“What names?” he prodded.
“My names.”
He grabbed the stool and sat down, before rolling close to her again. “Lara isn’t your name?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and feeling suddenly sick. What if she found out horrible things about herself that made Damion hate her? “Yes… no. I don’t want to talk about this.”
He rested his palms on his thighs and considered her a long moment. “You’re afraid of what you’re going to find out about yourself, aren’t you?”
Her chest tightened, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, her eyes prickled. “Wouldn’t you be if you were me?”
“Of course,” he said, surprising her with his honesty, and earning more of her trust. “I’d want to know the truth before anyone else did. There’s no reason that can’t happen. But you have to let Kelly run her tests and rule out any other cause for the mixed memories. Make sure it’s not physical. Then, let her help us figure out how to separate truth from fiction.”
“I already feel like someone has been in my head messing around, Damion,” she admitted. “How am I ever going to know fact from fiction, if I allow someone else to do the same? I need to think about this.” She reminded herself that his willingness to let her decide didn’t mean he was honorable. She had every reason until today to believe the Renegades had killed her parents and had lured her father into a web of trust, and then murdered him. To dismiss those concerns would be as foolish as ignoring that they might not be reality.
Damion seemed to read her expression, her caution, and he sighed heavily, then rolled to the edge of the bed and pushed an intercom button. “Anyone got a deck of cards?”
She softened inside at his actions, at his understanding—that he’d pushed her as far as he could and should back off. She didn’t want his actions to be a form of manipulation that somehow replaced torture. She wanted it to be real—she wanted this growing bond she felt with Damion, the only thing that felt certain and real, to really be sincere. Please, please, don’t be the enemy, Damion. But then, if he wasn’t the enemy, what did that make Powell, or even herself?
Damion laid down his cards on the rolling table that he and Lara had stolen from near the bed almost an hour before. “Straight flush,” he announced and wiggled an eyebrow. “I win again. That’s four straight hands, but who’s counting?”
“Apparently you,” Lara said, tossing down her cards. “Shuffle, and let’s go again.”
Another two hands later, she threw down her losing cards and ran her hand through her hair. He loved her hair, so soft, like silk against his skin.
“You know,” she continued with a glower. “It wouldn’t hurt you to let me win a few hands.”
“You get what you get honestly with me,” he said softly, a hidden meaning in his words. He wanted Lara—wanted her in a bad way, in a way he’d never wanted a woman before. A way that defied the possibility that she was the enemy, that she’d unlock her memories and neither of them would like what was discovered.
She grimaced, when he’d expected something a little more intimate in reply. “Oh good grief,” she chided. “That’s exactly what Skywalker used to say and…” She paled and swallowed hard.
He stilled, his gaze searching her face, noting the instant distress in her eyes. “Who’s Skywalker, Lara?” She squeezed her eyes shut, and Damion shoved the table out from between them and rolled closer, taking her hand in his. “Talk to me, Lara. Tell me about Skywalker.”
“I don’t know,” she said, forcing heavy-lidded eyes open. “Someone who keeps finding his way into my thoughts, when… when…” She pressed her lips to his.
Heat rushed through him, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, and kissing her. Her arms snaked around his neck, her tongue reaching for his in hungry reply that threatened his restraint. “If this is your way of avoiding my questions,” he said, his lips lingering over hers. “It’s a pretty damn good strategy.”
“It’s not that,” she whispered, brushing her lips over his as if she needed another taste of him. God, she was driving him wild. “When you kiss me,” she panted. “I—”
He framed her face with his hands and leaned back to study her. “You what?”
“I—”
“How’s Chale doing?” Kelly asked, rushing into the room for the second time since they’d started playing cards.
Lara pulled back from Damion, as if burned, and he silently cursed Kelly’s timing. He wanted to know what Lara had been about to explain. Not only had he missed out on what was sure to be another kiss, he was pretty confident he had been about to make a breakthrough with her, that she would have opened up to him.
“He’s sleeping soundly,” Damion said, reluctantly turning to Kelly. “No signs of distress since you checked in earlier.”
“Excellent,” she said. “His vitals are strong and the worst is over.” She rolled a blood pressure machine toward them before shooing Damion off her rolling stool. “Let me sit down and check the patient I’m really here to see.”
He stood up and gave her the seat. “Her head hurts,” he told Kelly, and when Lara opened her mouth to object, he said, “You furrow your brow when you’re fighting the pain.”
“Is that right?” Kelly asked. “Your head still hurts?”
Looking busted and surprised at his observations, Lara conceded. “Yes. It hurts.”
“Lean down, and let me find the location of your injury,” Kelly ordered.
Lara bent over and let Kelly check her scalp. “It’s fine.” Lara straightened, and Kelly gave her a puzzled look. “Describe the pain.”
“A dull throb that worsens whenever I have flashes of images.”
“Memories,” Damion supplied.
Lara glanced at him and then back at Kelly. “I don’t know.” She sounded frustrated and a bit defeated, but no longer on guard. “I just really don’t know much of anything right now.”
