by Rachel Lee
What could the FBI come up with?
Mainly, she wished she had superpowers and could just put an end to this now. This last bomb had seriously worried her. Someone could get hurt by the next one. They were getting bigger, so firefighters were at even more risk. And what if the next target was occupied?
So why was she sitting here feeling as if her body were turning into warm honey and the only thing that mattered right now was whether Alex was feeling the same?
When he rose to clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher, she didn’t offer to help. Instead she sat there like a teenager, watching his every move, feeling that each stirring of his body stirred her passion even more, like hot coals on a fire.
A gorgeous man. Perfect in every way. There wasn’t a thing about his appearance that she would change—except maybe to talk him into letting his hair grow longer.
When he turned from the counter, drying his hands on a towel, their eyes locked and she lost her ability to breathe.
Then a slow smile began to crease his face. “You look hungry,” he drawled.
“For you,” she admitted, astonishing herself with her own boldness. But not enough to change her mood. It was true, and lying didn’t come naturally to her.
“I’m feeling the same way. And as near as I can tell, the rest of the world can wait until morning.”
She decided it could. It was as if the day that had passed since they began to make love that morning had never happened. Her entire body ramped up to that exquisite place instantly, and all she wanted was to get every impediment out of the way immediately.
But Alex had other ideas. He led her down the hallway to his bedroom, where he turned on a single, dim lamp on his dresser. It created warm shadows in the room without casting too much light.
It was as if they had entered another world. Everything else dropped away like shedding an uncomfortable skin. Alex held out his hands to her, and when she clasped them he drew her close until she brushed against his chest.
“I’ve been trying to remain professional,” he said. He released one of her hands and reached up to remove the clip from her hair. She felt it spill to her shoulders, a sensation of freedom, unexpectedly sensuous. “I’m sure you have, too,” he continued. “We were raised that way, in our jobs.”
She felt the corners of her mouth lift slightly. “All professional.”
“Yeah. It made sense back then. But I’m not your coworker. So how about we leave all that crap behind and just be a man and a woman?”
A long, surprisingly happy sigh escaped her as he then ran his fingers through her hair like a gentle comb.
“So silky,” he murmured. “Beautiful hair.” Then he surprised a small laugh out of her. “I hear mine is too short.”
“I certainly can’t run my fingers through it,” she murmured.
“But you can run your fingers everywhere else.”
With fingers that were becoming surprisingly awkward as all her energy seemed to be sinking to a point between her legs, she unbuttoned his shirt. He let go of her just long enough to shrug it off, revealing a well-muscled chest.
“Sorry I don’t have a shield or sword,” he murmured.
“My Viking.” It sounded so possessive, but not out of place in that moment. Then she shook her head a little at her own silliness, but before it could take over, he pulled the zipper on the front of her overalls and drove her thoughts and sensations in an entirely different direction.
Cool air slipped across her skin, feeling so very different from her overalls. The air’s touch was immediately followed by the lightest brush of his fingertips as they traced her shoulders and collarbones before shoving the material down and out of the way.
Her eyes had closed, leaving room for nothing in her world except physical sensations that were weakening her and inflaming her all at the same time. When she felt the pop as her bra clasp released, her knees practically turned to water.
But then his hands roamed her even more, dragging material down her arms, then sweeping upward until they ran across sensitive skin above her breasts.
Anticipation and anxiety filled her, an eager fear that he might just stop. Fear that he wouldn’t touch her breasts and longing that he would do so soon.
She felt herself puckering, reaching for his touches. When at last her arms fell free of the overalls, she reached out and found his waist, urging him closer, wishing he would answer all the promises his hands kept teasing her with.
Her insides clenched with longing, then began to squeeze in a steady rhythm, letting her know what she wanted as if she wouldn’t have known otherwise. She became a throbbing mass of need and he’d barely begun.
“Alex,” she whispered.
* * *
Alex heard his name escape her and it warmed him. She wanted him at least as much as he wanted her, but he kept banking the fires that threatened to consume him. He might never again get a chance to make love to this woman, and he wanted to stamp a memory of pure pleasure and joy in her heart forever. Though nothing could come of this, he still wanted to be sure that anytime in the future she thought of him, the memory would bring a smile to her face. It seemed like a small enough wish.
Lowering his head, holding her around her small waist, he found her breast with his mouth. A hardened nipple teased him, and he sucked it deeply into his mouth, enjoying her groan and the way her hands flew up to grasp his head. Wonderfully responsive, and her responses fired him even more.
His groin throbbed, hammering at him that he was ready, but he wanted to be sure that Darcy was, too. As ready as she could get. He wanted to take her all the way to bliss, out of this world and into a different realm.
He moved his mouth to her other breast and felt her fingertips digging into his scalp as if she wanted to pull him inside her. His hands around her waist felt her hips begin to rock toward him, reaching for him just as her hands did.
