Bride of the Tiger Read online

  He had started to laugh. “You should learn to enjoy it again, baby. When we get home, you’re going to marry me. If you try to leave me, Tara, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?” He had flexed his fingers, then wrapped them around her neck. “Don’t doubt it—I’ll kill you. I saw you today with that kid. I’m always watching you, Tara. I’ll kill him, too.” He’d chuckled again. “Maybe I’ll just kill him anyway. I may need to.”

  “You fool!” Tara had retorted. “You’ll never keep me this way. I hate you—and I’m not afraid of you!” But she was; she was near tears because he had just proved to her that he could toss her around easily enough—if he had her alone. She was so humiliated she nearly wanted to die, so miserable that she didn’t think that she could ever really trust or love anyone again.

  “Sweetie, remember—you’re mine. I’ll do whatever I want, whenever I want. And if you don’t want to leave a trail of blood in your wake, you’ll leave the boys alone.”

  He’d walked out on her then—cocky, cruel, assured.

  Tara had hesitated in absolute misery—then called Jimmy.

  If she’d been able to think clearly, she might have wondered at his rapid questions, about his lack of surprise that Tine knew about him. He’d told her to meet him at the glass factory, and at that point she certainly should have wondered what was going on.

  The glass factory was out of town, up in the mountains. But Tara had gone, determined that she would never see Tine again.

  The factory was closed. The taxi driver hadn’t wanted to take her there, but she had feverishly convinced him in her broken Spanish that she was meeting a friend there. The kindly cabdriver had stayed with her in the darkness until she had seen Jimmy coming out of the trees.

  He’d taken her gently in his arms and told her that he had the use of a friend’s little house nearby. There was no road leading to it, so they walked through the trees, up the mountain. She told him something of what had happened—not all, since it was so horribly humiliating—and then regretted quite suddenly that she had come to him, because she was afraid for his life.

  That was when the first shot had rung out. They were in a small clearing, the moon overhead, the night beautiful and cool. She could still remember the fresh scent of the trees, damp from a recent rain. She’d screamed, and Jimmy had instantly and protectively pulled her to the ground. Wary, ready. Or so it seemed.

  Tine had appeared in the clearing, carrying a gun. She could remember his silhouette so clearly. She could remember the flash of his teeth when he smiled. She had lain there in terror as he casually glanced her way, then stared at Jimmy.

  She could remember the sophisticated and beautiful brunette at his side—a woman who seemed to know him quite well, to be quite comfortable with this gun-toting activity of his.

  And, despite her terror, she realized what an idiot she had been. He’d wanted to marry her—her income potential had far surpassed even his original imaginings—but there had been other women all along.

  Then, to her complete amazement, he had told Jimmy that he wanted the mask back. And he had laughed and told the other woman that Tara really was an extraordinary prize—she’d lured Jimmy easily when no one and nothing else in the world would have been able to do so.

  “The mask!” Tine had cried, firing a warning shot into the trees.

  Tara had been incredulous when Jimmy fired back—and then she didn’t know what happened at all, because she had ducked her face into the ground and shuddered as volley after volley of shots rang out. Leaves rustled, and Jimmy was gone.

  Sirens had suddenly screeched through the quiet of the forest as the police had climbed their way up the mountain. Tara had dared to look up—just in time to see Tine clutching a bloody shoulder, leaning against a tree. He had stared at her and smiled slowly.

  “Sweetheart, someday, somewhere, I’ll find you again. Once more, my love, for old times’ sake! And then, as I promised—bye-bye, darling!”

  Tine had disappeared. The sirens had come closer and closer. She had screamed for Jimmy—but Jimmy, too, was gone.

  She had been alone with the brunette—dead from a gunshot wound—when the police had arrived. She’d been arrested instantly, dragged into interrogation. She had sworn her innocence, trying to explain that Tine had been shooting at Jimmy. When George Galliard arrived to stand at her side in the confusion, they had threatened to arrest him, too. After all, he had employed both Tine Elliott and Tara.

