Knight Errant Read online

  “Not for a second.”

  “I guess I have better memories of Serenity than you have of Savannah. I never considered going anywhere else. I was born there, I lived there, and if Jimmy has his way, I’ll die there.” His reference to Falcone’s threat stole a little of the color from her face. Many people were uncomfortable with thoughts of death, particularly their own. He’d spent a lot of time over the last twenty years contemplating his. It usually brought him a measure of peace, something that had been in short supply since Rena’s death.

  “Why doesn’t the government protect you? You helped them get a conviction, even if he did bribe and. intimidate his way out of it. Why aren’t they doing something now?”

  His gaze narrowed. “I don’t want their help,” he said, hearing the flat coldness in his own voice. “All I want them to do is stay the hell away from me.”

  “But they owe you—”

  “Nobody owes me anything. I didn’t do it for them. I did it for myself. I used them to bring down Jimmy in a way that I couldn’t do on my own.”

  “But—”

  “You said you had a long day of driving and waiting today. What did you mean?”

  For a long moment she looked as if she wanted to protest, to insist on continuing the conversation. Then she drew a deep breath and shrugged, and damn his eyes, his gaze automatically dropped to her cotton shirt as it shifted, gliding over the thin stuff underneath, teasing but never revealing. When she began speaking, he forced his attention back to her face, but it was difficult to concentrate when he was hot enough to burn and hard enough to break. It was hard—oh, yeah, real hard—to pay attention to her talk about playing chair-warmer in the city’s waiting rooms when all he wanted to think about her warming was his bed.

  Somehow he made it through the rest of the meal, paid the tab and followed her outside. “Want to take a cab or walk?”

  “It’s a pretty night. I’d rather walk.”

  It was nine blocks to Serenity, another two and a half to O‘Shea’s. They traveled the distance in silence, making their way through O’Shea’s and upstairs in silence. Lainie was thinking about whatever, and he was thinking about sex. About following her into the apartment and right into her bedroom. About turning on every damn light in the place and removing the cotton shirt and simply looking at her until he couldn’t bear to look anymore. About stripping her naked and laying her down and...

  “Thanks for dinner.”

  Her words drew him away from images he didn’t want to give up, not yet, not when images were all he had and all he was likely to get. He needed a moment to regroup, to pull himself away from the bed and her naked body, to clear his head and control his desire.

  He didn’t have much luck at any of it.

  She had stopped at the top of the stairs and was facing him. She made no effort to find her keys or unlock her door. She didn’t smile uneasily, say a hurried goodbye or look as if she were even remotely considering escape. She simply stood there and looked at him, her expression solemn, her gaze steady, her breathing slow and measured.

  He climbed the last few steps and stopped. The bags slipped from his left hand. He let the others fall, too.

  For moment after still moment, they simply looked at each other. His throat was dry, his lungs tight, his muscles quivery. In the space of a minute, the temperature in the hall had gone from comfortable to unbearable. Heat suffused his body and seared the air he breathed.

  He moved toward her, and she took a step back, leaning against the door behind her as if she needed its support. He reached for the small bag around her waist, snapping the clasp open, dangling it by the long strap until it touched the floor. Next he opened the single button on the shirt and pulled first one side, then the other, from her jeans. There was one more button to loosen, and he worked it free easily, then slid his hand inside the shirt.

  The undershirt was soft and silky. She was softer, silkier. He spread his hand flat across her rib cage and felt her breath catch and her muscles tighten. If he slid his hand up and to the right, he would be able to feel her heartbeat, surely faster now, like his own. If he moved it to the back, he could pull her snug against him. If he moved it straight up, he could touch her breast, cover it with his hand, feel her nipple hard against his palm. It was torture not to do exactly that, not to tear off the cotton shirt and the little thin one, not to expose her breasts to his hands and his mouth.

