Chapter Fifteen

Brody watched Tori’s green eyes widen in astonishment. He let the question hang in the air. Her hand was still on his cheek, but now it was taut with suppressed emotion.

Say something, he silently urged her. Tell me what you think.

Brody needed her to help him come to grips with his dilemma. That’s why he’d sought her out. Simple life and death was something he’d faced before, but now the situation was much more complex. Not only was his brother involved, so was this woman.

Victoria Anderson.

Her name alone had a melodic ring that could make him forget the harrowing crash and the long trek in the dark over little used fire roads back to the Silver Moon. Along the way he’d mulled over his problem, but his mind kept returning to Tori.

He wanted her to stroke his cheek again with her gentle fingers, the way she just had. He craved more than just a fleeting touch. He ached not just from the abuse his body had taken, but with the need to hold her. The feeling was urgent, complex, a troubling emotion he had never experienced until now.

When she’d opened the door, the light had filtered through the flimsy excuse for a nightgown. He’d been exhausted, fighting pain, yet his body instantly responded to the tantalizing sight of her high, well-rounded breasts tipped by tight nipples that lifted the sheer fabric. Trained to take everything in at once, he’d also noted a waist he could span with his hands and curvy yet slender hips.

Aw, hell. Just remembering sent a charge of desire through his bruised and battered limbs. He’d give anything to feel her under him, feel the tight grip of her body around him. The rush of longing socked him like a punch to the gut.

He should get the hell out of Dodge. Walk out the door now! Common sense told him to keep to himself.

Trust no one.

“Kill you?” she finally said. “Elliott would never do such a thing.” Her hand dropped away from his face. “What on earth would make you think he would?”

The way she jumped to Elliott’s defense so quickly sent a swift-rising tide of regret through him. He withdrew, moving away from her, knowing he’d revealed far too much of himself.

Tori heard her own quick intake of breath. Oh, God, she thought. He’s pulling away. The look he gave her conveyed something she couldn’t quite decipher. The moment lengthened, his body becoming more rigid with each second. He reminded her of a wounded lion preparing to defend himself.

“Brody, please. You’re frightening me,” she whispered.

His expression softened, becoming less threatening. He reached over and brushed aside a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. He seemed pensive now, not disturbed or angry as he edged nearer.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.” His lips were a scant inch from hers, his eyes so close that she noticed for the first time the tiny spokes of black in his deep blue irises.

Far from being menacing, his heavy-lidded eyes reflected the heat that must be simmering inside him. Suddenly, her heart began pounding so hard she could barely breathe. Any second he was going to kiss her.

Tori didn’t want him to kiss her. She wanted to understand him. Something shattered inside her, fragmenting into a thousand jagged pieces. This man was the opposite of everything she wanted, and yet she was … connected to him in a way she couldn’t begin to verbalize.

“Brody, tell me what happened.”

Once again, his eyes became shuttered, remote. She touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers just grazing the masculine line of his jaw, trying to reach him.

“Please, explain what you meant. I want to know.”

It was a moment before he said, “After you left, we went into the library and had a talk about the business.”

“Was it a good discussion?” she prompted.

“Yeah, I thought so.” His voice seemed strained as if he was struggling to control some inner emotion. “When I left, I thought it was strange for him to offer me the Porsche. I expected to use the Range Rover or maybe his father’s Jag.”

Your father, too, she said silently, again noticing he never used the term.

“Elliott insisted I take the Porsche.”

His voice was low, yet it held a lethal undertone revealing how disturbed he really was. It was a very subtle change in inflection most people would have missed it. She was becoming acutely attuned to him and was beginning to understand what was going on behind the invisible barrier he erected between himself and others.

“It was running perfectly earlier when Elliott took me up to see where the hawks roost.”

“But you weren’t driving. You didn’t actually test the steering, did you?”

“No, but Elliott drives like he has a death wish. I figure someone loosened the nuts that hold the tie rods in place. On that rutted road, driving at a high speed, the steering shaft was certain to detach, yet it didn’t.”

“Until later when you drove it,” she said, and he nodded. “How long would it take to tamper with the nuts on the tie rods?”

“A few minutes—if you knew what you were doing.”

