Following his three
A.M.
revelation that had whipped Maddie from a dead sleep, he had called Henri and the three of them had rushed to Shriver’s hotel.
Henri’s surveillance team had sworn it was impossible for Shriver to have left his hotel room, but when the manager opened the door, they had found a forlorn room service waiter trussed up on the floor in his underwear. Shriver had ordered a Monte Cristo and tea around five o’clock the previous afternoon. When the waiter had arrived with his order, Shriver had bonked the guy on the head with a lamp, stolen his clothes and taken off.
Henri’s men checked all out-of-town transportation and discovered Shriver had bought a ticket for the ten
P.M.
superspeed train to Madrid the night before. David immediately booked seats for himself and Maddie on the next train out.
And now here they were, barreling toward their destiny.
Maddie crossed her legs and then uncrossed them again. She rolled her linen napkin up and then unrolled it. She tapped her foot and drummed her fingers and cleared her throat several times but never said anything. She squeezed and released her abdominal muscles in a series of isometric exercises. She fingered the necklace she’d repaired just before the trip, checking to make sure the clasp Shriver had broken would hold. She mentally prepared herself for any eventuality, but nothing alleviated her escalating trepidation.
A cheese omelet and buttered toast sat in front of her but she was so wound up she couldn’t force food into her mouth.
“Eat,” David growled and pointed at her plate with his fork. The expression in his eyes was dangerous, edgy, as if he knew what she looked like without her clothes on.
Heat rose to her cheeks and she hopped up from the table, her legs restless to pace the miles ticking down the track and release the nervous sexual energy clogging her brain. “I’ve got to walk. Clear my head.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“I’ll be all right on my own,” she said firmly.
“My legs need stretching too.”
She wished he would leave her alone. She felt irritable, out of sorts, short-tempered.
Maddie was accustomed to being in control but whenever she got around David, he tried to take the reins. She didn’t like his high-handedness. Nor did she care for her occasional odd longing to simply allow him to take over so she didn’t have to worry anymore.
“So,” David said after they’d traversed the train twice, weaving in and out of the cars packed with people speaking French and Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. “What was your event in the Olympics?”
“You knew I was an Olympian?”
“I ran a background check on you before we left the States,” he said.
“Then don’t play coy, if you ran a check on me you already know the answer to your question.”
“Hundred meter dash. You were very fast.”
She raised her chin. “I still am.”
“What happened in Atlanta? Why didn’t you take home a medal? You were favored to win. How come you never raced again?”
They had come to a stop in the last car. Maddie ducked her head, ostensibly to look at the scenery whizzing by, but she was actually struggling to put on a cool impassive face. She could tell him it was none of his business, but then he would know her failure still bothered her.
He was leaning against the only empty seat at the back of the car, trying to get a peek at her face. They were sandwiched between the lavatory and the exit door and he was scrutinizing her like a quality control examiner giving a pair of panties the thrice-over before tagging an ‘inspected by #32’ sticker in the waistband.
That irreverent thought stirred a complicated visual of David slipping his rough, masculine fingers inside the waistband of her red cotton bikini briefs.
“Pardon,” apologized an elderly Spanish woman with a very generous caboose. The woman tried to squeeze past them on her way to the lavatory. Maddie stepped to one side, David to the other, but the woman’s ample bottom got wedged between them.
Maddie inched back, but she ended up stepping on a little boy’s foot. He screamed and his mother scolded her in Spanish. Maddie apologized profusely in the same language.
David plunked down in the empty seat. The elderly woman popped free. He reached out, grabbed Maddie by the wrist and pulled her into his lap. He offered the disgruntled mother a disarming smile, then pulled a package of airplane pretzels from his pocket and gave them to the little boy.
“There,” he said. “Now everyone’s happy.”
“Such a little problem solver,” Maddie said from her perch on his lap.
“Sarcasm becomes you.”
“Just my luck.”
“Are you trying to get my goat?”
