by Misty Evans
Because they both knew he’d give her any damn thing she wanted, any time she wanted it.
Even in the midst of a tornado.
She was insane. So was he. Put the two of them together and boom. Fireworks, explosions, shitass craziness of every kind.
He couldn’t say no to her. She lit the fire in him in a way no one else ever had, ever would. He needed her brand of drug in his veins. Needed her in ways he’d never imagined.
Now she lay under him, panting, completely undone as an ungodly screech rent the air. Jax jerked a look back over his shoulder and saw the right front corner of the roof split. Half a second later, it was clawed away by the storm.
The number and intensity of curse words that fell from his lips were lost in the midst of rain and debris that came through the open roof as he lifted Ruby up and tucked her into a ball farther under the bagging machine. His body instinctively wrapped around hers.
Rudely ripped from her post-orgasmic haze, she protested, but her objections were cut short as she realized what was happening and how truly fucked they both were.
She shouted something, her mouth working, and he could actually see her face since they had a new source of light. The words, however, were sucked away on the wind, her hair blowing around her face. He brought his hand to the back of her head, and motioned for her to duck as he pressed her head down, leaning over her.
He didn’t think the roar of the wind could get worse, yet it did. Even as covered as he was, rain and other things pelted into his back. He prayed to whatever god there might be that the hand tools that had been laying on the shelves didn’t rap him on their way by.
From the next harsh, piercing noise behind him, he guessed another piece of the roof went bye-bye. Within seconds, his backside was completely soaked and he felt a shift in the air around him. The air was pressing on him, and then, suddenly, it wasn’t.
Instead, it reversed and he felt a sucking sensation in his lungs, his gut. If there was a god, he was reaching down, about to grab Jax right out from under this machine.
Shit. Better hold on.
Yanking his belt off, he tied it around the end of the machine and then around Ruby’s wrist. “Hold on!” he yelled into her ear as the sucking sensation gripped hold of him and started to pull him out from under his hidey hole.
Quick as the lightning flashing overhead, he wrapped one arm around the machine leg and his other around Ruby.
Her arms went around his neck, her legs around his waist. The added weight grounded him and he would have breathed a sigh of relief if he’d actually been able to breathe at all.
Because that hand of God was sucking every last bit of air from the place.
A piece of wall broke free and went flying off into the abyss outside. Then another. The bagging machine trembled, its legs scooting a couple of centimeters to the right.
Don’t you dare, you piece of shit.
It trembled harder. Ruby tightened her grip on him even more. Jax clenched his teeth and held on for all he was worth.
Next thing he knew, the hand of God finally caught up with him. His ass lifted off the ground.
Airborne. Even with Ruby sitting in his lap.
If she hadn’t been wrapped around him, she would have fallen flat on the ground, then been swept up by the wind. As it was, she clung to him and he clung to the machine and they seemed to float there for a moment.
A long, agonizing moment, where her hair wrapped around his face, covering his eyes and his muscles strained beyond their edge, his heart nearly exploded from fear.
Don’t let Ruby die.
Don’t let Ruby die.
The refrain echoed over and over in his brain. His lungs cried out for oxygen. His body tried to find the ground.
Stupid goddamn idiot!
Why hadn’t he paid attention to the weather report? The impending storm? The fact that when they’d heard the siren go off, he hadn’t taken it more seriously and gotten both of them the hell out of there?
But where would they have gone? Cornfields weren’t known for their storm cellars.
Ruby’s cheek grazed his and something inside him calmed. His heart was still flipping out, his brain still beating him to a pulp for his foolishness, and yet…his body shifted to a different state as he felt her grounding him, even in the midst of near death.
A piece of her hair fell from his eyes and he fought the force of the wind to shift his head enough he could see her. She was looking up, up into the storm threatening to end them as they continued to be lifted off the floor.
And there it was. That thing he loved about her. Fearlessness, ballsiness, courage.
Her eyes were wide open, cheeks rosy. There was no alarm in her features, but more of a reverence. As if God were truly there, looking down on them, and she was standing in awe of His power.
In the face of death, she looked…peaceful.
That’s when he knew. If he died today, right here with her wrapped in his arms, he’d be at peace too.
It was a blissful thought for a moment. Then his survival instincts—good guys that they were—kicked in hard. No way, no how, were the two of them dying here today.
Using all his might, he cranked the arm holding Ruby around, twisting, twisting, twisting until…
Yes! He grabbed the machine leg with that hand. Two points of contact, and a whole lot more leverage, might just be the ticket to their survival.
The sucky part was, he couldn’t hold onto Ruby and the machine leg at the same time. He had to rely on her. She had to keep her body clinging to his in order to keep her safe.
The sensation was akin to skydiving with a partner. He’d done tandem jumping a time or two, never much cared for it.
Until now.
“Don’t let go!” he yelled and saw her head nod.
Inch by inch, he crawled his hand down the machine leg, the machine itself still scooting across the floor ever so slowly as the suction worked it over.
As long as it didn’t lift off, they could ride this out.
