Honor Bound

Chapter One

The refrigerator door was open, projecting a pale, blue-white wedge of light into the dark kitchen. A carton of milk was standing on the countertop. Beside it was a loaf of bread, gaping open, two slices lying half in, half out.

But even without those peculiarities, she instinctively knew the moment she came through her back door that something was amiss. She sensed another presence, dangerous and motionless, waiting.

Automatically she reached for the light switch.

Before her hand made contact, it was manacled by iron-hard fingers, twisted behind her and painfully shoved up between her shoulder blades. She opened her mouth to scream, but another hand, callused and tasting slightly of salt, clamped over her mouth, so that her scream came out only as a frantic, guttural sound, that of an animal entrapped.

She had always wondered how she would react in such a situation. If assaulted, would she faint? If her life were imperiled by an attacker, would she plead to be spared?

It came as a mild surprise, now, that besides being frightened she was angry. She began to struggle, trying to twist her head away from the unyielding hand over her mouth. She wanted to see her assailant’s face. Get a description. Wasn’t that what the rape-prevention centers advised? Look at his face.

Easier said than done, she realized. Struggling proved to be futile because of her attacker’s strength. He was tall. That much she knew. She could feel his breath, ragged and hot, against the crown of her head. Occasionally her head bumped into his chin. So he must be well over six feet tall, she reasoned, and filed that bit of information away.

The body she was being held against was hard, but she wouldn’t use “bulky” or “muscle-bound” in her description to the police. Indeed, it seemed to her that he was whipcord lean. From the corner of her eye, his biceps looked as firm and round as a green apple.

Her struggles were only succeeding in wearing her out. Rationalizing that she should conserve her energy and strength, she suddenly ceased her efforts to escape his inescapable hold and became still. Her breasts rose and fell with every insufficient breath she tried to draw through her nostrils. Gradually the arms restraining her relaxed, but only a trifle.

“My name is Lucas Greywolf.”

A raspy voice, as soft and sandy as the wind that blew across the desert, spoke directly into her ear. It was a gentle sound, but Aislinn wasn’t deceived. Like the winds it reminded her of, she thought, it could be whipped into a fury with the slightest provocation.

And considering the source of that whispery voice, such a whimsical shift was probable. Frightfully so.

The name Lucas Greywolf had been repeated over television signals and radio frequencies throughout the day. Last night the Indian activist had escaped from the federal prison camp in Florence, about fifty miles away. Law-enforcement agencies were combing the state in search of the escaped convict.

And he was in her kitchen!

“I need food. Rest. I won’t hurt you if you cooperate,” he growled close to her ear. “If you even try to scream I’ll be forced to gag you. Do we have a bargain?”

She nodded once in agreement and the hand came away from her mouth cautiously. As soon as it was removed, she gasped for air. “How did you get here?” 

“On foot, mostly,” he replied, without elaboration or apparent concern. “You know who I am?”

“Yes. They’re looking all over for you.”

“I know.”

Her initial anger had dissipated. She wasn’t a coward, but she wasn’t a fool either. Heroics had their place, but now wasn’t the time to start playing Wonder Woman. This intruder was no petty thief. Lucas Greywolf should be considered dangerous. All the news reports said so.

What was she to do? Overpowering him was unthinkable. He’d have no difficulty subduing her, and in the process she would probably get hurt. No, the only way she could possibly hope to outmaneuver him was by using her wits, while waiting for an opportunity to escape. 

“Sit down.” He nudged her shoulder roughly.

Without argument, she went to the table in the center of the kitchen, laid her purse on it and pulled out a chair. She lowered herself into the seat carefully.

He moved as silently as smoke and as nimbly as a shadow. She hadn’t heard him cross the floor, and only knew that he had when his shadow stretched across the tabletop. Timorously lifting her eyes, she saw his silhouette looming in the eerie light of the open refrigerator door. Like a panther, he looked dark and lean and lethal when he crouched down and took a summer sausage from the meat drawer.

