Touch Me Not Read online

  “Help!” Gilly cried

  Then a man appeared. He was tall and wide shouldered, swathed in a long black coat. His collar was raised and his features were concealed behind a dark scarf. A black fedora was pulled down low over his forehead. He was very dashing. Very Humphrey Bogart. Just under the hat brim, Gilly caught the reflection of sunglasses. He was wearing sunglasses? At night? In the deepest shadows of a dark alley?

  “Who are you?” she whispered as her savior swept down on the thugs who’d been chasing her and vanquished them. Then the man came close, and whispered, “You’d be advised to stay off the streets.”

  Movement farther down the alley caught Gilly’s attention—but only for a heartbeat. Then Gilly turned back to the mystery man.

  Gone. He had been Gilly’s dream man—and now he was gone!

  Dear Reader,

  You’re about to meet one of the most mysterious, magical men!

  Lucas Blackthorn is many things, but none of them is ordinary, as Gilly Quinn—and you—are about to find out.

  And neither are any of the heroes in American Romance’s ongoing series MORE THAN MEN. Whether their extraordinary powers enable them to grant you three wishes or live forever, their greatest power is that of seduction.

  We’re delighted at your enthusiastic response to the MORE THAN MEN stories, and happy we can bring you more of what you want to read.

  So turn the page—and be seduced by Lucas Blackthorn. It’s an experience you’ll never forget!

  Regards,

  Debra Matteucci

  Senior Editor & Editorial Coordinator

  Harlequin Books

  300 East 42nd Street

  New York, NY 10017

  Touch Me Not

  Julie Kistler

  Prologue

  Lucas Blackthorn was not amused.

  “Hey, guy, take my picture!” A freckled kid with flaming red hair ran right in front of Luke’s battered old Leica, waving his arms and offering a wide gaptoothed grin. A perfect duplicate of Opie, just like the one on old black-and-white TV. “Come on, take me!”

  Luke just shook his head. Under other circumstances it might’ve made an okay photo, another Lucas Blackthorn original to add to the portfolio. Light and dark, sunshine and shadows…Contrast. That was what always caught his eye, whether he was shooting a farmer and his cow or a bomb bursting in air.

  The boy’s Technicolor all-American looks set against the exotic setting of ancient ruins, the blazing afternoon sun adding shadows to his freckles, even the expression on the nanny’s face behind him as she tried to grab the kid and get him back behind the barrier— it might’ve made a fine picture, if Luke weren’t so damn bored with the whole scene.

  Lucas Blackthorn, reduced to Norman Rockwell photo opportunities.

  Fresh from a teary memorial service in rainy, grainy Berlin, he’d been sent to shoot the mass graves of a war-crimes scene in Eastern Europe. Chilling. Riveting. Drama every time he looked through the lens. His black-and-white photos of sorrow and despair had rocketed around the world, courtesy of IPB, the International Press Bureau, which paid his bills and set his assignments. The words “Pulitzer prize” were on his boss’s lips constantly these days.

  “So where do you go after that?” he muttered aloud. “Disney World?”

  Not Disney World, of course. Just a sun-drenched Mediterranean island celebrating the discovery of some new cave paintings. A lazy indolent place with the crumbling relics of an ancient palace and some kind of major find underneath it. Exciting to some folks. Very historic, he was sure. But not his cup of tea. Not in a million years.

  Okay, so the scholars were excited, and the government of Crete was treating it like God’s gift to tourism.

  But to Lucas Blackthorn, who’d earned his place in the pantheon of photojournalists in the world’s hottest and coldest spots, it was deadly dull. R and R, his editor said. Sunny Crete. You’ll love it. You deserve it.

  Well, it was sunny all right. White heat, turquoise water, the colors so bright they hurt his eyes. Fawning dignitaries, nervous scientist types, everybody hovering and pestering him and driving him crazy.

