He briefly closed his eyes on a prayer. She respects directness. “Megan, I want you to open a practice in Portland. Let’s see where this connection takes us.” He’d never heard of a long-distance relationship surviving and wouldn’t risk what they’d started. Hell, they hadn’t even had sex. But he knew in his heart, he’d never find another Megan. Someone who challenged him while nudging him to be a better man.
“Luc, I’ve worked hard to build my practice. It takes time, money, and a lot of effort.” Conflict churning in her gaze tightened her frame and pinched her lips.
“Then I’ll move north.” Panic seized his heart. They’d come so far. With her by his side, despite the circumstances, he’d changed, matured, and was growing into the man he wanted to become.
Indecision and something else, something deeper, nipped at the self-confidence associated with her viewpoint.
Stroking his fingers down the side of her jaw and throat, he settled them on her shoulders, edging her forward before covering her mouth with his own.
Not giving her time to think equaled a tactical maneuver. He’d rehearsed the talking points in devising the strategy, but one taste of her lips wiped it all from his head as he poured every aspect of burning desire into the kiss. If using his body pushed immediate rejection from her mind, he was game.
When they both panted in the quiet room, he pulled back, framing her face with his palms, and leaning his forehead against hers. “I know you have feelings for me. It’s in your touch, your gaze, the way you quiver with my touch. I’ve never had this before, never thought I would, nor have I wanted it. But I do now, with all my heart and soul.”
“Lucas, I—”
“Don’t answer now. Just think about it. You’ve always wanted a big, crazy family and lots of friends. I’ve got that in spades. I want to share it all with you.”
* * * *
When he lowered his head to take her lips again, she knew surrender was a moot point she’d already passed, at least in body and spirit. But that wasn’t what he sought. He wanted her soul.
Weeks ago, she’d thought he intended to kill her at first sight. Now she wanted to cement their mutual attraction in a way that would leave an indelible mark and ruin her for any other man.
A weaker woman might allow him to move and be with her, but he still had healing to process, both physical and psychological. She couldn’t take the place of his family.
She responded with her heart, her mind, and her body, throwing herself into and meeting his urgent demand with her own. A slight twist of her hips demonstrated the magnitude of her need while the kiss seared a path to her heart and rearranged her priorities. Her capitulation seemed to trigger an avalanche of pent-up emotions he’d held in tight check, their release stirring a reciprocal reaction deep within her spirit.
“This isn’t an answer,” She murmured between hot devouring kisses.
He stilled, a great cat gathering obscure and elusive clues to determine the right time to pounce. His darkening gaze promised the result to their covert struggle a foregone conclusion, wherever they landed. Here was a man who didn’t relinquish the fight and didn’t submit to a menace due to size or nature of the opponent. And now, he’d focused on the invisible barrier between them, distance, as if it were a gnat caught in a great windstorm.
He surrounded her in every way, promising safety with his actions, comforting her when she was scared, and stroking the fires of mutual attraction with a mere touch. He was infinite, universal, and omnipresent with his knowing fingers and unique skill set.
Nerves fluttered in her belly before the warm pull of passion dragged her into a world she couldn’t refuse. Anticipation had built over weeks, collecting in her lower belly and smoldering, stoked with the heat in his gaze, an innocent caress, or the gravelly rasp of his voice. Every muscle under his touch tightened, every nerve came alive to experience his presence in tactile celebration.
Two T-shirts hitting the floor side by side were soon joined by two pairs of jeans. Clad only in lacy bra and panties, Megan let him nudge her to the bed. Cool air caressing her skin contrasted with the blazing heat of his touch, guiding her, smoothing his palms up her thighs.
“I’ve wondered why Ethan and Caden go nuts anytime their women even look at something unsafe. Now I know.” He knelt between her knees, caressing her with his gaze.
The confession reaffirmed what she knew and felt, declaring everything he hadn’t voiced. If she later regretted their joining, assuming there’d be another day, she needed him now, in that moment. The simple statement confirmed their connection as more than sexual. Theirs would be a merging of souls for however long fate decreed regardless of whatever distance separated them.
