The Bodyguard

by Adair, Cherry; Showalter, Gena; O'Clare, Lorie

  He slowed to safely steer through the jutting points and eerie shapes of the frozen underwater mountain ranges.

  Sebastian flipped on the exterior microphones. “Shit. Here they come again. Lights off. We need a safe—There.” Big black gaping holes stared out from the pale ice, sightless eye sockets in a frozen face. “See that black hole over there? Ice cave. Our home away from home.” He aimed the sub through the twists and turns, the space becoming tighter and more confined.

  The deep rumbling of the other engine grew louder on the speakers. Michaela glanced out the portals, but there was nothing to see but black water and ghostly shadows. “They’re getting closer.”

  A loud pop and swishing sound echoed in the confined space. “What the hell—” Sebastian didn’t have time to finish his thought before a projectile zoomed past them, just a few feet from their port side, and slammed into a wall of ice, exploding in a brilliant bubble of fiery orange and red that lit the surrounding ice like Fourth of July fireworks.

  “Torpedo. They’ve got two more.”

  He shoved the engine controls back on full throttle and zoomed through the ice maze before them. The sub shuddered as one fin nicked a high-rise-sized icicle plunging downward.

  “Watch it!”

  He banked hard to starboard. The sub hurtled forward into the darkness. Sebastian pointed to the dark holes scattered here and there in the ice. He saw an area that appeared deep enough. “We’re going in. Not moving, not breathing, is the name of the game. Hang tight.”

  Michaela’s hands flew over the switches and dials, turning off everything but the most basic of life support while they waited.

  The rumble of the engines following them grew louder. A strip of light pierced the darkness, slashing briefly across the cave, then winking out of existence. Gradually, the sound of the engines began to fade, then once again got louder as the other sub started to circle.

  “Now what?”

  Sebastian pushed the button on his watch, illuminating his face with a bluish glow. “Now? We wait.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The dim green of the interior lights illuminated the soft curves of Michaela’s beautiful face as she turned to him. The sonar’s blip blip blip was in counterpoint to Sebastian’s heartbeat. God, she was exquisite. Everything about this woman drew him to her in ways he couldn’t explain even—especially—to himself.

  Reaching out, he ran his fingers over the disheveled fall of her hair, dark in this lighting but thick and shiny and glorious against his fingers.

  “We can’t sit here fore—”

  “I wasn’t a tactile man until I met you. Now everything about you begs to be touched.”

  “But how long—Oh!”

  Placing his hands under her arms, and in one swift move, he hauled her onto his lap. She let out a little gasp of surprise, and he said roughly, “Who said we were just going to sit here?”

  She came willingly, if not with some difficulty. The space was incredibly small and she had to navigate more gears and controls than in a car; still she murmured a fainthearted protest. “But the LockOu—”

  “Shh,” he whispered low, nibbling a path up her arched throat. “Don’t move,” he cautioned as she wiggled, squirmed, and somehow managed to straddle him in the confined space. It took several moments of contortion, but she finally settled her spread thighs across his lap.

  “Oh yeah.” His breath snagged in his lungs as she pressed down on his erection. “That works.”

  “We work,” she whispered; her fingers combing through his hair electrified him, causing goose bumps to pebble his skin. Settling her sweet ass more deeply in his lap, she licked his lower lip, then bit down not so gently. “I fell in lust with you the moment we met,” she murmured, trailing her fingers around his ear. Her eyes were velvety brown, pupils huge in the subdued lighting.

  Sebastian undid the complex fasteners that ran from under her left arm to her hip. “I was blown away when I got my first look at you. I felt like a fucking caveman. You in that dress? Jesus. I wanted to toss you over my shoulder and run like hell.”

  Blood pounded a frantic beat in his ears as he peeled her out of the top half of the black LockOut like a luscious piece of fruit. Her breasts were pale in the dim green light. Love and lust tangled in his chest as he stroked the petal-soft skin. “From that moment, nothing else mattered. I wanted you more than I’ve wanted anything or anybody in my life. And when you died, Jesus, I died too.” His chest felt heavy at the memory, and his breath snagged in his throat.