That was when he felt the machine shudder, the leg he was hanging onto suddenly hovering above the ground.
Chapter Eleven
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A GHOST WAS chasing him.
Elliot came to in the middle of a cornfield, rain pouring down, and a crushing pain in his thigh.
Above him, angry clouds swirled, lightning flashed. The wind was insane. Raising his head and blinking through the sharp wind, he saw green weeds twining their leggy bodies around dead corn stalks left over from the previous fall. The field he was lying in was fallow and unplanted.
Dead. Abandoned.
Like me.
His head pounded, the cold rain shocking against the heat of his brow. Shirt plastered to his chest, he felt for his weapon and found it missing.
How did I end up here?
He’d been at the old feed mill, questioning Nelson, hiding him. He thought they’d escaped, that they were free from the tail he’d had since the police station.
Convincing Nelson he couldn’t go back to Chicago had stretched his already thin patience to the breaking point. The stupid gang banger didn’t understand. The man hunting both of them wouldn’t stop until he had what he wanted—Elliot’s head on a platter.
Elliot had given Nelson one of the phones from Ruby’s go-bag and explained their options. There was no going back to Chicago. Not until the ghost was dealt with, maybe not even then.
The man who wanted Ruby would keep sending his minions.
Leaving Nelson to stew, Elliot had gone in search of food and water. Even in the middle of nowhere, he couldn’t exactly walk into a gas station and grab supplies without fear of being recognized. His last disguise as a Homeland official was too out of the ordinary in a small farming community.
The mill’s office had provided a pair of overalls and a new hat. Elliot liked the overalls—they were loose and provided plen
ty of pockets for his weapon, the phones, and the cash Ruby had given him. The hat—well, he knew nothing about fertilizer companies, but like the overalls, the dusty, worn, ball cap advertising Dow would allow him to keep his face partially hidden and keep him from attracting notice if he was lucky.
It was still impossible to be inconspicuous in a small town where everyone knew everyone. A place where no one was in a hurry and everyone wanted to chat.
Sure enough, when he’d hit the local gas station and grabbed some water and two sandwiches, the first thing the clerk did was ask him if he was from around there.
Elliot had been quick on his feet like always, pulling his rain drenched hat farther down on his face. “Nah, just passin’ through,” he’d told the old geezer. “On my way to the city.”
A siren had gone off in the far distance, followed by another. “You might want to find you a place to hunker down,” the clerk had said. “Find you” had sounded like fine-jew. “Nasty weather headed our way.”
Elliot had thanked him and hustled out, pretending to be worried about the approaching storm, rather than the man hunting him down.
The ghost had been close on his heels. By the time Elliot had gotten back to the abandoned mill, he’d already been there.
Sirens were once again going off, the long wails making him think of demons in hell, keening for his soul. Pushing himself to a seated position, Elliot wiped water from his eyes and saw a nasty, swirling mass far away in the distance.
Ah, hell.
The tip of the fat tornado raced along the ground, sending detritus into the air in all directions. Even this far away, Elliot felt the energy crackling and hissing along the ground, in the air.
His vision was slightly off from one too many blows to his head from the ghost, so he squinted to try to clear it. Realized what he was seeing. Where the tornado actually was, the path of destruction it was taking.
The mill.
Only a few minutes ago—or had it been longer?—he’d run away from the mill. Images of Nelson’s tortured body flashed through his mind. All that blood…the man’s screams…
Had Nelson told him? Told the man about Elliot? About Ruby?
No way to know. His brain couldn’t remember exactly what had happened.
Didn’t matter. He had to go back.
Because if by some chance, Nelson was still alive…
Ruby.
The ghost was here for her.
Ignoring the righteous pain in his leg, Elliot forced himself to his feet and started running.
He took two steps and fell flat on his face, one foot twisting around a broken corn stalk. As hail began to pelt him, he lost consciousness.
RUBY’S BODY FELT like it might implode one vertebrae, one organ at a time.
One second, she was holding onto Jax for dear life as the heavy machine he’d tied them to began to come off the ground.
The next second, the severe wind died with no warning, sending them and the machine back to the ground with a hard thump.
Her back hit first, then her head. Jax came down on top of her, a dead weight knocking the air from her lungs and crushing her into the concrete floor.
An “ooof” left her mouth and she realized she could actually hear herself. The horrible wind tunnel they’d been in was gone. The only sound meeting her ears now was the soft fall of rain pinging on the machines, the shelves, the floor.
Jax lay for a moment on top of her, his eyes closed, his mouth sucking in oxygen. His hair was matted, water rivulets running down his forehead, his jaw.
His eyelids flipped open and he zeroed in on her face. “You all right?”
His voice was gravelly and rough. Probably from the amount of dirt and rubbish he’d ingested. God knew, she’d eaten a bit of that herself.
“I can’t…breathe…” she choked out.
“Jesus, sorry.” The startled look on his face made her smile as he jerked himself up off of her, his one hand releasing its grip on the machine leg somewhat reluctantly. “My arm is asleep.”
