by Toby Neal
“We’re all friends here, right?” She smiled, reaching out to take the man’s hand. “I’m Dr. Kagawa. This is Luca.”
“Can I pet your dog?” the little girl asked.
Luca gave a brief nod, and Peaches lowered her head, allowing a scratch between her ears.
Nani hid her smile as she held out her hand to the girl. “Why don’t you show me where it hurts.”
Hail began to pelt the roof, pinging off the metal and bouncing to the ground. The mother sat down on a bench by the front door, pulling the girl onto her lap as Nani held the child’s foot to clean out the nasty cut.
Luca stayed behind Nani as she used an instrument to debride some of the infected tissue and then seal the wound, finally wrapping it in dressings. Even with her attention totally on the task, she felt the magnetism of Luca’s presence, the solid bulk of him behind her, warming and protecting her.
She’d been raised the same as her brothers—to be tough, self-sufficient, and do what needed doing. To fend for herself. She’d thought Clyde was the strong partner she’d craved, but he used his seniority and strength to dictate to and control her.
Luca tried to protect her, but he respected her abilities too. The combination melted her. If only he wasn’t so irrational. Blaming her for the men’s deaths was mean and hurtful. She was as tormented about it as he was.
“There. All done.” Nani patted her pristine bandages. “Those will need changing daily. I’ll leave some extra supplies for you. But she shouldn’t walk on it for twenty-four hours or so.”
The mother nodded. “Thank you.” A harsh gust of wind blew her hair, and she turned to look out at the storm. “You can shelter in our basement if you like.” Her husband made a sound like he didn’t agree but the woman held Nani’s gaze, the offer still on the table.
Nani turned her head to look at Luca. That brought their faces so close that she pulled back, stumbling into the mother and child. Luca caught her with a hand at her lower back.
Every place his fingers touched burned.
“We’re going to wait out the storm in the Humvee,” Luca decided. Nani nodded, agreeing. There was no reason to risk more contact.
A fresh wave of hail pelted the porch. Darkness brought on by the storm was thick as fog, turning the bright afternoon into the pitch of night.
Nani stood and turned. Luca didn’t take his hand off her back as they ran back to the Humvee.
“Thank you, Luca and Dr. Kagawa,” the little girl called, and Nani saw a wash of color on Luca’s neck.
Nani took the driver’s seat and Peaches scrambled between them into the back.
“Look!” Luca pointed. The darkness of the storm seemed to have condensed, coalescing into a black spiral dead ahead. “It’s a twister! If it comes any closer, it could suck the Harley out. I need to secure it.”
Before she could object, Luca opened his door and was out into the swirl of stinging hail and dirt. Nani caught hold of Peaches’ collar to keep her from following.
Luca pulled open the trunk, a blast of air filling the vehicle, as he grabbed a length of rope. He slammed it shut and threw a loop around the Harley’s handlebars, securing it to the bumper of the Humvee. Her hand was on the door when he looked up and caught her gaze. A fierce headshake said her help was not wanted.
Nani opened his door for him as Luca made his way back, holding onto the side of the rocking vehicle. The door whipped back, creaking loudly on strained hinges as the wind caught it. He grabbed it with both hands and heaved himself into the vehicle, hauling it shut behind him.
Relief made Nani’s hands tremble. “That was a damn fool thing to do. We don’t need the Harley that much.”
“Yeah, we do. Unless you want me to leave you outside The Center and have me give them the Humvee?” Luca panted. His eyes glowed amber with adrenaline.
Nani slammed on the parking brake and her hand seemed to reach out of its own volition to grasp his hard, bulky shoulder. “You scared me, damn you.” Her voice was reedy, unfamiliar, as her gaze bored into his. “I don’t like being scared.”
“You’re in the wrong line of work, then, lady.”
Their gazes locked. Nani noticed the ring of dark bronze flecked with gold that circled Luca’s honey-brown irises. He leaned across the expanse of equipment between them like a planet sucked into her gravitational pull. His mouth descended to hers slowly. Their lips touched and his body arched across the tangle of useless communication and tracking devices.