Raising his head, he found her lips with his and his tongue dived deeply into her mouth. She welcomed him generously, her tongue dueling with his in imitation of the final consummation.
At last he could restrain himself no more. Gripping her around her hips, he lifted her and placed her on the bed, forgetting all finesse in his need to have her.
Her boots at least didn’t fight him. Then he stripped the last of her overalls and underclothes away and stood over her, drinking in her beauty by the dim, golden light.
“Perfect,” he rasped.
“Hurry.” She interrupted, lifting her hand toward him.
He was happy to oblige. He stripped off the rest of his own clothing, then tumbled down beside her, pulling her close, savoring the incredible sensation of warm skin against warm skin. She felt as smooth as satin everywhere their bodies met, and he felt her eagerness in the gentle rolling of her hips.
He was stiff and hard for her already, but pressing against her, flattening himself against her belly, felt exquisite. He could have stayed like that forever.
But then her hands began to roam, touching wherever she could reach. His back, his shoulders, his chest, squeezing the small points of his nipples until she dragged a helpless groan from him.
Later, said a devil in his mind, urging him to hurry. There’d be a later to take things slowly and draw out every perfect moment.
“Alex...” This time his name sounded almost like a keening cry. Rolling over her, he pulled the drawer of his night table open and brought out a foil packet. Even in the hazy, flaming hinterland of desire, he wouldn’t put her at risk.
* * *
Darcy’s eyes opened a bit and she saw what she was doing. Without hesitation, she reached out to help him roll the condom on. His hardness felt so good to her, the skin the softest thing she had ever touched, but then it was covered, concealed, but ready.
“I love the way you did that,” he said gruffly, then bent his
head again to seek her breasts with his mouth. As soon as he did, she felt herself rising, as if the bed beneath her was falling away and she was levitating into space.
Before she could completely drift away, however, he thrust into her, bringing her to him, spearing her in the most delicious way. A shudder of sheer pleasure ran through her as he stretched her, reminding her it had been so long...
Then she forgot everything else as he pumped into her and she began to levitate anew. Stars exploded behind her eyelids. Every nerve in her body drew tight as an archer’s bow.
Up, like a lighter-than-air balloon, held to reality only by his plunging shaft. When the ache of need became almost too much to bear, it exploded, leaving a gentler ache in its wake that wouldn’t let her stop moving, not until she felt Alex stiffen and find his own completion.
The fireworks inside her head kept on exploding, making her oblivious to everything except bliss.
* * *
Miles away, night had fallen and Jack was about to go nuts from his confinement. Something had happened earlier. Drugs? He didn’t know for sure, because he’d had a bad blow to his head, but when he woke up, he found his bindings had changed.
Now he had a chain around his neck and another around his ankle. No matter how hard he pulled and yanked, it was soon clear the best he could hope for was to strangle himself. The chain wouldn’t break; it just tightened when he pulled on it. Like a noose. Trapped!
He’d worked his legs as much as possible, pulling them up to his chest again and yet again. The chain on his ankle allowed that much, but the one around his neck wouldn’t let him stand. When he rose more than a few inches, it tightened enough to make him choke. It was a wonder he hadn’t strangled while he’d been unconscious.
At least his arms were free and no longer felt like they were being pulled out of their sockets. Not that it helped when he couldn’t do anything with them.
And his butt! Damn, he’d never imagined the agony of sitting on a hard surface for so long. Hell, he’d never held still this long in his entire life.
Just within reach were a pile of protein bars and a plastic bottle of water.
So he ate because the consequence of growing weak might be a lost chance to escape. As for drinking, he stared suspiciously at the water bottle, wondering if it contained drugs. He held off as long as he could, but water was a much-stronger imperative than food. Eventually he wet his mouth and waited to see if he reacted in any way.
The guy kept his face covered on the rare occasions when he appeared, which Jack thought was probably a good sign. No reason to hide his face if he intended to kill Jack.
But this entire incarceration was beginning to be the worst experience of Jack’s life ever. He was learning the true meaning of discomfort, and the guy who held him didn’t give a damn.
“So you were in Vietnam?” he asked the next time the guy appeared with a bottle of water, since he didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. Instead, he sat on that chair in the shadows and just watched Jack.
“Didn’t I say so?”
“Yeah.” Great, Jack. That would really get this man talking. “So does that have anything to do with this?”
“With what?”
Jack suddenly realized he was missing some important information and running on guesswork. He hadn’t seen this man set the bomb. Hadn’t seen any indication that he was building them. All he’d seen was a pickup drive away from the explosion at the semiconductor plant.
Admittedly, given that he was now a prisoner, it was likely that this man had something to do with that bomb. But he couldn’t know that for sure, and maybe it would be best to play dumb about it.
“Keeping me prisoner like this.”
The man didn’t answer for a while. The chair he sat on creaked, but no other sound disturbed the night except for the hoot of a very distant owl.
“You think I get my jollies out of tying boys up?”
