A huff of relief escaped unbidden. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but she needed to snap out of it fast. Being self-reliant and ready to fight was the only way to stay alive. She was depending on his help to get home, but that was it.
Exhausted, she found herself some painkillers and chugged them back with a glass of water, then she forced herself to change the dressing on her thigh. It looked worse than it was because of all the blood. Only one of the sterile strips had burst, and she replaced it with shaking fingers, after she cleaned it again with antiseptic. Her leg strapped up again she breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for the local anesthetic that was still holding.
She was done.
Violet limped back to the small bedroom. Darr remained unconscious, curled into a ball under the blankets, his lips tinged blue, shoulders visibly trembling. She lifted the blanket up to his chin. His face was different when he was asleep. Softer, the deep V of worry between his eyes gone. It was a face she liked.
His skin was cold and clammy. Her chin dropped to her breastbone. She’d done what she’d promised and brought him to safety.
“It’s time for me to leave now,” she said for her own benefit.
Darr shivered and shifted under the blanket.
Violet closed her eyes and began removing her clothes. She dropped her t-shirt on the chair and unbuttoned her cargos. A knot in her laces defied her, but eventually, she freed it and kicked her boots to the far corner of the room while working her way through an extensive repertoire of profanities. “If you think you’re going to damn well die on me, you have another thought coming,” she ranted, standing at the foot of his bed. She shucked off her cargo pants, stripping to her tank and underwear. Frigid air washed over her skin, drawing goosebumps across even her bruises.
Violet raised her chin as she lifted the blankets and crawled into bed with Nathan Darr.
She snuggled back into his body, spooning against him, his tall frame making it easy for her to pull his arms around her, locking her back with his abdomen and threading her legs between his. She rubbed his arms. “Warm up, damn you.”
His quaking continued, but as she lay there, curling his large hands into the curve of her breasts, his shaking lessened. Eventually, he stilled, his body enveloping hers. Violet relaxed. Finally, she was warm too, comforted by the faded scent of floor polish and the earthy masculinity of Darr surrounding her.
Shards of bluish morning light spilled across the polished wooden floor through a gap in the heavy blinds. Dust motes spiraled a lazy circle, soothing her weary brain, and at last, sleep and exhaustion overtook her.
20
Darr woke slowly, blinking and focusing on the fading strips of murky daylight stretched across the floor. Everything ached, even his eyeballs, but he was warm under layers of blanket—his last memory before slipping into oblivion was of bone-gnawing cold. He knuckled his eyes, rubbing the sleep away. He was home, back at the library, although he didn’t remember returning. A jumble of noise and alien shapes scrambled his thoughts, competing with vague memories of Violet swearing at him profusely. Faint barking echoed outside the window then moved away, leaving him alone with the muted hush of his own breathing.
Except he wasn’t alone.
Rounded warmth stirred against him, pressing into his groin.
His limbs locked.
The delicious curve of Violet’s backside was pressed into his stomach, her arms and legs bare and entangled with his own. He held her, his arms nestled against her breasts. Feminine skin pressed against him, from her nape to the pads of her toes resting against his knees.
Darr swallowed and took a slow breath as his body reacted to the woman in his arms. It took all his strength not to move his hands down the sweet curve of her belly, to caress the soft skin at the apex of her thighs. As his cock hardened, he shifted backward as far as their entwined arms and legs would allow.
Was there more here than just a physical reaction? An acidic knot constricted in his gut. It wouldn’t end well. It never had in the past, and it never would now. Especially now.
Violet muttered and stretched, and he took the opportunity to release her from his arms. Except only one arm was free, the other, his left, was stuck under the crook of her neck. It was impossible to move without waking her up. He strained forward, raising his wrist, desperately trying to catch sight of his watch.
He silently congratulated himself. Now he knew it was four in the afternoon in the aftermath of the alien apocalypse, and he was still stuck under Violet’s lithe body.
He lowered his chin back to rest on the curve of her shoulder, absorbing her scent of soap and fresh air, allowing it to momentarily derail his anxiety. His cock surged with more hot blood as he soaked up the regular pattern of her breathing. It had been so long since he’d held a woman and never one quite like Violet. She was something else. Good and bad. He liked it all.
Auburn curls tickled his chin, and he took his time smoothing them from his face. It was like silk under his fingertips, easily distracting him from the hot mess in his head.
What was she wearing anyway? He cricked his neck, straining to see. Just her underwear? It was impossible to tell. The hairs on his nape rose as he visualized the lush swell of her breasts outlined in her tank when he cleaned her wounds, her nipples outlined against the thin fabric.
Fuck.
Was she naked? At what point had she stripped off and climbed into bed with him? Had anything happened between them? Surely to God, he would remember that?
And what about him? Had she taken his underwear off too? His whole body pulsed at the thought.
Violet stiffened.
She was awake.
He kept his voice low, hoping to sound casual and non-committal. “Hey.”
She didn’t turn to look at him, but she replied in a soft voice. “Hey you, too.”
This was going well. The silence stretched between them as Darr frantically searched for something to say that wouldn’t sound inane—given the naked circumstances.
