Dark Obsession (18 page)

Erin’s gaze lingered on him for a second too long. When her eyes lifted, she knew that he was staring back at her, and there was something about his expression that suggested he was not unaffected by her perusal.

“How about a drink?” he asked abruptly. “I think I have a bottle of brandy around here somewhere.” He moved off toward the kitchen, which occupied a modest corner of the huge room.

“Sounds good.” Erin wandered around the living area, fascinated by Slade’s home. The furnishings were sparse, consisting mainly of a battered leather sofa and chair, an intricately carved chest that looked like an antique and served as a coffee table, and one wall of crowded bookshelves. “You must read a lot,” she commented. It gave her a thrill of pride to see some of her own titles among his books. Erin had never exactly envisioned him as the type who spent long hours glued to a book, especially not foreign
editions, as many of these were. “Do you speak all these languages?”

“A word or two here and there.”

It took more than a word or two to get through a five-hundred-thousand-word tome, Erin thought. She read through some of the titles. Many of them were books dealing with the supernatural. With vampires.

A chill of foreboding crept over her as she looked back at him. The dark glasses he wore seemed to mock her. “If you don’t believe that vampires exist,” she said slowly, “why do you have all these books about them?”

“If you don’t believe in vampires, why do you write about them?” he countered. He walked slowly across the room and handed her a glass. Erin took the drink and lifted the glass to her lips, craving the fortification. The liquid seared a path all the way down her throat, then raced through her veins. She coughed but almost immediately felt a pleasant little glow chasing away the chill. “That’s nice,” she said, taking another sip.

Slade reached for her glass. “I wouldn’t overdo it if I were you. This stuff can have a kick if you’re not careful.”

“Are you always so protective?”

He shrugged. “Comes with the job.”

“You don’t have to stay with me, you know. I can take care of myself.”

“So you keep saying. I’ve yet to see evidence of it, though.”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?” she said testily.

“For the time being.”

God, he was cold, she thought. Like ice. Did he even have a heart? “Aren’t you on duty?” she asked thinly. “Don’t you have to get to work?”

“This is work,” he said. “Keeping you safe is now my first priority.”

“I’m flattered,” she said dryly, slipping out of her coat and draping it over the back of the chair. “As long as we’re both here for the duration then, we might as well talk about the case. You have to admit all this business about vampires seems to be a bit much for coincidence. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought the same thing.”

“What? That a vampire’s on the loose?” His deep voice taunted her.

“You don’t have to make it sound so totally insane,” she said, an edge in her voice.

She turned back to the bookshelves, skimming over the titles until her gaze lit on a small silver frame tucked into a corner of one of the shelves. Other than the books, it was the only personal adornment she’d seen in the apartment. She picked up the frame and, in the lamplight, studied the couple in the picture.

The young man’s arm was draped possessively around the girl’s shoulders as she smiled up at him in adoration. Obviously a couple very much in love,
Erin decided. Then she realized with a jolt that the man was Slade, without his dark glasses. She lifted the picture closer, trying to see his eyes, but the photo had been taken from a distance, obscuring his face.

Erin glanced up. “Who is she?”

Slade’s face seemed even more shadowed than usual, even less expressive. “Her name was Simone.”

Simone. So that was her. Erin studied the girl’s long, flowing hair, her lovely, flawless face. She was very beautiful, but there was something disturbing about her….

“You obviously loved each other very much,” Erin said. She replaced the frame on the shelf and turned back to Nick.

“That was a long time ago,” he said. “In another life.”

“What happened?”

He lifted his glass and killed the remainder of the brandy, then said in a toneless voice, “She died.”

“I’m sorry.” He still clutched the empty glass, and Erin could see the scars that marred the back of his hand. “A fire,” she murmured, without thinking.

Slade’s gaze sharpened on her. “How did you know about the fire? Who told you?”

“No one. But the scars on your hand…I just assumed…” Her voice trailed off under his scrutiny. “What happened?”