  He could camp out in a dirty, cold hotel room for days on end, existing on saltines and a couple of beers, in search of truth on the other side of his lens. But sunbathing, gazing at crystal waters, eating fancy meals, waiting for a five-minute appointment with a prehistoric finger painting—it was making him nuts.

  He hadn’t even been in the cave in question yet. He’d tried to sneak in to get an idea of the lighting, work on an angle, maybe snap a few pictures in cool solitude before everybody else tramped by and churned up dust. But the official types were holding everyone back to heighten the suspense. Not even Lucas Blackthorn, award-winning photographer from IPB, the guy who knew more angles than a geometry teacher, could get past the guard and the barriers.

  “It’s fragile,” they explained in hushed tones. “The cave has not been completely excavated yet. We must do this carefully.”

  Luke frowned as he peered through his lens, checking out the faces in the crowd. What a sideshow. Treating some prehistoric artwork as if it were life and death. Well, he’d seen life and death. And this wasn’t it.

  Finally a smiling man with a big black mustache and a bright white suit indicated it was time to line up to go into the cave for the big unveiling. “One at a time please,” he said in careful English.

  Other photographers jockeyed to get in first, but Luke ambled into line near the end. He didn’t care. Any cave paintings that had been there since King Minos ruled Crete would last until he got his turn.

  The redheaded kid zoomed in behind him, his nanny nowhere in sight. Guess ol’ Opie had ditched his chaperon. “Hey, you sure you don’t wanna take my picture?” he asked happily. He couldn’t seem to stand still, darting around like a puppy on adoption day at the pound. “I play soccer and I’m real limber and I can kick myself in the head. Wanna see?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Luke even managed a smile. That red hair was pretty striking. Reminded him of an old friend who’d had just as much of a tendency to bounce around like a jumping bean. Her hair wasn’t quite as fire-engine red as this kid’s. But red enough to be a reminder.

  Gilly. He never had been able to say no to Gilly. Dutifully, Luke snapped a few pictures of the kid, which he already knew wouldn’t be keepers. Turned out Opie really could kick himself in the head, but the pictures weren’t going to be all that great. When Luke’s heart and mind weren’t engaged in the work, his photos suffered.

  “So,” he said, moving around to the other side of his subject, pulling a fish-eye lens out of his pocket, looking for a different angle that would make the pic ture seem fresher. “What are you doing here? This seems like an old crowd for you. What are you— world’s youngest art historian?”

  “Nah,” the boy said, taking the question perfectly seriously. “My dad’s, like, the undersecretary of something and I’m here to get my picture taken with him later. It’s one of those family-values things.”

  Cynical to the ways of the world. And at such a young age.

  “So, you interested in this cave painting at all?” Luke inquired, as the line inched ahead.

  “Maybe. I think it’s animals. My dad said bulls. Like Chicago and Michael Jordan, y’know. Bulls are cool.”

  Lucas smiled wider. “Yeah, bulls are cool.” They’d reached the entrance to the cave now, Luke’s small pal still bouncing around with energy while uniformed men with rifles policed the line.

  Luke offered a mock salute to the guards as he passed, but they paid him no attention. Inside it was immediately darker, cooler and fairly narrow, with a steep downward incline. So far there was nothing to see but reddish cloudy dirt, underfoot and all around. A networ
k of two-by-fours were braced against the walls. Didn’t look too sturdy. Luke reached out and grabbed Opie, who was tugging one of the support beams. “Not a good idea,” Luke said dryly.

  “Yeah, but look!” Opie eagerly pointed to a smaller corridor—just his size—meandering away from the main branch but blocked by the beam. There were several such corridors, all radiating from the main passageway. “Wonder where all these little tunnels go, huh?”

  “No place good, that’s for sure,” Luke said with a laugh.

  Already those in the front of the line were winding toward the entrance, looping back in a one-way circle. Luke heard “most impressive” and “spectacular” bandied about, but some people would say that about anything, so he took it with a grain of salt. Still, he felt the faint stirrings of hope that maybe there would be something to photograph here, after all. Was that excitement in the air? Or just claustrophobia?

