But Dana moaned.
She made a pitiful sound when Janski started to climb off her. And Janski stopped. He looked down at her, a creepy smile on his face, and he took Dana’s limp hand and pressed it against his crotch.
“Eager, are you? That’s for you, Alyssa. All for you,” Janski taunted.
Jack wanted to rip his throat out for that alone.
“I’ve changed my mind.” Janski said, and he used the barrel on his gun to circle Dana’s left nipple. “I want to do her first.”
“No!” Jack yelled.
Janski ignored him and glanced at his men. “Backs turned for this, boys. I don’t like to fuck in front of an audience. But keep your guns trained on him.” He laid his own gun on the floor next to him and tipped his head toward Jack as he slid his hands around Dana’s throat. “Oh, and Jack, you do get to watch. Lucky you, huh?”
“Wake up, Dana,” Janski said, shaking her. “I want you eyes open for this.” He tapped her face. Then slapped her.
There was no way Jack was going to let this happen. His hands balled into fists, and he started to move.
But Dana moved first.
She didn’t moan this time, and her hands suddenly weren’t so limp and lifeless. She shoved Janski, and the two gunmen turned to see what was happening.
That was exactly the diversion Jack needed.
He dove at the two men, and all three of them crashed to the floor, just a few feet from Dana and Janski. One of the guns went flying, but that meant one was still armed. He threw some punches and tried to locate that weapon.
“You bitch!” Janski spat out.
And Jack heard a sound he didn’t want to hear. A thud. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Janski had punched her. He could also see that Dana was still fighting him. When Janski reached for the gun, she latched onto his hand and bit down. Janski howled in pain.
There was movement behind him, and Jack cursed. He didn’t need another goon in on this, but the hand that reached into the fray wasn’t a goon.
It was Vince.
Unlike Dana, he’d clearly been drugged but was also fighting back. He’d dragged himself across the floor and was trying to pull out one of the gunmen. The problem was neither Vince nor he had a weapon. Vince’s had likely been taken, and Jack’s was on the floor and out of reach. Plus, Vince was barely able to move.
“You cunt!” Janski shouted.
The second thud was so loud. The sound of Janski’s fist connecting with Dana. Jack turned, saw the blood trickling down the side of Dana’s face. And he saw something else.
Janski’s hands on her throat.
“Where’s your soul?” Janski growled.
Jack moved toward her, but he didn’t get far. One of the men latched onto him and put the gun to his head.
“Kill him,” Janski ordered while he squeezed harder and harder on Dana’s throat.
Her mouth was open. Gasping for air, and even though she was clawing at him with her hands, Janski was straddling her chest, making it impossible for her to escape. She’d be dead within seconds.
Despite the gun at his head, Jack scrambled toward her. Behind him, Vince latched onto the unarmed gunman to hold him back.
The armed one latched onto Jack.
He was not going to let this nutjob kill Dana. Jack rammed his elbow against the guy’s jaw, wrenched the gun from his hand, and in the same motion, he fired.
A headshot, and the guy went down.
Jack tossed his gun to Vince, heard the second blast that let him know that Vince had taken care of the man. That left Janski.
Jack heard the third blast.
Heavy and thick. Maybe Vince hadn’t gotten his guy after all. Jack braced himself to feel the bullet going into his brain.
But it didn’t.
Janski cursed and let go of Dana. His hands flew to the side of his head where his ear was missing. Shot off. The blood was spewing from the gaping tear, and his venomous glare landed on the shooter.
Grace was kneeling on the floor.
She had Jack’s gun gripped in her hands. She was wobbling and looked ready to keel over at any second.
Janski made a feral growl, yanked out a small gun from his jacket, and he lunged at her.
Grace fired again.
The shot tore through Janski’s stomach, and he crashed onto the floor right in front of her. He wasn’t dead, but Jack figured he would soon bleed out. But soon wasn’t nearly fast enough. Especially since Janski still had his weapon, and he was trying to aim it at Grace.
