He mastered her mouth, making her body melt with each languorous touch. His breath feathered over her lips, his tongue teasing at the seam of her mouth, asking for entry. She opened willingly, gasping as their breaths mingled.
There were words in his kiss. Words of caring, of tenderness, of…love? Words he breathed into her with every seductive touch until they filled every part of her, winding around her heart, threading through her soul. She felt the agony ease within her, and the ache and horror of her loss poured down her cheeks in tears of relief. It was the reprieve she’d been asking for. A minute out of time.
As his tongue and lips seduced hers, he cupped her face and brushed away those tears with his thumbs. Gently. Oh, so gently. Taking care of her with his actions. With his touch. Far too soon, he slowed their kiss until they stood facing each other.
With raw emotion in his eyes, he cupped her face. “If I could take it all away and make it easier for you, I would.”
“I know,” she whispered. And in that moment, she had never been more certain of anything.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re exhausted. Lie down on the bed while I make some food for us.”
“I am tired,” she admitted, knowing it was more the weight of emotion bearing down on her than anything else.
Keiko didn’t complain when he lifted her and cradled her in his arms while he took her to the bed. After flicking back the bedspread, he put her in the middle of the bed and tucked her in.
“Close your eyes for a minute,” he said. “It’ll help.”
As he turned away from her, Keiko reached out and placed a hand on his arm to stop him. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Baby,” was all he said. And then with a shake of his head, he moved toward the kitchen area.
Her eyes already closing, she watched him move, all rippling muscle and fluid grace, which was unusual in a man his size. He looked dangerous, capable, scary. And even with the grief of Abigail’s death, the building being under siege from terrorists, and the horrific things she’d learned about CommTECH, Mace made her feel safe. Safe enough to let sleep take her, knowing Mace would watch her back.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mace gave Keiko as much time as he could for her to sleep, wishing it was more. But just because they were hidden away in one of Miriam’s panic rooms didn’t mean they were out of danger. At some point, Enforcement would storm the building and take it back from Freedom. Then they would go room to room, checking for survivors. They wouldn’t skip over the panic room. And if they found him, it would spell disastrous news for him and his team. Which meant they had to get out of there.
“Hey,” Keiko said when he woke her, giving him a sleepy smile that did strange things to his heart. For a second, she was just a woman looking at a man and liking what she saw. And then reality registered, making the smile fade. “How long was I asleep?”
“Not long. Forty minutes or so.” Gently, he brushed her hair from her face. “I made some food. You’re running on empty, and we need to keep your strength up. Who knows when we’ll be able to eat again.”
“I could eat.” She threw back the covers before realizing she was still wrapped in a towel. “Maybe I should get dressed first.”
Mace wished they were having this conversation in a very different time and place. He would have told her she didn’t need to get dressed, and then he would have pressed her back into the bed and started their day off right. With lazy, thorough lovemaking.
“That’s probably a good idea,” he said as he stepped away from the bed. “Your clothes are still in the bathroom.”
While she wriggled off the bed, he strode back into the kitchen, keeping his eyes averted from her. There was only so much temptation a man could take, and everything about Keiko called to him. While she got dressed and made good use of one of the toothbrushes in the cabinet, Mace spooned the chili he’d heated into bowls and placed them on the table.
The bathroom door opened, and Keiko came out dressed in the same torn dress and too-large shorts that she’d taken off earlier. She’d brushed her hair, but her feet were still bare. And somehow, looking at those bare feet made a wave of protectiveness wash over Mace.
Every instinct he possessed was demanding he wrap Keiko up, hide her away, and keep her safe. He’d always been a protective bastard, but this was something else entirely. His need to cosset her was almost overwhelming. He wanted her far away from danger, from violence, from death.
He wanted to love her.
He stilled at the thought, knowing it was a foolish hope. No matter what his other half said, relationships didn’t start off in hell. And that was exactly where they were.
“Oh look, you made me the only thing you can cook. I’m honored.” Keiko was clearly determined to put a brave face on their situation and to leave the rest of her grieving for later.
So much damn courage. She was astounding.
But not for him. Never for him. Even if she could get past him pulling her into this mess, there were still too many obstacles in their path. Like his freaky changed genetics, him being older than her by a century, and the fact his team called the deadliest place on the planet home.
“Don’t get too excited. I found cans of it in the pantry.”
“And here I thought I was being spoiled.” She pulled out a chair and sat in front of a bowl.
Her smile was strained, her skin had a gray sheen to it, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Even though she was bravely facing each new challenge that came her way, they were definitely taking their toll.
“Chocolate for dessert.” He tossed her one of the bars Miriam had stockpiled.
“Now you’re talking.” She ripped open the bar and demolished it, ignoring the chili.
Mace didn’t blame her. The stuff in cans wasn’t that great. “Here, drink up. We don’t want to become dehydrated.” He placed a bottle of cold water beside her.
“Thanks.” Her eyes fell on his datapad, which he’d connected to the wall of screens.
“I found a wired-in port,” he said as he polished off his chili. “Once we’re done, we can call my team and hopefully come up with a plan to get out of here.”
