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  “I have a question only you can answer.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh, really?”

  “All night I kept wondering how you’d taste.” Blake didn’t stop to ask for permission. He intended to take full advantage of those lips.

  He leaned forward and cupped her chin, refusing to even think about how stupid this was. He’d probably guarantee himself another sleepless night, but at the moment he really didn’t care.

  He took her mouth. Just took. No asking, no excuses, no apologies. And as he’d suspected—as he’d feared—she tasted like heaven.

  Sophie pulled away from him slowly, her lips wet and swollen from his kisses. “Well?” she asked, looking richly pleased with herself. “Did you get the answer to your question?”

  It took him a moment to remember what he’d asked. “You taste like…more.”

  She chuckled, deep in her throat, the satisfied sound of a woman comfortable in her own sexual power.

  “Maybe you’ll get another taste sometime.”

  One thing Blake knew for certain. There’d be no maybe about it. He was finished with tasting. He was ready for the seven-course meal.

  Dear Reader,

  Breathless was born while I was driving home from a writing conference with my friend Katherine Cook. I told her I had this idea about a woman with no sense of direction (we may have already taken seven or eight wrong turns by this point). Since I’ve been plagued with no sense of direction all my life, I loved the idea of sticking some unsuspecting heroine with the same curse.

  So many generous people helped with the research of this book. First I have to thank Detective Scott Driemel of the Vancouver Police Department. Blake is a better man and a more realistic character because of Scott, who unstintingly shared his time and expertise with me.

  Fellow writer and music major Isabel Sharpe helped with the opera research, my own banker, Anne Crooks, helped me launder money—in fiction only! Judy McAnerin, Gayle Webb and another Nancy Warren also gave invaluable banking help, Betty Allan was my medical expert and Lee McKenzie McAnally knows guns. Susan Lyons knows grammar. I kept a lot of people busy, and I thank each and every one of them.

  For a change of pace, watch for my Temptation/Duets trilogy coming in February and April 2003. You can find me on the Web at www.nancywarren.net.

  Happy reading,

  Nancy

  P.S. Don’t forget to check out www.tryblaze.com!

  Books by Nancy Warren

  HARLEQUIN BLAZE

  19—LIVE A LITTLE!

  47—WHISPER

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  838—FLASHBACK

  HARLEQUIN DUETS

  78—SHOTGUN NANNY

  BREATHLESS

  Nancy Warren

  For my editor, Jennifer Tam,

  who is a pleasure to work with and who embarked on her

  own Happily Ever After this year.

  With thanks and best wishes.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  1

  SOPHIE MORTON WAS LOST.

  That wasn’t news. It happened all the time. Trouble was, she’d managed to lose herself in the worst part of Vancouver.

  She’d been so certain she knew the way back to her bank’s head office, but now she wondered if she’d taken a left when she should have turned right. Or was that a right that should have been a left?

  If she weren’t driving, she’d be tempted to bang her head against the steering wheel. She was cursed with no sense of direction. None whatsoever. She could never figure out why, with a high IQ and perfect vision, she was perpetually lost.

  Maps didn’t help. Strangers on the street who shouted directions like “go north at the next corner then south after the third light” didn’t help in the least. Where the hell was north when you were totally and hopelessly lost?

  Then there were those clowns with their “hang a roscoe, then a louie, then another roscoe, you can’t miss it.” Hah.

  Breathe, she ordered herself as her heart rate picked up speed. She flicked a glance out the side windows hoping for a benign-looking pedestrian or a mail carrier or cop. But on Vancouver’s grimy and crime-ridden East Side, even the weak October sunshine seemed to be staying away.

  A drunk snoozed in a doorway, an old woman in a woolen hat dragged a rusty shopping cart full of her possessions, a pock-faced scarecrow of indeterminate gender rooted through a trash can. A group of teenage addicts were shooting up in the shadowed doorway of a pawn shop, the barred windows giving them the look of ragged prisoners in an overcrowded cell.

  Sophie flipped the locks on her car and turned her attention back to the road, her hands tightening on the wheel. She heard a wheeze and knew it came from her own chest, where her heart felt as if it was expanding into her throat.

  No. Not now. She willed herself to calm down. It was bad enough getting lost, but the helplessness and frustration that resulted sometimes triggered a panic attack. Sweat prickled her forehead, but she couldn’t release her two-fisted death grip on the steering wheel to mop her brow.

  Nothing to worry about. It’s the middle of the afternoon. Ten minutes ago you were in a residential shopping plaza at a bank branch for an on-site management meeting.

  Breathe.

  Perspiration damp and sticky between her breasts, she tried to calm herself by listening to the opera music playing on her car’s CD player.

  Focusing on the CD wasn’t helping. She had to get out of this depressing place. The next intersection was bound to lead somewhere. She’d turn… Oh, Lord, the intersection was almost on her, the light green. Right or left?

  Her heart hammered painfully; there wasn’t enough air in her lungs and yet she couldn’t seem to suck in fresh air fast enough. Something was in the way, pressing.