  The line moved forward, still painfully slow. Opie was clearly getting bored and he started jumping up and down to keep himself occupied. That wouldn’t have bothered Luke, except for the close quarters in this dim corridor. Still, he and his camera bags had ventured into places a lot more dangerous than this.

  “Hope the light gets better,” he grumbled, casting a jaded eye at the shadowy cave walls. He liked shadows as much as the next guy, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get the kind of detailed shots he wanted. He hadn’t been allowed to scope out the paintings early on or set up any lighting, and he feared the worst.

  But suddenly things became much brighter. The group emerged from the long, narrow passage into a wide round room lit with freestanding spotlights. Luke noticed smaller passages threading out of the cavern. He craned his neck, managing to get a glimpse of the shadowy paintings splashed against the wall.

  He sucked in his breath. Impressive indeed. There were some smaller, fainter drawings of something— birds maybe—a couple of deep red handprints off to one side and then the centerpiece. Powerful and proud, broad across the chest, the massive bull had so much life and fire you could almost hear the air snorting from its flared nostrils.

  Luke stepped back, almost tripping over Opie. “Sorry,” he said automatically. He put out a hand to steady the kid, but he didn’t take his eyes off the animal on the wall across the way.

  He wasn’t normally given to flights of fancy. Picasso, Monet, da Vinci—it didn’t matter what style of fine art you stuck in front of him, he could appreciate the technique or the approach, but on a fundamental level, it just didn’t reach him.

  But this did.

  Stick figures, really, no more, done up in slashing strokes of earth brown and clay red, flowing across the cave wall as if some prehistoric genius had poured his soul straight onto the wall.

  “Magnificent,” Luke whispered. Without thinking, he reached for his Leica, already calculating the light and the exposure. The noise, the crowd, even Opie pushing from behind, eager to see for himself around the taller grown-ups, didn’t faze him. Luke kept clicking, changing angles, changing lenses, never wavering from his focus on the bull on the wall.

  Finally Luke was dead center in front of the paintings. He had the oddest sensation, as if the bull itself were roaring in his ears. It wasn’t so much a sound as a vibration, and the air around him felt heavy, dense, thick with meaning. Portent of doom, he thought, but had no idea why.

  “Can you feel that?” he asked quickly, but he got only blank faces in response as the people around him shuffled restlessly, waiting their turn.

  He shook his head. But the eerie feeling persisted.

  It was the strangest thing, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the wall, where the mighty bull, painted there so long ago, charged in front of him. Wordlessly, nervelessly, he kept lining up shots, until he felt breathless and dizzy.

  “Hey, cool, huh?” Opie shouted, bending his eager little face right in front of the lens. “Want to take my picture with the bull?”

  “Uh, no,” Luke started to say, but the roaring noise suddenly became much louder, with an underlying vibration that sent fear to the pit of his stomach. Why? What was that noise?

  Now the others seemed to pick up on it; heads turned this way and that, and one person let out a little yelp. Then one of the spotlights trembled and swayed, casting tipsy circles of light against the walls. They all stared, riveted, watching the light pitch to the side, shattering glass as it fell to the packed earth. In a cacophony of different languages, people began to demand answers. And then the other light pole toppled, too.

  “Run! Get out of here!” someone shouted. Panic seemed to rise like a cloud of smoke. “The cave is crumbling!”

  Jostling, shoving, stumbling, they all turned back and ran for the narrow passageway as fast as they could. But Luke was the farthest from the exit, and he knew he’d never get through that crowd. He judged the situation, quickly decided to stay where he was, waiting for the stampede to subside.

  One two-by-four and then another fell headlong into the crowd. People were screaming and crying as dirt and support beams tumbled from the walls, nipping at their heels.