She put the empty bottle on the table. “Why can’t we just stay here until everything is over?”
Mace reached behind him, grabbed another water bottle from the counter, unscrewed the cap, and put it in front of her. “Because Enforcement will search the building, and when they find me here, they’ll arrest me.”
“Why?” Her eyes grew wider. “They don’t know who you are, and I won’t tell them.”
“Princess, they’ll know who I am by now. Every resource CommTECH has will be aimed at finding out everything they can about the man on the ledge with their press secretary.”
“Former press secretary,” she mumbled, and then her eyes hit his. “I resigned earlier. Even wrote a memo. It will go straight to Miriam as soon as I’m connected to the network again.”
“Please tell me you didn’t put in there that you knew all about her being a lying, murderous cancer on humanity?”
Keiko’s lips twitched. “You should have gone into public relations. You have a way with words. And no, I told them that after this experience, I was getting out of the PR game.” She blinked those thick lashes at him. “I have to protect my parents. As long as I’m with CommTECH, they will always be in danger.”
He shook his head. “Striker told you we wouldn’t use them again, and I’ll make sure he keeps his promise.”
Reaching out, her hand covered his. “It isn’t that, although I’m sure some other group would eventually find out about their affiliations and use it to get what they want. It’s also that I know the truth about CommTECH now, and I can’t carry on working with them knowing it. And then…there’s Abigail.” She swallowed hard. “I need time to…”
“Mourn.” He turned his hand in hers and threaded their fingers together.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
&nbs
p; Mace’s throat felt suddenly tight, and he cleared it. “Can’t say I’m upset that you’re done with CommTECH, but I hate that your life has been upended.”
“Well, you can start fixing that by getting us out of here. I’m fed up with CommTECH, this building, Freedom’s violence, and this tomb Miriam calls a panic room.”
He gave her hand one last squeeze and reached for the datapad. “I can do that.” Holding up the device, he said, “Where’s the on switch again?”
“For goodness’ sake…” She reached for the datapad, but Mace snatched it away.
“Joking.” He grinned at her.
She rolled her eyes at him, but some of the sparkle was back.
“Mace.” Striker’s voice came from the datapad. “I knew you were too ornery to die.”
Mace angled the pad up to face the inbuilt camera. “I’m glad to see you too, brother,” he said.
Striker was joined by Friday, who looked relieved to see Mace. It almost made him feel bad about winding her up so much. Almost.
“Is it safe to talk?” she said.
“Yeah, we’re in Miriam’s panic room, up on the sixty-eighth floor. I’m using a wired-in connection point because Freedom is still jamming the signals. Wait a minute—let me put you on the bigger screens.”
“Do you know how to do that?” Friday asked.
Mace just grunted and hit the one button he did know how to find. At once, Striker and Friday appeared on the wall beside them, and the camera built into the wall showed them the interior of the panic room. When the couple spotted Keiko, Friday screeched before rushing out of frame.
“What the hell?” Striker demanded.
Mace ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, forgot to mention, Keiko’s here listening, too. But don’t panic, she already knows all about Friday. She may as well come back.”
The blond scientist appeared again and glared at Mace, which was pretty disconcerting, given that her face was about four feet tall on the screen. “You told CommTECH’s press secretary about me? Have you lost your mind?”
“Hey,” Keiko snapped as she pointed at Friday. “Don’t talk to him like that. When you’re in this situation, you can make the decisions; otherwise, you keep your commentary to yourself.”
Mace fought a grin. “You done defending me, tiger?”
She threw her hands in the air. “Well, come on, that was out of order.”
Striker cleared his throat, drawing their attention back to him. “Right now, we’ve got other things to discuss, but we’ll be talking about you breaking team trust when this is over.”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say in front of Keiko, too, because she shot to her feet, put her hands on her hips, and faced off against his team leader. “No, you won’t. Not unless you want to talk about the trust issues you’ve steamrolled through. We can start with you organizing to kidnap my parents. Then we can move on to the fact they were never really in danger and you put Mace in a position where he had to lie about it.”
There was a long silence before Striker focused on Mace. “You told her about her parents?”
“She’s got enough to worry about without adding fear for their lives into the mix.”
The team leader pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not the point.”
“No,” Mace said. “The point is we need to know if you can help us get out of here. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t Club Med.”
Striker’s shoulders relaxed, and he inclined his head at Mace. “You’re right. What’s your current situation?”
Hooking a finger into the back of Keiko’s shorts, Mace tugged her back to her seat. She still glared at Striker, but at least she wasn’t facing off against him. Although, he couldn’t help the surge of awe he felt that she’d taken on his team for him. It was something else.
“The terrorists are pulling out the stops looking for Keiko. My guess is they want to make an example out of her. We’ve had to deal with a few of them already. Some permanently. And they’ve been”—he glanced at Keiko and watched her face turn blank, showing she knew what was coming—“assassinating the scientists.”
Striker and Friday’s faces both softened as they looked at Keiko.
