Dark Knight: A Loveswept Romance Classic Read online

  “Crawling might be a bit tricky with those chains. Of course, with your Magic Mel abilities, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But you’ll still have to let me go to take them off.”

  “Who said I was going to unlock them?”

  A good point. “What’s the other option?”

  He bent his head. What little breath she had caught in her throat. He didn’t speak right away, letting the moment spin out as the tension—much of it frustratingly sexual—all but crackled between them, until she was convinced he could monitor her pulse rate and was waiting until it redlined.

  “Option two,” he murmured in her ear, “is that I make you tell me where they are.”

  “M-make me?” She damned herself for the edge her little stutter gave him. A man like him could turn an edge into a teetering cliff if she wasn’t careful.

  His lips brushed her neck. She gasped softly. “There are all kinds of … coercion.” His voice was dark and silky smooth. Her body tightened. “Pleasure can be far more constructive than pain. Temptation instead of force. In fact,” he added, teasing the shell of her ear, “I’m sort of hoping you hold out for a while.”

  “You sound quite sure of yourself.” She, on the other hand, sounded quite shaky. Dammit, this was just what he wanted. It’s what you want, her little voice whispered.

  He grazed his lips along the column of her neck. “Fairly confident.”

  She shuddered, the sensation entirely pleasurable. Stop him, she commanded herself. Her body had already mutinied. But winning usually meant using brains over brawn.

  Scottie shored up her resolve and turned her head toward him, bringing them nose-to-nose, almost mouth-to-mouth. “This plan could backfire on you.”

  “Willing to fight fire with fire, are you?”

  His eyes were incredibly deep and dark. As close as she was, she couldn’t distinguish between pupil and iris. They should have been cold, emotionless. They were anything but. They absorbed light, locked in heat. Inscrutable yet seductive, they mesmerized. She felt herself being pulled in, wondering what was behind those eyes of his. Dark secrets? Darker pleasures? Both?

  “A worthy adversary you’ll be, Scottie,” he said, allowing a soft burr to color his words. He held her gaze. There was no mocking light there now. What she saw was challenge. Who would be the first to make a move? And would they move away … or closer?

  Insanity. This was insanity. Even as she acknowledged the folly of the battle she’d somehow fallen into, she deliberately answered the challenge by letting her eyelids drift half shut and parting her lips slightly. Perhaps it was cowardly, wanting him to be the one to decide, especially when she knew what that decision was likely to be.

  But her heart was pounding, her skin was alive with a thousand skittering sensations, all pooling inside her, creating an aching hunger, demanding to be fed. He’d chosen his weapon well. Temptation. He was the only man who’d ever been able to wield that weapon over her. She wondered if perhaps this particular duel had been lost before it had even begun.

  His lips quirked as his gaze drifted lazily to her mouth. “You fight dirty.”

  Her mouth curved slightly at the corners. “I fight to win.”

  “Why is it I think we’re both about to win?” He moved first, brushing noses, then tilting his head so his mouth would fit hers.

  “This is insanity,” she whispered, hardly aware she’d spoken out loud.

  “Then lose your mind with me, Scottie.”

  The heat of his breath on her, with that electrifying space between their lips spiked her hunger until it gnawed at her very soul. He had to be deliberately pushing her buttons, but her control was already thready at best and try as she might, she couldn’t seem to form coherent thought much less battle strategy.

  As she closed that tiny chasm she couldn’t even remember what she was fighting for … or against.

  She pressed her lips to his, but he was the one to groan. Winners? Losers? She didn’t know. Didn’t care. She only knew he was returning her kiss. Her entire being was centered in their joined lips. It was exquisite, erotic, that tight focus.

  It was her turn to moan when he slanted his mouth across hers. He took her mouth almost lazily, as if he planned to defeat her defenses slowly and thoroughly.

