But really? This, right now, on top of all the other stuff that had gone down tonight? It was insane. This is only a test, she said to herself, pressing gently on the brake.
Nope. The speedometer stayed where it was, at 70 miles per hour, like creepy cruise control. And Luke was out of it. No use asking him anything.
On and on.
Every now and then, Luke stirred without opening his eyes and mumbled some directions; get off at an exit to a different highway, take this turnoff or that turnoff. If she hesitated to do what he said, the SUV promptly took over and did it for her.
For the first hundred miles or so, she was on familiar ground. Roads she’d driven before, landmarks she recognized. Then they got off the bigger highways and onto increasingly smaller roads leading into hills, and then mountains. Narrow winding roads. No towns or farms or habitations. The onboard navigation screen was dark and would not respond to her prodding. She wished she had her smartphone with its GPS function. Not that it would make any difference knowing where they were. None of this was up to her.
And Luke was largely unconscious. Who in the hell was driving this thing?
After a long while, they whizzed off an exit marked by a small sign that her tired eyes didn’t have time to read. Maybe it said Ass-End of Nowhere, because that’s where they appeared to have ended up, on a small, poorly maintained road twisting through hills dotted with scrubby trees and bushes. No signs out here—wherever here was. No mileage markers, no lines painted on the blacktop. The winding road was edged by shallow ditches filled with gravel. She saw a sharp curve coming up right ahead.
Screw it. She lifted her hands from the wheel and waited to see what would happen.
The SUV drifted across the road, veered toward the ditch on the left and abruptly corrected, thudding and jolting out and back up onto the blacktop.
Luke lifted his head. “Ouch.” He sounded irritated. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Absolutely nothing,” she replied. “Because nothing actually seems to be required of me. Blame the demon. Your car’s possessed, Luke.”
“Just drive the fucking thing,” he said wearily.
She smacked the steering wheel. “What part of ‘your car is possessed by a demon’ did you not understand?”
He shifted in his seat with a hiss of discomfort. “Nah, not a demon. Just a few extra bells and whistles. Don’t sweat it. We’re almost there. You can rest soon.”
“Bells and whistles. My ass.” She lifted her foot from the accelerator, letting the car coast. Sure enough, they surged forward around the curve.
He sighed. “If you’re trying to wake me up, it’s working.”
“Is that a fact? Well, if you’re trying to freak me out, that’s working, too.”
“I’m trying to save your life,” he muttered. “Getting you to someplace safe as soon as possible is part of the plan.”
She glanced over at him. His eyes were closed again, but that meant nothing. Obviously. “There’s a plan? I’d really love to hear it.”
“Later.”
“That’s not an answer,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I’m playing the wounded soldier card. Give me a fucking break.”
Interesting. He sounded stronger, which was a good sign. And Dani could live with the macho attitude reboot that went along with it. “OK. Will do. Glad to know you’re not slipping into a coma,” she said. “That would put the cherry on top of my special night.”
“I’ll be fine. If I don’t have to talk.”
Whatever. Dani shut up and drove on through the darkness.
The road was climbing steeply again through the scrubby trees, up and out of the river canyon and then switching back and forth up a mountainside. The scrubby trees thinned out. So did the air, though the scent of pine got stronger.
After they had driven for some time along the crest of the hill they’d just climbed, he spoke again. “You’re going to turn left up ahead.”
“Where? I don’t see it.”
“Slow down.”
His insistence on this fiction that she was actually driving annoyed the hell out of her. Just to mess with him, she jammed down the accelerator, and lifted her hands from the wheel.
They hurtled past the turnoff he’d indicated and lurched to a halt, wallowing in the gravel.
“What the hell?” he snapped.
“Just making a point,” she said. “I don’t like being jerked around.”
“Now’s not the time.”
Dani drummed on the steering wheel, thinking it over. He had saved her life.
And then told you that wild story. Tricked you into driving his demon car. And you don’t know where the fuck you are right now. Just that it’s very far from everywhere.
She would need him to get back out of here. Even aside from her professional concern for his health, that was reason enough to stop arguing with him.
She put the SUV in reverse, backed up until she could see the almost invisible driveway, and turned into it. They plunged into the overgrown bushes and trees.
The Porsche picked up speed without her doing anything, rattling and jouncing over the rutted road. The headlights revealed a nondescript building, surrounded by parked vehicles. Looked like mostly beaters. Flat tires on a few.
A garage door began to rise. He wasn’t using a remote. At this point, that hardly surprised her.
Dawn was near. The night sky showed a faint glow on the horizon as they pulled into the garage. The rolling door ground down, leaving them in pitch darkness.
“Yikes,” she said. “Creepy.”
A light flicked on. A bright hanging lamp illuminated a crowded worktable that stretched the length of the garage.
Almost as weird as the demon car. But less dangerous. “Thanks,” she murmured.
Luke shoved open the car door and tumbled out, staggering and hanging onto the fender.
She jumped out herself. “Shit! Wait for me, Luke! Was that necessary?”
