Rush (Phoenix Rising) (18 page)

Cash took a strawberry, murmuring, “Eat them. No one will take them away. I promise.”

Only the sight of Cash putting one of the berries into his mouth, two others cradled in his hand, pried Q’s self-control loose.

Q picked up a strawberry and bit it in half. Sweetness burst into his mouth, cool and fragrant. He chewed, slowly. Juice pulsed from the fruit and coated his tongue. “My God.”

“We’ve got three more flats of those.” Kai waved a dismissive hand. “We’ll all be sick of them by tomorrow. Eat as many as you want.”

Q wrapped a possessive arm around the bowl and found a wall to lean against while he savored every precious berry.

“Q has questions,” Cash said to the room in general.

“Wants some answers.”

“Who doesn’t?” Mitch said. He stood at another counter shaking spices onto slabs of beef and rubbing them in. “We’re all here for the same thing.”

“How can that be possible?” Q asked around two full strawberries.

“Freedom. Justice. Security,” Mitch said. “They’re inherent human desires.”

Q shoved another berry in his mouth, gauged the risk of asking the question hovering at the forefront of his mind, then gave up. “Did I . . . know you?”

“Nope, not me. You and me, we’re starting with a clean slate. I didn’t come on scene until after Alyssa hooked up with jailbird over there.”

“Watch yourself, Foster,” Teague said, “or you’re gonna find some of those strawberries where you least expect them.”

Keira snorted a laugh. In the living area, all four people on the sofas watched him. All four grinning with a peculiar look in their eyes that made Q decidedly uncomfortable. At least, Keira didn’t have a weapon in her hand. The fact that both Teague and Mitch appeared amused eased Q’s tension. They must have been joking, the way the guards used to.

“Quaid,” Teague said, “you might want to slow down.”

Even though Teague was all the way across the room and the strawberries were almost gone, Q tensed. He glanced at Teague and found his brow creased with worry.

“You probably want to go light and bland for the first couple weeks,” he said. “Those are pretty acidic. They might be hard on your stomach, buddy.”

Teague’s concern layered on top of all the rest was too much, and Q found it hard to swallow the berry he was chewing. He nodded, dropped the one held between his fingers and sucked at the red stains as he tried to get his thoughts and emotions back in line. But he was starting to feel swollen with them all. Like a balloon ready to burst.

Even though he wanted to down the berries left in the bowl, he set them back on the counter.

“Where’s Jessica?” he asked, yearning for the sight of her.

“She went for a walk.” The pregnant woman’s voice flowed over Q like cool water. She’d risen from the sofa and now set two drinking glasses on the counter in the kitchen, then walked toward Q with one hand on her big belly.

“I’m Alyssa,” she said. “Teague’s wife. You and I didn’t know each other from before either, so we’re starting fresh, too.”

She put her hand out. It was small, but looked strong.

“We’re both a little rusty on the manners,” Cash said, then elbowed Q’s ribs.

Q braced himself in preparation for . . . whatever came . . . and reluctantly took Alyssa’s hand. The same sensation her voice brought, one of calm waters, spread through his body at her touch and eased his tension.

She was smiling. A real smile. Warm, sincere. And she was beautiful. Perfectly balanced face, wide, unusual eyes, full mouth and a little nose. Her black hair seemed to stand out against the creamy paleness of her perfect skin. Yet he felt no interest. No attraction. No arousal.

Nothing like what he felt when he touched Jessica.

“How’s your pain?” she asked.

He withdrew his hand and checked in with his body. It only ached for one thing. “Fine. Which way did Jessica go?”

“Out the back, through the sliders. But it’s a huge property—”

“I need air.” He sounded like he needed air—breathless. Strangled. He started toward the big glass doors.

On the porch, Cash stopped him with a hand on his arm.

Q turned. “I can’t do this. I’m ready to crawl out of my skin.”

