Insatiable (29 page)

She sensed he wanted to say more, so she remained quiet while she brushed her hair out.

“I don’t normally have anyone with me on missions who isn’t already on my team, anyway, much less romantic or sexual liaisons. I have a job to do, and there’s usually nothing to be done afterward but be sure I’m not connected with the body.”

“If you’re expecting me to wince because your job is different than other men’s jobs, you’re going to wait a long time. You don’t shock me.”

“I know.” He shrugged and leaned back against the counter. “It’s one of the many reasons you get to me in ways no one else ever has. You, Carina. No one else has ever come close to meaning to me what you do.”

“You love me.” It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t answer. Stubborn man. “You love me, but you have this barmy idea that you shouldn’t say it out here where this silly female can’t really know her mind.”

He rubbed a cloth over his hair to dry it, eyes on her, mouth closed.

“I love you, too. Are you scared?”

He leaned back, wearing only loose pants hanging dangerously low on his hips. His feet were bare, a sight that she couldn’t quite puzzle out the appeal of, but she felt it full force.

“You scare me on many levels.” He grinned, and she socked him in the belly, which was rock hard and impervious to her little jab. Taking her fist, he brought it to his lips for a kiss, and she was undone again.

“I should not be saying this or doing this, but I can’t seem to stop breaking rules where you’re concerned. Loving you doesn’t scare me. I’m nearly forty years old; I’ve waited long enough to know what I feel and to accept it. But you are not my age, and you don’t have my experience. People will try to tell you you’re wrong and need to see other men. That worries me to a certain extent, because I can’t be with you every moment when we return. I have this job, and I don’t plan to give it up. I go away, and I can’t tell you where. Sometimes I’m gone for a while, others I return in a day or so. I’m afraid I’m selfish for not encouraging you to see other people first.”

She studied him for a while. Men were odd creatures, she realized. But his fear, that he’d voiced it, meant a lot to her. Almost as much as the admission, at last, that he loved her.

“I knew you loved me.” She kissed his chest and then snuggled into him, hugging her arms around him. “I know people will say I’m too young, or that it’s only the danger of this mission that made me mistake lust for love. I know I will be told to see others because I can’t possibly know my own mind.”

She tipped back enough to look at his face. She wanted him to see her eyes when she told him the rest. “I come from a world where I was traded to a man I neither consented to marry nor wanted to marry. My entire life has been about people telling me what to do, what to think and believe. I have had little space to express my own wishes. I must tell you I choose you.
Choose
, Daniel. It’s important to me that people understand that. I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to choose things in my life. I stand here before you, naked in body and soul, and I tell you, I love you. I don’t need another man’s cock in my body to know that. I don’t need to go to meals and be wooed by men who I know right now will not measure up to the one I want: you.”

He nodded once. “All right then.”

“I must confess I’m dubious about how quickly you’ve assented.” She eyed him warily, and he laughed.

His grin was sneaky at the edges, but so sexy and handsome, it disarmed her.

“The raw fact is, I want you. I want you, and if you want me, too, I’m not going to advocate you doing anything else but being with me.” He shrugged, kissed her forehead and left the room, leaving her amused and weak kneed.

Her brother was alive and helping the Federation. She wouldn’t be alone. And she had Daniel, really, truly. After wishing for someone to love, he’d shoved his way into her world and set it on end. Despite all the bad, good lived in her life, too.

Daniel, smiling, pulled on a shirt before striding out into the common room where Vincenz had joined them all at the table. He met Vincenz’s eyes straight on. “Good to see you. You’ve made your sister very happy at a time when she needed to know she had someone on the other side. And I suppose your skills and connections will come in damned handy, too.”

Vincenz thought for a moment and finally nodded, raising a glass his way. “It’s good to see you, too. My sister is in love with you.”

Daniel noticed he said it with finality. Not
my sister thinks she loves you
, but that she did. That was a good step.

“I know.”

“I’m just going to go check on the meat in the oven.” Julian stood, dragging Marame along with him.