Kelly pursed her lips. “You do know that the only time GTECHs get headaches is when they’re vitamin C deficient, right? And let me have your arm so I can take your blood pressure.”
“Honestly,” Lara confessed, offering her arm to Kelly and obviously trying not to look at Damion. “I’ve never heard of this vitamin C thing that Damion told me about.”
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “Adam isn’t exactly one to tell a woman anything but to bend over and pant.”
Damion and Lara shared a shocked look, and he almost choked on a bark of laughter. “I do believe you’ve been around too many soldiers for too long, Doc. You’re starting to sound like one of the guys.”
“Sorry, Lara,” Kelly said with a shrug. “But I’ve got fifty women here who endured hell from that man in his sex camps, Emma included. It’s hard not to get a little bitter about it.” She released the cuff on Lara’s arm. “Your blood pressure and your heart rate are fine. And no, you’re not vitamin C deficient, and nothing is off in your blood work. So if you aren’t willing to do the CT scan right now, which I know you aren’t, then you need to rest—as in a good twelve to fifteen hours of healing sleep—and then we’ll reevaluate. There are a few other tests we could try. A brain wave test might give us a clue as to any irregular activity. But right now, you need sleep to heal. And eat.” She pushed to her feet and eyed Damion. “Feed her, and then get her to bed.” She glanced at Lara. “I don’t think you need to stay here in the hospital, but you shouldn’t be alone either.”
Damion’s eyes met Lara’s. “She won’t be,” he assured Kelly, fully intending to keep her close in his room. He wanted this woman, wanted her beyond reason, beyond the risk that she might still prove to be an enemy. “I plan to take care of her.”
And he did. In his private quarters, where she could finish telling him exactly what his kiss did to her in vivid, intimate detail. Though he was prepared to be a gentleman and sleep on the couch while Lara claimed his bed, he’d much rather be in it with her. To h
ell with examining right from wrong and consequences.
A sudden rush of nerves and anxiety hit Lara as Kelly exited the room.
“The doctor has spoken,” Damion said. “Let’s get out of here and grab some food and shut-eye.”
“And go where?” Lara asked, pushing to her feet, the not knowing killing her. Nothing was stable, nothing was controllable. It was driving her crazy.
“You can’t be alone, so either you come back to my quarters with me, or you stay here in a hospital room.”
And she knew what would happen in his quarters. She’d end up in bed with him. She knew it. He knew it. She’d never keep an objective mind if she slept with this man. “I don’t want to leave the hospital.”
“All right then,” he said, after a long pause. “I’ll get you some food, and then you can head back to your room.”
“Where I’ll have a guard at my door.”
“You’ll have me in your room.”
“Because I’m a prisoner.”
“You’ve vowed to kill all Renegades. We’d be foolish to leave you unattended.”
He was right. He couldn’t leave her unattended. She wouldn’t leave her unattended. But the idea of being here, where anyone could walk in on her while she slept… “And if I go back to your quarters with you?”
“I’m not going to tie you to my bed, if that’s what you’re asking. Not unless you want me to, that is.”
“I don’t,” she said quickly, but the ache that tingled in her breasts at his words defied her statement.
“I guess that means I should take the deck of cards with us.” He motioned to the clock. “It’s nearly two in the morning. I’m starving, and I know you have to be. So why don’t we go find some food, and then you can decide between the hospital or my room?”
“Yes, please,” Chale murmured, pushing to a sitting position. “Go get some food, and send some my way while you’re at it.”
Lara glanced at Chale and then at Damion, and suddenly, all the tension inside her faded into unexpected, much-needed laughter. “I guess this means he’s feeling better.”
“He’s feeling hungry,” Chale provided. “I want three cheeseburgers from Joe’s.”
Lara’s gaze caught on Damion’s, warmth shimmering between them with undeniable distinction. Chale wanted dinner, and she and Damion wanted each other. The question was—was she willing to allow their desire to turn into reality?
Fifteen minutes later, Lara sat across from Damion at a table inside “Joe’s Burgers,” after they’d had Chale’s food delivered via one of the hospital staff. “I can’t believe you have an entire city underground,” Lara said, marveling at the twenty-four-hour diner that sat in the middle of what appeared to be a sleepy town square, complete with every kind of shop and restaurant she could imagine. “How long has this been here?”
“You’ve really never been to Zodius City, have you?”
“Not that I remember,” she said solemnly, honestly. “At this point, I can’t say anything for certain.”
“Including that the Renegades killed your family?”
“Including that,” she agreed, somehow unable to even want to keep her guard up with Damion.
The awareness ever-present between them snaked a circle of silence around them, simmering in expansion, before Damion said, “Then tell me who you’re working for.”
“Not yet,” she said. “I can’t.”
“So you admit it’s not Adam?”
She wanted to say yes—damn it—she wanted to say yes to the point that she all but screamed it out, but she couldn’t betray Powell. He’d saved her life, and so far, that memory remained true in her mind. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said, going into avoidance mode. “How long has Sunrise City been here?”