He turned away from her. Erin saw him lift his
hand and remove the dark glasses and rub his eyes wearily. She had the strongest impulse to go to him, to make him turn around so that she could look up and see, for the first time, the emotions that would be revealed in his eyes. She didn’t. Instinctively she knew he wasn’t ready for that. She wasn’t sure she was, either.

He turned again, dark glasses in place. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“But I think it does,” she said softly. “I think it matters a great deal. Mr. Rubinoff said you started wearing those glasses after she died. Why?”

“The past is dead. Leave it buried.”

“But it isn’t, is it?” Erin said sadly. “Yours or mine.”

He walked to the window and stood staring out.

Erin came over and stood behind him. “I’d like to know about Simone,” she said quietly. “I think I
need
to know.”

He remained silent for so long that Erin thought he wasn’t going to tell her. Then he said in that dead voice, “It happened eight years ago. Simone and I had just gotten engaged when…she met someone else.”

“You must have been very hurt,” Erin murmured, not quite knowing what to say.

“Drake D’Angelo fascinated her,” Slade said, turning to face Erin, “from the first moment she saw him. She started acting differently, dressing differently.
She thought about him day and night. Even when she was with me. Especially when she was with me.”

Erin wanted to touch him, connect herself with his pain. But he wouldn’t welcome the intimacy, and she knew she didn’t have the nerve to push it. So she said simply, “I find that hard to believe.”

His smile was bleak. “Do you?” He turned back to the window, staring out at the darkness. “She left me soon after she met him. I was angry and hurt. I went to confront them. There was a struggle. A fire broke out. Simone and Drake were both…destroyed.”

Destroyed. What a strange way of putting it, Erin thought. Where moments before the brandy had warmed her, now his words, hanging in the air as heavy as a lingering fog, chilled her to the bone.
“There was a struggle. A fire broke out. Simone and Drake were both…destroyed.”

He wasn’t telling her the truth. Not the whole truth, anyway. What more was he hiding from her? What had really happened that night? Erin wondered with a shudder of unease. Why was the past—an accident—still tormenting him so? Unless…

“You think a policeman can’t become a coldblooded killer? Who knows what may have driven him over the edge? I’ll bet you anything that Detective Slade is a man with a very dark past. I advise you to
stay away from him, Erin. He’s dangerous. You only have to look at him to know that.”

“It
was
an accident,” she said, almost fiercely, as if to deny her own conclusions. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“Then who should I blame?” he asked with a harsh edge to his voice. “I failed her. I should have known what to do, but I didn’t. I didn’t know how to save her. Because of me, she had to die.” In spite of her previous resolve, Erin found herself reaching out to touch his arm. He flinched. “Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t get close to me, Erin.”

“I’m not Simone,” she said.

“And I’m not who you think I am. Don’t you understand? People are dying because of me. Women just like you.” He grasped her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. “Damn it, stop looking at me that way.”

“What way?” Erin’s heart pounded inside her chest so loudly she thought she could hear the echo in the icy crypt of a room where they stood.

“Like you want this as much as I do,” he groaned, pulling her into his arms so fast Erin stumbled. He caught her, then crushed her to him, tunneling his fingers through her hair to turn her face up for his kiss. “God, it’s been so long,” he murmured huskily. “So very long since I’ve held someone like this.”

It was a desperate joining. An urgent attempt to wipe out the past. Erin trembled in his arms, telling
herself that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he was trying to forget Simone. She had her own memories to erase. They could use each other. What would be the harm?

“This is wrong,” Slade said raggedly, when they finally had to break apart to breathe.

“Because of her?”

“Because of you.” His voice gentled as he caressed her face with one scarred hand. “I shouldn’t be touching you. Not like this. But I can’t help it.”

She might have resisted his passion, but not his longing. She might have denied his desire, but not his need. Not the loneliness and despair she sensed inside him, in the soul that mirrored her own. “Then don’t,” she whispered urgently against his lips, pulling his mouth back to hers. “Don’t fight it.”

His kisses were like nothing she’d ever known before. He teased her mouth open, then demanded her compliance. His body moved against hers, then commanded her response. Erin wanted to melt in his arms. He was a master of seduction, invading her mouth and her heart and her soul with his shattering kisses.

