His gaze grew hot. Predatory. "You"re killing me, Lib. I can"t look at you without getting hard."
Libby laughed softly, feeling s.e.xy for the first time in her life. It was a feeling she could get used to. "Really?" Deliberately she allowed her gaze to drift over his body, teasing him, provoking him. Flirting. She"d never flirted. She didn"t even know how.
He came across the floor like a tiger, pouncing on her, spinning her around until she was pressed up against the gla.s.s. Both of his hands covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his erection already thick and hard, pressed against her b.u.t.tocks. "Really," he answered, bending his head to her shoulders, giving her teasing little bites that sent shivers down her back. He applied pressure, slowly bending her forward to drop kisses and bites down her spinal column. He paused to swirl his tongue over the rug burns on her back.
She pressed the palm of her hand up against the gla.s.s to steady herself, turning to look over her shoulder at Ty. His face was etched with pa.s.sion, with l.u.s.t, his eyes so dark with desire her breath left her lungs in a rush and her body dampened and contracted in antic.i.p.ation. "You can"t possibly want me again."
"You"re so beautiful, Libby," he answered. He loved her naked, surrounded by the plush white rug and the open gla.s.s gleaming behind her. He hadn"t yet turned on the electricity to the house but lights weren"t needed. The moon spilled enough light over her body to see her curves, and the clouds threw intriguing shadows over her soft, inviting skin. Her hair was a cascade of midnight black silk falling over her shoulder and swinging free. He stroked the curve of her bottom, the inside of her thighs, moved his hand to find her slick with response. "That"s what I"m looking for, baby," he approved, his voice going hoa.r.s.e.
He loved the marks of possession he could see on her skin. His marks. His woman. The way she responded to him, the way she looked at him, her breathless little cries when he stroked her with his fingers, all of it was amazing to him, a new wondrous world he wanted to dwell in for the rest of his life.
She groaned aloud, her hips pushing back against him. He pushed two fingers into her, stroked and caressed until she was riding his hand with a small mindless sob. Her sheath was hot and silky, her muscles clamping tightly around him so that his own body hardened all the more. Blood rushed and pounded and he lifted his hand to slowly lick her taste from his fingers.
Libby couldn"t look away from him, loving the way he made her feel so s.e.xy, so completely his. Every touch, every look was so intense. Tyson was a single-minded man. When he researched, he gave his all. She should have known he would be a thorough, dominant lover, in the same way he approached everything else in his life. He wanted her to feel pleasure, not just that, sheer ecstasy, and he set about it with that same purpose he did all things.
She watched his face as he caught her hips and pushed the broad head of his shaft against her bare entrance. He felt like a brand burning through her skin, pushing through tight muscles with exquisite care, invading her body inch by slow inch. She wanted to scream with pleasure, her body shaking under his caressing hands. His fingers tugged at her nipples, every stroke of his strong fingers sending electric shocks straight to her hot tight sheath.
Libby gasped for breath, pushing back with every powerful stroke. He rode her hard and fast, and then suddenly, when she was certain she would burst into flames, slowed to long, lingering strokes that nearly sent her over the edge, only to build up the speed and fierceness of his possession a second time. Every muscle, every cell seemed to coil in readiness, needing, begging for release, but he kept her on the edge, until she was certain she couldn"t take the intense pleasure another moment.
Something dark moved in her mind, past the bright colors and the erotic bliss rushing through her. A tendril of insubstantial smoke, no more, but goose b.u.mps formed on her skin. She opened her eyes and looked out the window into the cloak of darkness shrouding the house. Tyson"s fingers dug into her hips, dragging her into him, sending the heat spiraling through her body until the breath slammed out of her lungs and she couldn"t form a coherent thought.
But there it was again. Something moving in her mind, past all the pleasure, a twisted shadow that grew larger and larger. She thought to pause, to catch her breath, take a moment to clear her mind, but it was too late, her body betraying her, her o.r.g.a.s.m ripping through her with such force she nearly fell, forced to clutch the gla.s.s to save herself from falling. Behind her, Tyson"s fingers dug deep into her flesh, holding her to him while he emptied himself into her, his guttural cry ringing through the room. Everything around her spun out of control as her body fragmented. For one moment, Libby felt as if she could touch the sky.
She gasped for breath, as he helped her to stand, as he took her into his arms, bending her back over his arm so his mouth could find her sensitive breast. Her eyes closed and she gave herself up to the soaring pleasure. The shadow moved again, blocking the sky, slamming her back to earth so hard her eyes snapped open and she looked around her wildly.