“Jesus, you’re so beautiful. If I wasn’t so damned hard, I could spend eternity just looking.” Warm breath caressed her skin as he peeled the underwear down her thighs. His boxers soon followed the arc to the floor.
Words stuck in her mouth, the Sahara-type sensation so divergent to the rest of her body melting under his touch.
“I want to touch you.” Giving thought to action, she reached to cup his face, only to have him pin her hands to the mattress by her head.
“Not yet. Not this time. It’s my turn.” The warmth of his breath tickled her skin when he leaned over and whispered in her ear.
“I can feel you tremble. Admit it. You’re mine.”
Without giving her time to answer, he covered her mouth with his own, absorbing her words, her thoughts, and her lust.
He took his time kissing her, trailing small nips down her throat to her breast, rasping the rough pad of his tongue along sensitized skin until she arched in need. Attention to detail assisted him in exploiting one erogenous zone after another until she writhed, not knowing whether to plead for him to stop or beg him to continue.
When he trailed molten kisses back to her mouth, she brushed side to side against him, an instinctual demand that he fill her. At some point, he’d released her hands, leaving her the option to feather her fingers through his hair, begging for more, needing all of him. “I don’t have any protection.” The last obstacle to their union seemed insignificant in that brief moment in time.
“Hold on.”
The seconds it took him to retrieve a foil from his wallet and cover his impressive length failed to admit doubt or uncertainty. The soft caress of cool air tightened her nipples and heightened her need for his warmth.
He was so hot—so male—so what she needed in her life regardless of what stood between them. But she couldn’t think about it when their moment in time had come.
“You always smell so good.” Covering her once again, he nuzzled her neck while brushing his body against hers.
“Hmm.” She loved everything about him—the way he made her knees go weak with one smoldering look, the way he assumed protection of her without question, and most of all, the way he needed her yet had the patience to wait until she was certain.
His weight pressed her into the mattress and imprinted his will into the very fabric of her life, each thread woven with infinite details to form a perfect fit.
“Jesus. Wrap your legs around my waist.” His voice was low, filled with the passion and excitement his gaze foreshadowed.
Again, he stilled.
“Please, Lucas. Now.” Locking her ankles around his waist gave her leverage.
He filled her with one thrust. The meeting of their gazes coincided with a nexus of more than flesh and bone. They were irrevocably joined.
She felt him swelling as he moved against her. The rhythm slow and tortuous. Every ridge of his shaft massaged her sensitive folds. Though it’d been a considerable while since her previous relationship and she lacked his experience, she had never come with such a slow, deep grind.
He was showing her with his body that he would fulfill her desires while taking her to another realm. Extreme focus. That’s what she witnessed in the set of his jaw, the strain in his arms. What it cost him was written in the tightness of his muscles under
her questing fingers. Rigid ropes stood out in bold relief, channeling all his reserves to give her more, to give her all of himself. His back grew slick as he supported his weight with his arms and moving them both to the penultimate moment where pain and pleasure merged to a single blinding point neither could refuse.
The world exploded in a radiant burst of ecstasy that left her without light, breath, or concern. He slammed against her one final time, shuddering with his release.
The weight of his collapse felt as natural as anything ever experienced. Locked together as nature intended, he nuzzled her neck while she purred her appreciation. When she could focus again, he rolled to her side, disposed of the condom, and nestled her back against him.
“Damn, I never imagined it being like that.” His wrist rested between her breasts, his hand gently molding the soft flesh.
“Thought a lot about it, have you?” It pleased her to bring this man, so strong and stoic, to breathless wonder.
Chapter Thirty-One
For someone who’d shown her heaven and asked her to open a practice in Portland to be close by, Lucas had shut down all emotion and clammed up tighter than a grizzly with its jaws around an elk’s neck. Each mile closer to ClickChip’s headquarters increased the tension in his shoulders. He wouldn’t worry about himself and probably never had. No, he worried about her in a way no one else ever could.
