Flash Burned

by Calista Fox

  I’d known there would be a sound reason for all the secrecy.

  Continuing, Amano told us, “Dane was in a coma. Responsive in some respects, but clearly in need of healing. I didn’t know if he would live, so I didn’t do anything—I didn’t let anyone see me, not even Jack Conaway, so I could avoid answering questions. I didn’t tell anyone Dane made it out alive. And I didn’t visit you because Dr. Forrester did not believe Dane was going to survive. I had to wait it all out.…”

  “Ari,” Dane said. “Amano realized from the beginning the opportunity presented, if I pulled through. I could really go after the others if the media reported me dead.”

  So I’d been right.

  Dane added, “I only recently started to make a recovery. I couldn’t contact you because…” He gave a slight shake of his head. “It’s complicated and fucked up. I was badly fucked up. Amano had to do all my work for me. He handed over all of the evidence I’d collected to the FBI. They started the investigations without me. I couldn’t get any sort of word to you in my state. And because we weren’t sure how this would go down. We had to keep you safe. And I needed to recover in order to finish my work.”

  I heard him swallow hard, telling me it was just as agonizing for him to suffer through his injuries as it’d been to not be able to contact me. Hell, for all I knew, he had no idea where to find me. If Amano hadn’t alerted Mr. Conaway until recently that they were alive, then chances were good Amano had no idea where I’d disappeared to after leaving the creek house. No way would he have been able to covertly track me down in Sedona … until Kyle and I had come here for the list of society members.

  It must have been Amano’s vehicle I’d spotted in the woods, since the timing seemed about right.

  “I take full responsibility, Ari,” Amano said. “And I’m terribly sorry you had to believe Dane was dead. But the FBI latched on to that particular angle from the onset, and I couldn’t do anything but follow their lead. For all our sakes. I hope that maybe, someday, you can understand that. Forgive me.”

  “This is so jacked,” Kyle hissed angrily.

  “Yes,” Amano admitted. “I’m to blame. I chose this direction for Dane. He was in a coma and I took action. This is on me. But … it’s working.”

  “I know,” I gasped. “I’ve watched the news.” My face was still pressed to the side of Dane’s neck, so my voice was muffled. I breathed him in, having missed his heated scent so much.

  Amano further explained, “Dane collected a hell of a lot of evidence before the explosion.”

  “On your laptop?” I asked my husband. “It’s missing from your office.”

  “I came for it,” Amano told us. “Not long ago. A day or two after Dane came out of the coma. Ari—”

  “No, Amano,” I said, still unable to relinquish my hold on Dane. “I know you’d never intentionally hurt me. The society hit us hard—you saw the opportunity to hit back. I already reconciled that in my mind, when the indictments started. You both have an important job to do. I get that.”

  Nor could I blame anyone but myself for the disaster that had become my life. I’d committed to being involved in this danger when I’d married Dane. Even before that. I had to be strong, so that he could do what was necessary without having to worry incessantly about me.

  I also needed to tell him I was pregnant. But if I did … Wouldn’t that just give him one more thing to obsess over?

  Would it make him stand down from what he was trying to accomplish if he feared not just for my safety but also for our child’s?

  I didn’t have any answers, so I opted to remain silent, even quieting the sobs. Though my tears still flowed.

  I had to be strategic, the way Dane was—for all our sakes.

  “I understand what you’re doing,” I told him. “It has to be done. I support this, Dane. I just … I want you to be okay.”

  “Don’t think about me,” he said. “I want you to be careful and stay at the retreat.”

  “Mr. Conaway told you?” I asked.

  “You went to his office not long after Amano had, to tell him we were alive. So it all fell into place.”

  Dane finally released me and Kyle swooped in with some tissues from the box on a shelf. I wiped my wet cheeks and blew my nose. I could probably cry a few hours more, but it’d be a waste of time when I didn’t have much of it to spend with Dane.

  He said to Kyle, “Thanks for looking after her.”

  My friend huffed a bit, then flapped his arms agitatedly in the air before they hit the sides of his thighs. “What else was I going to do? She thought she’d lost everything.”

