Dahlia nodded and inched her way down the slope of the roof. Her heart pounded overloud in her ears. The wood scraped her bare thighs and dragged the shirt up over her skin as she slid to the window. She tried not to think about her bare bottom exposed to Nicolas. Surely he had better things to look at or think about. She felt the color rising in her face as she managed to crawl into the cabin through the window.
The rifle lay on the table beside the pack. Everything was exactly as it had been before they entered with the exception of her scattered clothes. She handed the rifle to Nicolas through the window, careful to make no sound. Her jeans were damp and uncomfortable, but she pulled them on just the same. She was not traipsing na**d through the bayou with only Nicolas’s shirt to cover her skin. She didn’t bother with the wet underwear, instead stuffed them in the pack. She picked up the belt of ammunition. It was heavy, and the pack was even heavier. Dahlia eased both through the window and onto the ground, hanging out so far she nearly fell headfirst to keep from making a sound. She made a grab at the windowsill, frantically trying to throw herself backward.
Nicolas caught her by the shirt and hauled her up beside him before the weight of the pack had a chance to pull her out. Dahlia closed her eyes in humiliation. She had rare abilities when it came to physical stunts, yet so far, she’d looked an incompetent ninny. Did women become helpless around men? If so, she preferred a solitary existence.
Nicolas made no sound as he moved to the ridge of the roof, rifle to his shoulder, his eye to the scope. Dahlia thought she was quiet in her work, but it wasn’t just that he made no noise, it was the way he moved. Almost as if he flowed like water, so easily he couldn’t possibly draw the eye to him. She watched his hands—rock steady. There was no change of expression, no quickening of breath, no animosity. And then she realized what she must be observing. Nicolas Trevane underwent a metamorphosis with the rifle in his hands and his eye to the scope. He was not completely human, yet not a machine, but something somewhere in between. He closed off emotion and his brain and body functioned at a rapid rate of speed.
He gave off such low levels of energy because he didn’t feel anger when doing his job. He turned everything off. It wasn’t an act of violence, it was something far deeper. Dahlia struggled to understand. Controlling energy was everything to her. Violence always created energy. Even the buildup of anger in a person created the violent waves that often made her ill. Nicolas didn’t have those harsher emotions roiling inside of him. There was no fear. She didn’t even catch a stray swirl slipping toward her. He waited calmly, his heart and lungs working steadily.
Dahlia knew the moment Nicolas spotted the assassin stalking them. She was so aware of him, she could almost catch his thoughts. There was no sudden spike in his breathing, but his finger moved along the trigger. One stroke, almost as if testing to insure it was exactly where it was supposed to be. The movement was slow and deliberate and it fascinated her. Although she was watching him, she was still shocked when he pulled the trigger and immediately slid down the side of the roof. He reached out and caught the back of her shirt, taking her with him.
He dropped her to the ground, signaling for her to run in the direction of the boat. She did as he indicated, sprinting through the swamp, staying low as she followed the path. The boat was tied up to a cypress tree. Dahlia waded out into the water to ready the boat. She couldn’t help the way her heart pounded when she saw Nicolas coming toward her out of the heavier foliage. He looked a warrior of old, tall and strong and fierce. He didn’t hesitate, but waded straight into the water, pushing the boat into the channel where the reeds grew the highest and could shield them as they made their getaway.
Dahlia expected a rush of violent energy to overtake her. She even braced herself for it, but there was nothing but cool morning air as Nicolas took the oars and drove through the water with long, smooth strokes. “You missed him,” she said. Somehow it didn’t seem possible. He was so sure of himself, almost invincible in his manner.
“I hit what I was aiming at,” he answered quietly. “We have to keep moving. I’m hoping I slowed them down, but we can’t count on it.” He forced the oars through the water with his powerful arms and the boat shot through the channel toward open water.
“I didn’t feel anything.”
His gaze brushed her face, an odd little caress she felt all the way through her body, just as if he’d touched her with his fingers. “I wasn’t aiming at you.”
She caught the fleeting glint of his white teeth in what could have been a brief smile. One dark eyebrow rose in response. “Has anyone ever told you your sense of humor needs a little work?”
