Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(122)

Her mouth hung open, aghast. He jerked his chin at the phone and took a step back. His Adam's apple bobbed. "Do it," he said savagely. "Just push the green button and make it end."

The bleak, tight mask of hurt on his face made her heart twist and burn. She snapped the phone shut. "Go to hell," she said.

"You tell him, missy," Mrs. Hathaway said. "I say call the cops." .

Erin tried to smile at her. "Don't worry, Mrs. Hathaway. We're just having a disagreement, and we had the bad taste to have it in public instead of in private."

"He's trouble," Mrs. Hathaway warned. "I can tell."

"I have the situation under control," Erin soothed. "But I really appreciate your concern. You're a good neighbor."

Mrs. Hathaway looked disappointed. She rounded on Connor. "I don't like your kind." She punctuated every word with a vicious stab of her cane in Connor's direction. "That long hair and those dangerous eyes, and that filthy dirty mouth on you. Swearing like a stevedore in front of a nice young lady. Men like you are pure trouble and nothing but."

"Yes, ma'am," Connor said patiently. "That's what they tell me."

"Think you're so smart, hmm?"

Connor rolled his eyes. "Hardly," he muttered.

She jabbed her cane toward Erin. "You watch yourself, missy. He mouths off to you again, you let me know. Don't you ever let a man swear at you. They just think it's a license to take liberties. Every time."

"Don't worry," Erin said again. "Really. Have a nice evening."

Mrs. Hathaway stumped back toward her open apartment door, muttering. They waited until the door had shut on the flickering blue TV light and the canned laughter before they dared to look at each other. She held out the phone to him. He shook his head.

"Keep it," he said. "I don't want to talk to anybody."

She dropped it into her purse, for lack of anything better to do with it. They stared at each other warily, both afraid to breathe.

"Want to take this fight upstairs and have it in the privacy of your apartment?" His voice was still hard, but the terrifying edge of his fury was blunted.

She nodded, and knelt down to gather her things up against her chest. Her clumsy fingers kept dropping things. Six flights were a long journey with Connor seething behind her. She felt his gaze burning into her back. Staring up at her body in that insubstantial dress.

She fished her keys out of her purse. As usual, he took them from her and pulled out his gun. She waited patiently through the whole familiar ritual until he waved her in, and locked and bolted the door.

She flipped her floor lamp on as he shrugged off his coat, flung it over a chair. He planted his feet wide and folded his arms over his chest. "So?" His voice was flat. "Let's hear it, Erin."

She dropped her things on the floor. Covered her breasts with her arms, and dropped them again, in an agony of embarrassment. She gathered up handfuls of her skirt and searched for a starting place.

"When I got to Mueller's place, Tamara met me at the door," she began. "She showed me a Celtic gold torque, in the shape of two fighting dragons. A new acquisition. Extremely beautiful."

He nodded for her to continue. "OK. And?"

"Mueller had requested that I model it for him. I tried to excuse my way out of it, told her I was dressed wrong. She said they had already ordered several gowns to set off the torque for me to choose from. She pressured me and… and so I—"

"And so you did it. You took off your clothes in that man's house and put on a dress that he bought for you." Fiercely controlled anger vibrated through his words. "Jesus, Erin, What were you thinking?"

She squeezed her eyes shut against his gaze. "I wasn't," she admitted. "I wish I hadn't done it. It was embarrassing and awful, and I will never, ever do anything so stupid again in my life, I promise. Please don't make such a big thing of it, Connor. It's just… a dress."

He seized her upper arms, so suddenly that she gasped in alarm, and pulled her over to the standing mirror, the only antique piece that she had allowed herself in the tiny apartment. The rosy light from the basket lampshade painted her body with garish reddish streaks of light and shadow. His arm beneath her breasts pulled the décolletage lower, so that the aureoles of her nipples peeped over it. Her lips were stained red with Tamara's cosmetics. Her eyes looked huge and frightened.

Connor stared at her in the mirror. His eyes were dilated with dark fascination. "Look at yourself," he said. "Maybe this is just a dress on some other woman, but not on your body. On you, it's something straight out of a hard-core wet dream." He pressed his erection against her bottom. "Last night you said you were my woman." His low voice took on a soft, hypnotic quality. "This morning you said it again. Did you mean it? Or were you lying to me?"

"I meant it." Her voice was very small.

He slid his hands down and gripped her waist. "Then I'm going to keep this real simple. We'll just forget our many other complicated issues, and concentrate on basic ground rules. Things that I thought should be obvious."

"Connor, you don't have to—"

"It is not OK with me that my woman should go to a strange man's private home unaccompanied," he said. "It is not OK with me that she should model priceless ancient jewelry for his enjoyment. And it is really, really not OK with me that she should strip naked in his house, paint her face, and put on sexy clothes that this other man bought for her. A man makes that kind of move when he means to f*ck you, Erin. A woman agrees to it when she's willing."