  George had sworn her innocence too and threatened to sue for libel and legal retribution. Heads would roll if he and Tara weren’t released immediately, he’d insisted.

  No one ever did discover who Jimmy was. Nor had Tine been found. After three miserable weeks, the charges against Tara had been dismissed. She and George had come home, and she had decided to disappear after the media blitz. The police had told her that Tine had been suspected of being in on the artifacts smuggling racket for a long time. The papers had picked it up, and she had found herself labeled the lover and accomplice of a notorious criminal.

  Tara opened her eyes and took a deep breath. The water was getting cold. Her dinner was probably burning. She didn’t want to think anymore—she just wanted to sleep.

  She hurried into the kitchen, turned off the stove, and poured herself a glass of wine, which she quickly downed. Feeling a bit better—as if she would at least get some release from her own thoughts!—she dressed in a silk floor-length hostess-type nightgown, brushed out her hair and meandered back into the kitchen.

  She bent over the oven door, intending to remove her dinner, then frowned, feeling a little dizzy. Too much wine after a sleepless night, she thought. The doorbell rang. She hesitated. If she didn’t answer, whoever it was would go away.

  But someone was insistent. The bell kept ringing. “All right, all right!” she muttered, pressing her palms to her forehead.

  She should never have just opened the door. She didn’t usually do anything so foolish—she always checked through the little peephole to see who was there. Perhaps she had been so annoyed and so dizzy that she had thrown the door open to stop the horrible sound of the bell as quickly as possible.

  It was a mistake. A horrible mistake.

  Because he stood there. Her tiger-man. Arching a brow with stern displeasure at her carelessness.

  He was in black again: black trousers; black vest; black jacket. But a white shirt and a red tie. Elegant, casual. He might have graced the pages of an elite magazine. Sophisticated.

  And the farthest thing in the world from civilized! In spite of the suit, in spite of his totally businesslike appearance, he still resembled a tiger. Taut and vital, exuding a leashed energy, yet cool and knowledgeable, on the prowl.

  “Rafe!” she said, standing there.

  “Yes, and you should be glad that it is. You might have just thrown your door open to a mugger.”

  The smile she gave him nearly caused his heart to stop, his blood to boil. Superior, aloof, a sensual curve of her lips.

  “Perhaps that would be less dangerous. You can’t come in, you know.”

  But he was already in, closing and locking the door behind him, frowning as he surveyed her eyes.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m all right. But you can’t stay.”

  “I have to stay. My dinner is coming here.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, I’ve ordered us two steaks, medium rare, linguine with clam sauce, and antipasto. It will arrive any minute now.”

  “Well, I’m so sorry, but you didn’t ask me, and you can’t stay!”

  Did tigers smile, or did they simply grin? He leaned against the door, watching her, as comfortable in her home as a lover of many years’ standing might be.

  “You wouldn’t really have me eat in the hallway, would you? And besides, your own dinner is burning.”

  “What?” she demanded, and then she smelled it—her frozen dinner, burning in the oven. “Oh,” she murmured, and hurried out t
o remove the charred remains before the whole place smelled of smoke.

  Tara grabbed an oven mitt, quickly threw the tray into the sink and flooded it with water.

  Rafe was right behind her. “That was what you were going to eat? For a meal?”

  “It was a fine meal!” she retorted. “Models are supposed to be slim, remember?”

  She wanted to sail regally on by him and show him the door, but the dizziness overwhelmed her, and right before him, in the narrow space of the doorway, she found herself having to stop and grasp the frame to keep herself upright. She looked from the sleek material of his suit to his eyes and shivered, because it was there, that magnetism so unique, so dangerous, so appealing and sexual that her heart fluttered in a way it hadn’t for years. No, never—she had never felt this absolute attraction before in her life.

