Absolved (Altered series)

by Marnee Blake

  After we take down Parker and Jack. After I redeem myself.

  Did he believe that? She shook her head, her chest squeezing. “We’re going to work through this together.” They might be better that way than when they were apart. She grabbed his hand and tugged.

  Leading him to the bedroom, she left the overhead light off. It was too garish. She opted for the softer light beside her bed, the one she used to read. Flicking it on, she took a deep breath, and then she removed her shirt, standing in front of him in only her bra and jeans.

  He stalled, his eyes darkening. “Beth…” She’s beautiful. He trailed his fingers along her collarbone and then along her shoulders. So soft. “Are you sure?”

  He asked the question, and though his mind swirled with desire, he would stop if she asked him. Smiling, she slipped her fingers against his chest. “I would like to feel more of your skin.”

  He reached behind him and pulled his thermal shirt over his head with one tug. She forgot to breathe.

  She’d caught sight of the stretch of skin across his abs a month or so ago, when his shirt lifted while he reached for something. But this close, the muscles there were cut. She ran her finger along the definition of his six-pack, and he inhaled, groaning. Feminine satisfaction lanced through her, into her breasts and between her legs.

  The play of his thoughts—muted now to duller emotions—combined with the look on his face… There was awe and humbleness. Her hands shook and her knees weakened. Reaching behind her, she unsnapped her bra, and when it fell apart, she tossed it on top of the dresser. Stepping forward, she wrapped her arms around him.

  The contact between her breasts and his chest made her gasp and made him groan. He buried his hands in her hair again, and when he took her mouth this time, it wasn’t as gentle as it had been in the kitchen. This kiss was intense, full of longing, yet it still held the same reverence, the same care. And as his desire ratcheted up, her own followed, and she swayed under it. He absorbed her weight as she leaned into him, lifting her into his arms. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she closed her eyes, allowing herself to feel him.

  He walked them backward, still kissing, and they fell onto the bed, tangled together. The delicious rub of his skin against hers made her nipples tighten further, into infinitely sensitive peaks. He shifted to his side so he could play his hands along her rib cage. She inhaled sharply, and when his fingers found a stiffened point, she arched off the bed into his hand.

  So responsive. Lovely…

  Leaning forward, he covered the tip with his mouth. The stark contrast between the heat of his mouth and the chill in the room made her cry out. He played his lips across her skin, from one breast to the other, and she squirmed, reaching for him. As he sucked and kissed, she touched him, all the warm skin she’d imagined all these months.

  When she reached for the button on his jeans, he halted her. “I don’t have a condom, gorgeous.” I didn’t dare believe we’d get here…

  The words sounded reverent and apologetic, but more, they made her wonder if they’d been about to go that far.

  They had, she decided. She wanted to sleep with him. More than anything.

  Now, she took a deep breath, forcing reality to resurface in the midst of her mental chaos. She reached for him again. “That’s okay. I’ve wanted to touch you for longer than I’d like to admit. There’ll be other times for that.”

  He covered her hand with his, and his eyes met hers in the soft light. The wonder there tightened her throat. Does she mean that? Does she know what she’s doing? She doesn’t have to…

  She laughed, his concerns so endearing. “I know what I’m doing. Trust me.”

  Pressing the palms of her hands into his chest, she coaxed him onto his back. Kneeling, she blew her bangs out of her eyes before unfastening his button and tugging the zipper down. Her hands were unsteady, and it made the task more difficult than she would have liked. He tilted his hips up, and together they wiggled him out of his pants.

  As she tugged them off his feet, she gazed up his body, completely naked, and she sighed. He was gorgeous, as perfectly built as she’d imagined all those times in her office down the hall, all those nights alone here in her bed.

  Don’t deserve this…

  Tenderness washed over her. He was so much better than he knew.

  She smoothed her hands along his thighs until she cupped him. He jerked under her touch. She didn’t give him time to over think, but crawled up his body and covered the length of him with her mouth.

