The Phoenix Encounter Read online

“No.”

  “I’ve put my own son at risk. I’ve put you at risk. And it’s all been for nothing because DeBruzkya is going to win.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because I’m not going to let him.”

  Robert hadn’t intended to go there, but he didn’t regret the words, because he meant them. Still, the conversation had strayed into territory he couldn’t ever discuss with her. Lily didn’t know about ARIES. She had no idea he was an agent. To tell her now—especially now—would put her in grave danger.

  “Trust me,” he said gently. “And leave it at that.”

  “I do.”

  “I wish I could have been there for you.”

  “You were,” she whispered. “You were always there. What we had…sustained me when I felt as if I couldn’t go on.”

  Robert closed his eyes against a hot burst of emotion he didn’t want to feel, against words he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear.

  “When you said you loved me—”

  “Don’t.” Leaning forward, he set his forehead against hers and tried desperately not to feel what he knew to be true in his heart.

  “I have to,” she whispered. “I have to say this.”

  He pulled back slightly to meet her gaze and waited.

  “After the missile hit the pub,” she began, “when I was lying in the rubble, waiting to die, waiting for the soldiers to take me…” Her voice broke, but she struggled through the words. “I dreamed you came back. You picked me up out of the rubble and carried me away from the horrors of that place. When I came to and I was alone, I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. I thought I was going to die. I waited for you, but you never came. I thought you’d deserted me.”

  “Oh, honey, no. If I’d been able, I would have come back for you, even if I had to crawl. I thought you were dead.”

  “DeBruzkya did that to us,” she whispered. “I can’t let him get away with that. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but I’m not going to let him walk away.”

  “I’m not going to let you sacrifice yourself.” But even as he said the words, Robert could see she’d made up her mind. She had every intention of using her connection to DeBruzkya to take him down. He could feel his control over the situation slipping through his fingers, like sand through the inept fingers of a child. He was a doctor and scientist, a highly trained ARIES agent; he’d accomplished some amazing things. And yet something as simple—and as complex—as keeping this woman safe eluded him.

  They were standing face-to-face with scant inches separating them. But Robert knew those inches were fraught with a chasm of pain. A chasm he had every intention of traversing no matter what the cost.

  Need twisted brutally inside him, as painful as any wound, as dangerous as any bullet. He didn’t intend to kiss her. But one moment he was holding her lovely face in his hands, wanting—needing—to ease her suffering. And in the next instant his mouth was on hers. He tasted tears and grief, but both those things were laced with the heady spice of desire. And in an instant the moment transformed, from one human being comforting another to a man kissing a woman he cared deeply for.

  The earth moved beneath his feet when she made a sound at the back of her throat and opened to him. He hadn’t expected her to kiss him back, and for an instant he was stunned. The rush of pleasure made him dizzy. He’d known kissing her would be good, but he hadn’t expected it to burn. He hadn’t expected it to shake his world. Turn him inside out. Make him forget all the reasons he couldn’t get involved with her.

  He marveled at the silky feel of her tongue against his, the taste of almond and apricot mingling with the sweet taste of her mouth. Gentle was forgotten as desperation and the need to protect what was precious, the need to possess what was his, took over. She matched him strength for strength, returning everything he gave her and adding something more that was uniquely hers. The combination took his breath.

  Robert wasn’t a fast lover. He preferred to take his time with a woman. But when she moved against him, when she sighed in his ear and made a mewling sound in her throat, his control broke. He ravaged her mouth. His teeth clicked against hers. He knew better than to rush this moment. But the urgency pushing through him was more powerful than any need for restraint. When she threw her head back, he kissed the delicate line of her jaw, her throat, the point of her chin. He ran his tongue along the ridge of her collarbone until she went liquid in his arms.

  Aware that he was breathing hard, that his pulse was raging out of control, he took her hands in his and backed her toward the support beam a few feet away. All the while he kissed her deeply, never giving her respite or time to change her mind.

  The support column stopped her backward progression, and he pressed against her. Her body was as soft and warm as a breath. His senses drank in the essence of her like a man dying of thirst. A few feet away, the fire seemed to swell and spark, filling the room with heat. Aware of the pump of blood through his veins, the hot burn of lust in his groin, he loosened the blanket she’d anchored just above her breasts. A violent shiver ran the length of her when it slipped down and dropped at her feet.

  Her beauty impacted him solidly, humbling him, and for an instant he felt like an inexperienced teenager. “I’d forgotten how beautiful you are,” he said.

  “You always make me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  “You are.”

  “Meaningless flattery.” She smiled, but he could see the zing of nerves in her eyes.

  “Meaningful,” he corrected. “Very meaningful.”

  Her body was familiar and yet it wasn’t. Her pregnancy had produced subtle changes that intrigued him so that he wanted to explore every exquisite inch of her. He touched the tiny mole just above her left breast and remembered touching it a hundred times before. He ran his fingers over the thin white scar on her right hip. The scar hadn’t been there before, and he wondered if the injury had been one of the horrors she’d suffered the night of the explosion. Wanting to take away all the old pain—the new pain, too—he touched it gently, lovingly, and tried to erase the injury it had left upon her heart.

