“Family can suck you in until there’s nothing left.” He knew all about that.
“That’s the God’s truth.” Mori relaxed a fraction, so Kell kept talking.
“I was an only child, and my parents transferred all their hopes and wishes on to me, every damn thing they ever wanted but didn’t get. You know, to become the scholarship football player that my dad wasn’t quite good enough to be. To get into the college my mom couldn’t afford. To settle down in Jeanerette after school, maybe start a business, meet a nice local girl, produce the grandkids my mom wanted.”
Mori’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “And if you became what they wanted, everything that made you into you would wither and die.”
“I couldn’t do it.” His mind conjured visions of his mom’s tear-streaked face, his dad’s struggle between pride and disappointment, when he’d sat at the dining table and told them he’d enlisted. “I couldn’t be what they wanted.”
“How did you escape? You ran away from home and joined the Army?” Mori’s voice had grown stronger. Maybe if he kept spilling his guts on the living room floor, she’d follow suit eventually.
“That’s exactly what I did. Went through combat training at Fort Polk in Louisiana, then Ranger School at Fort Benning in Georgia. I couldn’t get shipped out fast enough.” His mom’s face came to him again. She’d been convinced he’d be killed. And was so disappointed every time he finished a tour and went right back in at the first opportunity. “I hoped eventually they’d be proud that I took my own path, but I don’t think they ever were.”
They loved him. They feared for his safety. But they never understood why their vision for his life wasn’t enough for him. Maybe if they’d lived longer. Maybe.
“Some family stuff you can’t run away from,” Mori said. “I’ve never pleased my parents, and it’s come to the point where I have to take a stand or give in to what they want for me.” She closed her eyes. “I’m so tired of fighting.”
Kell hadn’t planned to do it, but his arm seemed to move of its own accord, slipping around her shoulders and pulling her against him. She winced a little but didn’t pull away, just lay her head on his shoulder. He lowered his chin to rest it on her head and took in the soft brush of her hair against his jaw, her scent of ocean breezes and sunlight and outdoors that surrounded him with warmth.
“Mori, let me help. I know you don’t know me from shit, but I can at least listen. It might help to open up. I…” He bit his tongue before I care about you came out. “I’m a good listener, for a guy.”
She sat up and turned toward him again, her expression more vulnerable than he’d expected. Her guard had dropped, and he saw strength in the line of her lips, intelligence and despair and longing swirling in a storm behind her eyes. “I can’t put you in danger, Kell. I won’t. You’re the kindest, most honest man I’ve ever met, and in another time or place — or lifetime — I’d want to be with you. But you can’t be around me now. You can’t get involved in my chaos.”
He hadn’t been honest with her at all, and the fact that she saw him that way sent a ripple of guilt through him. But the bottom line was this: she wanted to be with him.
Kell shifted until they faced each other, and reached out to smooth a strand of hair from her cheek. She stilled when he touched her, and the moment seemed to pause and hold its breath. He leaned forward slowly, touching his lips to hers, tasting her sweet warmth, feeling the pressure of her mouth as she returned the kiss.
Shit. This might feel right, but it wasn’t. He wasn’t who she thought he was, and the colonel be damned. He wouldn’t make love to this beautiful, damaged woman when she didn’t even know his real name.
But she reached up with both hands, slid them around his neck, and pulled him back to her. “God help us both, Kell, but I want you.”
CHAPTER 10
Kell’s lips were soft and hesitant at first, but as Mori leaned into the kiss and opened her mouth to his, he responded with a fierce hunger.
She pushed the fear and doubt away. Kell had already been here long enough that if Michael’s people were watching, they’d have seen him. She had about twenty hours left before she had to relent to Michael and her family. She’d have to marry him, would have to bear the children who could save their species and hope at least one was a girl. If not, she’d only prolong their existence another generation.
The other option — killing herself — had lost its bite. She had no doubt that if she died at her own hand, Michael would seek revenge against her family. He’d carry through with his threats to New Orleans. He’d go after Kell, whose only crime was being kind. His kindness had been an unexpected gift.
