Crazy Love (14 page)

“Later.” His voice was a low growl in her ear, and his mouth was hot on her skin. Then his hands slid up over her bra, cupping her breasts, and for a second she could hardly breathe.

This couldn’t possibly be happening, Dylan touching her—intimately. She’d dreamed about it so many times, how it would feel to have his hands on her, but oh, my, God, her imagination had fallen far short of the mark.

“
Jesus,
Skeeter. You smell so good, taste so good. Like candy, baby. So beautiful,” he murmured, caressing her, his hands all over her, his mouth all over her, teasing her, kissing her, driving her crazy. “The most beautiful woman I have ever seen, I swear to God. Sometimes, I…hell, most of the time, I feel like I’m going to fall apart if I can’t have you naked and wrapped around me.”

Naked and wrapped around Dylan—oh, yeah, she’d imagined that, too many times to count, and there was nothing she wanted more than to give in to what he was making her feel, but she couldn’t. Not like this. Not here, not now, for crying out loud.

Get a freaking grip, girl.

“Dylan.” She took hold of his hands and very firmly pulled them out from under her shirt. Good Lord. Her head was reeling, which was
not
what they needed right now. “Dylan, I need you to pay attention to me. I’m going to take off your jacket.”

“Good idea. Let’s take everything off.” He started shrugging out of his tuxedo, and she let him, just because he was moving in the right direction, mostly. He was still pressing her up against the filing cabinets, still had his mouth on her—on her cheek, and her brow, and the side of her nose, heading for her mouth, which was going to be the end of both of them.

“Oh, no,” she said, ducking aside when he got too close, trying to get a couple of inches of safe zone. She was about half successful.

“Are you going to take your clothes off, too?” he whispered between kisses on her face. “I’d love that, Skeeter, really love that. I can’t tell you how many hours, days, weeks I’ve spent fantasizing about taking off your clothes.”

He got stuck about halfway out of his jacket, and she helped him get it the rest of the way off.

She just ignored what he was saying. She had to. She couldn’t possibly think straight if she was thinking about Dylan thinking about her taking off her clothes. That was
her
fantasy, stripping for him, stripping him, the two of them naked and all over each other.
Geezus,
she had sketchbooks full of that little daydream, and having to rely purely on her imagination for some of his more interesting parts hadn’t slowed her down a bit.

When his jacket hit the floor, she opened the box of Syrettes and got damned serious.

So did he, coming to a complete standstill when he saw what she was holding.

“Uh, Skeeter, there’s a problem.”

Yes, there was. Like how pale he’d suddenly become, and the sweat breaking out on his brow.

“What problem?” she asked.

“I, uh…can’t do that.” His gaze was riveted to the box of Syrettes.

Simple enough.

“You don’t have to, I’ll do it for you.” That was the plan. It had been the plan all along, that she would do the deed.

“No.”

“No?” “No” was not acceptable.

He took a step back, started to take another, but she grabbed on to him, recognizing an escape in the making. Screw that. He wasn’t going anywhere.

“What’s wrong? Tell me.”

DYLAN
stared at the Syrettes, seeing them absolutely clearly—red, yellow, and blue—and he felt his gut churn.

Tell her?

How did he tell her he was scared shitless? It had all seemed so perfectly logical on the
Jefferson,
and this morning on the plane, but the truth was that the Syrettes were a one-way ticket to hell, just like everything else connected to Sumba. And not just regular old going-to-hell hell. Bad hell. Tear-out-your-guts-and-fuck-you hell, all of it couched and cocooned in pain.

“The Syrettes, those drugs…” he started, then couldn’t finish.

“What?” she insisted.

He looked up from the box, into her eyes, the pale, silvery blue of them, her golden lashes, her golden eyebrows—and the jagged pink scar cutting across her forehead.

She knew about pain. No one who looked at her would ever doubt it.

“They aren’t easy,” he said. “They don’t go down easy. They don’t go in easy.”

“Are you still seeing leeches and butterflies?”

He nodded. They were everywhere, phosphorescent, moving, multiplying. He hadn’t wanted to tell her, but another leech had landed on her shoulder. He was trying to ignore it, trying not to prove how fucked up he was by reaching out and brushing it off.

But
shit,
they were crawling up under his pants legs now, had been for the last couple of minutes, and it was taking everything he had not to just go berserk.

He kept telling himself it wasn’t real, to stay calm. The only real thing in the room was her—and he’d wanted to kiss her. That was all. Having his mouth on her, his tongue on her, tasting her, feeling her breasts in his hands, it had all been so good. Something he could count on.

But he was feeling sick to his stomach and getting so hot it was starting to hurt. Everything was starting to hurt.

