Page 12 of Kiwi Gold
“Oi!” It was a sharp, startled call, and I froze, but he didn’t. He was pushing on the metal bar and out the door, so I followed him.
Behind us, the alarm began to shriek. I heard men’s voices calling out again, but didn’t know any more than that, because we were running. I stumbled over the clumsy, too-long nightdress, then did it again, nearly falling until he stopped, hoisted me up in his arms, held me close, turned a corner, and ran until he came to a recessed doorway, where he set me down, then pressed me against the wall and covered me with his body.
We were being chased, probably by the police. My heart was pounding, my breath coming hard, and I was in the arms of a man whose name I didn’t even know. Trying not to laugh. Trying not to swoon.
This could not be my life.
* * *
Lachlan
This was not my life. I wasn’t any good at romance, and I never had been. The costume must have done something to my brain.
I was pressed into her, hiding the white nightdress under the dark colors of my costume, blending into the shadows, but unfortunately, my body was losing the plot. It had forgotten about the danger and seemed to be focusing on the gentle curves of her, not to mention the brush of my fingers against a soft cheek and the look of that taut nipple under the damp cotton. Then there was not being able to tell the color of her eyes behind the mask, the waves of hair, dark and shiny as melted chocolate but glinting with red, that reached all the way to her bum, and the way she’d tucked the nightdress so carefully under her before she’d sat down, then pulled her feet under the hem with what I could swear was modesty. Not to mention the curve of her mouth and the scent she was wearing. Not one of those complicated ones, but something sweet and floral.
Despite the nightdress, she gave off all the caution of a bird alighting on a branch, a reticence that was nearly tentative. No more noise from behind us, so I took a step back and hoped she hadn’t noticed. She was pulling her hair around her, practically wrapping herself up in it, and not looking at me, so she’d probably noticed.
Those people back there had probably been nothing more than partygoers who’d left via the emergency exit, either because it was more exciting that way or because they’d drunk too much on New Year’s Eve and forgotten where the real exit was. No worries, then.
She still wasn’t looking at me when she said, “We made it, I guess. Unfortunately, I still don’t seem to have my purse. Also, my head’s swimming, and the rest of me’s so … so odd and clumsy. D’you think that fella put something in my drink?”
“No. Those drugs work faster than that.”
“Oh. I wonder how you know. I must be drunk, then. Is that what it feels like? A bit … out of body, or like your body isn’t cooperating?”
“Of course I know about the drugs. I have sisters. You’ve never been drunk?”
“No.”
“Wait. You aren’t actually seventeen, are you?” The slight figure. That tentative quality in her.
Please, no.
I’d touched her cheek, that was all. All right, I’d carried her a bit and held her up against a wall, but not in a sleazy way. In anescapingway. Taking her out of trouble.
I’d tell myself that, anyway.
“What?” Now, she laughed. “No. I’m just exactly not.”
I sagged against the wall with relief, and she was still laughing.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go back in.”
“What?”
“I can’t ask you to go home with me, or you’ll run, that’s plain. And I’m not ready to say goodbye. So let’s go back.”
“You’re insane,” she said. “They’llarrestyou.”
I grinned. “Almost certainly not. Here.” I stripped my belt out of its loops and wrapped it around her waist.
She drew in a breath. Shock, desire, discomfort … I couldn’t tell. Had she just broken up with somebody? Or was she scared of men? Then why the nightdress?
Flirting with strangers,Karen had said. If I wanted to do that, there were easier women to do it with, women who’d flirt back. But somehow, I was buckling the belt over the tunic, which was seriously oversized on her, then adding the over-the-shoulder sword belt, standing back, and saying, “If you put your hair up, you could be one of those female characters pretending to be a man. I seem to remember a couple of those.”
“In my nightdress,” she said dubiously.
“Once a man isn’t concentrating on the hair and the, ah, costume,” I said, “it’ll be disguise enough.”