  “All around the timing sucked.” Michaela leaned back a little to allow him access to her nipple, then whimpered low in her throat as he sucked the hard bud between his teeth and into the hot cavern of his mouth.

  “Where was I—?” Her soft voice wobbled a little, and her eyes were unfocused as she braced her hands on his shoulders as if anchoring herself. “Feeling guilty as hell to crave you so badly when I’d just promised to share the rest of my life with Cole—But . . . God, that feels amazing; don’t stop! I didn’t fall in love with you until I saw you were strong enough, honorable enough, not to take what I wanted to give you that night.”

  “I’m weak enough to take what you’re offering me now.”

  She smiled a siren’s smile. “Would that we could, but I’m . . . trussed . . . up—” He unerringly found the concealed opening between her legs. She was already dewy, her juices coating his fingers as he manually explored her sweet channel.

  “Oh! The women’s LockOut suits don’t have that handy-dandy little feature!”

  “Up,” he instructed, his dick about breaking in half under her ass. She lifted up the requisite two inches needed to get to his zipper. Reluctantly, he removed one hand from its happy place around her breast and unzipped his jeans. Free, he replaced his fingers, slipping his cock into the slick, wet heat of her.

  He wanted to sing Hosannas. God, she felt good. Amazing. Perfect.

  “Ahhh.” She started to move, slowly at first. Despite the confines of the sub, there was just enough room to move her hips, and she rocked back on him. Thank God the sub was only the size of a car and not actually one. At least they wouldn’t have any law officers knocking on their steamed-up windows.

  “Yeah,” he panted as she picked up speed, her rhythm exquisite—right on the nose, perfection. “Exactly that.”

  Lights cut through the darkness fifty yards from them. “Bad . . . guys . . . doing another drive-by.”

  Yeah. He saw their running lights as they glided by in their third lap. He didn’t give a flying fuck. If he died now, he’d die happy.

  “I was right.”

  “About what?”

  He groaned, his body shaking. “You are damn near perfect. The question is, can I make you a happy woman?”

  Arms cradling his head, she laughed against his throat. “Blissfully.”

  Still laughing, she joined him as they climaxed together. It wasn’t a huge blow-one’s-brains-out climax but rather a quiet thank you, Jesus, for the gift of this woman. Sebastian would remember this moment for the rest of his life.

  However long that might be.

  “Ready?” he asked as he started doing up the top half of her LockOut, pausing to press a lingering kiss to the rapid pulse at the base of her throat.

  “I sincerely hope,” Michaela said grumpily as she helped him right her clothing, “that you have better staying power when we get home. These quickies are all well and good, but I’m looking forward to a leisurely bout of lovemaking that takes hours, not minutes.”

  She all but fell back into her seat. Her hair was wild around her shoulders, and her eyes sparkled.

  “Hours?” Hell’s bells. They were this close to a frigid, watery grave, and Sebastian felt as light and free and goddamned happy as he’d ever felt in his life. He cupped her warm cheek in a hand that smelled of her. She’d imprinted herself on him. Saturated his skin.

  “You got it. Somewhere hot and dry? Desert? Mountain? Beach?”

&nb
sp; “Surprise m—”

  The next torpedo came out of nowhere. Parting the blackness of the water, it picked up a lacy wake as it bulleted straight for the enormous ledge of ice above their hiding place.

  A chunk of ice the size of the Empire State Building broke away and dropped in slow mo in the water right above them. There was literally nowhere to go. They’d run out of time sooner than either of them had anticipated.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Micha—What the fuck?!”

  This was unexpected but her worst nightmare. They were back—teleported to the brightly lit lab. Michaela shuddered.

  Teleporting meant Tongpan was back too. They’d discovered what she’d done. . . .

  The cold kept the bodies strewn about from stinking to high heaven, but it was a grisly sight. Dark puddles of congealed blood were frozen in a stop-frame around the bodies.

  The countdown clock on the far wall clicked off the minutes—Six. Six miserly little minutes before Michaela and Sebastian and everything else blew to hell.