“Then we’re going to do this,” she said, taking out her knife and cutting up his sleeve. “Together.”

“I want to kiss you.” That was the truth. The only truth. The rest of it—he didn’t want to think about the rest of it. He didn’t want to think about what she was going to do.

He remembered what it had been like in the white room, and…and he hadn’t been able to think, hadn’t been able to breathe, or even feel. Everything had been disconnected, his body from his brain, his hands in one place, his heart beating in another, far away, across the white room, in a corner—so cold.

Fuck.
He didn’t want to go there again. He didn’t want any part of it.

He closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, and tried to think, tried to clear his head. There had to be a way, another way to do this.

“Sex,” he said, opening his eyes, the word and the deed coming to him in a flash of brilliance. It was the only thing that could save him, the promise of something beyond the pain. “You and me, afterward, and I have never been more goddamn serious in my life, Skeeter. No sex, no Syrette. I’ll just take my fucking chances.”

Okay. He’d done it. Shocked the street rat with the combat knife on her hip and the .45 holstered under her arm, the bad girl—bad, bad Baby Bang. She was staring at him, her mouth a perfect little “O” of surprise.

“Sex?”

“Sex.” No compromise. “Hot and wet, sweet and dirty. Sex, no holds barred.”

Hell. She didn’t know the half of being bad, but he could teach her. Oh, yeah, he could teach her how to be bad all over him.

And that would almost make what was going to happen next bearable. All she had to say was yes.

“Ah, sure.”

Good enough.

He nodded, and she got back to business, twisting the shirtsleeve around his biceps, tight, then tighter. Then she twisted it some more and held it in place. “Take hold of this. Don’t let go. Make a fist.”

He took the twisted ends of shirt with one hand and made a fist with his other and pumped it, getting his veins up. “Goddammit, Skeeter, you promise? Right? About the sex?”
Goddamn,
he was going to hate this.

“I promise. Red, right?”

Red. That’s right. Pay attention, man.

Or don’t pay attention. Maybe that was the better call.

“Red,” he said.

“Okay, I’ve got it.”

“Wait…
wait
…I can’t breathe,” he said, feeling the black edge of panic creeping into his head. Oh, man, this was all going downhill so fucking fast, and really, she shouldn’t be hitting him up when he couldn’t breathe.

Right?

Or was it just the opposite?

“I’m going to help you with that,” she said, so very calm, so very sure.

Geezus.
He was glad somebody thought they knew what they were doing.

Her hands were on him—strong, sure hands, supporting his forearm, readying the Syrette.

“Tighten more. We only get one shot at this, so let’s do it right.”

He pumped his hand again, watched her run her fingers over the inside of his elbow and a little lower, feeling for the vein.

“Hold a fist for me.”

He did.

“And keep breathing.”

Yeah. Right. His heart was starting to pound like a jackhammer. He
knew
what was coming.

Then the stab of pain, fierce and sweet and so cold, he gasped. It was like being injected with dry ice, searingly cold, and so fucking, mind-bendingly sharp, like a razor slicing up his arm through his vein. A primal, animal sound left his mouth, and for one awful second, his whole body went rigid.

Then there was nothing.

CHAPTER

15

G
EEZUS H.
Freaking Cripes.
She’d killed him.

Complete and utter shock froze the moment in time.

She’d killed Dylan.

She’d injected him with the Syrette, killed him with the damn thing, and barely caught him as he’d fallen to the floor.

Within the frozen fractions of the passing seconds, as she slid with him to the bottom of the vault, a thousand emotions tore through her. Then training took over. Coming up on her knees, she pressed her fingers to his carotid artery.

The breath that had been stuck in her throat released in relief. There was a pulse, weak, but there.

But,
freaking cripes,
something god-awful had just happened.

Keeping one hand on him, on his chest to monitor his breathing—that it didn’t falter—she smoothed the hair off his face and leaned in close.

“Dylan.” She spoke his name and smoothed his hair back again. “Dylan, can you hear me?”

God, they needed to get the hell out of Whitfield’s, especially out of Whitfield’s safe.

This was all so insane.

“Dylan,” she said again, and slowly, his eyes opened.

WOW.

This was just exactly the way Dylan liked waking up, with a sultry, exotic woman leaning over him, her hand on his chest, her breasts practically spilling out of her bra, her hair all silvery blond and mussed and falling down around a face he’d seen in his dreams thousands of times.

She was so beautiful, it broke his heart. His gaze went over the scar running in a line across her forehead. She’d been hurt, and it made him feel so bad—and yet…and yet he felt so good.