  She was in the right lane. That must be a sign. She’d turn right.

  Gulping like a drowning victim, she forced her stiff fingers to turn the wheel to the right…into a small, mean street that would be flattered to be termed an alley. Any fool could see it wasn’t going to take her anywhere she wanted to go.

  At least there was no other traffic.

  Dizzy and gasping, she pulled the car to the broken curb, shaking so badly she knew she’d have to breathe into the paper bag she always carried with her.

  Breathe, damn it, breathe. She reached toward the glove compartment, knowing the crumpled paper bag was in there.

  As she turned, the back view of a man, striding along the sidewalk a few feet ahead of her, caught her attention and held it. After the sad bundles of humanity she’d passed, it was a relief to see a well-built man. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t drag her eyes away.

  This was good. Finding something to focus on was an excellent calming technique. Athletic and toned, his back view pushed all her female buttons. He wore a red baseball cap and long wavy-brown hair fell to his shoulders. A navy windbreaker couldn’t hide the muscular shoulders, but it was the way his well-worn jeans molded to his hips and thighs that riveted her attention. He moved with speed and purpose and the way all his muscles worked together in harmony was poetry to the eye. Sophie’s therapist would be delighted if she could see how well her client was using that focus technique.

  She was so busy ogling the guy’s rear that Sophie didn’t spot the w
oman a few feet ahead of him until the man was almost on top of her. She was Asian, small-boned and in a terrible hurry, a clunky shopping bag bouncing against her thigh as she moved.

  Sophie’s eyes widened with horror as she watched the hunk grab the woman’s arm and shove her up against the soot-smeared side of an old brick building. Beside them was an iron railing, the kind that meant a short flight of cement stairs led to a basement entrance.

  The man was tall, and he loomed over the helpless woman, saying something, his face right in the woman’s. Sophie rapidly revised her initial opinion from hunk. Macho, thug bully.

  Through her car window, Sophie watched the woman struggle, saw her mouth opening; probably she was yelling for help.

  Sophie’s gaze darted up and down the alley, but it was deserted. There was no one there to help. No one but her.

  It made her sick to watch a big muscle guy intimidate a woman. Whether he was trying to mug his struggling victim or worse, she had no idea, but she was horrified she’d been ogling the backside of a criminal.

  Suddenly her lungs opened wide and she sucked huge gulps of air as anger overpowered her panic. 9-1-1. She’d call 9-1-1. Her fingers scrabbled frantically for the leather bag in the back seat that contained her cell phone.

  Then she saw the gun in his hand.

  “Oh, my God, no!” she yelled. But of course, no one heard her from inside her car.

  She grabbed for the door handle.

  No time for 9-1-1—that woman could be dead before she made the call.

  She didn’t stop to think, but opened her door, rounded the hood of her car, and dashed the few steps that separated her from the attacker and his victim. She lunged, throwing her body at him in a running tackle that would make her brothers proud.

  She came at him from an angle so her head butted his side, knocking him over. She wrapped her arms round him just as her big brothers had taught her when they were kids.

  For a crazy moment she and the gunman were airborne. There was a tumble and churning of limbs as though they were pieces of clothing in a dryer. She heard his grunt of surprise, a low, vicious curse, then the crunch and smack of a body hitting cement.

  She cried out with pain as her hand scraped the rough, rocklike surface at the bottom of the stairs. Then she landed and the breath was knocked out of her with an oof.

  A moment passed in utter stillness. Her face was planted against a warm, muscular chest that heaved once in a shuddering gasp, the only sign of life.

  She lay sprawled across the gunman like a spent lover. When she inhaled, she smelled soap, sweat and man.

  For a dazed second she felt an urge to snuggle into his solid warmth and rest for a moment, then reality reasserted itself. She was lying on top of a dangerous criminal.

  Her eyes popped open. He wasn’t merely dangerous. He was deadly. The gun. She hadn’t heard it go off, so the woman must be safe, thank God. But danger still prickled at the back of her neck. She had to get that gun.

  They’d landed on a cement pad the size of an apartment balcony in front of a dented metal door. She glanced over her shoulder and up the half-dozen cement stairs. The Asian woman stared down at them, her mouth open.

  Sophie sighed, thankful the victim was unharmed. Together, they’d call 9-1-1 and one more abuser of women would be off the street. She’d have a few bruises and a badly scraped hand, but it would be worth it.

  “Help me,” Sophie called to the woman, her voice shaky but holding. “Help me get his gun.”

  The woman’s eyes widened, and she shook her head as though to clear it. Then, without a word, she turned and ran. Maybe she didn’t understand English. Probably she was going for help. All Sophie had to do was get the gun and restrain the thug until help arrived. She could do that.

  Dragging herself to her hands and knees wasn’t easy. As she tried to move, a cool draft where no draft should be informed her that her skirt had flipped up over her hips. Shifting her weight, she tried to wriggle the skirt back in place, causing her crotch to press intimately against something warm. Something warm that stirred as the man beneath her groaned.