Apparently believing that she had capitulated, he negligently closed the refrigerator door. The kitchen went dark. She lunged from her chair, aiming for the back door. He caught up with her before she had taken two steps, bisecting her middle with a steely arm to anchor her against him.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To...to turn on the light.”

“Sit down.”

“The neighbors will know—”

“I told you to sit down. And until I tell you otherwise, that’s what you’re going to do.” He hauled her across the kitchen and pushed her into the chair. It was so dark that she didn’t quite make the seat’s center and nearly toppled out of it before regaining her balance.

“I’m only trying to help you,” she said. “The neighbors will know something is wrong if they saw me come in and I don’t turn on any lights.”

Her threat was an empty one, and she rather imagined he knew it. She lived in a new condominium complex on the outskirts of Scottsdale. Fewer than half the units had been sold. No doubt he had selected her house for pilfering because of its remote location.

She heard a metallic whispering noise coming out of the darkness. The sinister sound filled her with dread. She knew the terror of a small jungle animal when rustling leaves alert it that an unseen predator is nearby. Lucas Greywolf had spotted the rack of butcher knives on the countertop near the sink and had slipped one from the wooden scabbard.

Expecting any moment to feel its cold metal edge slicing across her throat, she was stunned but at least grateful that she was still alive when the kitchen light came on, momentarily blinding her. She adjusted her eyes to the sudden brightness. He was still holding the long, gleaming silver blade of the knife to the light switch.

From that intimidating sight, her eyes tracked the length of a brown, sinewy arm up to a curved shoulder, over to a determined, square chin, along a straight, narrow nose, and into the most chilling pair of eyes she’d ever seen.

All her life she’d heard the expression “heart-stopping.” Countless times she had casually used the adjective herself, describing any number of inconsequential things. But she’d never actually experienced that graphically descriptive sensation. Until now.

Never had a pair of eyes conveyed such unmitigated contempt, such uncompromising hatred and undiluted bitterness.

Unlike the rest of his features, which were clearly American Indian, his eyes belonged to an Anglo. They were gray, so light a gray they were almost transparent, which only made the pupils in their centers look even deeper and blacker. They seemed to have no necessity to blink, because they stared at her without movement. Set in that dark, brooding face, those steadfast, gray eyes were a startling contrast that held her attention far too long.

She lowered her eyes, but when she saw the knife flash, she fearfully jerked them back up to him. He had merely sliced off a disk of summer sausage. As he raised it to his lips, the hard, set line lifted at one corner to form a smirking smile before straight, white teeth bit into the meat. He was enjoying her fear and that made her furious. By an act of will, she rid her face of any telltale expression and surveyed him coolly.

Which might have been a mistake.

Before tonight, if she had been asked to conjure up a picture of an escaped convict, it would never have resembled Lucas Greywolf. She vaguely remembered reading about his trial when it was making the news, but that had been several years ago. She recalled the prosecutors making him out to be a chronic troublemaker and rabble-rouser, a dissident who went around spreading malcontent among the Indians. But had the reports ever mentioned him being so handsome? If they had, she hadn’t been paying attention.

He was dressed in a blue chambray shirt that was no doubt prison issue. The sleeves had been ripped out, leaving ragged, stringy armholes. One of the sleeves had been fashioned into a headband, tied Apache-style around his head to hold back hair so unrelievedly black that it barely reflected the light shining directly on it. But then the dust clinging to it might have been partly responsible for that dull finish; his jeans and boots were covered with it.

Around his waist he wore a belt made of intricately worked silver set with chunks of turquoise. Dangling from a chain worn around his neck was a silver Christian cross. The charm nestled in a thatch of dark hair on his chest. He wasn’t pure Indian.

Again she let her eyes fall away. Under the circumstances, it disturbed her deeply that the sweat-stained shirt was open almost to his narrow waist. It was equally disturbing that the earring in his right ear didn’t repel her.

The tiny silver kachina mask represented a spirit of another religion and was incongruent with the cross worn around his neck. Yet if Greywolf had been born with that earring pierced into his earlobe, it couldn’t have looked more in keeping with the total aspect of the man he was.

