by Joan Swan
“Oh, God,” he said against her mouth. “So good, baby. So good.”
Her hands wrapped around his shoulders, nails clawed at his skin as if she couldn’t get close enough fast enough. He tilted his head, took her mouth harder, faster, deeper. Ignoring the pull of his ribs, he rolled them to the side, then onto her back.
She wiggled, positioning him just right between her opened legs and fully drew his hips in. And Luke felt like he’d come home. The level of joy flooding his chest frightened the hell out of him. He couldn’t just have sex with her and walk away. He couldn’t lose her again.
He rested high on his elbows to look down at her, that shiny black hair dark against the pillow, her face scraped, bruises developing in various places along her jaw, forehead, and cheek. “You’re so beautiful.”
With sultry, heavy-lidded eyes, she slid her hands down his back, gripped his ass, and pulled her hips into her as she lifted and rocked. Luke nearly climaxed. And, Jesus, wouldn’t that have been a beautiful screwup?
“Slow down, baby.” He clenched his teeth, moved his hips back to break the connection. Yeah, he wanted her fast, but not that fast. “You’re gonna make me lose it here.”
She groaned in complaint and tried to pull him back. “I love that. When you can’t control yourself. When your mind blanks out and your body takes over. I want it. I want you.”
“You are so sexy.” He pushed the T-shirt up, exposing her tight abdomen, complete with a couple ridges of muscle. Pressed his hands to her waist and slid them up her ribs. So soft, so hard, so perfect. “Goddamn, you feel good. When did you go all Rambo?”
She laughed. The sound filtered through his head, squeezed every last thought from his mind, and then wrapped around his heart. Tied it off with a big fat bow. He was history. What ever made him think he could go through life without her?
He slid down her body, pressed his mouth against her belly. Her fingers raked through his hair.
“Lucas.” His name was part groan, part sigh. “God, I’ve missed you.”
Ah, shit. He squeezed his eyes against the burn. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d dreamed of hearing her say those words. Only now, holding her, kissing her, loving her again, did he realize he’d also been waiting for them. Had put his entire life on hold secretly hoping, praying, this moment would come.
“Make love to me, Lucas.” She pulled at his hair, squirmed beneath him, searching for contact. “I need you. I really need you.”
Life didn’t get any sweeter than this. He wanted to savor it. But after so long without sex, without her, his body was in the driver’s seat.
He skimmed teeth, lips, and tongue up her stomach, pushed the cotton over one luscious breast, and sucked the nipple into his mouth. She fisted his hair, arched, and let out a little cry of pleasure that sparked him deep inside.
“I . . . God, I can’t wait.” She gripped his face and pulled his mouth from her breast. “Condoms. Do you have any?”
A light flicked on in his head. A blindingly bright light that made his brain wince. Condoms. Common sense.
“Luke?”
With his chin on her belly, he looked up at her. His stomach squeezed with dread and hope. “What . . . if I said no?”
“No, what?” She was breathing hard, eyes hazed with lust, brow pulled in confusion.
“No, I don’t have any.”
She stared a blank second, then released his face, pushed herself back, sitting up. The T-shirt fell over her perfect breasts. Thoughts passed through her eyes, but not her mind, at least none that he could hear. And judging by the flashes of disappointment, that was probably a good thing.
“I guess I’d say . . .” She blew out a breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and combed both hands through her hair. “Shit.” Wiped both hands over her face. “Dammit, Luke. Why’d you let that . . .” She gestured helplessly. “Why’d you let me do that if you didn’t have any?”
He lifted an eyebrow, barely restrained an absurd laugh. “Keira.”
Anger and embarrassment tightened her expression. She pushed out a heavy breath and tried to escape from beneath him.
“Wait.” He grabbed her hips before she got away and pulled her back, pressed his forehead to her shoulder. “I really want to be inside you. Really want to feel you, Keira.” It was true. So damn true. He ached to feel her again. And he really didn’t have any condoms. “We can still . . .” He kissed his way up her neck to her ear and whispered, “Let me make you come, then I’ll pull out. I promise.”
