Her face. Her beautiful face, the way she looked at him...
Easing from him, crawling atop him, straddling him, looking down at him. “‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!’” she teased.
“Bette Davis, All About Eve,” he returned.
“Impressive!” she said.
“Me or the quote?” he demanded.
No answer. She laughed softly and kissed his abdomen, and moved down.
He drew her to him, finding her lips, whispering against them.
“I’m going to take that to mean me!” he said.
“Ah, confident, Special Agent Erikson!” she whispered back.
“You make me so,” he said.
And she did.
She swept the past away. She made the present urgent. She encased him in a way he was sure he’d never known.
Climax swept through him as if he had been lit on fire—explosive, gripping the length of him, shooting through with something erotically wild and hard and exquisite. She arched wickedly against him, creating the shock waves over and over again until he lay beside her, heart thrumming a million miles an hour, a fierce echo in his mind. He was at her side, drawing her against him...
Just breathing.
And after a while she said softly, “So much better...”
“Better...? Than what?”
She looked up into his eyes. “So much better...when you help, of course,” she said.
He kissed her lips very gently. “Why, thank you, ma’am. Thank you so very much.”
He held her, suddenly very glad of the night, of the Alaska Hut—even of Marc Kimball, since it was because of Kimball that he’d been so damned determined not to leave the room.
12
When Clara awoke, Thor was gone.
She’d slept deeply, exhausted and in a state of sheer comfort and security; Thor had slept beside her. Thor had held her. She’d been able to forget everything.
Showering and dressing, she wondered how she was going to feel when it was over...whatever it was. She was a musical theater actress; he was an Alaskan FBI agent.
And yet...
She’d never felt anything before like she did when she was with him.
She argued with herself, of course. They really hadn’t known each long; in fact, it was a ridiculously short time.
Sex was...sex. It didn’t mean an undying commitment—it didn’t even mean two people would ever see each other again. It had happened; she’d wanted it to happen. But...
What did the future hold?
She dug through her purse to find a hairbrush. As she did so, there was a light tap at her door.
Amelia, she thought.
She hurried over to open the door.
Not Amelia; it was Marc Kimball. “Good morning, Miss Avery! I’ve had Magda whip up some of her amazing omelets. I didn’t mean to disturb you, but I thought you might be hungry.”
“I was just coming out,” she said. With her peripheral vision, she could see that Jackson was there, standing in the living room, just feet away from her.
She smiled. She felt safe.
“I’ll be there in one minute,” she promised Kimball.
“Of course,” he told her.
She closed the door and hurried back for her brush; she’d have a mad tangle of hair when it dried if she didn’t brush it out first.
Almost immediately, she heard another tap.
This time, Amelia just seemed to appear before her.
“I’m not being rude, am I?” she asked. “I mean, I knew he was gone. Did you do it? Did you sleep with him?”
“Amelia!”
“Ah, you did! Good for you! Was he great, was he amazing? I’ll bet you he’s great in bed!”
“Amelia, honestly—”
“Oh, come on! I’m living vicariously through you—in a very real sense!”
Clara turned to the ghost and smiled. “He is amazing in bed.”
“I knew it! Yes, say thank you, Amelia, for egging me into it. Because, Clara, you’re really just too much of a prig to do things on your own.”
“I am not!” Clara protested. “Okay, thank you. Now I’ve got to go out—Kimball has already summoned me to breakfast.”
Amelia shuddered. “He’s a creep! I don’t think that I would have slept with him—even if he does have a zillion tons of money and could have catapulted me into being a household name.”
“What did he do creepy now?” Clara asked her.
“He talks to himself,” Amelia said.
“And what does he say?”
Amelia shrugged. “Actually, he was talking about ways to get to you. Trying to figure out how to shake the cops and the FBI and everyone else. To be alone with you.”
A prickling sensation skipped along Clara’s spine. The way that Amelia looked at her, she knew that they were wondering about the same question.
To get her in bed? Or to kill her?
“Don’t worry about me, Amelia,” Clara said. “I’ll make sure that I’m never alone with him.”
Amelia nodded. “Good deal. Well, I guess it’s time to go to breakfast.”
“You’re coming?” Clara asked her, frowning.
“Wouldn’t miss it!” Amelia assured her, smiling mischievously.