Wynter's Horizon (39 page)

He caught the elevator doors as they started to close again and pulled me out. We stumbled down the hall, bodies twisted together, hands exploring, mouths locked. I struggled to get the keycard to work.

“Protection?” he whispered in my ear, nuzzling my neck from behind. I lifted my head, having trouble even thinking of words.

“The pill.” In, out. Red light. What the hell. Turn to green. He pulled me back against him. I felt the hardness of his body pressed into mine. “Diseases?” I asked trying to breathe through the heat coiled in my belly.

“Military. Blood tests every 6 months. Clean. You?” His hand traveled across my front, teasing my nipple through the dress. Oh god. I shoved the keycard back in the slot.

“Clean.” I choked out. His fingers fumbled with the zipper of my dress.

The light switched to green, and I thrust the door open as he ripped my dress down the back. His hands glided around my waist, smooth and gentle feeling their way first over my stomach and then upward, caressing each breast. I braced myself against the wall, dropping my head onto my arm, and trying to remember how to breathe. His fingers slipped under the straps of my dress, first one side then the other, his mouth devouring each shoulder as it was exposed. My dress slid to the floor, pooling around my high heels.

“God almighty.” he mumbled, letting his hands travel downward, my thong separating in two under his fingers like soft butter. My knees turned to liquid. Twisting me around and into him, we collapsed on the floor, his weight on top of me, and his hand beneath my back cradling me from the fall to the ground. I tore at his shirt, exposing his chest, fumbling with his belt as he continued assaulting my body with his lips and hands. I struggled to breathe. His hands stopped moving over my body and came to rest on each side of my face. I opened my eyes to stare into his as he brushed my hair back, giving me a moment to catch my breath. I felt like a taut wire, exposed and waiting for him. He bent his head and gently kissed my lips before drawing back to watch me. My chest heaved. I nodded then, almost imperceptibly, our eyes locked as he moved inside me.

We lay next to each other staring at the ceiling, arms touching, my leg crossed over his and my breath still coming in ragged gasps.

“I’m bloody sorry,” he said, running his fingers gently up and down the inside of my arm.

I turned my head to look at him but found it hard to focus. “For what?”

“I meant to wait for home, for a bed, for a little more romance.”

I propped myself up on one elbow, shaking my head. “The last time we waited it didn’t work out so well, did it?”

He frowned, his brow creasing. “No, I guess it didn’t.” And then, as if wanting to erase all memory of that time, he pulled me down on top of him, kissing me hungrily. “I missed you.” He ran his fingers down the side of my face, lifting the moon and the star off the hollow of my throat and holding it in his palm. His fingers brushed the scar beneath, and he dropped the necklace like it was a hot poker—his expression changing and, with it, the lightness of the mood.

Neither of us said anything.

Finally, I sat up, draping myself over my knees. “Do you want to go? To your house?”

He nodded, running his fingers down my spine. “Yes. If you don’t mind leaving…” He paused, seeming to want to say more but didn’t.

“And?” I prompted him.

“And if I can stop touching you long enough to drive there.” He grinned sheepishly.

***

We made it back to his house but not to the bedroom, crashing instead through the door once more and falling on the living room floor. I wasn’t even sure why we had bothered to get dressed, except for the whole driving thing. The skirt I had worn out of the hotel had come off in the Jeep, and Beck’s pants and t-shirt in the driveway. All that remained on me was his unbuttoned white dress shirt, which fell about my thighs as I straddled him. I heard furniture being flung about as we rolled from one side of the room to the other. I didn’t care. I didn’t know what his stamina or desire might be, but I was matching him step for step. I had waited a long time for him.

By the time we made it to his bed for the third round, the sun was slowly appearing on the horizon. Afterward, Beck drew the curtains in the bedroom, creating instant night. I was tired now, my body spent and sore. He crawled in next to me, wrapping an arm around my side. Sooner or later, I knew we’d have to deal with the issues we were avoiding; there were too many unspoken words, but not now. I gave in to my body and drifted away.

