottle of champagne. For the first time in her life she understood the term drunk with desire, as deep down at her core, a liquid flame sparked and caught fire.

  Desperate to touch him, she tugged, trying to liberate her hands.

  She heard his breathing hitch, felt a tremor rack the big hard body molded to her own. Then, without warning, he released her and rocked up on his forearms, the abrupt movement sliding his cotton-covered arousal along the slick, aching cleft of her sex. “Shit.” He jerked away.

  Her eyes flew open. Staring up at his shadowed face, she saw his jaw clench and his lips compress and realized in an instant of absolute clarity that he’d misinterpreted her attempt to free herself. For a moment she couldn’t think what to do. And then from somewhere came an answer: Take a chance. Show some courage. Tell him what you want.

  Latching on to the advice, she reached up, buried her fingers in the cropped thickness of his hair and tugged. “Don’t stop,” she whispered, skimming her fingertips over the hard planes of his face. “I want this. I want you.” She stroked the pad of her thumb across the unyielding line of his lips. “Please.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said flatly.

  “You’re wrong.” It was her first, her only, lie. “I know exactly.”

  “No. You don’t. Trust me.”

  “That’s just it—I do. I trust you to give me what I want. What I need.” Guided by desperation, her fingers found their way under the hem of his shirt. She looked directly at him as she drew her hands up the firm, hot flesh of his back.

  She explored the sleek muscle that bracketed his spine, then pressed her fingers into the glorious breadth of those velvet-over-steel shoulders. Slowly, languidly, she worked her way down, kneading gently when she reached the small of his back.

  He gazed impassively down at her. Her stomach clenched as she realized she didn’t have a clue what was going on behind the guarded green of his eyes. Dampening her kiss-tender lips, she tried once more to get through to him. “I want you. Don’t make me beg. Please, John.”

  He flinched at her use of his name. He stared at her for a long, endless second, then a nerve jumped in the hollow of his cheek. “Damn you, Genevieve,” he rasped as his control shattered like a dropped pane of glass.

  With a savage curse that would have frightened her under any other circumstance, he rolled away and off the bed. Towering over her in the darkness, his body outlined by the glimmering firelight, he tore off his T-shirt, swore briefly as it got hung up on the chain, then abandoned it to shuck off his underwear.

  She barely had time to feel her stomach jump with nervous anticipation before he was on her. Dragging her up, he yanked her nightshirt over her head and tossed it away. Then he laid her down, pinning her in place with his free hand splayed lightly across her throat.

  “Is this what you want?” He lowered his head and his mouth whispered like molten fire along the vulnerable underside of her jaw. “Is it?”

  “Yes.
” She swallowed, stunned anew by how incredibly exciting it was to be touched by him. “Oh, yes.”

  “Yeah, well…We’ll see about that.” Despite his sardonic tone, he was exquisitely gentle as he brushed his lips down her throat and nuzzled the notch of her collarbone, then plunged lower.

  She gasped as the cool silk of his hair tickled the undersides of her breasts. She gasped again as he slipped his hands under her, gripped the mounds of her bottom and lifted, the chain making a clinking noise with the movement.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she shivered as his lips grazed the hollow of her hip. “Your skin’s so damn soft.” He nuzzled her, unhurriedly exploring her with his mouth as he made his way toward her navel, then zeroed in on the shallow indentation and pressed a single suggestive kiss to it.

  When he finally lifted his head to stare up at her with hot-eyed intensity, her whole body was throbbing and she was shivering violently—and this time not from the cold.

  She felt…dazed—by the way he seemed to regard her as a feast to be savored, by his continuing display of bone-melting patience. By her body’s riotous response.

  He slid higher, dragging his metal tether in his wake and cupped her breast. His long fingers felt deliciously hot against her cooler flesh, and delight flared along her nerve endings. She felt poised on the edge of something big even as she tensed, expecting him to squeeze her already throbbing nipples.

  A jolt of surprise rippled through her as he lowered his head and gently rubbed his beard-roughened cheek against her instead. Surprise quickly transformed into excitement as he licked a path along the tender crease where her breast met the top of her midriff.

  Enthralled, mesmerized and just a touch alarmed by the power of the wave of need crashing through her, she wondered what unexpected thing he’d do next.

  She didn’t have to wait to find out. Shifting, he unhurriedly moved higher to trace a circle around her aching nipple with his tongue.

  A rough sound of pleasure rumbled in his chest. With infuriating slowness he dampened the pebbled crest, then blew a soft stream of air over the super-sensitive area. He paused as she inhaled sharply, leaned in, gently raked her with his teeth.