Breaking Danger (25 page)

And then his mouth was on her breasts and Oh! . . . Hot honey flowed through her veins.

Foreplay was rare with Nick and she cherished it. He was always apologetic about the lack after they had sex, but, well, Nick was Nick. And he knew what he wanted and what he wanted was to be inside her as deep and as hard as he could get, as fast as he could. His words, not hers.

Every single time he vowed to go slowly and every single time he failed.

So it was astonishing to feel him tense and hard as usual but making no move to enter her. It was hard to complain, though, while he was kissing one breast then another, taking a nipple in his mouth and tugging so hard a line shot straight to her sex and throbbed in time with his mouth.

She found herself relaxing, falling back into the arms of pleasure as if into a warm ocean, letting the current sweep her away. Nick's dark head moved over her breasts and she lifted a lazy hand to run it through his thick dark-brown hair. For such a hard man, his hair was so soft. She loved to touch it.

Looking down, all she could see was the top of his head, dark lashes, slashes of cheekbone and his mouth on her breast, suckling like a baby. Only this was no infant. Nick was a fully-grown male and he didn't make her feel motherly. Without looking up he whispered against her skin, “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Close your eyes, you'll feel more.”

Her eyes closed, and . . . Yes . . . Every single nerve ending was reporting back to headquarters. She could feel it all, everything, so intensely it was as if a wind had come to scour away several layers of skin. She could feel his mouth moving over her delicate skin, the rough day-old beard biting a little. His callused hands down her sides were warm and hard. He slid them to her hips then, unexpectedly, his entire body slid down. Her breasts, wet from his mouth, felt cold.

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Eyes. Closed,” Nick whispered and she closed them again.

Nick kissed his way down her stomach, licking and taking tiny love bites, his face so close to her belly his eyelashes gave her butterfly kisses. Lower still, chin nuzzling against her pubic hair, then he opened her with his thumbs and, Oh God! Her back arched and Nick reached out with one big hand splayed on her chest and gently pushed her down. Her neck tilted back into the pillow, shaking with the intensity of the sensations. There was no question now of opening her eyes because she didn't have any strength to do anything but lie there, stunned by lavish pleasure.

He was kissing her there, kissing her sex, exactly as he kissed her mouth, his tongue creating electric pleasure. Pleasure so intense she forgot to breathe, couldn't think, was lost. And as he pleasured her with soft, deep kisses, pressure rising like the ocean rising to break upon the shore and she lost herself in the sharp, pulsing delight of an orgasm, the world fell away. All of it, forgotten. The grief, the danger, the knowledge that a deadly plague had been unleashed from
her
lab, a virus so deadly it could wipe humanity from the face of the earth, was wiped from her mind. She'd felt the weight of responsibility in every fiber of her being, sorrowful duty driving her on beyond her strength, unable to sleep or to rest.

That was what Nick had given her. A moment's pleasure beyond her ability to resist and as necessary as air.

She wanted to thank Nick but the words wouldn't form before she drifted away into sleep.

Near Eureka

The compound was exactly where the GPS said it would be, exactly as it had appeared in satellite photos. Two adobe walls that became concrete where they plunged into the ocean to create a private section of beach. Beyond, the shimmer of a pool and several light-colored structures set among lush vegetation. It was that moment when dawn was breaking, when vision was limited, but night vision no longer worked. That moment when professional soldiers never attacked.

Pros needed the night.

He'd been watching the shore carefully through NV goggles while Sophie slept. She needed to sleep. She'd been white as ice, dark bruises under haunted eyes. She'd never have admitted it, but she was shaking for an hour after they'd made it onto the boat.

Fuck, it had been close. Thank God he'd packed his Glock together with the stunner. They'd never have been able to cut the rope from the pier with a hatchet while all the infected were throwing themselves forward, hoping to make it onto the boat.

