The McClane Apocalypse: Book One (43 page)

“Look, now we’re the same height,” he teases and she yanks his hair. What the heck? That actually did hurt. Man, Karma could be a pain in the rear sometimes. It’s still worth it having her so close.

“Hold still,” she says and tries to pull his shirt down from his neck to see the wound. It’s too tight to stretch far enough.

“Wait, I got it,” John offers and whips the tee over his head and tosses it on her bed as if it belongs there, as if he’s marking territory. She stares at that shirt like it has rabies for a minute before turning back to his shoulder blade.

“I don’t see anything. You could use a shower, but it looks fine,” she remarks rudely as she inspects. Her cool, thin fingers press at the skin around his healing scar. “Doesn’t feel hot.” She starts doing her doctor talk under her breath. She’s not talking to him.

John can see a thin scar that extends down below the hem of her shorts by a good three inches. Without thinking, he reaches a single finger out and traces it. She just about jumps out of her skin. Lightning quick, Reagan slaps his hand away and takes one step back.

“What happened there?” he asks calmly.

“Nothing,” she answers quickly. “Riding accident.” He can tell that it’s an outright lie. How would you get a cut on your thigh from riding a horse? Unlikely. He redirects their conversation to let her off the hook.

“I’ve got one that matches it. Wanna’ see it?” he offers wickedly, trying to throw her off track and get her talking. They don’t get a lot of alone time with so many people around.

“No, I don’t want to see it,” she exclaims outraged. John can just about make out every detail of her breasts as they are right at his eye level. It would be so easy to pull her closer, right where he would want them.

“Think mine’s longer, though,” he reflects mischievously.

“Good for you,” Reagan replies sarcastically.

“I don’t know, maybe we should compare them,” he says with ornery intent as his hand goes to the button on his jeans.

“What? No, that’s not necessary! I believe you,” she mumbles, and shakes her lovely head, tossing her hair all around. She has no idea how alluring she is.

“Got a couple on my hip. Want to see those?” he asks playfully. What does he have to do to get a smile out of her? She just frowns harder at him and purses her lips. He’s seen her smile once. Just one stinking time since he’d been at the farm, and it had been at his offer to teach her about demolitions.

“What do you think?” she asks snidely.

“I think you do actually. I think you want to see a
whole
lot more,” he suggests. Her green eyes widen for a moment but then sour again.

“Just let me finish looking at your shoulder, idiot, so I can get on with my day,” she reprimands him.

“What plans do you have for the rest of the day?” he asks, wanting to shadow her. She ignores him.

“Have you had any dizziness? Fever? Headaches? Chills?” she asks all doctor-like.

“Only when I’m around you,” he jests. If only she knew how serious he really is.

“Get real,” she admonishes. “I think they’re ok. You might be overdoing it, though. Maybe you shouldn’t lift so much till they’re healed more.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine, sweetheart,” he says endearingly. She freezes in front of him.

“Don’t be a goof,” she insults him wryly.

“Well, you’re the only sweetheart I have here. Gotta call it what it is,” John admits with honesty.

“I’m not your sweetheart, so don’t call me that!” she hisses. Reagan walks back to the other side of the bed to look for her small shoe. She’s got kind of a lot of crap all over the place. He’d not noticed it before, but she’s kind of a slob. Two medical books lay on one of her two pillows on her unmade bed, dirty clothes are on the floor, dusty riding boots stick out from under the bed. Perhaps it goes back to her being a book genius or something. She can’t deal with or have time for dealing with paltry things like picking up her crap!

“Whatever you say, cutie-pie,” he teases. The look of fire in her eyes
is
almost cute, until she rolls them at him.

“Found them,” she says and comes back up holding her gym shoes.

“Do you ever wear dresses or skirts or anything other than... dirt and horse grime?” he asks.

“Funny, you’re a real charmer. Anyways, why would I want to wear a dress? They just get in the way. That’s stupid,” she explains as she slips on her shoes. “Why don’t you put your shirt back on?”

“Why? Does it bother you?” he jests with her.

She doesn’t answer, but John knows she doesn’t want to admit that it does bother her. At least he hopes it does. He pulls his shirt back over his head anyway and fetches his lace up combat boots from under his precisely made bed. Some Army habits are hard to kick.

“Think you want to work on some of those self-defense moves today, babe?” he asks, knowing his endearment will piss her off.