He sat there, his face expressionless for long seconds, before he snagged a fry and rolled it in ketchup. “We started building it right after Adam took over Area 51. Like I said back at the cabin, we have schools and about anything else that’s needed to give the humans, and even the GTECHs here, a chance at a normal life. At least, the façade of one, which is a little piece of sanity we all need now and then.”
“Even you?”
He finished off a fry, having already downed three burgers to her one. “The army is as normal as things have ever been for me.”
“Where’s your family?”
“My father and younger brother are dead. My older brother and mother—well, the less they know about me, generally the safer they are.” He brushed his hands together, and the air prickled with his discomfort, with the sound of an invisible door being shut. “I’m about done. How about you?”
She hesitated, a bit taken aback by his brisk shift of subject and mood. She searched his face, remembering that moment when she’d been naked on top of him, when he’d told her he was good at taking the blame—when she’d felt his pain like her own. He wasn’t some nameless Renegade to her anymore. He was a man, and she wanted to know what made him hurt like that, what still made him hurt like that. God, she didn’t want to be his enemy, and she didn’t want him to be hers. She didn’t want to be the reason he hurt more than he already had. She saw it in his eyes, and she realized now, she’d tasted it in every kiss they’d shared.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I’m done.”
“So what will it be?” he asked softly. “Back to the hospital or to my quarters?”
She knew her answer, and she saw in his eyes that he knew too, that they’d both never questioned where they were headed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Damion stood at his door, inside the long corridor of soldiers’ quarters, his heart thundering in his ears, as he told himself that his to-hell-with-consequences attitude wasn’t smart, nor was it safe. He knew his desire for Lara was dangerous, knew he should keep his hands off her. He would, he vowed, shoving open his door. He’d behave; he’d wait until he knew she wasn’t the enemy, until he knew he wasn’t treading dangerous waters.
He stepped back to let her pass, not trusting himself to look at her, all too aware of just how on edge he was, just how ready to pull her into his arms and feel those soft curves melt into his body. She moved forward, and his gaze brushed the soft sway of her hips, thickening his blood and his cock right along with it, the stretch of his zipper uncomfortable with demand. He’d held her, touched her, and had her naked in his arms. It didn’t take much to envision doing so again.
He followed her inside and dimmed the lights. The narrow hallway was short and led to a room of white and gray tile, where the living room and the kitchen were one open space of black leather, silver, and glass—standard in all the quarters. Off to the left, the bedroom was, thankfully, through a door that both shut and locked. Lara paused, a few steps inside, turning to face him. He could feel her nearness tearing away at his willpower, threading through his blood, tempting him, calling him.
“Michael says you never break the rules, but you broke them for me,” she said.
“Michael doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.”
“So it’s true?”
“I told you I disobeyed an order by bringing you here.”
“Is it true that you never break the rules, but you did for me?”
“Yes.” And he didn’t know why she made everything different, why she made him reconsider right from wrong—only that he’d do it all over again.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t break the rules for me. Don’t trust me because I can’t risk trusting you. Damion, I don’t know who I am or what I am or what I’ve done. I don’t know if you’re my friend or my enemy. I don’t know anything except—”
He grabbed her and pulled her to him. “Except this,” he said, his mouth slanting over hers in a deep claiming kiss he’d no more planned than he could now conceive of ending. She clung to him, melted just like he’d imagined a dozen times in the past few hours, her hands wrapping around his neck, her breasts pressed to his che
st. “We want each other. What happens beyond that we’ll deal with later.”
“And if we regret it?” she asked.
He brushed his lips over hers. “I’m not going to regret this. No possible way.” He kissed her, and somehow, he ended up against the door, her hand on his chest.
“We could be enemies,” she reminded him. “We could be trying to kill each other tomorrow.”
He molded her breast to his hand then pressed her shirt up, his hands touching the smooth, soft skin of her waist. He skimmed higher, to shove down her bra and caress her nipple. “You can try and kill me as many times as you want as long as you do it naked.”
She bit her lip and tugged at his shirt. “As long as you’re naked too.”
“Oh yeah,” he promised, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it aside. “I’ll be naked.”
She ran her hands over the body armor he wore. “You mean you’d trust me without this on?”
“Do you trust me without my body armor? Because once it’s off, there’s nothing to hold me back.”
“I’m counting on it,” she promised, tugging down the zipper on his shoulder, and pressing her lips to the skin there. “Which is why I can’t wait to get it off you.”
He tugged her shirt up, and she moved to let him pull it over her head. Before she’d even managed to toss it aside, he’d unhooked her bra and shoved it down her arms, baring her beautiful high breasts for his viewing. Damion filled his hands with the weight of them, pressing them together, teasing her nipples.
She moaned, her hands covering his, her teeth scraping her bottom lip. “Kiss me,” she commanded.
He tweaked her nipples, and pleasure rippled across her pale, beautiful face. “Where?”
“Everywhere,” she said, leaning in to brush her mouth against his. “And why are you still wearing that armor?” A wild kiss followed, before her lips trailed his jaw, before she licked his ear and whispered, “Take it off before I get a knife and cut it off.”
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