Smoke Road

by Toby Neal

  “Do you want me to drive?” Nani eventually asked.

  Luca shook his head. “I’ve got it.”

  She was so quiet. Luca wanted to start a fight with her just to hear a little life come back into her voice.

  The highway in front of them was black and straight and appeared never-ending, a current of darkness in a sea of gold. The storm that had hung on the horizon stayed at bay and the heat outside was starting to abate. As the sun slipped down the west side of the world, it threw off peaches and pinks and purples, a pastel paint box, all of Lucy’s favorite colors.

  Luca couldn’t help looking over at Nani again. Her chin was tilted down and wisps of shiny black hair framed her high cheekbones, swaying with the movement of the truck. Dr. Beauty’s full lips formed a sad arc and her long, shapely legs were crossed tight with tension. In the pink glow of sunset, she was so shockingly beautiful that Luca’s breath left him—it was like she’d kicked him in the solar plexus again.

  Dr. Lovely didn’t fit in the box.

  The emotions she evoked in him of protectiveness, gentleness, and hunger were impossible to quell. More than that, he didn’t want them to stop.

  In the midst of death, he felt more alive than he had in years.

  Nani glanced over at him, brows knitted. “You okay?”

  Luca nodded and returned his attention to the road, consciously breathing at an even rate.

  She had whispered in his ear earlier, thanking him for protecting her. And it did something to him that nothing else ever had. Her tender voice melted the ball of anger and pride knotted in his chest—that tangle of emotion Luca had spent decades trying to contain and control.

  It would not go from

  Prayer or exercise or sex

  But it went for her

  With one little whisper she released it, just for that one moment. Still, he was grateful to know it was possible to be without it. They weren’t even dating and had only shared one brief, searing kiss, but Nani affected Luca more than any other woman he’d ever met.

  This mission would come to an end. Either they’d succeed, kill Tanner Hillish and somehow stop the spread of this horrible disease, or they wouldn’t, and they’d die.

  Dying with her seemed better than living without her.

  Holy crap, he might be falling in love.

  Dr. Dangerous was wrapping him around her little finger, turning him into her slave. He had to shut it down.

  They rolled up to the Army outpost after dark, their headlights columns of white in the empty landscape.

  Jaguar radioed as they reached the guard booth. “Nobody here. Eyes open, men.”

  Nani sat up and pulled her gun. Luca unholstered his and rested it on his thigh, his heart rate increasing.

  Freckles jumped out of the Humvee, raised the gate, then hopped back in. Their headlights illuminated dark, abandoned access areas—no lights on anywhere, and no one visible.

  “Think the power’s out?” Nani asked.

  “A place like this would have a generator. It doesn’t make any sense. What’s happening here?”

  They circled the small encampment, going up and down the few streets. All the buildings were dark and they didn’t see a soul. Jaguar pulled the Humvee up in front of the commanding officer’s building. Leaving the vehicle running, he climbed out, as did the other men. They all had their weapons ready.

  “Luciano and Kagawa, stay in the supply truck. Keep an eye out here. We’re going in.” Jaguar’s voice came over the radio.

  Nani answered in the affirmative.

  The men went into the building. Flashlights on their weapons flared in the windows as chatter came over the radio.

  “Clear.”

  “Clear.”

  “I got a note here, sir.”

  The team came back out. Jaguar held a thin stack of papers. He approached Nani’s side of the supply truck. She rolled down her window.

  He handed the papers to her. “It looks like they’ve been hit with the flu. Everyone died but three guys. They left and headed to Austin. Somehow the communication lines are down.”

  Nani flipped through the pages then handed the pile to Luca. His eyes flew over the neatly typed print. Forty men were dead and buried in the parade ground. The three survivors had abandoned their posts. Those were the basic facts that the prose contained, but it was an allegory, a tragic poem, impossible to distill into a haiku.

  Jaguar decided they would spend the night. Though no one liked the idea of sleeping in a dead man’s bed, it was better than trying to set up camp in the dark. They needed to get going first thing in the morning.

