“Whereas you wear your wildness right up front.” She poured shampoo into her palm and faced him. “I like you better as a blond, though. Especially now that your beard is coming back in.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed a hand over his chin. “Don’t worry, the dye doesn’t last more than a few weeks. Looks like crap when it fades, though.”
She reached up and rubbed the shampoo into his scalp, enjoying the sensation of his silky hair sliding through her fingers and the freedom of touching him. If only they could stay like this forever, hidden away inside this shower, with the rest of the world held at a distance. Of course, it was an impossible dream, but oh, how she wished it were not.
When she went to soap down his body, however, her fingers rubbing across his arms disturbed a healing wound, and blood flowed, tinting the water.
“Eric! You’ve been shot.”
“It was nothing. Just a graze. I promise. It was already healing.”
“But you were shot.”
“Janie, it’s okay. I swear to you.” Eric bent his head to rinse out the shampoo, taking the opportunity to brush his lips lightly across hers. He growled, startling a laugh out of her.
“Enough playing around.” He grabbed the soap and scrubbed himself down, then flicked off the shower, stepped out, and toweled off. “C’mon.”
Jane took the hand he held out to her and allowed him to wrap her in one of the towels next to the sink. He dried her far more gently than he had himself, then shocked her by lifting her into his arms to carry her out of the bathroom.
“Eric?”
“You know what my favorite part of this entire mission has been?”
“Getting out alive?”
His body shook with laughter as he stripped away the shiny yellow coverlet and laid her on the bed, then slid down beside her. “Well, that, too. But I was going to say having you on my back. Feeling your arms and legs around me.”
Oh God, he was trying to kill her. Tears clogged the back of her throat, and she blinked them back. She needed to shut him up or she’d fall apart. She propped herself up on one elbow and ran her hand down his chest where droplets of water still clung to the sprinkle of golden hairs after his hasty drying job. “Enough playing around, buster.” She licked one of the droplets away and felt as much as heard his sharp intake of breath.
“Don’t start what you can’t finish.”
Her hand found his cock and she stroked it lightly. “Who says I can’t finish?”
“I thought you were exhausted.” He swallowed and she watched his Adam’s apple bob.
“Second wind. Or third. Or something.” She felt his pulse throb beneath her hand. Who needed sleep? She kissed her way down his body, sipping the water that had collected out of the tiny knot of his belly button. When she replaced her hand with her mouth, his whole body arched up off the bed and his hands fisted in her hair.
“Jesus, Janie.”
He tasted so good. This was the one thing he hadn’t let her do when they’d spent the night in his apartment. But oh, how she’d wanted to. And she hadn’t wanted to with anyone else. It was so intimate. Far more so than sex. Although she was atop him, he set the pace with his hands and his body, and the power of it made her crazy. She could feel her own release closing in on her.
At the last moment, when she could taste his pre-come in her mouth, he pulled her away from him and flipped her to her back.
“Please, baby, not like this. Not now. I want to be inside you.”
She didn’t even hesitate, didn’t think, just pulled him down over her and wrapped her legs around his waist and urged him on. He thrust into her, slamming her down into the cushy bed, but the violence didn’t bother her. If anything, she wished they were on the floor. She needed purchase she couldn’t get, and she tried to push herself upward to meet him. And then she flew into a million pieces and every muscle convulsed. She might have screamed. She had no idea. Heat flooded her body, both from his orgasm and from hers.
• • •
JANE HAD TWO thoughts simultaneously when she came back down to earth: First, there was no way the others hadn’t heard her. Which was absolutely mortifying. The second was that they hadn’t used a condom.
Eric seemed to realize it at the same time she did. “Janie—”
“No, don’t. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Eric, look at me.”
He did, his flame-blue eyes dark and serious.
“It’s okay. I promise.”
He was clean. She had no doubts on that score. And if she got pregnant, well, that was okay, too. She had a good job, a good life. She could have a child. A towheaded little boy with bright blue eyes? A girl with Eric’s shaggy blond mane? She’d never imagined herself a mother, but she could do it. She would love a child, and that’s what mattered. Not that a single act of unprotected sex would result in a child, but if it did…
She leaned up and kissed away Eric’s frown. “Don’t worry.”
“I swear to you, Jane, that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever forgotten protection.”
“I believe you.”
He launched himself from the bed. “I can’t believe you’re so calm about this. Are you on the pill?”
“No.”
“Then why aren’t you freaking out?”
“Because…” She couldn’t very well tell him the truth. Because it’s you. Because I love you. Hell, that realization freaked her out far more than the idea of a baby that might or might not be on the way. How had she fallen in love with Eric Sorensen? But she had… She could feel the truth of it in her bones. He made sense of all the madness in her world. “Because the idea of having a child doesn’t scare me. I don’t lead a wild life, despite my hair.”
“Janie…” He sat on the edge of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. “You would be an amazing mother. But look at this from my point of view. My life is crazy. Most of time, I work with Travis in some hellhole outside of the US. It’s no kind of life to bring a kid into.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to do anything you didn’t want to, Eric.”
