Knight Errant Read online

  She watched as Jamey disappeared into the big house. The downstairs was dark, but dim lights burned on the second floor, where their living quarters were. Sean was probably tucked in his crib, snoring softly, but Karen was awake in their bedroom. She always liked to know that Jamey was home, she’d told Lainie, and that another day on Serenity had ended safely. They would talk, maybe make love, maybe go right to sleep, but whatever they did, it would be together. Lainie envied them their togetherness. It seemed so perfect

  But no one would have pegged them for the perfect couple when they’d first met. Karen had been the widow of a hero cop, a social worker, a do-gooder as they called her down here, and Jamey had been the slightly disreputable owner of a shabby bar in a lousy part of town. She had wanted to save Serenity from itself, and he had wanted to save it from her. She had been determined to make a difference, and he had been determined to make her leave. But somewhere among all their disagreements and differences, they had fallen deeply in love. Nothing could tear them apart.

  Nicholas had loved like that before. Not even death had weakened his love for the woman. Maybe he could love that way again. Maybe he could love Lainie like that.

  It was time to find out.

  Turning away from the window, she walked to the door and swung it open. A dim light was on in the hallway. Brighter lights burned downstairs, where music played to the accompaniment of running water. She paced halfway down the hall, turned back, decided against going downstairs, paced again, then finally slid down to sit on the floor at the top of the stairs. She scooted into the corner, with the wall supporting her back, drew her knees to her chest and waited.

  The water stopped, but the music continued. Maybe he was having one last drink and reading the newspaper Jamey always left on the bar. Maybe he was playing a lonely game of solitaire. Maybe he’d left the music on and gone out to find the someone else he’d warned her about. Maybe he’d already found her. Not all of O’Shea’s customers were men. There were a number of attractive women in the neighborhood, any one of whom could have stopped in for a drink, friendly conversation and a friendlier invitation. Maybe—

  The music went off and the light filtering up the stairs dimmed as the lights in the bar were shut off. The bottom half of the stairwell went dark as the light in the hall down there was shut off. She heard only one set of steps on the stairs. He was alone, she realized with a rush of tremendous relief.

  He rose out of the shadows, dark, distant, scowling. His steps slowed when he saw her, and at the landing he stopped, looking down at her, studying her face. She let him look as long as he wanted, let him see all he could see. Whatever it was, it was enough. After a couple of very long, very still moments, he offered his hand. When she took it, he pulled her to her feet, then wrapped his fingers tightly around hers.

  She was already very close to him. She moved a little nearer and raised her free hand to his face. She brushed her fingertips across his cheek, along his jaw, then leaned forward and touched her mouth to his. For a moment, he remained still, unresponsive; then, with a groan, he took her mouth in a hungry, hot, demanding kiss that stole the breath from her lungs and replaced it with searing need that made her heart race and her muscles quiver.

  He ended the kiss too soon, pushing her back, holding her face in his hands. “Do you want this?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t want any regrets, Lainie.”

  She smiled shakily. “I’ll only regret it if we don’t.” It was true. Whatever happened—losing this assignment, losing her job, facing the future alone—her biggest, most serious regret would be if she didn’t take this chance. If she didn’t trust Nicholas. If she didn’t give him all she had to give, if she didn’t accept from him all that he could give. If heartache followed, at least she would know that she’d tried, that she’d loved him the best she could. Maybe it wouldn’t be enough, but it was something.

  “Do you have—” He broke off, shrugged, and she smiled a little. He hadn’t been so reticent the last time the subject had come up. If she wanted to change her answer, he’d told her in her apartment that night, just say so. I’ve got the condoms, and we’ve both got beds.

  She shook her head. “Why don’t you get them? I’ll wait.”

  With a shake of his own head, he reached inside her apartment to twist the lock on the door, then closed it and drew her by the hand into his own apartment. He locked that door, turned on the overhead light and pulled her into the bedroom, where he left her at the foot of the bed while he went to the closet.

