Tall, Dark and Paranormal: 10 Thrilling Tales of Sexy Alpha Bad Boys

by Opal Carew

  Chapter 20

  The home was one of welcome, filled with warm vibrant colors that reminded her of Mexico. Imbued with the touch of family which roused more memories of other times.

  Happy times with her mother.

  Caterina ran her hand over the rough-hewn oak sideboard. Regretted the roundish dents left behind by her fingers. She traced the rough edges of the cast iron candelabras which were crudely elegant as they rested on the wooden surface. They were beautiful even despite the lack of gloss or adornment. Simplistically functional like the man who owned them.

  Leaning toward the fat pillar candle on one of them, she inhaled deeply, but only a hint of the fragrance remained.

  He didn’t spend enough time in this place to use them or keep them fresh.

  If the house was well-maintained, it was by someone else’s hand, she suspected.

  The rumble of the garage door opening alerted her that he was back.

  She walked to the kitchen and stood just a few feet away from the side door that led into the garage.

  He came through a moment later. The alarm began its warning chirp, but he quickly shut it down and as he turned, she realized he was hurt. A bloody slice of skin was stark against the black of the clothes he wore. His face had a multitude of scrapes and bruises as did his hands.

  It would have been too stupid to point out the obvious. Instead she grabbed the top rung of a kitchen chair and swung it around. Pointed to it and said, “Sit. I’ll go get something to patch you up.”

  His eyes narrowed as he said, “Since I’m the one who knows where everything is, shouldn’t I go?”

  “I’m sure I can find the supplies.” She jabbed her index finger at the chair again. “Sit before you bleed all over the kitchen.”

  He stalked toward the oven, snagged one of the kitchen towels hanging from the door handle, and wrapped it around the wound on his forearm. When he took two big strides toward her, she controlled the urge to flinch, but miraculously, he obeyed her and plopped down onto the kitchen chair.

  “There’s a small linen closet in the master bathroom. Medical kit is in there,” he said and cradled his injured arm to his midsection.

  She rushed upstairs and found the kit right where he said. Grabbing the plastic olive green box with the red and white cross, she hurried back downstairs, but stopped short as she entered the kitchen.

  He had pulled off his black sweater and the naked expanse of his shoulders was leanly muscled. On the one shoulder he bore a bruise in the shape of a hand – her hand.

  Caterina bit her lip and walked around him to the table where she laid the medical kit on the table. While she opened the gear, she glanced at him sideways, slowly inventorying the damage to his body.

  On his left shoulder, the vivid imprint of her hand from where she had grabbed him earlier that day.

  Further down, a series of reddish blotches sure to turn into more bruises.

  She skipped over the sight of his lean sculpted abs, her hands shaky as she took out some gauze and butterfly bandages from the medical supplies. As she removed the pre-packaged alcohol pads, she said, “Let me see your arm.”

  He shifted the chair to better face her and it squeaked against the tile floor. Laying his hand flat on the table, he splayed his fingers against the thick wooden surface to allow her to examine the wound.

  She winced as she noted the length and depth of the knife cut.

  “That looks like it’ll need stitches.”

  He grunted in agreement. “Lil can close it later if we clean it up.”

  She nodded and ripped open a few alcohol pads. Wadding them together, she faced him to start the clean up, but as she did so she noticed the cuts, scrapes and bruises on his face. Once again she winced, earning an amused chuckle from him.

  “Don’t worry. The other guy looks worse.”

  His comment, undeniably macho as it was, dragged a chuckle from her before she dabbed at the areas around the wound. Gently she wiped away the dried blood and smudges of dirt. Tossed aside the dirty pads and opened up new ones.

  As she gingerly cleaned the knife slice in his arm, he sucked in a breath and his fingers turned white as he pressed down on the table from the sting of the alcohol against the open wound.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and guilt rose up even more sharply as she once again took note of her handprint against his collarbone and shoulder.

  * * *

  Mick tracked her gaze, but shrugged off her apology. “You didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Doesn’t make it right or any less painful I suspect,” she said and brushed the tips of her fingers across the bruise.

  That touch – innocent and honest – ripped through his body, tightening his gut and creating an unexpected and unwanted reaction.

  From the tremble of her fingers a millisecond before she yanked her hand away, she clearly had experienced something intense as well.

  When he raised his head and examined her features, he couldn’t fail to notice how her irises had widened and a blush – a very human blush – had blossomed across her cheeks.

  Needing to return their interaction to a more neutral place he said, “Can you put some butterfly bandages on it for now? Cover it up for me.”

  She shifted away from him and her fingers pecked at the contents of the kit, picking and choosing the supplies she would need. After they were ready for use, she carefully applied the butterfly strips and then covered the area with gauze she taped into place.

  “Thank you,” he said, but she clearly wasn’t done tending to him.

  “Lift your head.” He did as she asked, amused by the command in her voice that was at odds with the tenderness of her touch.

  Carefully she tended to the cuts and scrapes on his face, the look on her face intense as she worked. Concerned and guilt-ridden.