Aloofness originating in concern meant his thoughts wouldn’t remain on task, yet she needed to be present. No one else on their squad could come close to deciphering the medical information they’d encounter. She wasn’t certain she could. Hence, she sat squished between Lucas and Ethan, with Billy on the third seat of Matt’s SUV.
Patchy moonlight and a strong breeze shuffled capricious shadows across white fencing in the passing pastoral views. The open space called to her just as when she’d first moved to northern Oregon.
“Morfran might be inside if he’s anticipating our moves.” Ethan broke the silence. Sitting behind Lexi, who was in the front passenger seat, he patted her shoulder as she scanned the building’s security feeds on her laptop.
“He’s not anywhere on the main level, which means he’s either in a blind spot of the basement, or is mobile. I can’t imagine he’d go in the clean rooms on the second floor.” Lexi grumbled her frustration.
“If anyone encounters him, put him down fast and hard. I don’t want every infected person’s microscopic monsters released at one time and creating a swath of chaos and death throughout Portland.” Matt’s command left no room for doubt or uncertainty of his intent. As the eldest, protecting his family came first, and he had a debt to pay.
Billy and Kilregard’s recovery had left no discernable physical symptoms, except for facial bruising. Each had remained somewhat detached, as if the encounter had stripped off a layer of their personality and exposed a harder shell underneath. Billy had grimaced during their strategizing session, his gaze hardened with determination and deadly intent. Gone was the trivia master in favor of the deadly explosive expert.
“I’ve fast-forwarded through the day’s recordings and haven’t seen him enter the building,” Lexi murmured.
“If he’s in the basement, it means there’s a direct entrance from the outside.” Lucas glanced over at Megan with the emotionless detachment of a warrior before battle, assessing, calculating.
“Lexi, are the alarms down yet?” Ethan murmured in a soothing tone.
“Two seconds. We’ve just come into range.” The hacker replied with a flurry of keyboard pecking.
“Lexi, what’s wrong? You’ve got that look.” Matt’s concern stirred the apprehension thickening the air. He cut the vehicle’s lights to their modified conversions, which shortened their sight line to a few feet. The SUV slowed and dipped as it turned onto the pot-holed dirt road running parallel to ClickChip.
Under the cover of interlocking branches, shapeless shadows coagulated to create a pitch-black veil any evil would worship.
“I’m studying the company’s building plans as located on their plot, and something’s off. Here’s what I don’t understand. They have their drain fields in the back.”
“Most businesses do. It’s so they can address any septic problems without advertising them to the public.” The rustle of gun against leather signaled Billy’s preparation.
“Yeah, but according to Oregon statutes, wells must be positioned at least a hundred feet from drain fields. And there’s a second wellhead out back. Why would the builder locate the second one in the rear and so close to the drainage system? This can’t conform to code.”
“Megan, Billy, and I will check it out while we’re back there. Maybe that’s our way inside,” Lucas murmured, anticipation for the coming mission lowering his voice.
Luc’s natural inclination to protect would hinder the way they normally worked together. The more self-assured she appeared, the less he would worry, or so she hoped. Megan twined her fingers together to keep them from shaking when her instincts warned of trouble manifesting from an obscure angle. “Odd that the feds wanted to go in separate. You think four of them are enough?” Though Metger’s reasoning for keeping the group small made sense, apprehension slithered up her spine. “And why isn’t Kilregard bringing in his subordinate?”
“Might have him keeping tabs another way—who knows?” Ethan suggested.
“A small party reduces the risk of including someone who’s infected. We want to keep the research done here limited to as few eyes as possible. I don’t blame him.” Ethan checked his weapon as the SUV slowed to a stop. “I just don’t think the world’s ready for this shit yet.”
“Neither do I.” Lexi and Megan spoke simultaneously.