“But if I had a kid—if we had a kid—I would want to do everything. I’d push you in ways you can’t even imagine now.”
“I think you’ve pushed me quite a bit already, and I haven’t complained.”
“You don’t understand. I’d never let my child be raised by someone else. If you have my kid, you have me. And no sane woman wants that.” He laughed, but it was a harsh, hollow sound.
“I do.”
He stared at her. “You do what?”
“Want you. Of course, I may not be sane, so maybe you’re right on that score.”
He took a breath, started to speak, stopped.
“I want you, Eric.” She ran a finger down his cheek. “I know you think it’s just adrenaline, or gratitude, or something like that. And I can’t prove any different until our lives get back to normal, but you have to trust me. I couldn’t wait to go out to dinner with you on our first real date forever ago, and I’m still hoping to get a chance to do that. In the extremely unlikely event that I get pregnant, it won’t be me who has to change.”
“You really mean that.”
“Absolutely.” It was as close as she could get to admitting the truth.
“And what if I got hurt, like my father? What if I couldn’t provide for you? For the baby? I’d feel like utter shit.”
“Your father wasn’t a soldier. What happened to him could happen to anyone. And if you were injured…” She ran a finger over the wound. “If it were so serious that you couldn’t work for HSE, you’d find something else to do. It’s like a mission. If your first plan fails, you go to a second. You’re not your father, and I’m not your mother. Or my mother, for that matter. I have a good job. I can support myself, a baby, even you if it came to that.
”
“Oh, hell.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. Beneath the brown dye, the true gold of his beard was beginning to show.
“What?”
“You don’t have a job. The inside man? The American investor? It was Clive Handler. Bryan gave him up. We got it confirmed last night while we were watching for you. Dani’s in the hospital in New York, so Trey took it upon himself to pay Clive a little visit. He had one foot out the door, passport in hand.”
“Clive?” She barely managed to force the word out.
“I know it’s hard to believe, baby, but he was ready to run when Trey caught him. One-way ticket to Cuba. Who knows where he planned to go from there. But it’s a damned good place to disappear right now. Trey…persuaded him to admit everything. The Department of Justice is going to have a few words with him, and then I imagine Homeland Security will have their say as well.”
“And Ruth? Please tell me Ruth wasn’t part of this.”
“We’re not sure. She’s certainly been helping him for a very long time, and it’s hard to see how she couldn’t have at least had an idea. She controlled all the finances, including the money that was coming in and going out from the Warlock project.
“But Janie, none of this is on you. AHI will be dissolved, but you’ll find another job in no time.”
“What do you mean it’s not on me? AHI was my first job out of grad school. It’s the only job I’ve ever had. Who will hire me now, tainted by this?”
“It will sort itself out, I promise. People will realize that Clive was operating on his own. The qualifications that made him hire you in the first place still stand. You’re still a great scientist and a great teacher. You developed that schizophrenia medication—that alone will make people sit up and take notice.”
“And what about Dani? AHI was her internship. An internship is supposed to get you a job, not turn you into a pariah.”
Eric was silent for a long time. Too long.
“You said she was okay. That she was in the hospital.” Jane looked up at him. “What haven’t you told me?”
“I was on the phone with Nash while you were in the shower. He says she’s suffering from amnesia. It’s the brain injury. She remembers that she used to work at a lab, but she doesn’t remember her exact position. She doesn’t remember the kidnapping or her brother’s death. Her parents had to tell her he had died, but the doctors didn’t want her to hear any details, so they just told her that both she and Alvaro had been in an accident. She’s having some trouble speaking, too.”
“Am I… Will they let me see her?”
Eric pulled her into his arms and settled her against his chest. “Right now, they are saying it’s a bad idea for anyone from that time to see her. That’s why they kicked Trey out. Jake’s with her, protecting her, because she never met him. They want to give her a few weeks before she starts seeing you guys again to let her mind clear up.”
“What will she do if she can’t remember? All that studying. All that school.”
“If she never remembers her academics, she’ll turn out to be brilliant at something else. She may have lost her knowledge, but not her capacity for learning and growing. You just finished telling me that if I couldn’t work for HSE I’d find other work. Have the same faith in her.”
“I do.” She sucked in a breath. “I do.”
He stroked her hair. “It really wouldn’t bother you? Being pregnant?”
Where to even start? She gathered the sheet around her and curled her knees up beneath her chin. “When I was twenty, I went to an ob-gyn and asked for a hysterectomy. I was old enough to vote, old enough to smoke; I figured I was old enough to know I didn’t want children.”
Eric pulled her tighter into the heat of his body. “Oh, sweetheart. That must have been so damned hard.”
“It doesn’t horrify you?”
“Baby, you’re the most relentlessly logical person I’ve ever met. My guess is you figured the chances of having a schizophrenic child were better than average and you didn’t want a child to suffer the way your mom did.”
He understood. Of course he did. It made her tear up. Damn, emotions were a pain in the ass.