“I think so,” he said. “You can’t carry me. I’m really heavy.”
“I know, but I can help! I’m strong.”
“I noticed that.” His voice was wry.
She slid under his arm, taking as much of his weight as she could as they staggered through the garage and toward the interior door.
The room they entered was large and featureless, furnished with just a plastic picnic table with attached benches and a sink with a few kitchen appliances along one wall. There were heaps of boxes and equipment. No couches, chairs or lamps. Nothing personal.
It smelled cold and stale inside the place, like metal and dust and machine oil.
She guided him over to sit down on the bench and started trying to unfasten the armored vest. Luke tried to help, but she figured it out for herself quickly enough. A skill learned the hard way filling in on Saturday night ER shifts. Stabbings, gunshots, car crashes, name it.
He caught his breath as she lifted the heavy, blood-drenched vest off him. Beneath it, his shirt was stuck to his body by sweat and blood. It had dried onto the wound, which seemed to be barely oozing at this point.
“OK. We need to get this shirt cut off.” Luke didn’t protest, but he looked dazed and exhausted. “So where would I find scissors?” she prompted.
He nodded toward the side of the big room that evidently served as the kitchen. “Top drawer by the sink.”
“How about gauze pads? Bandage tape? Rubbing alcohol? Antibiotic ointment?”
Her long list didn’t faze him. “There’s a hinged clear plastic box on a shelf in the bathroom. Thataway.”
“Um, disposable gloves?”
He shook his head.
Oh well. But props to him for having the basics.
She found what she needed and got busy, cleaning the bloody wounds in his upper arm and side
before she removed the rest of his shirt. His huge torso was covered with ridged scars. The sight gave her a chill of dread and fear.
“Like Naldo,” she blurted out. “But yours are worse.”
“Maybe so.” He closed his eyes, dragging slow, hissing breaths through his teeth. Suffering.
“That’s all you have to say?” Her voice had an edge. “What is it with you guys? What in the hell happened to you? Both of you?”
He shook his head. “Dani. Please.” His voice had become a halting rasp.
“Right,” she murmured. “Later.”
“I swear, I’ll tell you everything I can. As soon as I can.”
She had to be content with that. She got back to work. Focusing on his body.
Not that she could have focused on anything else if she wanted to. Even wounded, with his breath rasping painfully in his massive chest, the guy was a mouth-watering super stud. Close proximity to him was distracting even before she got his clothes off.
And when he was half naked, the sheer breadth of his heavily muscled shoulders and chest stopped her breath.
Not good.
Concentrate, LaSalle. Do your nurse thing. Breathe. Your brain needs oxygen.
But he threw off so much heat. It made her sweat. Her face felt fiery as she dabbed on antibiotic ointment with a piece of folded gauze. She tried not to be so acutely conscious of the taut, steely belly muscles before her eyes, but he was so lean and ripped, with that dark treasure trail tapering down, sliced through here and there by the scarring.
She tried desperately not to think about the kissing interlude in her laundry closet, which now seemed like a crazy dream. It couldn’t possibly have been real.
Her eyes rested on his rock-hard thighs splayed out in front of the bench, his huge quad muscles bulging against the blood-stiffened black fabric of his pants, remembering how it felt to straddle them and hang on for dear life. Her chest plastered against his bullet-proof vest while his hand cupped her ass, slowly rocking and pulsing the yearning ache between her legs against the hard, thick bulge at his crotch.
Stop it. You are working. Fuck’s sake. The man just got stabbed.
Good thing he wasn’t looking at her. He was hunched over, head down and shaking fingers clenched, white-knuckled, on his own knees as she finished taping the gauze over the wound at his side.
There was blood on his face, too. Or what she could see of it, with his head lowered. Sweat shone on it. Big drops standing out. She rose to her feet, alarmed by the heat radiating off his body, and reached out to feel his forehead.
He jerked sharply away, then went still. He looked up at her, eyes cautious.
“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I’m on edge. You took me by surprise.”
“I was just, uh, checking,” she said. “You’re so hot.”
He glanced up. The look on his face was almost a smile.
Her face flamed. “I mean…I just want to see if you’re running a fever.” Crap.
“I’m not,” he said softly. “But go ahead.”
She was so flustered, she was no longer tracking. “Huh? Go ahead and what?”
He put his hand on the gauze taped to his side. “Touch me,” he said simply.
Another awkward silence while Dani’s mouth worked. “Ah…”
“If you want to check my temperature, I mean.” He grinned at her. The very first smile she’d seen on his otherwise grim face.
Oh, God. Dimples? It was too goddamn much. Everything they said to each other sounded like a blatant come-on to her now.
“Well. I’ll just, um, find a thermometer,” she mumbled, rummaging through the little plastic chest of medical supplies.
“Don’t have one.” His voice was thick with exhaustion. “Never needed one.”
“OK, whatever.” That was an argument for another day. She pulled out a piece of folded gauze and dabbed antibiotic ointment on it. “Let me take care of those scrapes on your face.”