  “You have sorely tested my patience, Dr. Giese.” The terrifying and sonorous voice sent shock waves down Michaela’s spine. Spinning around, she saw her worst nightmare. Times two.

  Oh, frick it. Tongpan and Gangjon!

  Her heartbeat went into manic overdrive, and her mouth went bone-dry. There was every possibility she was about to pee her pants in sheer, unadulterated terror. She moved closer to Sebastian for sanity and strength. He took her hand in a punishing grip.

  Kang Gangjon was the scariest man Michaela had ever encountered—unless he was in the same room as Tongpan; then all bets were off. She couldn’t drag her gaze away from the wizard who stood beside the nuclear weapon’s disabled detonators.

  Tongpan could’ve teleported them anywhere on Earth, but he’d obviously returned to the base to see how badly she’d screwed with his bomb for himself. And brought her back to the scene of the crime to . . . what? Force her to fix it? Never going to happen. Even if she wanted to, which she didn’t, that was now impossible.

  There were worse things than death, and his black eyes telegraphed a clear, terrifying message impossible to ignore. A trickle of sweat ran down Michaela’s temple, and her palm felt slick with sweat in Sebastian’s hard grip.

  “How dare—” his words resonated in the room, bouncing off the walls and floor loudly enough to hurt her ears—“you meddle with things which do not concern you?”

  “That’s rhetorical, I’m sure.” She was surprised by how steady her voice was. By the fact that she could speak at all.

  This whole near-death fricking experience thing was getting old. She’d been resigned to the hopelessness of the situation before Sebastian’s arrival. Had a glimmer of hope and now was once again aware of the clock counting down every precious last minute. Damn it. She wanted time. Time to love and be loved by Sebastian. Time to breathe fresh air and feel the sun on her skin. These bastards had stolen two years of her life and were determined to steal her future as well.

  “Who’re these guys, sweetheart?” Sebastian asked conversationally, his fingers tightening painfully around hers. Under his breath, so low she almost didn’t hear him, and without moving his lips, he whispered, “Do not let go of my hand. No matter what.”

  She was fine with that. “The shorter, unpleasant one on the left is Kang Gangjon. The tall one with the dandelion-fluff hair is Tong. . . .” Oh, God, that hurt like knives of fire.

  The hair on Michaela’s body rose as an electrical field surrounded them. It hurt like hell. She bit off the whimper trembling on her lips and pointed at the wizard as zaps and sparks zipped across her skin. “He’s responsible for teleporting me out of my plane.”

  “Is that a fact. Tsk, tsk.” Sebastian, Michaela in tow, strode toward the two men. It felt as though she were walking through razor blades as the electrical field ripped at her face and clothing. The slices burned and stung her exposed hands and face. Hot blood seeped from the wounds. Sebastian was worse off—he was unprotected by the LockOut that was saving her untold pain.

  “Correct the error you made,” Gangjon snapped, clearly furious. His creepy-handsome face contorted, purple with rage. His usual smooth, unctuous voice was filled with venom. His Hollywood good looks masked evil personified. “Immediately.”

  “Or what?” The disdain in Sebastian’s voice came through loud and clear. He kept walking. Out of the corner of her eye, Michaela saw his clothing literally shredding off his body. Cuts—deep cuts—covered his face and throat. His shirt and jeans were in tatters. Blood dripped down his cheeks from a hundred razor-fine lacerations. But still he kept walking.

  Was he insane? Michaela tried to pull him back, but Sebastian kept moving forward, never flinching, until he was just three feet from Tongpan, staring him down.

  Sebastian was only human. T-FLAC trained but human. Tongpan was a wizard with untold power. Sure, together she and Sebastian could have taken on the world, but not Tongpan.

  She’d survived starvation, beatings, abuse, being shot at with bullets and torpedoes, and even an underwater ice avalanche. All told, a good run. But she was going to die right here in the lab when Tongpan fried her and Sebastian to crispy critters. Or the bomb exploded in a fissle of nuclear particles, whichever happened first.

  Either way, they were dead.

  Her gaze slid to the clock: four minutes and nine—

  Eight.

  Seven.

