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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Part I
by Victoria Rivers ©1998
The city limits sign was old and battered, most of the paint faded to a dull gray on a weathered gray-blue background, but Jarod liked the name.
Serendipity. A treasure discovered by accident. He needed one of those, and decided to stay in the Minneapolis/St. Paul suburb, rather than the sprawling urban mass farther south. There was a sense of quietude, a pastoral simplicity that attracted him, and he felt comfortable there, though he couldn't say why. It was as if he was expected, and a sense of welcome greeted him in the smiling eyes of the people he met as he strolled along the snowy sidewalk, looking in shop windows and watching passersby hurry home in advance of the winter storm expected in the next few hours. The phone book in a booth down the street gave him the names and locations of the only two available lodgings in town, and he promised himself to check out the old motel for a little rest after picking up a few necessary items to get him through the next few days. He needed to sleep after days of traveling, demons or no, but the atmosphere of the hamlet put his spirit at ease, and he thought he might just be able to rest without violence for a change.
He walked into the office of the Four Winds Motel, set the silver Halliburton down by his feet, and rang the counter bell for service. A gray-haired man in bright green suspenders answered the summons, hobbling in from the next room where a television set played noisily.
"I'd like a room, please," Jarod said politely.
The wrinkles in the old man's face multiplied tenfold as he smiled back at the tall young man. He reached into the rack of pigeonholes behind the counter and drew out a key on a plastic key ring emblazoned with the motel's logo, and handed it to him. "There you go, son," he said warmly, and started to hobble off again.
"Um, don't I need to sign your register or something?" he asked, his thick, dark brows drawing together in confusion.
The proprietor chuckled and shook his head. "Such a kidder," he mused. "Ya can if ya want to, but it ain't necessary. We both know you're traveling incognito." He winked at Jarod and went back to his television.
Jarod frowned, wondering how the stranger knew, wondering if he had stepped into trouble again. But then, perhaps the old fellow was just a sharp observer of human nature, or clairvoyant like little Nathan. He would be ready, whatever the outcome, but at the moment all he wanted was a flat surface to recline on. He took the key, found the room and locked the door behind himself, then stretched out on his back on the bed and went to sleep in clothes and coat.
It was late the next morning when he woke, and after a bath and a change of clothes into the new outfit he had bought just before he arrived at the motel, he went out into the frigid morning in search of breakfast. A small diner down the street seemed like a good choice, so he seated himself at a booth and picked up a menu to make his selection. Moments later, a tall platinum blonde waitress set a cup of steaming coffee in front of him, along with a saucer piled high with three filled donuts, decorated with pink icing.
"Raspberry supreme?" he asked, staring at the pastries. He was salivating already. "That was just what I was going to order." He looked up at her and smiled. "How did you know?"
She laughed and waved a hand at him, then strode off to look after her other customers.
It was certainly odd how people were reacting to him, as if they already knew him, knew his desires before he even spoke them aloud. The situation bore some investigation, and he intended to start asking around, but after he attended to the task most pressing in his mind at the moment. He paid his bill and left a nice large tip for the woman, then hurried down the street to a small general store for a few more provisions. He picked out some shaving gear, several packs of Pez along with a very cool Power Pez dispenser, a few new black T-shirts and pairs of jeans, socks and underwear. He piled them on the counter and glanced up at the middle-aged woman waiting on him, as she reached under the counter and pulled out a thick stack of newspapers from all over the country.
"I got these in special, just for you," she told him proudly, and proceeded to ring up the purchases, including the newspapers he had not requested.
He started to protest, but then an article on the front page of the paper on top caught his eye, and he decided to read through them anyway. Unrolling the appropriate number of bills to cover the purchase, he handed them over, picked up the paper and started to read it right there. The woman bagged up his other purchases and slipped his change in an envelope, laying it on top in the bag. Now thoroughly immersed in his article, he picked up the bag with a distracted word of thanks and headed out into the knee-deep snow and cold again, intent on putting away his new wardrobe and spending a relaxing day reading the news.
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"We've got a sighting on Jarod!" Broots crowed, poking his head into Sydney's office doorway. "Someplace up near St. Paul. The Director was at a conference and spotted him arriving at the airport. Followed him as far as the diner in Serendipity, but Jarod must've taken the back way out and lost her. She didn't have any sweepers with her, or she would've sent them after him. Wanna call Miss Parker? I got the corporate jet all ready and waiting."