“Who me?” She wanted to get up, but there was nowhere else to go and continuing to block the aisle seemed perilous.
On the seat beside them sat a blade thin young man in his late teens. He kept eyeing Maddie. David bared his teeth at the kid and wrapped a possessive arm around her waist.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Staking my claim.”
“What?”
“Relax. It’s just for appearances. To keep the locals from getting any funny ideas about feeling you up.”
“Thanks for watching after my virtue,” she said. “But I’m perfectly capable of slapping grabby hands. I lived in Madrid for a year, remember?”
“Yep, the year you flubbed up in the Olympics,” he said. “Speaking of the Olympics, you never did tell me why you quit running.”
“I didn’t quit running. You met me on the jogging trail, remember?”
“I meant how come you stopped competing?”
She could ignore him, she could tell him to shut up, or she could just tell him the truth and get the man off her back.
The elderly woman meandered back up the aisle. She looked at Maddie sitting on David’s lap, winked and murmured the Spanish word for kismet before moving on her way.
Europeans. What a romantic bunch. Good thing Maddie didn’t believe in any of that soulmate rot.
“Why not?” David repeated. God, but this guy had a one-track mind.
“I blew it, okay? I choked. I collapsed under pressure. I hesitated and I was lost.”
“Funny,” he said.
“Funny ha-ha or funny odd?”
“Funny, in I never figured you for a quitter.”
“My coach dumped me. He said I didn’t have star quality. How do you deal with something like that?”
“You prove him wrong.”
Maddie shook her head. “Water under the bridge. I’m too old to compete now. My gym is very successful, I don’t need to prove myself to anyone.”
“Is that all there is to it?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit. You’re kidding yourself.”
“How do you mean?” His breath was tickling the back of her neck. She squirmed and tilted her head away from him.
“What about Cassie?”
“What about her?”
“Subconsciously I think you lost the race on purpose. I think you were afraid to win.”
“Excuse me, that doesn’t make any sense. What does me winning a race have to do with Cassie?” But as nonsensical as his theory was, her pulse quickened.
“Because if you won the gold, you would grow as an athlete and as a person. And if your world expanded and you changed then you might outgrow your role as Cassie’s protector.” David hooked a finger under her chin and forced her to look him in the eyes. “And you can’t handle the thought of losing the role you’ve clung to since childhood. You’ve filtered your life through Cassie’s experiences. That way, you don’t have to get out there and mix it up on your own.”
“You are so full of it.”
She felt hot and slightly sick to her stomach. She didn’t have to sit here and listen to his amateur psychoanalysis. But something inside her resonated with the truth.
Maybe? Yes? Could he be right?
Had she intentionally bungled the race? Did she live vicariously through Cassie while keeping her own life steady and low-key to accommodate her twin? It was a stunning and uncomfortable prospect.
Without any warning, without rhyme or reason, the stress of the past three days took control. She hated the tears welling up behind her eyelids. She was tough and in control and she would not cry in front of him.
It was PMS. That’s why she was so emotional. Not because David had just seen straight into her soul.
Leaping from his lap, she turned and barreled into the lavatory behind them.
She should have known he would follow. Before she could get the door slammed, he’d jammed his foot in the opening fast as a smarmy door-to-door salesman.
“Talk to me, Maddie. I want to help.”
“Get your foot out of the door, please. I gotta pee,” she said.
“You’re lying.”
“Leave me alone. I’m fine.” She sniffled. She caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror mounted over the sink.
The tears had already started to fall. She wiped at her cheeks, desperate to get rid of him and collect herself, but the man was a friggin’ bulldozer.
“Nope. I’m staying right here until I know you’re all right.”
“I don’t want or need your sympathy. Don’t you get it?”
“I’m thickheaded, so sue me.” He shouldered his way into the tiny lavatory with her and slammed the door locked behind him.
They glared, both breathing hard. The train jostled and they careened into each other.
Maddie gulped. She was trapped. There was no room to turn around, nowhere to run.
