Breaking Danger

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Jon held Sophie back with an arm and entered silently, stunner up, eye on his scanner. There was the faintest possibility that the armored glass doors had a shield coating that provided a barrier so he couldn’t read the presence of infected. But even past the glass doors, inside the huge foyer, the scanner was blank. He holstered the stunner and held his hand out to Sophie, who crossed the threshold wide-eyed.

  There was another screen to the side of the door. He disengaged the alarm and relocked the door, punching in mylove with a secret smile.

  He looked at Sophie.

  She’d slept some in the boat, sitting up. She was far from rested. Her body had pumped itself full of norepinephrine—adrenaline—to use her body’s resources to the fullest. She’d run as fast as she could, suppressed fear reactions as much as she could, and the trembling afterward had been the price. He was surprised at how well she was doing. Most civilians would be a wreck for days afterward as the chemicals of terror washed out of their systems.

  He himself, like his teammates, had been inoculated against that during training, and they had a different biochemical reaction to stress, anyway. They’d been tested for it. His brain, like that of Mac and Nick and the captain, like that of all Special Forces soldiers, released a chemical called neuropeptide Y that automatically counteracted stress hormones and kept the frontal lobe ticking while that of other people subjected to the same stress simply shut down.

  In other words, he was wired to keep calm under intense pressure.

  It was a trick of his body and he’d been born that way, just like every other special forces soldier.

  He wished he could give Sophie the gift of time to come down from the stress of their flight out of San Francisco, but he couldn’t. So maybe he could pamper her instead.

  “It’s beautiful.” Sophie smiled, tilted her head back to look at the ceiling of the atrium, two stories high. A huge chandelier, big flowering plants . . . even empty it had a feeling of warm welcome.

  Jon nodded. “It is. What do you want first—shower or food? The way Robb described it there should be running hot water.”

  “Shower, definitely.”

  “Okay.” Jon tugged at her hand. “Master bedroom and bath on the first floor, that’s what Robb said. Let’s explore.”

  They walked through a tall arch right into the Robb living area. Man, it was nice. Jon had never had a home of his own, military all the way since he was seventeen. His quarters at Haven were the closest thing to a personal space he’d ever had. But if he were ever to have a home of his own—and he couldn’t imagine how—this would be what he’d want.

  They walked through large rooms that somehow were both beautiful and cozy. Man, Robb had more rooms than Jon had guns.

  Finally they opened a door onto a huge bedroom that had two sitting areas and a door on the other side of the room. Far, far away.

  “Looks like we’re here.” Jon checked the scanner once more, then started dumping their gear onto a sofa, the case on the hardwood floor next to the sofa. It felt good to shed the weight. Sophie dropped her backpack and stretched her shoulders.

  The windows faced east and the room was suddenly flooded with light as the sun rose up over the walls. Everything in the room gleamed. The light picked out the bright colors of the sofas and the multicolored bedspread. Small pots of still-fresh flowers were everywhere, thriving plants everywhere, making the air smell fresh.

  Sophie roamed around the room, touching the furniture lightly. She stopped at a chair and picked something up.

  “Look, Jon.” It was a large pale pink shawl, scarf . . . thing. She held it up, stroked it, then carefully folded it and tucked it into her backpack. “It’s so beautiful. Pure cashmere. No wonder Robb’s wife wants it. It’s a wonderful gift.”

  It was. Jon stood in the middle of the luxurious beautiful room, filled with light in all senses of the term.

  No one had ever accused Jon of being a sensitive man. As far as he knew, he didn’t have a sensitive bone in his body. And yet—he was picking up on the vibes of this room. A room that had been carefully decorated to please all the senses, a room that somehow still held the echoes of a man who loved his wife.

  He stopped at an oil portrait of Robb hanging over a simple yet elegant cabinet. The man was bending slightly forward, as if ready to come right out of the painting. He was dressed casually in a sweatshirt, solid, middle-aged. A little more handsome than in real life. Jon peered at the signature in the lower right-hand corner. Anna Robb. So the wife was an artist, and loved her husband right back.