At last he tore his mouth from hers, pulling her against him to cradle her head against his shoulder. She felt his lips in her hair, then heard him warn, “We have to stop this, Erin. Before it’s too late.”

“But I don’t want to stop,” she protested.

“Don’t you know what will happen?” he demanded. “If I kiss you one more time, if I hold you
even for a minute longer, I won’t be able to stop. I’ll rip your clothes off right here and now, and I’m not even sure I can manage to be gentle.”

His words made her shiver all over. Made her ache with an arousal that was both wondrous and frightening. “Maybe I wouldn’t want you to be,” she whispered, amazed by her candor. She took a deep breath, her gaze searching the darkness of his face. “If we…if we make love, will that satisfy this longing? Will it make the past disappear? Will it be enough, Nick?”

“I don’t know.” His tone was bleak. “But I do know that I can’t offer you anything more. I want you, God knows I need you, but beyond tonight, I can’t have you, Erin. I want you to understand that.”

She said ruefully, “If we do this, you want my eyes wide open, is that it?”

“At least in the beginning.” She could hear the smile in his voice, and it surprised her.
He
surprised her. Fascinated her. Thrilled her.

She turned and gazed up at him. “Then perhaps we should both have a clear vision of the future,” she said softly and reached up to remove his dark glasses. She could tell when he tensed, but he didn’t try to stop her this time. Slowly Erin drew the glasses away from his face and stared up at him. Her heart pounded and her pulse quickened. “My God,” she breathed. “Your eyes…”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

H
is eyes. His beautiful, beautiful eyes. So light a shade of gray they appeared almost transparent, like bits of crystal ringed with smoke. They reminded Erin of a rainy night, of a storm brewing at sea.

His eyes. So revealing and all knowing. She could see his desire for her, his need to possess her burning in those crystalline depths, and it made her tremble with her own needs. Made her shiver with fear, because a part of her knew that when it was all over, she would never be the same again.

Her defenses would be gone. She would be alone, but lonely now, no longer content to hide in the shadows of her past. For a moment she glimpsed the bleak years crawling by, years without Nick. Years without love. The thought became almost unbearable.

But his eyes. His eyes made her want to forget all that, made her want to think only of the present and of having him hold her in his arms. His eyes made her quiver with anticipation for the fulfillment the next few moments would bring her. His eyes made her want what she had never had before.

He took her hand in his. Silently they moved to the bedroom and stood in the moonlight, kissing, touching one another, fingers fumbling with clothing as
they undressed. Erin’s heart thundered in her ears. She couldn’t stop looking at his eyes.

“Why do you hide them?” she whispered.

He paused, his gaze holding her in thrall. “They say the eyes are a window to the soul. I’ve never wanted anyone to see mine.”

“Not even me?”

His smile was almost grim. “Especially not you. I didn’t think you’d like what you saw.” Erin glimpsed a deep sorrow in those gray depths, a dark loneliness that took her breath away, and it gave her a small measure of comfort to know that when he had to leave her, it wouldn’t be without regret.

When the last of their clothing dropped to the floor, Slade stared down at her.

“Erin,” he said raggedly, “do you have any idea how beautiful you are? How much I want you?” The intensity of his gaze made her tremble. Unconsciously, Erin took a step back, but his arm shot out and he grasped her, imprisoning her as much with his eyes as with his hand. “Do you want to stop this, Erin? It’s not too late. Say the word—”

“No,” she said fiercely. Her gaze raced over him, and she felt her cheeks flush with heat. He wanted her. There could be no denying that, and a surge of strength flowed through her accompanied by a thrill of excitement. “I don’t want to stop. I want this. I want
you.
Oh, Nick.” She reached for him and he enfolded her in his arms. Erin closed her eyes, almost
overcome with emotion. “I’ve been dead inside for so long. With you, I feel so—”

“I know.” His arms tightened around her as his lips touched her hair. “Believe me, I know.” He cupped her face in his hands, tilting her head back as his lips slowly descended toward hers. Erin trembled inside with wanting, with needing him so.