“Talk to me,” he demanded.
She shook her head.
“Okay then, don’t talk.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. “Go ahead and cry. Just let it out.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “I’m not crying. I don’t cry. I’m not a crier.”
“Of course you’re not.”
He gently stroked her hair. She could feel the steady strumming of his heart. In spite of her best intentions, Maddie found herself weeping helplessly on his shoulder.
Dammit!
Why was she so susceptible to this man? How did he seem to know exactly when she was at her most vulnerable? What was it about him that pried her from her defenses in a way no one else ever had?
Pull back. Get away. For heaven’s sake, Maddie, stop with the waterworks.
But she did none of those things.
“Look at me.”
Reluctantly, she met his gaze.
His eyes locked onto hers and she couldn’t look away. No, that wasn’t right, she didn’t
want
to look away.
She wanted to contradict their reality. She wanted to forget that he was a determined FBI agent and her sister was a robbery suspect. She wanted to ignore the fact they were in a cramped lavatory on a speeding train in a foreign country with every passing mile thrusting them closer to an uncertain and unpleasant destination.
What she wanted was to pretend they were a normal couple in a normal place under normal circumstances, quietly, sweetly, tenderly seducing each other.
But when his mouth came down to capture hers, his kiss was anything but quiet or sweet or tender.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“What does it feel like to you?”
“Like you’re taking your frustrations out on me.”
“You might have something there,” he concurred. The hum of his words caused her lips to vibrate in a tingly, pleasant way.
“Since your motives are suspect you should probably stop kissing me.”
“And you should probably stop talking.”
Her lips were cool, but his were fiery hot. They came together like fresh-from-the-oven apple pie and two scoops of premium vanilla ice cream.
Tangy. Melting. Sinfully delicious.
She kissed him back, her tongue tentatively exploring his mouth.
He nibbled and sucked.
She followed his dance, not fighting him. In fact, she was kissing him back with an uncontrollable urgency that stole her breath.
He threaded his fingers through her hair, tugging out the hairclip that held her ponytail. He bathed his hand in the silky cascade.
“David,” she moaned softly and then reached up to undo the top button on his shirt. She meant to scare some sense into him. To get him to stop kissing her. Or at least that’s what she told herself.
“Yes?”
“You’re right. I have been living my life through Cassie, not branching out on my own. Never doing anything impulsive. I want to do something crazy and impulsive right now.”
“Oh yeah?”
Her heart thumped. Was this really part of a plan to chase him off or did she actually want him to make love to her? She did not know her own motives. How unsettling.
“Make love to me,” she blurted. “Right here, right now, right this very minute.”
“Huh?” He looked nervous.
“They have the mile high club for people who do it on a plane. What do they call it when you hook up on a train? The all aboard club?”
“Whoa!” He took one step back but there was nowhere else to go. “Maddie, let’s not rush into something we’ll both regret.”
“I spent too much time worrying about tomorrow and not enough time living in the moment,” she bluffed. “I want to live, David. I want to experience everything life has to offer.”
She undid another button on his shirt and wriggled her pelvis against his hip. “Come on, kiss me again.”
His erection burgeoned. He blushed. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No reason to apologize. I’m flattered.” She smiled and cupped him through his trousers. What in the hell was she going to do if he didn’t retreat?
At that moment she knew she didn’t want him to retreat. She wanted to make love to him. This wasn’t a bid to chase him off. This was what she really needed. His hard masculine body shattering to completion inside hers.
“I think we should forget about the all aboard club,” he whispered shakily. She loved that she’d reduced him to quivering jelly.
“Why?” she asked and nibbled at his chin.
“It’s . . . um . . . I have a headache.”
“And I’ve got just the cure for what ails you, big man.”
Hungrily, she jerked his shirt from his waistband and shoved her palms up the bare planes of his abdomen. She shivered with delight as her hands skimmed his heated flesh.
He groaned. “Please Maddie, don’t do this unless you mean it. Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”