  She tugged at the hand trapped between them. She wanted to touch him as she tasted him. The need was enormous, but she couldn’t pull free. His kiss was as weighty as his body. His tongue filled her mouth, and she let go of one need as she fixated on another. Slowly she twined her tongue along his, simultaneously fulfilling her twin desires of taste and touch in one delicious stroke.

  He tasted … dark. It was the only word that struggled free of the mist her thoughts had become. Dark and deep. Oh the depths he pulled her to. His voice was a whisper of murmured need, urging her to continue. She did.

  She tried to take him higher, faster, but he pressed her back, keeping to his slow, methodical plan of seduction. She should have been bothered by his tactics, but her senses were too saturated with pleasure and the worry slipped away on a sigh. The ache was still there. The hunger increasing, not diminishing, with his every touch.

  He slid his tongue from her mouth, pressed her lips closed with his, then ignored her moan of protest and worked his way over her lips again and again, giving and taking kisses that would be considered chaste if delivered by any other mouth but his.

  She wanted to touch him. Badly. And worse was the need to feel more than his mouth on her. She wanted his hands touching her, she wanted his full weight upon her. She needed him to bury himself deeply inside her.

  The ache centered and tightened into a vicious, demanding knot. Helpless to it, almost desperate to fulfill it, she arched her hips into his—and encountered the cruel reality of metal cuffs and steel chains.

  She tore her mouth away, turning her head to the side to escape his continued assault. Panting heavily, finding air an almost impossible commodity, she struggled to remain calm, struggled to regain the equilibrium he had so thoroughly destroyed.

  “Win or lose?” he queried hoarsely. The amusement threading his hoarse voice sharpened her senses a bit more quickly, yet she kept her head turned away until she knew she could face him with some semblance of control restored.

  “The keys are still safe,” she said finally, as she turned to look at him. Above flushed cheeks and well-kissed lips, his eyes danced like the devil’s. She didn’t want to think about what she looked like. “So I guess you lose.”

  “If you say so.” He dropped a kiss on her nose before she could dodge it. She scowled even as her body jerked another knot inside her. His mouth curved into a slow smile that was almost more devastating than his kiss. “The keys are in your pack on top of the refrigerator.”

  He’d made the announcement calmly and confidently, but had there been a thread of doubt in him, she knew she’d blown it with her split second reaction.

  Anger seeped in, along with a heavy dose of humiliation. “If you’d figured that out, then this … demonstration was for what purpose?”

  He gave a little shrug. She wanted to wrap the chains around his thick neck and choke the smug light from those damnably knowing eyes.

  “Fun?”

  “We’re not here to have fun, Blackstone.”

  “Well see, since you won’t tell me exactly what it is we are doing here, I figure I’ll fill the time whatever way I want.” His voice slid into easy street dialect. “Whatsa matter, Scottie, don’t you know how to appreciate a little fun?”

  “In the right place, at the right time, sure.” She wondered if he saw through that lie. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something—anything—just for fun. Even if she had, she wasn’t sure he qualified. Alternately irritating and mind-blowing, definitely, but fun? “I’m here to work, not play around.”

  “I don’t know. I’d say you grasped the, uh, concept of play quite quickly. Maybe you need more practice.” He started to lean toward her.

>   “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Too late for that, princess. In fact, we’ve both done a whole lot more than think about it.”

  “And playtime is over.” She stared at him, steely-eyed. “Move off of me. Now.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “Now.”

  He started to move, then stopped himself. A grin spread across his face. “Good try there, Detective, but no dice. Deducing the location of the keys wasn’t too difficult. But the original dilemma still stands.”

  He was right. Again. He wanted the chains off, but he had to get the keys and keep her captive at the same time.

  “Mission impossible,” she said with a hint of smugness.

  “Nothing is impossible.”

  There were two guns on the floor. He had to let her go to get up. The instant he was off of her she could easily retrieve the one by the door before he could untangle himself and get upright. The other gun had tumbled from the table when it collapsed. The trick was she couldn’t see it without turning her head. She had a better than fifty-fifty chance of getting her hands on it first. Would he go for those odds?