“We’re sorry about your friend, chère,” Striker said.
Keiko nodded and reached for her water bottle.
Mace guided the conversation away from her. “What’s the situation on your end?”
“It ain’t good.” Striker’s tone was subdued, in deference for Keiko’s loss. “Enforcement’s surrounding the building, and the Mercer twins have arrived.”
“Damn,” Mace hissed. Things just kept getting worse.
Keiko looked up at him. “Why are you upset that CommTECH’s heads of security are here? We’re surrounded by Enforcement, anyway. What’s two more on their side?”
“You know what happened when they sent their last head of security after us in Bolivia. The Mercers turning up isn’t good news. It means that CommTECH’s in damage-control mode.”
“You told her about Bolivia?” Friday was outraged. “Do you even understand the meaning of the word secret?”
“Stop it,” Keiko snapped. “No more put-downs. I won’t tell you again.” She turned from Friday, whose mouth was hanging open, and asked Mace her question. “What do you mean, ‘damage control’?”
Never in his life had he wanted to kiss a woman as much as he wanted to kiss Keiko right then.
“He means,” Striker said, “that the Mercer twins are going to lead an assault to take back the building and protect the data stored in the vault. They won’t care who gets hurt as long as they meet their objectives, and, according to our sources, they’ve been told the research takes precedence over the staff.”
She let out a mirthless laugh. “I can’t believe I ever thought CommTECH was the good guy. How could I have missed the clues?”
Mace reached over and took her hand in his. “You missed them because there weren’t any to see from where you were standing. Stop beating yourself up. You know what’s real now, and that’s what matters.”
“If I’d known a whole lot earlier, I could have tried to get Abigail away from CommTECH. I could have saved her life.”
“We’ve been over this.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “Hindsight will screw with your mind. There’s no point wondering what could have been done differently. Instead, put the blame where it belongs—firmly on the shoulders of the people who killed her.”
Her small, sad smile almost broke his heart.
Beside them, Striker cleared his throat, and Mace turned to find both him and his wife studying them intently.
“We’ve got a plan,” Striker said. “We’re gonna create a diversion, see if we can thin out Enforcement some and make it easier for you to sneak out of there.”
Now that was the best news he’d heard in days. “How long are we talking until your plan goes into play? We need to get to the security hub and take out the central control system and make sure the cameras are down.”
Striker glanced to the side, no doubt checking with Hunter, who would be keeping an overview of the whole operation. “Half an hour tops until go.”
Mace nodded. “Okay. We can work with that.”
“I have a question,” Keiko said. “Explain the walking-out-of-here part. That seems a little vague. We can’t exactly walk out the front door. No matter what you do to disperse Enforcement, there will still be a whole lot of them. Not to mention news coverage, too. Someone will see us. Mace will get arrested.”
“We’ve been thinking about that,” Striker answered. “We’ll have my team on standby in the crowd. They’ll stage another diversion, then sneak you out of there.”
“It still sounds vague,” Keiko said.
“Don’t worry,” Mace told her. “This isn’t our first rodeo.”
“I know what that means,” Friday called as she beamed at them. “I do. Striker explained.”
Striker just smiled lovingly at
his wife as the rest of them stared at her.
“We’re still working on her understanding of common idioms,” Striker said.
“That isn’t common,” Keiko said.
“Exactly.” Friday pointed at her. “Not in this century, anyway.”
“So,” Mace said, making sure they steered clear of yet another topic that would upset Keiko—him being from a different century. “You want to fill me in on the planned diversions?”
“I don’t need to hear this,” Keiko said. “I’m going to use the restroom and see if I can find some shoes.”
“Don’t be long,” Mace said as she headed out of the room.
As soon as the door was shut behind her, Mace turned to Striker.
“You remember when you first heard your other half’s voice in your head? You remember what it said?”
Striker pinned Mace with his unpatched eye, missing nothing. “Yeah. It said, ‘mine.’”
Mace glanced toward the bathroom door, but it was still firmly closed. “I heard the voice for the first time after I met Keiko, and it said, ‘mine.’”
“Wait a minute,” Friday said, her genius brain working overtime. “You think certain people are able to trigger the mutation of your genetics?”
“Not people,” Mace told her. “Person. Otherwise this is too much of a coincidence. Striker’s animal didn’t start talking until he met you, and his first word was mine. My animal didn’t start talking until I met Keiko, and again it said mine.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” Friday said, but it was clear her attention was now firmly on the problem rather than on the people in front of her. “Unless…pheromones!”
“Bébé,” Striker said. “English for the grunts, remember?”
“Pheromones are airborne hormones that human beings—well, all beings, really—excrete in order to attract a mate. These chemicals are then breathed in by the person nearest to them, and they trigger a reaction within them—usually a sexual attraction.” Her eyes went wide, and her face lit up with excitement. “What if certain people can emit a hormone, a pheromone that has a distinctly different reaction when the Red Zone people inhale it? What if, instead of triggering as sexual response, it triggers the genetic mutation?”
Red Awakening (Red Zone) Page 18