by Jan Irving
I cleared my throat again. Yeah, right I wouldn’t think of it. I tossed the T-shirt aside and did up my jeans. “I need to examine the body.”
“Doc…” Caleb looked wary.
“I know you killed him. I don’t see you had much choice. It was him or us. But there’s something very strange about him and we’re here for answers, right?”
Caleb swallowed but then nodded. “All right.”
I gave him an impatient look. “He acted like he knew you.”
“He was one of them.”
“One of whom? Like those men who came after us at my place?”
“No. He’s one of the subjects…”
I lifted a brow.
“One of the men that went wrong. The drug twisted him up.”
“You’re remembering more?”
“Flashes. Seeing him brought some of it back. I remember him in a cage. He never slept, always pacing. He liked to eat things that were still alive.”
I rubbed my arms. “He sounds insane.”
“They made him that way, Doc. I told you this was a bad place.”
I knelt beside the body, gently untwisting it. “Hand me that small knife I dropped.”
Silently Caleb did as I asked and I used it to cut open the man’s filthy T-shirt. I spread it, mapping his upper body. His skin was pale. Scarred here and there, but otherwise unmarked. On his left biceps was the tattoo of an anchor.
“He was in the Navy,” Caleb went on, grazing his fingers over the tattoo. “I remember that now. He was a commander.”
“You’re enlisted, right?”
“Right. I was… I left the teams after I left you.”
I paused, stunned. “You left the SEALs? You loved being a SEAL.”
His face was tense, sweating, as if putting the pieces together was painful. “Yeah, I did. But I had no choice.” His voice softened so I could barely hear it. “I’m sorry.”
I knew he wasn’t speaking to me but the stranger lying dead on the floor.
“Help me cut off his jeans. What the hell has this man been doing with himself? These clothes are practically stuck to him.”
“You get like that when you can’t wash,” Caleb said.
The smell of urine and mud stung the air. His lower body and legs were unremarkable. Caleb and I turned him over carefully. I caught my breath. “He’s been whipped! Like you were…” I touched the faint scars on the man’s back.
Caleb pulled back, huddling into himself.
I reached out and touched his shoulder, squeezed it. “All right?”
He shrugged.
“Is that a ‘yes, Mom, I’m all right’, or a ‘I’m not all right but I’m a rough, tough dude and we don’t like to admit it’.”
Caleb’s lips quirked. “The second. You’re good for me, Doc.”
“I’m good at a lot of things.” My voice was husky. Why was it husky? Oh yeah, the way he looked at me with those blue, burning eyes. And wasn’t this peachy, foreplay over a body? When we got back to the car, I’d have to assimilate how I’d jumped Caleb after he’d killed someone…
“Survival instinct,” Caleb said, as if reading my mind. “Don’t worry, I know it doesn’t mean anything. Just a wild ride.”
I nodded. As a doctor I had felt it before, the need to grab onto life when I’d been touched by death. “I’ll deal,” I said. “But I reserve the right to come apart when it’s safe to do so.”
His eyes gleamed. “No problem.”
I knew he was thinking that my coming apart might wind up being my coming with him. Just now he hadn’t climaxed. But I hadn’t cared when I’d made him bring me off.
I returned my attention to the body, turning it over again after finding no identification. “He’s thinner than you are.”
“Living off the land, probably,” Caleb said, cocking his head and studying the body.
I’d saved the worst for last.
I peeled back his eyelids, staring into those uncanny milky eyes. Fluid was drying at the corners of his eyes. “How could he even see like this? This man should be blind.”
“He was, in the…technical sense, I guess. But he had other abilities that compensated for it.”
On a hunch, I asked, “So this wasn’t an abnormality he was born with? Don’t answer that,” I held up a hand. “Of course not, or the Navy wouldn’t have taken him.”
Caleb nodded sombrely. “He was made this way.”
