“We’re going to have to decide how to deal with the Jewel,” she said.
“What about Burke?” Torres said. “He’ll be around with a squad of—”
“I’m not worried about the NSA,” she said, stretching as she sat up. After running her fingers through her hair, she slid close to Strike and kissed his cheek, he turned to touch his mouth to hers too. “Are you worried about the NSA, Flame?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Feds? No, baby, I’m not worried about feds.”
She twisted to look over the back of her seat to see a disheveled and disgruntled Torres. “You aren’t used to being on the road.” That observation probably didn’t help his mood. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll get a chance to rest soon.” Turning back to her love, she linked her fingers on his shoulder and pulled herself close. “We have to talk… alone.”
With his eyes on the road ahead, he nodded once. “I’ll drive another few hours. We’ll talk when we find somewhere to stop for the night.”
Rora agreed with that, it would be better that they had time rather than tried to rush a conversation at a truck stop. “You don’t think he’ll turn on you the first chance he gets?” Torres asked. “Trusting him will be your downfall.”
Strike inhaled, but she whipped around to glare at Torres before her love could speak. “And just what is it that you’re offering me? Seriously, Torres, I think you’d get bored giving the same speech over and over. I’m not interested in anything you have to offer.”
“Guess one guy screwing you over wasn’t enough,” Torres said. “That is what happened, right? Junker took off. It’s that or one of you killed him.”
“Though I don’t guess we’d admit that to you,” she said.
“And this is the life you told me you wanted,” Torres said. “I don’t think you have the first clue what you want, Kero. You’re sure not thinking about the future.”
“I know exactly what I want,” she said and fumbled for Strike’s hand.
“One day his luck is going to run out,” Torres said.
Strike picked up her hand to kiss her knuckles. “It’s not luck, it’s skill,” she said, pulling Strike’s arm around her so she could nestle closer to him. “And we like the quiet… so just keep your opinions to yourself, Torres. And don’t forget that you came to us. You’re an outlaw now, just like the rest of us. So why don’t you think about what you’re going to tell the court or your maker, who knows which one you’ll meet first.”
Rora was asleep again when Strike stopped. She was still drowsy as she watched Strike drag Torres across the parking lot and into a new motel room.
She sighed. Motel room to motel room. Maybe after all of this was over, she’d ask Strike to take her somewhere tropical where they could just be for a while.
But there was no time to think about what would happen after this when there was no guarantee they’d live through it. She could suggest to Strike that they dump Torres and take off, but how long would they last after Junker found out he didn’t have the Point. How long would Leandra last after Bella decided the woman knew nothing about the Point?
Watching through the windshield, she saw Strike come out of the room to return to the car. She admired the long, lean lines of his capable body. The curve of his muscular arms, the breadth of his chest and the certainty in his stride.
He approached the car and pulled open her passenger door. “You want me to carry you in too?” he asked.
Smiling, she shook her head and took his hand when he offered it to help her out. She clutched Opal against her chest and waited for him to grab a couple of bags out the back. He’d gone through most of Junker’s stuff and decided what to keep and what to leave behind, and as she’d come to expect of Strike, he didn’t trust much of the other man’s possessions.
She was surprised when they went inside to find they were in a living room, it was small, but there were three doors at the back of the room and Torres wasn’t in sight. “Where is—”
“Two bedrooms,” he said, dumping the bags and going to open one of the doors to reveal a free bedroom. “He’s in the other one.”
That made her feel better, because she and Strike had a lot to talk about. After closing the front door, she locked it. Facing the room, she held a hand out to him, he came back to her to take it.
“Strike…” she breathed out, relieved that she could finally use his name.
“You want to talk,” he said, leading her over to the couch. “Can’t decide if this is going to end well for me.”
“I don’t know,” she said, curling her fingers around Opal who rested in her lap. “I do need to ask you to do something that you’re not going to like.”
Her plan had come together in pieces between her bouts of slumber and consciousness on their trip here. “What?” he asked. “If it includes leaving Redd alive…”
“He’s connected to Bella,” she said, still trying to put the pieces together. “I don’t know how, but… he used her name, and I knew you were too careful to have made a slip like that.”
“Fuck,” he growled. “I knew he wasn’t to be trusted. He and Gallagher only connected a couple of months before Redd got in touch with you. I didn’t know why he insinuated himself into Gallagher’s life like that or how he gained the guy’s trust so fast.”
“Benjamin was a trusting person,” she said. “But I was thinking…”
“Thinking what?”
“How did you hear about the Point? How did you know to ask the question?”
“Bella made a reference to it once,” he said. “She was trying to turn me on and win me back with news she’d heard. Except she didn’t know much about it and I was used to her being full of shit. I figured I’d keep an ear out, and if I got the chance I’d pursue it. But I wasn’t going to throw in with her again, no way.”
“That’s what you meant about getting there first and about being uninterested in Gallagher.”
“I think after I rejected her, she took Benjamin to try and show me she was capable and maybe in hope that I’d go help her torture the guy into giving up the truth,” he said.
Twisting to face him, she pulled her knees up under her. “But you didn’t?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t that interested. Don’t think anything could’ve got me interested enough to go back to Bella.”
But she had. He’d returned to Bella after Rora came into his life. Sliding a hand over his, she curled her fingers around his. “You offered yourself to her to save me,” she said, watching their hands stroke each other. “In that room, you told her to let me and Benjamin go, that she could have you.”
“You haven’t figured out I was in love with you by then?”
She’d suspected it, but hadn’t let herself believe it. “We hadn’t even had sex then… when did you fall in love with me?”
“You got my interest the first time you almost slammed Opal on my hands,” he said, making her smile. He curled a finger under her chin to draw her gaze up to his. “I fell in love with you the first time you threatened me… You didn’t care about anything, not even your own safety, you had a goal and nothing was going to stop you. Nothing. Not even me.”
