The Darkest Corner

by Liliana Hart

He licked his lips once before speaking. “Je besoin de medicaments,” he said in his native tongue, asking for painkillers.

  “Pussy,” said Elias. “Put a stick between your teeth like a real man.”

  Tess could see the worry in the other men’s faces, but she thought Colin’s lips twitched at the comment.

  “There’s a syringe of propofol in the cabinet,” she said. “There’s a good stock of drugs. Someone shoot him up.”

  “Je t’aime,” Colin said.

  “Hey now,” Deacon said, injecting the propofol. “Don’t poach.”

  “I’m not a damned rabbit,” Tess said.

  “No, you’re an enchantress who bewitched me. But you’re mine,” Deacon whispered against her ear, then checked Colin’s pulse. Colin’s eyes closed almost immediately and his breathing was steady.

  “He’s out,” she said. “Let’s do this.”

  She hunted for the vein in his other arm to start the blood transfusion, and once she was finished she stood over the wicked-looking knife sticking out of his leg. Her hands wanted to shake, but she wouldn’t let them. Once she took the knife out, things would have to happen very quickly.

  “On three,” she said. “One, two, three.” She pulled the knife free and bandages were put in her hand to press against the wound. They were soaked through before she could grab her scalpel to cut him open.

  “Keep them changed out and keep pressing down,” she ordered Deacon. He grabbed a new set of bandages and took her place compressing the wound. She made a long, quick slice with the scalpel and went hunting for the femoral artery that had retracted into the upper thigh.

  She found it with little hassle. Deacon exchanged bandages again, and Axel exchanged the empty pint of blood for a new one, and she very carefully inserted the thin tube of the catheter into the artery, clamping it off for the time being. She wasn’t sure how far down the artery had retracted into the lower part of the leg, so she made a cut in his calf a couple of inches down from the knee.

  She winced when she saw that it had traveled down a little farther, and she increased the size of the incision and dug around for the other end. Once she had it she connected the two ends of the catheter, and then she released the clamp.

  Blood filled the tube and began to flow, and tiny black spots danced in front of her eyes as she let out a shaky breath.

  “We’ve got six pints of blood left to get us to shore,” Axel said. “Well done, mate,” he said to Tess appreciatively.

  Tess tried to respond, but found that her mouth had gone completely dry. She was covered in blood, and she looked down at her hands as if they belonged to a stranger. She looked at the incisions and the crude rig she’d made of Colin’s leg. It was a messy job, but he was alive. Deacon had the forethought to clean him up a bit and give him a new compress at each incision. The blood was much slower to seep through.

  “I’ll take watch and call you if something happens,” Elias said. “You look like you could use a stiff drink and a week’s worth of sleep.”

  “And a shower,” she said. “That’s a must. I don’t know how y’all deal with the constant back-and-forth of an extreme adrenaline rush, to the crash that comes after, and then back again for another rush. I’m exhausted.” And she really was, a sort of bone-deep exhaustion that left her knees shaking and her head aching for a pillow.

  Or for Deacon’s strong warmth.

  “Your body will adjust,” Axel said.

  “And there are ways to ride it out and get your body back on track,” Elias said, smiling.

  “What kind of ways?” she asked.

  Elias and Axel chuckled and Deacon took her by the arm.

  “I feel like I’m missing something, but I’m too tired to care. Show me the nearest shower and a bed.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The living quarters on the submarine were like dorm rooms. Luxurious dorm rooms. She guessed that was the difference between being funded by the government and funded from an off-the-books account.

  She’d staked out the rooms earlier when she and Dante first boarded the submarine. She’d been looking for a place she could crash for a few hours because Deacon hadn’t let her sleep the night before, but lying in bed had been futile. Her worry for him outweighed her need for sleep.

  Most of the rooms shared a bathroom and had single beds, but she’d found a larger room at the end of the hallway with a double bed and a private bathroom. It also had a sitting area and a desk.

  “I, uh . . .” she said, the adrenaline crash making her brain slow. “I picked this room.”

  She opened the door for him and he looked around. The strain and exhaustion was evident in his own expression, but she could practically feel the energy pouring from his body.

  “Good choice,” he said. “Captain’s quarters.”

  He pushed open the door, never letting go of her hand, and then the moment it closed behind them he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her—hard. The minute his mouth touched hers, the exhaustion slipped away and was replaced with a need so fierce it took her breath away. She responded to him eagerly, his kiss seeming to replenish her strength as he probed and prodded with his tongue.

  “That was the most incredible, terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced in my whole life,” she breathed out when she broke away from him. “Any step of the way, one of you could’ve died. And all I could do was sit there and watch. And do nothing.”

  She bit his earlobe and he groaned. And then she tugged at the Velcro fastenings of his flight suit to the zipper beneath. Her fingers found the zipper and she pulled it down slowly, revealing the wetsuit underneath.

  “I didn’t realize getting you naked was going to be such a challenge,” she observed.

  “You’re doing a good job. Don’t be intimidated.” He bent down to untie his boots and pull them off, and then he shrugged out of the flight suit so all he had on was the wetsuit.