“I understand,” Cash said, his eyes serious, devoid of pity. Q realized that was one of the emotions he saw in everyone else’s eyes and it was grating on him. “I want you to get some space. I’ll buffer you. Run interference. But you have to promise me, Q, give me your word, friend to friend, that you won’t leave without telling me.”

His jaw pulsed. He didn’t want to give that promise. He wanted to be free to cut ties if he needed. But this man had kept him going for years.

He started for the stairs leading to the open land and forest beyond.

“Quaid?”

Q clenched his teeth, but stopped and turned. Keira and Luke stood on the porch, their expressions serious. He tensed.

“We, um . . . ” Keira glanced over her shoulder at the blond standing close, hands in the front pockets of his jeans, his easy-going smile replaced by a tight set to his mouth. “We have to leave.”

Q turned fully toward them, a new sense of alarm burning along his spine. “Why?”

“Remember that key I pulled from the necklace around Dargan’s neck?” Cash asked at Q’s side.

Q thought back to the night Jocelyn Dargan had surprised Cash at the Castle in the middle of the night. She’d come to incentivize Cash to finish his formula by showing him a photo of Keira and Mateo and alluding to the threat of killing them if Cash didn’t finish the project fast.

Cash had lunged at her, gripped her jacket collar and broken her necklace, which he’d then hidden until she’d gone. By the time she’d realized it was missing, Cash had tied dental floss to the key that had been hanging on the end of the necklace and swallowed it. He’d retrieved it by pulling the key back up his esophagus by the floss.

“Yeah,” Q said. “I remember.”

“It fits a safe-deposit box,” Cash said. “We’ve narrowed down the banks it could belong to and Keira and Luke are going to try to find the box it matches and see if there’s anything in it that can help us.”

Q searched his memory, but came up empty. “What’s a safe-deposit box?”

Keira’s mouth opened as if to say something, but nothing came out. Keira, Luke and Cash shared a look. Obviously, a safe-deposit box was something Quaid would have known.

“Never mind,” Q said, suddenly irritated. Wanting Jessica that much more. “How long will you be gone? You’re coming back?”

“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Keira said, both of them smiling as if he’d said something amusing. “You didn’t think you were getting rid of us that easy, did you?”

She stepped toward him at the same time he moved toward her and they walked into a hug that felt natural and comfortable. A completely different sensation than he had with Jessica. Holding Jessica made Q restless in a very sexual way. Made Q’s heart tighten and twist and turn.

With her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, Keira whispered, “So good to have you back.”

That damned annoying wetness pushed at his eyes again. He gave her a squeeze and said, “Watch your six.”

Keira released his neck and pulled back. Tears wet her lashes and made her eyes shine a brilliant blue. “Wh-what?”

“Be careful.”

He let her go and turned to Luke, who maintained a lazy stance. His easy grin had returned. Q didn’t know how or why, but his gut told him Luke could be one of the most intense in the group. But he was obviously content and deeply happy right now. And Q had no doubt that had everything to do with the blue-eyed sniper. The same way Alyssa made Teague smile. And maybe, Q was growing to realize, why he kept seeking out Jessica.

Q took a few steps toward Luke, not sure what to do. Luke held out his hand, so Q took it. And they fell into a comfortable handshake followed by a tight hug, as if he and Luke had done this all their lives.

Q wondered if they had.

“Good to have you home, buddy,” Luke said, his voice thick with emotion. Then he slapped his back and released him.

“Be careful,” Q repeated to Luke, then turned and headed down the stairs in search of the one person he needed most.

J
essica stared out over the small ravine that bordered two sides of the property from her seat on the flat, rough surface of a sun-warmed boulder. Charcoal-colored rock lined the ravine walls. Down in the shallow valley a creek flowed through a meadow dotted by multicolored trees. The same trees painted the hillsides as far as Jessica could see with a kaleidoscope of fall colors from mellow yellows to fiery reds. The heavenly landscape all pressed up against a pristine robin’s-egg blue sky with distant, cotton-ball clouds.