He'd never seen anything like that. He'd known they were fearless, but that had been something else. It had felt as if they were
eager
to die, just as long as someone, somehow got to them. Every single instinct he had as a warrior was wrong, didn't help. A warrior assumed his enemies didn't want to die and didn't want maiming wounds. You used that in soldiering, counted on it. Not even suicide bombers—and he'd had the immense pleasure of taking out a few—had behaved like that.

The infected had thrown themselves with abandon from the street level down onto the pier even though most of them fell in a useless heap, bones too broken to stand. But at the end, when fifty, a hundred people were lying there, broken, the next ones to fall fell on the broken bodies, not the concrete pier, and survived. They'd unhesitatingly leaped into the water, without any thought of water as a medium that could kill. Jon had watched in horror as dozens died after stepping off the pier, falling straight down, arms still flailing, still trying to grab him and Sophie.

This was the kind of danger no training could prepare you for, because it was, in the most literal sense of the term, alien. It couldn't have been more different if green monsters had stepped off a spaceship to attack. Aliens who did not share reflexes or instincts with humans.

So if he was terrified, so shocked it was only his training that kept him going, how could Sophie have felt less? And yet, terrified and shocked herself, she hadn't broken stride, hadn't faltered.

And she was brilliant. And a fucking beauty.

A woman like no other.

Man, he hadn't known women like this existed. He was way more experienced at fucking than relating. He'd spent his entire adult life in the military. And a lot of that time had been spent undercover, when having an affair could be lethal if you chose the wrong woman. Or deadly for her. For long stretches of time, fucking a woman meant painting a huge bull's-eye on her back. So no, relating, having an affair, hadn't been a good idea.

Undercover, his entire existence was a lie. He had no problems with lying and could keep it all straight in his head, no question. At various times he'd told women he was the son of an optometrist and lawyer, the son of a banker and a homemaker, the son of a professor of history and a bookstore owner. He had entire legends he could unspool instantly and be completely consistent and believable. Tales of his childhood, quirks of aunts and uncles, favorite pets. Oh yes, Jon could be convincing.

And at no time, ever, had he told any woman what he'd told Sophie. Even now he was astonished at himself. Not that he regretted it, no, but he was surprised. It hadn't been part of the mission in any way to bond with Sophie and yet . . . there it was. He'd told her who he really was, what he really came from.

Shit. That's what he came from. Misery and degradation

Every single story he'd ever told a woman had been rehearsed over and over until the genuine tones of sincerity could be heard. No one had ever questioned his cover story. Stories. There'd been so many of them.

He couldn't imagine ever telling anyone the truth, not even his teammates in Ghost Ops. He'd catch a bullet for them, every single man, but he'd never tell them the truth of his childhood. And here he'd told Sophie everything, without any hesitation. In fact, it had come geysering out of him, unstoppable, like blood out of a slashed artery.

He shook his head, barely understanding himself. Maybe it was this end-of-the-world thing. He could tell Sophie anything—even the truth—because they were going to die. But no. He knew he was going to do everything in his power—and his powers were considerable—to survive and to make sure Sophie survived. So that wasn't it.

For some crazy reason, he wanted Sophie to
understand
him, to
see
him as he really was. Tainted blood and everything. Yeah, how nuts was that? An exfil with a civilian was all about trust. Not the soldier's trust but the civilian's trust. Civilians had to instinctively trust that the soldier was going to get them the hell away, because when the soldier said jump, one second later the target's shoes had to be off the ground. Total blind trust was what would get them out. And so what did he do? Tell Sophie where he came from, not guaranteed to inspire a whole lot of trust, no.

What the fuck?

For the first time ever since he'd become a soldier, Jon was of two minds, had two conflicting desires.

Get Sophie out safely.

Let her know who he really was.

It was a form of insanity, maybe a reaction to the craziness and chaos he'd seen out on the streets. That was it. Except . . . he felt better after he'd told her. Cleaner, lighter.

Jon put down his binocs, checked his scanner. No infected. That made sense. It was a pretty empty part of the world, with the Humboldt State Park not far away. The infected could only go as far as their feet could take them. There hadn't been any people here before, and there weren't any infected now.

