Breaking Danger

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Another place he hadn’t visited with his mouth yet.

  He didn’t mind going down on women. It was fun, got them wet, sometimes made them come. A great threefer. His mouth hadn’t even gone near her pussy, which was amazing. He went straight to business with Sophie, had done so the moment he’d fallen through her door, as if being inside her was this huge immense goal, whereas normally he enjoyed those little side streets.

  They both had to live, just had to. He was going to get them safely out of Dodge, no question. He couldn’t die before doing all the things he wanted to do to her. He hadn’t touched her enough, hadn’t sucked her nipples, hadn’t kissed her pussy.

  Just the thought of that—of his mouth closing on the lips of her sex, tongue in her, exactly as if kissing her mouth, taking his time . . .

  His cock swelled in her and she gasped.

  “Felt that?” He was trembling, sweating. His voice came out in gasps. “Know what that was? I just now thought of going down on you. I imagined my mouth on you, licking inside you, right where my cock is now. That’s what that was about.”

  The words were hard, harsh. Harder than he usually used. Women liked prettier terms than that and he obliged them. Who cared? He could be a little poetic when he had to be. When it was worth his while.

  He couldn’t do that now. No pretty words, no poetic terms. Not with his mind blasted with lust and heat. There was no filter between what he was feeling and what came out. He was expressing himself in the crudest way possible and he couldn’t backtrack and choose better words.

  It was a miracle he could speak.

  Her sex contracted and he hissed as if in pain. It was almost—but not quite—painful. Heat flashed through his groin, his balls pulled up tight. God.

  Sophie’s arms lifted, grasped his forearms, hands tight around his elbows. Her nails bit into his skin. Yes. Just a little touch of pain. Oh yeah. Felt good.

  She contracted again and he swelled even further inside her.

  “Jon,” she panted. Her thighs started trembling. He could see her heartbeat pulsing in her left breast, making the pale silky skin shake. “I can’t—I’m—”

  “Coming,” he growled. He set his jaw, trying to hold back on his own orgasm. At the furthest reaches of his consciousness, he was astonished at himself. He never came first, never. He could wait any woman out. He came when he wanted to, no exception to that rule. Except now, when he was on the verge of blowing up without having even started fucking yet. All he’d done was enter her and he was seeing black at the edges of his vision.

  Sophie lifted herself a little, pushing him further into her and she exploded. Her sex pulled at him in wet clenches so strong he could see her belly muscles contracting. She closed her eyes as her back arched, her white neck so tempting beneath him as she pushed the back of her head against the pillow, letting out a low moan.

  Oh fuck. It was just too much. Too much. Control was impossible here. What man could possibly control himself with beautiful Sophie Daniels contracting around him, face tight as if in pain? No one could. Sure as hell he couldn’t.

  With a groan, Jon lowered himself onto her and started fucking her hard, hips slamming into her, that low moan now stuttering because of his heavy thrusts. He wasn’t fucking her normally with smooth and regular strokes. Oh no. That would have required some degree of control and that was beyond him. He simply made the movements necessary to give him some friction while staying as deep in her as humanly possible, more or less grinding into her with the strength of his whole body, jerking heavily and . . . he started coming.

  With no warning, no idea really of what was happening to him. He was like this machine on overdrive and suddenly he slipped a gear and he was coming in huge spurts, his entire body liquefying and pouring itself into her with no holds barred, no sense of boundaries, no sense of where he ended and she began.

  They were both exploding, together in an endless loop where she contracted around him again and it set him off, which set her off again, so intense it was like dying, only of pleasure not of pain.

  He had no idea how long he kept moving inside her in great jerking motions. She was so wet, he was making embarrassing sounds as he moved in her. It was impossible to tell whether it was her juices or his and it didn’t make any difference, the important thing was that he was able to move fast and hard in her without any impediment at all. At the beginning it would have been impossible to move like this. She had been so tight and she still was, but nature had taken care of that for them.

  Jon’s hips slammed against her and he came again, with no sense of how many times he’d already come. It felt like he’d been climaxing for hours, the entire world reduced to his cock moving in her, endlessly.

  But finally, finally, the spurts subsided and he could feel himself soften, just a little. Or at least he wasn’t painfully stone hard.

  With one last cry, Sophie subsided, the soft arms and legs that had held him so tightly falling back to the bed, the tension in her thighs and groin gone.

  He shouldn’t, but he let his entire weight rest on Sophie because his spine had just melted. He would probably never move again, a total cripple. But a cripple that was going to lie on Sophie Daniels forever, semi-erect cock half in, half out of her.

  Worked for him.

  They were covered in sweat, mainly his because he recognized his smell. Overlaid by a faint smell of spring and lavender, which was her. His hair was plastered to his scalp and he could feel sweat pooling in the small of his back. They were both wet around the groin, but that wasn’t sweat. He recognized that smell too.

  A marking scent. His marking scent. It had never come out of him before, but he recognized it instantly. Some atavistic part of him wanted to rub himself all over Sophie so she was steeped in his scent. Parts of her weren’t touching him. The soles of her feet, for instance. If some man were to take her shoes off and sniff the soles of her feet, he wouldn’t smell Jon. Well, that was unthinkable.