Libby stepped away from Tyson quickly, feeling waves of animosity, ugly hatred, a dark malevolent presence watching. Watching them through the gla.s.s. Whatever, whoever, was outside had seen Tyson taking her with such ferocity and hunger, had intruded on what should have been one of the most wonderful moments of her life. The thought sickened her. A beautiful, private time was shattered by something so ugly, so deviant she backed away from the gla.s.s, her hand going protectively to her throat.
"Someone"s out there, Ty. He can see us." She reached out to him with shaking hands, still backing up to the wall, trying to draw him with her. "We should call the sheriff."
He turned toward the window, looking so fierce, Libby caught his arm to hold him back. "Are you certain?" His tone was low, but there was a controlled fury radiating from him.
She nodded. "I"m really afraid, Ty. Don"t get too close to the window. What if he has a gun?"
He pulled her into the protection of his arms, his body shielding hers from view. "I"m not going to let anything happen to us, Libby."
"I feel his hatred."
"Who is it?"
She shook her head. "I don"t know. I can"t tell other than he"s male and he wants me-us-dead. Please call the sheriff."
"I haven"t turned on the phone here yet." He gathered up her clothes and handed them to her. They were far enough back into the room that he doubted anyone could see them. "Get dressed."
"He saw us."
"Maybe not. He couldn"t have been there the entire time or you would have felt uneasy." Tyson yanked on his jeans. "Wouldn"t you?"
"I don"t know." She choked back a small sob. Her body still burned from Ty"s possession of her. She felt his brand in places she hadn"t known existed, delicious sore places that still throbbed and pulsed with too much pleasure, yet someone might have been a witness to those beautiful, perfect, private moments. The idea sickened her so that her stomach churned and she pressed a hand to her mouth. "I was feeling, not thinking, Ty. I doubt if I could have told you my name."
He caught her chin with hard fingers, forcing her to meet the turbulent fury in his eyes. "What we have together no one can take away from us, Libby. Do you understand me? I don"t care if a hundred people saw us together. I made love to you tonight. They can call it anything they want, but that was me, giving you everything I could of myself." He leaned down to claim her mouth, both palms framing her face, holding her still for his kiss before pulling her shirt over her head. "Do you understand what I"m saying? He"s not taking you away from me, not by harming either of us, or not by trying to humiliate or embarra.s.s us. And personally, Libby, I don"t give a d.a.m.n if anyone sees us together."
Libby stared up at him, shocked at the hard truth on his face. She dragged her jeans on. For some reason, his seething rage calmed her. She even managed a faint smile. "I"m a little more modest."
He wiped away her tears with the pad of his thumb. "That"s a good thing-with any other man. I don"t share well."
"Do you think someone"s trying to kill us, Ty?"
"Not so far, baby. Just stay calm. I"m going to go out first..."
"No!" Libby shook her head. "No way."
"I"m going to get the bike and bring it to the door and then we"re out of here. I"m not going to stay trapped like a rat in a cage. I"ll go out the back way and work my way around to the bike."
"I don"t know where he is."
"You said he was watching us. If he was, he had to be in the front, maybe up by the circular viewing area overlooking the ocean. And if he had a gun, he should have used it right then."
She curled her fingers around his sleeve, hoping to keep him inside. Pressed back against the wall where she was certain the watcher wouldn"t be able to see them, she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind, to reach for more of the energy the unseen man was giving off.
The energy was already dispersing. Whoever he was, the man was gone and the malevolence he left behind faded quickly. Libby let her breath out slowly. "He"s gone."
Tyson frowned. "Are you sure? Are you sure anyone was here?"
"Let"s go. I want to go home. My sisters are going to be frantic."
"I thought you had telepathy." Tyson yanked open the door and peered outside. He didn"t know what to think, whether or not Libby had simply frightened herself, but she"d seemed so certain, so scared.
"Elle does, not me. And she can"t just find me anywhere." She looked around her. "Do you see my jacket?"
"It"s right here, where I tossed it-" Ty"s voice broke off as his gaze dropped to the walkway where he"d slid the jacket from her shoulders. Adrenaline exploded through his body, needing an outlet.
The jacket lay in strips, shredded and stabbed repeatedly, viciously, the leather in pieces.
Chapter Twelve.