  The windows were open, bringing the night’s cooler air into the room, along with the scent of the not-too-distant river and the delicate fragrance of nearby flowers. The bed was neatly made, with a faded quilt smoothed from side to side and tucked over two pillows at the top. The night table beside it held a clock and a photograph. She hadn’t thought of Nicholas, with his bare walls and single duffel to hold an entire life, as a photograph sort of person, which meant this one was special. It was her. The woman he’d loved and still loved, even though she’d been dead five years or more.

  Deliberately she shifted her gaze away from the photo. She would look at it later, if she had the chance, but not now. She couldn’t deal with the other woman right now.

  He tossed a small box on the bed, then came to stand behind her, his hands rubbing the chill from her arms, his body sharing its heat with her. Sliding his arms around her, for a moment, he simply held her, and she knew that, no matter how wrong this seemed, it wasn’t. It was quite likely the most right thing she’d ever done in her life.

  She turned in his arms, and Nicholas bit back a groan. His muscles were taut, his arousal relentless. It had been so long, well over eighteen hundred nights and, beyond being his last time, that one hadn’t been anything special. The woman had been an acquaintance whom he’d occasionally seen for just that purpose, while she had used him for occasional matters of financial or legal significance. At the time, it had been a satisfactory arrangement. He couldn’t imagine settling for so little now. He couldn’t imagine settling for less than everything. For less than Lainie.

  Holding her close with one arm, he worked free the buttons on her shirt, then pulled it from her jeans, unfastening the last two buttons, sliding the garment off her shoulders. She was naked underneath. Her breasts were full and would be heavy in his hands. Her nipples would react quickly to his caresses, would respond with great pleasure to his kisses. All in good time. After he looked at her. After he kissed her.

  “You’re a beautiful woman.”

  He simply stated the obvious, but it pleased her, bringing a shy smile that made her look innocent and untouched, even though she was half-naked in his arms, even though her lower body was in intimate contact with his, even though in a few more torturous minutes they were going to get even more intimate.

  He moved to sit on the bed, pulling her along to stand directly in front of him. The position was perfect for kisses, and he pressed the first one to her stomach, just above the waistband of her jeans. The next landed on her rib cage, the third on the satiny skin of her breast. A tiny moan escaped her, and he looked up to see her head back, her eyes closed, her lips parted—an expression of pure pleasure and growing need. “You like that?” His voice was thick as he touched her breast. He stroked it, rubbed it, first ignoring, then concentrating on, the hard crest of her nipple, his fingers tickling, teasing, pinching and soothing.

  With a helpless cry, she reached for him, and he took her into his arms, kissing her hard, pulling her onto the bed with him. With his tongue in her mouth, he struggled with her clothes, with his own clothes. Blindly he found the box he’d left on the bed, freed one of its packets and, without breaking the kiss, without breathing, without thinking, purely by instinct alone, he managed to get it in place, then rolled so that she was underneath him.

  Her body accepted his in one long stroke, taking all of him in a snug fit that couldn’t have been better. For a moment he squeezed his eyes shut, br
eathing heavily, his heart thudding in his ears, every muscle and nerve quivering, begging for release. When her own muscles tightened deep where she sheltered him, he groaned. “Ah, damn, don’t... Not yet... I want...”

  She stroked his arms, his sides, his chest, his back, starting a trembling that rocketed through him, building a hunger that he couldn’t control. He tried to hold back, tried to concentrate on anything that would slow the intensity, but when she began moving underneath him, he couldn’t stop from responding, thrusting into her, in and out, hard, deep, fast, for only a moment, then two, and then release, pounding, rushing, incredible. It wasn’t over, though, not hardly. Just a little something that he’d had to get out of the way before the real business of their lovemaking got started.

  He needed only a moment to catch his breath. As soon as he did, he kissed her, sliding his tongue inside her mouth, claiming her, possessing her in exactly the way he’d been dreaming about ever since she’d moved in across the hall. He kissed her and seduced her, aroused her, coaxed and guided and pushed her. Her body was slick and hot, her muscles quivered, her breathing came harder, and her voice turned raw and hoarse as she pleaded, whimpered, demanded everything.