“Won’t you join me?” he asked in a taunting voice, holding out a slice of sausage on the blade of the knife.

She lifted her head and thrust her chin out defiantly. “No thank you. I’ll wait to eat dinner with my husband.” 

“Your husband?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“At work, but he’ll be home at any moment.”

He tore off a bite of bread from the slice he raised to his mouth and chewed it with an unconcerned leisure that made her want to slap him. “You’re a terrible liar.” 

“I’m not lying.”

He swallowed. “I searched the house before you came home, Miss Aislinn Andrews. There’s no man living here.”

Now it was her turn to swallow, and she did so with great difficulty. She willed her heart to settle down and stop drumming against her ribs with mounting anxiety. Her palms were perspiring. She pressed them together beneath the table. “How did you know my name?” 

“Your mail.”

“You went through my mail?”

“You sound alarmed. Do you have something to hide, Miss Andrews?” She refused to be baited and kept her lips firmly closed over the vituperative rejoinder that pressed against them from the inside. “You got a telephone bill today.”

His sly grin set off her temper again. “They’ll catch you and send you back.”

“Yes, I know.”

His calm response rendered her mute and made the threatening, argumentative speech she was about to voice unnecessary. Instead she watched him raise the carton of milk to his mouth, tilt his head back and drink thirstily.

His neck was deeply tanned. The sliding action of his Adam’s apple intrigued her as a hypnotist’s pendulum would. He drank until there was no more, then set the empty carton down and wiped his mouth with the back of the hand that still held the knife.

“If you know they’ll catch you, why make it harder on yourself?” She asked out of a sincere curiosity to know. “Why not just turn yourself in?”

“Because there is something I have to do first,” he said grimly. “Before it’s too late.”

She didn’t pursue her question further, because she thought it might jeopardize her well-being to know what criminal acts he was contemplating. However, if she could get him to talk, maybe he would relax his guard and she could make a dash for the back door. Then once in the garage, she would hit the button that raised the automatic door and...

“How did you get in?” she asked abruptly, realizing for the first time that there had been no visible signs of forced entry.

“Through a bedroom window.”

“And how did you escape from the prison camp?”

“I deceived someone who trusted me.” His hard mouth curled derisively. “Of course he was a fool to trust an Indian. Everybody knows Indians are untrustworthy. Right, Miss Andrews?”

“I don’t know any Indians,” she answered softly, not wanting to provoke him. She disliked the way his taut body seemed about to snap with tension.

But by trying not to aggravate him, she only seemed to have aroused his temper. His eyes pored over her slowly, spilling heat on everything they touched. She was made painfully aware of her blondness, her blue eyes and fair skin. His sneer deepened into a scowl. “No, I don’t suppose you do.” Faster than her eyes could monitor the motion, he crammed the knife into his waistband and reached for her. “Get up.”

“Why?” She gasped with fright as he roughly pulled her to her feet. Holding her back against his chest, with his hands on her shoulders, he propelled her out of the kitchen. On their way through the door, he switched off the light. The hallway was dark. She stumbled ahead of him. He was going toward the bedroom and her mouth went dry with fear. “You got what you came for.”

“Not all of it.”

“You said you wanted food,” she countered frantically, digging her heels into the carpet. “If you leave now, I promise not to call the police.”

“Now why don’t I believe you, Miss Andrews?” he asked in a voice as smooth as melting ice cream.

“I swear it!” she cried, despising her weakness and the panicked sound of her voice.

“Promises have been made to me before by white men...and white women. I’ve learned to be skeptical.” 

“But I had nothing to do with that. I—oh, God, what are you going to do?”

He shoved her into the bedroom. As soon as he had cleared the door, he closed it behind them. “Take a wild guess, Miss Andrews.” He spun her around and pinned her between the door and his unyielding body. He closed his hand around her throat just under her chin and bent his head down low over hers. “What do you think I’m going to do?”

“I...I...don’t know.”

“You’re not one of these sexually repressed ladies who entertain rape fantasies, are you? Hmm?”

“No!” she gasped.

“You’ve never fantasized about being taken by a savage?”