Her head fell back on a groan, half pain, half pleasure. He took the opportunity to bite a gentle path back down to her collarbone. “You can’t be serious. Luke, you know that doesn’t work.”
He dropped his head against her shoulder again. Would it really be such a bad thing if it didn’t work?
“Whoa.” Her head came up, eyes dazed. “Did that mean what I think it meant?”
“What?” He searched his head. Had it? Well, yeah, but not exactly.
She scrambled out from under him and tossed those long, bare, gorgeous legs over the side of the bed, but didn’t get to her feet. “Did you really just wonder if it would be such a bad thing if I got pregnant?”
“No. I mean . . . You’re . . . misunderstanding.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.” He hesitated, then added, “Sort of.”
She looked at him as if he’d grown horns.
A sense of urgency clicked on—straighten out this mess or lose the progress they’d made. He sat up, leaned close, and cupped her cheek, tightening his hold when she tried to lift her head. “I want you. I want us.”
“And you want kids.” Her eyes slanted with a familiar stubbornness. “Which aren’t on my agenda. My mind hasn’t changed.”
Luke’s heart pounded hard. How had this happened? He felt like they’d fallen back in time, into the same old argument they’d had more and more often after Kat came into their lives. His niece had opened up a world to him that he hadn’t even contemplated before he’d been assigned as her guardian, one that he’d discovered he loved, one that completed him: fatherhood.
And the thought that Keira truly didn’t want children was ludicrous. Maybe three years ago, when the trauma of the warehouse fire and the team’s newly acquired paranormal skills were fresh. But now, as she neared thirty?
If there was such a thing as a natural parent, it was Keira. From the moment he’d met her, she’d gravitated toward children—signed up to give talks at schools, jumped to be the one to give tours at the firehouse. She’d taken on the role of not only mothering Kat without hesitation, but of teaching Luke how to be a parent to his own niece. And for Mateo, a kid she’d never met before this afternoon, she’d risked her life several times over.
And while he really didn’t want to talk about this here or now, nor could he risk sinking his heart into her only to suffer that loss again.
“But why?” he asked, searching for patience as he remembered the strange thoughts wafting from her when they’d opened the tunnel. “You’re so good with them. You were such a good influence on Kat. Mateo can’t stand to be away from you for two seconds.”
“I didn’t say I hate kids. I love them.” She gestured as she spoke, betraying intense emotion. But he couldn’t tell if it was frustration or fear. “I said I don’t want any of my own.”
“That just doesn’t make sense.” Her irrational arguments pumped the heat of his anger. “Is this about the genetics thing again?”
She pushed to her feet and turned on him. “Don’t mock me. You know my fears are founded. You may be willing to stick your head in the sand and procreate with this toxin contaminating our bodies, but I’m not. Especially not with someone else who also has it, doubling the chances—”
“Of what?” He stood, purposely pressing to his full height and leaning over her. “Of having a doubly gifted child?”
Not only did she mirror his posture, fully facing off with him, she lifted her chin and looked him direc
tly in the eye. “No, of having a doubly fucked-up child.”
“Mi malonete, Thia. Mi malonete,” a little voice broke in.
Luke darted a look behind Keira. Mateo was sitting up in bed, his hand held up in a ‘stop’ gesture, fear bright in his eyes as he looked at the door.
“Kakee andres. Irthan kakee anthropee.” He yelled, angelic face tense with fear. “Mas vrikan kakee anthropee.”
EIGHT
After so much time, that ugly, complex argument still hung between them—the triple sword against Keira having children: history, environment, and genetics.
And Luke still didn’t get it.
She turned to Mateo with ready arms to take him in, but he shook his head, just as the lights in their room flicked on. She glanced at Luke, who stood there in nothing but boxer briefs. Muscled shoulders tapered to ripped abdomen, straight hips, awesome bulge in his shorts, thick thighs, and calves. Amazing. Edible. But, evidently, they still weren’t compatible.