  Her breasts were fuller, her nipples larger and fully erect. He thought of her breast-feeding their baby and he marveled at the miracle of it, and found himself wishing he’d been there to share that moment with her.

  She gasped when he gently cupped her breasts. A cry escaped her when he molded her with his hands. So soft and warm and perfect. She moved restlessly when he brushed his thumbs across the sensitized tips. Dipping his head, he kissed the darkened peak, laving it with his tongue. She cried out when he took her into his mouth and began to suckle. Something primal broke free inside him when she arched. He ran his tongue along the valley between her breasts and flicked the tip of her other breast. His vision dimmed when she reached for him. A hot rush of blood burned him when her fingers closed around his shaft through his jeans.

  “I want you,” he heard himself say. “I’ve never stopped wanting you.”

  “I’ll hurt you again.”

  Pulling away slightly, he took her by the shoulders and eased her back. Her eyes were dark and luminous in the firelight. Her pupils were dilated. Her mouth kiss-bruised and wet. Her breath shallow and fast.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I can’t leave with you.”

  “I’m not going to let you stay.”

  “DeBruzkya will kill you if he knows we’re…together.”

  A quick rise of anger had him pulling away. But Lily stopped him. “Please, don’t stop,” she whispered. “We have this moment. I don’t want to lose it. Robert, I need you.”

  She kissed him, and Robert knew he was going to do exactly what he shouldn’t. She slipped her tongue into his mouth, and he felt the contact all the way to his soul. The soft pressure of her mouth against his. The brush of her breath against his cheek. Arousal burning low and hot in his groin. Twenty-one months of grief and frustr
ation and anger cut loose inside him. Love and fear and the terrible realization that the situation had spiraled out of his control gripped him.

  He closed his eyes against the starburst of emotion. He could feel it tearing him up inside, a wild animal with sharp claws that refused to be caged. All the while she made love to his mouth, driving him mad with the need to have her, to keep her safe, to love her. He kissed her back, gently at first and then with all the desperation inside him. He felt her fingers fumbling with his belt and zipper. Every searing touch set him on fire, tested his control.

  When her hand wrapped around his shaft his restraint broke with an audible snap, and Robert knew he’d lost the battle. He knew it was going to cost him something precious. Something he wouldn’t be able to get back.

  He wanted forever.

  All she could give him was a moment in time.

  And Robert knew that would have to be enough.

  Lily had never felt so swept away. For the first time in her life she needed this. Needed Robert. His touch. The feel of him against her. She needed all those things as much as she needed her next breath. As much as her heart needed to beat.

  Even as sensation ebbed and flowed through her body, she wondered how a touch that felt so right could be so wrong. She didn’t want to hurt him. Not any more than she already had. But she knew where this would lead. And she hated herself for not being strong enough to stop it.

  Never taking his mouth from hers, Robert worked his jeans down his hips. She touched him there, marveling at the thick length of him, the sheer beauty of his body. She’d forgotten so much about what it was like to make love to him. The lean flex of rock-hard muscles. The way he trembled with restraint when she teased him. She’d forgotten how powerful a moment like this could be, what raw desire could do to a woman’s judgment.

  But his kisses intoxicated her as thoroughly as any liquor. She drank them in, and they fed something ravenous and insatiable inside her. His hands were warm and calloused against her flesh, and every touch took her breath away.

  A shiver went through her when he slid his hand down her pelvis to cup her. Her heart stopped for an instant and then began to rage. Her mind cried out against the vulnerability of opening herself up to him in this way. But her body reacted instinctively. She heard her name on his lips, and then he separated her and touched her most intimate place.

  His touch was electric. She felt her body go rigid. He stroked her once. Twice. And she melted and contracted around him. She heard herself say his name, wanted to say it again and again as his finger moved within her, but she couldn’t get enough oxygen into her lungs.

  He never stopped kissing her. Never stopped touching her. It was as if there were too many sensations for her mind to process at once. Her brain overloaded. Shorted out. Until there was nothing except the man holding her, stroking her and the sensations streaking through her like white fire.

  She heard an echo, realized belatedly that she was crying out. He stroked her deeply, knowing instinctively where to touch, when to tease, when to satisfy. The waves built, a relentless tide calling to the moon. She fought the current, not wanting to let herself be totally swept away. But he smoothed out her fear with his voice, soothing her, stroking her endlessly.

  “Let go,” he whispered.

  “I’m…falling.”

  “I’ll catch you.”

  Her trust in him solidified. She closed her eyes against the knowledge. The pain it would bring them. Against the tide of sensation surging through her body, her heart. She rode the tide, and it took control of her, a riptide taking her out to sea. She no longer had the strength to fight it, like a fatigued swimmer caught in a dangerous undertow. She felt herself coming apart in his arms.

  Lily let go of her control and shattered. Completion bore down on her, a rogue wave crashing against a rocky shore. White light flashed behind her lids. She felt the fierce power of it tumble her end over end, but she was weightless. She cried his name, heard the whisper of her own in her ear.