Jack snatched up the gun that he’d knocked loose from one of Janski’s henchmen, and he turned to fire, to finish him off. Vince did the same.
So did Dana.
With her coughing almost violently, Dana grabbed hold of the gun Janski had left by her side, and she took aim directly at Janski’s soulless heart. Vince and Jack did the same. Grace, too.
And each one of them pulled the triggers.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The silence was almost deafening, but Vince welcomed it. After hours of being questioned by cops and prodded by medics, yeah, he welcomed it.
Dana, Jack, Grace and he sat in the big-assed suite of the San Antonio Riverwalk hotel that Jack’s people had arranged for them. Apparently, there were four bedrooms in the suite just in case they wanted some privacy.
Or just plain sleep.
Since it was nearly eight in the morning, they were all exhausted. But they hadn’t chosen the beds--they’d all ended in the living room. On the same sofa. Dana in the crook of Jack’s arm. Grace, in the crook of his.
All of them looking like they’d been through hell and back.
Which they had.
The god-awful bruises on Dana’s throat and face were reminders of just how close they'd come to that hell. So were the green scrubs she’d gotten from the cops. Her own clothes had been bagged since they’d been splattered with Janski’s blood and brains.
Grace didn’t have a scratch on her. Not physical ones anyway, but she looked as shell-shocked as Dana. None of them had spoken a word since a fully-recovered Rusty and Anthony had dropped them off at the hotel.
Jack’s phone buzzed. Again. It was on the end table beside him, but he didn’t even reach to pick it up. He glanced at the screen and let it go to voicemail as he’d done with the other half dozen calls he’d gotten since they left the police station.
It was probably one of his lawyers with more questions from the cops. San Antonio PD hadn’t questioned Janski’s guilt, thanks to one of his hired goons spilling his guts and corroborating their accounts that Janski was a cold-blooded killer. But there had been a few cops’ eyebrows raised when Jack had tried to lie and said Vince and he were long lost twins separated at birth. Dana and Grace, too.
If the questions continued, Vince would have the CIA do some clean up work to make the questions go away. He didn’t want to deal with any more shit fallout from Cornelia Hartwell, and if the world learned there were adult clones, there’d be plenty of shit.
Except Grace was part of that fallout.
Without Hartwell’s cloning experiments, she wouldn’t exist. At first, Vince had considered that Janski had lied about that, but judging from the papers that Jack’s people had found since the shooting, it was true. They were clones. Created from bits of scraped dead skin from Layton and Alyssa.
Sometimes, the world just threw you on your ass and laughed at you.
But the good thing was the danger was really over.
Samuel Wright wasn’t Eric because the cops had found the proof that Dr. Hartwell had recovered her son’s body after his suicide and had buried him on the grounds of her estate. Janski had simply tried to use Wright to make him look guilty. He’d tried to do the same to Arrington, and now Arrington, too, was blabbing to the cops any and all details about Janski they wanted to hear.
Loose ends were being tied up right and left. Jack’s people had returned Patricia’s body so she could be buried. But not forgotten. Not b
y them anyway. Vince would have liked getting to know his cop clone, James, and he figured Dana and Grace felt the same way about Patricia.
“Which one of us killed Janski?” Grace asked. Her voice cut through the silence and caused the three to turn and look at her.
“All of us,” Dana answered. She tucked her feet beneath her and snuggled closer to Jack.
That seemed to be the answer Grace was looking for because he felt her muscles relax a little. It wouldn’t last. She’d have nightmares. Flashbacks. Vince wished he could take them on himself, but he knew that wasn’t possible. He’d killed before, and the first was always the worst. Grace would be living with this for the rest of her life.
All of them would.
Grace lifted her head, looked up at him. “You think the CIA knew you were a clone?”
He opened his mouth to say no but then shook his head. “Hell, maybe they did.” Maybe they thought his soulless status would make him a better killer.