“You said you needed a distraction so you could sneak up on him. He seemed unbelievably strong when you fought…”
“Oh, he was.” Caleb touched his throat. “He could have taken me easy.”
“So he was…enhanced somehow.” I closed the man’s eyes, leaving my palm on his face as I wished him peace in whatever afterlife might exist.
“Enhanced, yeah.” Caleb’s face twisted. “He was Joe normal when he joined our little group.”
How odd that moments ago Caleb had fought and killed and now I was the strong one. I pulled the man’s clothing back over his body. “Can we do something for him?”
“No. They’ll find him eventually,” Caleb said. “We need to move.”
I got to my feet, taking the key out and grimacing at the messy state of the lockers. “We have to get what we came for.”
Caleb and I shouldered fallen lockers aside until we found the one we were looking for. To my disappointment, it hung open and appeared to be empty. Shit. All that, a man dead, and for what?
“Wait…” Caleb pulled the locker gently out from the others, turning it around. Something thick was taped to the back. Caleb tore it free and stuffed it in his pocket. He took my arm. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”
Sudden chill moved through me. “That man… He’s not the only one like that, is he?”
“No,” Caleb said. “He’s not.”
We ran lightly out of the station house. Caleb’s gaze darted around the still dark woods, the glowing ball of sun just rising. “You feel it?” Caleb rasped.
I nodded, ice poking my spine. “We’re being watched.”
Chapter Six
“It can’t be gone.”
Jeez, I sounded like a whiny kid, but I felt like one. A very, very scared one. Caleb knelt where we’d left our car, which was now missing. His fingers brushed tyre
tracks. “I need to follow these.”
“What?” I rubbed my face. I felt punch drunk from lack of sleep. “Follow these tracks?” Caleb looked up, his eyes assessing me coolly. “But first you need rest, Doc.” “I—” I was about to tell him I was fine, but then I shrugged. “Yeah, I do. I’m beat.” He nodded, then without saying anything further headed back into the brush. “Where the hell are you going now?” I yelled after him. I didn’t care at that moment if
more milky-eyed supermen were stalking these woods. He was not leaving me again, damn it!
“Follow me.”
“Very informative as always!” I huffed after him, scratched my arm on some blackberry bush and cursed some more. Caleb glanced over his shoulder at me, amusement warming his eyes. “You make a lot of noise, Doc.”
“Excuse me for not being a commando-god like you are.”
He laughed.
“Do not disappear before we have breakfast.” Then I realised I wouldn’t be having any, not stranded out here in the middle of freaking nowhere. Jesus, there was only so much a man could put up with. I’d been dreaming of pancakes at Denny’s. And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. I sighed. “Okay, forget breakfast. I just need sleep. Do you think the car is close by?” Fresh hope rose.
“Nope.” I finally caught up with him. He was kneeling by a brook, the water cascading swiftly over rocks, carrying twigs and other flotsam downstream. Hearing the water sounds made my shoulders relax. Jeez, I had no idea how tensely I’d been holding myself until that moment.
I knelt beside Caleb, watching with interest as he used the largest knife he’d brought with him to cut wood he’d found by the stream into strips.
&
nbsp; “What are you doing?”
“Making a shelter so you can catch some Zs.”
“Oh.” That was promising.
He wove the wood into a barrel shape in no time, then put pine boughs over it. I was amazed how quickly he could make a cosy bed. “I won’t eat any bugs, you hear me? I don’t care what they train you Special Forces types to do to survive. That’s where my outdoor adventure ends.”
He leaned over, kissed me firmly on the mouth. My heart jumped at his touch.
“No bugs, Doc. But let me take care of you.” The same sexy tone he’d used when he’d brought me off. I had to clear my throat.
“You better, since it’s your fault I’m in this mess.”
His eyes darkened. “I know.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean—” Jerk. I was being a jerk. Assigning blame was not going to help us and…life had got out of hand. It was bigger than one person’s mistakes. I knew that when I wasn’t tired and bitchy and immature.