Andrei didn’t bother with an excuse; he just got up and left the room, leaving Daniel and Vincenz alone.

“If you have a problem, let’s hear it.” Daniel leaned forward, took one of Andrei’s smokes and lit it. He rarely if ever smoked at home when we wasn’t working, but one of these days Andrei was going to present him a bill for all the ones Daniel had pinched off him over the years.

“My sister knows her own mind.”

That surprised Daniel. Not that Carina had her own mind—he knew that quite well—but that Vincenz would admit it so easily.

“Among many fine attributes, yes, your sister does indeed know her own mind.” Daniel snorted, thinking of her.

Vincenz looked to his hands and then back to Daniel. “Do you love her? I’d never assume you would take advantage of a woman, any woman, but especially one as vulnerable as Carina.”

The words came after an internal struggle. He was not a man prone to talking about his emotions, much less with brothers of his women, but he owed it to this man who’d just found his sister again.

“I could tell you it’s none of your business, but it is. I’ve been where you are, so I’ll be clear. I’ve never met anyone like your sister.” Both men paused to snort. “She fascinates me, impresses me, she’s beautiful, intelligent and brave. Of all the women in the Known Universes, she’s that one for me. I love your sister.”

“Any fool could see.” Carina swept into the room and put the bread out on the table. “He positively moons over me, Vincenz.”

Startled, Daniel laughed. “She does tend to listen to conversations she was not invited into.”

Vincenz rolled his eyes. “She was like that as a kid, too. Always in everyone’s business.” He ducked when Carina flicked the towel that had been over the bread at his head.

The two men gave each other one last considering look, and understanding passed between them. She was theirs to protect, and they expected the other to always keep that foremost in mind.

Once the all clear had been declared by Carina and the delivery of the bread, everyone else came out, bringing food and ale with them.

Carina laughed with them, passed out plates, told them funny stories about things Vincenz did as a child, all while she’d ensconced herself in Daniel’s lap like nothing at all was wrong with that.

Marame just stared, openmouthed, for long moments before smiling and shaking her head. Daniel felt a bit uncomfortable with it, this crossing of business and professional lines. He’d never had this experience before. It intoxicated and confused him. Much like everything about falling in love with Carina did.

He’d had work, and then he’d had his personal life. But this was different. He’d never quite imagined the sort of glory of this connection he had with her, with the feeling that he could do anything because of her. Until he’d met her, it hadn’t been something he’d understood, or perhaps nothing he’d even wanted for fear of losing himself so entirely.

And there he was, his life in a warm, sexy bundle perched on his lap, her fingers intertwined with his. There was no loss of himself, though. Just a sense of union.

“Now that we’ve gotten all that silly boy stuff between my brother and Daniel out of the way, how are we getting off this ’Verse?”

“It’s going to take some work.” Julian pointed at the maps again. “A lot of ammunition, too.”

“Good thing everyone has enough weaponry to run their own security force, then, eh?” Carina sat back. “Just make sure I have a few blasters and plenty of charges. Point me, and I’ll go.”

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” And they began to plan how they’d make their way to the portal.

A
hand shoved her to the ground. Shouts rang out, wrapped in the
pop, pop, pop
of weapons fire. She stayed, her arms clutched around his ankle. He changed his stance so that she rested between his legs, changed his stance to protect her better. And he did it all automatically.

She did not look at the men in the trees, did not look at the men crouched at the next corner shooting round after round, all set to kill her. They would not harm her; she knew that instinctively. Knew Daniel Haws would kill a thousand men to save her, knew he’d give his life for her. This last bit scared her more than the men trying to kill her. This last bit was a bigger threat than any, because he was her everything, and she would not survive losing him.

So she looked up at Daniel, into his face, and held on to her certainty that no one was better than he.

Spent shells showered around her head, glittering in the sunlight with a sick sort of beauty. The ones that touched her bare skin burned as they bounced, hitting the ground, still smoking. Their metallic
ping
sounded over and around the other sounds, all chaos. The stench of the powder within the shells hung in the air, stinging her nose, making her eyes water.