  When she came, it was sweet and sharp, her body clenching hard around his. It was exactly the little push he needed to trade torment for pleasure, to let his muscles relax, to let satisfaction wash over him in hot, draining waves.

  It had been well over eighteen hundred nights since he’d experienced such relief and, he acknowledged as he bent to give her one last, sweet kiss, it had been well worth the wait.

  Chapter 7

  Nicholas turned off the living-room light, then returned to the bed. He didn’t stretch out beside Lainie, though, where he’d lain the last half hour. Instead he freed one pillow from the quilt, propped it behind his back at the foot of the bed and watched her. Enough light came through the windows to clearly show the round line of her breast, the narrowness of her waist, the curve of her hip. It was enough light to arouse him, enough to please him.

  She slept on her side, hands folded under her head, unmindful that she was naked. He had known the minute he’d come up the stairs and seen her there that she had changed her mind, that she was willing to give them the chance he’d asked for. He’d wondered why, not that it mattered. He was no idiot. He would never turn down or even delay something he wanted so desperately while he looked for answers why. Why didn’t matter. That she was here did.

  Her body was soft now, completely drained of tension. It gave him a tremendous sense of power to know that, in the space of a heartbeat, he could change that. He could touch her, and her muscles would go taut. He could kiss her, and her breasts would swell, her nipples harden. He could touch her more intimately, could part her thighs and kiss her, stroke her, fill her, and her entire body would stiffen and—

  “I would ask what you’re thinking, but I believe I can make a pretty accurate guess.”

  His arousal didn’t embarrass him. Lately it had become his most common state around her. Now that he’d made love to her, now that he’d acquainted himself with the tight, snug heat inside her and with the incredible, heartbreaking satisfaction to be found there, it would probably become a permanent condition. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “And miss this? That would be sad.” She scooted back at an angle, facing him more, and smiled. “You’re incredible.”

  “I was thinking the same about you.”

  Her smile turned shy again, then wavered and disappeared as her expression sobered. “I’m sorry about this evening.”

  He thought back to the disappointment he’d felt when she’d pulled away from him in the club, the frustration when he’d questioned her and gotten no answers, the fear when he’d thought she’d gone on home alone, to the discouragement when he’d seen the tears in her sweet hazel eyes and the quiet desperation when he’d interrupted her on the sidewalk outside. I need you, Lainie. He still did. God help him, he might always.

  “What made you change your mind?”

  She shrugged, and her breasts swayed enticingly. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

  It was a sweet answer but not entirely the truth. Obviously she had come to terms with the background that she was convinced he couldn’t accept. Would she ever confide in him? It didn’t matter. Though he wanted to know everything about her, he didn’t need to. As long as she was dealing with it, as long as it was no longer an obstacle keeping them apart, it could remain her secret.

  “And, of course, there was your threat to find another woman.”

  “It wasn’t a threat, sweetheart. Just a statement of intent.” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t have done it. If I’d wanted just sex, I could have had it a hundred times since I got out of prison. I wanted more. I wanted this. I wanted you.”

  For a long moment, she simply looked at him, her gaze never wavering. Then she rose to her knees, claimed a condom from the box spilled on the floor and put it to good use, then moved astride his hips, taking him deep and tight inside her. “You’ve got me,” she murmured in his ear. “For as long as you want.”

  She made love to him, her fingers wrapped tightly around the slender iron posts on the footboard, riding him until neither could bear it anymore, until they both exploded, and when their breathing calmed and their skin cooled, she did it again, coaxing him to a last, lazy, satisfyingly exhausted climax. This time they both slept, arms wrapped around each other. Sometime in the night he woke long enough to set the alarm so she could get to work and to tug the quilt from underneath them so he could cover her.