But he was striding away into the woods before I could try to erase the hurt I’d seen in his eyes. Damn it! There was nothing to do, so I curled up in the little nest and closed my eyes. My lips held the impression of his kiss. I wished he was here, lying on top of me and kissing me and making out with me.
One kiss and my body would be throbbing.
I’d nearly dropped off when I felt his arm heavy across my belly. I turned around and nestled my face against his neck.
We wrapped around each other like we were the last people on earth.
“Hungry?” I sat up, shoving my hair out of my eyes. The sun had sunk low in the trees and a cool breeze made me shiver as I moved out of the warm little shelter.
“Yeah.” I settled beside Caleb. He had a tiny fire going, no bigger than my hand. He was cooking fish on a plank of wood. My stomach growled loudly. “What time is it?” “Three-thirty. You slept a while.”
“Needed it.” He handed me a crude wooden cup that still smelt of freshly carved wood. Had he made it just for this meal? “What is this?”
“Tea made from bark and some wild herbs. It’s not coffee but it’s hot.”
I took a cautious sip. He’d sweetened it with something—wild honey? “Not bad, cowboy.”
“Glad you approve.” His lips quirked.
Hesitantly I leaned close to him and brushed my lips against his. His eyes flared like a lit match. “Careful, Murph. My control is not perfect when it comes to you.”
I shrugged and went back to drinking my tea. “‘Tomorrow we may die’ and all that.”
“Uh-huh.” He gave me a speculative look. “Does that mean you’ll let me have you?”
I choked on the tea and he whacked my back. “S-stop!” I held up a hand. “I don’t need thumping, remember?”
“Sorry.” He didn’t look it. “Answer the question.”
“Can you try to be subtle just once?”
“What for?”
I made him wait, sipping my tea. His lips twisted as if he knew I was drawing out the moment.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” I began.
“Let me have you again.” His voice was low and sure and sent a hard shiver down my back. “I’ll hold you down the way you like it.”
My heart thudded like driving rain as I remembered the night he’d done just that. He’d used his belt our first time…
“You ever do anything kinky?” Caleb asked me. We were sitting across from each other on the motel bed. He hadn’t kissed me since we’d shifted to the bed. He just…sat there, watching me.
It was arousing.
And intimidating.
“Uh, no.”
“Never let anyone tie you up?”
“God, no.” I laughed. “That stuff is just too weird.”
“Weird to give yourself to someone so completely?”
I didn’t know what to say. My voice seemed to have dried up.
“You’ve never done that.” He made a chiding sound. “All those nice boyfriends and you kept them all at a distance, didn’t you?”
“You don’t seem the type to give relationship advice—” I began hotly.
“Nope. But I know when someone is hiding from me. You’re like a creature in one of those Nautilus shells.”
“I’m easy to read.”
“Huh, don’t think so. I thought for sure you’d blow me off when I approached you.”
“Me too,” I admitted a little glumly. Why the hell hadn’t I?
He reached out, traced my throat with gentle fingers. I shivered violently under his touch. “You’re right to be wary of me. I’ve killed people. I’ve hurt them.”
“You said you were in the military.”
He shrugged. “If it makes you more at ease to buy the hero trip.”
“Why are you trying to scare me?” I got in his face and he blinked. “You wanted this hook-up. You said you’d fuck me. Well, I want to be fucked.”
Colour burned in his cheeks. His eyelids fell. “Let me tie you up.”
“All right.”
“That easy?”
“No.” But I couldn’t explain why I’d let him do something to me I’d never considered remotely sexy with any other man I’d been with.
“It’s dangerous, letting a stranger do that to you,” he said, studying me. “Is that why you’d let me—the thrill?”
“I don’t know.” My heart beat frantically. Sweat beaded on my upper lip.
He stood and took off his belt. “We’ll use this for your wrists.” He waited. The moment hung full of possibilities. One of them was for me to say ‘no’.
I didn’t say anything.