  It was too much, and yet she knew it was not enough.

  “Wrap yourself around me,” he said, lifting her.

  Her reflexes were so sluggish, and she’d barely gotten her arms around his neck when she felt his hands on her hips, pulling her against him. The suddenness of the act stunned her. She felt the rough column against her back. Cool air against wet heat as she wrapped her legs around him. The zing of anticipation when he opened her.

  “I never stopped loving you,” he said.

  “Robert—” Lily cried out when he entered her. There was an instant of discomfort as she adjusted to his size. Then a hot rush of ecstasy. He captured her cry with his mouth. The shock of pleasure stole her breath as he began to move within her. Rapture turned every muscle in her body to water as he filled her and began to move within her. Never in a thousand years would she believe it could be like this. That she would trust him so fully. That the pleasure would be so great she would lose control. That she would feel so much in her heart that the moment would bring tears to her eyes. Or in her soul she could love him so much, and yet never allow herself to give her heart fully.

  A second orgasm rocked her system, shook her from the inside out. Thoughts fluttered in and out of her mind. She grappled for control, but he refused to give her a respite. He moved within her, setting her ablaze all over again. Every nerve ending in her body screamed with pleasure. And while her heart raged against his, the emotions inside her reached their breaking point.

  She held on to him tightly, trying to hold it all inside, knowing there was too much. A sob broke from her lips, a cry wrenched from somewhere deep inside her.

  “Lily?” Robert froze, his muscles going rigid. “Honey, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

  “Don’t stop.” He was still deep inside her, a steel shaft throbbing with heat.

  He didn’t move. “Why are you crying?”

  Embarrassed because she didn’t have the slightest clue how to answer, she tried to look away. He cupped her cheek and forced her gaze to his. “If you want to stop—”

  “I don’t.”

  He looked at her as if she’d just asked him a question in Swahili. Blinking back tears she wasn’t sure how to explain, she kissed him softly on the mouth, keenly aware that she was aroused, that she’d never been more moved by an experience in her entire life.

  She moved tentatively against him, taking him more deeply inside her. His jaw went taut. His pupils dilated. He never took his eyes from her.

  “Oh, Lily…”

  “Robert, you make me feel so much. I mean, not just physically, but emotionally. It’s like I can’t hold it all inside me.” She choked out a laugh. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does.” One side of his mouth curved. “Sort of.”

  She looked at him through her tears, taking in the concern and confusion in his eyes. “You moved me.”

  Cupping her face with his hands, he thumbed a tear off her cheek. One side of his mouth curved. “I think I’m flattered.”

  She smiled back. “There’s something between us.”

  “I’ve always known that.”

  “Make love to me,” she whispered.

  “Not like this.”

  She gasped in surprise when he swept her into his arms. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to finish what we started.”

  Lily felt as if she’d just snapped out of a dream. A very erotic dream that had left her shaken and weak and burning with need. A dream that had taken her to a place beyond her wildest imagination. She glanced around to get her bearings and realized he’d carried her to his tarp near the fire. Gently, he laid her down. “Don’t go away,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and watched him walk naked to where they’d dropped her blanket. He scooped it up along with another tarp, then turned toward her with both in hand. He was still fully aroused, and heat coiled deep in her womb at th
e sight of him.

  He sat beside her, draped the blanket over them and then lay down. “Come here,” he whispered.

  It was the most natural thing in the world for her to go into his arms. Lily closed her eyes against the rightness of it. The solid length of his body against hers. The brush of his chest hair against her sensitized nipples. The nudge of the velvet tip of his penis against her abdomen. She put every nuance to memory because she knew the moment was fleeting. Nothing this perfect lasted forever. If Lily had learned anything in her life, it was that the good things didn’t last.

  “What are you thinking of?” he asked.

  She looked into the vivid blue of his eyes, felt another pang of longing deep within her. “You,” she said, scooting closer to him. “Us.” Touching her nose to his, she smiled at him, but it felt a little sad on her face.

  He kissed her then. A soft, lingering kiss that was so sweet it brought tears to her eyes. A kiss that held the promise of heat and a thousand other things she would have sold her soul to accept.

  He whispered her name as he entered her, saying it over and over again as he moved within her. Lily accepted him into the deepest reaches of her body, giving him everything except the one thing she knew he wanted most.

  Her heart.

  Chapter 12

  Robert stood at the mouth of the mine entrance and watched the rain sweep over the forest in sheets. He didn’t relish the idea of going back into the storm. It was too damn cold for him, let alone for a one-year-old baby, but he knew there was no way they could avoid it. Dawn would arrive in a couple of hours. It was only a matter of time before DeBruzkya’s soldiers found them. With topographical maps of the area, they could already be on the way.

  Troubled and restless and more uneasy than he wanted to admit, Robert closed the door and turned. The fire burned low, casting yellow light on the jagged rock walls and ancient wood beams. He looked at Lily sleeping several feet away. She was lying on her side with Jack curled against her. He stared at them, keenly aware of the swift rise of emotion at the sight of mother and child. And he wondered how in God’s name he was going to keep them safe.