  Even if he did get the gun first, he’d have a hard time retrieving the other gun or the keys without taking his eyes off her for a few seconds. Those chains severely limited his motion.

  Climbing on a chair or even the counter would be all but impossible and even if he made that, reaching the bag would still be impossible. No way could he do that and keep her at gunpoint all at the same time. Unless—She caught his gaze.

  “Bingo,” he said, nodding in approval. “Your mind works quick.” At her mild look of surprise, he added, “You underestimate me, but I don’t make the same mistake about you.”

  “I could refuse to climb up and get them.”

  “Then you’d have to make a choice.”

  “You can’t lie on top of me forever.”

  His responding grin was unrepentant. She couldn’t shut down the myriad of erotic images that flashed in her brain this time.

  “Well, that is an argument we can have a little later,” he said. “But that wasn’t the choice I was referring to. You have to decide if you think I’ll really shoot.”

  “I could reach the gun first,” she reminded him. “I won’t miss this time.”

  “I’ll take my chances. So,” he said, dropping his voice to a gravelly whisper, “you have to ask yourself, are you feeling lucky?”

  Despite her very real dilemma, Scottie made a face. “Stick with Star Trek. Your Clint Eastwood is pathetic.”

  “Darn. There goes my career as a stand-up comic.”

  “Yes, well, bartending pays the bills I’m sure.”

  Like a light winking out, his eyes went flat. She’d thought they weren’t cold? Goose bumps prickled her skin.

  “You keep tossing my life in my face, Detective.” He pushed closer, but this time there was only menace in the inky depths of his eyes. “Tell me, princess, what the hell do you really know about me?”

  She knew he had an incredible talent for maintaining an insouciant air in the face of intimidating circumstances. She knew he was more skilled than any report on him was likely to reveal. She knew that if she was going to do her job effectively, she was going to have to push herself to the limits of her expertise and training just to stay a half step ahead of him. She knew that for the first time in her career, possibly in her life, she’d met her equal, if not her match.

  And if she doubted that, all she had to do was remind herself that she also knew he could kiss like an angel and stir up fire like the devil and of how she’d come by that information.

  “I know I don’t think you’d kiss me like that then turn around and shoot me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” she lied. She hoped, but she wasn’t sure. “You’re not the only one with deductive powers.”

  “And kissing makes me an unlikely killer?”

  He’d done a lot more than kiss her, she wanted to say. Hadn’t he? Or had the kiss that had unleashed such an intense rampage of emotion in her been nothing more than a pleasant diversion for him? She didn’t know. Even allowing herself to think back over it, she didn’t know. That was the one crucial piece of knowledge about him she didn’t have.

  She did, however, have another one. She held his gaze steadily. “No, it isn’t the kiss that makes you an unlikely killer. Ted Bundy proved that. But the man who I saw in that bedroom at four o’clock yesterday morning was no killer.”

  His expression tightened, and his eyes, if possible, went even flatter. “You have no idea where you’re going with that, and I’d advise you to stop now.”

  “I know a lot about you. What makes you think I don’t know about Sarah?”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. “You asked me who she was. If you knew, you wouldn’t have asked.”

  “Maybe I just asked to make you let me go. If you recall, it worked.”

  “Yeah, well I’m a fast study. I rarely make the same mistake twice.”

  Staring into his menacing expression, she thought of a third option. Now that he had figured out where the key was, there was nothing stopping him from just knocking her out, then doing as he pleased. She doubted he’d forgotten her chin jab.

  As if he’d read her thoughts—and she was beginning to believe he had that skill as well—he said, “Better to cut my losses early for a change.” His voice was like gravel once more, but it wasn’t an imitation.

  He started to shift on her, dragging his chained wrists upward. The intent in his eyes was clear, and it wasn’t remotely seductive. There was no time to wonder just how far he’d go, and she couldn’t risk being knocked out. She tugged her hand free and grabbed the front of his shirt. “Wait,” she said.