She couldn’t help but smile, even though it sliced her insides. The sheer beauty of it, the perfection seemed so . . . wrong . . . under the circumstances. And if she didn’t adjust her emotions, those clouds in the distance would be overhead and pouring rain before she had time to get back to the bunker.

Jessica shook her thoughts away. Closed her eyes and took a deep cleansing breath—in through her nose, out through her mouth. In with clean, crisp perfection, out with ugly, chronic pain. She purposely relaxed each muscle, starting with her face and working her way down her body.

She centered her mind. Then her core. Visualized herself grounded to the rich earth through roots that grew out of her crossed legs and stretched over the boulder, sinking deep into the ground. There they tunneled to the white-hot core of the earth, drew its energy up through the roots like water and pulled that soul-mending source straight into her body. Directly to her heart. Where the organ then pumped that magic back through her system.

And for a moment she felt it—a euphoric sense of total well-being, as if she were floating. Her body light, her soul bright, her future open. A mist drifted over her mind, wiping out all her problems. Bringing love and generosity and hope.

She soaked it in, tucked it away, and stored it in every muscle, fiber, tissue and cell.

“Jessie?”

A hole pricked the bubble of her serenity. Her peaceful inner world pulled away from the walls of her mind like ripping wallpaper.

She opened her eyes, her chest burning with the sting of fear, and twisted toward the voice. Quaid stood ten feet away, hands on hips, still bare chested, jeans still unbuttoned, breathing hard as if he’d been running.

Had he just called her . . .
Jessie
?

“What’s wrong?” She darted a glance behind him while scrambling off the boulder. When she realized no other frantic members of the team waited, a burst of hope exploded, searing her lungs until her breath caught.
Jessie.
Could he have remembered? She turned her gaze back to Quaid, searching his face for a clue.
Please, please, please.
“Are you . . . okay?”

He dropped his head. “I’m . . .” He raked his fingers over his scalp. “I’m confused. I’m really confused.”

The torment in his voice pulled her a step closer, but also kept her out of his reach. She was confused, too, not sure whether to go to him or keep her distance and give him room to work things through first.

Clasping her hands, she squeezed them tight, wringing out the tension and took another step closer. “What . . . can I do for you?”

He laughed, the sound dry and bitter. “Why would you want to do anything for me?” He shook his head, “I don’t know how to apologize. And I can’t even say I didn’t mean to hurt you or that I wouldn’t have, because . . .” He lifted his hand, then let it fall, the gesture and his lost expression so helpless. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would or wouldn’t have done.”

He didn’t have to say the words for Jessica to know he regretted what had happened. Cash had explained enough about his time at the Castle for Jessica to understand his response had been an instinctive reaction to fear. She’d seen it on his face the moment he’d let her go.

He turned his back to her as Jessica opened her mouth to tell him not to go, took another step toward him, but stopped. She had to let him walk away if that’s what he needed. Give him room to adjust at his own pace. But he didn’t go, he just stared out across the ravine in silence and Jessica studied the beauty of his phoenix.

Covering the right two-thirds of his back, the fierce bird’s tail tapered at his waist. One wing crested over Quaid’s shoulder and decorated the back of his right arm. The other stretched across the opposite third of his bare back.

His body was so different from before. Her gaze slid over the curves of muscle and sinew. The bulk she’d known was gone. In its place sleek, tapered muscle contoured beneath tight, tan skin. He was truly sculpted, and her hands were restless to touch and explore this new man even while a big part of her heart and mind feared him.

“Your mark,” she said, “is . . . the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

A deep sigh lifted and lowered his shoulders. “Jessica . . . ”

She waited, smiling at the sound of her name in his voice, something she never believed she’d hear again. But when he didn’t go on, she said, “Yes?”

“Who am I to you?”