A suffocating sensation tightened her throat. She could see Brody seriously believed Elliott had tried to kill him. No matter how genial Elliott seemed, there was an aspect to his personality that he didn’t reveal. Much like his brother, she thought, unexpectedly seeing how very much alike their personalities were.

“You might have died,” she said, repeating what she’d said when she’d first heard about the crash at Dead Man’s Drop, except now her heart was pounding so fiercely she could barely get out a single word. What was happening to her? In a matter of minutes, concern had become intense fear.

Don’t go there, screamed her rational brain. Don’t allow yourself to care.

“I didn’t die,” he responded in a soothing voice, which turned bitter in the next breath. “It’ll take more than that to kill me.”

The bitterness and anger hung in the air for a moment, leaving her speechless. Finally, she said, “Maybe it was one of the others. There’s something Machiavellian about the whole clan. Didn’t several of them have the opportunity to tamper with the Porsche?”

Brody lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug, straining the seams of the grimy dress shirt he was wearing. “Possibly, but Elliott has the most to gain if I’m dead.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then snapped it shut. Elliott would be much better off if Brody were out of the picture, and she couldn’t deny it. She wanted to think about the situation and talk it over with her father. But most of all she needed to put some distance between herself and Brody. The way she was becoming emotionally drawn to him frightened her.

She stood up, breaking the tenuous connection between them. “I’ll get the key to the house. It won’t be long until morning.” She dashed over to the rack and grabbed the key. “Then we can decide what to do about this.”

“Okay, but first I need your help.”

She turned and saw Brody stand up and yank off his tie, then sling it aside. What was he doing? Wincing, he shrugged out of the tattered shirt, ripping out the thorns she’d noticed earlier on his arm. He let the shirt drop at his feet.

Oh … Gawwwd … have mercy!

Brody was all male and more impressive without clothes than she could possibly have imagined. He was muscular without looking like a weight lifter. Tall, yet—suddenly he turned, and she noticed his back was lacerated and covered with red welts and dried blood. Removing the shirt had pulled out many of the thorns she’d noticed earlier, but others remained and some had broken off leaving barbs protruding from his skin.

She dropped the keys on the counter. “I’ll get the tweezers. You lie down on the sofa.”

She hustled into the bathroom and rifled through her cosmetics drawer. Finally she found the tweezers she used to pluck her eyebrows. After washing them in soap and hot water she returned to the other room with another handful of antiseptic pads. And stopped dead in her tracks.

“It’s about time. A man could die waiting.”

Brody was sprawled across her bed, face down and naked except for the corner of the floral sheet covering his buttocks.

“What are you doing?” She could hardly choke out the words.

He cocked his head and gazed at her over his bare shoulder with a killer smile. “My butt and the back of my leg have thorns in them, too.”

She was too flustered to say anything. He was right, of course. The back of one well-toned leg was peppered with thorns. She could only imagine what was concealed beneath the sheet.

“Are you going to stand there all night drooling over my bod, or what?”

“I’m not drooling,” she responded, justifiably proud of her stern voice. “I was thinking some of those welts look infected. I’ll need more antiseptic.”

“Nah, this is nothing. I was shot in the leg once and got gangrene. They had to cut a chunk of my thigh out. Wanna see?” He reached back and started to pull away what little part of the sheet that covered his buttocks and upper thigh.

“No! Don’t bother. I’ll take your word for it.”

He put his head down on her pillow and stretched his long arms out, then gripped the wrought iron headboard, his powerful biceps flexing. The movement was feline, graceful, yet there was nothing feminine about him. Stretching out like that emphasized the masculine contours of his body.

She took two tentative steps toward the king-size bed. It seemed large and lonely when she was in it, but now it appeared to be too small for both of them. He was spread out at an angle, taking up most of the space. She put the antiseptic pads on the night stand and lowered herself onto the empty spot near his torso.

His face was sideways on her lavender pillow, and he was still holding the headboard with his hands. He looked up at her and his lips canted to one side, giving him a slightly amused expression. Just what was so funny? Being naked in her bed?

What was the alternative? She cast a glance sideways. He was much too tall to stretch out on the love seat, and the thorns did have to be removed before they became infected.