  He groaned, and as she watched, his eyes closed and his head fell backward. She would have smiled if her mouth hadn’t been busy.

  Beth wasn’t experienced with this sort of sexual interaction. She’d given a blow job once before—because the man she’d been with had been so adamant, and she’d been curious, so she’d agreed. The entire experience had been lackluster at best and yucky at worst.

  Now, though, crouched over Luke? His face was blissed out, his fingers digging into the comforter on her bed. The muscles on his arms, his chest, his thighs, all of them were tensed. She was doing that, making him feel all of that. Those were all quantitative measurements of his desire for her, and he wasn’t hiding any of it.

  Watching it all made her own ache that much sharper.

  She played him the best she could. Before she could finish, though, he pulled back, coaxing her up to sit in front of him. “No, baby. Let me…” I can’t wait any longer to feel her, taste her.

  Her head still spinning, she worried that she’d done something wrong, but his overwhelming desire to touch her, to give her pleasure, soothed her concerns. He dropped a soft kiss on her temple, positioning her between his legs.

  Coaxing her to lean against his chest, facing away, he pressed his thumbs into the muscles on her neck.

  She groaned, and with a little more effort from him, and another minute of manipulation, she softened against him and allowed him to take her away.

  …

  This woman… Her capacity to give, to reach out, it was breathtaking. That she hid it from everyone else except him was completely humbling.

  Luke pressed into the knots he found in her neck, working his way across her shoulder blades. He had watched her earlier, stretching in the gym. He’d pushed her too hard, and she was stressed out, frazzled. Now that she was changed, she would be out in the field, fighting. There were only so many of them, and he didn’t delude himself into think that Martins wouldn’t use her to their advantage.

  The absolute terror that brought him, thinking she could be harmed… It had driven him hard, blinded him to what she really needed.

  Determined to make it up to her now, he used his thumbs to ease out the tension in her. His fingers slid up her neck into her hair. She tilted her head back, and he rubbed circles along her scalp. He ducked his head, breathing her in. Again, the calm he got, only with her, overtook him and humble him. Closing his eyes, memorizing the curves of her, he acknowledged that there would never be a time he wouldn’t want to be here, next to her. No one had ever made her feel like this, and he was absolutely certain no one else ever would.

  Letting himself enjoy soothing her, he tried to show her what he couldn’t say: that he found her remarkable.

  For that moment, he allowed himself to pretend he was the person she thought he was.

  Her entire body had gone slack in his arms, and he continued to massage…soft pressure along her forehead and down the smooth skin of her face. Her head rested against his chest, and he gazed down the length of her. God, she was an eyeful. He was hard and aching again, the vision of her enough to send desire pounding through every corner of his body.

  She still wore her jeans, but her breasts were exposed. As he smoothed his fingers over her neck, he couldn’t resist the urge to run his thumbs along her sides. She shivered.

  Encouraged, he shifted, hoisting himself from behind her and moving to stand next to the bed. A quick flick had her fly open, and he shimmied her jeans down her
legs. When she was naked, he hitched her legs up, bending her knees, and settled between her thighs.

  Lust poured through him and heat washed over his skin, but he tamped it down. This was about her, not what was zinging through him.

  He never expected that he would get as much from giving to her as he got from enjoying her ministrations. Yet, when his lips lowered to her and she gasped, straining into his mouth, he felt that soft inhale deep in his bones. He smiled, leaning closer to taste all of her.

  Closing his eyes, he reined in everything but his focus on her. His brain buzzed as he smoothed his hands along the inside of her thighs. Listening to her breaths, feeling her tension, he was heady with her.

  He traced his tongue and mouth along the soft flesh at her center, allowing every bit of how much he enjoyed it to flicker through his mind. Maybe that way she could feel a little bit of how much this meant to him.

  How he wasn’t sure he’d ever get enough.

  When she fell apart, he reverently held her, sorry it had ended, immediately wanting more. Of her, of this.