***

When I woke, the bed was empty. I pushed the curtains back, letting the sunlight flood the room. I pulled on one of Beck’s t-shirts and wandered downstairs to the kitchen. He was sitting on the porch. I grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge, noting it was bare except for a few sodas and beers, and pushed the French doors open.

“I didn’t want to wake you.” He sounded subdued, but he smiled and reached out, entwining his fingers in mine. His eyes wandered hungrily down my body to the bottom of the
t-shirt which barely graced my mid-thigh. He raised one eyebrow, desire clearly evident in his eyes. I grinned back at him, the recent memories passing between us.

But I wouldn’t be sidetracked just yet. Still holding his hand, I perched on the bench across from him, feeling the sun on my back. He owed me answers. I sipped my soda, waiting.

“I guess you want to know some things.”

I nodded. He had broken his promise—the one he’d made sitting on this same deck the day I’d come back to him, knowing what he was.

He let go of my hand. “Some of this I’ve known for a while, and some I just found out. You know how I grew up, weirded out by my powers. Then, when I was ten, I went to that military boarding school and met the others. I had assumed we were just an eclectic group of kids and teens, graced with extraordinary abilities. We were from all over Great Britain and Europe. Of course, I was naive about the whole thing. Anyway, I grew up there, especially after my parents died. We were close, you know? Most of us only children, kids of divorces or orphans. At eighteen, I graduated, already trained to be lethal. I joined the military like all the rest, and, from there, the SAS. We were special, and we were treated that way.

Before I graduated, I met a girl in London who had the same
gifts
I did. She was homeless, living on the streets and getting by because she was faster and stronger than everyone else. Her name was Lilly. I convinced her to come with me, and she did.” He paused, clearing his throat. “I fell in love with her. Hard and fast. And she with me, I thought. But it wasn’t enough.”

He didn’t look at me. He kept his focus on the water. I reached out and took his hand in mine. He didn’t make a move—to draw me to him or shift away.

Chapter Seventy-Two

Beck—Lilly

I turned my eyes from the horizon to her. She smiled at me, and, as she did, brushed her hair back. Her scent swept over me. It was her usual mix of cinnamon, baby powder, and vanilla—but layered over that was the smell of our last twenty-four hours together. The smell sent me reeling. I wanted to touch her, rip my t-shirt off her, and feast on her naked body. I fought to get my bearings. I had promised her the full story, and we were far from done.

“Anyway, she was beautiful and mesmerizing. Her hair was long and wavy and sparkled with red and gold tones. Her blue eyes were the color of the sky on a clear summer’s day. I was taken with her, I loved Lilly completely, obsessively, and I think she truly loved me back, at least as much as she was capable. We had some great months. No worries, no regrets, constantly together. We slept, ate, trained, and shagged.” I paused, turning to look out over the water again, unable to meet Wynter’s steady gaze.

“Anyway, Lilly was always strange, off, but I overlooked it for a long time. She never trusted anyone, she sought my attention exclusively, to the point where I stupidly ignored my friends, willing to sacrifice everything for her. But, the more I gave up, the more she wanted. I lied for her, covering up when she was too sick mentally to function. Then, one day she confided in me she was leaving. Not only was she leaving, ‘breaking free’ as she put it, she was going to make sure she wasn’t followed. She was so paranoid, had been since I met her. She always thought there was some kind of conspiracy at work. She told me her plans and made me pledge my undying loyalty; she wanted me to go with her, kept saying she only trusted me, I was all she had, that we had to leave before they took me away from her. I indulged her craziness, but, in my heart and mind, I didn’t believe her.”

Wynter stared at me patiently. I wanted to reach out and stroke her face, but I couldn’t.