His arm hurt like hell, living, fire-breathing hell, but somehow he didn’t really mind.

He closed his eyes again just to feel the cool, streaming rush of whatever she’d hit him up with run through the rest of his body. Normally, he didn’t do drugs. He was the guy who busted people who did drugs, especially the people who sold drugs—millions of dollars’ worth of drugs. He was one of the good guys.

But this rush,
geezus.
Who wouldn’t dig it?

“Are you okay? Are you with me?” she asked, and her voice was so smooth, he closed his eyes again, just to savor it. “Dylan, talk to me.”

Yeah. Dylan. That was him. Dylan Hart, good guy, and she was Skeeter Jeanne Bang, his baby, baby, Baby Bang….

“Look at me, okay? Stay with me,” she said.

He opened his eyes again and took another look. Oh, he was staying with her, all right. He was staying with her all night, one way or another.

Sex. He’d asked, and she’d said yes. She’d promised. It was a dream come true, a hot dream, the hottest, and he wasn’t letting it get away from him.

“Talk to me. How do you feel?”

He felt great. Better than great. So great, in fact, he decided to drift off again and just feel the rush.

“Oh, no, you don’t. Come on. Look at me, Dylan.” She sounded kind of worried, like she was losing that cool, calm edge he liked so much about her, so he opened his eyes, and she was even closer than she’d been before, almost on top of him, leaning over him, one of her hands sliding up to his brow, like she was feeling for a fever, the other slipping inside his shirt, over his heart—which sent that rush he was feeling in a whole new direction.

God, this is so good.

“I saw you naked once,” he said.

“No you didn’t.” She looked truly startled. Almost half of her hair had fallen out of her fancy, upswept hairdo, and it made her look undone, like she was coming undone for him.

“It was just your ponytail, and your back, part of your leg, and your ass. You were swaying across some pages, and I just kept flipping through them, over, and over, and over, and over….”
And over, and over.
His eyes drifted closed again.

“Dylan?” She sounded more than worried, like she was edging toward panic. That was no good. “Dylan, open your eyes.”

“Hey,” he said, obliging her with a smile.

“Hey, yourself,” she said. “Don’t leave me. Okay?”

“Never…ever. Ever,” he promised. Nobody in his right mind would leave her. Hell, he wasn’t in his right mind and he wasn’t going to leave her.

“Good. Stay focused. Stay here.” She was looking at him so intently, her ice-blond eyebrows bunching together over her silvery, swirling blue eyes. It was so cool. Her lashes were golden, her lips pink, the whole of her so pale and lovely, his heart broke again, right there on the spot.

God, she has beautiful breasts.

“Can you sit up?”

Sit? Who needed to sit?

“I don’t need to sit. I’m floating. Can’t you tell?”

“Freaking H. Cripes,”
she muttered like she couldn’t believe it.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he reached up and put his hand over hers, where her palm was so warm on his chest.

“I love you.” That should make her feel better. It made him feel better. It was such a relief to finally get the words out. They’d been trapped inside him for so long. “I think we should sleep together. Just the two of us. Together.” It was too good of an idea not to share. “And probably we should do it now, while we’re floating around, waiting.”

Waiting for what, he didn’t have a clue, but it was still a good idea.

Entwining his fingers with hers, he reached down with his other hand to undo his pants. This was going to be great. He’d wanted her for so long.

But she stopped him before he could even get his pants unbuttoned, let alone unzipped.

“Dylan.” She had a definite edge in her voice now. “The antidote for the NG4, do you know what—” She stopped, her head turning. A soft curse left her mouth.

He didn’t hear anything—except the next curse that came out of her mouth.

Her hands tightened on him. “Don’t you move,” she said under her breath, her voice taking on an unexpected fierceness. “Not even if this crap wears off and you can. Not. One. Inch.”

“Sure.” No problem. As long as she was on top of him, he wasn’t going anywhere—guaranteed.

But suddenly there was a problem, a giant problem. She was leaving, moving away from him and sliding out of the vault, low to the ground, drawing her pistol.

He reached for her, but it was too late. She’d slipped through his fingers, slipped through the bookcase, and closed it behind her.

Damn.

HAWKINS
was nesting.

That’s what all the pregnancy books called it when parents-to-be puttered around their home, preparing for the new arrival, and he loved it, nesting with Katya, waiting for the baby to come. Except for the “false” labor part. He just didn’t think there was anything “false” about it.

Creed was calling the night’s activities “hanging out at home on a Saturday night baby-proofing Superman’s apartment and going without sex.” Sex that he needed, because he’d been in freaking Colombia for the last ten days with the FNG, who had done a helluva job, even if they had gotten their asses ambushed and pushed around a little bit.