  He tried to reassure her as with light strokes she cleaned a scrape on his chin. “Like I said, the other guy looks worse. Besides, the fight had little to do with you.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said and leaned one hip against the edge of the table as she worked.

  “The guy I fought has a problem with me. We used to work together.”

  “In the Army?” she questioned as she started to pick up the dirty swabs and remnants of gauze and tape, shooting him a half-glance as she waited for his answer.

  “They’d never take a psycho like him into the Army.”

  He rose from the chair and the motion brought him close to her. Too close. Her shoulder brushed against the wall of his chest, creating that skitter of reaction once more.

  Her head snapped up. Her eyes were that intense ocean blue once more, the pupils wide. The blush even stronger across the high slashes of her cheekbones. She licked her lips in a nervous gesture and the moisture glistened on her lips.

  Very luscious womanly lips.

  He dipped his head down, hesitating when he was about an inch away. Warning himself that if he took a taste . . .

  He did, barely brushing his lips against hers. Experiencing the hitch in her breath that spoke of surprise. Experiencing shock at the moment where surprise became acceptance.

  Chapter 21

  Caterina joined her lips to his, the need for human contact overwhelming any caution about the logic of what she was doing.

  His lips were warm and surprisingly soft beneath hers. Mobile as they gently explored hers, pizzicato plucks playing at her heart strings.

  She laid her hand against his chest to steady herself. That rock hard chest. Too warm beneath her hand. His skin tempting and smooth.

  So smooth, she thought as she skimmed her fingers down the length of his body.

  He ripped away, toppling the kitchen chair behind him in his haste to be away from her.

  Raising his hands, he said, “That should not have happened. I’m sorry.”

  She hated that he was right. It shouldn’t have happened. “I’m sorry as well, but I just needed it. I didn’t mean to use you.”

&nbs
p; “It’s the satisfaction of surviving. I’ve been through it before. It’s a natural reaction after a battle,” he said and she imagined that he had experienced this same feeling before. The conquering hero coming home to whatever woman awaited him in that place. Celebrating the victory over an opponent. Thumbing his nose at Death.

  She understood all too well. Her father had been a warrior in a suit, vanquishing opponents in the marketplace. He would come home, drunk with victory and liquor. Beating his chest and belittling her mother’s accomplishments and joys. Diminishing them to aggrandize himself until her mother had stopped believing in herself.

  Until her mother had ceased to exist.

  “I understand,” she said, not that she approved. But she couldn’t control herself from reaching up and running her fingers across her lips to savor the lingering feel of him.

  His gaze tracked that motion too intently, but then he shuttered that gaze. His face turned stony and his lips thinned into a tight line as he reined himself in.

  “I’m going to go get changed,” he said and hurried away from the kitchen.

  She watched his retreating back, wondering about the kind of man he really was. If there was anything to him other than the warrior who lived only for his own gain and success.

  A gain that had to be substantial, she assumed, thinking that Edwards would be willing to pay a great deal to get her back. Would Mick tire of the challenge she seemed to be presenting and turn her over to Edwards for that bounty? Or was he a man of honor beneath the dangerous and hard persona he insisted on displaying to others?

  As she stood there, considering it, she realized either scenario was risky for her. And she realized that just like she had refused to let her father determine where her life would go, she couldn’t just rely on him to get her life back for her.

  She had to find a way to take care of it herself.

  * * *

  The scientist stared at the bloodied and dirtied face of Matthew Mad Dog Donnelly. Examined with annoyance and frustration the leaves and bits of twig glued to him by the drying mud.

  “You assured me you could deal with Carrera,” he said and gestured to the cabinet on the wall. One shelf was completely empty. The shelf which had once held half a dozen vials of the inhibitor medication necessary for controlling the gene replication in their patients. It would take only a day to make more of the compound, but with the vials taken, Shaw could easily last another six months or more.

  “I can take care of Carrera,” Mad Dog reassured, rubbing at his wrists which still bore the markings from the cable ties Mick had used to secure him.

  The man inspected the paid mercenary, circling around him the way a guard might a prisoner, hands held behind his back. Assessing the dirt all along his body and the bruises and scrapes on his face.

  “Carrera has Shaw,” he said.

  Mad Dog denied it with a quick shake of his head. “Carrera said he was still looking for her.”

  “He has Shaw,” he nearly shouted and jabbed at the tell-tale empty row in the cabinet. “He took the medicine necessary to treat her.”

  Mad Dog’s gaze flickered to the empty space before he pulled his shoulders back and a steely glint came into his glacial ice-blue eyes. “If he has her, I’ll deal with both of them.”

  “I won’t pay extra for Carrera,” he said, but a twisted gleam took hold in the mercenary’s eerie crystal-cold eyes.

  “When the time is right, Carrera is a dead man,” Mad Dog said.

  The scientist walked up to the hired man and peered at Mad Dog. “Do you know what Machiavelli said about enemies?”

  At the mercenary’s hesitation, he said, “The injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.”

  Poking a finger into the hard wall of Mad Dog’s chest, he warned, “Don’t play around with a man like Carrera. Eliminate him.”