He looked around at the long flat beach stretching far into the distance north and south and at the vast flat expanse of the ocean.

Safe. They were safe. It seemed almost impossible after the scenes in San Francisco but they'd been granted this little oasis of calm. He had to make the most of it because they were going to have to cross the state through populated areas without being able to use the roads. In the dark.

“Honey.” Jon nudged Sophie's shoulder with his own and watched her come out of the stages of sleep. Her breathing, slow and deep, became shallow, her eyes cycling rapidly behind her eyelids, hands opening and closing.

Suddenly her eyes opened and he was the first thing she saw.

Coming out of sleep can be a fearsome thing, that transition from the dream world to the real world. Particularly
this
world, breaking down before their eyes. So he was prepared for her to wake up plunged into despair because whatever she'd dreamed about, her worst possible nightmare, couldn't be worse than what was happening now.

She astonished him. Her eyes opened, focused on him like a deep blue beam, and she smiled when she saw him. “Hey.” Her voice was husky with sleep. Face soft with emotion.

Goddamn. His throat was tight, his chest was tight. That soft look, lips slightly upturned . . . He cleared his throat. “Hey, yourself.”

She turned her head, taking everything in. To the east, past the compound, the sky was lighter than the color of her eyes, and over the ocean it was a deep blue, darker than her eyes. It was chilly, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. She studied the compound, silent and welcoming in the dawn. “We're here. We made it.”

“We did. Up you go.” He gave her his hand and she stood, still clutching the thermal blanket. “Let's get the boat squared away and go explore our new temporary home.”

She nodded. He wanted to make sure the boat would be available to them at all times. They were safe here, but that could change in a heartbeat.

They tied the boat to the pier and walked down it, feet loud on the uneven planks. They carried everything with them—Sophie, her backpack, and Jon his combat pack and the vaccine case. If they had to make a run for it, they had to have everything to hand.

Sandstone steps led from the beach to the lowest level of the compound and . . .

“Wow,” Sophie breathed.

“Yeah.” It was spectacular, much more than a B & B. It was a mansion, spreading out over several stories but somehow intimate at the same time. “But we don't have time to sightsee. I want to get inside.”

Jon hustled them along. They skirted an infinity pool, huge enameled planters with flowering plants, up cobblestoned pathways, across a terracotta-tiled terrace that could have doubled as a tennis court until they came to the entrance—a double-wide set of armored glass doors that were mirrored so he couldn't see inside. Jon checked his scanner compulsively. They were fucked if there were any infected inside. But the screen was blank. He checked the side of the huge glass entrance and found a screen. One swipe and the screen turned into a keypad. He had once memorized one hundred complex banking passwords of the Cortez cartel. One password was child's play. He entered the code, and with a slight pneumatic hiss, the huge glass door—as wide as his living room wall back in Haven—slid left.

Jon held Sophie back with an arm and entered silently, stunner up, eye on his scanner. There was the faintest possibility that the armored glass doors had a shield coating that provided a barrier so he couldn't read the presence of infected. But even past the glass doors, inside the huge foyer, the scanner was blank. He holstered the stunner and held his hand out to Sophie, who crossed the threshold wide-eyed.

There was another screen to the side of the door. He disengaged the alarm and relocked the door, punching in
mylove
with a secret smile.

He looked at Sophie.

She'd slept some in the boat, sitting up. She was far from rested. Her body had pumped itself full of norepinephrine—adrenaline—to use her body's resources to the fullest. She'd run as fast as she could, suppressed fear reactions as much as she could, and the trembling afterward had been the price. He was surprised at how well she was doing. Most civilians would be a wreck for days afterward as the chemicals of terror washed out of their systems.

He himself, like his teammates, had been inoculated against that during training, and they had a different biochemical reaction to stress, anyway. They'd been tested for it. His brain, like that of Mac and Nick and the captain, like that of all Special Forces soldiers, released a chemical called neuropeptide Y that automatically counteracted stress hormones and kept the frontal lobe ticking while that of other people subjected to the same stress simply shut down.