Donovans - Pearl Cove Part 40

"There you are," Don said to Archer. "I was just telling Hannah about Len's mother. Figured she should know about us."

Archer barely managed not to say, Why? Instead, he gave his mother a sidelong glance.

Susa smiled at him. "I know it continually surprises you, but your father and I both had lives before we met each other. Not nearly as good as the lives we had after we met, but lives just the same. Don was explaining to Hannah so tactfully that the point was all but buried that even at sixteen he knew the difference between l.u.s.t and love. Len's mother was cold and ruthless, but very s.e.xy. Great material for a wild affair."

Archer reached for the bandage.

And yanked.

"Hannah doesn't have any trouble grasping that principle," he said neutrally. "She feels the same way about me. Great s.e.x. No future, because I'm cold and ruthless. Like Len. So you can get that warm glow out of your eyes, Mom and Dad. She's not going to make an honest man of me."

Silence spread through the room.

Hannah flushed, then went pale except for a line of red high on both cheekbones. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Notice she didn't call me a liar," he said to his parents.

"b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Archer gave her an ironic bow. "At your service. Quite literally." He walked up to the icing bowl, ran his finger around the rim, and licked thoroughly. "Mmm. Your best yet, Kyle. Where's the cake?"

The condominium was so quiet that Hannah couldn't use city noise as a reason for her insomnia. She rolled over, punched the pillow into a new shape, and closed her eyes. The soft silk she wore one of Archer's old s.h.i.+rts slithered up her hips like a lover.

At your service. Quite literally.

Put that way, it sounded so cold. The fact that it was true made it worse. She would never forget the shock in Lianne's eyes, in Faith's eyes, and the way the two women had gone to stand on either side of Archer as though to defend him from an attack. He had smiled at them, the kind of tender smile he once had given to Hannah, and told them to relax, it was all right. Just because Hannah doesn't want me as a husband is no reason to be hard on her. She's not the first person to think I'm a ruthless son of a b.i.t.c.h. She won't be the last.

With that, Archer had led the conversation around to other topics-Faith's newest jewelry designs, Jake's negotiations for more Baltic amber, Lawe's surprising decision to come home for a time, Justin's unflagging love of wild country, and the end of the salmon-fis.h.i.+ng season. Pearls hadn't been mentioned. Neither had Len.

By the end of the evening, it was as though Archer had never said anything about Hannah's opinion of him. The Donovans talked and laughed with her, washed dishes and tickled the baby with her, and generally made her feel at home.

Until she looked over and saw Archer watching her with icy eyes. No home there. No warmth. Just truth used against her like a sword.

At your service.

Heat snaked through her. She told herself it was anger. She had a right to it. He had embarra.s.sed her in front of his family. He was exactly as she thought: cold and ruthless.

So why did she see him every time she closed her eyes, hear him whispering as his mouth moved over her, need him until she wanted to curl into a ball and cry?

There was no answer for her question but the twisting, gnawing ache that was both l.u.s.t and something more dangerous, something she fled from even before she admitted to herself that it existed. Yet she kept circling around it like a wary-moon orbiting a dark planet. Whatever Archer was or wasn't, he had come halfway across the world when she had asked, had put himself at risk for her, and had given her staggering pleasure.

In return, she had told him that he wasn't fit to be her husband or father to her children in any way but the most basic biological one. Truth wielded like a sword, wielded against a man whose only sin against her had been to help her.

Reluctantly Hannah admitted that they owed each other an apology. Not for the truth, but for the method of telling it.

She unclenched her fists, took a deep breath, and punched number six on the lighted pad.

His voice floated out of the intercom speaker. "Yes?"

"Archer, I-"

"I'll be right there."

The intercom went dead.

Glumly, slowly, she got out of bed. She was enough of a coward that she would rather have apologized via intercom, but she had too much pride to insist on it. She went to the hall door and opened it a crack.

Archer's hand pushed it the rest of the way. He was dressed in a pair of jeans he obviously had just pulled on. They were only half fastened. "Do you need protection?"

"No, I-"

She never finished the sentence. His mouth was over hers, breaking it open, taking it in a kiss as hot as it was deep. His hands kneaded her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and plucked at her nipples until her breathing fragmented into moans and her body went slack. His knee pushed apart her legs until she was riding his thigh. Holding her with one arm around her, he used his fingers to bring her to the shattering edge of o.r.g.a.s.m. Writhing, breathing brokenly, she demanded that he take her.

He sent her over the edge alone.