Sydney frowned thoughtfully. "I wouldn't have thought he'd choose to leave the St. James Foundation so soon," he mused, steepling his fingers. "But if he's on his own again, he's fair game. I'm sure he knows that." He turned his calculating gaze on the technician at the door. "He's recovering, then. He's ready to play the game again. That's good news."
He rose slowly from his chair and started stacking up file folders on his desk, returning them to the credenza behind him, where he locked them away and put the key in his pocket. "Yes, I'll inform Miss Parker. Have a car meet us downstairs in fifteen minutes."
Broots gave an excited salute and dashed away down the hall.
But as Sydney picked up the phone to dial Miss Parker's office, his gaze fell on the white queen he had been given in Arizona. It was just an ordinary chess piece, nothing special about it, but he knew it held great significance for the woman who had given it to him. She intrigued him. In the few minutes he was in her company, he thought he saw someone very much like himself, and it was a distinct pleasure to hear a European accent after so long in America. Grace St. James had been a beautiful woman once, but now she was an angel of mercy, her face lined with character and tragedy, her hair tinged with gray from living a full life. She was hardly a waif-like model, but there was a seductive quality about her, a shadow of vibrant life that drew him like a magnet. He wanted to know more about her, and through his inquiries via the Centre's research people, he intended to do just that.
He put the queen into his jacket pocket after hanging up the phone, and strolled downstairs to meet his companions for the trip.
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The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport closed just after their plane landed. A winter storm had arrived and the forecast called for more than a foot of fresh snow and driving winds, blizzard conditions that the cities could not ignore. The trio took the private car waiting for them and drove north to where the sighting had occurred, following I35-E to Otter Lake, then veering off on a side road to Serendipity. It was a small burg set away from the main cities and the closely clustering suburbs, and their first order of business was to find suitable rooms to stow their gear in before they commenced the hunt.
Miss Parker chose the Fortune Inn, a bed and breakfast in a blue and white Victorian house on a hill overlooking the whole of Serendipity. Whether they found him or not, they would probably be spending several days in the quaint, snow-covered village, and odds were in their favor that if Jarod was still in town, they would be able to find him. Catching him was another matter entirely.
They staked out the diner and waited in the car, borrowed blankets piled up on them for warmth, though it did no good. The car's windows kept covering with falling snow, and they decided to conduct the search on foot, making their way through the downtown area, flashing the photograph of their runaway to shopkeepers where Jarod was most likely to have done business and asking if they had seen him. She was hot on the trail, scoring hit after hit, and it seemed as if the people in the rustic, snow-clad village were on familiar, friendly terms with the Pretender. But businesses were closing early because of the weather, and Miss Parker was considering holing up in the inn until it passed, picturing Jarod relaxing by a fireplace in cozy rented digs, preparing for his next escapade. On a whim she ducked into the public library to warm up a bit, thankful that it hadn't closed yet. She brushed the snow off her hair and began an aisle by aisle search, tingling with anticipation and hopeful to find her quarry there.
She found him in the theology section, with a copy of the Koran in one hand and a book of Buddhist sutras in the other. He didn't see her, so she ducked behind the next row of shelves and tailed him until he moved closer to the rear exit before she made her move. He put down his stack of books on a reading table in the back corner of the room, and she moved up quickly, pulling her pistol but keeping it where just the two of them could see it.
"Hello, Jarod," she said softly.
He looked up slowly, confused surprise twitching between his brows, and met her steely green gaze evenly.
"Bet you didn't expect to see me again so soon, did you?"
He said nothing, his glance dropping to the gun in her hand briefly before flicking back up to her face.
"Doesn't seem like long enough," he murmured. "Then again, it could have been a whole lifetime ago."
"With you, Jarod, a whole lifetime could be five minutes," she snapped. "But I'm tired of playing games with you. No more Monopoly with real people. No more walls papered in Bazooka comics. And no more Roach Motels for people, either. Your nasty little tricks have done nothing but provoke me. But now the shoe is on the other foot, or haven't you discovered cliches, yet?" She nodded toward the door behind him. "We'll go back to that disgustingly quaint little bed and breakfast to wait for Sydney and Broots. It's too bad we can't leave right away, though. I know Daddy will be pleased to have you back in your cage at the Centre. And I'll be free at last."
His brown eyes darkened as he stared her down, and he seemed extra careful in forming his reply. "Do you enjoy locking innocent people up?" he queried, a bitter smile shadowing the corners of his mouth.