  “Not everything,” I corrected. Though, sure, at first that had been my thinking. “I still have a best friend.” I gave him a smile, then stared up at Dane. “I did lose my wedding bracelet. During the explosion. I don’t know where. I’ve offered a reward, but so far … Nothing.”

  His fingers swept over my cheek and his emerald irises glowed warmly. “I’ll buy you another one. It’s okay.”

  “Is it?” I found myself asking as more tears crested the rims of my eyes.

  “Ari.” He pulled me to him again. I squeezed him a bit tighter than before. He winced. Apparently, I hadn’t noticed his discomfort the first time around, when I’d thrown myself at him.

  I jerked away and got a good look at him.

  “Jesus, Dane.”

  There were enough glittery rays filtering into the room for me to see the scar over his right eyebrow. I reached for the line of buttons on his shirt and slowly undid them, my fingers trembling. As the material fell open, I gasped.

  He had more scars. Angry, long ones that ran over his right pec and across the left side of his rib cage. Nasty slashes I wasn’t sure were from glass or surgery.

  “There are a few more on my back,” he confided. “You’ll have to get used to them.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand as the corners of my lips quivered and a sobfest threatened again.

  “I’ll be all right,” he tried to assure me.

  My gaze dropped, falling on the sleek black cane resting against a table. I hadn’t seen it with my previous tunnel vision.

  “Are you having trouble walking?” I asked, my voice full of agony—for him.

  “Wrought iron from the terrace caught me in the leg. Lodged in my hamstring.” He said it nonchalantly. My gaze snapped up to meet his. With his set jaw and an intense look on his face, he was anything but nonchalant.

  “He’s lucky to be walking,” Amano set the record straight. “Hell, he’s lucky to be alive.” I heard the pain in his tone.

  Turning to my bodyguard, I told him, “You saved his life. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “This is a very … tenuous … time. I know you understand that—”

  “I do,” I assured Amano, Dane, all of us. “That’s why I’m doing everything I can. Why I’ll do whatever you ask.”

  “This all has to remain a secret, baby,” Dane said. “I know it’s hard, not fair, but—”

  “It’s okay,” I hastily offered. “I get it. I’ll play my part. Just … don’t totally disappear again. I have to see you.” I gripped Dane’s arm. “I can’t not be with you … for so long.” I turned weepy again. I couldn’t help it.

  He gathered me close. “We’ll figure it out, sweetheart.”

  I believed him. Put my trust in him, as always.

  Amano said, “I’ll come by in the morning and pick you up Ari.”

  I slid a glance over my shoulder at Kyle.

  His teeth clenched for a moment. He pinned me with a hard look. “You’re just getting sucked in deeper and deeper.”

  I knew that already. But I wouldn’t walk away from this. I couldn’t walk away. Dane was alive. He was here. With me.

  “Thank you for driving me,” I told Kyle. Knowing I was hurting him further. But I’d been honest from day one. Dane was my lifeblood.

  “I’m just saying,” Kyle continued, unable to drop the issue. His gaze shifte
d to Dane. “This is the second time she’s been torn apart because of you.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Dane said. I felt his muscles tense. “And I’m not happy about it, Kyle. But I do appreciate that you’re such a good friend to Ari. That you’ve helped her through.”

  “I told you I’d be there the next time things got bad. I won’t let her down.”

  “Kyle,” I pleaded. “Now’s not really the time for this. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a confident tone and the hitch of his chin. “Because I’ll still be around.” Then he stalked off.

  Amano followed him out.

  I slumped against Dane, my heart sinking when it came to Kyle. Yet conversely soaring because I was in Dane’s arms again. “This doesn’t get any easier.”

  “I’m so sorry.” He kissed the top of my head.

  “I don’t blame you. I understand what you have to do, what you’ve been trying to do even before we got involved with each other.”

  “Yes, but … Now you’ve married into the problem. Because I couldn’t go another day without you being my wife.”