  And all over her back. They were stuck together along their fronts, but her back was Jon-less. Oh man, he had to do something about that, pronto. Just as soon as he regained the use of his spine. And limbs.

  He kissed her ear lazily, because his mouth was one part of him that obeyed the command to move. “Wow,” he whispered. “That was—”

  And a bell sounded and the world turned upside down.

  In the space of less than a second, Jon switched from exhausted, contented lover to warrior on a mission. For the merest instant he regretted interrupting what they had, though a part of him recognized that if he was going to die in the next twenty-four hours, at least he’d had the best sex of his life.

  And then the instant passed and he went into full Warrior Mode.

  He lifted himself up and away, standing up next to the bed.

  Sophie was finally able to take a deep breath without his heavy torso on her chest. Her eyes fluttered open. “What was that?”

  Jon was already assembling his gear. “I set my scanner to sound an alarm when it recognized that the trailing edge of the swarm was half an hour out. We’ve got thirty minutes to get ready, and then we make a break for the helicopter.”

  Sophie was already up. She went to the bathroom and he heard the shower go on for one minute, tops. She emerged and dressed quickly, no fumbling. Good girl.

  Jon kept an eye on the time as they readied themselves. He pulled a swatch of material out of his backpack and motioned Sophie over. Her eyes held a question, but she was otherwise composed. For a second, he allowed himself a flash of pride. What a woman. She’d risen from a bed where they’d had the most incredible sex possible and were now on a war footing where no tender words could be spoken. In the space of a couple of minutes.

  Anything that broke the mood of the deepest possible seriousness was a weakness, intolerable. She could have fumbled, pouted at the change in mood, but she didn’t. She was completely ready, watching his face for cues, obedient to any gesture he made.

  She w
as a great teammate.

  She wasn’t a pushover and she wasn’t the kind of woman to obey a man because he was a man. But she was supersmart and recognized that in this arena, he knew more than she did.

  Once they got back to Haven, Jon would deliver her to the lab and step back while she entered a world she knew infinitely more about than he did. It was the kind of teamwork he had with his teammates, and it reassured him that he could count on her.

  “Here.” He stretched out the dark malleable material that seemed to absorb light. He hadn’t been able to carry full-body armor, and his wouldn’t fit her anyway, otherwise he’d give it to her gladly. “Hold your arms up.” Her arms went immediately up. He fitted a tunic of ballistic material over her as if it were a front and back apron, making sure it fit along her sides, covering them as much as possible, Velcroing it together. It covered her arms, torso, and back and reached down to her knees.

  He looked at her. She’d watched him carefully, following his murmured instructions to the letter. She looked a little like a medieval knight from space. “This is ballistic material and it’s guaranteed to stop a bullet and diffuse the charge of a stunner. No one could have possibly predicted the infected. But it will save you from a bite in the areas the material covers you. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I can do. Now stretch your limbs and make sure you understand your range of movement.”

  She stretched her arms up and to the sides. Bent forward then backward as far as she could. Exactly what he would have told her to do, only she did it before he could say it.

  “Do you know how to handle a gun?”

  Her eyes grew wide. “No. I’m sorry, but no.”

  “Stunner?”

  She shook her head.

  He undid his lightweight nylon belt holding his knife sheath and fitted it around her tiny waist. The knife hung low on her hip. “I can’t let you out of here without some kind of weapon. If you have to, pull out the knife and try to aim for the throat. It’s hard for someone untrained to aim for the heart. It’s well protected inside the rib cage and you have to know what you’re doing to reach the heart and not have a knife bounce off bone. That blade is sharply honed. Slash it across the throat if you can. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “We need to get back to your base with the case and if possible me too, both intact. I won’t hesitate to defend myself. And I will try to defend you, too, if necessary.”

  Oh man. Jon never had emotions before a mission. He just switched that part of himself right off. They all did. Emotions were pointless, harmful even. He never felt fear or panic or even exultation. He was all cold calculation, his mind constantly running checklists and tactics and strategy. So the wave of love and admiration that swept over him at seeing her before him, untrained, a freaking scientist of all things, but unafraid and perfectly prepared to do her very best nearly brought him to his knees. Something hot and sharp bloomed in his chest. Love. Fear. Panic. Because she could die. Most likely would die if they encountered more than a few infected. Jon could kill a number of them, but if they were overwhelmed . . .

  No! He simply couldn’t think that way. He had to go back to the way he’d been before Sophie. The mission. He had to be all about the mission.

  “Here.” Sophie handed him the scanner. “What does it say?”

  He read the algorithms and switched to visual mode. “The swarm is almost past. It’s tighter than I dared hope.” With his finger, he dragged the visuals over a 500-meter radius. “Once the swarm passes, there are no infected in a 500-meter radius. If we move fast, we can make it to the helo and in a couple of hours we’ll be safe in Haven.”

  His comm unit dinged. He switched the scanner to tablet and held it so Sophie could see. “Boss, what’s your news?”

  Mac looked exhausted but his voice was clear, eyes focused. “We’re in contact with five other communities that have assured us they can hold out until we can come get them. But if we have the vaccine and we can bring it to them, they could do mop up operations themselves with our help and stay in their homes. How are things on your end?”