"I'll admit to a fraction of sympathy for what was done to you as a child, but you're a long way from innocent," she growled. "Especially after living with that blonde bimbo for the best part of the year I've spent chasing you. She didn't get pregnant by herself, now did she?"
He read the daggers in her eyes accurately. "Why, you're jealous," he smirked. "Why is that? Did you want me, or her?"
The temperature in the room grew significantly cooler as she froze him with a penetrating stare. "Out the door, Frankenboy," she snarled. "And don't try to escape again. Next time you make me shoot you, I won't be so kind as to aim for your leg. You know they want you back dead or alive."
"You won't kill me," he observed with certainty, but turned and headed slowly out the back door anyway, shrugging into his coat as the door closed behind the woman with the gun.
"After all the hell you've put me through this last year, Jarod? Don't bet on it."
"I'm very good at figuring the odds," he boasted innocently. "And I learned early how to stack them in my favor."
She sighed heavily, pulling her coat tighter around her neck. "You're just a lab rat, Jarod," she growled. "Your whole life has been one long experiment. Just give up this ridiculous idea that your being out in the world playing Mr. Fix-it is going to make any difference, and get on with your real work. It's what you were made for."
He stiffened, stopped short in the snow and glanced over his shoulder at her. "I was made to be a human being, with dreams and hopes, and a family who cares about me," he accused, his eyes dark and hot. "I didn't get that, because somebody stole me from my destiny. I could have made a difference in the way things are. You know that."
Miss Parker glared right back at him. "You have made a difference," she shot back mercilessly. "Just not in the direction you wanted."
He turned away and trudged through the deepening snow silently, listening to her footsteps struggling along in his wake. She slipped once, cursing as she hit the ground, but instead of running he waited for her to regain her feet before continuing on. The woman tucked her pistol inside her coat sleeve as they went up the steps of the old house, and she took her companion's arm when they stepped inside, pasting on a fake smile and gazing up at him with steely desire for the benefit of the elderly woman at the front desk, who knew the young woman was expecting to meet her husband there.
"Why, Mr. Black!" Mrs. Alcott chortled. "I had no idea you'd gotten married! You should've told me when you arrived in town."
The Pretender shrugged and grinned, patting the gloved hand wrapped tightly around the crook of his elbow, and glanced down at the redhead's predatory leer. "I didn't have the time till now, Mrs. Alcott. I hope you gave us your best room. The one with the brass bed?"
The innkeeper chuckled, blushing. "Why, yes, as a matter of fact I did give Miss Par-- er, Mrs. Black the room with the biggest bed."
"Let's go right up, darling," the young woman cooed, leading him through the foyer, up the stairs and down the short hallway to a guest suite. Once the door closed and the bolt had been thrown, she turned on him and pointed the pistol at him again. Pulling a silencer from her coat pocket, she screwed the attachment on without taking her eyes off the fugitive.
"Hang up your coat, take off your shoes and lie down on the bed," she ordered coldly.
A wicked grin slipped over his whole face. "Oooh. Shall I undress first, or do you want that pleasure?"
She rolled her eyes briefly, cocked her head and gave him a withering frown. "Please, Jarod. You've been sexually active for less time than I've had these shoes. Even if you are a fucking genius, I think I'm still light years ahead of you in that department."
He glanced at her Ferragamos and noted that they were hardly even scuffed. Undaunted, he shot back, "But I'm a very fast learner. Or had you forgotten?" He hung his coat on the brass stand in the corner, kicked off his Rockports beneath it, and reclined lazily, sensuously on the mattress. He pulled off his black T-shirt and dropped it on the floor beside the bed, barely breaking eye contact with her as the garment slipped over his face.
"Here I am, doll. Come and get me."
The flare of something hot in her eyes was unmistakable, but he couldn't tell if it was anger, hatred or passion, or possibly a mixture of all three. Her face was unreadable, impassive, but after she slipped out of her coat and hung it up, she reached into the other pocket and withdrew a pair of gleaming chrome-plated handcuffs.
"Put these on first," she commanded huskily, tossing them onto his hard, muscular abdomen. "Loop them through the headboard." She smiled then, her eyes bright and dangerous. "I don't want you to get away from me again."
He obeyed slowly, methodically, the lightness fading from his face as he latched the second cuff shut over his wrists.