He didn’t make a sound, just closed his eyes as she swabbed and dabbed. Which left her free to study every detail up close. His face had scars, too. More recent injuries on top of older ones. Bumps on his nose from being broken more than once.
“I hope you have a bed around here, because you look like you’re ready to get horizontal,” she told him. “And this table looks cold and hard.”
“There’s a bed in the other room, but you can take it,” he said. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Yeah, right. Like I would let you do that.”
“You’re the boss,” he said.
“Hardly,” she said. “I can’t make you clue me in about what’s going on. You just keep saying you’ll tell me everything later. And I’m really hoping that tell me everything includes explaining those scars, and who the killer robots are, and how the demon Porsche drives itself.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised.
Dani harrumphed. “You’re a piece of work, Luke. And we have to get you covered up.” Like, right away, even though he looked great just like that. Half-naked, just neatly bandaged here and there. “Do you have a sweatshirt that zips?”
“Somewhere. Maybe.” He lurched unsteadily toward the bedroom.
It was a smaller space, almost empty but for a queen-sized bed and a dresser, but the sheets looked clean and there was a thick wool blanket. She folded down the bedclothes and tried to guide him down, but gravity was too much for them both.
He fell and hit the bed hard, bouncing on it with a muffled gasp of pain.
“Shit. That was clumsy. Sorry,” she said hastily, checking the bandages.
“Not your fault,” he mumbled, and that was it. He was out.
She felt his pulse. Strong and steady. The nurse in her hated this slapdash patch job. He deserved better. She covered him up with the blanket, and looked around the room. Not much to see, just a bathroom on the other side of a partly open door, the one where she’d found the medical supplies. There were a couple of skimpy towels and some shaving gear. A dresser had a heap of clean, unfolded clothing on it. She rummaged through it and took the liberty of selecting an enormous T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts for herself.
She took them into the bathroom and stopped short, horrified by what she saw in the mirror over the sink. Wild-eyed, blood streaked, hair whitened with dust. The harpy from the dark dimensions. God, how she wanted to wash.
Dani stripped down. It felt strange and vulnerable, being naked with that extremely compelling man in the next room, but he was unconscious, and the lure of hot water and soap was too strong to resist.
The spray stung the scrapes on her shoulders. She’d barely noticed them before. The shower water ran gray and pink as it swirled down the drain.
Note to self: her hand needed antibiotic gel where that asshole had sliced her. She sudsed and rinsed until the water ran clear. It took a good long while.
Fresh clothes felt so good. His boxers were loose in the waist and tight in the hips, but they weren’t going to fall off. No hair grooming stuff was to be found in the bathroom of a guy with a buzz cut, so she finger-combed her tangled locks as best she could.
She emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, checked on sleeping Luke before dimming the light way down, and then went to wander around.
Computers and electronic gear lined an entire long wall of the other room. Behind a closed door off the corridor was another bedroom where a chilling array of weapons were laid out on heavy-duty metal shelves. Rifles, handguns, shotguns, ammo of all types.
She stared at the highly organized arsenal, guts sinking.
Please don’t let him be one of those guys who hurt people for a cause.
She backed out of that room, unnerved. Peering into the fridge, she saw beer, a bag of ground coffee and dried up remains of takeout. A couple of eggs, a near-empty tub of deli potato salad. Apparent
ly he had even less culinary imagination than she did.
“Dani?” Luke’s voice from the bedroom was low and raw. “You in there?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” she called out.
His face relaxed when he saw her at the bedroom door. She was startled to see a gun in his hand. “Holy cow, Luke. Do you sleep with that thing?”
He looked down at it, apparently startled by the question. “I don’t sleep much.”
“That wasn’t what I asked,” she said.
“I keep it close, yeah,” he admitted. “It was under my pillow.”
“Really. Is the safety on?”
He looked, and nodded.
Dani stepped back anyway. Like that would save her from a random shot. “Guys like you get speed-tracked into the ER,” she told him. “They usually leave in black bags. All zipped up.”
“I get the point.” Luke put the gun on the floor by the bed and gazed at her for a moment. “Come here.”
She approached the bed, and perched at the foot. He shook his head, beckoning. “No, here.” He patted the space between himself and the wall. “There’s room. You need to rest, too.”
Her face went hot. Good thing the room was dark. “Um…I’m not sure if that’s the greatest idea.”
“Please,” he said. “Just stretch out and rest a little. You’re safe here.”
It was a crazy thing to do, climbing into bed with him. But it also felt like the only thing. She was exhausted.
She should be scared of him, but she wasn’t. Go figure. She was too tired to think it through.
Dani clambered over him and sat up cross-legged, back to the wall. Dawn was just breaking, faintly lighting up the outline of the blackout window-blinds. The room felt quiet, secret. A hidden cave, a beast’s den.
“You smell good,” he whispered.
“Just your shower soap.”
“Smells different on you,” he said. “Sweeter. Nicer.”
The shivery rush his words gave her was alarming. She headed him off. “Hold it right there,” she said sternly. “No flirting. Cut that shit out right now.”
In My Skin Page 8