Maybe it had, too.
But Vince was pretty sure that the CIA and he were about to part ways. It would be weeks, maybe months, for Grace to start feeling normal, and he wanted to be with her.
That three-fuck rule had worked. He was committed. It wasn’t quite the l-word. That might never happen, but this was a solid start.
He looked down at Grace. “Wanta go to dinner with me sometime?” Vince asked.
Grace stared at him. Blinked. Then, smiled. It was sort of the reaction he was looking for. She caught onto his shirt, pulled him closer and kissed him. “I’d love to go to dinner with you.”
Dana chuckled. Even Jack managed a smile.
“So, what happens now?” Vince asked his cloned twin.
Jack shrugged, looked at Dana. “I think I’ll ask Dana to dinner, too.”
“And I’ll accept.” Dana leaned in and kissed him.
The kiss lingered a few moments, and that was Vince’s cue to give them some privacy. They had to deal with those bruises. Both Jack and hers. And it would no doubt eat at Jack more than it did Dana. They’d come damn close to letting her die. Grace, too.
That would eat at Vince.
He stood, caught onto Grace’s hand. “I’m betting this place has room service. So, why don’t you grab a hot bath, and I’ll order up some steak and eggs.”
“Coffee, too,” Grace said, getting to her feet.
“Anything else?” Vince asked the others.
“Orange juice,” Dana piped in. “Maybe a bottle of Jack Daniels.”
Oh, he’d order some booze all right. It was early, but they all needed a shot or two of something. However, he thought Dana’s best bet for Jack wouldn’t come from a bottle.
Vince led Grace through one of the bedrooms and into the massive bath. He started the water, used the phone near the tub to order one of everything on the breakfast menu and four bottles of Jack Daniels. Just in case. When he finished the call and looked at Grace, he saw that she was stripping down.
Now, that would always get his attention.
“Are you getting in the tub with me?” she asked. Her bra hit the floor.
He thought maybe his tongue had, too. “Absolutely.” Vince pulled off his shirt and went after his jeans, but he didn’t take his eyes off Grace.
Oh, man. He was toast.
“I should probably remind you that sex can wait until you’ve got your mind back on solid ground,” he offered.
Her panties hit the floor.
Yeah, toast all right.
She stepped into the tub, giving him a good view of her great ass, and she slid like a siren into the sudsy water. “Do you have a four-fuck rule?” Grace asked.
Vince shucked off his boxers, didn’t bother to hide his erection, and he got into the tub with her. “Yeah. Four times, and you have to make five. Then, six. Then…a lot more.”
She smiled, and even though the nerves were still there, so was the heat. And Vince didn’t think the bath water was the sole cause of that. Grace pulled him to her and kissed him.
That four-fuck rule was about to go down in flames.
#
Dana forced herself to eat some of the pancakes that Jack had dished up for her. She wasn’t hungry, but she figured if she ate something then it would take some of the worry off his face.
“I’m okay,” she reminded him again.
He reached across the table from where he was fiddling with his breakfast, and he cupped her chin. He tilted it. Dana knew why. So, he could look at the bruises on her throat.
Dana eased back, so she could lower her chin, and she had a sip of the Jack Daniels and orange juice that Jack had also fixed. She’d never tell him that she had thought she was going to die. That Janski had choked her to the point where she’d seen her life flash before her eyes. And she hadn’t liked what she’d seen in that flash. She had let Trey take way too much from her. He’d spilled some of her blood, not her life.
It’d taken her near death to realize that.
She wanted to live. A new start. And that took her to more questions. One in particular. Where did she go from here? She was pretty sure she wanted to go wherever Jack was going.
His phone buzzed again, and like before, he glanced at the screen. “It's Rusty. I’ll call him back later.” He paused. “My people will try to keep the cops and the press from learning about the cloning,” he said, sipping his drink straight. “But Arrington might talk.”