It was all in the report, and as soon as the two of them went over it again and deleted any incriminating evidence and all the really good stuff about who “did” who and how they’d done it, Hawkins would fax a copy to General Grant’s office for him to send to the secretary of defense and to Bill Davies at the Pentagon. Privately, he’d fax an unedited copy to General Grant himself.

That’s the way things worked at Steele Street. Only clean bills of health ever went to the Pentagon or to anyone over at the Department of Defense. No matter what happened, what they did, or who they did it to, nobody wanted to know the truth about Special Defense Force. Officially, and even unofficially, they didn’t exist. That one simple fact made everything they did possible.

“You know, Cristo, that back room has to go,” Creed said, returning from the kitchen to the living room area with a couple of cold sodas and two bottles of organic strawberry cream smoothie for the girls. Creed’s wife, Cody, had come upstairs with him to hold Katya’s hand through the “false” labor.

Kat loved organic strawberry cream smoothies. She’d been loving them for months now, and every little organic cream smoothie she’d drunk had just added to the wonder of her pregnancy—added pounds of wonder. She was so fulsomely round, he sometimes looked at her and was struck dumb with guilt.

He’d done this to her. Taken his more-curves-than-a-cyclone, green-eyed blonde and turned her into a dumpling, a lush and lovely dumpling who was almost as big around as she was tall. Even at five feet two inches, that was quite a feat.

“What do you mean, go?”

“The guns, all of them,” Creed said, setting the sodas and smoothies down on the coffee table and settling in next to his wife. “We can haul it all down to the armory tomorrow. Nobody, and I mean
no body,
needs a .50 caliber M107 semiautomatic long-range sniper rifle in their guest bedroom.”

“We don’t have guests.” Not at Steele Street.

“You still don’t need that thing—or half those H&Ks you’ve got up here—after tonight, not with a baby in the house.”

A baby, the sodas, the smoothies, the wives—God, the whole scene was so domestic, it made Hawkins grin. Life was good—until the lights suddenly went out.

Nobody panicked. He and Creed waited out the next few seconds, waited for the lights to come back on. When they didn’t, they waited another few seconds for the backup generator to come on, and Hawkins got a flashlight off the mantel. Of course, while they were waiting, Creed had gotten up and was walking back toward the guest bedroom.

“Christian,” Kat said. “None of the other buildings’ lights went out.”

Their sophisticated and elegantly furnished loft had thirty feet of fifteen-foot-high windows overlooking the rest of the city, and Denver was still lit.

“I know, honey.” He wasn’t panicked. He was pissed off. Without giving him nearly the information Hawkins was going to get out of him, Dylan had warned him about a potential security breach at Steele Street because of a situation he’d encountered on Sumba.

Hawkins guessed that was one way to put it. The words “torture” and “interrogation” were a little more blunt and probably a whole helluva lot more accurate, and they were the ones he’d used with Creed to explain why he wanted the four of them to spend a little “quality time” together tonight. Dylan had escaped from a notorious warlord who had probably all but killed him trying to get information about the seventeen million dollars Dylan had hijacked out of Negara’s heroin profits, and in the melee, the boss had probably spilled his guts about a lot of things.

And now Steele Street’s lights were out.

But not for fucking long.

Creed came back and handed his wife a Remington 870P tactical shotgun. A Skeeter special the girl had built herself, it was guaranteed to rock and roll.

He also gave Cody an MP5 subgun.

“You know the drill, babe,” Creed said, handing the second weapon over to her. “Kick ass.”

There had been a time, not too long ago, when Cody’s life had been threatened by a lot of dangerous men willing to go to great lengths to hurt her. “Never again” had been Creed’s wedding vow, and he’d made good on his promise. Cody not only had the shooting skills to protect herself, she had the mind-set to use them.

Armed women were safe women—that was Creed’s bottom line, and Hawkins agreed. But he was counting on Cody tonight. A little dumpling retaining water in her fingers and her toes, who could barely waddle from here to there, had no business trying to fire a weapon. Even with the training he’d given her, Hawkins was afraid Kat might hurt herself.

As for himself, he was definitely out to hurt somebody, a whole lot of somebodies, if they’d invaded his home.

“I’m going to be damned disappointed if this turns out to be an electrical problem,” the jungle boy said with a grin, heading with him toward the door.

Hawkins smiled back. They’d spent the afternoon preparing a few welcoming surprises for their potential callers, baiting the trap. Hawkins had already decided that Hamzah Negara was going down. The warlord had been at the top of General Grant’s hit list for years, and now the gloves were coming off. The message SDF was sending him tonight was just the beginning.