From the Heart

How was it possible for her shop to be tangled up in something as fantastic as international smuggling? If it hadn’t been so frightening, she would have laughed.
    Michael and David. With a brisk shake of her head, sheshut her eyes. No, that part she wouldn’t believe. There was a mistake somewhere, and in time the police or the FBI or whoever was haunting her would realize it.
    A burglar had been in the parlor. It was as simple as that. Hadn’t Betsy grumbled a dozen times about her not using the alarm system? The image of Slade with the gun in his hand came back to her too clearly. That was something she couldn’t shut out.
    When he came back into the room, Jessica was sitting very still, eyes closed. There were shadows under them. What he’d just learned on the phone wasn’t going to make them go away, but perhaps a good night’s sleep would.
    “Come on,” he said briskly, trying not to soften as her eyes shot open in alarm at his voice. “You’re tired. Go up and take a pill if you can’t sleep. And you’re not going in to the shop tomorrow.”
    “But I have to,” she began.
    “You have to do as you’re told from here on,” he corrected. “You’ll be safer here where I can keep an eye on you. Starting now, you don’t leave the house without me. Don’t argue.” Taking her hand, he hauled her to her feet. “You haven’t got any choice at this point; you have to trust me.”
    She did. Jessica realized as he pulled her up the steps that if everything else was a maze of confusion, that was clear. That very quick first impression she’d gotten when she’d all but run into him at the bottom of the staircase had been viable. With him she was safe.
    “I don’t like knowing you’re a cop,” she murmured.
    “Yeah, I’m not always crazy about it myself. Go to bed, Jess.” He dropped her arm as they came to her door. Before he could move on, Jessica grabbed his hand.
    “Slade . . .” She hated what she was going to ask, hated admitting to herself, much less him, that she was terrified of being alone. “I . . .” She looked away from the impatience in his eyes and glanced into her darkened room. “Could you stay?”
    “I told you, I’ve got my orders from the commissioner.”
    “No, I don’t mean . . .” She moistened her lips. “I mean with me—tonight.”
    She looked up at him, pale, soft, vulnerable. He felt theblood start to pound in his chest. In defense, his voice was blunt and cold. “When I go to bed with a woman, I tend to give her my complete attention. I haven’t got time for that now.”
    She felt a flutter that was both panic and excitement. “I’m not asking you to make love with me, just not to leave me alone.”
    He allowed his eyes to rake down her. Warm flesh, soft curves, and ice-blue silk. “Do you think I’d spend the night with you and not have you?”
    “No.” The answer came quick and quiet. The flutter became a throb.
    In a quick move calculated to frighten her, Slade backed her up against the door. “You haven’t the experience to deal with me, lady.” Not quite gently, his hand closed over her throat. Beneath his palm he felt the wild scramble of her pulse, but her eyes . . . her eyes were tawny and unafraid. He wanted her with a desperation that threatened to drive everything else aside. “I’m not one of your polite country club men, Jess,” he told her in a dangerously quiet voice. “You don’t know the places I’ve been, the things I’ve done. I could show you tricks that would make your French lover look like a Boy Scout. If I decided I wanted you, you couldn’t run fast enough.”
    She could barely hear him over the dull thud of her heart. Her eyes had misted over with desire. “Which of us is running, Slade?” Her arms were already heavy, but she lifted them. In one long slow stroke, she ran her hands up his naked back. He stiffened. The fingers on her throat tightened swiftly. She pressed her body to his.
    “Damn you, Jess.” On a groan, his mouth came down to savage hers.
    Her senses whirled from the onslaught, but she clung. This was what she wanted—the mindless passion he could bring her on the instant of contact. The kiss wasn’t loverlike; it wasn’t the worshipful merging of lips, the gentle teasing of tongues. It was madness. Jessica abdicated her sanity without a second thought. Let him teach her what he would.
    He ripped the robe from her where they stood, then gave into the driving need to let his