  The team ate a quick and quiet meal before heading to their bunks. Luca dropped his bag on the single bed of his small room. It smelled like bleach and sweat, a classic combination Luca had smelled in every army outpost he’d ever slept in.

  He ran Peaches through her commands, ending with her dinner.

  Luca dropped to his knees next to the bed, his rosary between his fingers. He prayed for the lost lives of the men buried in the parade ground and for Nando, wishing him peace in the afterlife. Nando was a strong, sweet man and there were not many of those in the world. With one less, humanity was worse off.

  Tanner Hillish thought that God was taking the evil, the “impure.” But from where Luca was—on his knees surrounded by a dead soldier’s belongings—it appeared quite the opposite. God was taking the good and leaving sinners behind.

  “Let Nani stay healthy, please, God.”

  He knew he wasn’t supposed to pray for favors but Luca never seemed to be able to stop himself. He wanted things, and he couldn’t help but ask.

  Peaches sat next to Luca, leaning against his side. Her warmth and companionship comforted him as the rosary slipped between his fingers, marking each Hail Mary.

  Finished with his prayers, Luca stood and paced the room. He checked his watch. It was after eleven, and he really should try to sleep. Stripping down to his boxers, he laid down on the narrow bed, his shoulders breaching the edges.

  Peaches jumped up onto the bed and it creaked under the additional weight. She circled once before settling at his feet. Luca normally didn’t let her sleep with him, but tonight was different than other nights. Today had been different than other days. And Nani was different than other women.

  Was that just him being foolish, falling into her trap? She’d shown herself to be tricky and deceitful, lying about the vaccine to the men and tricking that old woman into revealing Tanner Hillish’s location. Maybe that was an even trade; Nani pumped the woman full of morphine in exchange. But she had convinced that pregnant woman to let them in to the compound in the first place. Was that worse than his plan of killing his way in?

  Luca rolled over, scrubbing at his hair with his fingers. Why was she affecting him this way?

  He couldn’t sleep without a workout. Luca got up and dressed, and with Peaches by his side, headed toward the gym.

  He heard the thud of gloves hitting a punching bag as he approached.

  Good, someone else was up.

  Maybe it was Big Nate and they could spar; that little guy was a hell of a fighter.

  But when Luca opened the door, it was Dr. Hot Stuff kicking the crap out of the bag.

  Her braid was wrapped up in that bun. He wanted to grab it and plunder her mouth. She wore a black sports bra and tight shorts. The bra held her small breasts in place as she kicked and kicked, her incredible six-pack contracting and expanding with each blow. As her leg came up, colliding with the bag, her tattoos shimmered and rippled. The graceful arc of her movement went straight to his groin.

  Peaches ran ahead, right up to Nani. She jumped back, instinctively falling into a fighting pose. Recognizing Peaches, Nani broke into an embarrassed smile, her cheeks coloring in a way that he absolutely could not take.

  She was magnificent.

  Her eyes flicked from Peaches up to Luca where he stood in the doorway.

  Luca used all of his considerable willpower no
t to check if his erection was tenting his shorts, but by the way her eyes fell on him, he knew it was.

  He held his breath.

  A small smile crossed her lips. “Want to fight?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  Fighting was a start. As Luca crossed toward her he sent up one final prayer: please Lord, let me kiss her again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Haunani

  Running combinations on the heavy bag for the last forty minutes, battling the anxiety brought on by the awful scene at the mostly abandoned compound and the spooky one they’d encountered here at the outpost, Nani still felt tightly wound.

  Unable to reach anyone at the White House, Nani couldn’t report on their penetration of the Great Nation America compound and its outcome, nor the disturbing situation here. This whole operation filled her with apprehension for her family in Hawaii; with the islands so isolated and dependent on the mainland for food and supplies, how were they faring in this crisis? With phone lines down, there was no way to know.

  She’d waited too long to call.