“I betrayed her the next day. I went to my superiors and told them everything. But I was too late. Lilly must have known I would do it, or at least didn’t trust me totally. She had already set her plan in motion, triggering a bomb in one end of the residence hall. She would have blown the whole thing, but apparently she hadn’t rigged it right. It malfunctioned, only blowing about a quarter of the building. Of course, she still hurt plenty of people. She tried to get away, but they caught her. I’ll never forget her eyes as she stared at me while they carted her away. Worse, I can still see the bodies they dragged out of that building.”

I took a deep breath. “They put her in a mental institution, and I never tried to help. Never even went to see her. I told them about all the crazy stuff she had done when we were together, divulging personal secrets I swore I’d never tell. She was supposed to stay locked up. But a few months ago, due to budget cuts, they let her go. And she came after us. First my friends and then me. Of course, I didn’t know what was going on because my government had never told me. So, in the end, she was right about one thing, not trusting them.”

I paused again, not sure how much detail to give. “I told you we were part of a program through SAS called the Forum. I didn’t tell you that, after Lilly left, I was promoted and promoted, pushed through SAS until I was heading up my own teams, dropped into one war zone after the other and taking care of rescues, yes, but mostly assassinations. I excelled, throwing myself into work so as not to think about Lilly.”

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “After a few years, I really didn’t think of her anymore. Some of our crew retired and left SAS, but Quinn and I stayed—until Colombia. To this day, I still don’t know if we were set up. I just know it all went wrong. Quinn escaped, but I was caught and tortured, and most of my crew were killed. Quinn rescued me, but only me. SAS discharged us after that. Then you and I met.”

I stopped. The sun was slipping behind the horizon, changing the sky from blue to pastels. We had been out here a long time. Wynter smiled at me. Her soda gone, she now twisted the metal tab. The sun’s rays bathed her in a golden light, and she was breathtaking as it played through her flaxen hair and around her face.

“Do you want to take a break from all this?” I asked, my mind wandering back to the living room floor.

She pursed her lips together. I wondered if she knew what I was implying. “No. Let’s just keep going. I’d rather you finish.”

“
Well, when Lilly got out, she had already made contact with one of my soldiers that had survived Colombia. I didn’t know it, but he held me responsible, which was right; I was responsible. Anyway, he became quite devoted to her and agreed to help her kill me—to kill
all
of us. They hatched a plan to drug me and make me crazy.” I raised my eyebrows at Wynter. “They didn’t count on you, or Quinn showing up.”

I raked my hand through my hair. There was only a little left to the story, but the memory was still fresh and raw. “After I left here, after you saved me, we went back to London in search of answers, which I got. Then I received a call that a friend of mine was caught in Colombia, taken by Lilly while on a job, and we went back to save him. And we finally finished it.”

I ran my thumb over my lip and wondered if I should tell her the rest, of where we really met or why I was finally able to kill Lilly—that my anger over almost killing Wynter had given me the strength, mentally. Because of Lilly, I had almost killed the one individual that had restored my belief in life.

I wanted to say it but couldn’t. “And that’s basically it. I had to kill her, to end it, and then I came back here.”

Wynter’s face was impassive. I couldn’t tell what she thought. She had been so quiet, just listening and watching me.

I dropped my head into my cupped hands, drained emotionally from the horrid memories, all the mistakes I had revealed—and the connection I hadn’t. I felt her move and looked up to see her standing in front of me. The sun had fallen behind the horizon. Pink traces still streaked across the sky, but the bright light was gone. She stayed standing in front of me for what seemed an eternity.

Then a small smile played across her lips and she bent down. I leaned forward to meet her, but she pushed me gently back with her palms and climbed into my lap, straddling me and the chair.

It was not the reaction I had expected. I held her gaze, running my hands up her bare legs, and realized there was nothing under that t-shirt. Gripping the back of the chair in her two hands, she kissed me long and deep, her hips rocking into mine, promising things to come even as she kept me underneath her, contained. I moaned, my need for her rising. I caressed her legs, feeling the warmth in her soft skin. My fingers lingered along her thighs, pausing in each crease, continuing up under her t-shirt. Taking my time, with every inch of her body. I pulled her head and mouth even further into mine. I was desperate for more.