His face was stark, a mask of furious, righteous anger, a vengeful angel. Each shot brought the energy rebounding through his upper body, and she watched, fascinated, as it bounced against him over and over, but he never lost his focus.

All around her she heard screams of rage and pain, the percussive thump as bodies hit the ground. The thick, coppery scent of blood mixed with the stench of the spent shells, the acrid wash of fear coating it all.

They’d been ambushed as they neared the portal and had fallen back into a small garden off the main street. Julian, Vincenz and Marame had split off as Carina grabbed her blaster. Andrei had melted off, disappearing like smoke, only to appear for a moment in a splash of red and disappearing again.

Daniel, brooking no argument, had shoved her down and begun shooting at the men trying to close in. She curled into a ball, not wanting to choose that moment to push back. He was the expert. She wasn’t so stupid she didn’t understand that when an expert gave you instructions, you took them.

She wanted to help, but she wanted him to live, wanted to live herself. So she stayed at his feet, looking up at him as the light glinted from his hair, dark like roasted kava, so beautiful, even as an avenging angel, he shone.

The paving stone she rested her elbow on splintered, driving shards of rock into her skin. She barely held in her cry of pain, but it sang through her system nonetheless.

Moments later, he said her name, hauling her up to his side as she struggled to get to her feet. He didn’t drag her, he simply held her with one arm, shooting with the other as they rounded a corner and Julian came out, pulling them both into the building and slamming the door in their wake. If she hadn’t been so terrified, the sheer gallantry and skill he showed would have wowed her.

The silence settled in, deafening after the chaos outside.

Daniel set her down in a far corner, patting over her, holding his bloody hand up as if she’d done it on purpose. “Are you all right? Did you get shot? Tell me now!”

“I—I don’t think so.”

“Blood! Carina, you’re bleeding.” He tried to rip her clothes back to look, but she slapped at his hands. His face was set; he was on a mission.

“The rock splintered. It hit my arm. I’m cut, not shot. Stop! Stop it!” She yanked his hair, hard, and finally he seemed to hear.

He froze, blinking several times until he pushed her sleeve up with a hiss. “Stay right here. Do not move.”

As if she would with him in such a lather! “Bossy,” she managed to say, and his shoulders eased a bit as she’d intended.

Marame looked over and grinned. Andrei was suddenly there, kneeling, looking her over, a question in his eyes. Vincenz stood near the windows, out of sight but watching the street. Every once in a while, he looked over at Carina, and she smiled, reassuring him.

“Move,” Daniel said to Andrei. He settled at her feet and began to clean her arm when Andrei moved to the side.

Andrei tweezed the small shards of rock out of the wounds.

Julian came back in. “We have to move. They’re not too far away, going house to house. Can she travel?” He indicated Carina with a tip of his chin.

“I’m fine. Just some cuts.” She stood, and Daniel stuffed the first aid kit into his pack and shouldered it, not moving more than arm’s reach from her.

“Where the fuck did they come from?” Daniel snarled, looking angrier than she’d ever seen him.

“A bullet hit the—”

He turned to her, the fury gone, gentleness in its wake. He slid a thumb over her bottom lip. “No, sweet, not that.”

“I don’t know where the soldiers came from, but I know we need to get the fuck outta here right now.” Vincenz slid his sidearm back into the holster. “We knew there’d be Skorpios here, and the population is under his thumb enough to want to make a quick credit and do them all the favor of having these raids stop. I can’t blame them, I suppose.”

Marame looked up from where she’d been working on her personal comm. “The portal is not far. Some of our people are working on a diversion. Slip forty-two. Papers cleared, it’s ready to go at any time.”

“Let’s go. Weapons hot.” Andrei poked his head out the door. “We’re clear.”

Daniel hustled her out, keeping his body in front of hers. They could hear the soldiers just a street or so over, breaking down doors, shouting orders.