  The knots in her tense muscles began to unwind just when Cocky Lupo showed up with his lovable dog. Luca’s gaze was as hot and predatory as the name she’d given him and the evidence of his body’s hunger for her was on full display. His charged stare lit her up like being plugged into a wall socket, and her mind reeled back to their brief kiss. She wanted him. Badly.

  “Want to fight?”

  “Hell yeah.” He strode toward her, wearing loose nylon gym shorts and an old battered tee with the sleeves ripped off, showing his tattooed, burly arms.

  “Good.” Nani dropped her hands and fiddled with the Velcro closures on the backs of her gloves. “I need to kick the shit out of somebody.”

  “There are other ways to feel better.” Luciano was standing too close, and her abs tightened as blood flushed through her at the rough suggestion in his voice. “And you won’t be kicking the shit out of me, today.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Nani turned and paced away, putting her hands on her hips. She tried to slow her panting, but her heart was in overdrive. Luca dropped his gym bag, found and put on his gloves, then stalked after her.

  As before, she ghosted and danced ahead of him, springy and tireless, agile—but she didn’t just want to evade and then conquer; no, this time she craved contact. So she fluttered in and battered him with a series of punches and kicks, not hard enough to do damage, but oh God she needed to connect, to feel herself against him. He let her, stoic and stalwart, not fighting back, just pursuing, pacing behind her, following, and occasionally taking a swing that never connected for form’s sake.

  What was he doing?

  He was big and muscle-bound but full of surprising stamina and she’d been flailing and using up energy for forty minutes before he showed up to chase her like a thunderstorm moving across the Texas plains. He’d said that first time they met in the ring that he’d “already had a workout that day,” and clearly, he hadn’t had one tonight.

  Cocky Lupo was endurance hunting: indulging her, allowing her to beat on him, allowing her to exhaust herself.

  She went in low and aggressive with a sweeping side kick to take him off his feet but that’s when he dropped on her like a ton of bricks. He pinned her by her shoulders to the mat, body-slamming her flat, blasting the air out of her.

  Nani went limp, crushed flat beneath him, her arms pinned, too smart to use up more oxygen struggling. He lifted one of his legs slightly to take his considerable weight off her diaphragm as one big hand curled around the top of her head, and the other forearm crossed her throat. The opportunity to cut off her air was implicit in the hold as his tawny eyes gazed into hers. No fair, God! Those eyelashes are freakin’ ridiculous.

  “Do you give?” Luca’s voice was soft and husky, like he was saying something during sex. All she could do was nod as she softened like wax beneath him, her center liquefying, her bones melting.

  His mouth came closer as his ferny eyelashes closed. His shadow above her blotted out all that was wrong with the world.

  Luca’s mouth on hers was a whole conversation spoken in a different language, one she thought she might have always known but was coded and lost until he handed her the key.

  Just a kiss, but so much more: the heat, the need, the vulnerability, the leashed power. Her legs opened for him and he fitted himself between them. His gloved hand caressed her face and tore off the rubber band around her bun. Fisting around her braid, he tugged at it so that she felt how much he loved her thick, unruly hair—he longed to draw his fingers through it, wrap himself in it and be lost to himself and sunk in her. She knew it, felt it, heard it, smelled it, and throbbed with her own rejoicing.

  They rolled and she was on top, caressing the heat and power that was his tremendous warrior’s body. She tore at his shirt to reach his heart, thundering behind his huge pecs as their mouths never left each other.

  No. Yes. No. Please.

  Luca was so much, he was everything she wanted and needed. She wanted and needed to give him everything, too. How could this be happening? But in this place, in this time, in this cesspool of death somehow she’d found him, and she’d never be the same.

  Their communication, containing all the secrets of life and love and the universe, was utterly essential. To not be kissing him—oh, it was the loneliness of death, of loss, and she couldn’t endure it.