  When they left this room, it was all waiting out there for them. Parker and Jack…they were still out there. He needed to take them down, and when the time came, he would need to do whatever had to be done to make sure they didn’t hurt anyone else again.

  It would be dangerous. Right now, he couldn’t see past that point. He wondered if there was a future for him beyond that.

  As her eyes opened, he found hope there, and it pulled at him. He wanted to fall into that, to believe that this, these moments, would be enough. That they were the light when so much was darkness.

  But he didn’t know.

  She shuffled forward, pulling him up and wrapping him into her arms. She tucked her head under his chin and planted a kiss on his chest.

  She was trying to tell him it would be okay. He didn’t need mindreading to figure that out. He didn’t know, though, if he believed her.

  He could try. He would try.

  He closed his eyes, and they sat there, folded into each other’s arms for long, quiet minutes, and for a second, he allowed himself to be there, present, in the moment.

  A ding from his phone interrupted the peace. He pulled away, reaching over to fumble in the pocket of his jeans.

  The text chilled him, chasing away his burgeoning hope.

  TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE AT ALL TIMES

  Come soon.

  Then there was a map, with a pinpoint marked.

  He looked at Beth and found the fear on her face mirrored his.

  “It’s Jack,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” He swept to his feet, snagging his clothes off the floor. “We have to go.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the bathroom of a dingy fast food restaurant, Jack slipped his phone back into his pocket. Then he wrapped the paper towel he’d used to dry his hands around the door handle and pushed his way out, dropping the paper in the trash by the door.

  These places were disgusting.

  He joined the recruits he’d brought with him as they were finishing up their food. No one talked much. After he’d made it clear that he didn’t want to talk about Call of Duty with the gamers, and after he’d beat the shit out of a prepper who insisted that they were the rise of the new race, he’d become the sort of leader that he always hated in college: feared but respected.

  He was equally parts pissed and exhausted.

  The factory Parker had chosen was a few miles away. He insisted it would be the stage of their last and greatest example of Solvimine’s power. Or, more accurately, where Jack would clean up another one of Parker’s mass murders. Whatever.

  Of course, Parker had stayed in Washington. He insisted he had larger things to plan. Jack still didn’t know what that meant, but he imagined it wasn’t anything good for anyone. Mostly, Jack thought Parker didn’t like all the vomiting. Considered it beneath him.

  Or maybe he was a sympathetic puker.

  Jack fingered his phone in his pocket. Did Luke get his text? Who knew? The guy could have changed his cell phone after coming to the East Coast.

  He was going to hope. Because that had been his only shot to get through to him—here, away from Parker.

  “Let’s go. We have work to do,” he ordered the six guys at the table.

  They stood obediently and carted their trash to the bins. One after another, they filed out. As he took up the end, Jack sighed.

  Come on, Luke. Come get me.

  …

  “This is it.” Luke checked his phone again and nodded. Beth stopped the Jeep, tucking it under a tree out of the scope of the streetlight.

  Jack’s map had led them to the western border of Virginia, where it butted up against West Virginia. They’d driven in silence through hills and mountains on the way, both of them consumed with their worries. For her part, she didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem like the time to talk about what had just happened. But going straight from their time in her apartment to whatever horror awaited them here? It was like a sick joke. An industrial building rambled in front of them. It didn’t have much landscaping, and the sign that pronounced it a manufacturing facility for machine parts looked worn and in need of a coat of paint. Even the moonlight above them didn’t forgive its shabby appearance.

  “This?” Jack had brought them here, to this beat-up building in the middle of nowhere? Why?

  “Yeah.” He pocketed his phone and gazed at the warehouse. “How long until everyone else gets here.”

  She calculated. “Fifteen? Twenty tops.” She and Luke had texted the others on the way. Her apartment had been closer than the base, so they’d headed out from there. The entire cavalry would follow, by helicopter and vehicle. Beth had called Martins, and he’d clued in the local law enforcement, but he hadn’t wanted them to engage. If the place was full of changed soldiers, he feared the state troopers would make it worse…or get slaughtered. Regular policemen would have no chance against Jack and his goons. Instead, Martins preferred to leave this as a federal matter, for them to work in tandem. She hoped that had been the right decision, but she didn’t know.

