Night of the Panther Read online

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, shifting as if to look up.

  Her eyes flew open, and she applied more pressure, ready to hold him down if necessary. “It’s your arms,” she said, making her voice husky to disguise it. “Why don’t you put them down at your sides.”

  He unfolded his arms and did as she asked. Still looking away from her, he rested his head on the mat, giving her a clear view of his profile. It was impossible to avoid noting the sensual curve of his lips or the way his eyelashes lay against the arc of his cheekbones, almost lush in their length and thickness.

  Relaxation brought out the natural sensuality in his features, she realized. But other than his eyelashes, there was nothing soft in his profile. A woman would have to be blind not to notice the arrogant cords that rode his neck and the vein ridging his high forehead. The capacity for retribution lay in his very bones; even his jawline was shadowed with it. He looked quite capable of torturing a woman half to death . . . but not with pain, with pleasure.

  Her pulse rate surged, sending blood into her extremities, heating her thoughts and her actions as she worked at the tautness in his neck and shoulders. As his muscles began to melt under her efforts, his skin glowed warm and alive.

  “That’s good,” he said. “You’re good. Have I had you before?”

  Honor sucked in a sharp breath and forced herself to keep up the pace and the pressure of her movements. A faint film of perspiration broke out on her upper lip. “No, you haven’t . . . had me before.”

  “That can be remedied,” he said, his voice low, husky with male interest. “I want you on a regular basis.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Honor’s imagination caught fire. What was he talking about? Did he mean doing something beyond a therapeutic massage? Did he mean having sex? Was that what he did with the women who came up here? The thought of him with another woman was like a match striking against her raw nerves. The image burst into quick, hot flames, horrifying her, but it was also disturbingly riveting in some way she didn’t understand at all.

  It was easy to imagine Johnny having sex. He was a beautiful, virile animal. He could put a woman in heat just by looking at her. What she couldn’t imagine was his wanting a woman for anything more than that. Not for love. Never for love. A question flared painfully in her mind. Had she ruined him for that? For loving a woman?

  As she stared down at her own hands, pale against his sienna-colored skin, she remembered the moment he’d offered his hand to her. Come on, paleface, be strong. She could still hear the emotion resonating in his voice as he said those words. And his passion in that dingy men’s bathroom. He’d been shaking with it. What if he’d given in to the passion? she wondered. What if he’d taken her right there in that locked room? Would it have been love? Or sex?

  A nerve near her mouth tautened, triggering a deeper, sharper contraction in her stomach. What if he had . . . taken her there in that room? She could still feel his hands on her arms, lifting her to him. She could feel his breath hot on her lips as he bent to kiss her. Taking a deep breath, she let herself imagine that kiss in all its fiery anguish. . . .

  Her head tilted back deeply as his mouth came down on hers. The burning sweetness of his lips caught her soul on fire. It brought a whimper of helpless need to her throat. She wanted more of him. She wanted his teeth and his tongue and his hands. She wanted to be eaten alive by the panther, devoured by his passion. In her mind she could see his hard, hungry body pressing down on top of her, pressing into the tender ache between her legs. . . .

  A low groan of pleasure brought Honor out of her fantasy.

  It was Johnny who’d made the sound, she realized, and it wasn’t difficult to see why. She was massaging his body with incredibly sensual strokes, her fingers undulating like waves, the balls of her palms rotating deeply, wantonly, into his lower back. In a burst of delayed awareness she saw that the heels of her hands were kneading his flanks and—

  Sweet heaven! The towel had slipped off his body and fallen to the floor! A choked sound filled her throat.

  Johnny’s senses registered the distress signal, but only partially. It came to him from the depths of a warm, slumberous state. He shifted, becoming aware of pleasant sensations stirring inside him, of a tingling fullness in his groin. The towel seemed to be slipping and sliding over his backside, and he thought for a moment that she was removing it. Or was she replacing it? Either way she was a woman who got behind her work.