Luca groaned, the deep rumble in his chest was almost lost to the flurry of the storm surrounding them, rocking the heavy vehicle. Nani shut her eyes to taste him fully, deeply, the passion between them as stormy as the weather.
If she was gonna die she might as well enjoy her final moments.
Her hands encircled his neck and he pulled her hard against his chest, dragging her back to his side of the car. She straddled him and slid her palms up the smooth, bare curve of his skull as he wrapped her tightly into his huge arms.
Their tongues danced, and a sense of a timeless inevitability swamped Nani, as if whatever else had occurred in her life, it had all led to this moment, to this man, to this kiss.
She put all she couldn’t say, all she didn’t want to feel but did anyway, into that kiss, into twining around his torso like a vine around an oak tree.
Luca panted against her mouth, his breath hot, his big body trembling. “I’m a weak sinner and you’re in my blood—Jezebel woman.”
“You’re a total jerk. I don’t want to want you.” She bit his neck and Luca’s thundering pulse under her lips almost made her come.
“Damn you.” Luca nipped her earlobe and made her shudder. “I need to get away from you.”
“I hate what you do to me. The way you talk to me. The way you treat me. I hate everything about you right now but your touch.”
The Humvee shuddered under the thumping blows of flying debris, and rocked on its heavy axles. In spite of the turmoil, Nani didn’t want to be anywhere but right where she was, caught in the vortex of this man’s powerful arms.
Chapter Eighteen
Luca
Nani’s eyes were shiny in the lightning-shot dark, her lips plump from their kisses. He throbbed with need for her but this had to stop. She had her claws deep in him, but he couldn’t let his anger go; grief and despair hovered on the other side of that wall of rage. If he let that barrier crumble, Luca would never have the strength to leave her, to complete the mission.
He dug deep and found his core of resistance.
Luca must be strong and see her for the lying cheat she was, the woman who had injected his men with poison and led them to their deaths.
“This has to stop.”
“Screw you.” She bit his lip.
His hands tightened on her ass as a hungry growl escaped his chest. “Not today, lady.”
She sat back and stared down at him. Luca heaved himself away and opened his door. Peaches followed him out of the steamy interior of the Humvee and into sideways-blowing, chilling rain.
He was immediately soaked and cold to the bone, and it was no more than he deserved for falling so deeply under her spell.
The storm was moving away, the dark twister dissipating back into the clouds. The ground was covered in quickly melting hail—white, iridescent pellets sinking under the assault of the rain.
He looked toward the road. The twister had torn a path through the desert, cracking the pavement of the road, ripping it up and creating a line of destruction.
Luca took great heaving breaths in the cold rain, using his training to return his mind to the task at hand, ripping the feel of Nani on top of him out of his mind as forcefully as the storm had wrenched the road from the ground.
Luca kept his gaze focused through the binoculars, centered on Tanner Hillish’s compound, trying to ignore Nani. They lay on their stomachs in the dirt about two klicks south of The Center. Nani’s shoulder brushed his, and Luca flinched away. She didn’t seem to notice.
Why was it that he noticed everything about her, and she seemed so unfazed?
Because she was faking the emotion he thought they’d shared.
Luca shifted to raise his knee a little and relieve the pressure on himself trying to return his focus to the mission—and away from Dr. Distraction.
They’d been watching the compound for over an hour now, and had seen no sign of Tanner Hillish. Nani had shared his photo: medium build, shaved head, and brown eyes that held a strange light.
Luca was relieved that he’d found the motorcycle, not just because it fit his made-up persona but it also let him avoid riding in the Humvee—trapped with Nani’s crackling physical presence. That kiss had renewed his hunger for her, almost destroying his will. Luca was not sure he could have kept his hands to himself for the two-hour drive.
Out here in the fresh air, at least her intoxicating scent mingled with the dusty smell of parched land and hot sun.