She sighed and lowered the pistol, her hungry look vanishing instantly. "There, now. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"I guess you haven't noticed," he said teasingly, rocking his hips slightly upward to draw her eyes there.
"Why, Jarod," she gushed girlishly. "Are you actually making a pass at me?"
"Why not?"
She chuckled softly to herself. "Wouldn't Daddy just have a coronary if I screwed you," she mused aloud. "That's reason enough to do it, right there."
Shaking her head, she wandered over to the nightstand beside the bed, poured herself a glass of water from the crockery pitcher waiting there, and reached for a bottle of prescription pills sitting beside it. She popped one in her mouth and swallowed it, draining the glass afterward and slipping out of her shoes as she sat down on the chair beside the bed, her pistol laid across her lap. She watched his eyes go to the bottle and flicker back and forth as he read the label.
"Yes, you gave me an ulcer," she admitted frankly. "But once I deliver you back to the Centre and get my life back, I'll be able to take a little time off, go visit a sunny beach somewhere, relax..."
"While I'm locked up in a cage doing God knows what," he finished for her. "How does that make you feel? What was my crime? Why do I deserve that?"
She glared at him again and was about to make a biting retort when a knock sounded on the door.
"Miss Parker," called Sydney through the door. "We decided to take a break in favor of a late luncheon. Or early dinner. Will you join us?"
"Come in, Sydney. Look what the cat dragged in."
Both men stepped into the room, and the captive raised his leg facing the door to hide his present state of arousal from the visitors, while he worked to quell the response physically.
"Oh, my God, you got him!" announced Broots, glancing between the man on the bed and the woman in the chair. He smiled when he looked at her, but the smile melted away when his eyes met the hooded brown ones staring back at him from the back side of the room. "Um, sorry, Jarod. I guess this kinda sucks for you, huh?"
"We'll see," he said softly, his eyes flicking back to the seated woman meaningfully. He grinned and gave her a wicked wink.
"Cut the innuendo, Jarod," Miss Parker bit out. "Nothing's going to happen, except that you're going back to the Centre as soon as we can get out of this God-forsaken hole in the cosmos." She shot an angry, short-tempered look at the technician. "Pray for a heat wave, Broots. And get us some food sent up here. We'll take turns on guard so he doesn't have a chance to get away. Nobody so much as looks away from him for a moment when they're on duty. Is that clear?"
"We could be trapped here several days, if the weather report is correct," said the Pretender. "I'll have to go to the bathroom eventually. And I'm sure you'd all appreciate it if I had a shower every day."
"Food, Broots," Miss Parker reminded him. "Sydney, you watch your creature here while I go make arrangements for another room."
The older man nodded and thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, staring down at the man on the bed from his post near the door. Once the others were gone and the door closed after them, he said quietly, "I'm sorry, Jarod. I didn't think it would be this easy. Unless, of course, you wanted us to catch you. Are you ready to go home now?"
Looking up at the ceiling, the younger man replied, "Home, Sydney? The Centre is my home? How long was I there?"
"That isn't what--"
Jerking against the cuffs, the prone man glared at Sydney and cut him off before he could finish. "Answer the question, Sydney. How long was I there?"
Sydney hesitated a moment. Something was wrong in this situation. He could feel it, but he couldn't identify exactly what it was. "Thirty-three years," he answered quietly. He saw Jarod close his eyes and let his head fall back wearily on the pillow beneath him, as if the answer had been a devastating blow rather than a commonly known fact between them. Sydney wandered over to sit in the chair Miss Parker had vacated, taking care to gingerly remove her pistol and lay it on the floor beside his feet so it would be within reach when the redhead returned.
"Where are the DSAs, Jarod? We've got to have them back, too."
"In a safe place," he answered slowly. "Safe from you, anyway." Presently he opened his eyes again, once more staring blankly at the ceiling. "Who took me, Syd?"
Hearing this particular young man use the short form of his name rankled slightly. Jarod never used to use anything but his full first name, and it bothered him but he decided not to mention it. "I don't know. None of the information on who you are or where you came from is in the Centre's database. I've told you that before. Whoever has access to the truth must be guarding it jealously. Neither I nor anyone I know there has ever heard so much as a rumor regarding your origins. I wish I could help. I really do."
He watched the young man draw his arms over his face in a gesture of utter, soul-deep exhaustion, leaving just enough space for his mouth and nose to remain unrestricted. "Why me, Sydney? Why any child?"
