She’d been astonished when Catherine had shown her where she worked. They had absolutely everything in the lab, top of the line. “Yeah? How so?”
“Jon got their bank account numbers before getting away. The few members of the cartel that are left get their accounts depleted by a couple million dollars every other week or so. Keeps them agitated and suspicious of each other. Keeps us happy.”
She searched his eyes.
Nick’s eyes. It still thrilled her that he was here, that they were together. They’d come together again under such unusual circumstances—when he’d saved her life by a margin of a few seconds—that she couldn’t help but think it was fate itself that had conspired to unite them again. She was a scientist and shouldn’t believe in fate.
But there it was. She did.
“Sophie is very dear to me,” she said.
Nick bent forward to kiss her cheek. “I know she is, honey. She’ll be safe with Jon. That story about him undercover? It was to make you understand that he is smart and quick. He’ll get them out of there. And once they’re back here, you brainiac women are going to have to start working around the clock on that vaccine. At least enough for all of us in Haven. Then as soon as we’re inoculated, we’re going to start canvassing for pockets of normals to inoculate.”
She nodded. “We can start mass producing right away.”
“Good, we’re going to need it. Snyder found another community that has fortified. So far the community’s intact. They’re well armed and they are vigilant.”
“How many?”
“About two hundred.”
“Are we okay on supplies?”
“So far, yeah. And Manuel’s hydroponic vats are coming online. I heard there was a two-ton tomato harvest. Start counting on lots of pasta and tomato sauce.”
She tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work. “I’m so worried, Nick,” she confessed.
“Yeah.” He leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers. “I know.”
“I’m scared they won’t get the virus and vaccine to us and we’ll live the rest of our lives behind ten-foot walls, terrified of strangers. I’m scared Sophie won’t make it. I’m even scared for Jon, though I know he can handle himself.”
“Tomorrow night Jon and Sophie and the virus will be here. Count on it. And you and your genius girlfriends disappear to the lab. So how about a little hanky-panky right now? Like a little advance payment?”
A laugh bubbled out of her, then a sob, then a laugh.
Love. Making love. In the middle of mass death. Yes. She and Nick had been separated for so long, and the future looked so dark.
Life in the middle of death, oh yes.
She ran her hands over his broad shoulders, loving the vital, strong feel of him. Life pulsed in him, strong and steady. She linked her hands behind his neck and pulled him to her.
“Now,” she whispered against his mouth. “Now, Nick. Hard and fast. Make me forget all this. Make me feel alive.”
He kissed her, hard, deep, one big hand holding her still for his kiss as if she would pull away from him. The idea was ridiculous. She would never pull away from Nick, turn her back on him. She loved him.
Nick lifted his head for just a second, the hand cupping her head becoming a cradle. Watching her eyes, his other hand slowly unzipped her hoodie, brushing it off her shoulders. It slid softly to the couch behind her. His large, warm hand brushed her back and in a second her bra was off too. She knew he loved seeing her naked and, truth be told, she loved it too. His dark eyes grew hot, his face tightened, the skin over his cheekbones flushed. Arousal was all over his face, but instead of a big grin—the grin of a man about to have sex with a woman he desired—his face was somber.
He held her, tightly, so tightly her ribs protested. His face dipped to her neck suddenly and she felt wetness on her neck. Tears? From Nick Ross?
His voice was muffled against the skin of her neck, but she understood every word.
“Nothing bad will happen to you as long as we’re together, Elle. I promise you that. As long as I’m with you, you’ll be safe.”
San Francisco
Beach Street
“If you want to take that shower, Jon, go right ahead. There seems to be plenty of water.”
He dipped his head. “In that case, I’d love a shower. I’ll make it fast.”
She smiled at him. “I don’t have anything that would fit you, but I have the new FastWash combo. Give me your clothes and they’ll be washed and dried by the time you get out. Then we’ll eat something and talk.”
Jesus. Hot shower. Clean clothes. Food.
Sex.
Jon tried to keep that last thought out of his head. He had to practically nuke it out because that’s what he wanted, much, much more than the shower and the food. Just dive right back into luscious Sophie Daniels, slide right into that tight warm sheath and forget about the world.
Oh yeah.
Thank God he had a poker face. Came in real handy when undercover. Jon never let anything he didn’t want anyone to see show on his face, so right now he plastered a pleasant, polite smile on it and thanked her. A proper hostess offering comforts to a guest. She didn’t know that the guest was planning on getting back inside her just as fast as he could, that the shower was to make him more acceptable to her, and the food was going to be fuel because—the way he felt right now? . . . he was going to fuck her all through the night.
This might be his last chance at sex, which was okay because, man, after having a taste of Sophie Daniels, no other woman would do. The last woman he’d fucked had been—Christ. He couldn’t remember. Maybe that lady he’d met at the diner in Bakersfield after spending the afternoon buying a consignment of servers with fake ID. Bottle blonde, a little sad, a little too eager for sex. For an uncomfortable moment there, he’d wondered if she was a working girl because that’s where he drew the line.
But no. She’d been happy enough with him just buying her dinner. And spending the night with him.