She laughed, a bubble of hysteria riding just under her breastbone. “I can’t believe we’re alive.”
He chuckled too, leaning on one elbow, his long legs stretched out beside her. “I’ve saved quite a few people in my time—bullets flying, dark of night, never knowing where the next bad guy is hiding—but never like this. This is one for the books.”
She had to agree. Reaching up, she brushed a piece of straw off his face. “Thank you.”
He shot her a knowing glance, followed by a smirk. “For saving your ass or giving you the best orgasm of your life?”
She buttoned her pants, then struggled to sit up. Her hair hung in wet strands and she ran a hand through it, her fingers getting caught in multiple tangles. The hysteria filling her chest subsided a bit. Her brain came fully online. “It was good, but I wouldn’t qualify it as the best orgasm of my life.”
He sat up next to her, helping her with the tangles. His fingers did more damage than good, but it felt nice to have him close. “Is that so? I barely touched you and you exploded.”
Oh, my God. Were they really arguing about the significance of her orgasm right now? “I’ll grant you that I won’t soon forget it under the circumstances, but really, it wasn’t the best of my life.”
The best had been in Marrakech. When he was inside her and had made her come multiple times in the span of a minute.
Yeah, that was the best.
Of course, she’d been easy then too. He’d been flirting with her, staring at her, touching her here and there the whole trip into Morocco. It had been like extended foreplay, the way he knew exactly how to make her blush, challenge her, make her feel sexier than she’d ever felt before.
When she’d finally given in and kissed him, their first lovemaking had turned into a fast, furious pounding against the wall of her hotel room. What had followed had been hours and hours of the best sex she’d ever had.
His finger and thumb cupped her chin, turning her head so they were eye-to-eye. “Maybe the best is yet to come.”
She really shouldn’t lead him on. What she’d felt for him during the storm was the tip of the iceberg. If she let her feelings run wide open, they’d both careen over the cliff and blow their careers—as well as their hearts—to oblivion.
But, sweet Jesus, it just might be worth it.
It was wrong, but she grinned through the rain running down her face. “Maybe.”
The hope she shouldn’t have given him was evident on his face. It promised her a future filled with hot, head-banging sex.
The anticipation was almost as good as the actual sex act.
Almost.
He helped her up and they surveyed the damage. In the distance they heard the rumble of thunder, much less menacing than before. Ruby did her best to smooth her hair back from her face, but it was pointless. It would take her hours to get the disaster under control. Her gun was missing and a quick sweep of the area revealed the Sig was gone.
Damn, and that was her favorite handgun.
She pointed upward to the loft. Half of it was gone, along with the stairs that had led up to it. “Think the body is still there?”
Jax, standing over at the hole left by the tornado, stared outside at the spot where she’d parked the rental. “Nope.”
Ruby huffed out a sigh and went to look at what he was staring at.
The breeze rattled the lone wall panel still intact and she inched her way past it, worried it might let loose of its tenuous hold at any moment. Through part of the opening, she saw the oak tree had indeed split in half, a massive piece of trunk and a scattering of branches visible on the ground just beyond the building.
She stopped next to Jax and peered out.
Her body recoiled. Augustus Nelson lay sprawled, his limbs torqued at unnatural angles, across her rental car.
Which was on its side, glass and car parts scattered around it as if a giant having a tantrum had picked it up and smashed it against the ground.<
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“So much for having Emit make an anonymous phone call.”
“Yeah,” Jax said, hands on hips as he glanced at the horizon. “I think we’re in for another long night.”
“Well, if I hadn’t already ruined my last chance at getting my old job back, this would have done it anyway.”
“We couldn’t have called it in, Ruby. We had no service.” Jax drew out his cell phone. The case had a crack in it and it was drenched, but still seemed to work. “I’ve got one bar.”
Better than nothing. She slipped a hand into his, lacing her fingers between his bigger ones. “Guess we better alert the authorities.”
He tugged her close and her body bumped against his. “Emit first. He can smooth things over with the local PD.”
He made the call while Ruby stared at Augustus, his cuts and bruises now on full display.
There’s no way Elliot would have done that to a person. Not even someone he hated.
A flash of something in the branches of the part of the oak that was still standing caught her eye. Her mind whirled with the possibilities as her go-bag, the fabric rent and stuck on a dead branch, fluttered in the breeze.
Chapter Twelve
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“THEY WH…WHAT?” Beatrice sputtered into her office phone.
“Don’t freak, B,” Emit said through the speaker. “Both of them are okay. The tornado got close, but they rode it out. Under some machine from what I understand. Jax’s arm is a little screwed up from holding onto the thing, but he claims it’s minor.”
Good thing her office chair was behind her with Trace standing nearby on alert because her legs turned to Jell-O at the thought of Jaxon and Agent McKellen riding out a tornado hanging onto some feed mill machine. Trace, thank goodness for his superhuman reflexes, got the chair under her before she fell to the floor.
No wonder Jax hadn’t returned her phone calls. “Jax would say he was fine even if he was bleeding out. I want them transported to the emergency room, asap.”