No doubt he sensed how uncomfortable she was with a strange man in the buff no matter what the circumstances. He was getting a kick out of this. She ignored him and concentrated on the damage.

The only serious cut was on his forehead, but the skin beneath the thorns on his back was turning a dark purple. A deep tissue bruise, she realized. He’d landed on his back with a great deal of force, which meant some of the thorns might be too deep for her to remove with tweezers.

“This may hurt,” she warned as she plucked out the first barb she could find, then deposited it on a pad.

Piny trotted over and put his head on her knee. He whined, a low-pitched, sympathetic sound while she removed several other large thorns that hadn’t come out when he’d torn off the shirt. Brody didn’t flinch even when she had to squeeze the skin to expose enough of the barb to pull it out.

She wiped down his raw flesh with an antiseptic pad when she finished with the upper quadrant of his back. “I can’t get to some of the smaller tips that broke off. A few are already beginning to fester. You’ll need to see a doctor in the morning.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His voice was gruff and muffled by the pillow.

The mattress flexed and Brody looked over his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

She scurried away, her blond hair fluttering over her shoulders. “I have some aloe lotion. It’ll help bring down those welts.”

“Great!” he muttered into the pillow. Just what he needed—more rubbing. More of her soft hands on his skin. Whose idea was this, anyway? He silently cursed himself. Why hadn’t he waited until morning and gone to a walk-in clinic?

The answer came in the next breath: Because you wanted to be with Tori. This was just an excuse.

Brody felt the mattress give as she plopped down beside him again. He glanced over his shoulder, then cursed his stupidity. The flimsy robe had slipped off one shoulder to expose a suggestive glimpse of the top of her breasts. A very promising cleavage.

He buried his nose in the pillow and counted to ten. The whooshing sound of a plastic bottle being squeezed was followed by a cold trickle of lotion along his spine, and with it came the heady scent of aloe. She gently smoothed in the cream, using short, circular movements that were decidedly erotic.

She worked on the taut muscles at the base of his neck. No thorns were there, but Brody was tense from the crash that had nearly cost his life. Slowly, under her gentle motions, the tension ebbed.

“That feels good,” he told her.

Her hands inched upward, probing the sensitive skin behind his ears and at his hairline. Clammy sweat formed on his brow despite the cooling lotion she’d wiped on his back. An overwhelming hunger triggered every nerve in his body.

From the moment he’d stripped and flung himself across her bed, he’d been aroused. The ultra-feminine lavender sheets had seemed silly, but they were unbelievably soft, and he could smell her on them. She wore some sort of floral fragrance and it scented her pillow, filling his lungs. Making him hard.

“Well, I guess you’ve had all the fun you can have.” Her hands left his neck, and he clamped down his jaw to keep from begging her to continue. “I’ve got to get out the rest of those thorns.”

He seized the opportunity to adjust his body to a more comfortable position. At this rate, he’d have blue balls to go along with all his bruises. He gritted his teeth and kept his nose in the pillow while she worked on the lower part of his back.

Having her yank on several deeply imbedded thorns did wonders for his burgeoning erection. He was just beginning to suspect she was deliberately torturing him when a draft of cool air hit the base of his spine.

“Oh, my,” she gasped. “Look at this.”

He raised his head from the pillow. “Tight buns, huh?”

“Very funny. How did you get dirt under your trousers and beneath your underwear?”

“You wouldn’t want to know.” He again imagined his wild escape during the plunge over Dead Man’s Drop. “Trust me on this.”

Tori couldn’t help but note how slim Brody was at the waist and hips compared to his broad back. His tan ended at his waist, too. Keeping the sheet over the crack in his buttocks, she looked closely for thorns. Fortunately, the two layers of fabric of his shorts and trousers, meant there had been less damage.

She had no choice but to touch his bare rump and pluck out the thorns she did find. One side was quickly finished. Just to be certain there weren’t any barbs in the other cheek, she peeked under the sheet. Mercifully, that area was as smooth as a baby’s. Like his back and arm, all the damage was on one side as if he’d landed there.

He gazed up at her with a teasing half smile. “Gotta admit, I’ve got buns of steel.”

She swatted him on one side of his bare haunch. “I don’t think so.”

“Keep working. I’m getting sleepy.” With an exaggerated sigh, he plopped his head back down on the pillow.