“This isn’t at all weird,” he said finally. If he could have face-palmed himself, he would have.
“No.” Her lips twitched in a smile against his inner forearm. She shifted and freed his arm from the crook of her neck. Her hair swung in a curtain against his cheek and despite himself, he closed his eyes for a second and just gloried in the scent of her.
When he next looked, she was sitting upright, clutching one of the blankets to her breasts in a protective shield. He said a mental prayer of thanks she was wearing underwear; he didn’t think his pulse could have coped with the alternative.
Seeing her without bio-armor and weapons strapped to a multitude of body parts, Darr appreciated again how slender she was. Golden freckles graced the curve of her shoulder in a delicate pattern that swirled across the top of slim arms. A physical urge to reach out and stroke the smooth knob at the base of her neck blasted through him, surprising him with its intensity. The blanket was draped loosely around the sweep of her waist, and hot blood surged south, inflaming his body further as he imagined cupping her breasts and thumbing her nipples to erect points. Damn, he wasn’t making this any easier on himself.
“That’s an impressive bruise was on your forehead,” he said in an attempt to derail his libido.
She touched the discoloration and grimaced. “I may have kicked up a fuss. What about you, how are you feeling?”
How to kill time until his body behaved itself? He sat up and ran his hand across the top of his head, stalling. “Rough.”
She tweaked the blanket up from where it had fallen from the cup of her shoulder. “You had me worried.”
A frisson of heat flared low in his belly. She’d been worried about him. “I can’t remember what happened.”
Her face changed. “You passed out. I brought you home.” Her tone was more agreeable than usual.
Seconds ticked between them, the air thickening with unspoken words.
Violet continued. “You were grogg
y—awake just enough for me to get you up the stairs and into bed. But you were freezing.” She dipped her head toward her pile of clothes on the chair. “Fastest way to warm a body up.”
Ah. That explained his nakedness. He sucked in a deep breath, piecing together the fragments of last night’s jigsaw. The Box. Judge. The Scutter. Escaping back to the car. Then nothing. Shit.
Violet studied him. Too closely. His gaze skated around the room. He’d passed out, and she’d been here, in his space. His private space. His heart rate bumped up a few notches. He had no idea how much Violet knew. Or how much he wanted her to know. Right now, his head was a mess.
“The car?” he asked.
“Deer. Through the windscreen. I think you hit your head, got knocked out.”
Darr tentatively pressed his fingers to his forehead. There was no tenderness, just the familiar ridge of his scar. “Probably,” he agreed, not wanting to dissuade her from any assumption that the accident was responsible for the blackout.
Not the contact with the Scutter.
A frown marred her face and his fingers itched to smooth away the creases on her brow.
“I have to go back to the Box with help, Darr. For Cassy and Fiona.”
“I know,” he said. “I understand.”
“It’s okay if helping me home to the Command Base is as much as you’re willing to do.”
He thought about Judge and the cold glitter in the man’s eye. Between him and the Scutters, there was a multitude of reasons to stay put in the library, but he’d given Violet his word. He’d get her home. He’d worry about the rest when he got there.
“They’ll help,” she continued.
“Help?”
“My brother. The rest of the team.”
Yes. The rest of them. Garrick, Sawyer, Foster with his pockets full of grenades, and Hardy. “Does Hardy even speak?”
Violet gave him a dirty look. “You do know you said that out loud, don’t you?”
Darr scratched his head. “I’m not sure what I know anymore.”
The pink tip of her tongue skimmed her top lip, distracting him.
“Darr, how did you escape and find me?”
Shit. “You wouldn’t understand.” The words fell from his lips easily, and as soon as they were out, he regretted them.
She arched an eyebrow, her face puzzled. “Sorry?”
He stared at her, trying to gauge her expression. How much should I share? “It’s hard to explain.”
She shot him a withering glare. “Try me.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Nothing’s simple anymore. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”
He shook his head. It would be so easy to share the weight he carried. But he had no idea how she’d react if he told her what he’d experienced. That he’d found the room she was being held in without even thinking about it. He’d been drawn to her, sensing her consciousness the way he did with the Scutters. Even he found it an immense mind-melt.
“They didn’t search me properly. I had a blade. They sent two idiots to deal with me. I persuaded them to tell me where you were.”
“Nicely, I hope?”
“Yes,” he replied, pointedly not rolling his eyes. For reasons he struggled to admit to himself, he couldn’t risk her running, not yet. Was it normal to want to be around someone so much when everything was on the line?
“There’s something else. I’m sorry, but I need to ask.”
Damn. What now? His eyes felt like they were rolling in sand, and his neck muscles sang like high-strung telephone wires.
“Yesterday, before I tried to take your car.” A pink flush rose up her neck. “I looked in your medicine cabinet downstairs. It’s full of tranquilizers.” Her eyes flicked to the adjacent room, to the locked cupboard. “Through there. That cupboard is full of drugs too isn’t it?”
He cleared his throat. “Shortly before your team found us at Crossness, I suffered a head injury. We were scavenging for supplies, and I took a stupid risk. Fell from a roof.” He swept hair from his forehead, revealing his scar.