“The doctor disagreed. He said if I didn’t want to have a kid, I could use the same methods as other women. I resented him for a while, but it turned out not to be a big deal. I wasn’t all that active, sexually speaking.”
“But you’re not afraid now?”
“No. I’m almost past the usual age for schizophrenia onset. My child would still be more likely to have the disorder than a child whose family had never been touched by mental illness, but not so high as if I had it myself. And I think—I hope—that changes in society at large as well as in the medical community mean that life would be easier today than it was for my mom.”
She could feel him behind her, gearing up to make a point, and she tensed.
“Janie, I know you’re logical—”
“So are you, Mr. ‘memorize the opposing team’s statistics.’”
“Well, yeah. Okay. But I am being serious here. This isn’t logic. It’s more like faith. I need you to believe me even though it doesn’t make sense.”
She twisted slightly so she could look up into his face. “What is it?”
“I—”
A banging on the connecting door interrupted him, and it popped open to reveal Travis. “We’re found. Time to hit it.”
“Shit.” Eric was out of the bed in a shot and pulling on his clothes. He tossed Jane a shirt and sweats but urged her down to the floor next to the bed before she could get them on. Her legs tangled in the sweats, and she peered up anxiously over the edge of the bed as she tried to pull them on.
Glass broke in the other room, and bullets pinged and crashed. Travis hustled Helene and Fritz into Jane’s room, and they huddled together. “Travis, stay with them,” Eric said. “Marco, try to get a viable position.” Eric bolted to the doorway between the two rooms, using the frame for protection, minimal though it was. He fired a few shots through the window of the other room.
“How the hell did they find us?”
“Whole fucking country’s controlled by the cartels,” Travis said. “You know it as well as I do.”
“Yeah, I had just hoped we’d have a few hours of peace.”
A second later, Mac shouted from the other room. “Fuck! Grenade! Get ’em down!”
Travis landed hard on all of them, and an enormous blast echoed through the room. The wall between the two rooms listed to the side, and chunks of ceiling rained down while dust choked the air.
“Mac! Mac! You okay?”
“We gotta get the fuck out. This place is a death trap.” Mac ushered Helene and Fritz through a hole in the ruined wall.
“Agreed. Travis, grab the axe. Take them through to the next room. We don’t want to come out the door of this one, either—they’re bound to guess we’re in here.”
“No shit.” Mac urged the kids down behind a bed for safety.
“I’ll take point once we’re outside,” said Eric. “Jane, you follow me. Travis, bring the crew out next, and Marco, keep them off our six. Low and tight, everyone. There’s a line of cars to the left, around the corner of the building. That’s where we’re going. We get a reasonable distance out, Mac, you fall back, and Marco, take to the roof.”
“Got it.” Travis hauled the duffel Jane hadn’t even noticed him bringing into the room close to them and then, with a curt order to stay covered, pulled out an axe and began hacking a hole in the wall next to the bed. In no time, he’d cut a small crawlway into the next room. Helene’s eyes went wide when the axe head slammed through the cheap wallboard. “That’s why you don’t stay in fancy places when you’re gonna have to go for the quick out,” Travis teased. “They have things like firewalls and insulation.” He went through and held out a hand. “C’mon, let’s g
o.”
Helene and Fritz went first, followed by Mac. Jane was halfway through the hole, her head in the second room, when she heard another enormous explosion.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said Eric behind her. “Go!”
Jane squeezed through, tearing open the scabs over the wounds on her feet in the process. Eric followed immediately.
“Marco’s already out and on the roof for cover,” Mac said. “Let’s hope they don’t notice us. Bathroom window?”
“On it,” said Travis, swinging the axe as he ran for the bathroom. Helene and Fritz followed, but Eric swung Jane up into his arms when she tried to stand.
“What was that?”
“Second grenade. We thought you were through already. I’m sorry, Janie. I’ll get you out of this, I swear.”
“I know you will.” She meant every word. Eric would get her out or die trying.
“I swear.”
“No, really, I know it.” And he deserved to know why. “I love you.”
• • •
THE WORDS HIT him in the solar plexus. Would she never stop surprising him?
“Helluva time to tell me.” He took a deep breath and pressed a kiss to her lips. “But in case you hadn’t figured it out, I love you, too. And if you try to tell me it’s not logical, I’ll tell you it’s a whole hell of a lot more logical than you even noticing me.”
“No—”
Gunfire from the next room stopped her from speaking. “We are not having this argument right now,” Eric said, but he could feel a laugh bubbling up despite the danger. Inside the bathroom, Travis had hacked the window frame out and enlarged the space. A steady stream of gunfire sounded all around them—Mac and Marco at work, keeping their enemies busy.
Travis went through the hole first. Then Helene lifted Fritz out to him, and she herself followed.
Eric boosted Jane to the window, and she crawled through. On the other side, Travis helped her down and she knelt in the dirt. Why did she always end up barefoot at the worst times? Eric dropped to
the ground beside her, lifted her into his arms again, and jerked his head at Travis. The small group ran as quietly as possible along the side of the building toward the front, and the parking lot.
Mind Games Page 26