Her smile dropped. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth while her mind and heart bellowed
I’m the person who loves you most in the entire world. I’m the woman you chose over all others. I’m your wife.

“You don’t remember anything . . . yet?”

“Not in my head.” He turned and faced her and she almost wished he hadn’t. His expression was so tortured he seemed almost . . . angry. “But I have all these emotions, all these
feelings
I don’t understand. I have no memories, no basis for them.”

She nodded, unsure of what to say.

In two steps, he stood in front of her. His scent surrounded her, soap and heat and Quaid. He took her chin in his hand. A thrill teased her heart in anticipation of him tilting her face up and kissing her. But he turned her head to the side, and swept her hair off her neck with the other hand.

She pulled in a breath of shock and fear, and tried to push his hand away, but he was too strong. “Quaid . . .”

He took her face in both hands, this time tilting it up until she looked directly into his eyes. She grabbed one of his wrists, but he wasn’t hurting her, so she didn’t pull it away. And, God help her, she just wanted his mouth back on hers.

“Why is this tattoo on your neck?”

Her gut tensed. She raised her gaze from his lips to his eyes. Those deep brown, demanding eyes. And hated the way she immediately wanted to lie. “It’s a Chinese sym—”

His hands tightened on her face. This time the pressure did sting and she teetered on that line between anger and patience.

“It’s the name you’re all calling me. Quaid—
my name
—in a Chinese symbol.”

She opened her mouth to ask how he knew. No one knew. She’d gotten the ink after his death and never told anyone, not even Keira, what it meant. But his gaze dropped to her lips and the words died in her throat.

“Were you mine?” he asked, his voice softer, his gaze slowly rising from her mouth with a look so heated, so hungry, her control nearly slipped right through her fingers. “Were you mine, Jessie?”

She swallowed. “Y-yes.”

His gaze held hers a long moment, filled with shock. She held her breath, fearing and anticipating his reaction at the same time. Shock shifted to confusion. Confusion into disbelief. He let go, dropped his arms and stepped back.

Jessica swallowed, watching his eyes. Those eyes she’d once been able to read so well, now seemed like rich pools of mystery.

“Are you . . . ? How . . . ?” He shook his head, shifted from foot to foot, staring at some unknown spot on the ground. He mumbled something Jessica didn’t catch. Rubbed his head.

She feared she’d said too much, pushed him over some cognitive line. When he finally lifted his gaze from the ground and met her eyes again, more questions floated there than doubt. “We . . . were together.”

She wrung her hands, trying to smile through all the distress. “Yes.”

He chewed on the inside of his lower lip, something he used to do when he was thinking or right before he’d admitted to a change of heart about something. The sight made the threat of tears sting across the bridge of her nose.

His eyes glistened with wetness and he cleared his throat. “Were we . . . happy?”

Oh, God.
She tightened the muscles in her abdomen to hold back the sob that wanted to come. If she could just touch him . . . But she stayed where she was and slid the chain of her necklace through her fingers, letting the locket settle in her palm. “Yes. We were
very
happy.”

He closed his eyes and wetness clumped his long, dark lashes. He looked away, nodded. Sighed. Shifted on his feet, one step back, one step forward. One step back . . . A torturous tease to Jessica, who had to fight not to beg him to come to her.

When he searched out her eyes again, his gaze had grown sad. So painfully sad. “And who do you belong to now?”

For a moment, she didn’t understand the question. Then she realized what he was asking and the look in his eyes clicked. She couldn’t take it, that broken, defeated expression. She couldn’t stand knowing he suffered the belief he’d lost someone he’d loved. Whether he remembered her or not, that pain floating in his eyes was real.

She closed the distance between them. Quaid’s shifting halted as soon as she took her first step, his entire demeanor flipping to defense mode. She didn’t let that stop her from getting within an inch of his body. Reaching up, she slid both hands over his head, letting them rest at the base of his neck. When his eyes closed and a look of relief eased his face, her stomach did little somersaults.