“I... I don’t know,” she says unsure of herself. He’s quite sure that she’s too distracted by the idea of him touching her to comment about the sweet talk.

“I do. I think we should. As a matter of fact, let’s do a few right now while we have a minute,” he says.

“No, we can do it... later,” she procrastinates as she slips on her second shoe.

“Come here,” he commands gently and rises from his bed where he’s finished lacing his boots.

She does but he can tell she’s dragging her feet. Literally. Reagan’s actually more jittery than usual and that’s no small feat.

“Look, you’re little,” he states the obvious which earns him an elevated eyebrow and a cock of her head. “Right, that’s kind of obvious. But I’m average or maybe slightly taller than average...”

“And wider,” she corrects. He smiles. Ok, she’s noticed a thing or two about him. It’s encouraging, not that he needs any.

“Maybe. So there’s no way you can defend yourself against me if I wanted to hurt you or grab you or something, right? Wrong. Just because you’re smaller than me doesn’t mean you can’t hurt me enough to get away. Let’s not fool ourselves. You aren’t going to go hand to hand and do me in without a weapon. But I can show you how to punish someone so that they’ll have to let you go.”

“Ok,” she says softly, not her usual tone. It’s refreshing.

“Turn around,” he orders gently. She does but turns to peer warily over her shoulder at him. “I’m not going to hurt you. Trust me, ok?” John takes a step closer and wraps his arms around her middle, imprisoning her slim arms to her sides. She immediately starts to panic and squirm.

“Easy, easy now. That’s exactly what I don’t want you to do,” he tells her.

“I don’t like this. Stop!” she pleads with genuine fright.

“It’s ok; I’m not going to hurt you. Just focus. I know you don’t like this, but you need to learn, boss. This is just me. Use your doctor brain and just think about what I’m teaching you. Now, you’re pinned, right? Wrong. You always have other weapons. You could take your heel and stomp the top of my foot as hard as you can. The feet are sensitive. You know that ‘cuz you’re a little doc, right?” She calms slightly and nods. But her breathing is still ragged and elevated.

“Right,” she answers.

“I’ve got combat boots on, so chances are you aren’t going to do too much damage there. If someone grabs you and he’s got on gym shoes or some kind of shoes like that, then do him in. And I mean hard,” John explains patiently. The feel of her in his arms is a little slice of Hell on earth. If he holds her much longer, she’ll know exactly how he feels about her. There won’t be much left to the imagination.

“Ok. Stomp hard. Got it.” She’s in full blown learning mode, completely unaware of his heightening arousal.

“If he has on hard boots, like mine, you’ll need a different tactic. Now, what you can do is use your head. Literally, I mean. You can take the back of your head and ram it into my nose. When you hit someone square in the nose, it makes their eyes water. Sometimes if you do it hard enough, it’ll break their nose. Even better still.” She is listening so intently that John thinks she’s maybe forgotten that he’s holding her close. He’s wanted to hold her close since the moment he laid eyes on her. If this is the only way he’s going to get to, then he’s ok with that. For now.

“Right, noses are mostly cartilage and the tear ducts connect at the eye socket. And noses tend to gush blood. So, yeah, that makes sense,” she agrees with her doctor brain. She even tilts her head back slowly toward him, testing his theory. Her curls brush his face. She smells of the outdoors and honey and horse sweat. She’s rather delicious, and it makes him smile. It makes him lots of things. She’s completely unaware of how much he’d like to toss her down on her bed and ravish the hell out of her. She’s too intent on being in learning mode. It’s charming. Frustrating, but charming nonetheless.

“Always try to strike the eyes, the nose, the throat or the nuts. These are the weakest points. Of course, you could probably tell me a few I don’t know, too,” he instructs.

“Yeah, but they have more to do with mortal knife wounds. There are arteries that bleed out quickly,” she says. Wow, sometimes he forgets how she thinks. He’s aware of these arteries. He’s seen what happens when they are severed.

“So what would you do if I lifted you up?” he asks, tightens his grip to demonstrate and lifts her straight up off the floor. She goes back into panic mode.

“Stop!” she says, squirming and cursing.

“Nope. Saying stop isn’t going to work, boss. A dude isn’t scared of your words. You’ve got your feet up closer to him now. So you wanna’ use them to your advantage. Kick and kick and kick, ok? Get your foot up to his groin and kick hard. Trust me, you kick a guy there and it’s pretty much over,” he explains.