  “Everything okay down there?” he asked.

  She fumbled, then tucked the towel under his hips on both sides, making him up as if he were a bed. “Now it is,” she said, her voice strange and breathy.

  He smiled, wishing he could get a look at her. “My legs could use a little work when you get around to it, especially the inside of my right thigh. I pulled a muscle playing racquetball.”

  She made a funny choked sound again, and this time it got his full attention. What was she doing? He’d said thighs, but she was down around his ankles. And her hands were shaking noticeably. The scent of orange blossoms was rich and overpowering as he lay there, pondering her strange attraction to his feet. There was something about her voice too. He couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but . . .

  “Ahh, that’s good,” he murmured as her hands crept up his right calf. He closed his eyes, relaxing, breathing deeply of orange blossoms. The fragrance was strong, but he kept catching whiffs of another perfume underneath it, something subtler and flowery. He inhaled several more times before he finally was able to put a name to it.

  “Violets?” he said under his breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Johnny grew very still, aware of every dip of her thumbs, every swirl of her fingers. His brain began to calculate ever so slowly. So what if he’d heard a vaguely familiar voice and smelled some violets. It didn’t mean—

  Oh, no . . . oh, God. Was that Honor massaging him? Were those her hands on his body? He ceased breathing for a second as a shock wave of awareness rolled over him. The circular motion of her fingers was magnified a thousand times in his mind, every delicate touch, every trembling caress. The heat that came off her palms seeped into his veins, firing his bloodstream.

  It was her! Honor.

  He felt a wild surge of excitement, an aching jolt of need, in his groin, and then reality came hurtling at him like a brick heaved through a window. It slammed into his chest with such force he couldn’t breathe. What the hell kind of trick was she pulling now? What was she trying to do to him? Torture him? He’d done everything short of having her arrested, but she wouldn’t back off. Apparently Miss Manners was willing to do anything to get what she wanted, including violating his personal privacy and driving him crazy with lust.

  Anger began to smolder and burn, kindling his male pride, his Apache pride. He’d been sandbagged a time or two in his life, but this woman was the champ. She’d been playing Tiddly Winks on his backside and getting her jollies for twenty minutes now while he moaned and purred like a mangy tomcat. She’d even got him hard, the little witch!

  “My leg,” he said, clenching his jaw against the angry impulses that surged through him.

  “What?”

  “The right thigh, inside. Work it out.” He opened his legs and heard her gasp.

  “You want me to—”

  “Do it, dammit!”

  She sounded as if she were struggling for air. And then her fingers began to creep upward, stealing into the V of his thighs and driving him wild with their fluttering lightness. He clenched his jaw against the sweet riot of stimulation. When she touched the pulled muscles, he groaned aloud.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried.

  He caught hold of the towel and whirled up to a sitting position, snagging her by the wrist. “Sorry?” he said, pulling her toward him. “You haven’t even begun to be sorry.”

  Honor was paralyzed by the surprise attack. Raw panic shot through her. She tried to twist away, but he caught her arm and whipped her back aroun
d, subduing her easily. His strength was astonishing. She quieted with a shudder, knowing it was futile to fight, perhaps even dangerous.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “It was a mistake, I—”

  “No, this was no mistake. You don’t have any more mistakes coming. You’re over your limit.”

  His eyes were so black, she looked away. “Please,” she implored softly. “I wasn’t thinking straight. If you let me go, I’ll—”

  He imprisoned both her wrists in one hand and brought her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “What in the hell’s wrong with you, coming up here? Don’t you know what I could do to you? Don’t you know what I want to do to you?”

  She started to shake, and within seconds the quaking of her body was so pronounced, she could hardly speak. “Yes . . . I know.”