  “I could have said I wanted to wait and you wouldn’t have pushed me. But the truth is, I wanted this as much as you did.”

  “Except that now you’re suffering the repercussions.”

  I did not miss the agony or the anguish in his tone.

  “I’m not suffering at the moment.” I gingerly held him, my arms around his midsection, feeling a thin line of raised skin beneath my fingertips at his back. Another scar.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Broken ribs. Dislocated shoulder. A lot of glass. A large chunk of stone or marble hit me in the head. That’s what knocked me out for so long.”

  I shuddered. “This is so evil, Dane. The lengths they’ll go. People were hurt—they could have died. And to blow up 10,000 Lux … My God.”

  He let out a long breath, laced with pain. Emotional as much as physical, I suspected. “I had no idea they’d go to this extreme. If they couldn’t own a piece of the Lux, there’d be no Lux at all.”

  Glancing up at him, I said, “They have to know by now that you’re alive. Right?”

  “The FBI is handling it appropriately. Going after them with my evidence, but as far as anyone is concerned, it’s information they collected on their own.”

  “But won’t you have to testify?”

  “Baby, don’t worry about that right now.” His fingers tenderly grazed my cheek. “The agents have a shitload of documentation I collected, from a number of sources. The tax evasion issues are substantial enough, but the criminal corruption and murder attempts are the key to bringing these assholes down. They’ll be locked up for some time, I assure you. Conspiring to bomb the Lux … Fuck. It was bold. Too bold. And they’ll pay for the revenge they sought.”

  More of the wicked game in which even I had become a player. A pawn, yes. But still a part of the game.

  “I’ll fix this,” he whispered against my hair. “I’ll make it so that you’re safe, so that you’re not scared.”

  “I just want to be with you, Dane.”

  He groaned. “I want that, too. Never doubt that.”

  He held me close to him again, though I was sure it hurt him to do so, with all the injuries obviously still requiring full recovery. In a perfect world—a world other than the sinister one in which we lived because of his secret society—I would take him back to the retreat. Let Dr. Stevens and her team rehabilitate Dane.

  I’d experienced myself their healing powers, both medical and herbal. Spiritual. Even Hannah, whom I’d initially caught crying on occasion when she thought no one was around, had a healthier outlook on her physical therapy and had graduated to a walker, her gait slowly evening out.

  I was convinced the rehab specialists could help Dane, too. But that wasn’t a possibility at the moment. We couldn’t risk him unwittingly inviting trouble at the retreat, and clearly he still had more work to do with the FBI.

  “It’d probably be better if we weren’t standing,” I mentioned.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t have to be macho for me.”

  He grinned. It brought tears to my eyes. I’d missed seeing the quirk of his mouth, that sexy smile that I loved.

  “You can’t imagine the hell I’ve been in, not being with you,” he told me.

  “Yes,” I said, staring up at him. “I can.”

  A heartbeat later, he swept me into his arms.

  chapter 13

  “Dane,” I instantly protested. “Put me down.”

  “Ari.” His beautiful emerald eyes bored into mine. “Let me be your husband.”

  Emotion choked me up. I stroked my fingers over his set jaw. “You’ll always be my husband. No matter what. Just you—always and forever you. Whether you’re here or not. Whether you can pick me up or not. You don’t have anything to prove to me.”

  “Sure I do.” He carried me out of the room and down the hallway, with a hint of a limp that I thought he fought to hide.

  I understood his feelings, his need to be strong and virile in my presence, the way he’d been before the explosion. Triple Crown Thoroughbreds were put out to pasture for lameness—Dane clearly refused to be one of them. I’d experienced this with Hannah as well. She wouldn’t date and shied away from social interactions because of her uneven walk and the havoc it wreaked on her psyche.

  Dane wasn’t one to shy away from anything. He’d power through just to demonstrate his confidence hadn’t taken a hit, to show that he was as capable as ever.

  While I could comprehend and deeply empathize with Hannah’s hesitancy, I admired Dane’s resiliency.

  Still, I muttered in his ear, “Don’t overdo it, Tarzan.”