“Let me go, please.”

She turned her head away and he let her, but he didn’t release her. If anything, he moved nearer, lewdly pressing himself against her, holding her against the door with his hardness and strength.

Aislinn squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lower lip in fear and humiliation. His long, tapering fingers strummed her throat, moving up and down in an evocative rhythm.

“Well I have been in prison for a long, long time.” His fingers slid down her chest. He hooked his index finger on the top button of her blouse, then fiddled with it until it popped open. She whimpered. His face was so close to hers that she could feel his breath falling warmly on her skin. It struck her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. She inhaled it by necessity, hating the forced intimacy of breathing the air he expelled.

“So if you’re real smart,” he warned silkily, “you won’t give me any ideas.”

When she realized what he was telling her, her eyes sprang up to meet his. They clashed, a meeting of wills and a battle of tempers. For a long moment they seemed suspended, taking each other’s measure, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses.

Then gradually he pulled back. When his body was no longer making contact with hers, she almost sank to the floor with relief.

“I told you I needed food and rest.” There was a strange new quality to his voice now. A gruffness.

“You’ve rested.”

“Sleep, Miss Andrews. I need sleep.”

“You mean...you intend to stay? Here?” she asked, aghast. “For how long?”

“Until I decide to leave,” he answered obliquely. He crossed the room and turned on the lamp beside her bed.

“You can’t!”

He returned to where she still stood by the door and took her hand. This time he pulled her along behind him. “You’re hardly in a position to argue. Just because I haven’t harmed you yet doesn’t mean that I won’t if I’m desperate enough.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Yes you are.” He dragged her into the adjoining bathroom with him and slammed the door. “Or you should be. Look, get this straight,” he said through clenched teeth, “I have something to do, and nothing, especially not an Anglo princess like you, is going to stop me from doing it. I knocked a guard unconscious to escape prison and I made it this far on foot; I have nothing to lose but my life, and it ain’t worth a damn where I’ve been. So don’t press your luck, lady. You’ve got me as a houseguest for as long as I want to stay.” To punctuate his threat, he yanked the knife out of his waistband.

She sucked in a sharp breath as though he had pricked her belly button with the tip of the blade. “That’s more like it,” he said, gauging her fear. “Now sit down.” He hitched his chin toward the commode. Aislinn, keeping her eyes trained on the knife, backed up until she bumped into the bathroom fixture and then collapsed onto its lid.

Greywolf laid the knife on the edge of the bathtub, well out of her reach. He pulled off his boots and socks, then began tugging the tail of his tattered shirt from the waistband of his jeans. Aislinn, sitting as motionless as a statue, said nothing as he peeled it off his shoulders and shrugged out of it.

The center of his chest was smattered with dark hair. The brown skin was stretched tightly over curved muscles that looked incredibly hard. His nipples were small and dark. The skin of his belly was stretched as taut as a trampoline, and the shallow part of it around his navel was dusted with black hair. The crinkly fan narrowed into a sleek stripe that disappeared into his jeans.

He began unbuckling the silver belt at his waist. “What are you doing?” Aislinn asked in alarm.

“I’m going to take a shower.” He undid the belt, letting it hang open as he bent toward the taps in the bathtub. He turned them until water was gushing from the faucet full blast. Even over that roaring sound, Aislinn heard the rasp of his jeans’ zipper as he lowered it.

“Where I can see you?” she cried.

“Where I can see you.” He calmly pushed the jeans down past his hips and buttocks and stepped out of them.

Aislinn’s eyes closed. She was overcome by a wave of vertigo and gripped the lid of the commode beneath her to keep from swaying. Never in her life had she been so outraged, so insulted, so assaulted.

Because to look at his nakedness was to be assaulted by masculinity incarnate. He was perfectly proportioned. His shoulders were broad, his chest deep. His limbs were long and leanly muscled, testimonies to agility and strength. Where his skin was smooth, it looked like polished bronze, yet alive and supple. Where it was hair-dusted, it looked warm and touch-inviting.

