“Five lipsticks? Brush, comb, pencil, pad, more lipstick, compact, keys, more lipstick, tissue, more lipstick—aha! At last, a wallet. And you are really… Alexi Jordan.”
The light zoomed back to her face. Alexi bit her lip, reddening, and she didn’t know why. If he was going to kill her, she didn’t need to blush for her own murderer. But he had said something about calling the police. He had said that he didn’t want to hurt her.
“Please…” she said.
He was silent. The light continued to play mercilessly over her features.
She was something out of a fairy tale, Rex decided, staring at her in the flood of light. Surely she was legendary. He barely noted that her eyes were still filled with terror; they were so incredibly green and wide. Tendrils of hair were escaping from a once-neat knot—hair caught by the light, hair that burned within that light like true spun gold. It wasn’t pale, and it wasn’t tawny; it was gold. It framed a face with the most perfect classical features he had ever seen. High, elegant cheekbones; small, straight nose; fine, determined chin; arching, honeyed brows. Even in total dishevelment, she was stunning. Her beauty was breathtaking. Stealing the heart, the senses, the mind…
He realized he was still standing there, thoughtlessly leveling the light into her eyes. At last he saw how badly she was shaking.
She was Alexi Jordan. Gene’s granddaughter. Hell, he’d supposedly been guarding the place. He’d attacked her. He hadn’t wanted her here—he hadn’t wanted anyone here. But he sure as hell hadn’t meant to battle it out with her. He opened his mouth to say something. Then he knew that it wouldn’t be enough. He had to go to her, touch her. She was still so afraid.
Alexi gasped as fear again curled through her. The man was coming toward her. She cringed; he leaned over her, touched her cheek, then took her hand.
“My God, you’re shaking like a leaf!”
“You, you—”
“I’m not going to hurt you!”
“You attacked me!”
“I had to know who you were. I thought you were a thief, coming in that window the way that you did. You’re all right now.”
No, she wasn’t. She was sitting in complete darkness with a man who had attacked her, and she couldn’t stop trembling. He sat beside her, and she wasn’t sure what he was saying, only that his words were soft and reassuring. Then, to her horror, she was half sobbing and half laughing and he was sitting beside her, and in that awful darkness she was in his arms as he stroked her hair—and she still didn’t have any idea who he was or even what he looked like.
“Shush, it’s all right now. It’s all right.” The same hands that had held her with such cold, brutal strength were capable of an uncanny tenderness. He held her as if she were a frightened child, easing his fingertips under her chin to lift her face. “It’s all right. My God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
She knew his voice, knew his scent. She knew the harshness and the tenderness of his arms, but she didn’t know his name or the color of his eyes. She stiffened, her tremors beginning to fade at last with the reassurance of his words and the new security of his form.
“I’m, uh, sorry.” She pushed away from him, feeling a furious rush of embarrassment. She was apologizing, and he was in her house. Gene’s house. A total stranger. “Who are you?”
He stood. She instantly felt the distance between them. It was over—whatever it had been. The violence, and the tenderness.
“Rex Morrow.”
Rex Morrow. Her mind moved quickly now. Rex Morrow. He wasn’t going to kill her. Rex murdered people—yes, by the dozens—but only in print. Alexi had decided long before this miserable meeting between them that his work was the result of a dark and macabre mind.
She sprang to her feet, desperate for light. Rex Morrow. Gene had warned her. He had told her that he shared the peninsula with only one other man: the writer Rex Morrow. And that Rex was keeping an eye on the place.
He had promised that the electricity was on, too. She fumbled her way toward what she hoped was a wall, anxious to find a switch. She bit her lip, fighting emotion. Emotion was dangerous. Maybe she was better off with the lights off. She’d panicked at his assault; she’d fallen hysterically into his arms with relief. She’d screamed, she’d cried—she, who prided herself on having learned to be calm and reserved, if nothing else, in life.
The flashlight arced and flared abruptly, its glare of light showing her plainly where the switch was. She came to it and quickly hit it, swiveling abruptly to lean against the wall and stare at the man who already knew her weaknesses too well. Perhaps light would wash away the absurd intimacy; perhaps it could even give her back some sense of dignity.
He was dark, and disturbingly young. For some reason she’d been convinced that he had to have lived through World War II to have written some of the books he had on espionage during the period. He couldn’t have been older than thirty-five. Equally disturbing, he was attractive. His jeans were worn, and his shirt was a black knit that seemed almost a match for the ebony of his hair. His eyes, too, were dark, the deepest brown she had ever seen. He was tanned and handsome, with high, rugged cheekbones, a long, straight nose—somewhat prominent, she determined—and a full mouth that was both sensual and cynical. He didn’t seem to resent her full, appraising stare, but then he was returning it, and she was alarmed to discover herself wondering what he was seeing in her.
Dishevelment, she decided wearily. It would be difficult for anyone to break into a house through a window and be attacked and wrestled down and still appear well-groomed.
“Alexi Jordan—in the flesh,” he murmured. His tone was cool, as if everything that had happened in the darkness was an embarrassment to him, too. He shook his head as if to clear it, strode toward Alexi and then right past her in the archway by the light switch, apparently very familiar with the house. She watched him, frowning, then followed him.
He went through the big, once-beautiful hallway and disappeared through a swinging door.
The door nearly caught her in the face, fueling her anger and irritation—residues of drastic fear. She was the one with the right to be here—and he had assaulted her and mauled her, and had not even offered an apology.
Light—blessed light! She felt so much more competent and able now, more like the woman she had carefully and painstakingly developed. She paused, reddening at the thought of how she had whimpered in fear, reddening further when she recalled how easily she had cried in his arms when he had simply told her that he wasn’t going to kill her. She should call the police. She had every right to be furious.