Luca needed to concentrate on the mission: creating the identity of a hate-filled racist so that he could convince Tanner Hillish and his men to open up to him. The anger he felt at Dr. Deceitful was the coal of pure rage that he was using, stoking it into a flame of hate and blame. Tanner Hillish and his cult laid the problems of the world at the feet of “others,” and Luca was doing the same to Nani.
She had killed his men.
She made him feel things he didn’t want to feel.
She made him weak.
Only his anger made him strong.
That’s bullshit, a tiny voice argued, but Luca shut it down, cramming it into his lockbox—hearing just a whisper of Nando’s laugh as he slammed the lid.
“Looks very well-fortified.” Nani handed him the binoculars.
This was a much more professional operation than the last location. Surrounded by hundreds of acres of desert, The Center was protected by a high wall dotted with lookout stations. Unlike the last place, these turrets were manned by hostiles with serious arms.
Nani and Luca had not seen a chink in the guard duty rotation.
“Okay, let’s do this thing,” Luca was ready to go. Nani’s hand shot out and grabbed his forearm, settling him back into the dirt.
“I think we should wait until tomorrow, gather more intel, and see what their patterns are at night.”
Luca pulled away from her. “I’m ready now.”
No way was he spending a night under the stars with this woman—she was far too devilishly tempting to be near for long.
Luca crawled down into the small arroyo where they’d left the Humvee, motorcycle, and Peaches. His dog sat by the Harley, her tongue hanging out.
As they’d driven here, Peaches had stared longingly out the window as he roared along next to the Humvee. Of course, Peaches would rather ride a motorcycle than be inside a vehicle. He’d take her with him. A guy like he was playing—a racist, crazed, motorcycle-riding idiot—that guy would have a dog. But how could he get Peaches to answer to another name so quickly?
Peaches sounded like...“Punches?”
Peaches cocked her head. “Okay then, Punches. Let’s go.” Luca turned to the Humvee and Peaches plastered herself to his side.
He opened the back and pulled out the rocket launcher that Nani had agreed was the perfect bait for getting him inside the compound. It was a gift, a sign that he was serious about joining their ranks.
Peaches could ride on the back of the motorcycle seat. He’d strap the rocket launcher onto the rear fender like he’d seen his brother, Cash, do with his surfboard. The thing would stick out wide on either side, but out here that didn’t matter.
Luca hefted the weapon onto his shoulder and carried it over to the motorcycle where he began to lash it down using rope.
Nani came down from the hill and stood behind him. Luca could feel her watching as he wrapped the rope around the weapon.
“I’m taking Peaches with me,” he wasn’t asking permission, just telling her how it was going to be. She’d better get used to that, because that’s how the rest of this mission was going to go—no more Mr. Obedient.
“I think that’s a good idea. It makes sense.”
Luca snorted. Of course she was agreeing with him now. She knew he was on to her.
“Do you have a problem?”
“No problem, Doctor Kagawa.”
“Doctor? We’re back to that?” She sounded angry. She should be. He was bone-deep pissed off.
Anger was the only thing holding back the floodgate of grief and desire he felt, and Luca wasn’t about to let it crack. Not for her soft touch, not for her beautiful eyes, not for that long, thick black hair, not for That Ass. Not for any of her.
“Look at me, you big lug.”
Luca finished attaching the rocket launcher the way he wanted it and then slowly stood to his full height, turning to her.
She was standing with her feet apart, hands on her hips, in that pose he’d grown accustomed to, her this is serious pose.
“If I was a man, would you be acting this way?”
The question took Luca off guard a little. “I don’t kiss men.”
“It’s complicated, what’s going on between us. I get that. But you don’t have to be an ass all the time. It was just a little kissing. We can still work as a team.”
“Just a little kissing?” Luca took a step toward her. He’d kiss her right here, right now, just to show her what kissing really was—not because he wanted her in his arms, not because he needed to connect with her, to taste her again—no, just to prove his point, teach her a lesson about kissing she’d never forget.