He raised the lever of the shower and stepped beneath its powerful spray. He didn’t draw the curtain. Keeping her head averted, Aislinn drew in several restorative breaths.

“What’s wrong, Miss Andrews? Haven’t you ever seen a naked man before? Or is it seeing a naked Indian that has you so visibly upset?”

She whipped her head around, stung by his mocking tone. She wouldn’t have him thinking she was either a prudish old maid or a racial bigot. But her verbal barb died unspoken on her tongue. She was unable to utter a sound, paralyzed by the sight of his lathered hands as they slid over his sleek nakedness. The water must have been hot, for the mirrors were fogging up and the atmosphere was as steamy as an Erskine Caldwell novel. The mist settled on her own skin. She could barely draw the heavy, sultry air into her lungs.

“As you can see,” he taunted as his soapy hands slid to the lower part of his body, “we’re equipped just like any other man.”

Well, not quite, Aislinn thought with a secret part of her mind, as her eyes took one forbidden glance down his torso to where that beautiful body hair provided a dense, lush base for his impressive manhood.

“You’re crude,” she said scathingly, “as well as being criminal.”

He smiled cynically and whipped off the makeshift headband, tossing it out of the tub and down on top of his other clothes. He ducked his head under the shower’s spray just long enough to moisten it, then picked up a bottle of shampoo. He sniffed the top of it before pouring a dollop of the creamy stuff into his hand, slapping it to the top of his head and lathering it into a white foam that soon coated the ebony strands of his hair. He scrubbed mercilessly.

“This smells better than prison shampoo,” he remarked as he ran his fingers through the luxuriant lather.

Aislinn said nothing because a plan was formulating in her mind. If he had put his head under the shower nozzle to wet his hair, he’d have to put it under there longer to rinse all the shampoo off, wouldn’t he? She didn’t have long to think her plan through. Already he was squeezing the suds out of his hair and slinging them off his fingers into the water that swirled around his feet.

There was a telephone on the nightstand beside her bed. If she could dash through the bathroom door and manage to dial “9-1-1” before—

He plunged his head beneath the shower’s nozzle. There was no more time to ruminate.

Aislinn hurled herself toward the door, pulled it open, almost wrenching her arm from its socket in the process, and flew into the bedroom. She reached the nightstand in less than a second, grabbed up the telephone receiver and frantically dialed “9-1-1.”

She pressed the receiver against her ear and waited for the ring. Nothing happened. Damn!

In her haste, had she punched a wrong number?

She clicked the disconnect button and tried again, her hands shaking so badly she could barely hold the receiver. Risking one frenzied glance over her shoulder, she was dismayed to see Lucas Greywolf framed in the doorway between the bedroom and bathroom, his shoulder propped against it in a stance of lazy indifference.

A towel was draped around his neck. Other than that, he was naked. Water dripped from his wet hair and funnelled down his coppery body. Beads of it clung to places she wished she didn’t notice. He held the wicked knife in his right hand, idly tapping the flat side of the blade against his bare thigh.

Aislinn realized that the second telephone call hadn’t gone through either and that no other calls were going to go through. “You did something to my phone.” It wasn’t a question.

“As soon as I entered the house.”

Rapidly, her hands moving end over end, she reeled the telephone cord up from behind the nightstand. The connector that normally fit into the wall outlet had been ruined, ground by a boot heel as best as she could tell.

Frustration overcame her then. And fury. It enraged her that he could appear so composed when she felt ineffectual and idiotic. She cursed and threw the telephone toward him, then launched herself toward the door, seeking escape at all costs. It was hopeless, of course, but she had to do something.

She managed to reach the door; she even managed to get it open a crack before his wide hand splayed over it directly in front of her face and shoved it closed again. She turned, her fingers curled into claws, bent on attacking him.

“Stop it!” he commanded and grabbed for her flailing arms. The knife nicked her on the forearm. She screamed softly in pain. “You little fool.”

He grunted with surprise when she drove her knee up toward his crotch. She missed her mark, but succeeded in unbalancing him as he made a dodging movement. They fell to the floor, struggling. His skin was still wet, slippery, and he easily deflected the blows and slaps she frantically delivered. In seconds, he had her pinned beneath him, her wrists stapled to the floor by his widespread fingers.