All of those bad things would happen if she killed herself or ran away. If she gave Michael what he wanted — her body, her womb — she might be able to prevent the rest.
If she had twenty hours before giving herself to Michael, she wanted one memory of making love to a man who wanted her, without strings or conditions.
“We shouldn’t—” Kell’s protest drowned in her kiss, but the hunger with which he claimed her mouth told her exactly what she needed to know.
“We should. Just don’t freak out over my arm, OK? It looks worse than it is.” Wrapping her fingertips around the hem of her shirt, she pulled it over her head, watching Kell’s face. Those beautiful eyes were glazed like those of a man slipping into serious lust mode, devouring her breasts with a look that made her tingle. Finally, he wrenched his gaze to her right arm.
On the skin between her elbow and shoulder, there bloomed a hellish black sunflower from where she’d hit the coffee table in Michael’s office. By tomorrow, it would be well on its way to healing, but tonight, it looked nasty and hurt with a dull ache.
No glaze in those eyes now. Kell had gone from lust to possessiveness, from lover to soldier. “Tell me who he is, Mori. I swear I’ll make him regret this.”
God, if that were only possible. But no matter how good a warrior Kell was, how strong a fighter, how impassioned his determination, he was no match for Michael Benedict. For any of her kind.
“We’ll talk later. Not now.” She reached out and untucked the hem of his black T-shirt, pushing it up until he finally wrangled out of it himself. He was as beautiful as she’d expected, all hard, smooth muscle and tanned skin.
She slipped a hand to the button of his jeans, and he groaned as she slid her fingers down to cup him.
His breath hitched. “Aw, fuck.” He stood up, peeled off the jeans — and oh yeah, he was hard and ready.
“Come here.” Kell’s voice rasped, lower than normal. Totally sexy. He could make her forget Michael and all his evil crap for a while. One last piece of happiness.
She made a slow show of unzipping her shorts, sliding them down her hips, and letting them fall to the floor before stepping out of them.
He slid his hand to her back, pulling her against him, and slanted his mouth over hers, taking charge, no longer hesitant. She relaxed against him, aware of every place their bodies melded, his hard bulge pressing against the sensitive juncture of her thighs.
Kell was the perfect height for her, and as if reading her thoughts, he backed her against the wall with enough force to jar the picture frame beside them, slid his hands inside her panties, and pulled her hips against his. He rocked in rhythm with the insistent assault of his tongue against hers, and a moan slid from her throat before she knew it was there.
His chest rose and fell with restrained energy as he stepped back a fraction, sliding his hands around her hips and up to palm her breasts, tasting each one, biting just enough to make her catch her breath and arch into him for more.
“Are you sure about this?” He kissed her swollen jaw gently, but of course, with every minute that passed it hurt less, for reasons he couldn’t understand and could never know.
“I’m more sure than you know.” She thought of another mood-killer. “I’m on the pill and I’m clean, but if you’d feel better with a condom, I’m
afraid I don’t have any.”
He looked around the room and stared at his clothes, probably wondering if he should go and buy some protection. Mori wished she could tell him it was impossible for them to pass diseases between them, but she couldn’t.
“Hell. I want to feel you.” He pinned her again, but she wriggled away from him, pulling him toward her bedroom. A place Michael had never set foot. A space that belonged to no one but her.
They ditched the underwear and looked at each for a moment. He was long and ready, and she needed to fill herself with him. Taking his hand, she backed toward the bed and slid to the middle, pulling him with her.
He blinked a couple of times as he hit the mattress. She’d forgotten that he had an injury. “It’s your back, isn’t it?”
He rolled to his side to face her. “What gave it away?”
She smiled and ran a hand along his cheek. “Sometimes when you stand up, you seem a little stiff, like you have to work off some pain. Is there anything that can be done for it?”
