Gauging the flow of vehicles along the two-lane street, she darted between them, leaving Simon to catch up or eat her dust.
He peeled himself off the wall, groaning.
He’d kill for a shower.
He’d commit double homicide if Parker joined him in it.
Simple man. Nothing simple about his tastes.
Parker drove, savoring some small pleasure behind the wheel of the gleaming sports car. She ignored Simon’s halfhearted protests, mulled what she’d learned in the diner over and over in silence.
So the syringe was important. The way the clues were stacking up, she couldn’t help but think it held some kind of genetic material. Something to fill the gap in the broken DNA sequence Simon was talking about.
Or maybe it was Matilda Lauderdale’s DNA?
Even as she thought it, she discounted it. If they wanted that, they could use Kayleigh. Parker remembered enough about matrilineal lines to know it’d be similar. Unless . . .
If Kayleigh really didn’t have the Salem genome, then they’d want an active genome—but why?
No, the first theory made much more sense. And would explain why Clarke warned her to keep it out of Sector Three hands.
“Damn,” she muttered. As she navigated the vehicle through the sporadic traffic at the rim of the night scene, she risked a glance at the man filling the low bucket seat beside her.
He didn’t look so good.
His skin stretched tautly over his cheeks and forehead, furrowed, lines drawn at his mouth and eyes as if he were in pain. She didn’t doubt it. The amount of blood he’d lost after his stunt at her condo was bad enough.
Something was off about this. Something that went way beyond simple blood loss and exhaustion.
“How’s your head?” She pitched her voice softly. As gently as she could, given the indents her nails were leaving in the steering wheel cover.
“Fine.” But he stared moodily out the window.
“And your side?”
“Fine.”
She couldn’t help it. Her lips twitched as she fought back her smile, exhausted though it was. “Are you bent out of shape because I’m driving the limited edition phallic symbol?”
Now Simon looked at her. But she wasn’t sure it made anything better. A gleam of something dangerous flickered in his eyes. “Forty-second and North Rainier.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What is that?”
“Drive, Director Adams.” The seat, smooth leather, creaked faintly as Simon leaned back into its cushion. “Where did you learn to hack into a vehicle sec-system?”
“I am a missionary, you know.” Parker tucked her hair behind her ear with one hand, her gaze focused on the road, the few cars around them, and the street signs they passed at a decent clip.
Forty-second and North Rainier? That was somewhere near Testament Park.
“I didn’t think you ever hit the street.”
“I don’t. I didn’t,” she added, guiding the sleek luxury car through traffic with ease. The power steering rolled smooth as silk in her hands. A real classy car. Status symbol, all the way. “I was an analyst before I got promoted. I spent a lot of time looking at useless facts and picking out the parts that mattered.”
Simon closed his eyes, his head leaning back against the plush seat rest. “Yeah?”
Was it the lights glossing through the windows, or did he look pale? A sheen of sweat clung to his forehead. The skin around his mouth edged yellow.
Parker’s brow furrowed. “Simon—”
“They teach analysts how to hot-wire sportsters now?” He drawled the taunt without opening his eyes. Right over her concern.
She blew out a silent, frustrated breath. “Bored orphans trapped in a topside boarding school taught me how to hot-wire a sportster,” she replied, her tone cool because concern would only open up questions she wasn’t ready to deal with yet.
Questions like why did she care?
No, that wasn’t fair. Of course she cared. She thought of herself as a good person. The real question shaped up to be how much did she care?
“Among those many facts I’ve gathered over the years, I learned this particular model has a specific default in the outside security panel,” she continued when he said nothing. “It was limited edition when it came out, so only the real money got one. There’s maybe five in the city today. People who throw money at limited edition designer vehicles don’t really care about things like security defects if it never leaves the garage.”
Simon shifted, one arm folded over his ribs. His mouth pulled to one side. “You’d think whoever owned this baby would take better care of her.”
Shifting up into gear, Parker shrugged. “My guess is that some rich guy’s son borrowed the car to impress girls. Lucky for us, that means we’ll have at least six hours before it’s reported stolen.”
“You don’t sound impressed.”
“I don’t care about cars,” she said, checking the road over her shoulder as she flicked the left signal on. It clicked softly. “Of all the things to sink your money into, I don’t see the allure.” She glanced at him. Jerked upright as his head lolled back on his neck. “What—”
“Just drive,” he said thickly. “Safe house, fifteenth floor. View.” His chuckle guttered somewhere in his throat, as if he struggled to talk through water. “Nice view.”
Reaching across the cramped interior, she pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. It all but sizzled. “You have a fever. Damn it, Agent Wells, you should have said something!”
“Drive,” he said again. He raised his hand, captured hers. Palm to palm. Gently, he pulled it away from his burning skin. Held on to it when she would have set it back on the wheel.
His fingers wrapped with hers. Entangled, as if he had some right to it. To her.
His palm felt clammy, damp. Too hot. Gritting her teeth, her heart pitched in her throat, Parker depressed the gas.
But she didn’t extricate her hand.
Whatever kind of safe house Forty-second and North Rainier was, she hoped painkillers came with it. And bandages, and food, and something for him to drink. Something for her to drink wouldn’t go amiss, either. Nor would the lucky coincidence of a doctor.