  But she didn’t know. She thought he was talking about sex, and he was, of course. He wanted like hell to be inside her, to violate her golden body with his hard, dark sex. He wanted to take her every way a man could take a woman—a virgin schoolgirl, a blushing bride, a whimpering female animal. He wanted that so badly it hurt. But sex wasn’t enough. Sex wouldn’t heal him. Only justice could do that, biblical justice. An eye for an eye. Her tears for his.

  A skein of her hair was trapped between his hand and her flushed cheek. As he released the white-gold strands, he realized she was wearing her hair loose and free. “Is this for me?” he asked.

  “No! I was afraid you would—I didn’t want you to—”

  “To what?”

  “To go crazy, pull a weapon again.”

  He almost laughed. “Which weapon are we talking about? The knife? I wish I had one handy.”

  “Why? Why do you want to frighten me?”

  He pulled her close, pleased at the tremulous sound she made. “Because I have to do something to you, Honor. I have to do something, for God’s sake. And frightening you seems the safest choice.”

  Angry tears sparkled in her eyes. “Well, you’ve done it, all right? I’m terrified. Now can I go?”

  He hesitated, considering that possibility, wishing he could let her go. How easy everything would be if she simply walked out and never came back. But it wouldn’t work, and they both knew it. This wasn’t over yet. She wasn’t frightened enough. She’d be back.

  “Go?” he said, lowering his voice. “Just when things were getting hot?” He released the towel.

  Letting it fall to the floor, and then he brought her clenched hand to his thigh. She tried to draw back, but he tightened his grip, intending to force her into a direct confrontation with the evidence of how thoroughly she’d aroused him. He wanted her to know he was naked and hard. He wanted her to know the games were over.

  “No, please,” she pleaded.

  “See what you do to me,” he said, his voice as hard and pained as his body. “See how hot things are.” He wanted her to look at him, to face the reality of her crazy scheme. When she wouldn’t, he brought her hand to the wedge of dark hair. “You’ve tortured me enough for one lifetime. It’s time I returned the favor.”

  Color spiked in her pale cheeks, two vibrant slashes of scarlet staining her porcelain skin. Johnny’s hand tightened on her wrist as she stared up at him. Her eyes flashed with frustration, lire rising out of the mists. But it wasn’t the defiance shimmering in her gaze that struck him; it wasn’t even the excitement. It was guilt and contrition. Beneath the frustration she was searching his face with the sweet agony of a penitent.

  “Johnny, please,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I wasn’t trying to—” Her voice broke.

  Tears glittered in her eyes as she unfurled her fingers and touched him, cool silk against the molten core of his desire.

  The softness of her hands sent him into a rage of need. He gripped her by the arms and brought her to his mouth, hissing out his pent-up fury, whispering of her betrayal, shuddering with naked longing as their lips touched. He wanted her. Sweet God, how he wanted her. And how he hated her for making him want anything.

  The force of his own needs hit him. His breath rushed, mingling with hers. The quick, hungry touch of their lips, the little sounds she made, were exquisite. But some vital part of him made him hold back.

  He couldn’t allow himself the wild satisfaction of pulling her beneath him and driving into her.

  She swallowed a sob, bringing him the most perverse kind of pleasure imaginable. She tasted like heaven, like everything he’d ever wanted and been denied. Yearning swept him, the awful, uncontrollable yearnings of childhood. As she pressed against his naked body, he pulled her into his arms, kissing her hungrily, unaware until that very moment that he was a starving man, a dying man. . . .

  “Johnny?” she whispered, searching his features.

  He was barely aware that they’d stopped kissing, that she was looking at him with the same kind of hope, the same frightened innocence, of the girl who’d betrayed him.

  “What are we doing, Johnny?” She touched his mouth with shaking fingers. “What’s happening between us? Is this love? Or sex?”

  Love? Sex? The question seemed vital to her, but he didn’t know what she was talking about. He needed her, he had to be inside her. His groin throbbed painfully with that need. But another feeling burned into his awareness as she continued to hold him back, caressing his mouth.

  “What do you want it to be?” he asked.