  But it would be worse torture to do it. He hardly knew her, but he knew she wasn’t a woman to take without care. She wasn’t the easy and meaningless type. She wasn’t the type a man used for fast, rough, hard, first-time-in-five-years-and-damn-near-ready-to-die sex. She wasn’t his type.

  “All evening long I’ve been wondering how this shirt would feel under my hands. I’ve been wondering how you would feel.” His voice was low, hoarse and none too steady. “That’s why you chose it. To make me want... To make me need...”

  She laid her hand over his. Her palm was cool, her fingers trembling, as she gently guided his hand up over her ribs and the soft underslope of her breast until his entire palm was curved and cupped and cradled around it.

  He squeezed his eyes shut with a muttered curse. He’d never been a breast man or a leg man—just a sucker for pretty hazel eyes. But there was something too damn erotic about touching her this way, about feeling the softness, the swelling, the heat, about holding her so intimately, wanting her so desperately and knowing that, at least to some extent, she wanted him, too.

  His eyes still closed, he ducked his head, felt her hair beneath his cheek and automatically brushed a kiss to it. The next kiss landed on her temple, the third on the bridge of her nose, and then her mouth, but only for an instant, only long enough for a taste, and then she was protesting. Every muscle in her body went taut, and she pushed against his chest and twisted her head to free her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered when her voice gained enough strength to be audible. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean... I can’t... I’m so sony, Nicholas.” She slid out from between his body and the door, stumbled on her bag, swept it up and fumbled inside for the keys. “I really am sorry. I wanted... But it really would be—”

  He interrupted her babble. “It’s okay.” He hadn’t really expected her to go through with it.

  Oh, but some part of him had. The part that was relentlessly hard and throbbing. The part that was hungry for intimacy. The part of him that hadn’t been touched in too many years. The part that wanted her too damn much. All those parts had thought, for just an instant when his mouth had touched hers, that this was his lucky day.

  But he hadn’t had a lucky day since he’d walked onto the LSU campus one hot summer day twenty-three years ago and met Rena.

  Bending, he picked up the shopping bags, then turned toward his door. He shifted them all to one hand while he pulled his keys from the pocket of jeans that were significantly tighter now than they’d been ten minutes ago.

  “I’m sorry, Nicholas.”

  Her voice was low and edged with guilt. His was low and cooler than he meant it to be when he glanced over his shoulder. “It’s all right. Forget about it. It’s no big deal.” When he went into his darkened apartment and closed the door, she was still standing there, looking pale and contrite, clenching her keys tightly in one hand. For a long time he stood beside the door listening, and finally came the sound of metal on metal, creaking hinges, the door closing, the quiet click of the lock turning.

  For a time—five minutes, maybe ten—he remained where he was. Then, with a frustrated sigh, he went into the bedroom and flipped on the overhead light. He hung his new shirts, jeans and trousers in the closet, put the shoes on the floor, the socks and underwear on the shelf above. After turning the lights off again, he undressed, swept the empty bags to the floor and stretched out on the bed.

  He was accustomed to sexual frustration. He had certainly known his share of it in recent years. But it was different this time. In prison sex had been impos
sible. Here all he had to do was find a willing woman, and in the city there were hundreds of willing women.

  So why was he alone in his bed, aroused like hell and doing nothing about it?

  Because he had kissed Lainie Farrell.

  And he had liked it. Too much.

  Oh, God, he was in trouble.

  The door and all the windows were open in Lainie’s apartment Tuesday evening, and the fan was positioned to circulate air away from the dresser. She had appropriated a thick stack of newspapers from Jamey’s recycling box downstairs to spread over the floor, and now, dressed in her oldest cutoffs and T-shirt, she was preparing to apply the stripper to the piece. She had never refinished anything before, but Karen and Cassie had become experts on the subject since their move to Serenity—since they’d lowered their standard of living, they teased—and they’d given her a few pointers.

  She pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, squeezed the thick white solution into a glass bowl, then began brushing it onto the wood. It was a mindless activity that allowed her thoughts to wander, no matter how hard she tried to keep them on the task at hand. Where they wandered, of course, was across the hall.