  Daylight came too soon, though. He tried to ignore the alarm, tried to bury his head deeper into the pillow, but the beeping went on. At last, too tired to be believed, he sat up, realized they’d slept at the foot of the bed and slid out from beneath the covers to shut off the clock. For just a. moment, he hesitated there, his hand resting on the frame holding Rena’s picture.

  Before last night, he’d never made love to a woman without suffering a little guilt and a lot of regret, without wishing in his soul that it was Rena. This morning he felt a stab of guilt because last night he’d felt none. He had brought Lainie to his bed, had made love to her, held her, slept skin-to-skin beside her, and not once had he wished she was Rena. Not once had he given even a moment’s thought to Rena.

  He had always believed she was a once-in-a-lifetime gift. Few men deserved one woman like her, and none deserved a second. But Lainie was such a woman—such a gift. He sure as hell didn’t deserve her, but he had her—for as long as he wanted, she’d said. Maybe for forever. He wouldn’t feel guilty for such good fortune. Rena would understand.

  Giving the photo a gentle touch, he returned to the foot of the bed. Lainie had turned onto her side and snuggled deeper under the quilt. He slid under, tucked the multicolored cover under her chin, then lay on his side, his head resting on one hand, and watched her. After a moment, her eyes narrowed, then relaxed. Then her nose twitched. Frowning, she finally opened one eye, then both eyes, and sleepily smiled. “I thought someone was watching me.” She patted his cheek with one warm palm. He caught it and guided it to his mouth for a slow, lazy, wet kiss that made her shiver. “Good morning.”

  It was a good morning, the best in twenty years.

  “Is it time to get ready for work?”

  “You have twenty minutes before you’re late.”

  “Think I could call in sick?”

  “And do what?”

  Letting her eyes drift shut again, she smiled. “Make love all day.”

  There was a thought to make a man hard. He hadn’t indulged in the luxury of an entire day with nothing to do but satisfy a lifetime of longing in more than twenty years. He wasn’t sure he could survive... but what a way to go. “With Jamey downstairs this afternoon? You’re not that quiet.” Even half asleep and lying naked beside him, she blushed just a little. He couldn’t resist teasing her. “Don’t be embarrassed. I like all those little sounds you ma
ke. They’re exactly what I imagined in my fantasies.”

  The smile came back, seducing him. He was wondering just how much they could accomplish in twenty minutes when she finally sat up, taking the quilt with her, yawned and began looking for her clothes.

  With a sigh, he picked up his own jeans. “I’ll make some coffee while you get dressed.” He left her sitting on the side of the bed, her hair standing on end, sleepily trying to deal with clothes and looking too desirable for his own good.

  Downstairs he started the coffee in the kitchen, then headed toward the bar to turn on some music. He was half way there when he noticed an item out of place on the bar. It was an envelope, large, dark yellow, balanced against the telephone, and it brought him to an abrupt halt. He had closed up for Jamey last night—had swept the floor, washed the glasses, locked all four sets of doors and wiped down the bar. Just before going upstairs, he had moved the phone, emptied his ashtray and turned off the lights. He had set the telephone on the counter underneath the bar.

  And now it was on the bar again.

  So Jamey had come over early this morning and left something, he told himself, but the uneasy shiver creeping down his spine wasn’t convinced. Slowly he forced himself to walk the last half-dozen feet to the bar, to reach out and pick up the envelope. It was addressed to him, and it wasn’t from Jamey. Not once in his entire life had Jamey ever called him Nicholas. Not once.

  The flap wasn’t sealed but folded over and secured with a clasp. As he straightened the thin metal pieces, he walked around the tables to the doors, checking each set in turn. The last set on the left was unlocked. He twisted the knob, and the door swung open easily. But he had locked it, damn it. He knew he had.

  He closed and locked the door, then returned to the bar before emptying the contents of the envelope. It didn’t hold much—a handful of photographs and a slip of paper with a typewritten message. He didn’t need more than the first line to recognize it as a prayer, one Father Francis had required him to learn by heart, to the patron saint of hopeless causes. It had been altered here, though, with some words crossed out and others penciled in...the name of the traitor hasn’t been forgotten...