  “Slim?” he inquired softly as he took her cheeks between his palms, then threaded his fingers slowly through her hair. “You’re perfect. More beautiful without makeup. Soft, like this, fragrant and natural in every way.”

  “I—” Tara gripped the door desperately for help. “You—you have to go.”

  The doorbell started to ring again. He smiled and went to answer it.

  It was dinner. Two men in white coats brought it in on a table covered with a snowy-white cloth. They set it up in her living room. Tara couldn’t seem to speak as she watched the whole thing taking place. The men tipped their caps to Rafe, then said they hoped she enjoyed her dinner.

  And then they were gone. Rafe had taken two chairs from her dining-room table. He held one out for her.

  “I told you—” she began.

  “It’s here. And your own meal is a soggy mess in the kitchen sink. Come on—you have to eat.”

  She paused, watching him warily. “Who are you, what do you want, and why have you been following me?”

  He returned her stare. “I am Rafe Tyler,” he replied. “And what I want is you. Can that be so difficult to understand? No subterfuge. I’m being as honest as I can. And civilized! I realize that what I want may not be something you...desire, so I want to get to know you. Dinner and walks and flowers. I’ll worship from afar—for a while!” he said softly. He smiled, and she thought there was an amazing tenderness in his eyes. A tenderness as great as the primal heat and hypnotic energy that drove him.

  She couldn’t fight him. Wine and exhaustion were making her too drowsy, costing her too much.

  “You’re rather sure of yourself, aren’t you?” she asked him.

  “I’m a determined type of person.”

  “If I sit down and eat, will you leave?”

  “If that’s what you want, yes.”

  “I have to sleep,” she told him primly.

  He arched a brow. “Did you have trouble sleeping last night? Might it have been because of me?”

  “Of course not!” she snapped.

  He just smiled and seated her politely then sat down across from her. He served her, talking about the wonders of the restaurant from which the food had come. She ate, asking him questions. She learned that he really lived on Long Island but kept an apartment in the city. He told her that he had sailed quite a bit, traveling the world on steamers right after college. She was barely aware that he had poured wine for her—and that she had kept drinking—until her elbow fell off the table and she nearly lost her balance.

  “What’s the matter?” he demanded, sweeping around to help her.

  She stared at him, shaking her head in confusion. She had heard him; she hadn’t heard him. She felt delightfully light, and terribly sleepy. Very soft, very feminine. He didn’t seem to be so much of a threat anymore. He was a man. An attractive and attentive one, and it was impossible not to like him.

  “Tara!”

  He seemed annoyed, though, annoyed and a little too macho.

  “What have you done to yourself?”

  She smiled, loving the feel of the fabric of his jacket against her cheek, fascinated by the gold and silver color of her hair where it fell across his shoulders.

  “I told you—I have to sleep.”

  “What did you take?”

  “Don’t yell at me!”

  “Then tell me!”

  “It’s all your fault. George told me to go home and sleep so I had a glass of wine. And then you gave me more.”

  His face was tense, and his arms were tight as he lifted her and carried her down the hallway, past the bath and the den to her bedroom. It seemed all right. Everything seemed to be all right.

  More than all right. She felt ridiculously secure, comfortable. So relaxed, so ready to smile.

  “You should be in bed,” he said as he stopped in the doorway.

  “I would have been. You appeared at the door.”

  Thick lashes hid the tawny gold of his eyes. She thought that he smiled a little secretively.

  “I’m going to put you to bed.”

  “Wasn’t that your plan?”

  “No. Eventually, I plan to take you to bed. There is a massive difference, of which you will one day be completely aware.”

  “Ah! No ego problems there!”

  He smiled, turned down her brocade coverlet and the sheet below, then laid her down with her head on the pillow. He sat at her side, studying her intently.

  “They’re quite unusual,” she murmured, reaching up to touch his face, smoothing a finger over his brows.

  “My eyebrows?”

  “Your eyes. They actually have brown in them, and green—and a ring of blue at the very edge. Like crystal. And when you combine all the colors, they seem gold. Like a tiger’s eyes, reflecting in the darkness.”