True. He wasn’t exactly trustworthy. “Maybe you could threaten to have him investigated for stealing from Layton.”
“Already have. But if it comes out, our lives will get crazy.”
She thought about that, took a deep breath. Yes, that would be crazy, but Dana figured if anyone could keep it quiet, it’d be Jack.
Since his mood didn’t seem to be improving, she stood and went to him. She pushed back his chair so she could crawl onto his lap and kiss away that frown.
It worked.
He kissed her right back in that clever way that only Jack could manage. But when he broke the kiss, his attention went to the bruise on her chin where Janski had punched her.
“It’ll heal,” she assured him.
The pain went through his eyes. There was nothing she could say that would make him forgive himself for not protecting her. That was just Jack’s way.
But there was something she could do.
Dana stood so she could shimmy off the loose green loaner scrubs.
It wasn’t pain that went through his eyes now but rather interest. Then, hesitation.
“You’re not ready for this,” he concluded.
“I beg to differ. This is exactly what I’m ready for. I might never be able to have sex in a closed shower or in the missionary position, but I can have sex with you in a chair.”
“Trust me, limited places and positions won’t put me off from having sex with you.” He smiled. It faded.
Those damn bruises were really killing the mood so Dana took things into her own hands. Literally. She unzipped him, reached in and found a commando hard-on.
Yes, he was interested.
She climbed back onto his lap, straddling him. But then remembered they weren’t alone in the suite. She glanced back at the room where Vince and Grace had gone, and she frowned.
Jack used his index fingers to turn her head back in his direction. “Vince will make sure it’s okay before he comes back out.”
“How do you know that?”
He gave her a flat look and took matters into his own hands. He slid his fingers down her stomach and over the most sensitive part of her body. “Because Vince and I think alike. Exactly alike. He just curses a lot more than I do.”
Dana would have laughed if he hadn’t caught onto her hips and slipped that commando hard-on right into her. She’d laugh later, but for now her body took over.
She didn’t care a flying fig if this need was part of genetic memories or some kind of past psychic connection to Alyssa. Nope, didn’t care. Those long, clever hard strokes took he
r to the only place she wanted to go.
Jack pushed her legs farther apart, buried himself to the hilt, and then did it all over again. He wasn’t gentle. Thank God. He was Jack, and that made this perfect.
She arched her back, moving into the stroke. Sliding against every hard inch of him. It wouldn’t last long, never could, but when she looked into his eyes, she realized she could have him all over again. She kissed him when she felt the pleasure spike. Kissed him again when she was sure she could take no more.
She took more.
Jack slowed just enough to milk out the moments, and then with just as much control, he finished her. The climax wracked through her. Through every part of her, and she thrust her hips forward to finish off Jack as well.
Yeah, it was perfect all right.
And that’s when she knew what she had to say to him.
It took a moment to find her breath. Another moment to clear her throat. Her body was still buzzing, still quivering from the climax, but she didn’t want to wait another moment to tell him.
“I want more than dinner with you,” she said. Okay, that wasn’t quite what she wanted to say. She ran her hand between their bodies and touched them where they were joined. “I want more of this. More of you.”
More of you.
It sounded like something that would make a man run in the other direction. Jack and she might be soul mates, but they’d only known each other a few days. Since she’d already stepped in possibly stinky territory for a new relationship, Dana just went full steam ahead.
“I love you,” she said.
And she waited. And waited. Jack just sat there, still inside her, and the slow smile moved across his mouth. “Good. Makes things easier.”
“Easier?” she questioned.
“Yeah. Because this way it’ll be easier for me to talk you into moving in with me.”
“You want us to live together?”
“Yeah,” he repeated. “Because I might not know about the location of my soul, but you’ve got my heart, Dana.”
It was so sappy that it made her laugh. Then, cry. But it was happy tears that sprang to her eyes. “So, I guess this means you love me?”
Dead Ringers Page 25