He’d been working his fingers down her side and between her thighs. “Later. My mouth can’t talk; it has other things it needs to be doing.” He leaned over and sucked one sensitive nipple into his mouth, while his fingers worked their magic inside her. She had to slow him down because when she came, she wanted more than his fingers.
She pulled away. “On your back. Let me take care of you for a change.”
With a low chuckle, Kell rolled onto his back, and she crawled between his legs, taking him in her hand. She grinned and he raised an eyebrow in question — until she lowered her mouth and sucked him in.
“Holy shit.” He supported himself with his elbows and watched her take one long swipe, then suck him in again. “Wait, wait. Damn.”
He slid back and leaned against the headboard, pulling her on top of him. Her fingers etched crescent moons into his shoulders as she eased herself down on him until every inch was inside her. God, he felt so good, like he belonged there.
Their gazes met, and the connection between them took Mori by surprise. Her heart swelled with the joy at having found someone like him, and it swelled in agony that they’d never be together like this again.
Don’t think about tomorrow. Enjoy him now.She set up a slow, steady rhythm, her gaze never leaving his, wanting their connection to include minds and hearts as well as bodies. Kell laced his fingers in her hair and pulled her to him, burying his tongue in her mouth even as he rocked with her, inside her.
She pulled back and rode him until he was thrashing and swearing, the sweat standing out on his face, but then her own sensations took over. Rolling her head back, she closed her eyes and focused on the heat building at her core, ready to explode from the power of his thighs and hips. She gasped at a new sensation and looked down to see Kell propped on one elbow, the other arm stretched out to work her clit between his fingers.
“Come for me, Mori. Let it out.” He pinched his fingers together, and her world exploded in stars and spasms. It was only after she’d collapsed onto his chest, shuddering as he stroked her back, that she realized he’d turned her into one of those women who screamed incoherent noises when she came. She could do a scene in Sleepless in Seattle.
But he was still inside her, still hard, and she wanted him to come as fiercely as she had. She rocked against him, and he groaned. “Your turn.” She nipped at his ear. “Tell me what you need.”
“Just this.” He grinned as he flipped her over and settled between her thighs with a steady, hard rhythm that sent that sweet coil of tension spiraling upward again. She wrapped arms and legs around him, urging him on, and he buried his mouth against her neck, his breath hot and heavy enough to erase the marks left by Michael’s hands.
With a groan, he came, his body straining and then shattering. Mori kept her arms around him, stroking his back, running her fingers through his short, thick hair. She would have liked to stay with him like this forever, feeling safe and satisfied and, for just a few more minutes, happy.
Kell rolled over, pulling her with him and wrapping an arm around her. He didn’t say anything, so she didn’t either. Words would bring back reality, and she wasn’t ready for it.
A dog barked in the living room — except Mori didn’t have a dog. She sat up, confused.
“Shit. It’s my cell phone.” Kell rolled to his feet, but the barking stopped before he got halfway to the door. He looked back at her. “Mori, we need to talk. There are things I need to tell you, because that was amazing and I don’t want secrets between us.”
Damn it. She looked at the floor and nodded. She couldn’t reveal her secrets. Whatever his were, she could guarantee they paled in comparison. “Reality sucks.”
“Yeah, it does. I—” The barking started again, and Kell disappeared into the living room. His side of the conversation was abrupt, consisting of three “yeahs” and an “on my way.”
Mori sighed and padded to the dresser. She pulled out a long T-shirt and slipped it over her head. When Kell reappeared in the bedroom doorway, he’d pulled his jeans back on and was sticking his arms through the sleeves of his T-shirt. “Sorry, a friend’s in trouble. I need to deal with it.”
“It’s OK.” She wrapped her arms around him, and he squeezed her tightly, resting his forehead against hers.
“I don’t want to leave you here alone. Let me take you to a friend’s or to a hotel. Hell, you can come to my place. You need to avoid whoever hurt you, family or not.”