While she was still s.h.i.+vering and crying, he put her on the bed, pushed her thighs apart, and opened his jeans the rest of the way. He was fully erect, already dressed for s.e.x in a high-tech condom. Kneeling, he pulled her up his thighs and buried himself in her. Hips pumping, he drove her back to the edge. And held her there.

For Hannah it was like being caught in a wild, hot wave. She couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She could only tumble out of control, darkness storming around her, blind ecstasy transforming her. Then came the lull between the waves, a lull that never quite let her catch her breath before another wave rolled over her, spinning her out toward the edge of consciousness, building and building and building until she could hold her breath no longer. Then she breathed in ecstasy and drowned.

Another wave came, rising, building, teaching her that she hadn't died. Not yet. She was still alive, still breathing, still feeling the next wave sweep up to her, lifting her, blinding her, ravis.h.i.+ng her. This time she rode the sensual wave with primal abandon, turning and balancing, twisting and grappling, taking and demanding until all colors exploded into black and she screamed, drowning again.

And he was the seething, powerful wave she drowned in. He moved over her, inside her, around her. In the savage, glittering darkness that smelled and tasted of s.e.x, her breath sobbed and shattered and reformed again after each climax.

Finally she was boneless, weightless, spinning and falling, echoes of ecstasy beating in her like a runaway heart. With the last of her strength, she said his name.

"More?" Archer asked.

A shake of her head was all she could manage. Sighing, she reached out to curl up against him.

Her hands found only emptiness. He was already out of her bed, out of her reach, walking away. He didn't take time to dress because he had never taken time to undress.

With trembling hands, she pulled down the silk s.h.i.+rt that was wadded up beneath her armpits while understanding broke over her in a different, colder wave. He had played her like an instrument. No tenderness, no holding; just raw, hot s.e.x, as much of it as she could take.

A stud at her service.

Eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, Hannah remembered the way it had been in Australia. Hot, yes. G.o.d yes. Yet there had been tenderness as well as fire, sweetness as well as rending ecstasy.

Archer had understood it before she had. He had told her. s.e.x can wait until h.e.l.l freezes over. Making love, now, that's different. But then she hadn't understood the difference between having s.e.x and making love with Archer.

She understood it now.

With swift motions she ripped off the borrowed wedding rings and dropped them on the bedside table. It was a long time before she fell asleep, holding on to herself because she had no one else to hold her.

Fire all around and screams echoing. Len dumping Archer's battered, bleeding body at Hannah's feet. The shabby room vanished in Len's laughter. She was in the center of a riot with blood all over her hands, her body. Archer's blood.

It was everywhere. She couldn't carry him, couldn't drag him, couldn't get out of the violence that roared around her, black fire and red blood and screams like exploding gla.s.s. He had to get up, wake up, walk. Wake up! Wakeup wakeup WAKEUP!

His eyes opened. He looked at her, through her, stripping her to her soul; but he didn't know. He was blind, living only in pain, blood everywhere.

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I didn't think you would be hurt. I thought you were too hard to ever be hurt."

Then he died and she screamed and screamed, her voice rising and falling, her hand clenched around a broken oyster sh.e.l.l while Len's laughter rolled over her screams and midnight broke like thunder over her, destroying her.

Hannah awoke in a rush, all at once, her heart hammering frantically, her own words echoing in her mind. I didn't think you would be hurt. I thought you were too hard to ever be hurt. Cold sweat covered her. Tears blinded her. She couldn't breathe. She shuddered wrenchingly, rolled onto her side, and fought not to throw up.

"Just a d-dream," she whispered through clenched teeth. Holding herself, rocking. "Just a b.l.o.o.d.y dream. That's all. Len is dead and Archer's alive and the pain in his eyes..." Her mouth went dry. Pain like that only existed in dreams. Nightmares. "Archer is all right. Just a dream."

After a few minutes she pushed out of the tangle of sheets and stumbled into the shower, afraid that it wasn't a dream at all. Archer could hurt. Archer could bleed.

She ought to know. She had seen the pain in his eyes.

She had put it there.

d.a.m.n you, you're like Len! Great smile, great body, and underneath it all, as cold a b.a.s.t.a.r.d as ever walked the earth. It makes everything impossible, even the most simple affection.

s.e.x and protection, that's all you want from me?

Yes. That's all Clammy, s.h.i.+vering, she reached for the water faucet. After a few fumbles she got hot water to rain down over her, was.h.i.+ng away the icy sweat. Blindly she reached for the soap that hung on a rope around the shower head. A familiar clean fragrance curled around her. The soap smelled like Archer.

She put her forehead against the cold tile and wept.

Twenty-four.