  It hugged him like a glove—everywhere. “That looks uncomfortable,” she said, nodding to his obvious erection.

  He barked out a laugh and turned around so she could pull down his zipper. “It’s about to get a whole lot better. I need a shower. And I’m probably going to need help scrubbing my back.”

  “And your front too, I hope.”

  He peeled the neoprene suit from his arms and shoulders and let it hang at his waist. “You’re falling behind,” he said, pushing her toward the bathroom.

  “Right,” she said, breathless. “It’s just that once you start taking your clothes off it’s hard to think about anything else. Your body makes me crazy. I’ve never been lust crazy before, but when I see you naked I pretty much want to throw you on the ground like a she-wolf and have my way with you.”

  She kicked off her boots and yanked her shirt over her head.

  “Here, let me help you with that,” he said, unclasping her bra with a flick of two fingers.

  “You’re very talented,” she said.

  “I’ll admit I’ve had some practice.”

  “Thank God,” she panted.

  Deacon was already completely naked by the time she got her clothes off, nudging her from behind. His hands came around her, cupping her breasts, and she pressed back against him, feeling his erection hard in the crease between her buttocks.

  “Turn on the water before I forget and take you right here,” he growled against her neck.

  “That’s not really a threat,” she said, grasping for the handle of the shower.

  The spray came on full blast, and she turned it to hot, until steam filled the small bathroom. The shower was larger than the others, but not by much. He reached around her to slide open the glass door and then nudged her inside.

  The hot water felt amazing against her chilled skin, but she realized very quickly heat wasn’t going to be a problem. She felt wild and wicked, the adrenaline from the past few hours making her feel recklessly alive, and before he could take control again she put her hand flat on his abs and pushed him back against the wa
ll. And then she knelt in front of him.

  “Tess,” he groaned.

  Her hands curled into the thick muscles of his thighs, and she stared up at him, his heavy shaft right in front of her face. She’d never actually done this before. But she’d read about it. And she suddenly found herself ravenous for the taste of him.

  Her tongue peeked out, tasting the salty liquid at the tip, and his cock jerked in response.

  “Mmm,” she moaned. There was power here. And she liked it.

  Her mouth surrounded him, and she felt the tension in her jaw as she widened her mouth to adjust to his size. She explored and tasted, and then she swallowed him deep, going as far down as she could before she had to come back up for air.

  She looked up at him out of half-closed lids. One of his hands gripped the top of the shower door and the other was flat on the wall. His head was thrown back and his breath heaving in and out of his chest.

  “Tess,” he managed again, his voice coming out mangled and broken.

  She wrapped her hand around the base of him and stroked as she sucked. She curled her tongue around the flared head every time she pulled back, and it seemed to drive him crazy, so she did it over and over again.

  “So good,” he moaned.

  He grew harder and seemed to swell in her mouth, and she felt the tug of his hands in her hair as he pulled her back. She moaned in protest, but he lifted her to her feet.

  “I need to be inside you when I come,” he said, taking her mouth in a blistering kiss and pressing her against the wall.

  She felt his hand slide between her thighs, his fingers stroking and probing as he made sure she was ready for him.

  “So wet,” he murmured against her neck. “So hot.”

  His hands clenched into her buttocks and he lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and her breath caught as she felt the bulbous head of his cock probing against her. There was no condom this time, and the knowledge passed between them as he looked deep into her eyes.

  “I’m on the pill,” she told him, her nails digging half-moons into his shoulders as he pushed in a little more. He was stretching her completely. And the feel of him, without the layer of latex between them, made her wild with need.

  “I’m going to fill you,” he whispered. “Every inch of you.”

  And then he slid the rest of the way inside of her and her breath caught on a scream. Her head fell back and stars exploded behind her closed eyelids. Her body convulsed out of her control. The orgasm pulsed deep in her womb and spread through her entire body. It was an out-of-body experience and all she could do was hold on.

  She vaguely heard his shout and felt the pulsing release of him as he filled her completely, just like he had promised. And then she dropped her head on his shoulder and let the darkness take her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Three weeks later, The Gravediggers were back in Last Stop and Sergey Egorov and Ivan Levkin were nowhere to be found. The coded messages had stopped, and there was no trace of the false identities they’d taken. The only other useful information Dante had been able to extract from the code was the month of September and several references to the Day of Destiny.

  It would be in September. He could feel it in his gut. And their time was running out.

  Colin was still in the hospital, but he was alive. An emergency team had been waiting for them when they’d returned to Alaska, and he’d been loaded up and flown off without a word. Eve had relayed in a briefing a week later that he could no longer fulfill the role of an active agent, and that he’d be reassigned to fulfill his contract. Deacon had no idea if he’d ever see Colin again or what Eve’s plans were for him. That was the problem with Eve. No one knew. And her word was law.

  Life had returned to somewhat normal since they’d come back to Last Stop. There’d been two funerals the month of August, and it had mostly kept Tess preoccupied. She’d changed since their mission—it was impossible not to—and he noticed she watched things differently now. There was no longer the small-town naïveté.