Jack stiffened. Not much he could do to protect himself from this man’s ire. “I didn’t say that.”
“No? Then what are you saying, boy?”
Which led directly to the place Jack had been trying to avoid. Although maybe that knock to his head had been worse than he thought. Man, he’d followed this guy out here, had come creeping back on foot... Yeah, that looked like idle curiosity. Some ATF agent he’d make.
“Just curious,” Jack said. “I don’t know much about Vietnam.”
“Nobody does anymore. Those old enough to remember are happy to pretend it never happened.”
Jack thought about it. “Does that make you feel bad?”
“Not as bad as knowing my own government poisoned me and my buddies.”
“What!” The word was startled out of Jack.
“Agent Orange. You ever hear of it? No, of course not. They’d like that story dead and buried.”
“What is it?”
“An herbicide. At first it was used against agricultural land, to destroy crops and drive people away. Some was used near the mountains to clear jungle as much as possible. Whatever the reasoning, it contained some really dangerous chemicals and a lot of people got sick. Even their unborn children were affected. A lot of court cases and finally we got a pittance out of the manufacturer. And I got a disability because I’ve been sick from the exposure for decades. Now it’s killing me.”
Jack didn’t know what to say as horror crept through him, filling him with both disbelief and fear that this could be true. His government had done this?
“Lots of folks still don’t believe it was that poisonous. But over the years... Well, over the years the diseases showed up, both among the troops and in Vietnam. People over there are still getting sick and being born deformed because of it. But I watched my buddies die, kid, and all the while the people who did it to them denied all responsibility.”
Jack swallowed hard. “That must make you mad.”
“I’m past mad. They need to learn a lesson. They need to learn that if you’re going to send people out to fight, then you need to take care of them when they get home.”
Now Jack was on certain ground. “I absolutely agree!”
His captor fell silent for a long time. Jack considered asking for more water, but he was already uncomfortable enough. “I need a bathroom.”
“Ain’t gonna get one. Sit in it, the way I had to.”
Then the man rose, little more than a dark shadow. He moved slowly, whether by choice or necessity Jack couldn’t tell.
“But...what you’re doing...”
“Call it a teaching moment. Next time I come back, you’re going to tell me everything you know.”
“I know? I don’t know anything!” Which had never felt truer to Jack than it did right then.
“Think I’m fooled? I saw you with the ATF. You’re one of them. And you’re going to tell me everything you know or you won’t see another sunrise.” The man’s broken laugh followed him out as he left the shed and locked the door.
Jack sat staring into the near dark, trying to absorb it all. Agent Orange. A long-ago war. A man who clearly was not well using bombs to send a message.
But what kind of message could he send by blowing up empty buildings? It wasn’t making sense.
Maybe he had other targets in mind. Jack felt an unnatural chill trickle down his spine.
He needed to warn someone, but nothing he did freed him. This guy knew what he was doing, and he knew how to keep a prisoner from escaping.
What was worse, he seemed to think Jack knew something, that he was an agent. Jack wondered if he were facing the last night of his life.
* * *
Darcy, wrapped snugly in Alex’s arms beneath a layer of blankets, never wanted to move again. She felt as if he had claimed every cell in her body, as if he was a deep-rooted part of her now.
Moving might ruin this marvelous fee
ling, might drive it away for good. She was quite sure she’d never felt so much magic running through her in her entire life. Maybe he wasn’t just a Viking, maybe he was a Viking god. He’d transformed her so quickly.
The silly thought amused her even through her haze of happiness. She wanted to stay here forever, live in this moment until the end of time.
Alex pulled her a little closer, his lips seeking hers, his hands running down her back to her bottom, sending freshened sparks of hunger through her. She had a vague idea that it was around midnight, which meant there were a lot of hours left to them.
But Alex spoke quietly. “Sleep,” he said. “I know I don’t want to, but tomorrow’s another day and you have to have your wits about you.”
“You keep pushing me to rest,” she mumbled, hating the way that reality persisted in returning. Wasn’t she entitled to just a little escape? A few hours?
“Darcy, I’ve seldom seen anyone work as hard as you do. But it’s dangerous. You don’t want to slip up. So as much as I’d love to ravish you again, I think that needs to wait. At least until morning.”
She smiled against his cheek at the implied promise. “Have I told you I like you?”
“I kinda got that feeling a little while ago.” Amusement trembled in his voice.
“You’re bossy, though. But for some reason I don’t mind. Anyway, I like you. And I don’t want to go to sleep.”
She doubted she would anyway, because his reminder of reality had caused guilt to start gnawing at her again. Important, dangerous matters needed to be dealt with, and she was ignoring them right now.
“You’re getting stirred up again,” he remarked. Then, without a word, he rolled over her until he lay on top of her. “I know how to wear you out.”
He certainly did, she thought as he began to explore her entire body with his mouth and hands, teaching her things she’d never known about herself before, placing his mouth where no man ever had. Not that she’d had that much experience.