"WHAT is it?" Libby asked, trying to get around Tyson to see. Instead of stepping out of the doorway to make room for her, he stepped back into her, forcing her back into the room.
"Are you absolutely certain he"s gone?" he demanded. Tyson shook with rage. It swept through his body and into every muscle. He wanted to smash something. In all his life, he"d never felt helpless. His intellect and his physical abilities had always given him supreme confidence in virtually any situation, yet the unseen enemy clearly threatening Libby was out of his reach. She looked so pale and frightened that his guts twisted inside.
She studied his grim face. "Tell me, Ty."
He shrugged out of his jacket and held it. "Put this on." When she began to shake her head, his expression hardened. "I"m not arguing. Put it on." He forced gentleness into his tone. "We"re getting out of here. I want you to stay put while I get the bike. Don"t leave this house until I"m at the door ready to go."
She blinked up at him, opened her mouth and then closed it. She wasn"t going to argue with a possible killer on the loose. She was still feeling the aftereffects of the waves of hatred and malice. Libby slipped her arms into the jacket and stood quietly trembling while he zipped it up.
Tyson leaned down and brushed a kiss over her mouth. "We"ll be fine, baby. I"m just going to be gone a couple of minutes. Keep the door closed behind me." His fingers slid into her hair and tugged once before he slipped out the front.
Libby rested her head against the closed door, listening hard for any sound. It was the longest few minutes of her life before she heard the roar of the motorcycle. The sound increased in volume and she knew he was right outside the door. She yanked it open and, slamming it behind her, raced toward him.
Tyson handed her a helmet and waited until she was on the back of the bike, secure with her arms around him before taking off down the drive. Libby laid her head against Ty"s back and closed her eyes.
The motorcycle sped down the coastal highway a little faster than before, but not so fast it was reckless. Tendrils of fog reached out in the darkness from over the sea to creep toward land. The cycle shot past several wisps and suddenly, with no warning, the back wheel began to slip out from under them.
Libby controlled a scream of fear as the motorcycle went into a slide across the highway, heading straight for the narrow shoulder and flimsy fence, the only barriers between them and a long rocky drop toward the sea.
"Tyson!" she cried. Her arms instinctively tightened around his waist. She could sense his sudden fear for her as he frantically tried to control the skid.
As if in slow motion, the bike tipped to one side and began to slide across the road. She felt the crush of weight on her leg and hip, the rough road tearing at her clothing and flesh as they skidded along the surface, dragged by the bike. She couldn"t hang on to Tyson, ripping fingernails as he was torn from her arms and disappeared out of her sight. She felt herself falling, tumbling sideways off the bike to land on the road surface hard, coming to an abrupt stop, gravel embedded in her skin.
"Tyson!" Libby screamed, fighting the dazed shock accompanying an accident, pushing herself up to look around her frantically. He had given her his heavy leather jacket, protecting her skin, but he was sitting up a distance from her, taking off his helmet, one arm dripping blood from shoulder to hand, his head swiveling around as he called out to her.
"Just stay there," Libby commanded. "For once, do what I say."
It was like trying to ward off a hurricane. Tyson was up and running to her, catching her in his arms to ease her back down onto the dirt at the shoulder of the road. Immediately his hands were skimming over her body, checking for signs of damage.
Libby pushed at his chest to back him off, but he didn"t appear to notice, frantic to make certain she was alright. "I"m the doctor," she snapped. "And I"m fine. I want to check you."
"d.a.m.n it. This is impossible," Tyson said. "Totally impossible."
"We must have hit oil. There"s grease all over my leg." She pointed to her jeans. Part of the material had shredded and along with the oil stains, there was the darkening stain of blood. "I think the oil plug loosened and came out."
Tyson bent over his leg to inspect the gravel pitted in her flesh. He had a fair amount in his hand and arm, but his much heavier jeans had saved his leg. "I work on my motorcycle myself. There is no d.a.m.ned way that plug would come loose."
"Not even with the vibrations as we rode down the highway?"
"No way, Libby. I know that for a fact. If that"s what happened, then someone tampered with the bike."
Libby rubbed at her pounding temples. It wasn"t such a stretch to think that someone had sabotaged Tyson"s bike. "This evening in the garage when I saw Harry Jenkins and Joe Fielding they looked very guilty. When they saw me they both sort of straightened up, looked at one another and for some reason it really scared me."
"Like tonight?"