“Did you—?”
He held his hands up. “I didn’t touch the lights.”
The speaker on the wall crackled. “Rise and shine, folks. You’ve been tracked. Time to move out.”
“Get dressed.” Luke jumped into action, dragging his jeans on, tossing a fresh shirt over his head. “Come on, we gotta go.”
“How’d they find us?” Keira shoved her legs into her own jeans.
Luke wrestled Mateo into his clothes, pushed the boy into Keira’s arms, and headed for the trap door. “I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter right now.”
He paused at the speaker, hit the intercom, and said, “Thanks. We’ll return your vehicle ASAP.”
“Godspeed, friend.”
Luke pried open the metal door. The rich scent of earth filled the room. Mateo’s hands fisted in Keira’s jacket, and his frightened whines clouded her head. Keira’s mind slid sideways. Everything faded at the edges. Sound garbled and slowed. Children’s cries grew louder. Pressure built around her shoulders, pushing, pushing, pushing, until she felt powerless. She covered one ear with her palm, the other holding Mateo tight.
Please don’t make me go down there, again. Please.
“Keira. Honey, look at me.”
“It’s cold. Dark . . .”
“I’m right here.” Luke’s warm hands cradled her face. “Open your eyes. You’re safe. There you go, breathe. Look at me now. Into my eyes. Right here, good.”
She blinked. Focused on dragging air through a constricted throat. Her eyes darted around the room. Into Mateo’s worried face.
“Thia. ”
Embarrassment swamped her. She hadn’t had one of these panic attacks for years. Luke had witnessed a couple—when things had gotten rough with Kat and those moments had mixed with a trip to the park or a hike in the woods, but he never knew why. She’d always lied.
“Keira.” His voice came calm but urgent. “Where’s your gun?”
“M-my jeans.”
“You have to clear your head, baby. We have to go.”
Cold. She was so damned cold. Still felt bugs crawling up her legs, over her shoulders, in her hair. She let her training take over and move her muscles while her brain recovered in standby.
Luke pulled Mateo from her arms and waved her down the ladder. “You first. I’ll hand him down.”
Keira hesitated at the top of the stairs. Terror ripped at her gut. The pressure of fearful tears tingled behind her nose and rose to her eyes. There was light. This was not her hole under the house.
She sucked a shallow breath and started down. At the bottom, with concrete beneath her feet, her throat relaxed. Air came easier. With air, her brain worked better.
She looked up and extended her arms, catching Mateo by the waist.
“Go,” Luke said. “And don’t look back. I’ll catch up.”
“No. I can’t . . .” Go without you. “Luke—”
“Yes, you can,” he snapped. “Go!”
She tightened her arms around Mateo and pushed into a jog down the tunnel. Bare bulbs hung on a wire every three feet, illuminating rough-hewn rock walls. The damp, musky scent of earth kept her stomach clenched tight. Kept the endless cry of children echoing in the back of her head. Kept a constant chill deep in her bones.
She felt as if she’d fallen into an Indiana Jones movie or an Elisabeth Naughton novel, in possession of a treasure everyone wanted, on a quest she didn’t understand, running a race for which she had no timetable, no map.
She couldn’t remember where she was going or why. Her feet slowed. She looked ahead, looked back. Both directions appeared identical. What if the guy who’d let them stay here wasn’t as trustworthy as they thought? What if she was running into the arms of their enemies instead of escaping them?
Luke sprinted up behind her and skidded to a halt. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know anymore. How do we know this is right?”
He grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and pushed her forward. “Sometimes you’ve got to have faith in the unknown. Move.”
She let him plow her toward an all-metal room. Only when Luke shut the door behind them and dropped a thick metal bar into place could she take a full breath.
He immediately climbed the metal rungs cemented into the wall. Keira lunged for him, grabbed his shirt. He turned a confused look on her.
“Luke . . . are you sure?”
