Omega (Alpha #3) (38 page)

Kyrie said it to me, but that wasn’t the same because neither of us were bi-curious.
 

Nick said it.
 

He kissed my cheekbone, the shell of my ear. I felt his lips move. “I love you. I love you.” He buried his fingers in the mass of my curls and tugged my face around to kiss me again, this time with delicacy and tenderness. “I love you. And I’m yours.”

“God, Nick.” I kissed him back, again and again, until we were lost in the kiss and out of breath.
 

He pulled away. “Come on. Let’s go have dinner.”
 

He took me to a fancy steakhouse and I visited the bathroom to clean up, and then we had a long dinner during which neither of us drank much. Unusual for me, not so much for Harris, I didn’t think.
 

He picked a hotel somewhat at random, a nice one but not the best—intentionally, he said, to avoid being found easily. Not the cheapest, but not the most expensive. Middle of the road.
 

He led me to our room, unlocked the door, picked me up, wrapped my legs around his waist, and was inside me before the door closed behind us.
 

And then he told me he loved me exactly eighty-three times in a row, as he fucked us both to orgasm against the door. And then another four times as he carried me to the bed and stripped me naked, and told me he loved me seventy-seven times as he kissed every inch of my body, top to bottom, front and back. And then when he was hard again, I rode him reverse cowgirl and I told him I loved him so many times I lost count at ninety-two.
 

I think we both had a lot of not loving people or being loved to make up for.

We had nearly no sleep that night. But by the time the sun was peeking through the blinds, I was reasonably sure Nicholas Harris loved me. Judging by the something like five hundred times he’d told me throughout the night.

Not that I was counting or anything.
 

Nor was I counting the number of orgasms he gave me.

(Nine.)
 

Or his.
 

(Four times inside me, plus a fifth in the wee hours of the morning, on my tits, right before we passed out.)

We woke up mid-afternoon, ordered room service, showered, went down on each other, ate breakfast, had sex twice more, showered again, and finally got dressed to leave the hotel.

We were at the front desk checking out when I got the feeling.
 

I leaned close to Nick. “Can we stay for a little longer?” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Please?”

He glanced at me as he dug an envelope full of cash out of the backpack he’d bought in with us. “Haven’t had enough, huh? Jesus, Layla. We’ve had sex six times in the last eighteen hours. I’ve given you at least ten orgasms. Plus, Thresh is waiting at the docks.”
 

The hotel employee counting out the cash Harris had handed her was trying valiantly not to listen, but was failing. Miserably. She was blushing scarlet and eyeing us surreptitiously, and lost count three times. “
Ten
?” She squeaked. “I don’t think I’ve ever come that many times in my entire life.” She clapped her hand over her mouth, mortified. “Oh god, I’m so sorry!”
 

Harris just grinned at her. “Then sweetheart, you’re not having the right kind of sex.” He took his change and winked at her.

“It’s not that,” I said. “Or, not entirely. I told you, I don’t have an orgasm threshold. I could come until I passed out from exhaustion and still be ready for another one.”

“Then what is it?” He led me by the hand across the lobby and handed the valet his car claim ticket.
 

I shrugged, finding it hard to put into words. “I don’t know. Just…a bad feeling. Like, dread. I don’t know. I just feel like we should stay here. Like something bad is going to happen. It sounds stupid, but…I don’t know. I’ve just got a bad feeling.”

The valet arrived with our monstrosity-mobile, Nick handed him a hundred-dollar bill, and then checked the trunk, the back seats, the front end, knelt and glanced at the undercarriage, even popped the hood to examine the engine.

“The truck is clean, babe. I’m not saying we’re home free, because Vitaly’s not dead. But we’re okay for now. All right?” He dropped the hood with a loud slam and brushed his hands on the front of his jeans.
 

Time distorted then.
 

I felt my blood thicken and slow, and my heart stop. My eyes lifted as if in slow motion.
 

Vitaly was walking toward me. Arm extended. Huge silver pistol in his hand, eyes dark and cold and deadly.
 

Stupidly, my last thought as Vitaly pulled the trigger was:
Well…fuck.

18

THROUGH-AND-THROUGH

I heard the
BLAM!
as if through a cloud of cotton: dense, distant, muffled, thunderous.
 

I braced for an impact that never came.
 

BLAMBLAM!—BLAMBLAM!