She shook her head, winced when he touched her leg and jerked it away from him. "That hurt. I"ll take care of it when we get home. And no, it wasn"t the same as tonight. Tonight felt..." Libby searched for a word, shrugged her shoulders and sighed. "Malicious is all I can think of. There was hatred. Whoever it was wanted us dead."
"You don"t have any old boyfriends, do you?" He drew her leg into his lap and stroked a finger down her calf just above the raw streak.
His voice was so gentle, so teasing, Libby smiled in spite of herself. "I was thinking maybe an old girlfriend of yours."
His lips twisted into a lopsided grin that made her heart beat faster. "I didn"t have girlfriends, only you."
"Yes, you did. You didn"t get to be such a great lover by reading a book. And I"d be pretty jealous if a man made love to me like that and then left me for another woman."
"Why Libby Drake, I do believe you"re threatening me."
She jerked her leg away a second time, or attempted to, when he lightly brushed away a piece of gravel. "Ow! If you don"t stop I"m definitely going to threaten you. I have to call my sisters."
"We"re in for a walk. The cell phones don"t work along this section of road."
"Who needs a cell phone when I have the wind?"
She turned to face the direction of her home, lifting her arms into the air. She closed her eyes, visualizing her sisters, knowing they would be on the captain"s walk, waiting for any clue that would give them a direction to find her. She"d always had that safety net, the love of her family solidly behind her. She focused and reached for them, arms up to the stars, calling the wind, directing it home with her message of need.
Tyson watched the concentration on her face with interest. Almost at once he felt the wind begin to pick up, driving at them from the sea and heading away toward Libby"s home. The wind shifted suddenly, racing back towards them at a furious rate of speed and he swore he heard feminine voices. The wind enveloped him, surrounded Libby like a living blanket, whirling and spinning as if inspecting them. It left just as fast in a sudden rush, back towards the house again.
"Your family must wreak havoc with meteorologists."
Libby laughed, relief spreading through her, easing the tension that had drawn her so tight. "I never thought of that. You"re becoming a believer."
"I still want to hook you up to a scan and collect all the data. Only now I"m going to be fantasizing all sorts of interesting things while I"m studying you."
"You"re not hooking me up to a machine, Ty," she said, trying to look stern.
He flashed a small grin and went back to inspect his motorcycle. There was oil all over the back wheel and just as he suspected, a puddle leaking from the bike onto the ground. He swore softly as Libby came up beside him. When she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, he glanced down at her. "Someone is trying to kill me, Libby."
"Or both of us," she said.
"Or both," he conceded, "but I think I"m the primary target." He gave her a grim look. "The fall I took during the heli-rescue is starting to seem a little suspicious right about now. All along, I"ve been wondering how my safety harness could have failed the way it did. We triple check that gear, Libby, because we know our lives depend on it."
"You think someone tampered with your safety harness?"
"I do. How they got to it and what they did to it, I don"t know, but I don"t think it was an accident. And I"m beginning to think it was no accident that Jonas was shot while taking the broken harness back for testing. The harness disappeared right out of his squad car while everyone was trying to save his life."
"Why would someone want you dead?"
"A lot of people might want me dead. I step on toes, Libby. I"m not very careful what I say and I don"t have tolerance for idiots."
"You mean like Harry Jenkins."
"I also called Edward Martinelli and told him to back off."
"You didn"t!" She shook her head. "But you had the accident before there was any reason to connect us. He wouldn"t have had a reason to want you dead."
"That"s not exactly true." He took her hand and led her to the side of the road so they could sit down. Libby didn"t realize it, but she was shaking, and probably not from the cold. Already he could see lights in the distance, blinking on and off around the hairpin turns. "I"ve spoken to Ed about you many times in casual conversations. He had to know I was interested. And my cousin, Sam, owes him a great deal of money. Sam gambles and apparently he lost heavily to Ed. Ed"s been threatening him and Sam didn"t tell me about it until recently."
"Is it more money than you can pay for him?" Libby asked.
"No. He won"t take the money. He wants me, or Sam, to persuade you to talk to him. He says he needs your expertise and no one else will do."
"But you didn"t tell me. And neither did Sam."
"h.e.l.l, no, we weren"t going to tell you. We don"t want you anywhere near that b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Sam got himself into trouble and if it"s a money thing, money can fix it. I only told you so you"d see Ed could have wanted me out of the way."
"Why would he want you out of the way though?"