  “They’re hazel,” he said dryly.

  He caught her hand and pressed a kiss against her palm. She inhaled sharply at the river of sensation that swept through her. She was tired and off guard, yet she couldn’t seem to care.

  When their eyes met, it seemed as if eons passed. Eons in which they strained to know each other, to absorb each other’s soul, and thoughts, and heart.

  He leaned toward her. And kissed her.

  Never had she felt such magic. Lips that knew hers, commanded, yielded and coerced. Warmth and fever, magnetism, engulfing her.

  Never had a kiss coursed through every nerve and fiber of her being, awakening a fever, a heat. His lips were forceful, his tongue demanding. Sweeping all the crevices of her mouth, hungry and restraining, hungry and setting free...

  She felt his hands cupping her face, caressing her shoulders.

  Moving intimately. More intimately than they should have been. She trembled as his fingers curved around her breast, his fingers playing over her nipples. He groaned, deep and hoarse, against her, and sudden truth and panic seized her.

  She wanted him. Everything within her quivered for him, like a strung bow, taut and ready to let fly. She was fascinated by him. Where he touched her, she felt alive. Where he did not touch her, she longed to be touched. She wanted to see his shoulders bared to her touch. She wanted to explore his chest and muscular legs. She wanted...

  All of him. It was like a drumbeat, frantic, insistent.

  And it was so wrong! She didn’t trust him; she barely knew him, and she couldn’t believe she was letting things go so far. She was suddenly very frightened, whimpering slightly in her throat.

  Perhaps he heard. Or perhaps some alarm had sounded within him, a warning that the time wasn’t right.

  He pulled away. Not with an apology. Pensively, painfully. She could see the tension in his features, the pulse throbbing in his throat.

  He took her hands, planted a light kiss on each one, then let them go and rose stiffly.

  “Go to sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Oh...no! Really, we can’t.”

  He shook his head, smiling crookedly. “No, Tara. We not only can. We have to.”

  He turned and left her.

  She struggled to think, to find logic. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t know why, exactly, but she didn�
��t trust him. He wasn’t following her because she was a “beautiful” woman. He would attract women without seeking them, all of them beautiful, all of them sensual.

  He knew her, she was certain. He had watched her in the museum; he had followed her to the Plaza.

  She shouldn’t see him again.

  She shivered, knowing that she would. He was right. She would have to.

  Seeing him could become as necessary as...breathing.

  “No,” she protested aloud.

  But no one heard her, and she gave up all attempts to be rational when sleep overcame her.

  CHAPTER 5

  He was there when Tara finished with her fittings the next day, in the showroom, idly talking to George—waiting for her.

  Tara saw him as soon as she emerged from the back, and she held herself still, stunned and, to her annoyance, slightly panicky.

  Morning had brought reason back to her. Humiliation, too. The night now seemed part of a dream, a very disturbing dream. She could remember him carrying her, could remember the feel of his arms. She could remember his smile and his laughter, and the way his hair had felt beneath her fingers.

  She could remember his kiss, his touch on her breast. And she could remember the absolute feel of fire. Sensations that ripped through her. A wanting unlike anything she had ever known.

  And she remembered him pulling away. Kissing her fingers, leaving her be when he could have...

  Continued. With her so content, yet at the same time so explosive that she would have never thought to stop him. To seek restraint. To realize that they were virtual strangers and to remember that the one previous affair of her life had ended in absolute disaster.

  Easy, she had told herself in the morning. It was a matter of will, and her will would control her actions. She didn’t trust him—he was a tiger. Fierce, exciting, wonderful, beautiful—and dangerous. She couldn’t quite fathom why, but she knew instinctively that she was being stalked. Therefore, she told herself, don’t see the man. The next time he appears, keep the door shut. Don’t answer the summons. Simply don’t see him. The decision was made, so it would be easy.