  So much for professional curiosity and nothing personal. Five more minutes of “nothing personal” last night, and she would have been dragging Nicholas to her bed, damn the consequences. It was only the kiss that had brought her to her senses—or maybe robbed her of them. The first kisses he’d given had been tentative, so soft, without substance or promise. The last one had been bold. It had taken, not given. His mouth had covered hers, his tongue had slid into her mouth, and she had panicked. The caresses had been one thing. The kiss had been entirely another. It had been too much, and so she had pushed him away.

  She’d felt like a shameless tease, offering, then pulling back when the offer was accepted. She couldn’t blame Nicholas for being put out with her. Forget it. It’s no big deal, in that icy voice had doubled her guilt. For a man in his situation, sex was a very big deal.

  For her, sex with Nicholas was a very big deal.

  Scowling, she poked the brush into the corners, then scooted around to the next side. She had stood there in the hallway a long time last night, wondering what she could have said to explain her actions, wondering for one wistful moment if she couldn’t change her mind. Of course she couldn’t. She wasn’t about to risk the career she’d dedicated nearly fifteen years of her life to for a short-term affair with a man who didn’t care whether he lived beyond this week or this month or this year. She wasn’t going to jeopardize the case she’d been assigned by getting emotionally involved with the subject—who had, over dinner, made it quite clear what he thought of government interference in his life. Those people he wanted to stay the hell away from him included her.

  But it would have been nice. Nice? It would have been exciting, toe-curling, intense, powerful and incredible.

  Now she would never know.

  She finished the third side, then got clumsily to her feet, brush in one hand, bowl in the other, and leaned on the cool marble to paint a heavy coat of stripper onto the carved ornaments that supported the mirror frame and the mirror itself. She was just straightening when she saw Nicholas standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets. He was wearing some of the clothes he’d bought last night—khaki trousers that were neatly pleated, a white undershirt and a white dress shirt half unbuttoned over it. He looked handsome, studiedly casual, hot-blooded.

  All evening, he’d told her last night, he had wondered how her shirt would feel, how she would feel. She shared the same curiosity now. She wished she could strip off the gloves, walk across the room, unbutton his shirt as he had unbuttoned hers and touch him as he had touched her. He would let her, but she’d damn well better be prepared to wind up naked and underneath him. Hadn’t she acknowledged not fifteen minutes ago that she was never going to be prepared for that?

  She peeled the gloves off and wiped her damp hands on her shorts. There were still the two tables to strip, but not while he was here. All in good time. Then she smiled faintly. What a difference between their lives. All in good time meant he was going to have the most important sexual experience of his life, while she was going to strip a flaking finish from two cheap tables.

  “I—I’m sorry.” Her face flushed red. She hadn’t meant to offer yet another apology. She hadn’t meant to do anything at all to remind him of her juvenile behavior last night.

  “Yeah. But you’re not sorry enough to change your mind, are you?”

  The flush heated a few more degrees. “I didn’t mean to—It’s not that I don’t—I really—”

  “Hey, if you want to change your answer, just say so. I’ve got the condoms, and we’ve both got beds. If you haven’t changed it, a simple no is more than enough.”

  She was unable to answer at all, which was an answer in itself.

  “That’s an improvement.” He gestured toward the couch.

  “Thanks.” After lying in bed unable to sleep for hours, she had gotten up in the middle of the night, opened the teal sheets she’d bought last night and fastened a makeshift slipcover. They looked like exactly what they were—two king-size sheets tucked over and around a sofa—but anything was an improvement over the putrid yellow and orange of the original upholstery. “Want to sit down?”