  Miller hadn’t noticed Tess’s brief absence from the funeral home since she’d been holed up in her house on a deadline, but the rest of the town noticed. By the time they returned home, her voicemail was full and there were notes stuck to the door asking if everything was all right. They’d barely been gone three days.

  Tess had also returned home to find that her mother had come back, without Carl, and she’d opened the salon as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Theodora had brought Tess back a snow globe from the casino and given her a sweet hug before flitting away to do whatever Theodora spent her time doing.

  Tess had become more comfortable moving in and out of the carriage house, though one of them still had to let her into the restricted areas, and she couldn’t be left alone in classified areas. But she’d not slept a night out of Deacon’s bed. Though some of that had to do with the fact that her suite was a construction zone.

  Eve had been pleased with Tess’s translations—as much as Eve was pleased by anyone, and because there were so many issues with the Russian Mafiya in power at the moment, she’d had her listening to recordings from surveillance equipment and translating them.

  Deacon had given Tess a watch like the one he and the others wore, and explained that if she was ever in distress all she had to do was press the little button on the side and they’d all be alerted. Once she pushed the button, in case she was injured the watch would automatically begin to take her vitals and relay the information.

  When her workday was through at the funeral home, she’d sit at one of the corner workstations at HQ for hours, headphones over her ears, typing furiously.

  Deacon looked over from his own work area in time to see her stretch and take the headphones off. She stood and did a couple of yoga poses, as she did every hour or so, and it never failed to make his mouth water and his body ache for her.

  She caught his stare and smiled, a secretive, Mona Lisa smile that made him wish they could escape upstairs. He wanted her alone. He just wanted her. Period. She was still dressed in her work clothes of black leggings and green blouse that made her eyes seem even more vibrant than usual. The weather was still miserably hot in early September, and the air conditioner was cranked high. She had her hair piled high on her head, and little tendrils had escaped at the nape of her neck.

  She came toward him and he squeezed her hand, just a simple touch, but he’d come to treasure those small moments of connection between them.

  “Any news?” she asked.

  “Egorov and Levkin are here in the United States somewhere,” he said, getting to his feet.

  He was frustrated. They all were. Because it felt like the enemy was just within their grasp.

  “They’re together,” he said. “Which is why there’s been silence. They don’t need to communicate through code any longer. They’re talking directly to each other. But where the hell are they?”

  He could feel the countdown looming closer, and the frustration of knowing they were skirting the edges but hadn’t found what they were looking for was weighing on him heavily. The others stopped to look at him.

  “They’ve put too much time and money into trying to direct all traffic into Texas,” he insisted. “It’s going to be here. My gut says it’s here.”

  “Your gut is good enough for me, mate,” Axel said.

  Deacon appreciated the vote of confidence. “Pull up every major event in the city for the next few weeks,” he told Axel. “Events where attendance numbers are in the thousands—concerts, sporting events, amusement parks, festivals.

  “Dante, I want you to search satellite imagery. Let’s see if we can locate a few potential hot spots. We’ll be looking for locations with warehouses. Once they’ve delivered the XTNC-50, they’ll need room to equip it to whatever detonation device they’re using. They’ll want plenty of space. The more remote they are from civilization, the better. Use thermal imaging and satellite to watch traffic patterns. There’s going
to be a lot of in-and-out activity.”

  “If Egorov and Levkin are both here already,” Axel said, “we should assume that they were able to bring in smaller quantities with them as backup. But they’ll need the larger shipment to carry out plans of that large of a scale. They have an unending supply, as XTNC-50 was created by Russian scientists. We just need to figure out how it’s crossing our borders.”

  “There are only so many modes of transportation,” Elias offered. “Land, air, sea, and train. They’ve failed at land and sea. I’ll cross-reference all the flight plans that have come through in the last few months and see if anything pops.”

  “How do we know they didn’t succeed in getting it in before they bombed the stadium at the College World Series?” Tess asked.

  “They don’t have enough for an attack the size and scale they’re hoping for,” Deacon told her. “If they did, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to bring more in. There’s no doubt they have some in their supply. But the Day of Destiny is an attack nationwide. They need enough product to spread to multiple states and venues. They need a coordinated team.”

  They worked tirelessly for hours, sifting through mountains of data, and eliminating locations where Egorov and Levkin might be planning their master attack. It was some time after midnight when Eve Winter’s face appeared on the screen.

  “Status update,” she said, her gaze zeroing in on Deacon.

  “Still looking,” he said. “We’ve narrowed it to three locations.”

  “Narrow it faster,” she said shortly. “There’s a United Nations summit scheduled for this weekend. We’ve just received intel that Putin plans to cancel his appearance, and that he’s not sending any high-ranking government officials in his place. They’re steering clear of the U.S.”

  “Not a good sign,” Deacon murmured.

  “Exactly. Focus on Egorov. Levkin is nothing more than a lackey. He’ll be the sacrificial lamb. I doubt Egorov lets him live to see their plans come to fruition. Egorov isn’t the kind of man who’d want to share the spotlight. If calculations are right, you have less than a week to hunt them down. I don’t have to tell you what is at stake.”