Harris fell in slow motion to the ground at my feet. Bleeding.

People were screaming, but I barely noticed.

Vitaly was stumbling backward, pistol hanging down, blood welling in four spots on his chest, clustered in a tight group dead center, right over his sternum.
 

Harris, one large scarlet flower blooming wet over his heart. On his knees, one hand flat on the ground, head held up, right hand leveling his pistol at Vitaly. Harris’s whole body shook, but his gun hand was steady as a rock.
BLAM!
Vitaly’s left shoulder jerked backward, spouting red.
 

Vitaly turned in a clumsy circle, pistol dangling at his thigh, and ran in a lurch. No one stopped him, and he vanished around a corner.

Sirens howled.
 

Harris twisted, his elbow giving out, and he fell. He landed awkwardly, on his face and his side. He was bleeding front and back.
 

“NICK!” I heard myself scream, and felt myself fall to my knees beside him.
 

It was all happening in slow motion, and as if it was happening to someone else. I felt nothing, just vacant, numb, disbelieving. Outwardly, however, I was hysterical. Shrieking. Screaming. Sobbing.
 

“Lay—Layla.” Harris gasped. “Shut…shut the fuck up.”
 

I took his head onto my lap and stroked his face. “Nick. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“I—I know.” He handed me his phone. “Call…Thresh.”

Things happened to me, around me: an ambulance arrived and I was pried away from Nick—it took four men to get me away. I was piled into the ambulance, and two men in the blue paramilitary medic uniforms were operating on Nick, doing something to his back and then his front, trying to stop the bleeding.
 

I felt the phone in my hand, stared at it blankly. What was I supposed to do with this? Nick was unconscious.

Oh yeah, call Thresh.

I found his name under “favorites” and called him. It rang twice.
 

“Thresh,” came his chasmic voice.

“Thresh…It’s Nick. They shot Nick. He—Vitaly. He shot Nick.”
 

A pause. “Who the hell is Nick?”

I felt something hot and violent erupt inside me. “HARRIS! NICHOLAS HARRIS! Your fucking boss! Nicholas goddamned Harris, you fucking ape!”

“His name is Nick?” Thresh seemed truly baffled. “Huh.”

“THRESH!”

He sounded utterly unmoved. “Is he okay?”

“No, he’s not fucking okay!” I screamed. “He’s dying! He took—it was—Vitaly was trying to kill me, and Nick—Harris, he—”

“That’s what he does. It’s who he is.” I heard a motorcycle engine roar to life. “Have you gotten him medical attention?”

“Yes, I’m in an ambulance right now.”

“Where are you? Are you in Miami?”

“Yes, we’re—” I turned to one of the medics. “Where are we going? Which hospital?”

“Jackson Memorial,” came the terse answer.

“We’re going to—” I started to relay.

“I heard. I’m ten minutes away. I’ll meet you there.” The sound of the chopper engine being feathered. “Layla, did Harris get him?”

“Yes. He shot him five times. Four in the chest, one in the shoulder.”

“Did he drop? Did you
see
Vitaly die?”

“No—he…he got away. He was shot five times, though. Could he—? He couldn’t survive that, could he?”

“Never count a man dead unless you watch him die with your own eyes.” Thresh could have been discussing his breakfast cereal preference. “Look, I’m gonna let you go. I’ll see you in ten minutes. And Layla? Harris is the toughest motherfucker I’ve ever met. One puny little bullet won’t stop him for long. Okay? He’ll be fine. He’s survived worse.”
 

“It went straight through. He’s bleeding from the chest and the back.”

“That’s better, actually. It means the bullet isn’t stuck inside him and didn’t fragment. That’s when shit gets nasty. A through-and-through is good news. Unless it stops his heart on the spot, fucking nothing will kill that man. I’m not worried at all.”

“You’re not the one watching him bleed.”

“I have, though. I carried him over my shoulder fifty miles through the fucking rainforest, with a bullet lodged in his gut. He was screaming bloody murder the whole way because the stomach acid was eating at the wound. I got fucking malaria carrying his bleeding carcass to a doctor. I know how it feels. And I know he’ll be fine. All right. Goodbye, Layla. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Click
.