He pried her fingers open and squeezed her hand. “No. But there are very few assurances in this life, Keira. You know that as well as I do.”
Yes, she knew that all too well. But she’d always had a plan. And a backup plan. And a backup, backup plan. She didn’t dive into anything blindly. She’d learned that growing up in foster care. Then again in the warehouse fire.
He reached the top, held his gun in one hand as he unlatched and cracked the door with the other. Keira held her breath as he peered out.
He ducked back down, gestured her up with his gun, and climbed out of the hatch. Keira passed Mateo off to him and climbed the rungs. By the time she reached ground level, Luke had the Jeep fired up and Mateo belted in the backseat.
She dropped into the passenger’s seat. Luke had the car moving before she’d even closed the door. “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Get him to sit back there?”
“I didn’t give him a choice. You okay?”
“Yeah. Better.”
“Good. I need you.” He peeled onto the main road and tossed a map into Keira’s lap. “Tell me where I’m going. He’s got a route lined out on there.”
Keira hit the interior light, hand still shaking. “Turn right in about two miles on Reservation Road. You can follow that to the highway or take a bunch of other back roads he’s got marked. But if they could find us there, they can find us anywhere. Shit, how are they doing it?”
“Don’t know.” His gaze flicked between the windshield and the rearview mirror. “But it looks like they’ve done it again.”
Keira spotted headlights out the windshield. Another set of lights coming from behind. And they were moving fast.
“I told you,” she nearly screeched. “I told you. This is why I don’t have faith in the unknown.”
“I also recall you telling me that not everything in life is a conspiracy.”
“Shut up.” She whipped her Glock from her jeans, then remembered she only had a few shots left. “Where did he say he put the other weapons?”
“He didn’t.”
“Just fucking beautiful.” She clicked her seat belt free and climbed into the back.
“Thia. ” Mateo instantly reached for her.
“Okay, buddy, okay.” She unfastened his seat belt and he climbed into her lap. “Shh, shh. You’re all right. I’m staying right here.”
She settled him on the floor, eased him onto his back, making him as small a target as possible.
“If we get out of this,” she growled at Luke, “I’m going to beat you into a coma with I-told-
you-so’s.”
“When we get out of this, you can beat me with anything you like.”
“Men, I swear. You could twist anything into a sexual connotation.”
“Just one of our gifts. Look under the seats.”
She scoured the cargo area, found nothing. Turned back to dive under the seats and found Mateo holding up a submachine gun with both hands.
“Crap.” She snatched the gun from his hands. “Baby, don’t touch that.”
He reached under the seat again. Keira caught his arm and dipped her head to look into the compact space. She found another subgun and two Glocks.
When she sat up, all four weapons in her lap, Luke shot a grin over his shoulder. “Oh, looky there.”
“Shut up and drive. I’ll shoot.”
“Then get ready, ’cause they’re boxing us in.” The car coming toward them turned across the road to cut them off. “Hold on.”
Luke braked, swerved. Keira leaned down and covered Mateo, bracing for a crash. But somehow Luke missed the other car and skidded off the road, onto the desert terrain.
Shots ripped through the night. Punched the car’s grille. Mateo let out a screech.
Luke gunned the engine. The back wheels spun in the sandy dirt, grabbed, and shot them forward. Keira looked out the back window. One vehicle trailed directly behind them; the other turned to follow the first.
She rolled down both rear windows, set the subs on either side of the seat pointing out so she could raise and shoot fast. “Slow down. Let them come closer.”
She sank low for cover just as the car behind them gunned its engine. Keira set one of the weapons on the edge of the open window. Aimed. Fired.
The tire of the other car popped in what sounded like another gunshot. The vehicle tipped and rolled. A thick dust cloud erupted in the night air.
“Un-be-lievable,” Luke muttered from the front seat. “You took them out with one damned shot.”
“Two. Always a double-tap,” she corrected, but the combination of shock and reverence in Luke’s voice made Keira smile. Payback for those thousands of hours on the range. “Told you I really am the best.”