  Jon rubbed absently at a place on his chest, then shepherded Sophie to the far wall. He’d been right. The door opened onto an opulent bathroom with more showerheads than he’d had hot meals. Acres of tile and light green marble, accessories catering to every single bodily function, including . . . Jon looked at that shower with the built-in bench, his body automatically responding to the idea of him there with Sophie on his lap, hot water streaming down over them . . . Then he looked at Sophie’s bruised eyes.

  No, he thought with a sigh. No way.

  “We’re free to use anything in the house. I’m sure you can find something clean to wear. You’ll feel better after a shower and a change. I’ll check for another shower. I think I saw the kitchen and dining room on the way here, so we can meet there in, say, ten minutes.” Sophie’s eyebrows rose. “Okay, fifteen.” They rose even higher and he sighed and said, “Meet you in the kitchen whenever you’re ready.”

  Jon had time to shower, shave, find the kitchen, set the table, and start studying the fully stocked fridge, freezer, and pantry before Sophie showed up. He smelled her before he saw her. It was Anna Robb’s perfume—or shampoo or shower junk or whatever—but it suited Sophie. Fresh and springlike and it mixed well with the smell of her own skin, which was imprinted deeply into Jon’s lizard brain.

  His dick sprang to attention.

  Fuck.

  He’d put his lightweight cotton sweatpants on and his woodie would be visible from the moon. Certainly from the drone overhead if it hadn’t already left.

  What was this? His dick did what it was told, always. In the Cortez stronghold, he’d had Joaquin’s sister constantly rubbing against him like a cat in heat. And since fucking Cortez’s sister while fucking with their business was a guaranteed one-way ticket to a grave, he’d kept it in his pants. Even hinted he might be gay.

  He didn’t care, because Carmela hadn’t turned him on in any way. He’d watched as, stoned out of her mind, she’d fucked her way through the entire security team in the compound, and there’d been practically an army there.

  So, no, Carmela hadn’t been a temptation, but Sophie sure as hell was.

  “Jon?” God, even her voice nearly brought him to his knees. It certainly brought him fully, painfully erect. “What are you cooking?”

  Luckily, Jon was a highly trained warrior with lightning-fast reflexes that had got him out of many a tight spot.

  He grabbed an apron that was hanging next to the stove. It was one of those fancy full-frontal heavy cotton things, deep burgundy with the name of some winery stitched on it in gold letters. Right across the chest. Perfect—kept the eye on chest level and not lower. He was tying it around his waist as he turned, and was able to keep his voice light.

  “I don’t need to cook anything. Look.” With a dramatic flourish, he opened the huge stainless steel refrigerator door, covering himself. Not for nothing had they been taught to multitask. Shoot and roll. Run and reconnoiter. Talk and hide a woodie.

  Man, he was good.

  Sophie buried her pretty head in the freezer compartment, and while she was running through the ample selection, Jon thought truly terrible thoughts, like they could be dead this time tomorrow. Brought his boner right down, it did.

  Sophie stood up with her arms full. “Okay, I’ve made my choices. Do you want to go through them?”

  “Nah, I’m happy to eat whatever you choose.”

  She smiled. “Wel
l then, take that apron off and join me at the table.”

  Oh shit. “No, I, uh—” It was really hard to think when the blood that was supposed to be in your head was lower down. “I’m going to nuke the nukeable ones, so that officially makes me cook, right? Chef, I mean.”

  She tilted her head and examined him. The god of horny soldiers was with him because her eyes never went below his neck. “Okay. I saw a salad in the fridge too. Do you want me to dress it?”

  “Ah—” For just a second Jon pulled a blank, imagining a salad in a frilly dress. His hands were full so he couldn’t thunk himself in the forehead. “Yeah. Sure. I like balsamic.”

  There was an MP6 player in a docking station and he switched it on. The room instantly filled with music. It was like being in the middle of a jazz ensemble, right smack in the middle, next to the bass. The Robbs sure had top-notch stuff. Jon had priced a system like that and it cost upward of ten thousand dollars.

  Sophie was boogeying to the table with a big salad bowl, barefoot, humming the tune she apparently knew. Some jazzed-up rock ballad.