“Take your clothes off.”
In control. This stranger was in control. But hadn’t he been since the first moment we’d met? He’d singled me out. He’d told me what he wanted to do with me. He’d driven me to this motel.
The night had been one long unrolling map of choices and all along I’d chosen to say ‘yes’.
I didn’t look at him as I stripped out of my clothes. Heat coloured my cheeks.
He cupped my face when I was naked, vulnerable. “I like that you’ve never let any other man do this to you.” He was tender, taking me by surprise. Shouldn’t he be rough with me, to show he was in charge?
But he didn’t need to be rough to be in charge.
“You get under my skin like a thorn,” I complained. “I can’t reconcile you.”
I held my breath as I lay on the bed and he took firm hold of my wrists, wrapping his belt around them and then looping it through the bed frame. “Don’t pull too hard or it’ll just come off.”
“Okay,” I agreed. The bondage was just for show, so why did it feel so significant?
He spread my thighs and knelt between them, still dressed.
“You wearing clothes is arousing,” I said.
“You naked and helpless is arousing,” he countered wryly.
I laughed, again caught off guard. Weren’t we supposed to get all serious now that he’d tied me with his belt? But instead I was laughing.
“I like being this way for you,” I admitted shyly.
“Keep talkin’,” he said. “I want to hear all about what you like. It’s hot as hell being with a bed partner who talks to me.”
“Yeah, some guys think that telepathy is the way to erotic bliss.”
I felt him smile against my lower belly as he kissed it. “Any allergies, baby?”
I knew what he was really asking me. He was asking if there was something I didn’t like to do in bed. He wasn’t making assumptions that what he liked I’d just be happy to go along with. How was it that I was spread out, at his mercy, and yet I felt like I was playing the starring role?
He kissed my open thigh, tonguing the skin. “I love how you taste, how you smell.”
Lucky I’d showered after my long stretch in the ER that night. Then he put his—ohhhh!—his mouth against the side of my balls. He lifted them almost delicately in one of his big, callused hands. “You like this
?”
“God, yes!” I arched on the bed, digging my heels in.
“Mmmmm.” He squeezed my sac. It excited me, the way my hands were above my head and my body so open for him. He wet a finger and then slowly began to circle my opening. When he put his mouth against my balls, his finger broached me.
I shouted, more moved than I’d ever been from so little play.
“Give it to me. I want your spend splashing my hands, my face…”
Oh, Jesus. As if I wasn’t already on edge. I moaned when he opened me further and put his mouth against me, sucking intimately. The bands of leather around my wrists intensified everything. They cut into my skin as I shifted, my skin pebbled from the cool temperature of the room coupled with Caleb’s hot mouth as he tasted me, taking my needy cock in his hand.
“Oh!” He stroked me so perfectly. Just a bit rough so I’d feel that edge of danger.
He looked at me, his eyes heavy-lidded, his lips wet and swollen. “I’m a soldier. When I get home what I want is open legs and an easy lay.”
He’d found that with me.
“Too bad they don’t allow camp followers anymore. If we’d lived in other times I would have brought you with me. I’d come to you fresh from the field, fuckin’ glad to be alive and you’d submit for me.”
“Touch me,” I rasped. “Make me come.”
He kept up his strokes even as he shoved his jeans down his legs and gloved himself with a condom. Then he held my gaze as he penetrated me, taking forever so all I could do was groan out the pain-pleasure of it as he filled me, claimed me.
His hands ran up my arms, covering them where I was bound for him.
“You’re mine now. No goin’ back, Doc.”
I stared at Caleb, seeing the bruises from the ordeal he didn’t remember, seeing the growing whiskers, the wild hair…and the heat in his pretty eyes.
“You still want me.” He reached out as if to touch me but I knew if he did, I’d surrender. I was so easy for him it was painful. Right now all I wanted to do was lie down and let him do what he wanted with me.
“It’s not a good idea.” I took a step back and his eyes hardened.