She gingerly tucked the sheet around his rear, and tried not to peep between his legs. Despite her best efforts, see saw a tiny bit. Gulping hard, she set to work.

“Don’t miss anything,” he cautioned, sounding as if he was smothering a chuckle. “I don’t want to get blood poisoning.”

“I couldn’t get that lucky.”

Whatever bush he’d come up against with his leg had left smaller, trickier to remove thorns than those she’d taken out of his back. He had the longest legs, she thought as she examined him. They were tanned like his back and corded with muscles. A sprinkling of hair dusted his legs in a way that enhanced his virility even more.

He was perfect. Almost. The side of his left thigh had a deep gouge-like scar. She reached over and caressed it.

“Is this where you were shot?”

There were two long beats of silence, then a muffled “Yeah,” came from the pillow. Evidently, he was falling asleep. She worked steadily, removing the dozens of small thorns dotting his skin. Inching her way downward, it seemed to take hours before she reached his calves where there were fewer barbs. By then, she had a bad crimp in her neck.

Tori straightened and arched backward to relieve the tension. “I think this calls for more aloe.”

He didn’t respond, and she assumed he’d fallen asleep. His hands were still around the wrought iron headboard, but he’d relaxed his grip. Taking care to be extra gentle to keep from awakening him, Tori applied the lotion with the tips of her fingers. From his ankle up his calf was no problem, but his upper thigh seemed to be a more private area. She would have avoided it entirely except this was where most of the thorns had punctured the skin and left scratches and red welts.

She coated the area with the soothing aloe, but took extreme precautions to avoid his inner thigh. There weren’t any marks there anyway, but she couldn’t help checking—just to make sure.

Brody squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe normally while she rubbed his sensitive skin with that damn cream. The aloe was cool, yet it made him hotter than hell. Jesus H. Christ, I ask you. What did I do to deserve this?

It was all he could do to feign sleep when every shift in the mattress, every touch reminded him that she was half naked and just inches away. He was going to have to pretend to be asleep so she would leave him alone for a while or he was going to be embarrassed as hell.

Tori finished applying the cream, then watched the even, rhythmic movements of Brody’s torso. He had fallen asleep. Well, who could blame him? She was exhausted herself.

Bracing her hands on the bed, she started to lever herself to a standing position, then she stopped, unable to resist gazing at him. She was far, far too aware of him sexually, she realized with a sharply indrawn breath. She imagined the front of his naked thighs pressed against her sheets.

What in hell was she doing? It was awfully quiet back there. Brody could still feel her weight on the bed, and the warmth of her body where it brushed against his. Even though he was rock-hard, he kept his breathing slow and measured, the way SEALs were taught to breathe to avoid detection.

He waited.

Not then, not later, not in a million years could Tori ever explain what she did next.

She bent over him and looked closely at the side of his face, which was half concealed by the pillow. He was frightening and dangerous, she was sure, but he was also the most captivating man she’d ever encountered. Even at rest, the restrained savageness of his body fascinated her.

She leaned closer, hovering over the back of his neck. Mingling with the smell of the antiseptic was a distinctly male scent. She let it seep into her lungs, and with it she caught a whiff of woodsy aftershave. Oh, my. Oh, my.

Now what was she up to? Brody forced every muscle to remain in place and kept his breathing slow and steady. But he couldn’t control the blood pulsing in his veins. Hot, thick blood.

Tori edged closer, her breasts softening against his back. Parting her lips, she breathed a kiss into the crook of his neck. With the tip of her tongue, she tasted his skin. Salty, tangy, and far too sexy for his own good.

Son of a bitch! Brody almost lost it. If she hadn’t quit kissing his neck that very second, he would have flipped her onto her back and showed her a helluva lot more than kissing.

Knowing she was on dangerous ground, Tori moved to the side of the bed, shocked at what she had just done. What if he woke up and caught her kissing his neck? He’d never understand it was nothing more than a momentary impulse—nothing more than temporary insanity.

The way he was angled across the bed didn’t leave much room, but she stretched out beside him. She would let him rest a few minutes, then she would awaken him, give him the key, and send him to his room. Meanwhile, she seized the opportunity to think about him, attempting to analyze what she found so irresistible.