“You’re treating me like crap because our friends died. I didn’t kill them. Scorch Flu did.” She pointed in the direction of the compound, hidden by the land from where they stood. “You want to be mad? Get mad at them. At Tanner Hillish. He killed them. He released this virus.” She took a step in and jabbed her finger into the center of his chest hard enough that he suppressed a flinch. “You want revenge. You want them to not have died in vain. I do too!” She poked him again.
Luca balled his fists, refusing to reach up and touch the sore spot or swat her hand away. If he grabbed her wrist he wasn’t going to push her away, he was going to pull her in, and they’d both know how weak he was for her.
Nani’s voice was a growl. “We have to work together. This isn’t some one-man show. This is a partnership.”
Luca’s groin ached—she growled like she was a predator, and he was her prey. It made him want her even more. Why did she have to be so sexy? He hated her power over him. Everything she did was hot.
“You think because I’m a woman you can treat me this way? That because I’m a woman somehow I’m tricky? You and your...” She looked him up and down. “Catholicism.”
“My what?” His neck got hot. She was ripping on his faith now?
“Yeah,” she poked him again. She was really getting going. “You believe that Eve story, that she tricked Adam into eating that apple the snake gave her. That’s what you think? That I’m some sort of schemer who’s going to get you kicked out of the Garden of Eden?” She was really yelling now. “We’re not in the Garden of Eden. We’re in hell!” She put her arms out encompassing the barren landscape. “We can be in hell and fight about it, or we can be in hell and do something about it.”
Luca’s jaw hung open. He pulled it shut.
Confusion rains down
Her tongue lashed out and freed me
But summer heat kills us
“Whatever,” he grumbled, his tongue thick in his mouth. Luca swung his leg over the Harley and turned the key. Peaches, a.k.a. Punches, leaped onto the back seat. He revved the engine loud enough that Nani’s voice was drowned out. He yelled over the rumble. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll get the info and meet you back here in a day or two. Enjoy your vacation.”
He hit the throttle and tore out, spraying dust behind him.
Luca stoked his anger as he roared toward the compound. He needed to fill himself with hate and blame so
that when he rolled up they’d be able to smell it on him.
His father had worked undercover, and Luca remembered seeing him on the job one day. He was on his way to school and his Dad was coming out of a club. Paulie Luciano’s thick black hair was slicked back, his face angular in the morning light, his cheeks red from drink. He looked so different from the jovial, kind father Luca knew at home. He had looked like a criminal, a man to avoid, instead of what he was: a man you could trust with your life.
Luca needed to find a way to project that same authentic look and attitude of criminality.
Once inside The Center, he would find out if Tanner Hillish was in residence and assess the weaknesses of the compound so that his intel could be used in an attack. The only way to do that was to be believable—his anger was real even if his hate wasn’t.
Dr. Half-Truths had said she thought that they were being set up, and it felt the same to him. Luca and his men were set up by her, and the President, and whoever else in DC thought they knew what they were doing. But those civvies had never touched a weapon, never seen anyone die, and didn’t know jack about moving in on a hostile, armed compound.
Luca pulled off the road before the main entrance gate of the compound and affixed the white washcloth he’d taken with him to the front of the motorcycle. The gleaming red paint was covered in a thick coat of dust, as were his skin and clothing. He hadn’t worn a helmet so his scalp was dusted as well, covering the paleness of newly exposed skin.
Three men met him at the gate, all aiming weapons at him.
“Brothers!” Luca yelled. “I’m here with a gift.”
One of them spoke quietly into a radio as another stepped forward. “Move forward slowly.”
The guy was in his late twenties, scrappy looking, maybe even related to that teenager Luca had taken down at the last compound.
“I got this from an abandoned army outpost about a hundred miles back.” Luca slowly dismounted the bike. Peaches jumped off and sat beside him. Her fur had been blown back by the wind so that she looked like an outlaw too, and now the name Punches fit.
“This here’s a rocket launcher from what I can tell. Maybe it’ll take down a plane.” Luca mimicked the Texas twang he’d picked up in the last few years as he schmoozed the men aiming high-powered rifles at him.