  Six.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “What did you do?! Fix it. Fix it!” Tongpan roared. The sonic boom of his voice caused Michaela’s hair to blast back off her bleeding face. Her fingers clenched between Sebastian’s were ice-cold. Her entire body trembled.

  Three minutes, thirty-one seconds.

  Sebastian kept walking, his steps measured.

  He ignored the dude on the left, his entire focus on Tongpan. The powerful wizard had . . .

  Two minutes, forty-eight seconds before the nuke blew them all to hell.

  One shot. That’s all I have, Sebastian thought grimly. One. Fucking. Shot.

  His life. Michaela’s life. Their life together.

  One minute, eighteen seconds.

  One chance.

  Tongpan raised both arms, boney fingers curved, a raptor’s talons closing in on its prey. The wizard’s long white hair billowed around his head and shoulders as his clothing swirled and rippled in an unseen wind, making him look taller and wider than he really was. Illusion, Sebastian knew. Smoke and mirrors, but damned effective.

  Sebastian’s internal clock yelled for him to hurry.

  One minutes, sixteen seconds.

  Dragging Michaela with him, he charged Tongpan full tilt, free arm extended.

  One minute, fourteen seconds.

  Sebastian punched his closed fist into the middle of the wizard’s rock-solid chest.

  His body was instantly engulfed in silver smoke and white-hot flames. Sebastian’s arm burned from fingertips to shoulder as he chameleoned Tongpan’s not-inconsiderable powers.

  One minute.

  It wasn’t working!

  Sebastian’s last thought was, Oh, shit! Then everything went white.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “You didn’t see what I saw,” Michaela said lazily, swishing her bare feet in the clear, warm water. Sebastian enjoyed the sight of her slim, bare legs as she allowed yellow and blue tropical fish to swarm around her toes.

  They were sitting, both bare-assed naked, on a sun-bleached wooden dock that stretched out into the crystal-clear, aquamarine water in an undisclosed tropical location.

  Nearby, palm trees whispered in the ocean-scented breeze, and the sun picked up diamond-bright chips in the sugar-white sand of the nearby curve of beach.

  T-FLAC had gifted them a week on the company’s private island, appropriately called Paradise. On the other side of an emerald-green mountain range was the organization’s training facility, but the north shore was completely, blissfully private. And completely off-
limits except to Sebastian and Michaela for the week.

  A small, well-equipped bungalow with a big bed and enough food to give them much-needed energy was all they wanted or needed.

  “And what was that?” Sebastian stroked his fingers lazily up her warm, lightly tanned hip, the late afternoon sun having baked their cold bones all afternoon.

  For the first time ever, he’d experienced severe motion sickness during the teleportation and transference of Tongpan’s powers. In fact, even after all this time, Sebastian still felt the faint hum of the wizard’s powers deep inside his body. He hoped to hell it would eventually go away and hadn’t mentioned the residual effect to anyone except Michaela.

  Sebastian suspected he might end up in T-FLAC’s psi division after all. He’d cross that bridge when and if he had to.

  He and Michaela had spent a week in T-FLAC’s Montana medical facility getting checked out before being flown on the company Bombardier Challenger to the island. The deep scratches on her skin caused by the wizard’s spell were completely gone. As were Sebastian’s own injuries. He had felt an overwhelming relief. Sebastian had more scars on his body than he cared to count. But he couldn’t bear anything to mar Michaela’s silky skin.

  Crystals of powder-fine sand sprinkled across the slope of her shoulder sparkled in the afternoon sunlight, begging the brush of his lips. Her skin was hot, gritty, and tasted of salt.

  “You fried Tongpan into a crispy wonton.” Michaela shuddered and, as Sebastian stroked a hand down her back, turned her head and shot him a delighted and feral grin. “His skin bubbled, and his eyes melted,” she said with relish.

  Sebastian laughed. “Bloodthirsty wench.” With a tug, he pulled her onto her back on the warm wood dock, their feet still dangling in the water.

  “You do know,” Michaela managed, pretending to ignore his busy hands, “usually the honeymoon comes after the wedding.”

  “I know this is all back assward, but . . . marry me, Michaela. When I first saw you, you stole my breath. I haven’t caught it since.”