Parker didn’t feel that lucky.
“What are your symptoms?” she demanded. When he didn’t answer, she squeezed his hand. “If you don’t want me to turn this car around and take you to a clinic, you better start talking to me.”
“Don’t like needles.”
“I don’t care,” she said evenly.
His lips, that beautiful sculpted line she found so fascinating, twisted wryly. “You would, wouldn’t you?” He still didn’t open his eyes.
That worried her.
“Bet your life on it,” she told him. Outside, the line of steel and glass buildings ended abruptly. Lights scattered throughout Testament Park outlined silhouettes of earthy green and brown, cold gray cement.
“Am,” he replied, the single syllable quiet. Determined. Slowly, he raised her hand to his mouth. Pressed the back of it to his lips.
The sensations that single, ridiculous gesture caused in her belly should have shamed her. Jaw tight, Parker snatched her hand away, grabbed the steering wheel in a death grip and refused to look at him. “I’m serious, Simon.”
“Too serious,” he countered, but the slow way he drawled the words reminded her too much of that day in the lower street office. His blood on the desk, his skin ashen.
A bullet wound, for God’s sake, and he’d refused the clinic then, too.
There’s something in the DNA that’s . . . broken.
The memory clicked at the same time the street sign for North Rainier lit up in front of her.
And he was part of that. The sequence, the fractured thing.
She shook her head, navigated the turn easily. Bordered by the rain-damp street, streetlamps reflecting white-blue glares off the wet pavement, a high-rise apartment complex towered overhead. Lights gl
ittered from inside, sparkled on balconies and shimmered in the constant wash of rain from the black sky overhead.
This was the kind of place the terminally rich came to visit. Parker couldn’t afford it, not even on the Mission director’s salary.
She bit her lip as she guided the stolen car into the parking garage. “Simon.”
“Mm.” It wasn’t a word so much as a breath of sound.
“Is that syringe the key to your broken DNA?”
Silence filled the empty space behind her question. She held her breath; she didn’t know why.
Let it out when he sighed, more a grumble than a breath. “It’s possible.”
“What would you do if you had it?”
“Use it.”
“How?” she demanded.
“I don’t know.”
For a long moment, silence seeped into the car, filled the space between them until she was sure she could taste its weighty solidity just by breathing in.
She reached for words, but nothing came. Nothing fell into her mouth, her head; what the hell could she say to combat the stark honesty in that reply?
His eyes opened. A gleam of hazel. “Are you going to tell me where it is?”
Trust no one.
The silence went on too long. His jaw shifted. “Fine,” he finally said. “Doesn’t change anything.” He grabbed the door latch.
He made it halfway out before his shoulders rounded. He staggered, fell against the neighboring car, and clung to the dark red hood.
Parker scrambled out through his side, grazing her knee against the gearshift. She barely noticed. “Okay, hang on. Just put your arm over my shoulder.”
“Fifteenth—”
“Fifteenth floor, I know.” She grabbed Simon’s arm as he half turned. The ridged lines carved into his face, bracketing his eyes and mouth, didn’t bode well. His cheeks all but glowed under a sheen of sweat. The arm she pulled around her neck felt damp, even through his thermal.
The man was on fire.
He leaned against her as she wrapped her arm around his waist. He was solid under her grip, narrow enough that she could grab a fistful of the waistband at his side for balance. “Walk with me,” she urged softly. “Come on, Agent Wells.”
His head reared back, eyes glittering. Fever-bright. “Simon.”
She tried to pull him away from the car’s edge.
His weight settled back on his heels. Angled jaw set into stark relief, he splayed one burning hand at her jaw and said doggedly, “Simon.”
Parker winced. Jesus help her, how high was his temperature? “Okay, Simon. Lean on me, I won’t break.”
“I know.” He stared down at her, his body curved over hers. His eyes heavy and too shiny. But his smile flashed. That sexy line that screamed arrogance. “Believe me, I know. Not worried about you right now.”
But he didn’t give her all his weight. As Parker walked him across the lot, managed to get him to the elevator and inside, she was keenly aware that he held the bulk of his own weight away from her shoulders.
A man thing? A missionary thing?
It didn’t matter. Parker was used to being underestimated.
“Thumb,” Simon said and leaned over her, reached across the elevator to lay the pad of his thumb on the scanner. The doors closed, leaving her trapped. Cornered against the gleaming wood panel.
“Greetings, Mr. Johnson,” a computerized voice said. “Departing for your suite.”
“Johnson?”
“Yup.” Simon didn’t move. Didn’t draw away even once the elevator smoothly transitioned into motion.
Instead, slowly, as if giving her every opportunity to push him away, his head lowered. Parker didn’t dare look up; not if it meant she would endure another one of his soul-shattering kisses. Not if it meant looking into his eyes, seeing the heat and the promise and knowledge there.
But he didn’t take her face in his hands. Didn’t force her to look at him. Instead, as the elevator shifted subtly, he dropped his hot cheek to the top of her head. Let it rest there, his lips by her temple.
His hands spanned the railing on either side of her. A cage of muscle and male and heat.