  They had tried to call the facility, to warn them to evacuate. But, the number listed for the plant had been disconnected. Beth didn’t think that was a coincidence.

  Martins had cleared having the fire department come and get everyone off of the property. In front of the facility, a fire engine idled. She expected to see a crowd, to see firefighters and paramedics swarming the place. But there was no one. Odd.

  Somehow they stopped the evacuation. Luke put it together at the same time. Should we wait? Doubt it… “Let’s get going.”

  She agreed. If Jack sent them, something was going to happen here, or something had already happened. The faster they figured it out, the better. She pulled out her phone to text Seth, Blue, Kitty, and Nick, to say they weren’t waiting. But there was no cell service.

  That probably wasn’t a coincidence, either.

  In front of the Jeep, she shivered, the mountain air chilly. Thank God she’d put on a pair of boots and a warmer jacket before they left her place. “You go that way.” She pointed to the west. “And I’ll go that way. I’ll send you a thought if I see anything.”

  Leaving Luke’s side was against all her instincts, but they could cover more ground this way.

  She should stay with me. I can’t keep her safe from so far…

  She touched his shoulder, trying to soothe him. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  She’s not ready. I need to keep her close. “You remember what we practiced?”

  Of course she did; they’d spent days on it all. If he weren’t so upset, this might be cute. Wrapping her arms around him, she covered his mouth with a quick kiss. “I’ll be careful. Go. Please.”

  That’s good, very good. Couldn’t take it if anything happened to her… His head still clouded with concern, he nodded. “Be safe.” He squeezed her hand then, and her earlier impatience faded as his worry softened
her. Finally, he leaned over to kiss her cheek. She closed her eyes briefly, allowing herself to enjoy the feel of him, to breathe him in before forcing herself to pull back. Giving his hand a quick squeeze in return, she stared at him in the moonlight, aware how quickly everything had changed.

  Like, one minute she could be normal and the next she read minds. Or how someone could go from special to all-important in only one night.

  Fighting back her panic, she hurried away before she lost her nerve, heading toward the forest to the east.

  Once in the trees, she moved as quietly as she could through the outskirts, listening as she went. The lookout on the far edge of the building searched the darkness. But he was telekinetic and didn’t have the extra-sensory benefits that Jack or Seth did. He didn’t hear her.

  Off-hand, she wondered why Jack had set this guy here. He had to have better lookouts. What was the point of someone keeping watch if they couldn’t hear anyone approach?

  Unless he was helping them.

  She shook her head. After everything? That didn’t make sense. Then again, neither did his text.

  Picking her way around the guard, she positioned herself in a thicket of trees near the entrance. She closed her eyes and listened.

  There were at least a hundred people inside. The night shift. The parking lot had been full, but she hadn’t expected so many. They were all at work, completely unaware of the danger they were in.

  Where were the firemen? Trying to reach out, she didn’t hear anyone like that or anything to suggest that the firemen outside had warned anyone.

  Which meant Jack and his men had gotten to the firefighters first. Martins had been right to try to keep civilians away.

  The people inside were in danger. Whatever Jack had planned, they weren’t safe. She needed to figure out how to get them out without causing a panicked stampede.

  Quickly, she expanded her listening, searching for Jack. It was difficult, sifting through all of the people. She wasn’t familiar with Jack’s thought patterns, not in the way she’d become accustomed to Luke’s or Kitty’s or any of the others’, so she didn’t have any familiar mental markers to follow. There were so many people, with so much in their minds. Worries—mundane worries, financial worries. A woman thinking about her son, a man struggling to get to the end of his shift so he could open the bottle of vodka in his car. There was a man worrying about his sick wife. All of it was so normal.