They hadn’t. But they hadn’t improved either.
Jem wouldn’t leave her side. Insisted Avery go check on Gunner.
Grace grabbed her on the way up, handed her some sandwiches to bring to Gunner and then went to bring some down to Jem.
“She’s got to be okay, Grace,” Avery said.
“I know. God, this is so unfair.” Grace looked angry. In the time Avery had known her, she hadn’t really seen that emotion come through. But Avery agreed with the sentiment one hundred percent. “I still want to do Section 8. Just know that—now more than ever.”
“Me too.” She smiled for a second as she thought about Adele. “Adele would’ve been proud of us, I think.”
“I know she is proud of us. She’s like our fairy godmother, except she’d kill me for calling her that. Probably literally.” Grace gave her a quick hug. “Go to Gunner. Feed him.”
Avery did as she was told, looked forward to some quiet time with him, even if it would only be for a few minutes. “Hey, Grace made some food.”
“Thanks, chère.” He took one of the sandwiches, ate it quickly, then devoured another one. She nibbled on one too as she stared up at the stars.
When he’d finished the sandwiches, he drank down the soda too, and then she put all of that aside. She ran her hands over his shoulders, massaged them for a few minutes. He dropped his head forward and she heard the groan of appreciation.
“If you sit, I can do a better job, Tall Boy,” she told him.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Tall Boy?”
“It’s a nickname I’m trying out. I could call you G if you like that better.”
“Don’t you dare,” he warned, and then he sat on one of the deck chairs and leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. She moved behind him again and proceeded to work the kinks out of his shoulders and neck, kneading and caressing until his body was relaxed. As relaxed as it could be under the circumstances.
It had been forty-eight hours with no changes in Drea’s situation. Forty-eight hours on the boat, with one stop to refuel. From Drea’s side, Jem had been monitoring the situation, checking for blowback on S8 and Gunner especially. So far, it was all quiet. But that didn’t help them in their decision-making process.
The most important thing was that they were together. Safe. Grace and Dare had put Powell’s money in a separate account, kept it offshore. Even though it was blood money, they planned on doing some good with it. So money wasn’t the issue. They could all disappear if need be.
But none of them really wanted to. Not now. New Orleans held a special spot in their hearts.
“She’s awake!” Grace called to them, and she and Gunner went down to the bunk where Drea had been recovering.
They crowded into the room and Drea blinked at all of them, like someone waking up from a long nap. She looked disoriented. A little pale still, but she appeared to have all her faculties.
• • •
Jem had been talking to Drea nonstop, murmuring softly, telling her she was fine, safe, that he would make sure nothing bad happened to her. That it was okay to wake up.
He told her jokes and stories. He played her music. He slept next to her, when he did allow himself to sleep. Most of the time, he was too busy watching her and monitoring comms to do so.
When she’d blinked normally the first few times, he’d pretty much held his breath. The monitor showed her heart rate returning to normal, and he took the nasal cannula of oxygen from her and watched her levels.
Fine. She was fine. She swallowed. Coughed. He handed her water, and her arm went up. She uncapped the bottle and brought it to her mouth and drank. She was a little shaky but overall, coordinated. There was no apparent damage, apart from what she’d been through.
He called for Grace softly, and she poked her head in. Must’ve called for Gunner and Avery, because they were there in a few moments.
“Drea, honey, welcome back.”
She tried to get up but couldn’t. When he moved closer, she put her hands out. “Who the hell are you?”
His heart squeezed. “My name’s Jem. You were hurt. I’m helping you.”
She nodded, still looking suspicious. She glanced around at everyone. “Who are they?”
“These are my friends. They helped you too,” Jem told her.
She stared at him, her head tilted. “You’ve been here talking to me.”
“Yeah, the whole time. I never left you.”
“I don’t . . . Where are we?” She looked around the small cabin.
“We’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean,” he told her. Everyone else was quietly watching her, the expectation level high. “The mission’s over.”
“The mission?” she asked.
“Maybe too soon,” Gunner said, and Jem nodded.
“Doesn’t matter, Drea. You’re safe, okay?”
“Okay. But I don’t . . .” She shook her head a little, stared around the room. “I’m okay.”
She seemed to be saying that to reassure herself more than them. She took more water, smiled a little.
And then she ripped the rug out from under him by asking, “Did Danny send you? Is he here? He must be worried if something happened to me.”
Danny. Her Outlaw Angel ex.
He recalled his psych days, watching the doctors dealing with amnesia patients, had known it could happen to Drea. Had prayed it wouldn’t.
“Sometimes the mind takes us back to a place in time when we last felt safe,” one of the doctors told him when he’d asked about the causes of amnesia.
Had Drea never felt safe with him at all? Or had it just not been a long enough time yet to compete with the memory of Danny taking her out of her house and away from all the abuse she suffered at the hands of her parents?