For a long time the elder stayed silent, turning the questions over in his mind. Both of them knew the answer to the first one, but it was the rhetorical second question that neither of them could put to rest easily. "The Tower felt that you would be able to focus better on the simulations and projects put to you if you had no other distractions," said Sydney slowly. That was the line he had been fed, anyway, years ago. He had accepted it, but never truly believed it. There was some ulterior motive for removing Jarod from his life, though Sydney never questioned his orders back then. In time, Jarod had slowly rejuvenated his curiosity, though he had to keep it tightly reined in and wait for answers to come to him rather than seeking them out. He could have saved Jarod early on, but his soul had been dying slowly for years, and he had stopped caring by the time the Centre took him in. Jarod cured him of that, too.
"Didn't anyone think about the ones who were left behind? What became of them? Do you know that much?"
"That's something I've wondered about every day since you escaped," said Sydney slowly. "You know, Jarod, you aren't the only one the Centre has erased. You've seen some of the others, some of the new children in the halls. I was surprised that you hadn't tried to save some of them, too."
"How do you know I haven't?"
Sydney chuckled softly, arching his eyebrows in acknowledgment of the point scored. "I suppose I just assumed you were so busy righting the wrongs of the world that you wouldn't have time." He sighed. "But you told me when you were eleven years old that you'd never give up searching for your identity. I should have guessed your plans were more far-reaching than that."
"You may think you know me, but you really don't. Not at all."
The two men fell silent for a space, and when Miss Parker returned to the room, Jarod was sleeping soundly, his arms still lying over his face to shut out the world. Sydney rose and decided to go to his room, unable to stand the sight of his protege lying trussed up on the bed any longer. He dared not hope that Jarod might yet escape Miss Parker's clutches again, and yet the glow of it warmed him as he shut the door behind himself.
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"Jarod!"
The man jerked upward, but his restrained hands yanked him back against the bed just after the cry was torn from his lips.
He glanced around him, and spied the redhead polishing off the last bite of a piece of cheesecake on a plate she set daintily away when she was done.
"What a nightmare," he whispered aloud, to himself more than to her.
"I've been called worse," she quipped, licking her lips delicately to avoid disturbing her lipstick. "But then, you didn't always think I was such a bitch. Did you, Jarod?"
"I could use a drink. Why don't you be a good little girl and get me one?"
She rose slowly, seductively, ignoring his request, and reclined on the open side of the queen sized bed, facing him. She trailed her fingers playfully through the thick mat of dark hair covering his chest, her eyes flicking lower to see if it brought about the desired reaction. And she smiled when it did.
"I was the first girl you ever saw," she said teasingly. "The first girl to kiss you. And when we were teenagers..." Her smile faded, her expression turning cold and hard. "...you were the reason my father sent me away. Did you know that? He thought I was distracting you from your work, so he sent me to boarding school."
He rolled toward her, laying his head on his left arm like a pillow. "I'm sorry. Maybe it was best that you left. For you, I mean."
"Did you miss me?"
There was an undercurrent of hopefulness in the question that he picked up on instantly.
"Yes."
He craned his head forward slightly in an unsuccessful attempt to reach her lips, but he was unable to cross the distance.
She grinned wickedly.
"Too bad I wasn't successful with seducing you when we were 17," she teased. "I had a little practice under my belt by then and knew enough to get you trained, but, unfortunately, your keepers never left you alone for long enough to do the deed."
"We're alone now," he reminded her. "And I'm pretty good at it, too."
"When Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-Dee could walk in that door at any moment?" she chuckled huskily. "Not on your life." She stroked her hand across the bulge straining against his jeans and gave it a little pat. "Looks like it's blue balls for you, Frankenboy."
She rolled off the bed and stood up, heading for her purse to fetch a cigarette.
"I'll buy you a nicotine negligee if you'll lay off those things while I'm stuck in here with you," he offered lightly.
After a deep, long drag, she exhaled a cloud of smoke purposefully in his general direction. "In another year or so, after you've been locked away in the bowels of the Centre's deepest levels, you might be glad to be dying of lung cancer."
He watched her in silence for a long time after that, watched her smoke and pace the floor and glance at her wrist for the time. He read a thousand things in her body language and her immobile face, and eventually he asked, "Why are you so upset? You've finally caught me. That's what you wanted. Isn't it?"
She glared at him. "I want to know what you know about my mother, but I don't want to have to drag the answers out of you," she responded slowly. "I'm not twelve years old anymore, and I don't want to play games. Do you know who killed her? Was it my father, or Mr. Raines?"