Archer sat in the cheerful breakfast nook and watched the view outside the window as the city slowly, slowly awakened. He was dressed casually running shoes, jeans, dark blue flannel s.h.i.+rt, and a lightweight waterproof jacket with a zipper running down the front. The only thing not casual about him was the nine-millimeter pistol digging into the small of his back beneath the jacket. It was a cold gun in every sense of the word. No serial number, no history, a leftover from the days he couldn't seem to leave behind.

d.a.m.n you, you're like Len! Great smile, great body, and underneath it all, as cold a b.a.s.t.a.r.d as ever walked the earth.

He picked up his coffee cup and drained the potent liquid without feeling the heat. Not feeling was another hangover from working for Uncle. Knowing when to cut losses and get out of the game was another. With Hannah, it was too late to cut his losses; he had lost everything of importance already. That left getting out of the game.

Jake held up the coffeepot in silent question. As one, Kyle and Archer held out their cups. Kyle thought longingly of adding milk, but it went against his self-imposed rule: milk for the first cup, and if that didn't get it done, go back to bed or drink it straight and black as h.e.l.l.

Lianne stared at the table as though it held a cage full of snakes instead of a sketch of the Dragon Moon's floor plan, the surveillance gear that would let the men communicate with each other, and the two cellular phones which would keep her in communication with Archer.

"Okay," she said. "I'll translate via cell if it's required. But Archer, if something goes wrong..." She just shook her head and looked at him with worry and love in her cognac eyes.

Archer's hand closed over her much smaller one. "You're right. I didn't think of that. Someone else can translate for me if it's necessary. It probably won't be." A gun cut across all cultural and linguistic barriers, but he didn't think Lianne wanted to hear about it right now. With quick motions he took what he needed from the table, put in the miniature earpiece, and adjusted the throat mike. "Testing."

The two earpieces remaining on the table whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "Testing."

Satisfied, Archer switched off the mike by tapping his throat.

Lianne sighed and rubbed her back through the red silk robe whose ties kept getting shorter every month. "I'm happy to help any way I can. It's just that I'd rather be there so if something went wrong "

"You're pregnant," Archer cut in.

Kyle and Jake said it just as fast.

Lianne listened to the male chorus and grimaced.

"But Lianne's right about one thing," Jake said, topping off his own cup. "You need some backup inside the building."

"No," Archer said.

"Bulls.h.i.+t," Kyle said flatly. He picked up his own electronic gear, stuffed in the earpiece, and put the throat mike in place. "If Jake or I tried to pull the stunt you've just outlined, you'd have our b.a.l.l.s."

"... b.a.l.l.s," croaked the remaining earpiece. Despite Kyle's fine electronic touch, the tonal quality of the equipment sounded like the words were being pushed through gravel.

Archer didn't argue with his brother or the echo. What Kyle said was the simple truth. Yet there were other simple truths. One of them was that he wasn't going to risk Kyle's or Jake's life to redeem the savage mistakes made by a man they had never met. So he agreed that they would cover the exits and him if he had to leave on the run. He didn't want them doing even that, but knew he couldn't keep them at home with Lianne.

"I'm wearing Kevlar underwear, just like Jake," Archer pointed out.

"Over your brain?" Kyle asked politely.

"What brain?" Jake retorted, coldly furious. He knew Archer's chances of going in alone and coming out alive were somewhere between lousy and awful. "Body armor is good, but not going up against the Red Phoenix Triad alone is even better."

"I'll keep my mike open," Archer said. "And the cell phone."

Jake hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. "s.h.i.+t, why didn't I think of that? I'll be sure to tell Honor that you died before you f.u.c.king hung up."

Archer's smile was small but real. "You do that."

Kyle tried another tack. "What should Lianne tell Hannah when she wakes up and finds you gone?"

"I reset the clock in Hannah's room when I went in to get the gun out of the safe." Archer took another swallow of coffee. "If she wakes up at all, she'll think it's two hours ago. Before she knows different, I'll be back with the pearls."

"Pal, you're not coming back," Jake said, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the miniaturized transceiver in his ear. He hit the voice switch. "Take it from someone who used to be in the business."

Archer drank more coffee.

Kyle and Jake exchanged a look.

Archer said softly, "Jumping me won't work. I wouldn't pull my punches. You would."

"What if I call April Joy?" Kyle asked.

"You'd better pray I don't come back. Yin is the quickest way to Len's killer."

"So take more time," Jake retorted.

"No." Last night had pushed Archer right to the edge of his self-control. Beyond it. He was afraid if Hannah asked him for s.e.x again, he would give her what she didn't want from a ruthless b.a.s.t.a.r.d like him: love.