Her heart thumped erratically. Parker closed her eyes, blocked out the visual of his body so close to hers, but forced them open again as she realized it only made her all the more aware of his broad chest angled against her. Of his heartbeat slamming against her shoulder.
Of his breath against her temple.
The floor alert dinged, shattering the fragile peace. The doors opened into the vestibule of an apartment that could fit hers and then some.
His shoulders straightened. His jaw, shadowed by dark stubble and still too pale where it didn’t burn red, set.
He pushed away from the wall—from her—and strode out of the open elevator doors on his own feet.
Parker winced as he stumbled, slamming a hand against the wall for balance. A large painting rattled dangerously.
Hurrying after him, she touched his arm. “Let me help you.”
“I can walk,” he replied curtly.
“Simon—”
“I’m not dead yet,” he snarled, but he didn’t slow. Didn’t look at her. Crossing through what Parker could only call the parlor, he clung to the back of an armchair as he passed it, braced himself against a small hip-high wall and vanished into the interior of the safe house.
Parker let him go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He was an idiot.
Simon perched on the edge of the bed in the master bedroom he’d never seen, heedless of the expensive bedclothes under him. The safe house was one of three he’d managed to install topside, but even this place wouldn’t stay safe for long. Not once they really started looking. He needed a plan.
And instead, he hid.
He clutched his thermal shirt in both hands, the waffle weave rough in his palms, and stared sightlessly at the damp, sweat-stained fabric. Maybe it was the pounding in his head, settled now to a dull throb in the back of his skull. That headache. That same symptom promising a messy, bloody end, and soon.
Maybe it was the vertigo that pulled the world out from under him as he’d tried to focus on not throwing up.
Or it was Parker herself. All that fire-red hair tangled around her face. The concern in her mysterious blue eyes.
The way her mouth pressed together when she actively kept herself from saying what she wanted to say.
No. No, he was just an idiot.
Because Simon was pretty fucking sure that love wasn’t a part of this equation. He killed people, absolutely. Murdered the witches well on the way to degeneration, watched the woman who’d made him die in his arms. But he wasn’t cruel. Not enough to put her—to put himself—through that kind of hell.
That talk of a syringe didn’t matter.
They didn’t have a lab, and they didn’t have the damn thing to test. It could have been a tube filled with water, for all she knew. Nothing changed for him.
The only thing that meant was that he now had a compelling motive for Sector Three’s action against her.
If they even suspected she’d seen anything from Matilda, Sector Three wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. The Church didn’t like loose ends, and she was a tangled one.
“Still sulking, Mr. Wells?”
Simon stiffened, pain streaking through the raw flesh at his side. It was too late to pretend he hadn’t just been sitting there. Staring at nothing. The way she leaned against the doorjamb, her arms folded under her breasts, a roll of bandages held loosely in one hand, told him she’d been there long enough to get the picture.
He didn’t bother to try. “You need to get some rest,” he said curtly. This time, when he rose to his feet, the floor stayed nice and firm beneath him.
A corner of her mouth angled downward. “You need a keeper,” she said, as if he hadn’t just dismissed her.
Anger curled in his chest. And more. “Go away, Director.”
He knew how much
the way he said her title annoyed her. Had since the day she’d corrected his blatantly disrespectful use of Miss in her name. Tweaking her temper usually amused him.
Right now, he wasn’t after amusement. He felt savage. Like an injured animal.
Like a rutting beast.
Biological clock? Awareness of his own death weighing on him? Maybe.
Or maybe Parker Adams had buried herself so far under his skin that he didn’t know how to get her out.
His radar had shut down. Simon was blind in the one way he knew to keep her safe, and the message his eyes conveyed to his brain wasn’t helping.
Because as she strode across the large room—her bare feet sinking into the pale gray plush carpet, her newly braided hair pulled back sharply from her set features—all Simon saw was a woman he desperately wanted to fuck.
He wasn’t any better than that.
He couldn’t be any better than that.
“I came to help you with your wound,” she said, her tone glacially even. “And to check on your temperature. You were burning up twenty minutes ago.”
He still was. Only not in the way she meant. At least, not that he could tell anymore. “I don’t need your help. Not now, not ever.”
There. Something about the glint of temper in her beautiful eyes sent a jet of need straight to his dick. Any blood he had left pooled in his jeans.
Hers went right to her cheeks. Ice bitch, nothing. Parker didn’t throw the bandage roll at him, but he could read the desire in every taut line of her body as she brandished it. “You need somebody’s. And maybe I need your help.”
“Yeah, you do.”
She had the grace to flush, but her gaze pinned his. Her chin lifted. “At least I can admit it.”
“I don’t—”
“You’ve spent our entire relationship behaving as if I’m stupid, Simon.” Her words sliced through his temper. His pride. “I don’t know how you think I made it to Mission director, but I promise you it’s not because I break. Take your damned shirt off and let me bandage your knife wound, you idiot.”
He blinked. Fought back a smile.
Touching. And because it hit a low, warm note somewhere in his heart, he quashed it. “You can’t help me,” he growled.
Dark mission 04 - Sacrifice the Wicked Page 15