“What the hell was that for? You could have gotten hurt,” he barked. His face was a scant few inches above hers. His chest was heaving in and out from exertion. The anger in his eyes struck terror in Aislinn, but she didn’t let it show. Instead, she glared up at him.

“If you’re going to kill me, get it over with,” she ground out.

She had no time to prepare herself before he jerked her to her feet. Her teeth clicked together. She was still trying to regain her equilibrium when she saw the knife arcing down toward the side of her face. She felt a rush of wind as it passed. She tried to scream, but the sound became a faint little whimper when she saw the lock of her hair dangling from his hand. The wavy blond strand of hair being squeezed between those hard brown fingers symbolized her frailty and emphasized how easily his strength could overpower it.

“I meant what I said, lady,” he said, still breathing heavily. “I have nothing else to lose. You pull one more stunt like that and it’ll be more than your hair I’ll use this knife on. Understand?”

Eyes round and gaping at the strand of curling blond hair still clasped between his fingers, Aislinn nodded dumbly. He opened his fingers and let the light-catching strands of hair filter to the floor.

Accepting her acquiescence, he stepped away from her and retrieved the towel. He dried the remaining moisture from his skin and made a pass over his chin-length hair. He tossed the towel to her. “Your arm is bleeding.” She hadn’t noticed. Looking down, she was surprised to see a thin trickle of blood oozing from the nick just above her wrist. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” She shook her head no. “Get over there by the bed.”

Fear tamped her resentment at being ordered around in her own house by a fugitive from justice. Without a murmur of protest, she obeyed him. The bleeding on her arm had stopped. She laid the towel aside and turned to face her captor.

“Take off your clothes.”

She had thought he couldn’t frighten her any more than he already had. She was gravely mistaken. “What?” she wheezed.

“You heard me.”

“No.”

“Unless you do as I say, that cut on your arm is only a beginning.” The naked steel blade of the knife glinted in the lamplight as he waved it back and forth in front of her face.

“I don’t think you’d hurt me.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

Cold, unfeeling eyes glittered back at her defiant stare, and she admitted that the odds for her to remain untouched and unscathed through this night didn’t look good.

“Why...why do I have to take off my...my...?”

“Do you really want to know?”

No, she didn’t think she wanted it spelled out for her because she had a pretty good idea why, and somehow hearing his intent from his own lips only made the prospect more frightening.

“But if you were going to rape me,” she said, speaking aloud the question her musings raised, “why didn’t you—”

“Take off your clothes.”

He pronounced each word carefully. They fell from his stern lips like chips of ice.

She considered her options and decided that she had none. At least if she went along with him, she was granting herself time. Perhaps someone would try to call and find that her phone was out of order. The telephone company would send someone to check, wouldn’t they? Someone might come to her door. The paperboy for instance. Anything was possible if she could just keep stalling him. For all she knew the police could have the house surrounded right now, having tracked Greywolf there.

Slowly she raised her hands to the second button of her blouse, the first already having been opened by him. She cast one last, pleading glance toward him. His face could have been carved from stone, his eyes formed from hardest crystal for all the humanity they conveyed. Pride kept her from begging, though she didn’t think any amount of pleading would budge this emotionless man.

She pushed the button through its hole and reluctantly lowered her hand to the next.

“Hurry up.”

She looked up at him where he stood naked and sinister only a few feet from her. He remained impassive under her seething gaze. She took her time with every single button, testing the perimeters of his patience, until all were undone.

“Now take it off.” He made a brusque gesture with the knife. Lowering her head, Aislinn slipped the blouse from her shoulders, but held it up against her chest. “Drop it.” Still not looking at him, she let the garment slide away from her body and onto the floor.

After a long silence, he said, “Now the rest of it.”

It was summertime in Arizona. She had closed her studio early that afternoon because she had no appointments scheduled. After a workout at the health club, she had slipped on a skirt, blouse and barefoot sandals, not wanting to put on stockings.