  “Well, you can see for yourselves, right?”

  Mac nodded, held his own scanner up. He was looking at the same image of the area around Beach Street as Jon was. “You’ll have yourselves a window of opportunity real soon. The lab is almost ready to start manufacturing the vaccine, or so Catherine and Elle tell me.” He shrugged a massive shoulder. “When they discuss things between themselves, they don’t speak English.” An elbow appeared and jabbed him in the ribs. “Ouch,” he said obediently. “Oh, there’s someone wants to talk to Dr. Daniels.”

  The image cut out and Elle appeared. A big hand was around her shoulder, but Nick was off screen.

  “Okay, Sophie,” Elle said. “Show time. Jon will take care of you. He’s the best there is . . .” There was a murmur and she shot an annoyed glance to her right, then rolled her eyes. “One of the best there is, Nick assures me. Don’t pay any attention to him, the plague has accentuated his testosterone.” She suddenly sobered and her eyes took on a glossy sheen. “Be careful out there, Soph. We need you. We need you not only because you’re the best virologist I know but because we’re starting to think of rebuilding and we need you for afterward as well. I need you. Be careful and . . . godspeed.”

  “Thanks, Elle,” Sophie whispered and switched off the scanner herself. “Right,” she said briskly. “What’s the game plan?”

  Jon could have hugged her right there. There was absolutely nothing in her body language or gaze that betrayed fear, though she must be terrified. What was out there wasn’t anything like the usual danger. Hell, Jon would have preferred any of the hairy situations the team had been in to this. Any other situation fit in their training. They’d come up against some of the worst bad men on the planet, but Jon understood bad men, how they thought, how they acted. He’d understood since childhood, and by way of the two years spent inside the drug cartel. He’d learned about every wrinkle of a scumbag’s psychology. He knew them inside out. Knew how they thought, how they planned, how they acted.

  This was without precedent in the history of the world, and though he’d been thoroughly trained in escape and evasion, what was outside the confines of Sophie Daniels’s pretty little apartment was like some horror from the bowels of hell. Coming in, his skin had prickled with terror and horror, an active revulsion the likes of which he’d never felt.

  Sophie would be feeling that tenfold. But there she was in front of him, ready to face whatever was thrown at her, and do the very best that she could.

  She was a scientist not a warrior, but she had a valiant warrior’s heart.

  For the very first time in his life as a soldier, Jon was terrified of dying. On missions, if he died, his teammates could carry on. Here, if he died, he would be leaving Sophie without a means of escape from the dying city. He would be condemning her to a horrible death, or, even worse than death, if she was infected but not killed, he would be condemning her to becoming a monster.

  He knew that terrified her more than death, but she wasn’t betraying anything other than determination on that lovely face.

  He allowed himself exactly one second to be swamped with admiration, then choked it off. If they were going to survive this escape, they would need every single ounce of determination and focus in them.

  “Right,” he said briskly. “This is how it’s going down.”

  She nodded, eyes locked on his. She was listening to him so intently, she was nearly vibrating.

  “The helo is on the roof of the Ghirardelli Building. Are you a runner?”

  She thought her response over. “Not really. I exercise, sporadically. I’m not in bad shape, but not in supergood shape either. It’s pointless lying.”

  He nodded. Yes, it was pointless lying. He needed to know his resources and hers. He nodded to the case containing the vaccine. “Okay. Can you carry that case and run?”

  She looked deeply in his eyes,
opened her mouth, then closed it. “Sophie?”

  She sighed. “Coming here it was hard for me to carry that thing. It’s not only heavy, it’s bulky. So I don’t know how far I can run while lugging the case around. I wish it were otherwise, Jon, but it’s not. I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head sharply. He didn’t need her apology. She’d already been heroic in getting that case and the promise it contained away from a building in flames with crazy infected running everywhere. He remembered those first few hours; it had been a madhouse. Instead of heading for safety right away, she’d gone back for the vaccine.

  He worked solutions through his mind fast. There was basically only one way to do this. “Bring it to me.”

  She nodded and headed for the case against the wall. She did her best but it was heavy for her. She was carrying it in her right hand and had to list left to balance the weight. She moved slowly. No way could she run with it.

  Jon reached for a piece of material on a side pocket of his backpack. He knew exactly which side pocket. He was slightly OCD when it came to gear. Gear saved your life. He pulled the material out. Dynapack. Infinitely tough, infinitely stretchable, infinitely strong. He went down on one knee, bending his torso forward until his back was parallel to the ground. He handed her the stretch of Dynapack. “Put the case on my back, then wrap this around it. If you pull the corners, they will stretch into ribbons. Pull them forward and help me tie them around my chest.”

  He knew how weird that sounded, but Sophie didn’t hesitate. The material was top secret and a miracle. In a moment, Sophie had placed the case on his back and the Dynapack on top. Each corner stretched so easily it could have been chewing gum, except this chewing gum was hyper-resistant to just about everything except maybe a 50 cal bullet. The four corners stretched around his chest and she helped him tie it in a solid knot right over his sternum.