The intruder ran, clattering now, down the stairway.
He tried to follow, ducking again behind the banister when another shot was fired. The bolts were blown out of the door, and the intruder was swallowed into the night.
He followed, but to no avail. The roar of a car engine could already be heard; tires spat out gravel and grass, and the light-less vehicle was gone.
He turned and pelted hurriedly back up the stairway.
She was sitting up in the bed, the covers pulled chastely to her breast. Her hair spilled about her now parchment-white features and shoulders like an aura of sunset. Her eyes, those pools of green that had enchanted and beguiled him, were wide.Tipped slightly at the corners. Adding allure to the beauty of her fragile features and striking coloring.
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They still held fear within their depths.
He smiled grimly as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.
She jumped at the sound of the door clicking, and his dangerous smile broadened.
She damned well better be a little bit afraid of him. She had broken into his home, rifled through his belongings and brought another intruder in her wake to riddle his walls with bullets.
"All right, Bryn.Out with it. What's going on?"
She moistened her lips nervously with the tip of her tongue, and her eyes darted to the floor, where her sweater had fallen. She clutched the sheet more tightly to her and leaned over awkwardly to reach for her garment, but a flash of silent movement stopped her.
He was sitting on the bed beside her, still smiling. But his left sneaker was planted firmly over her sweater.
"No more defenses of any kind, Bryn. The only way to reach you is to make you as vulnerable as possible, and if that means half naked, well..."
He lifted his hands casually in a resigned manner,then allowed them to fall back to his knees. She sank back against the pillow, biting her lip, and suddenly wishing she had never made him an enemy.
He wanted vulnerable. Oh,God, was she vulnerable!
"Bryn!"His voice was a threat.
"I...I...can't tell you," she began.
"You'd better. Or else I can give a call to the police."
"No! Oh, please, Lee! Please, don't--"
"Then tell me why my house was broken into last night-- and the night before. And why I was shot at by some thug. And what you're doing here now."
"All right, all right!But please, you must swear not to go to the police!" Her lime-green eyes, capable of being brilliant and innocent, sultry and seductive, proud and sometimes haughty, but never, never opaque with naked humility and pleading, were brimming with the glitter of tears.Tears that she held back with the greatest strength of will. Her lips quivered. "Look, Lee, I know I haven't been especially decent to you, but I had some legitimate, personal reasons. I realize I haven't the right now, but I have to ask you to help me. Please, Lee! Promise me that you won't involve the police! The...the people involved with this...they...they have Adam!"
His brows shot up with surprise and grim commitment. "Okay, Bryn," he said quietly. "I'm not going to call the police--not yet, anyway. I promise."
"It's the pictures!" she blurted out.
"The pictures?" he replied with a frown of puzzlement. "The ones you took last Thursday?"
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"Yes."
He leaned over and flicked on the bedside light, then stood and walked over to his closet, pulling it open and searching through it absently. Then he tossed a long sleeved pin-striped shirt to her and ordered briefly, "Put that on. Your sweater has about had it. I'm going downstairs to make some coffee. Be in the kitchen in five minutes flat, and be prepared to tell me this whole story--with no holes."
He walked out the door, and Bryn closed her eyes in bleak misery. Whywas this all happening, she wondered bleakly.If she had only aimed her lens in a different direction... Adam would still be at home.
And she wouldn't be forced now to rely upon a man to whom she had shown nothing but hostility and antagonism since they had first met.
A man she had misjudged--and sadly underestimated. And who scared her silly, even as he drew her to him. Who could play upon her senses with a whisperedword, make her shiver with a mere touch...
And yet could easily use her,then toss her over like windswept driftwood upon a white-sand shore of emptiness.
She was lying in his bed now. Had lain beside him in it, had felt his touch almost as a lover might...
She wrenched the sheets from her and leaped to her feet, fingers trembling as she slipped her arms into the shirt-sleeves,then labored quickly with the buttons.