Her expression was thoughtful. “I noticed it yesterday.”
Darr let his hair drop. “Ever since, I’ve suffered increasingly from headaches. With no doctors anymore, I’m a self-diagnosed work-in-progress. The drugs help.”
She processed his minimal truth. “You left a safe community to come live here on your own? When you have health problems?”
Ah. Now he was on thin ice. He resisted the urge to fold his arms across his chest. “Not everyone wants to play happy families in an underground bunker, V.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Risky.”
“Everything’s dangerous now. I’m not a child. I can take care of myself.”
Hesitancy flitted across her eyes, and her smile wavered.
Darr could almost visualize the unanswered questions on the tip of her tongue. But they didn’t come. “I don’t have all the answers, V.”
A pensive smile crossed her face, but she didn’t push it. “Yeah, me neither. Everything’s pretty confusing right now.” Her chin dipped down, almost touching her breastbone. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to grill you.” Her gaze slipped sideways. “We should get going,” she said in a tone of forced enthusiasm.
Darr released the breath he’d been holding. The heaviness in his chest eased infinitesimally. Perhaps she sensed it too, the growing connection between them that wouldn’t survive intense questions.
His voice would betray him, so he simply nodded. It would have to suffice.
His mind rattled through the possibilities. What had been different this time? He’d missed at least two doses of his medication before ending up in that cage. A first since the day of the injury. The promise of something better glittered in his mind. His head wound was long-healed. It had never occurred to him to stop the drugs because the pain had become chronic. The tranquilizers made his mind less visible to the Chittrix, but what if they also clouded something positive?
An ability to connect to the aliens of which he was in control?
He glanced at the cupboard with his supplies. Halting self-medication had been a pipe dream twenty-four hours ago, but now it was a realistic option. With potential benefits.
Hell, he’d already started.
21
Violet averted her gaze as Darr stood abruptly, letting the blanket fall from his lean form. Naked save for his shorts, his muscled thighs flexed as he took a few steps to retrieve his clothes. He put on his cargo pants, buckling them low on his hips where the swirl of dark hair curved under his waistband. Her fingertips tingled, remembering the feel of him, begging to reach out and stroke the trail of hair, to press against the firm muscle bunched under his skin.
He was not supposed to be turning her on, and yet her heartbeat picked up, and her skin was on fire, long-forgotten desire flaring between her legs.
Her attention snapped back to the cupboard. His explanation made sense, and she believed him, but she suspected she was getting the bare bones. There was more he wasn’t willing to tell her—just yet. She focused her thoughts on that.
“You could speak to Jamie Edwards about your medication. At the base,” she said.
Darr jerked a T-shirt over his head. “I’m not speaking to any doctors. I can handle this on my own. It’s not a big deal.” His voice was gruff as he turned from her, his body language shifting to that of self-protection. His face darkened with frustration.
Violet bit her lip. She’d wanted to help, not say the wrong thing. “I didn’t mean…”
“I’m not something your scientist friend can stick under a microscope and study,’ he replied, raising his voice.
“If you take too many of those drugs, you’re not on the ball. You can’t defend yourself. I don’t want you to get hurt.” The words were out before her stupid brain had time to edit them.
Darr stiffened. Incredulity painted his features.
Violet willed the floor to crack wide open so that she might plummet from sight
and save her cheeks from spontaneously combusting.
She was out of luck.
They faced each other in the deepening gloom as the day swiftly deteriorated with storm clouds outside. Hot swelling in the back of her throat suffocated her words.
She tugged a hand through her hair and looped it up into a ponytail, breaking the standoff. Then she picked up the clothes she’d abandoned only a few short hours ago and began to dress, Darr’s scrutiny scorching her skin.
She wanted to make things better. She exhaled slowly, breathing out the churning mess of emotion that was tearing her up. “Darr—”
The bedroom window exploded in a brilliant shower of glass as a large rock smashed onto the polished floor. Darr reacted with the speed of a cat, lunging across the gap between them, his body shielding her from the flying hailstorm of glass. Violet landed on her side under the heavy weight of his protection, tiny shards of glass bombarding her shoulders and scalp.
The stun grenade landed a second later. It spun wildly, scattering the glass to every corner of the room.
Darr grabbed her hand and yanked with such strength, her shoulder joint popped. Violet gasped as she dove with him, out the bedroom and into the main office.
Darr kicked the bedroom door shut with a fierce boot just as the grenade detonated. His arms curled in a protective shield around her ears.
A painful void of white noise exploded and filled her world.
Long seconds ticked past as she gritted her teeth until her jaw ached, but the warmth of his arms curved around her head made her feel safe.
Slowly, sound filtered into her brain. Darr released her, and she risked cracking open her eyes. He was already at the window, hauling the sash and case open, the tendons on his neck visible from the fury of his effort. Paint flaked from the ancient wood, and a split in the frame widened.
He turned to her, his eyes wide. His mouth moved, but her ears rang too loudly. She ran to help him—she didn’t need to hear the words to know where they were going.
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