"You answer my questions first," he retorted.
"Tell you who you are? Who your parents were? What difference does it make? You can't go spend your holidays with them, now, can you?"
"It makes all the difference to me," he shot back angrily. Jerking against the handcuffs, he punctuated his sentence with a sharp clang of metal chains against brass bars, and wrestled himself to a kneeling position on the bed. "Wouldn't you want to know if you were me? Wouldn't you want to look into the face of the family you haven't seen since you were a little kid? What does my mother look like? My father? Do you know? Of course not. All that was important was getting me for the Centre, and to Hell with everyone else. Their pain doesn't matter. Neither does mine. Was I worth it? Is that why you're still after me? Because I'm so irreplaceable? Or do you just not want the Centre's secrets revealed?"
The redhead took a last drag off her cigarette and strolled to the ashtray on the nightstand to stubb it out. "Lots of questions," she mused coolly. "But none of them have anything to do with me. My job is simply to catch you and bring you back. After that, I really don't care what happens to you. I never did."
"Liar," he snarled. "But then, you're an expert at lying to yourself, aren't you?"
She folded her arms across her chest and fixed him with a gaze that could melt titanium. Then very slowly she strolled over to the door and locked it. "I told you to stay out of my life," she ground out. "My mother died trying to save you from my father. That's reason enough for me to want to kill you. If Daddy didn't want you alive so badly, I'd have already done it."
He saw the way her eyes shifted as she spoke, caressing over his bare arms bulging with muscle as he strained against the handcuffs. He pulled harder against them, knowing it was futile, that they would not break from his effort, but wanting to put on a show for the woman staring at him so hungrily. Her desire was palpable; he could see the evidence of it in her face and her hardened nipples beneath her angora sweater. But she wouldn't admit to that. She would need to be pushed into taking what she wanted, and he was willing to provide the momentum.
"Stop that," she snapped. "You're just going to hurt yourself."
The bed creaked, and the brass bar bent slightly toward him as the chain between the cuffs stressed the hollow metal. He grimaced against the pain, ignoring the chromed bracelets cutting into his wrists as he pushed himself backward, adding his body weight to the effort to pull himself free.
"I said stop it!" she demanded harshly. Miss Parker strode angrily up to his side of the bed and slapped him across the face. His head flew sideways from the impact and he relaxed for a moment, a drop of blood oozing from a small split in his lower lip. He glared hotly up at her, and grinned.
"You'll never stop me," he whispered, and flung himself back with a great roar of strength and pain.
She cursed at him under her breath and pushed at his shoulders, trying to tip him over onto the bed, but he had already braced himself for that by widening his kneeling stance on the mattress. Her hands bounced harmlessly off his upper arm. Once more she struck out at his face, but this time he dodged her swing and reached out for her, letting the chains go slack and slithering one arm behind the bar so he could grab her with the other. Before she knew he had her, he was pulling her down to the bed, face first onto the pillows in front of him. He planted one knee between her shoulder blades and grabbed a handful of her hair before letting her come up for air.
He could hear her screaming expletives into the pillow, which did not stop when he pinned her cheek against the bedspread. Patiently he waited for her to finish, ready for her to lash out at him. She reached instinctively for his groin, but he blocked her with his thigh, yanking back on her hair to keep her from trying it again.
"That wasn't very nice," he chided her teasingly. "You could've hurt me. And I know you don't want to hurt me there. You're too curious for that."
"Curious?" she choked. Pushing herself up from the pillows, she clambered fully onto the bed, forcing her body up between his arms so she could face him. "Curious? About you? You've got to be kidding, Jarod."
"I'm dead serious," he growled huskily.
She was breathing hard from her struggles, her warm, tobacco-scented breath hitting him in the face. "If you don't let me go right now," she snarled, her eyes gleaming with hatred and passion, "you'll just be dead."
"I don't think so," he whispered back, and crushed her against him, devouring her mouth with his own.
She bit his lip.
He jerked away, pulled her head back and attacked her throat instead. Moving surely, swiftly downward, he teased her erect nipples with his teeth. He couldn't reach her clothes with his hands and if he let go of her hair he was sure she would vault off the bed. He had to maintain control until he pushed her over the edge. To do that, he would have to be very, very good, better than the best she'd ever had. And he suspected she was quite the expert in that field.