All in all, it had been a depressing night. While fucking, he’d ended up thinking more about where to find extra computer servers for Haven than about the woman under him. He was a polite kinda guy, so he did wait for her to come before he did. Took a little effort too. He remembered thinking it was a real pity men couldn’t fake it like women did because, man, he would have faked an orgasm happily, then hightailed it out of there.
He remembered thinking—I’m getting too old for this.
It was exactly the opposite of making love to Sophie. No thoughts had passed through his head at all. The only thing in his head had been heat and desire. She’d felt like hot silk in his arms. Plunging into her had been like plugging his dick into an electric socket and the whole world had disappeared. All of it. Monster zombies—no, she said they weren’t zombies, but damn, it felt like the zombie apocalypse—San Francisco on fire, the end of humanity . . . it all went away. All dark terrible things replaced by silky softness, warm, fragrant flesh, and something else. Something he couldn’t pin down, something he couldn’t describe, but which he remembered perfectly.
Making love to Sophie Daniels had been the most joyous experience of his life. Granted, his life wasn’t exactly teeming with wonderful memories, but thirty-four years on this earth and he had never felt anything like that before. Lust and heat, yes. Of course. It was sex, after all. But more. Joy and . . . and peace. That was crazy. Sex wasn’t about peace, but that’s what he had felt. It was as if light had entered his world where before there had been darkness.
It was nuts, of course. Probably some body chemical that was released when he’d landed safe and sound right on top of beautiful, delectable Sophie Daniels. Sophie would know which chemical. And Catherine and Elle would know too. They seemed to know everything.
He himself had no clue.
But . . . but there had definitely been something. Something incredible, something exquisitely beautiful. When he had lifted himself up and away from her, he’d fe
lt suddenly desolate, as if the door to a new and better world had suddenly slammed in his face, locking him out.
He’d felt wonderful, hopeful and happy, while touching her. And inside her? Jesus, that had been like opening the gates to paradise.
He was crazy, imagining things. But even if it was false, some kind of construct of his mind, it had been fantastic. He couldn’t wait to get back inside her.
“Jon?”
Sophie touched his arm and—damn. It happened again. Warmth, right where she touched him. A sense of absolute rightness in her touching him.
Fuck. This was scary shit.
“Here.” She smiled and handed him a stack of fluffy towels that smelled fresh with a hint of lavender.
That was another thing.
All his senses were heightened in her presence.
He was a warrior. He would never have made the grade, risen up through the ranks of soldiering, if his senses hadn’t been keen. He had perfect eyesight. His hearing was acute. He had a phenomenal sense of smell. He’d smelled human body odor in the jungle and had stopped his men from walking into an ambush.
But that Sophie Daniels thing made his senses even keener. He could smell everything about her—her shampoo, the fresh smell of her clothes, something nice that he just knew was her skin. Everything about her stood out. He could see every color in her hair. She didn’t dye it, and she was right not to because it seemed every single hair was a different color that came to life whenever she came under the overhead light. Brunette, auburn, gold—they were all there.
Up till that point, it was all fairly ordinary. Not ordinary for him—one woman was pretty much like another in his experience. But still, he could put all of that down to the fact that he found her extraordinarily attractive. He’d fallen for her, fast and hard.
No, what was spooky was the other stuff. Woo-woo stuff that would have scared the shit out of him except it felt so frigging good.
He could fucking hear her heartbeat. Slow and steady now, tripping fast while they were on the floor having sex. He sounded insane even to himself, but he was sure he could also hear her blood rushing through her veins.
Okay. Officially crazy now.
He grabbed the towels, trying to make his mouth move up in a smile because that was the polite thing to do, never mind that he was clearly losing it. Cold, level-headed Jon Ryan, gone insane. “I won’t use up too much water,” he said and she smiled at him.
“Don’t worry about it too much. We should be out of here by tomorrow evening. And like I said, the building’s water supply is rated at a week of self-sufficiency.”
Oh God. Sophie Daniels should definitely not smile, ever. It messed with his head, with his focus, his concentration. Having sex—yeah, he could sort of justify that. On the age-old male theory that getting your pipes cleaned made you more effective. But that smile—it just about wiped him out.
He backed away, in self-defense.
“ ’Kay,” he mumbled. “Thanks.”
Her bathroom smelled like a billion roses and whatever other flowers smelled good. Fuck, he didn’t have a clue. Did daisies smell? No idea. That was about the only other flower he’d recognize.
It would have been overwhelming if it hadn’t been so good. Everywhere were small complicated glass jars and glass vials with stoppers and dried flower petals and silver doodads and candles. Pretty towels with lace thingies around the edges and flower-shaped soaps and creams for every hour of the day. Feminine overkill. You just wanted to pitch forward, face-first, into all that softness.
It was the kind of place where a man would lose a percentage of his testosterone for every minute he spent in here.
He would have, too, except—except for the hard-on of course.
That wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how many feminine frills surrounded him. His dick felt like a club hanging off his front. This was all too much. Sensory overload. He had to get himself under control.
He’d jack off in the shower, that’s what he’d do. Get some of his headspace back. Good old jerking off in the shower. Worked a charm, and had since junior high.