“The skirt, Aislinn,” he said with tense emphasis.

His use of her first name was the supreme insult under the circumstances and it fueled her anger. Reaching behind her, she virtually ripped the hook on her skirt open, and let it fall from her hips in a show of defiance.

At his strangled sound, she raised her eyes. The skin over his high cheekbones seemed to be stretched so tight she thought it might split. His eyes were moving over her like flickering torches.

She wished her lingerie was plainer, less alluring. The silk bra and panty set was the color of lemon sherbet and was trimmed in dove-gray lace. While they weren’t sheer, they were designed for brevity and prettiness, not functionality. They left nothing to the imagination, and a man who had been in prison would have a well-developed imagination.

“The bra.”

Trying to stem hot tears she was too proud to shed, Aislinn slipped down the lacy straps, drawing her arms through them and holding the fragile cups over her breasts before unfastening the front clasp. Greywolf extended his hand. Aislinn jumped reflexively.

“Hand it to me,” he said hoarsely.

Her hand was trembling as she passed the flimsy piece of silk and lace to him. The garment seemed even less substantial when his fist closed around it and, held in that patently masculine hand, far more feminine. He fingered the soft fabric. Knowing that it would still hold the heat of her body, Aislinn experienced a funny feeling deep inside her as she watched his fingers rubbing the soft cloth.

“Silk,” he murmured in a low, growling sound. He lifted the bra to his face and crushed it against his nose. He groaned, closing his eyes, briefly making a fierce grimace of his face. “That smell. That wonderful, woman smell.”

Aislinn realized then that he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to himself. He wasn’t even talking about her. Particularly. Any woman would have done. She didn’t know whether to be terrified or comforted by that thought.

The poignant moment lasted only a few seconds before he tossed the bra down with an angry flourish of his hand. “Come on. Finish.”

“No. You’ll have to kill me.”

He looked at her for an agonizingly long time. Aislinn couldn’t bear to watch his eyes moving over her, so she closed hers.

“You’re very beautiful.” She braced herself for his touch. It never came. Instead, he spun away from her, apparently vexed, either over her stubborn resistance or the vulnerability he had inadvertently expressed.

Whatever it was had made him exceedingly angry. He pulled several drawers in her dresser from their moorings before he found what he was short-temperedly searching for. He came toward her with two pairs of panty hose.

“Lie down.” Reaching around Aislinn, who stood rooted to the spot in terror, he flung back the covers on her bed.

She lay down, her body stiff with fright, her eyes wide as he knelt over her. But he wasn’t even looking at her. His face was set in tense, remote lines as he reached for her arm and pulled it back toward the rails of her brass headboard.

“You’re tying me up?” she asked tremulously.

“Yes,” he answered curtly, pulling the nylon tight around her wrist and securing it to the rail.

“My God.” A hundred hideous nightmares flitted through her brain. Every deviate practice she’d ever heard about, she was reminded of now.

His mouth tilted into another of those sardonic smiles, as though he had read her mind and seen her fears.

“Relax, Miss Andrews. I told you I wanted food and rest and that’s what I intend to get.”

Still frozen with shock and fear, Aislinn lay docile as he bound her other wrist to his, using the second pair of panty hose. When they were tied to each other, the backs of their hands pressing together, she stared up at him with incredulity. He merely snapped off the lamp and lay down beside her, his back to her.

“You bastard.” She tugged hard on the fetter that tied her to him. “Untie me.”

“Go to sleep.”

“I said to untie me,” she shouted, trying to sit up. He rolled over and yanked her back down. Though she couldn’t see him in the darkness, the body lying so close to hers communicated a terrible menace that was more repressive than sheer force.

“I had no choice but to tie you up.”

“Why did you have me undress?”

“To make it more difficult for you to escape. I seriously doubt you’d go chasing out into the night as you are. And—”

“And what?” she asked angrily.

After a slight pause his reply came through the darkness like a stealthy, sensuous, black cat—anticipated, but unseen until it’s there. “And because I wanted to look at you.”