“Just go with the Danny thing for now,” Gunner murmured. “Don’t freak her out any more.”
Grace moved over to Drea, said, “Honey, let’s get you to the bathroom, okay? And then we can talk about Danny.”
“Yes, that’ll be good,” Drea agreed, and Jem let her go. Turned to Gunner and Avery, not knowing what the fuck to say.
“She wants to go back to Danny. To the OA,” Avery said, her voice low but urgent. “We can’t let that happen.”
“What do we do—kidnap her again?” Jem asked.
“It’s for her own good,” Gunner said, and Jem sagged against the wall.
“Returning her to Danny would get the feds off her case,” Jem said. “Danny would rescind his testimony.”
“You can’t be serious about letting her go back to him,” Avery said.
“Keeping her away from him might fuck her up more,” Jem said. “Trust me, Avery—I know about this shit. Seen it firsthand.”
He stared at the closed bathroom door and wished to hell he knew how to fix this.
Chapter Thirty-three
Two months later
Avery lay down on the table in Gunner’s shop. It had been damaged from the bomb, with the shop taking the brunt of the damage. But Jem had hired men to renovate—and fast—and the shop had been redone to look the way he’d left it for the most part, save for some other updates. She’d researched the latest in equipment, gotten him leather tables and chairs, all of which added to the look he’d already created.
He’d loved it. She’d watched him just walk around the shop for a while, touching the guns and the chairs and the pictures, as though he was making sure it was all real.
And then he’d finally done the same to her. It was only the two of them in here tonight—he’d booked a private session, he’d told her. But instead of drawing and getting stencils ready, he was sliding a hand under her tank top, kissing her neck, picking her up and placing her on the table so he was standing between her legs.
“I thought you were tattooing me?” she asked, but she w
as far from complaining.
“Got to prepare. Relax. Make sure every inch of your skin’s ready for me,” Gunner murmured. He licked at her collarbone, nipped at her skin and she carded her hands through his dark hair.
They’d both gone through what seemed like complete transformation the past months. Somehow she’d never felt more like herself. She was complete, and she was done running.
Gunner was on the same page. If he hadn’t told her—which he had—she’d know it by his kisses, each one a promise. He was tugging down her sweats, pulling off her tank top.
“Because you have to take it off for the session anyway,” he said seriously.
“And my pants?”
“All for your comfort,” he assured her as he dropped them to the floor and dragged a finger gently along her wet sex. She gasped at the jolt of pleasure. “See? Better already?”
“Yes,” she agreed, because stopping now might kill her. Between the danger and her wounds, just being with him like this hadn’t happened frequently enough. Since the first time she’d let him see her scars, before Landon was caught, the sex had been during stolen, frantic moments.
His finger slid inside her as his thumb played along her clit. She pulled his head to her, kissed him, tongue sliding along his.
A second finger slid into her, and her hips rose to meet the touch. He always made her feel like this—aching with need and so completely wanted.
She moaned into his mouth as they kissed for a while. Then he kissed his way down to her breasts, laved her nipples until they were swollen and tender with arousal, until she was so wet and needful, she clawed at him for more.
She helped yank his pants down impatiently. Stroked his cock as he groaned. Guided him inside her, then pushed against him so he was forced to enter her quickly. She was on her back and he was standing over her, holding her thighs up, watching her face as he thrust.
“Fuck yeah, Avery. So tight and wet.”
“Yes.”
“For me.”
“Only. All for you.” Pleasure strummed every inch of her body as her climax built, started with the intense tightening in her belly and spread until her orgasm took away any coherent thoughts. Gunner rocked into her as she contracted around him until he came too, with a shout that sounded like her name. And then he half collapsed onto her as they recovered. And then he began to draw. While he was still on top of her.
“Should I be offended?” she asked.
“Did you come?”
“I think you know the answer to that.” She felt boneless. He smiled, slid off her, covered most of her with a towel. When she looked down, she noted that he’d kept one of her scars exposed. He ran his finger across it, the way she did sometimes. It was only slightly raised and pretty thin, considering how ragged the cut had been.
“Drea did a good job,” she said, tried to keep the sadness out of her voice, and he nodded. “I promised her I’d fix it further.”
“I wish we could fix her,” she whispered.
“Me too.” He pressed his lips to one of the scars. “But this is your night. She’d want this.”
Although Avery couldn’t claim to know Drea well, she did know her well enough to recognize the truth in Gunner’s words. She knew he would cover the scars so well that the first thing she saw when she looked in the mirror would be his work, not Donal’s.
She also knew that when Gunner looked at her, he didn’t see any scars at all. This was all for her. “Make it beautiful,” she told him.
“Can’t improve on perfection,” he teased, and she giggled. Giggled. It had been so long since she felt free.
There were still more tests coming at them—she knew that there might be problems from what they’d done to Landon—problems from whatever they decided to do in the future as S8. But they’d handle them together. “I love you, Gunner.”