The shower fittings were pretty easy to figure out and didn’t require a password to access 150 settings, as had the showers of the Cortez clan back in Colombia. Old Joaquin Cortez had spent half a million dollars each on his johns, and he’d had twenty-four of them. The fittings had been pure gold and each showerhead could run water, perfume, or champagne.
Sophie’s shower ran water. A nice jet of hot water. He stepped under it and opened a small cabinet set in the turquoise mosaic tile. He pumped soap from the turquoise enamel dispenser and lathered up, then was nearly brought to his knees because it smelled of Sophie. On her skin, it had been so faint he only thought of it as the way her skin smelled. But in that concentrated form, it was like having a thousand Sophies spread over his body and, oh God.
His knees buckled.
Luckily there was a small marble bench running along one side. He sat down heavily. The showerhead must have had those new sensors because it automatically followed his movements. Sitting on the bench was like sitting under a waterfall. The water was warm and silky, just like Sophie’s skin.
He looked down at himself. The hard-on was so full he felt tight, bursting out of his skin. He dropped a hand down, touched himself, then lifted his hand away. His cock didn’t want his hand, it wanted her, Sophie. But Sophie wasn’t here and he couldn’t present himself to her like this, like some teenage boy who couldn’t control his hormones.
Jon knew how to control himself. Control had been necessary with his family, otherwise he’d have sunk into the pit with them. At times, it felt like he was nothing but iron-clad control. But right now, his cock was dark and swollen, actually twitching. He had to get rid of this hard-on. He had to be presentable when he emerged from the bathroom, otherwise he’d scare her. And, man, that was the last thing he wanted.
The world was scary as shit right outside her door. Monsters, on the loose. The city on fire. Their lives hanging by a thread, hanging by his ability to be quick-witted and fast, his ability to navigate their way through monsters who could turn them into monsters themselves with one bite, one scratch. He was going to have to get a woman with no training several blocks to the Ghirardelli Building and then up onto the roof. It had been hard enough alone, sprinting and stunning and shooting. On the way back, he was going to have to go at her pace, carrying a case, holding a weapon, which meant he couldn’t keep a hand on her.
Sophie Daniels was in shape. She’d felt lithe and sleek in his arms. But he knew the kind of muscles that heavy training built, and she didn’t have them. She was in shape but not conditioned. She wouldn’t be able to keep up with him so he’d have to keep up with her.
He’d be on point of course. And he’d give her his stealth suit, which would leave him pretty much defenseless. One scratch, one bite, and he’d turn into a monster himself. He didn’t know the latency of the virus, but it must be very, very fast, judging from the way it had spread. Before he knew it, his mind would be gone and he would turn on pretty Sophie Daniels and tear her apart.
She could beg and she could cry, but he wouldn’t be himself anymore. He’d be gone in the smoky ruined depths of his own mind.
Like his parents.
He shoved that thought away, but it stuck in his head like barbed wire.
His parents had been druggies. When high, there’d been nothing there for their son. He’d spent most of his childhood watching his parents clock out. It hadn’t mattered at all to them that he was cold and hungry and lonely. He remembered telling his mother that there was no food in the house and that he was hungry. She’d looked at him blankly and at that moment, Jon realized she didn’t know who he was.
He’d been five.
At the age of nine, a good-looking blond kid, his parents had sold him to sex traffickers for a fix.
His parents had been monsters. All his life had been dedicated to being a good guy. Fighting against people ex
actly like them. Those two years undercover—a mission so dangerous he had a box full of medals he could never show anyone—had been all about that.
The idea that with one bite he could become a monster himself, hurt Sophie, kill her even, without feeling anything . . . that idea terrified him. More than any battle he’d been in.
Well.
He looked down at himself. He was only half erect now, dick drooping more with each passing second. That was a way to get rid of his boner. Even better than jerking off, since his dick didn’t want his hand, anyway. Just think of becoming infected and not only not being able to protect Sophie, but hurting her.
Guaranteed dick deflation.
He stepped out of the shower and into the air dryer. Even that smelled like Sophie. His clean clothes were neatly folded on a chair. He picked up his long-sleeved tee and sniffed it. It didn’t smell as good as Sophie, but then nothing did. He put on the tee and jeans and walked out barefoot to see Sophie at the kitchen door, smiling at him.
“Ready for some food?” she called out softly.
Hunger roared through him. Whatever she was cooking smelled wonderful. She stood framed in the door, shiny dark hair gleaming under the kitchen light, beautiful face lit with a welcoming smile, and his heart skipped a beat.
He was a dead man. If the zombies didn’t get him, Sophie Daniels would.
Chapter 5
Mount Blue
Haven
“If you don’t stop right this minute, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and tie you down to the bed,” Catherine’s husband Mac growled.
When Tom “Mac” McEnroe growled most people cringed. His speaking voice was naturally low and very deep. When he growled it was the same timbre of a bear in a cave. Match that with a huge, muscled body and an ugly, scarred face, and most people would be terrified.
Catherine McEnroe wasn’t terrified. Not at all. She knew the good man inside the terrifying exterior and she knew, above all, that he loved her.
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