For the first time since she’d left Michael’s office, Mori wanted to cry. The hours of numb shock had finally been eroded by Kell’s gentle concern and his not-so-gentle lovemaking. “No, I’ll be safe here. I’m going to sleep a while and then go into the office in the morning. We still have donors to appease.” At least if she married Michael, she might be able to keep the Co-Op going. There had to be an upside to all of this.
“How about dinner tomorrow night? We do need to talk.” Kell walked into the living room and fished around for a missing shoe, finding it lodged halfway under the sofa.
By tomorrow night, Mori’s life sentence in the Prison of Obligation would have started. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow night.
But she did have tomorrow, one last day of freedom. “What about lunch instead?”
CHAPTER 11
Kell pulled into the covered parking space behind his apartment building and looked up in surprise at being there. He barely remembered leaving Mori’s place and didn’t remember the drive home at all. His body had brought him home on autopilot while his brain wandered in a moral fog.
What the fuck had he just done? Well, the answer was obvious. He’d turned into a fucking idiot, that’s what. Literally. He’d connected emotionally with a woman he was supposed to be investigating. With a woman who thought he was Jack Kelly, unemployed veteran. With a woman who was being abused by some other man who might be using a fake name and misrepresenting himself — just like him.
But he still smelled her, still felt the hot silk of her as she clenched around him, still visualized the look of complete abandon on her face when she came.
He took a deep breath and shook off the Mori afterglow. Nik had been vague on the phone, but insistent. Come home, he’d said. Now. You’ve been compromised.
Kell opened his trunk, unlocked a black leather case next to his big duffel bag, and pulled out his clunky Beretta service pistol. After checking its ammo, he stuck it in his waistband under his shirt and pulled out his baby, an M4 rifle that had seen him through a lot. Hopefully, everyone at his complex was out having social lives and wouldn’t see their rarely there neighbor trotting around and looking for someone to shoot.
A jolt of pain streaked from his back into his hip when he leaned over to get an extra clip for the pistol. Funny how he hadn’t noticed it while he was rolling all over the bed with Mori. Looked like he was going to pay for it now, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to regret what happened. Only that he hadn’t been honest with her first.
Closing the trunk as quietly as possible, he walked through the apartment courtyard. Weird. His apartment window was dark, and he always left a light on for Gator. The last of the evening’s moral quicksand filtered away, and his senses switched to high beam.
Kell stayed in the shadows, skirting the outside of the courtyard, taking the stairs at the far end instead of the elevator nearest his door. Thank God he’d worn his running shoes instead of hard-soled boots. He was able to ease silently around the edges of the balcony, past the stairwell, and within sight of his door.
It was only 10:00 p.m., but the night was still and quiet except for the sound of traffic in the distance. Kell lifted his fingers to his mouth and blew out a half hiss/half whistle, an eagle sound Robin had taught them during training.
An answering, identical call came back immediately from the direction of his apartment. What the fuck was going on?
Kell kept his rifle in position as he inched to his door and reached out to turn the knob. His apartment door swung in on silent hinges before he touched it.
Nik’s whisper came out of the darkness. “In. Close the door like nothing’s out of the ordinary.”
Right. Because this was all so normal. He closed the door behind him and flipped the dead bolt. “Why are we in the dark? Better yet, why are we whispering?”
“Come back to the bedroom. We’ll fill you in.” Enough light from the courtyard filtered through the curtains for Kell to see Nik’s outline as he walked down the short hallway to the bedroom, where a sliver of light shone under the door. Nik waited until Kell caught up, and then they both slipped inside.
Robin lay on his bed crossways, rubbing Gator’s belly. Traitorous hound.
As if hearing his master’s thoughts, Gator leapt to his feet and bounded to Kell, jumping up and down and talking his Catahoula-speak for “Something exciting happened.” Sometimes it meant an alligator had made its way onto the dock at Cote Blanche. Sometimes it meant he’d spotted a cockroach. Kell had learned not to put too much stock in Gator’s level of excitement.
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