  Jon stared at her back as she fiddled with various condiments, pretty feet moving in some kind of complicated dance moves.

  “Geeks dance?” he called as the microwave dinged and he took something out, put something else in. He couldn’t be bothered to look at what he was doing because Sophie dancing was just . . . magic.

  She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, did another little complicated dance move and bowed. “Ten years at Mrs. Purcell’s Dance Academy. Did classical ballet, jazz, ballroom. If you ask nicely, and if I can find a pair of tap shoes, I can tap dance for you.”

  God. Sophie tap dancing. He’d pay good money to see that. Wait. They’d stolen millions from the cartel. He had lots of money. “I’d pay a million dollars to see you tap dance for me.”

  Sophie laughed, then looked at his face. Her pretty jaw dropped. “You’re serious.”

  “As a heart attack. The very first chance I get to find tap dancing shoes, you’re on.” He stacked the hot plates on a tray and walked over.

  “Do warriors dance?”

  Fuck, no. “Two left feet, sorry.”

  “I’ll bet I could get you to do a mean salsa.”

  Jon stared. “You mean those complicated Latin American steps? No way.” He shuddered at the thought.

  “You spent time in South America. You told me you spent two years.”

  He shook his head, breathing in the luscious smells coming from the food. He dug in. It tasted as good as it smelled.

  “Colombia, which is like a country from another galaxy. And I was undercover, trying to stay alive. Not much dancing going on.” Shooting and torturing and whoring and coke-sniffing, yeah. Dancing? Not so much.

  “Come out dancing with me and you’ll be Fred Astaire in no time.” She’d found a blue tracksuit in Anna Robb’s closet that looked great on her. She was more slender than Anna Robb so it hung loosely, but the color brought out the deep blue of her eyes and accentuated her pale, perfect skin.

  He laughed. “I find that hard to believe, but you’re on.”

  They smiled at each other, then suddenly their smiles faded. For just a moment, they’d lived in a little bubble of alternate reality, the world as it once was. But outside this beautiful home was the world as it was now. Millions dead, entire cities burned to the ground, monsters ravaging the streets.

  It would be a long, long time before anyone danced again.

  Sophie hung her head, a stricken look on her face. A single tear welled over, tracked down her pale cheek.

  Tears. Fuck no. Jon would do anything to make her feel better. Anything.

  He wiped away the tear with his thumb. “What would have happened if we hadn’t met right now?”

  Sophie’s face lifted. “What?”

  “If we hadn’t met now but, say, a year ago. What would have happened? Because, you know, we’ve got something going here.” He waved a finger between them, then heaped her plate with slow-cooked peppers, roast lamb, and warm corn bread. “So given that there’s . . . chemistry”—which was a mild word for what he was feeling—“given that, how do you think it would have played out? You’d take me dancing, okay. Maybe I’d take you target shooting. And then?”

  She sniffed, gave a soggy half laugh. “You’d take me target shooting? Is that your idea of showing a girl a good time?”

  He had no idea. He’d never had a real relationship, never courted a woman, never even thought of it. He had fuck buddies and even they were occasional. He tended to disappear in and out of women’s lives. Nobody missed him when he was gone and it was mutual. Easier that way. Safer.

  “Well, since it’s a mind exercise, let’s suppose I wasn’t in black ops, I was in something else. Something like—”

  His mind pulled a blank.

  Sophie cocked her head, looked at him carefully. “What were you good at in college?”

  This was exactly the point where Jon started lying. He’d invent some bullshit about what a great time he’d had in college, how he’d played football and scraped by with gentleman’s Cs. He’d spin funny stories about what he’d done, and he’d be perfectly plausible and he’d remember every single word he told her, just as he remembered every single word of every single bullshit story he’d told every woman.

  But Sophie was different. Those beautiful eyes were sharp, intelligent, and kind. It was the fucking end of the fucking world. He didn’t have to keep anyone’s secrets anymore. Not Uncle Sam’s, not Ghost Ops’, not even his own.

  He could—and he felt a sharp thump of shock in his heart—he could tell her the truth. Be himself.