  Oh, Lord, she was pressed crotch to crotch with a gun-toting attacker of helpless women. The more frantically she tried to wiggle off him, the more the bulge beneath her…well, bulged.

  “What the…?” he muttered indistinctly, and she realized that if he’d been knocked senseless, he was now beginning to recover.

  She reared up to her hands and knees, until she crouched over him on all fours, and found herself staring down into a face that made her quiver with fear.

  Stone-hard, the jaw squarer than a clenched fist, thin lips pressed together, a nose that thrust forward with belligerence, two deep grooves in lightly stubbled cheeks. Altogether it was a tough-looking package. But it was the eyes that grabbed her attention and wouldn’t let go.

  They were green, but not the green of grass or emeralds or anything friendly. They were a green as cloudy and cold as the North Sea. She shivered and forced her gaze away, up over dark brown hair that spilled round him, looking as though it hadn’t seen a comb in a while.

  His arms had fallen wide when he’d hit the ground, no gun in either open palm. Vaguely she remembered hearing the clatter of metal on cement. She looked ahead. There was his cap, where it had been tossed off his head, and there, in the corner of the retaining wall, was the gun.

  Just seeing it gave her the creeps. She didn’t want to touch it. But if she didn’t, he might.

  She reached for it, knowing the stretching movement would pretty much dangle her breasts in front of his eyes, but she couldn’t waste time untangling herself and risk him getting to the weapon first.

  Once she got hold of it she’d feel a lot safer. If he tried anything fresh she could shoot him. Well, she could threaten to. Unfortunately the only thing she knew about guns was what she’d seen on television.

  He shook his head, as though his brains were scattered, which they probably were. Unlike her, no one had broken his fall. He’d struck bare cement.

  Ignoring him, she stretched, reaching until she felt her ribs would snap apart and still her fingers stopped a few inches from the butt of the gun. She felt the warmth of his breath against her nipple as she strained forward. Her sexual antenna quivered, knowing without having to glance down that he was staring at her chest. With a horrible pang of embarrassment she felt the tingling in her nipple, the instinctive response to a man’s warm breath just there and she knew damn well that response was visible.

  She knew he was a bad man, but her body didn’t seem to care. Their entwined position reminded her how much she missed having a man in her life. How much she missed sex. Since she’d broken up with David four months earlier, she hadn’t been intimate and her body was letting her know it wasn’t happy about the situation. If she was responding sexually to street scum, she’d better get back to the dating scene and find herself a real man.

  Well, if ogling her breasts kept him occupied long enough for her to reach his gun, she supposed it was worth it. With a final push, she shoved off her knees.

  Just at the moment her fingers touched cold, gray metal, warm air huffed against her chest in a muffled curse, so close she could have sworn she felt the brush of his lips against her nipple. Then, with a grunt, he grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back down his muscular length.

  But she hadn’t grown up with three older brothers for nothing.

  Even as he wrestled her down his body, she angled a knee between his legs and jerked it up, swift and sharp.

  His strangled cry was her call to action. She shoved and rolled herself off and away from him. Scuttling on hands and knees until she grabbed the gun, she ignored the breeze that reminded her her skirt was still flipped up over her hips.

  While he was fully occupied holding his crotch and swearing atrociously, she rose shakily to her feet then dashed around his body up the first couple of steps, the weapon heavy and sinister in her hands.

  She heard the
roar of an engine, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. The woman must have found help. Their ordeal was almost over. From his position on the ground, green eyes stared at her in pain, anger and something else. When she caught the direction of his gaze she threw him a withering glance and pulled her skirt hastily in place.

  Trust a man never to miss an opportunity to stare up a woman’s skirt, she thought, as she pushed her free hand through her hair, before climbing the rest of the steps.

  She was just in time to watch her own car squealing away from the curb, the other woman at the wheel.

  Her jaw dropped and she ran forward, waving her arms madly. “Wait!” she yelled. “What are you—” The rest of her cry was drowned by the screeching of tires, and her car, which she still owed two years of payments on, made a sharp U-turn, careened past Sophie and sped round the corner.

  Great. Just great. She fervently hoped it was blind panic that had caused the woman to hijack her car, and that she’d bring it back along with the cops.

  Now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, she realized she was alone, defenseless but for a gun she didn’t know how to use, with a guy who attacked women in broad daylight. Her whole body ached, her clothes were a mess, she’d lost a shoe and her hand was bleeding.

  She’d had better days.

  On the plus side, duking it out with a potential mugger or murderer seemed to have cured her panic attack. Go figure.

  Slowly, she returned to the top of the stairs. The attacker had hauled himself up and was sitting with his back against the wall of the building. He hadn’t tried to rise, so he must believe she knew how to use the gun. She curled her hand more firmly round the rubber grip, the finger grooves unnaturally wide for her hand, and tried to point the thing at him without letting him see her index finger was nowhere near the trigger.

  He tipped his head and stared at her with stormy eyes, but didn’t say a word. He didn’t look so hot: pale, his forehead sheened with sweat, his lips thinned as though biting back a curse. She wondered why he bothered. He’d been free enough with his curses a minute ago.