  His expression was cold. Deathly cold. Suddenly his irritating ability to make a joke out of everything didn’t strike her as such a bad trait.

  “What?”

  “You can’t hurt me. You’ll never find out why I’m here. What I’m protecting you from.”

  “Oh, but I can hurt you. In fact, I could kill you and leave this place and almost damn well guarantee that no one would ever be able to prove it.”

  “There are at least half a dozen men who can put you in this cabin, on this date, with me, complete with documented proof. No, you won’t get away with killing me.”

  She watched him assess the information he’d gotten from her. What she’d told him wouldn’t compromise the mission. Killing or incapacitating her definitely would. She could not have him finding a way off this mountain and into the Brethren compound before New Year’s Day.

  “We both know I don’t have to kill you to contain you,” he said. “As to the other, you’ve made it clear you have no plans to tell me what you’re really doing here, so that threat doesn’t hold much weight.” As he leaned in closer, the chains bit into her stomach. She worked hard not to flinch. “Or was that an offer?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  He laughed, and the hollow sound made her even colder. Who was this man? Not the one writhing in anguish and arousal on the bed. Not the one who’d kissed her into intoxication moments earlier. Certainly not the man who faced life-and-death situations with an impervious sense of humor.

  What was he really capable of? She wished she knew who the hell Sarah was, and, more importantly, what had happened to her.

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” she reiterated. If she could tell him just enough to make him let her go, she’d have a second chance at containing him. Of course, if she told him too much, she’d lose her value to him.

  “Just like that, huh? I threaten you, and you cave. No force, no pain. I’m not buying it, Detective.”

  “Ask me a question. You judge if my answer is acceptable. What do you most want to know, Logan?”

  A fleeting expression crossed his face, an emotion she couldn’t—or didn’t dare—put a name to. For just a second he’d looked … lost. A glimpse of need had flashed in his empty eyes.
He swiftly, ruthlessly hid it, making her wonder if she’d imagined it. She hadn’t. She couldn’t have. Her life very well depended on it.

  “Ask me,” she repeated.

  “What are you protecting me from?” He purposely rattled his chains. “Truth or consequences, Scottie. And I’m all out of patience.”

  How much to tell. Instinct battled with intelligence. Instinct won. “By keeping you here I’m protecting two people.”

  “Who’s the other unfortunate bastard?”

  “Your brother, Lucas.”

  SIX

  Logan stilled. “What do you know about Lucas?” He’d assumed that she had to somehow be connected to his brother. It was the only reason she could have for tracking him down. But hearing someone else confirm that he had a brother unnerved him. No one knew of Blackie’s deathbed confession but Logan and Blackie himself.

  “I know quite a bit about him. We work for the same people.”

  He hadn’t had much contact with the Brethren thus far, but from what he’d learned, he found it almost impossible to believe Scottie was one of them. For starters, she was female, and while there were women among the Brethren, as far as he could tell their main functions were to provide physical recreation, domestic help, and little else. “You don’t exactly fit the profile,” he said.

  “For what? Who do you think he works for?”

  Logan fell silent. She hadn’t lied, he could see that. And she appeared willing to keep her word and tell him what she knew, at least to a point. Provided he asked the right questions. He was still suspicious. Just what did she know about Lucas? Whatever it was, she was willing to give up at least some of it in order to stay conscious.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” he stated. “How do you know he’s my brother?”

  “That’s an easy one. He looks just like you. A bit rougher perhaps, his hair is longer. Or it was the last time I saw him. But anyone with two eyes could see that you’re twins.”

  So it was true. Really true. Blackie had told him where to start digging, and he had. His father had spent years looking for Lucas and had received serious information only a few months before he died. Logan had followed up on that lead, put his own contacts to discreet use, and had finally found him. Or at least discovered where he could be found. The day he’d gotten the confirmation that Lucas was indeed part of the Brethren cult had been both thrilling and devastating. He’d found his only living relative—his twin!—only to have already lost him to a bunch of manifesto-spouting lunatics. It seemed worse than cruel.