Then another possibility occurred to him. He reached down and took her hand. A long and cautious minute later, her fingers curled around his. The city slipped by, but they were fixed in space. A hub, the unmoving center of the universe, and the rest of the world was a shifting illusion swirling around them. But she was so warm, soft. Real.
“Thank you,” she said finally. “For saving my life.”
“Anytime.” He punctuated that statement by sliding his thumb into the warm recesses of her hand. He thought about the conference room table, and blood pounded in his ears. He fought it down. “I was, ah, wondering something.”
Her fingers tightened around his. “Yes? What?”
“If that earns me enough points to cancel out whatever the hell it was that I did to piss you off before.”
He braced himself, but she didn’t freak out. She just made an impatient gesture with her free hand. “That’s it, Duncan. That’s exactly the problem. This idea that you have, that everything can be reduced to an economic exchange. Human emotions don’t run on a point system.”
He sighed. “It’s a figure of speech, Nell,” he ground out.
“No, it is not. Not with you.” Her voice was soft but stubborn.
Aw, fuck. He drew comfort from the fact that she was still squeezing his hand. “It’s been a really hard night,” he said wearily. “This shit is complicated. Just show me some fucking mercy, already.”
She grabbed him, gave him a quick, awkward hug. “Okay,” she whispered. “I hereby grant you points. Lots of them. Happy now?”
“Very,” he said. And he was. He was hard, too. Like a diamond. He wanted to roll her onto the cushy leather seat and just have at her.
“One question,” she said. “How did you happen to conveniently be there when they attacked? Were you following me?”
Tension gripped him. Here was where he tiptoed over blown glass.
“Yeah, I was,” he said. “I, uh, wanted to apologize. But I’m not great at it. And you were crying, and that intimidated me. And I didn’t even know what the hell I was apologizing for. So I stalled.”
“Until I got attacked,” she said.
“You have to admit, it was a great opening,” he offered. “Works like electroshock therapy. The woman forgets what she’s mad about.”
She snorted with laughter. “Uh, yeah. Right.”
“No, really,” he said. “If not for those guys, you’d still be pissed as hell, and I’d still be as confused as ever.” He paused. “I’m still confused,” he admitted. “And you’re probably still pissed. But at least you’re talking to me. That’s progress.”
She harrumphed. “Talk about looking on the bright side.”
“I might as well,” he observed.
The car stopped outside her door. He told the driver to wait and got out, peering around the street before he let her out. He blocked her body with his as she unlocked the metal warehouse door, and peered around every twist of the echoing stairwell before letting her proceed.
Her apartment was so full of books, there was barely space to move. The bathtub in the kitchen was covered with a wooden top. A mini water closet occupied the corner of the room. A half refrigerator was tucked under the sink. There was a two-burner gas range, a toaster oven. He’d never seen a place so miniature.
He peered at the photos on the wall while she hustled around, pulling a suitcase out of her closet. Most were pictures of two young women and a distinguished-looking elderly woman in varying combinations and settings. “This is your mother, and sisters?”
She glanced around from where she knelt in front of a small chest of drawers. “Yes.”
He studied them. Pretty, like Nell, but in very different ways. “They don’t look anything like you,” he observed.
“We’re all adopted,” Nell said. “Lucia took us in as foster children when we were teenagers.”
That teasing bit of info made him curious. About who had made her, what had forged her. How she’d gotten to be so smart and pretty and difficult. But not tonight. There would be other chances. He hoped.
She looked exhausted, staring down at two different T-shirts in her hands as if she couldn’t decide which one to bring.
“Pack both,” he advised. “You’re not coming back for a while.”
She shot him a narrow glance. He walked over to her, and knelt. She swayed back, her eyes going big and wary as he pulled her first drawer open. He grabbed a big fistful of silky stuff. All colors. Panties, stockings. Things made of lace, ribbons, silk. He dropped the tangled wad of stuff into the open suitcase. “Pack a lot,” he repeated softly.
Her eyes dropped. Color rose in her face. Her nipples were tight, nubs poking against the stretchy fabric of her stained, rumpled dress.
That white-hot episode in the conference room hung between them in the silence, complete in every heart-thudding erotic detail. She was licking her lower lip until it gleamed, enticing him. The look in her eyes was cautious, but there was a smile hidden in it.
He scoped the room with his peripheral vision. The bed looked uncomfortable with those heaps of books, but the beanbag chair behind her had possibilities. He could wedge her into that and pin her down with his weight, juicily rocking and sliding. Her pussy doing that fluttering clutch around his cock every time she came. Yes.
He reached out, let his fingertips slide down her cheek, her soft throat. Over her breastbone. He spread out his whole hand, felt the quick, hard throb of her heart against his palm. He slid his other hand up her thigh, to the top of her stockings, gripping her where the fabric ended, and soft, hot skin began. The energy grew, swelling into something huge and inevitable. She bit her lower lip, breathing hard.
It happened again, as it had on the street. That feeling brushing by. A cobweb breaking across his mind, as his guard went down.
He froze, and his grip tightened on her thigh. He looked around the small apartment. Nothing moving. Nothing had changed. It was silent. Just the sounds of the street outside.
“What is it?” Nell asked.
“Shhh,” he hushed her, feeling around with his subtlest senses.
Two steps brought him to a barred window that looked out on a blind courtyard full of garbage cans. Empty. Just a couple of rats on the scrounge. He looked for a reason for the feeling. There always was one. By now, he trusted it blind. He was being watched. His neck crawled.
His eyes fell on the smoke detector attached to the low ceiling. He reached up and carefully detached it.
“Duncan, what are you—”
“Shhh.” He didn’t want to talk, even to explain himself. Not with unfriendly eyes watching, unfriendly ears listening.
It was almost too easy. The tiny vidcam was taped to the side of the black smoke detector, virtually invisible. The device had been gutted of its usual contents, the space inside the shell used to house the wiring and battery and radiofrequency transmitter of the camera. He stared at it, wishing that he had not touched it. Fingerfucking the evidence. Gant would lecture him. His friend never wasted an opportunity to give him hell.
“What on earth is that thing?” Nell’s voice was thin and high.
“A vidcam,” he said. “Someone’s been watching you.”
She made a strangled sound. Put her hand over her mouth.
Shit-eating bastards. Violating her hard-earned private space. Watching while she undressed, bathed, ate, slept. Probably watching her now, being hurt and scared. That infuriated him.
He laid the thing down on her table. “Don’t touch it,” he said. “It might have prints.” He looked around the room again, trying to imagine where he would plant spyware, if he were one of them.
She had an old-fashioned phone. He grabbed the horn, unscrewed the mouthpiece. Bingo. He shook the listening device onto the table without touching it, and answered the question in her eyes. “A drop-in bug,” he said. “They’ve been monitoring your phone conversations.”