John sets her gently back to her feet. Heck, she can’t weigh much over a hundred pounds. She is tiny. The thought hits him in the gut with a panic he doesn’t like. It would be so easy to overpower her.

“I know that, stupid. Want me to show you?” she jibes and turns to face him.

“With
your
little foot? I doubt you could even dent the boys,” he gives it right back and tilts his head.

“You want me to demonstrate? I’m pretty confident I could, even with my little foot,” she says and plucks her fists on her slim hips. She’s trying to look tough but to John she just looks adorable, so he grins crookedly at her. Her white tank is stretched more tautly across her breasts, leaving almost nothing to John’s already overactive imagination. He certainly doesn’t need any encouragement to stare at her body.

“Ok, boss. No ball kicking,” he jokes and she smirks. Almost! It was almost a smile. “Now, say he’s coming right at you, or he’s as close to you as I am and does this.” John places both of his hands on her narrow shoulders. She frowns, not liking the contact.

“Watch, slide your hands... wait,” he pauses. “Here, put your hands on my shoulders. Let me show you first, and then we’ll switch.” She does as he tells her without arguing.

“Like this?” she asks. Her hands are slightly cold.

“Right, now what you could do is bring your hands up through the middle and chop down on the inside of his arms. Like this,” he shows her in slow motion. He’s extra gentle. He doesn’t want to bruise her. “Then jab for the throat. It’ll take him off guard. He’s not gonna expect you to even know how to dislodge his arms. Now you’re turn.”

John puts his arms back on the outside of her shoulders, and she repeats his motions. She does it again and again. She’s a voracious learner and a fluid fighter. She doesn’t hit him hard because she knows it could pull his stitches. He has no misconceptions that there is any other reason that she’s holding back.

“Then you could finish him with the groin kick. If he knocks you down, then punch him straight up in the nuts. ‘Kay, boss?” he asks. She’s fascinated. He can see her super brain at work.

“Got it. Groin punch,” she returns with relish. John pushes her shoulders down until she’s on her knees.

“Come up onto one knee. That’s the natural way a person gets up. So if he knocks you down, spring up on one knee quick. Put all the force into the punch using your shoulder like this,” he says. He takes her small fist in his hand and, with his other, twists her shoulder in a pivoting motion. “See? Use your biggest muscle group to get it done.”

“Yeah, smart. For you,” she adds snidely. She uses her upward punch angled toward his crotch a few times. “Like this?”

“Well, you’re a bit high, kid. I thought you were a doctor. You’re punching at something else,” he informs her with a laugh. Her face goes crimson, except for the white scar.

He grabs her fist again and angles it toward the intended targets better.

“Oh,” she says, clearly embarrassed.

“It’s ok. I reckon they didn’t cover how to unman a guy in med school,” he reassures her as she stands again.

“Not exactly,” she admits.

“That’s ok, boss. You’ve got time to learn about my body,” he teases her again.

Reagan rolls her eyes and says, “I know more about your body than you do, dumbass.”

“I bet I know a thing or two about yours, too, Reagan,” he drawls sensually. She’s knocked off guard by his tone and manner, and he notices her eyes widen. She snorts at him.

“I highly doubt that,” she corrects him, but she keeps a keen eye on him.

“Really? Care to try your theory? I mean, you are the analytical type. Maybe we should call it my hypothesis versus yours and see where we get. I’d bet I could show you things you don’t even know about your own body,” he says and almost dies when her mouth drops open and her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip. “No? I didn’t think so.” She goes back to glaring, shakes her head and takes her fist to hip stance.

“I want to learn to use my knife,” she says, changing the topic. John shakes his head at her.

“I don’t want that. He could just turn it on you,” John says on a frown and walks away to look out the window. He sees the kids picking vegetables, and Kelly and Cory are mending a wire fence section. But his mind isn’t on them or the fact that he should be outside helping. He’s nauseous with fear. The idea of someone harming Reagan with a knife makes him sweat. The thought is sickening. Counting the other night with that jerk at the Reynolds farm, John’s been attacked four times with a knife. It’s not an easy situation to get out of. When he looks at her again she has a frightened, panicked look on her lovely face. Her hand is at her throat, the other subconsciously toys with the front of her shirt, her fingers skimming over her stomach area. Pieces of the puzzle that are Reagan are starting to become clearer.