“Oh, I’ve got some stories. Which ones do you not want me to tell?” Heidi patted his knee. He could feel her gaze on him and knew that whatever she was thinking about would haunt him for months.
“Something really good and embarrassing.” Riley was far too eager for this.
“Remember your senior party?” Heidi asked, her tone oh, so sweet.
“Fuck.” Adam winced. There were some nights he tried to forget. The senior party was one of them.
“Adam’s football friends threw a party the last week of school. We’d agreed that he’d drink and I’d drive. Well, someone started loading him up on vodka shots. I go to the bathroom, come out and I can’t find him. Turns out he was much drunker than any of us realized, and while I was gone someone made him think I was standing on the patio—doing what?”
“Blowing kisses,” Adam muttered.
“Right! So he thinks I’m standing out there blowing kisses. I come out and he’s wrapped around the patio support post making out with it while everyone’s totally lost it laughing.”
“And what did you do?” Adam cracked an eye open and glared down at Heidi.
“I took a picture.” She grinned right back at him, not the least bit apologetic.
The picture was pretty damn funny, but he’d never tell her that.
“Do you still have that?” Riley asked.
“Probably.” Heidi shrugged.
“Oh—what about that one time you were wrestling?” Heidi prodded his ribs.
“Come on.” Adam groaned.
“I need to hear this,” Riley said.
“Adam and his best friend were at wrestling practice and he did this thing—”
“I shot my hand between his legs to get a better hold and leverage my weight. I got my hand up his shorts and grabbed him by the balls. Next thing I know he’s screaming and I can’t figure out what I’ve got a grip on.”
Heidi snickered and giggled while Riley howled. Grant was a bit more reserved with his head shake and chuckle.
“It was the best because until they graduated people always tried to make them out to be a couple.” Heidi wiped away a tear.
Adam couldn’t deny that he’d done his fair share of stupid stuff. There wasn’t much he regretted, mostly because Heidi had been part of a good deal of those memories.
“What about you, huh?” Adam jostled Heidi a bit.
“Oh, man. He’s got so much leverage on me it’s not even funny. Where to start?” Heidi tapped her chin. “I should warn you, most of the funny shit on me is kind of gross.”
“I’m so here for this.” Riley leaned forward.
“I’m talking women gross.”
“Hit me with it.”
“When I started college, I was going to the community college a few blocks away. I couldn’t afford a car, and until Adam deployed he needed his truck. So we went to this bike shop to get me something decent.”
“Oh, no.” Adam just closed his eyes. Dating Heidi meant being her emergency shopper on many occasions. Some were more memorable than other.
“Oh, yeah.” Heidi patted his knee. “This one picks out a bike that’s two grand and wants me to give it a whirl in the parking lot. I think it’s ridiculous, but whatever, right? I take it around the parking lot and on my second circuit I get this...feeling. I’ve just started my period and this expensive bike has a white, leather seat.”
“Fuck...” Riley said.
“Yeah. So I wave this one over to me. I’m standing in the middle of this lot freaking out and tell him. Check the seat, and yeah, it’s not good. So he tells me to keep riding the bike around while he runs to the store. I keep doing laps, freezing my ass off, until he gets back with some sort of leather soap, white out and rags. We managed to get the seat pretty clean before the sales guy walked over. Then Adam makes a big production about how I shouldn’t have gotten on it in the first place and we really had to leave when I never wanted that bike to begin with.”
“Christ, Novak.” Grant shook his head.
“Did you use whiteout on the seat?” Riley gaped at them.
“Yeah, I don’t recommend it.” Adam could still remember cursing a blue streak while white liquid dropped down his hands.
“I have a lot of gross, funny period stories you probably don’t want to hear.” Heidi hid a yawn behind her hand. “Excuse me. I’m fading.”
“But we haven’t had dessert yet,” Riley said.
“Some other time?”
“Zain seems to think we can get out in the morning, so turning in now wouldn’t be that bad of an idea.” Grant pushed to his feet.
“Fine. The sooner I get home the sooner I can get a proper dessert.” Riley sighed and stood, grabbing the napkin he’d thrown earlier.
“What about you?” Heidi tipped her chin up and looked at him.
“Where you go, I go. Come on.” Adam stood and offered a hand to Heidi. He liked the chance to coddle her and take care of her, but that would never last.
“I’m going to go tell our baby-sitters we’re tucking in for the night. See you all in the morning.” Riley ambled toward the front of the house.
“He’s going to flirt with that female agent and get his ass kicked, what do you want to bet?” Grant strode toward the stairs.
“That’s a bet I’m not taking. Night.”
Adam and Heidi took a slower pace. Her feet were still tender, but she wasn’t limping. At least not yet.
“I can hear you thinking at me up there.” Heidi glanced up and narrowed her gaze.
“You already know what I’m going to say.”
“I just—I want to get back to normal.” She stopped at the foot of the stairs. “Fine. Carry me?”
Adam bent and picked her up, cradling her close to his chest.
“You get a kick out of this, don’t you?” She laid her head on his shoulder.
“It’s nice to be needed.”