She’d said it to him so many times in the past month. Loved saying it as much as she loved him.
“Love you, chère.” He traced a finger over her skin. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
She’d seen him do something similar to cover scars. The first night she’d met him, he’d been tattooing over the breasts of a mastectomy patient, making her look and feel beautiful. And now he was going to make his mark on her, turn something horrible into something beautiful.
He was so good at that.
The buzz of the needle was like a drug to her. She let herself drift in and out, confident that Gunner would keep all his promises.
He didn’t finish it all that night, but he covered the large one on her upper torso and he repaired the very first tattoo he’d given her in painstaking detail.
“You can’t even tell anything happened,” she said. “But it did. And you made it okay.”
“I’m always going to make it okay,” he told her fiercely. “Always.”
She believed him.
Epilogue
All she could remember was Danny. He helped her. Saved her from her family and now the handsome, dark-haired man was refusing to let her see him.
He looked so grim when he told her for what had to be the hundredth time, “That’s right, Drea—I won’t let you be with Danny.”
“Why?”
“Maybe one day, you’ll know the answer to that.”
He’d told her the real answer, a few times, that she was broken up with Danny, that she was a doctor. That Danny had hurt her. That she’d run from him. That she’d asked Jem for help and now he was helping her.
Sometimes she felt as if she was going crazy. After two weeks, she still couldn’t remember anything he’d told her. He’d even gone so far as to show her a picture of herself on the FBI’s database.
A wanted woman. Because of Danny.
So although she might believe it somewhere deep inside, because she knew that Danny was the head of a motorcycle club that sold drugs and could believe he’d get her in trouble, she remembered how bad it had been at home. How much better it had been with Danny.
You’re a doctor.
You’re strong as hell.
You’ll remember everything soon.
Jem told her that. A doctor did too.
“So basically, I’m in hiding from the FBI?” she asked. They were in a rental house, he’d told her earlier, and it was cozy and furnished and very comfortable, but she was going stir-crazy staying inside. There was only so much TV she could watch, and she’d read so much her eyes were strained.
Nothing could take her mind off the fact that she had no memory and that she was a fugitive, supposed to give testimony against a man she thought she loved. A man who had used her.
“Yes. And I’m not turning you over to them. Not when you’re like this. Not ever.” He’d paused. “We can talk about it when you get your memory back.”
“Okay.”
He looked troubled. “Drea, look, I’ve got to go away for a little while, for work. And I’ve asked a friend of mine if you can stay with her. She’s cool. I know you’ll like her.”
As he spoke, the doorbell rang. He went to grab it and when he came back, he was with a woman who wore a black pantsuit, her white hair swept back into an elegant chignon, and she had a serious look on her face. She made Drea feel completely underdressed and intimidated in her tank top and she tried to shrink into herself, wrapped her arms around herself.
“Drea, this is Carolina,” Jem said. “I was just telling Drea that you’re going to make sure she’s okay.”
“I will,” Carolina said in her cool, dulcet tones. Her voice was calming and Drea felt better hearing it. “I’ll keep everything under control.”
“What if I never remember?” Drea blurted out suddenly, and Jem and Carolina turned to look at her. God, she hated feeling so out of control and lost, but she had a feeling she’d been like that for a lot of her life.
Carolina gave her a small smile. “I’ll tell you what I always used to tell Jeremiah. We’ll deal with everything when and as it comes, not before.”
“Okay. Yes. I can do that,” Drea told them both, and for once, she truly believed it.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book is never a solitary process, so I have the usual suspects to thank.
For Danielle Perez, my fantastically patient and most enthusiastic editor. For Kara Welsh and Claire Zion for the overall support, for the art department who always comes through with one cover that’s more amazing than the next and for everyone at New American Library who helps with all aspects of my books.
For my readers and writer friends who keep me going with their support.
And always, to my family, because I could never to this without them.
Don’t miss the first novel in the Section 8 series,
SURRENDER
Now available from Signet Eclipse.
Prologue
Zaire, twenty years earlier
The explosion threw him forward hard, the heat searing his body, debris cutting into his back as he covered his face and stayed down. Darius didn’t need to look back to know what had happened—the bridge had exploded. Simon had purposely cut off their last means of escape. It would force their hands, Darius’s especially.
“Darius, you all right?” Simon shook him, yanked him to his feet and held him upright. His ears would continue to ring for months.
“How much ammo do you have?” he called over the din. Couldn’t see the rebels yet, but he knew they were coming toward them through the jungle.
“Stop wasting time. You go.” Simon jerked his head toward the LZ and the waiting chopper about thirty feet away, crammed full of important rescued American officials and the like. Already precariously over capacity. “Go now and I’ll hold them off.”
Simon had always had a sense of bravado and a temper no one wanted to deal with, but one against twenty-plus? Those odds were not in the man’s favor. Darius shook his head hard, and it was already spinning from the explosion.
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