  Chapter 22

  Mick controlled his grimace as Liliana finished tying off the last stitch in his arm. Barely a flicker crossed his face and skirted across his skin thanks to his restraint.

  He wished he had used such restraint earlier, still berating himself for what had happened with Caterina.

  “You’ll need to keep this dry for twenty-four hours.”

  “Damn, there goes that bubble bath I had planned on taking,” he teased, but it failed to bring a smile to his sister’s face.

  “You okay?” he asked, worried at the troubled look in her deep emerald eyes. He was sorry that he might have placed it there.

  “Okay? You want to know if I’m okay.”

  With jerky motions she cleaned up the materials she had used for the sutures and stalked across the kitchen to toss them away. Rounding on him, she jammed her hands on her hips. “You’re hurt. Someone named Mad Dog is after you and Caterina. And speaking of Caterina, what are you going to do with her?”

  “I got the inhibitor. Several vials of the medication are in my satchel.” He jerked his hand in the direction of the worn black bag resting on one of the kitchen chairs.

  She walked to the chair, picked up the canvas bag, and removed a handful of the vials. Weighing them carefully in her hand, she said, “Based on the dosages indicated in her medical file, these should last for some time. Certainly long enough for you to figure out why someone wants her dead.”

  The relief on his sister’s face was incomplete. “Something else is bothering you.”

  She placed the vials on the table, and then removed the rest from the satchel. As she did so, he noticed the bare spot on her ring finger.

  “You broke it off with Harrison.”

  Nodding, she replied, “He didn’t take it well.”

  He rose from the chair, flinching at the ache in his ribs as he stood. Mad Dog hadn’t broken them, but it still hurt like hell. He closed the distance between them and laid his hands on his sister’s shoulders. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”

  She shrugged off his hands. “You’ll protect me. And Caterina.”

  She whirled on him and laid a hand on the middle of his chest. “Mom and dad. Tony. You’ll take care of all of us.”

  She shoved his chest hard enough to make him recoil, tender as the area was thanks to the blows from Mad Dog.

  “Who will take care of you, big bro?”

  Apparently recognizing that her question had no answer, she grabbed one of the vials and her medical bag, and stormed out of the kitchen. He heard the heavy thump of her footsteps on the stairs, a testament to her anger.

  He could have followed to try and reassure her he had things under control, but opted to give her time to cool down. Since Liliana had once again brought home food from the family restaurant, he placed the take-out dishes in the oven. While he welcomed the food, he worried it came with a very large price tag – a visit from their mother.

  She was bound to be wondering about what was happening with him and why Liliana was involved in it.

  When the food was in the oven and the kitchen table was set, he took a steadying breath and headed upstairs.

  Caterina was sitting on the edge of the bed. Liliana was perched across from her in the recliner. His sister had a syringe in her hand which she had plunged into the vial he had taken from Wardwell’s lab. As he walked in Liliana said, “I’m using the dosage indicated in the file.”

  Liliana pulled the syringe from the vial and in a fluid move, swapped the vial for the rubber hose sitting on the nightstand. She wrapped the hose around Caterina’s bicep, tapped her arm for a vein, and then injected her with the medication.

  Caterina jerked as she did so, prompting Liliana to say, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Caterina shook her head. “It’s not you. It’s burning.”

  “That happens with some medications,” he explained and walked into the room.

  As he did so, Caterina looked up at him and offered a brave smile. “Thank you for getting the medicine.”

  “Hopefully it’ll keep things unde
r control until we can find out what really happened to Wells.”

  Liliana withdrew the syringe, placed a band aid over the injection site, and urged Caterina to bend her arm to apply pressure.

  Once she did so, Caterina said, “I can help you with the investigations now.”

  “Maybe if the meds work, but first it would help if you could try to remember more about what happened that night,” Mick said.

  Caterina nodded. “I’ll try. Only every time I do ... “ She shrugged and wrapped her free arm around her waist. “There’s always blood. Lots of it. All over Dr. Wells and me.”

  He nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. She averted her gaze, looking away, but he tucked his thumb and forefinger beneath her chin and urged her gaze back to his.

  “You need to get past that to try and remember what happened before. To get to the moment when Wells was killed.”

  Caterina nodded. “I’ll try.”

  He brushed away some stray unruly locks from her face, resisting the temptation to stroke the soft, thick hair. “You can try later. Liliana was kind enough to bring dinner again and I suspect you’re hungry.”

  Caterina smiled and it caused a funny hitch in the middle of his chest. “I thought I smelled something tasty.”

  “Let’s go get some eats then,” Liliana said and rose from the chair, but as she did so, his sister shot him a bemused look, clearly aware that something had happened between them.

  Despite that, Liliana said nothing, only led the way down to the kitchen and the food she had brought.

  * * *

  With dinner over and the two women sharing an easy conversation as they cleaned up, Mick had felt driven from the kitchen, unable to stand the way the two chatted about everyday things, seemingly without a care to the danger which existed. He had not wanted to burst their fragile bubble with the reality that so far he had nothing to prove that Caterina wasn’t a murderess. But worse, he also couldn’t abide the sense of homecoming he felt sitting at the table with them.