  “Do you know how desperately I’ve wanted to be with you? But Amano’s plan yielded results. At one point, I did yank out the IV, unhooked my leg from its holster, and tried to get out of bed. Landed flat on my face.”

  My chest pulled tight, my heart constricting. “I wish I could have been there to help you.”

  “So you know how I feel. A hundred times over. A million. I can’t stand that I wasn’t there with you, Ari. That I wasn’t by your side.”

  I kissed his cheek and said, “Amano did the right thing. Even if he’d told me you were alive and I came to see you because you couldn’t get to me, I could have easily been followed. We could have put the entire mission in jeopardy. So … All I can do is thank God that Amano was able to get you immediate help.” I was beyond relieved, so very grateful. “And I’m just so happy to be here with you now. I love you so much.”

  He carefully set me on my feet just inside our bedroom. His hands cupped my face and he stared deep into my eyes. “I’m doing all of this to free us, Ari. But I know how painful it is for you. It’s killing me, too.” He brushed away my tears and softly kissed my lips. “It’ll be over soon. I promise.”

  He stepped away, raking a hand through his hair. His shoulders bunched.

  “Dane?”

  With his back to me, he glanced around his shoulder and said, “I’ve made a lot of promises to you, haven’t I? And I’m not keeping them.”

  Now my heart wrenched. His pain lanced through me. “We’re not living under normal circumstances, Dane.”

  I closed the gap between us and wound my arms around him from behind. I’d missed the feel of his hot flesh and hard muscles beneath my fingers, against my palms.

  His hands covered mine for endless moments. Then he unraveled my arms and turned to me. His head dipped and his lips glided over mine. My eyelids fluttered closed and I absorbed all the tingles skating along my flushed skin. A sigh fell from my slightly parted mouth. The bliss I’d lost when I’d heard Dane hadn’t made it out of the Lux slowly returned to me.

  He had made it out. And he was here. With me. No matter how temporarily.

  He’s alive. He’s here.

  I focused on that.

  I carefully eased his sh
irt over his broad shoulders and down his arms, letting it drop to the floor. My fingertips skimmed along his strong forearms, up to his bulging biceps. Across his collarbone and down to his defined pectoral ledge. All the while, I gazed up at him. His eyes blazed with desire; his jaw worked rigorously.

  I leaned toward him and gently kissed the scar on his chest. His fingers threaded through my hair.

  “Ari.” Need tinged his low, sensual tone. It had been months since we’d been together, and my own need mirrored his. The raging of my pulse and the pounding of my heart made my breath quicken with anticipation.

  I whisked off my long tight gray sweater and tossed it aside. As much as Dane making love to me slowly and sexily held huge appeal, there was no way I could survive the slow.

  “I want you,” I told him as I ripped apart the button fly of my Levi’s. “Fuck me.”

  He let out a primal growl.

  “Don’t be polite or apologetic about it,” I added.

  His gaze held mine as he deftly worked the fastenings of his belt and pants. He toed off his boots and shoved his clothes down, sweeping everything from his long, powerful legs so that he was gloriously naked.

  My pulse stammered. “Oh…” I breathed heavily. “God.”

  I hadn’t forgotten how magnificent he was—of course not. Yet the reality of him standing before me, so perfect even with scars, made the blood pump heartily through my veins.

  He reached for me, pulling me closer. He knelt and divested me of my jeans, shoes, and socks. His fingers grazed over my bare calves, along the backs of my knees, and up my thighs, igniting fiery sensations.

  His head bent and his tongue flickered tantalizingly along my pussy lips, the lace of my thong adding a hint of friction.

  “Dane.” I trembled.

  He stood, not quite as fluidly as normal, I noted. Taking my hand, he guided me to the bed. He pulled back the covers. I sat on the mattress, then scooted farther back to lie down, sprawled at an angle. Never breaking the eye contact.

  A riot of emotions competed with exhilaration. I desperately wanted to feel him inside me, but the thought of him touching and tasting every inch of exposed skin was equally enticing.