  “I didn’t go to college,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. “I went straight into the military, where it was discovered that I have an aptitude for combat and for undercover work. By that I mean I have an aptitude for lying. I don’t like saying this, but it’s true. But I swear to you, right here, Sophie, that I will never lie to you. And you are the first person since I was nine years old I have been able to say that to.”

  She reached over, held his hand tightly.

  “Going into the military made a lot of sense for you. It became your surrogate family.”

  Jon nodded, throat tight.

  “But . . . besides shooting and fighting and lying, what else were you good at?”

  “Computers. I have an affinity for computers.” In virtual reality, you could be anyone you wanted to be. And computers were cool and logical. Unlike people, you could always figure them out. People didn’t operate on binary code.

  “Okay. Let’s work with that. Because clearly if you were constantly on mission we wouldn’t have been able to date in any meaningful way. So . . . let’s suppose you worked for some computer firm in Silicon Valley and we met at, let’s say, a party. In San Francisco. Does that work for you?”

  “No.” Jon shook his head. “Absolutely not. Because if I were a civilian, I wouldn’t work for anyone. I’d own the company.”

  “Oh!” Sophie’s face lit with amusement. “So you’re rich?”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Okay, then. This gets better and better. So I go to a party, which I normally do rarely and reluctantly, and lo and behold here’s this handsome blond guy, very rich, owns his own company. I’m not particularly in the market, but he’s got these incredible ice blue eyes and he’s ripped—and let’s remember he’s rich, and I go, Whoa!”

  “And me?” Jon helped himself to seconds of everything. “I meet this stunning geek. A scientist who looks like a movie star only better, and I get turned on by the thought of her in a white lab coat.”

  Sophie laughed. “There is nothing sexy about lab coats, Jon. Trust me on this.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “A lab coat and nothing else?”

  She thought about it, grinned. “Okay. That would work. So—we meet. We’re both attracted. What happens? And I warn you, I’m not tremendously smooth in social situations.”


  “Well.” Jon took her hand. “I take your hand and look deeply in your eyes and ask you some incredibly intelligent questions about viruses.”

  “And am I expected to ask you some incredibly intelligent questions about computer code?”

  “No. Just standing there and breathing would do the trick. That would’ve worked for me. And I would’ve asked you out to dinner the next evening. And the evening after that, and the one after that.”

  “No coy games?”

  “Man, no. Coy’s not my thing. I want something, I go after it.” Jon couldn’t think of something he’d wanted and hadn’t made a beeline for. It had just never been a woman before.

  “Well, frankly, I don’t think I would have said no. A year ago, though, I was working pretty long hours. I don’t know if I would have been free for dinner all the time.”

  “I’d have come down and invited you out to lunch. You have a lunch place?”

  “You’d drive down from Palo Alto every day to take me out to lunch?” At Jon’s decisive nod, she shook her head at his looniness. “Okay, yes. I do have a lunch place, around the corner from the Arka building. This really nice Asian fusion fast-food eatery. Buffet-style. Not chic but good.”

  “I don’t need chic and even marginally good is fine. Considering how much crap I’ve eaten in the field. So—I’d drive down to have lunch with you. As often as I could.”

  “That would have been so nice,” Sophie said softly, curling her hand around his.

  Would have, could have . . . all of this belonged to a world long gone. A world that actually never was, because Jon wasn’t a successful entrepreneur, a man with a good job and a bright future. Before the shit came down, he’d been a warrior turned outlaw with no ability to offer any woman, let alone a woman as bright and desirable as Sophie, any kind of future. So this little fantasy was doubly impossible.

  But . . . shit. It was enticing. He could see it, feel it, he could almost taste it, this alternate universe. The one where he got to meet Sophie, woo her, wed her even, because—why the fuck not? Why should he be the only one incapable of having a wife, a family? The Ghost Ops team had been chosen precisely because they didn’t have families, and were very unlikely to create any. If you’d held his feet to the fire, he’d have sworn Mac and Nick were like him—completely incapable of love and bonding. And just look at them now. They were head over heels in love with their mates, and Mac was going to become a father, as weird as that sounded. So why should he be different?