Red Midnight by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

at her curiously for a moment, a fathomless light in those eyes which never failed to touch her with the heat of blue fire.
    “True, Miss McCabe, it was kind of you to douse the train rug rather than my clothing. Do you take care to ruin only one suit per man?”
    He is incredible! Erin thought. Rude didn’t come anywhere near an adequate description.
    “I don’t make a habit of ruining anything!” she declared, her voice low and smooth but clearly heated. “Please, sir, do allow me to make amends so that you needn’t feel so persecuted! I’ll be quite happy to reimburse you for any loss I caused!”
    “All right,” he said unexpectedly. “I’ll take a check.”
    Outraged, and admittedly unnerved, by his reply, Erin hesitated. The stranger, who was unfortunately no longer quite so strange, bowed ever so slightly and stepped back so that she might precede him down the hallway.
    Erin uneasily passed him by, tangibly aware that he followed her footsteps. She could feel more than the power of his incredibly searing stare as it sizzled her back; she could feel a heat emanating from the man, a force that seemed untamed … primitive … something very raw and masculine and elemental despite the civilized and sophisticated suavity of his very contemporary and apparently restrained appearance.
    The alluring scent of his after-shave seemed especially seductive when combined with his own brand of potent masculinity. Yet Erin wasn’t quite so sure she was appreciating it anymore. This man was making a wreck out of her; she was righteously infuriated, while nervous as a cat. He made her feel as if blood raced in mercury streams, as if each nerve ending were raw and exposed. She realized she was tense with excitement, quaking with ridiculous, but undeniable, subliminal fear.
    She wanted to touch him; she wanted to run. And she wanted to break his neck! Never had she met a man so devoid of common courtesy—with such utterly galling nerve!
    This is all absurd, she assured herself. She would write him a check for his suit, he would leave, she would avoid him until the train arrived in Moscow, she would never see him again.
    Erin stopped at the door to her couchette, about to ask him to please wait just a minute in the hall. She never had the chance. He glanced into her features with a fathomless expression, twisted the handle, and ushered her into the couchette ahead of him. He followed behind her, silently closing the door and leaning against it.
    Erin moved on in, trying to appear nonchalant as she reached for her purse. “Who do I make this out to?” she inquired, adding too quickly with the need to keep talking, “Or else I do have a few American Express traveler’s checks. I’m afraid I have little left in any Scandinavian currency, and I’m sure you must know I haven’t any kopecks or rubles yet—my money was deposited in a Moscow bank to be retrieved upon arrival.”
    “A check from your personal account will be just fine,” he interrupted with an obvious trace of amusement.
    Erin picked up her checkbook and glanced at him with a dry assessment spurred by his tone. She lifted a brow and made no attempt to disguise a certain sarcasm as she said, “My dear sir, I’m afraid I must have a name if I’m to write a check.”
    “Jarod,” he said, “Steele. E at the end.”
    Erin began to scribble his name. Steele, she thought bitterly. Good name for the man. He was apparently as unyielding as the metal. The only more fitting name for the man would be Brick Wall.
    She hesitated over an amount, and glanced at the understated quality of his garments, her gaze not reaching to his eyes, but starting from just below and sweeping downward. He didn’t appear heavy, she thought, more tall and trim, yet she had the strange feeling that the agile body beneath the suit was supple, wiry, and tautly muscled.
    From the far corner of her vision, she sensed another twinge of his detached amusement in the hiking of an arched brow.