“No one’s ever accused me of having a sense of humor before. You keep insulting me. First you accuse me of missing, and then you try to tell me I have a sense of humor.”
His face was made of stone, his tone devoid of all expression. His eyes were flat and ice cold, but Dahlia felt him laughing. Nothing big, but it was there in the boat between them, and the terrible pressure in her chest lifted a bit. “And it needs work,” she pointed out. “Get it right.” She even managed a brief smile of her own to match his.
The boat moved silently through the water, taking them through a labyrinth of channels until they were in open water. At once Nicolas started the motor. “You know the area much better than I do. Keep us away from the island where your home was and away from the cabin. You need a route that takes us under cover if possible. They’ll have spotters. We don’t know how well equipped they are, but if we hear a helicopter or small plane, I think it best to avoid them.”
“I may steal things for them,” Dahlia admitted, “but I’ve spent my entire life in a sanitarium. Even if this all came out, how much damage could I do to them? I’d be labeled crazy. And the sad truth is, I couldn’t go into a courthouse and be in close proximity with so many people and not have a meltdown. None of this makes sense to me.” She pinned him with her dark gaze. “Does it to you?”
“I’m giving it some thought,” he replied mildly.
She shook her head in exasperation at his steady, unshaken manner and turned her attention to guiding them, at top speed, through the bayou.
Nicolas looked at her. She was very small-boned, but perfectly proportioned. The more he was around her, the more of a woman she seemed to him instead of the child he first thought her. And that was becoming a problem. He wanted his mind fully on keeping them alive, not on the fascinating fact that the shirt she was wearing was soaked and nearly transparent. Although small, she had beautiful br**sts, and he couldn’t keep himself from looking at them. He could see the darker outline of her ni**les through the wet material. She had knotted the shirttails around the waistband of her jeans, and it called his attention to the curve of her hip and the memory of the brief, enticing glimpse of her bare butt as she slid down the roof. He had to admit, the glimpse had distracted him and he’d thought far too much about that particular part of her anatomy, not the smartest thing when on the run.
Nicolas couldn’t stop looking at her with her head thrown back, her thick, black hair streaming in the wind, her body perfectly balanced as she guided the boat. With her head back, he could see her neck and the outline of her body beneath the shirt, almost as if she wore nothing at all. His body stirred, hardened. Nicolas didn’t bother to fight the reaction. Whatever was between them, the chemistry was apparent and it wasn’t going to go away. He could sit in the boat and admire the flawless perfection of her skin. Imagine the way it would feel beneath his fingertips, his palm.
Dahlia’s head suddenly turned and her eyes were on him. Hot. Wild. Wary. “Stop touching my br**sts.” She lifted her chin, faint color stealing under her skin.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Dahlia’s br**sts ached, felt swollen and hot, and deep inside her, a ravenous appetite began to stir. Nicolas was sitting across from her, looking the epitome of the perfect male statue, his features expressionless and his eyes cool, but she felt his hands on her body. Long caresses, his palms cupping her br**sts, thumbs stroking her ni**les until she shivered in awareness and hunger.
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.” She couldn’t help seeing the rigid length bulging beneath his jeans, and he made no effort to hide it. His unashamed display sent her body into overtime reaction so that she felt a curious throbbing where no throbbing needed to be. She grit her teeth together. “I can still feel you touching me.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I consider myself an innocent victim in this situation,” Nicolas said. “I’ve always had control, in fact I pride myself on self-discipline. You seem to have destroyed it. Permanently.” He wasn’t exactly lying to her. He couldn’t take his eyes or his mind from her body. It was an unexpected pleasure, a gift.
He was devouring her with his eyes. With his mind. A part of her, the truly insane part—and Dahlia was beginning to believe there really was one—loved the way he was looking at her. She’d never experienced a man’s complete attention centered on her in a sexual way before. And he wasn’t just any man. He was . . . extraordinary.
“Well, stop all the same,” she said, caught between embarrassment and pleasure.
“I don’t see why my having a few fantasies should bother you.”
“I’m feeling your fantasies. I think you’re projecting just a little too strongly.”