  Their gloves came off, and his shirt was gone. Their hands roamed and discovered all that they had longed for from a distance. Hers were on his shoulders, pecs, abs, back and his caressed her breasts, squeezed and spanned her waist. He clasped her buttocks, one glute in each hand as he worked her up and down, rubbing her over his heavy ridged shaft through his shorts.

  They both moaned with longing into each other’s mouths. They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, for to break that connection was to lose this secret language, this utterly drugging, healing balm they both needed so much.

  His hand was in her shorts, hot and rough, needy and hungry. She arched into him, encouraging his exploration, wanting so much more, desperate for the release his strong fingers promised.

  Luca found her center and slowed, became delicate, worshipful as he slid them in and out of her slick heat. He groaned, his mouth leaving hers, and she tried to follow, not wanting him to leave.

  “I have to taste you.” His voice was quiet and stark, almost stern. With his breath on her neck, teeth biting through her bra, and tongue licking a line down her stomach, she gasped and whimpered—desperate to be tasted. He knelt before her and yanked down her tight shorts. Any self-consciousness she might have had was shed in her desperation to feel his mouth on her, to experience the pent-up release she craved.

  Her Lupo knew what to do with his lips, teeth, tongue and fingers, and even all of them at once. Nani arched up off the floor of the gym, spread wide. Her climax was a detonation that lifted her into flight.

  Coming down from that ecstasy to a consuming need to give him the same pleasure, she sat up and eased him down onto his back. She kissed him, and tasted herself on his tongue: salty-sweet goodness.

  As her hand stroked his rock hard ridge, Peaches gave the short, sharp bark that meant someone was coming.

  Luca groaned in anguish, but maybe it was her, because she couldn’t bear it either.

  Nani broke the kiss and touched his cheek, flushed and dark. She caressed the mouth she could taste all day. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “My Lupo.”

  It was a prayer. The first one she’d uttered in years, the first time she’d called on God in sincerity since her sister’s death. She didn’t know what she was asking for, but it was from the heart.

  “Nani. Don’t go...” His arms tightened around her as his voice broke.

  She was broken, too, on the anvil of whatever was between them, and she knew it was now, and always. She was done for, screwed, utterly head over heels for this big lug of a totally wrong guy for her, but the last thing she needed was
to be caught rolling around on the floor with him by one of the other men.

  She moved away, only letting go of his mouth at the last minute with a gasp that sounded like a sob, but she rolled away and grasped her exercise shorts, wriggled into them, stood up and walked off. Nani kept her back to him, the searing pain of the lost contact like severing a limb.

  Nani made it to the room she’d chosen when they arrived, a bunk that smelled like a dead man’s sweat. She dove into her familiar sleeping bag, burrowing deep to hide from the smells, memories, horrors, and losses. She curled into the fetal position, and cried into the pillow, and knew to her bones that she was changed. The way things had been before would never satisfy her again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Luca

  Luca barely heard what Jaguar was saying. His gaze was glued to Nani. His body responded to her like a needle to true north. He just wanted to follow her; she was leading him home.

  Wind and rain slashed the windows of the mess hall and his breakfast sat in front of him untouched.

  “With the way the weather is looking, we can’t continue. Tornadoes are everywhere and we’re as likely to get picked up by one of them, as complete this mission,” Jaguar warned the team.

  Nani frowned, the skin around her eyes tight. She’d only glanced at Luca briefly when they’d first spotted each other this morning. It felt like a bolt of lightning ignited between them, and her skin had tinted pink.

  She tasted like heaven.

  Nani had run off—her ass in those tight shorts making him ache almost as much as the taste of her on his tongue. Her loose hair was swaying as she jogged, leaving him alone on the sparring ring mat. Why were they interrupted?

  Jaguar had strolled in. Seeing Luca on the floor shirtless and sweating, skin flushed and dick tenting his shorts like a freaking circus pole, he’d just cocked an eyebrow. His friend had known, and could probably smell her in the air.

  “I’ll try DC again,” Nani offered. “But I think you’re right, we should hold off until the weather improves.”