“I’ve always needed you. I just have a shitty way of showing you that.” The way she looked at him, all that feeling behind her eyes, it was everything he’d wanted to see. “Are you serious about me coming to Seattle?”
“Dead serious.” And more than a little hopeful.
Adam carried her into the room he’d staked out for them. A few days ago he’d have been uncertain about them sharing the same house, much less the same room. Now it was a foregone conclusion.
He set her down next to the bed, but Heidi kept her arms around his shoulders, forcing him to hunch to her level.
“I have been—”
“We’re good.” He managed to speak around the lump in his throat.
“Right now, yeah, but later? We need to sort this out before we start repeating our mistakes again.” She cupped his face.
“I’m talking.”
“I’ve noticed.” She chuckled.
“You’re still here.”
“I am.” She swallowed and stared at the ground.
“I think that covers the important parts, don’t you?”
“I guess,” she mumbled.
He cupped her chin and lifted her face. Something was still bothering her, and she wasn’t sharing. Least not yet.
Adam sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her to stand between his legs. She slid her arms around his shoulders and leaned into him. He kissed her cheek and wished he knew what to say or do to comfort her, make her smile.
“What’s wrong, Hi?” He pushed her hair behind her ear, the better to see her face in the dim light.
“Do you think we really have a chance?” she asked.
“You mean us?”
“Yeah. Me and you, us.”
Adam swallowed. Talking wasn’t what he did well, but for her he’d make the effort. She needed words, the reassurance that he was in this with her.
“I hope so.” He swiped his thumb over her lips. “I love you, Hi. That’s never changed.”
HEIDI STARED AT ADAM, rolling those words over in her head. She hadn’t thought she’d hear those again. Not since her phone to
ok a swim, and she lost the voice message she’d recorded from her previous phone. She her lungs burned and her head buzzed. She sucked down a deep breath and blinked back tears.
Why did it seem like all she did was cry?
“Hey, hey—it’s okay,” Adam muttered.
Heidi threw herself at him. They went tumbling backward onto the bed. She wrapped herself around him. She kissed his lips, his face. Adam chuckled and stroked her back.
“I love you, too,” she finally got out.
Adam rolled until she was under him. His face crinkled from his smile.
“I know,” he whispered.
She pulled him down and kissed his smile, the corners of his mouth. He curled his fingers into her hair, tugging just enough that her whole body relaxed and she went warm all over.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Like I want you to love me.” She wrapped her hand around his wrist and slid his palm under her shirt.
He chuckled and pushed up, sitting back on his heels. He tossed his shirt off and she lay there watching, eating up the sight of him. The marks on his skin measured the years they’d been apart, the things she’d missed, the time they had to make up for. She wasn’t going to run away from him ever again. They’d made vows, promises, and from now on she would do her best for him. Because this was the man she loved. He was the one who’d picked a little girl up out of the mud and cared for her when her family didn’t. They’d been knit together since they were little, and that love had only grown and matured over time.
Adam stood, his hands pulling at his belt, the tab on his jeans. He wasn’t ripping clothes off and flinging garments everywhere, which somehow made this worse. She was trapped by the way he stared at her, fascinated by his hands and every inch of newly exposed skin, as though she hadn’t seen him in different decades of development.
He finally kicked off his pants, standing at the side of the bed completely naked.
She’d never seen a more beautifully built man in all her life—and he was hers.
Adam bent over the bed and pushed her shirt up, just enough to expose some skin. He kissed her hip, then her stomach. His fingers hooked in the waistband of her pants. In the very near future she was going to treat him to something besides utilitarian knit fabrics. Something sexy. But for now, she’d take him as they were.
He pulled her pants and underwear down her legs, dropping kisses on her thighs, knees, calves.
They were going to make it through this period and carve out a future together. She couldn’t wait for that, to wake up with him, share her day, what made her happy—and to hear him talk to her.
Adam crawled up her body, his warmth seeping into her skin. He pushed her shirt up, kissing his way along her sternum. His beard scratched her skin, and she curled her toes into the sheets. He gently slid her bra up over her breasts. She grabbed both garments and pulled them off while his lips teased her breasts, causing the coil of arousal in her abdomen to tighten with need.
“Say it again?” she whispered.
“I love you?”
“Yeah.” She sighed and folded her arms over his shoulders.
“I love your breasts.”
She sputtered a laugh.
“I love that, too,” he said.
Heidi smiled, her body warmed by more than tactile contact.
“I love your pussy.” He cupped her mound, his fingers sliding between her folds to tease her opening.
She gasped and shifted her hips while he rubbed against her.
“I love you, Heidi.”
She curled her hand in his hair and pulled. He hissed and crawled up her body until she could reach his mouth. His touch was gentle, but his kiss full of need. She could feel his cock nudging her, sliding between her folds. She canted her hips until she felt the head of him.
Adam planted his hands on the bed, pressing his pelvis to hers. He surged into her so hard her vision blurred. She gasped for breath, her head buzzing. She fisted the sheets with one hand and dug her nails into his lower back.
Instead of moving, driving into the need, Adam settled into the cradle of her hips and eased down, kissing her face and lips. It was completely unlike him. They were both guilty of being greedy lovers.