“Quaid.” She smiled through the volatile mix of pain and hope. “My heart will always be yours. That’s why I’m here.”

He opened his eyes slowly, cautiously, and gave her that long I’m-not-sure-what-to-believe stare.

When she couldn’t take the silence any longer, Jessica laughed, shortly and softly, and threaded her fingers at the back of his neck. She eased forward and pressed her body against his. He felt so good, a wall of warm muscle. “I haven’t changed my mind in five years, Quaid. I’m not changing it now.”

Still, he hesitated, as if calculating risk factors. His gaze flicked away. He shook his head. Then, without warning, he covered her mouth with his, wrapped an arm at her waist, sank the fingers of the other into her hair. He kissed her fast and hard. Crushing. His fingers tightened in her hair, sending a burn across her scalp. She made a noise of surprise in her throat, but Quaid drank it.

The sudden roughness, the blatantly erotic thrust of his tongue, the raw hunger flowing from every part of him, they all shocked her as much as they excited her. Her world narrowed to the man holding her. Her attention limited to his taste, his scent, the feel of his lips, the heat of his body.

He pulled his mouth from hers, but his lips slipped right to her jaw, his breath fast and hot against her neck. Both arms tightened around her, bringing her into full contact with his body and the long, hard erection pressing into her pelvis. A delicious sensation burst at the center of her body and washed outward. She couldn’t remember when a man had felt so good to her. Probably over five years ago.

“Quaid . . .” She hadn’t realized she’d said his name until he responded. He raised his head and gazed down at her with so much need, so much desire, she choked on her emotions. “God, I’ve missed you.”

Those rich eyes she loved so much filled with gratitude, love, humility, relief and so damn much desire she would have hit her knees if he hadn’t been holding her close enough to be a second skin.

She fisted the waistband of his jeans and held on. Let his passion overpower her. His mouth was hot, his body forceful, his hands demanding. He was rough, graceless and primal. Jessica had never been so damn turned on so damn fast.

Just as fast as Quaid had started kissing her, he stopped. Without warning, he broke the kiss. His head jerked up and he glanced left. Then he went still. Amazingly, stone still.

Jessica took the moment to gather air. Her body sizzled. Her lungs burned. Her head spun. “What—?”

“Shh.” He pressed gentle fingers to her lips, a startling contrast to his unleashed desire.

The sting of fear cooled her passion. She struggled to control her breathing, strained to listen. But all she heard were the same sounds of the wind in the trees, birds, creek. The deep, soothing silence.

“Go inside.” Quaid lowered his hand from her lips and gripped her upper arms, bending to look directly into her eyes. The fierceness of his gaze sent a chill across her shoulders. “Do you understand? Inside. Lock the doors.
Everyone. Inside. Now.
”

He pushed her toward the bunker, and she stumbled several steps. “Quaid.”

He was already jogging in the other direction. He stopped to shoot her another sharp look. “Inside, Jessie. I mean it.”

Before she could ask why, he’d sprinted into the trees. Fast. Agile. Powerful. Without any hint of a limp.

She covered her heart where it beat fast and hard in her chest. Turned toward the bunker. Kai and Cash came crashing through the trees, weapons up and aimed. Jessica jumped, sure her heart would triple time itself right into a heart attack.

“What’s wrong?” Kai asked, his compact automatic rifle already panning the area.

“Where’s Quaid?” Cash took Jessica’s shoulder and pinned her with those piercing blue eyes, so much like Keira’s. And, oh, shit, Keira and Luke were already gone.

“He—he—” Jessica couldn’t make her brain work. Her mouth work. She pointed in the direction Quaid had run. “How did you know?”

“I felt it,” Kai said. “He sent out a spike of fear and anger so strong, I knew it had to be something bad.”

She’d forgotten Kai’s empathic abilities. But from so far away? And what else had he felt? Jessica pressed her hands to the new burn in her cheeks.