“We have enough supplies to make sure the research never sees the light of day again, as long as Lexi destroys the digital records.” Billy’s final solution would obliterate anything in the basement.
Once inside, Megan intended to destroy all records and any physical evidence she could find. Lexi’s slight nod confirmed they were on the same page. “At least Metger and Kilregard seemed to agree on that note.”
“Lucas, once we cut through the perimeter fencing, you and Billy take Megan to check for a hidden entrance around back. It’ll probably be on the east side, closest to the corner office.” Matt reiterated the assignments as Luc ground his teeth.
Ethan reached behind Megan to thump his younger brother on the shoulder before adding, “Hey, he’s the most experienced man we’ve got. That’s why he gives the orders.”
“Ethan, Lexi, and I will enter through the west-side door.” Matt sighed before cutting the engine. Turning in his seat to stare eye to eye with Lucas added weight to his words. “Look. We know you’re not incompetent, Luc. But face the facts. You’ve been injured and haven’t given your leg time to heal. This is the way it’s got to be.”
Luc clenched his fists resting on his knees. “Yeah, I get it, but I don’t like it. And I don’t think the women should be going inside until the building is clear.”
Megan hesitated before lowering her hand over his and squeezing slightly. “You know why Lexi and I need to be here. We’re not helpless. You and Ethan have checked our weapons twice.” A glance at Lexi gave Megan pause. She’s got a 9mm and I’m packing my dart gun. Damn. Luc had been afraid if she were given live ammo, she would hesitate. Stick with what’s familiar.
“Besides, we may only have one shot at this. Have to give it everything we’ve got.” Lexi added.
A quick nod before Lucas glared out the window didn’t change the fact he probably resented his situation now more than ever. Megan had experienced a similar helplessness when in Morfran’s choke hold.
Lexi stashed her laptop in her knapsack before leaning forward and shouldering the straps in place. “I’ve rechecked their frequencies, so our communications won’t be overheard.”
“Put your coms in. Let’s make sure the feds are squared away.” Lucas checked his mic before silently opening the door. “No talki
ng unless necessary after we’ve started through the woods.”
“We’re clear and ready to go. Meet you on the inside.” Kilregard’s tone over the electronic link betrayed his eagerness to commence the operation.
As if women were incapable of minor tasks, Ethan and Lucas checked their partners’ gear after sliding into the night breeze.
A cold gust lifted perspiration from Megan' brow and braced her for the business to come. When she’d accepted Luc’s hand, gone was the detachment of their car ride, melted with warmth and unmistakable concern in his grasp. For several heartbeats, he stared, searching her eyes for some elusive answer known only by the universe. When he released her hand, she shivered, as much from his distance as from the wind brushing her bangs aside.
The brothers split into two teams. Matt and Ethan fringed Lexi the same way Billy and Lucas flanked Megan. The brothers worked in tandem with few words needed.
Fragmented clouds filtered the moon’s glow through bare limbs to offer its own expectation of the night’s outcome by setting a sinister, theatrical stage. By the same token, it would highlight their approach once in the open and cutting through the chain-link fence.
Each McAllister wore a sizable backpack to carry various materials. When questioned about the contents, Lucas indicated they were normal supplies needed to accomplish the night’s mission.
Unlike the last time she entered the building, the current approach entailed a quarter mile of briars and thorns while avoiding holes, fallen logs, and grasping branches.
When they reached the clearing, Megan scrutinized the building. Brick and mortar, glass and stone, the same as many other structures, yet this one contained an evil that could change the course of their nation.
Ambient light revealed each McAllister’s face. Megan recognized the grit, courage, and decisiveness that bound them. Open space left nothing for cover for twenty yards before reaching the fence. Her thoughts turned to the lab. Is Morfran waiting?
The sound of each link snipped resounded in the night and hijacked her imagination to render a picture of the assassin dealing with dead bodies. His attempt both on herself and Billy had failed. Luck comes in threes.
McAllister Justice Series Box Set Volume Two Page 24