“Adam.” Heidi groaned his name and wrapped her legs around his thighs, the better to gain leverage.
He nipped her lower lip and grasped her hand wrapped in the sheets. He threaded their fingers together and pressed the back of her hand against the bed.
“I love you, Hi,” he whispered.
A tear squeezed out of her eye, unbidden and sweet.
“Don’t take this the wrong way? Just—fuck already.” She groaned, straining at the way he held her immobile and his prisoner.
Adam chuckled, the sound just as strained as she felt.
He slid out of her and she could breathe, at last. But it only lasted for a moment. He pumped into her, not the fast, pistoning that broke beds, but slower to the point that she mumbled incoherent words, promising him whatever he may want, whenever.
Her orgasm was a slow building tidal wave she felt coming for what seemed like minutes. When it finally hit, it went on and on, pleasure robbing her of her senses, the ability to think or breathe. And Adam was there for every stroke, holding her, muttering words she’d never thought she’d hear again.
She wanted a future with this man, and nothing was going to keep her from that.
FRIDAY. DAYUS PHARMACY, Atlanta, Georgia.
John dragged himself out of bed and limped across to the dresser where his kit was open and waiting for him. That was Léo’s doing. The boy was always mindful, thinking ahead of whatever John would need.
The bed on the other side of the room groaned and squeaked.
“You should still be sleeping.” He pricked his finger and deposited a drop of blood on the test strip.
Despite everything he’d created and all that he’d done, curing himself was the one thing he hadn’t been able to do. Yet.
“W-what the hell have you done?” Cindy demanded. Even handcuffed and kidnapped she was kind of a bitch to deal with.
“Same thing we do every week.” John glanced over his shoulder and chuckled. “Try and take over the world.”
Cindy sat on the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, mouth open, eyes wide.
“You think this is a joke?” The lines on her brow grew more prominent.
“No. This isn’t funny. If things had gone as planned, Heidi would be there. Not you. You were...a consolation prize.” John glanced at the numbers on his monitor. Good enough for now.
“What does Heidi have to do with any of this? Why play along all this time?”
“I didn’t think you’d get this close. I mean, Heidi would if she had the tools, but she needed you. And I didn’t think you’d play ball. You surprised me. I don’t like surprises.” John bent and grabbed a bottle of juice from the mini fridge to keep next to his bed. “Heidi, well, she was the point of all this.”
“Why?”
John stopped and stared into Cindy’s gaze.
She wasn’t a bad woman, merely difficult to get along with. Prickly. Intelligent. She was from an upper, middle class family who’d never known much hardship. Cindy would never understand the kind of life that Heidi and John had known. People like Cindy didn’t appreciate things. They took it for granted. Which was the real shame here.
He walked back to the other side of the room and lay down. All this traveling had him hurting in places he wasn’t used to. A little more rest, and he’d be ready for the next few days.
14.
SATURDAY. HARTSFIELD–JACKSON Atlanta International Airport, Georgia.
Adam pushed Heidi’s chair out of the security check and into the terminal. Despite the early hour there was a thick flow of people heading to their gates.
Though he was trying to not get his hopes up too much, Adam couldn’t deny that he was excited to bring Heidi to his home. The little bungalow he’d purchased was
a decent sized house for two. Not that he expected Heidi to live there, but perhaps she could visit. At least until they figured out the future.
“We should be down this way.” Grant nodded to their right.
Adam turned and proceeded along with the flow of traffic. He was more than a little surprised that they were being cut loose this quick. Given everything they’d seen and done, Adam had thought the authorities would want to talk to them a little more than the round of interviews they’d performed at the safe house. Then again, Abigail was still on the ground, and who knew what role she was playing in the greater drama unfolding they knew nothing about.
“You two coming to the pub?” Riley asked.
“Maybe sometime this week,” Adam replied.
“Pub?” Heidi tipped her head up.
“Yeah, one of the guy’s family owns a decent pub.”
“He’s not telling the whole story.” Riley sped up to walk next to Heidi. “See, a year—year and a half ago—one of the PIs, Ian, did this thing for his niece and got a bunch of the guys involved. You might have seen them? The Dancing Princes?”
“Riley just wants uglier guys there so he’ll be more appealing to the ladies,” Grant said.
“Did you just make a joke, TL?” Riley gasped.
Adam shook his head, grateful once again that Riley was not part of Alpha Team permanently. The guy wasn’t bad, but he just never stopped.
“I’m going to stop in here and get something to eat on the plane. Catch up with you guys,” Riley said.
“I’m going with him. Want anything?” Grant asked.
“I’m good. You?” Adam slowed and glanced down at Heidi.
“I don’t need anything, thanks.” She rubbed at her eyes and smiled, still not quite awake.
“We’ll meet you at the gate.” Adam pushed the chair onward.
“You know, I can walk, right?”
“But then you’d make Riley lose our priority boarding. Why would you be so cruel?”
“When did this all become about Riley? What about me?” Heidi chuckled and shook her head.
Despite the events that had brought them together, Adam was happy. Heidi was with him. Everyone had come home safe. The only darkness on Adam’s conscience was that Kyle had to return home alone.
Dangerous in Motion (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #4) Page 20