  She couldn’t speak, but her eyes told him what she wanted. Her sweet sinner’s eyes. She wanted love and forgiveness, absolution for her guilt, no matter what it cost him to give it. That was what was driving her, he realized. Not some selfless need to help his tribe, or to ease Johnny Starhawk’s suffering. She didn’t give a damn about the hell she was putting him through, the anguish. She wanted redemption, and he was the only one who could give it to her.

  He caught her by the wrist, holding her seductive fingers away from his mouth. What was happening between them? Was he playing into her hands again? Literally, this time? As he stared at her imploring gray eyes, he realized her vulnerability was the most powerful manipulation he’d ever encountered. She’d destroyed him today with her whimpers of need and her fluttering fingers. She’d turned him inside out. Worse, she’d had him on the run since the day she’d arrived. She’d haunted his office, broken into a men’s bathroom, and lied her way into his apartment. She’d been calling all the shots, running the show. But no more. That was all about to change.

  “What’s happening between us isn’t sex,” he said. “And it sure as hell isn’t love. It’s a felony called breaking and entering. And you just committed it.”

  “A felony?” she said, trying to cling to him as he released her and pushed her out of his way.

  He sprang from the table, picked up the towel, and tied it around his hips as he strode across the room. An intercom unit was built into the opposite wall, and he jabbed a sequence of buttons. “Security,” he said. “I’ve got an intruder in my apartment. Come up and get her, would you?”

  He turned to look at Honor’s ashen features, wishing to God he could bring her the same kind of turmoil she brought him. Just once. “If she gives you any trouble,” he told the security guard, “call the police.”

  Five

  HONOR SAT ON THE unmade bed of her hotel room, absently leafing through the pages of the morning newspaper, aware of the television cable news station droning in the background. She wanted distractions that morning, anything that would take up time and fill the silence until the bellman came to pick up her bags.

  The heaviness that came with resignation had settled in on her since her encounter with Johnny the day before. A nagging sense of defeat still dragged at her breathing, and yet she was relieved to be going home. No one could say she hadn’t given it her best shot. She’d done everything but physically kidnap Johnny to get him back to Arizona.

  The shaman was wrong, she realized. She wasn’t the one destined to bring Johnny b
ack. Their past had been so much in the way, she hadn’t even been able to make him see how important it was that he return to the reservation. That was what saddened her the most now. Her own sense of guilt was insignificant compared to what the White Mountain tribe would suffer if it didn’t have adequate legal counsel.

  She closed the paper at the same time that a news flash came on the television. Glancing up at the screen, she saw an Indian boy being taken into custody by two sheriffs deputies.

  “Problems on an Arizona Indian reservation,” the commentator said. “A sixteen-year-old Apache boy is alleged to have dynamited the leaching operations at the Bartholomew uranium mines in the mountains near Coyote Gulch, Arizona. A spokesman for the Apache tribe claims toxic seepage from the mine’s holding pools is polluting their pastureland water and contaminating their livestock. But the district attorney says he will show no leniency in this controversial case. The boy will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

  Honor rushed to the TV and turned up the volume. She was shocked to see her own father appear on the screen standing next to the district attorney. Hale Bartholomew had grown thinner and craggier in the decade since she’d seen him, but with his steel-gray hair and piercing blue eyes, he looked no less intimidating.

  Conflict rose inside Honor. She still loved her father and probably always would, no matter what he’d done. In some strange way she’d felt responsible for his happiness after Hale, Jr., and her mother died. She had longed to make up for the terrible loss he suffered, and perhaps she had hoped he would come to love her the way he had his son. Undoubtedly that was one of the reasons she’d let him talk her into testifying. Even now she didn’t question that her father believed he was doing the right thing by having Johnny sent away. He’d thought he was “protecting” her. She wondered if he was any more capable today than he had been then of understanding that his need to play God and to manipulate other people’s lives was cruel and self-serving.