I don’t know what happened next. It was all a jumble of images: the medics tending to Harris, doing whatever it was they had to do to keep him alive, Harris being pulled out of the ambulance, the
clatter-clack
of the stretcher’s wheels locking open and into place. A hallway. A doctor—who looked all of twelve—in a lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck and those weird bent medical scissors attached to his nametag lanyard.
ER
-style urgent medical shouting, something about BP and a single GSW and I didn’t know what else. Doors closing in my face, hospital security trying to keep me out of the operating room, four or six pairs of hands holding me back as I screamed bloody murder.

Finally, huge paws, a giant’s hands. Lifting me bodily, easily. Cradling me in burly arms like a baby, carrying me away. “Easy now, girl. They gotta fix him. I’m here. I won’t let anything happen. To you, or to him. He’s going to be okay. I promise.” Thresh’s voice in my ear was the rumble of diesel engine heard from far away, a grumbling trembling bass thunder.
 

I went limp and let him set me on a chair in the emergency room waiting area, hard plastic under my ass. I fell asleep against Thresh’s mountainous shoulder.
 

After an endless time—two or three hours at least—the same young doctor approached, looking tired and a lot older than my first estimation. He had to be sixteen, at least. He took a seat beside me. “Miss Campari?”
 

“That’s me.” I sat up, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palms.

“Mr. Harris is going to be okay. He’s got a long road ahead of him, a lot of healing to do. He won’t be going anywhere for a long time, and he may never operate at the same capacity as he used to, but he’ll live. Of course, judging based on the sheer number of scars on his body, not to mention his rather astounding medical record, he’s an insanely tough human being. So I would guess he’ll probably make a liar out of me. I’m hoping he will.”

“Can I see him?”
 

Thresh spoke up. “There’s only one correct answer here, Doc.” His voice carried a hard note of warning.

The doctor hesitated a moment, regarding Thresh coolly. “He’s resting at the moment. But if you promise to not disturb him, I don’t see why you couldn’t be in the room with him.” He stood. “This way, please.”
 

We followed the doctor through a maze of hallways, the antiseptic smell acrid in my nostrils, steady beeping coming from the rooms we passed; a male nurse in pale blue scrubs ran past us, dodging nimbly around us. The doctor stopped at a room, pulled open the sliding glass door, and tugged aside the curtain, revealing Harris in a bed, clad in a loose hospital gown.
 

I collapsed into the chair at his side, fighting tears at the sight of him: he had an oxygen cannula in his nose, an IV taped to his arm, a thin white blanket across his lower half. His right cheek had a bandage on it where he’d scraped it when he hit the pavement.
 

“He doesn’t belong here. This is all wrong.” I wasn’t sure what I meant even as I said it.
 

“No, he doesn’t,” Thresh answered. “But when he took the bullet to the stomach, they said he would need something like six months to heal. He was on his feet and running three miles within six weeks. Shouldn’t have been possible, but Harris is…I swear he’s not even human. The things I’ve seen him just shrug off like nothing would crush lesser men.”
 

“He’s saved my life so many times already. He has to be okay.”
 

Thresh was quiet for a moment, waiting for the doctor to leave us alone. When he was gone, Thresh circled to the other side of the bed and stood staring down at Harris. “When we were in the Rangers, we had a mission go belly-up. Just totally FUBAR. All our intel was wrong. We got ambushed, our unit was taking heavy casualties. He and I were pinned down, and I took three rounds. I was bleeding out, helpless. He returned fire and managed to slow the bleeding at the same time. And then he stood over my body and fought off the tangos, fucking twenty of them. Depleted mags, switched to his sidearm. And then he stood there over my body for the next sixty hours waiting for S-and-R to find us. Fuck of it all was the mission was off the books. Volunteer only. Never happened. He should have gotten a Medal of Honor for that shit, but no one will ever know about it. The guys who never went home, only their wives and parents even remember their names.”

“What was the mission?”

“Terrorists were holed up in an orphanage. Had a whole bunch of kids held hostage.” Thresh went silent for a moment. “We went in HALO insertion. Hit the ground weapons-free, immediately started taking fire. We lost three-quarters of the unit on that SNAFU, but we took down every single fucking one of those piece-of-shit motherfuckers. I personally double-tapped each one, just to make sure they were really dead. We thought we were home free, but the ambush hit us at the EZ. That’s when I took the hits. The helo ate a rocket, leaving us stranded and surrounded. Which is when it got real fucking hairy. Harris is the only reason I’m here. And I will stand outside this room until we can move him somewhere off the grid.”