  Luke stood still, listening, still shooting pictures in the dim light. There was drama now, life and death, and he knew even without thinking that he was getting great stuff. As he kept clicking, he watched the herd of folks scramble to safety, saw that Opie had stumbled to his knees, took in the swelling rumble of earth and ancient stone, as the whole support system of wood beams threatened to cave in.

  The kid was in trouble. Luke’s hand stilled. Time to move. Now or never.

  The dirt was piling up, blocking the exit, and Luke had to leap over falling timbers and heaps of loose soil to get to the boy.

  Without thinking, he grabbed Opie, shoved his camera and bag into the kid’s hands and literally threw them both into the passageway before the last beam cracked and fell. Slashing dirt slid over his forehead and caught in his nostrils, so he leaped back. There was a huge rush of earth in front of him. And then…only silence.

  Luke could see nothing, only yawning, gaping darkness. His heart beat faster, and for the first time, panic and hot sweat slithered over him. He was trapped. Trapped. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

  He reached out, pounding his fists against the sol idly packed earth. Only moments before that had been a doorway into the light, into the world. Now it was a wall. And his blows made no impact whatsoever.

  “Hello!” he cried, still pounding. “Anyone? Can you hear me?”

  His own words echoed eerily. But there was no response.

  He turned. Only darkness. Swallowing, he waited, expecting his eyes to adjust. But nothing happened. Nothing broke the blackness. All black. All silent. All still.

  He called out again. “Hello? Anyone there?” No answer.

  In a burst of anger, he spun around and ran his hands madly over the wall, looking for a crack. But it was solid. He slumped into a sitting position against the impenetrable fortress of dirt.

  He had never felt such heavy silence pressing in around him. There were no voices from outside, no reassurance to let him know that rescuers were on their way. No taps, no chug of machinery. No glimmer of light. Nothing.

  He didn’t know how long he sat there. Time had lost its meaning. Finally, after what felt like hours, he knew he had to try to move. He remembered the main room, with its passageway now so solidly blocked. But there had been other, smaller passages out of the main room. Opie’s voice echoed in his brain. Wonder where all these little tunnels go? They were narrow and undoubtedly unsafe, but they had to lead somewhere. Farther into the belly of the earth? Or out into the light of day?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Any kind of action was better than sitting here in the dark lamenting his fate. Concentrating as hard as he could, he peered into the darkness. Which way to start? Half crawling, with one hand against the wall as his only guide, he stumbled across the cavern toward the painting of the bull.

  And then he reached
it. He didn’t know how he knew it was there, but he did. It was as if the wall was warmer there, as if he could feel the life force of the bull pulsing under his fingers.

  “You’re losing your mind,” he told himself harshly. But he didn’t care. As if compelled, he slid his hands to the deep red handprints—the artist’s signature, he supposed. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them. And he fitted his hands into the prints, sure even in the dark that his fingers matched the thick red outlines.

  Blood pumped through his veins, stronger, surer, and he felt more alive than he could ever remember. “Think,” he commanded himself. “Listen.”

  And somehow it worked. What had just a moment ago seemed like endless darkness began to open up before him. Now he could see small gradations of shadow and hear minute, imprecise sounds. If he focused, he could differentiate the various smells—the dusty wall behind him, the damp earth at his feet and perhaps the faint scent of water somewhere, not near, but somewhere.

  He didn’t think about it, didn’t worry about what had happened when he pressed his hands against the paintings. He knew instinctively that there was something mystical and mysterious about the whole place, repelling intruders, yet offering him a lifeline. Had the cave changed? Or had he?

  Moving forward, Lucas set out. There was no longer any question. If they weren’t coming to rescue him, then he would have to rescue himself. Using the tools he had available—his mind, his eyes, his fingers, his ears, his nose—he would find a way out of this place.

  He would find a way.

  Chapter One

  When she saw the morning paper, Gillian Quinn almost choked on her coffee. Lucas was back, damn his hide. And no one had bothered to tell her!