  He hesitated for a moment, as if he didn’t quite trust her or himself, then came inside. He didn’t sit, though, but instead circled the room. She stood by the dresser and watched him, seeing what he saw, knowing that anything important—like her gun—was hidden. All he saw was what she’d seen in his own apartment—a space that was occupied but not home. There was nothing on the walls, nothing personal anywhere. All he could say when he finished his inspection was that the place was clean and neat, the bed was made and someone appeared to be staying there. He wouldn’t learn anything about her.

  There wasn’t much he would like about her.

  Lately there wasn’t much she liked about herself.

  Finally he settled on the couch. “Why are you bothering with this stuff?”

  As if the fact that he was seated now made it safe for her to sit down, she sank into the chair. “You saw it. It was ugly.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like you’re going to be here long enough to care.”

  In spite of the heat in the room, a chill washed over her. “Why do you say that?” No one had ever asked her how long she planned to stay on Serenity. Most of them assumed that this was a permanent move, like Karen’s and Cassie’s, that she was there to stay like Jamey, Reid and the rest.

  “You’re here because you’ve had a run of bad luck. Bad luck eventually turns around. Things get better. Eventually you’ll get a real job with a real salary, and you’ll get out of here. What kind of work did you do in Atlanta?”

  She didn’t for a moment consider telling him the truth. Hearing that she had been and still was an FBI agent wouldn’t go over too well. She didn’t offer part of the truth, either—that in her pre-FBI days, she’d been a certified public accountant. The worst CPA in the world could do better than Serenity, unless he’d gone to prison for robbing his clients blind. Instead she reached back even further to her college days at the University of Georgia at Athens. “I was a waitress. Now there’s a fun way to earn a living.”

  “Did you go to college?”

  “I went.”

  “But you didn’t finish.”

  She tried to ignore the twinge of guilt. It wasn’t exactly the same as lying. He had made an assumption, and the fact that it was wrong didn’t reflect on her. But the fact that she let him believe it did. “I told you that I left home when I was eighteen. My father would have been perfectly willing to pay my expenses for college as long as I came home regularly on weekends, moved back in for summer and breaks and continued to be his perfect little girl. I couldn’t do it.”

  “You’d been doing it for eighteen years. You couldn’t pretend for four more so you could finish your education?”

&nb
sp; “No.”

  “You’d rather be living on Serenity working for slave wages than suck up to the old man for four lousy years?”

  “I’d rather be sleeping under a bridge and selling my body for a dollar a pop than be in the same city with him for four minutes.”

  His grin was equal parts amusement and cynicism and all charm. “You could get more than a dollar. Trust me.”

  “So you’re familiar with the going rates for prostitutes around here.” From personal experience? Or old business? Definitely business, she decided. Nicholas was too handsome, too sexy, too full of wicked promise, to ever have to pay for sex.

  “Jimmy owns half the prostitutes in the city. He’s also got a bunch in Dallas, some in Houston, some in Baton Rouge.”

  She knew that. She even knew something about Jimmy’s business that Nicholas and no one else on Serenity with the exception of Reid and Cassie Donovan knew: that Meghan Donovan, Jamey’s ex-wife and Reid’s mother, had for years been one of Jimmy’s girls. She’d started working for him in Houston, moved to Dallas to run his operation there and become lovers with him along the way. She was in the witness relocation program now, after betraying Jimmy and putting her son’s life in danger, and Jimmy was still doing business as usual. The man led a charmed life.

  “Are you suggesting that I should become one of them?”

  “You’ve got potential. You’re pretty, and you look innocent. Innocence goes over big with the clientele. Jimmy would put you in one of the escort services so you wouldn’t have to work the streets. You’d have a place to live, nice clothes, most days off except when a special customer was in town, and you’d make a hell of a lot better money than you get across the street.”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “You make it sound like a regular job.”

  “It is. But I don’t think it’s for you. If you can’t bring yourself to go to bed with me, you would have some serious problems doing it with just anyone in the world who has the cash. You would have men old enough to be your father, men who want to pretend that they are your father, men who are young, old, fat, thin, kinky, boring, selfish, cruel and warped. And you would have no say in the matter.”