“I almost gave up,” she said. “Then you ambushed me in that alley and pointed a gun at my head.” They stared into each other for a minute. “You thought you could fight it. That if we didn’t get physical, you could move on and forget me.”
He nodded. “It was my way of being chivalrous, didn’t figure this was any life for you.”
It was one that belonged to her now, but there was something between them that didn’t. Letting go of his hand, she opened Opal, and slid the machine onto his lap. Rora took his hand again and it was his turn to hesitate when she started to lower his hand to the keys.
Making eye contact, she smiled, and though he appeared dubious, he let her rest his hand down on the keyboard. “I forgive you, Strike,” she whispered, laying her hand over his. “You can have both of us.”
It
took him a second to absorb her words. “You’re sure?”
“Very sure,” she said, thinking her life reaped the biggest rewards when she took the biggest risks.
“You’re not worried that… ‘it’ will come between us again?”
“It doesn’t belong to me anymore,” she said and grinned at his confusion. “I told you Junker didn’t have it.”
“Right, but you didn’t tell me where it was,” he said. Lowering her attention to the computer on his lap, she peeked up at him, mischief in her eyes. “You… Ro, what did you do?”
“I told you the USB was too unsecure,” she said. “Opal and I were talking on the road and I figured that there wasn’t anyone capable of keeping it safer than she was.”
“You put the Point on Opal?” he asked, almost in disbelief, but she could tell there was a part of him that was humbled, and another that was impressed.
“She didn’t mind… I didn’t think for a second that it would be Junker, but I did think we might find ourselves at a crossroads eventually with someone threatening us for it. I figured Opal was the most secure place, you wouldn’t let anyone hack her and no one but us can touch her, so… I asked her to look after it.”
“I’ll destroy it,” he said, but she laid a hand over his knuckles to halt him.
She shook her head, digging her teeth into her lip before lifting her eyes to his. “No,” Rora said. “I want you to look at it… when you’re ready.”
He grew wary. “Why?”
Her lips lifted a fraction. “Because I want to lead you into temptation,” she said. “I want you to look at it, play with it… refine it if you want… Play with your shiny new toy… but don’t use it.”
For a few seconds, he just looked at her. “How do you know I won’t—”
“I don’t,” she said. “But I never will unless I take a chance. I am giving it to you, absolving myself of all responsibility and my only condition is that you never use it, or let it be used, in the real world.”
Opening a hand on Opal, he stroked his fingers across the keys. “I can do whatever I want with the Point? It belongs to me now?”
She was biting her lip again but nodded and kept her smile. “I once told you that I didn’t want you to change, that I would never judge you, and I don’t plan to. But if I don’t change, if I don’t make myself trust someone, trust you, we can never work as any kind of us. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m trusting you. Whatever you decide to do… it’s on you.”
“You’re trusting me?”
“I’m trusting you,” she said, and looped her arm through his. “Though maybe if you’d made it clearer to me in the first place that you were just curious, I might have been more understanding.”
Rora couldn’t guarantee that. But now that they were mending fences, she got a sense that if they came out the other side of this ordeal, they might actually be stronger and closer than they had been before.
TWENTY-ONE
Strike surprised her by closing Opal and putting the laptop on the table. “What are you doing?” Rora asked. “You just got her back.”
“I just got you back.” Scooping her into his arms, he stood up and carried her through to the bedroom. “It feels like years since we’ve been alone.”
“Since we’ve been bad together,” she said, tightening her hold on his neck when he laid her on the bed to pull him down with her. Maybe she had gone over the edge, but if she had then oblivion felt good. “I want you to corrupt me, Strike. I want to be bad with you. I thought I was lost, that I didn’t know what I wanted, but I did. All along I knew what I wanted… you. You’re the only thing I want.” Invigorated, she pushed him onto his back and climbed up into his lap to rock her hips on his. “I’m so happy we’re alone right now.”
Sitting up, he touched his lips to hers. But rather than the deep, passionate kiss she was expecting, this kiss was short. “Wouldn’t matter if we weren’t,” he said, stroking her breasts. “I’d have given Torres a shot of morphine before I gave up the chance to be inside you again.”
She laughed, working her pelvis faster, whimpering at the feel of his erection fighting to get out of his jeans.
Their gazes locked.
Dragging her lip in her teeth, she chewed hard, not because she was anxious but because as she stared into him, she saw it. She saw what she’d spent her life looking for: her rock.
“We need to be naked,” she said and leaped off the bed to begin stripping.
He didn’t stand up, but pulled off his tee-shirt and kicked off his boots. She laughed at their haste and turned to toss her clothes away as he pulled off his socks and started on his jeans.
“What the fuck is that?”
She didn’t expect him to be off the bed and so close to her when she twisted toward him. But he grabbed her arm and turned her away from him again. She saw in the mirrored closet door that he was examining her back, his face tensed in a scowl.
When his fingertips traced downward on her back, she figured out what he’d found. “Junker said most of them won’t scar, but that one was the worst. It’s taking the longest to heal, most of the time I forget it’s there, but sometimes if the water in the tub is too hot, it stings.”
The mark started beneath her shoulder blade and ran down about six or eight inches. She wasn’t sure, she’d never seen it properly, only felt it.
Grabbing her arm tight, he flipped her to face him. Nothing but fury exuded from him. “Bella,” he growled, his jaw clenched.
She nodded and tried to reach for his face, but he backed off. “Baby, it’s fine,” she said. “I don’t care. I love you. As long as I have you, every second of pain was worth it.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, turning his back on her. Rora had never seen him so tight with anger. “I will make her feel every second of agony she put you through. I’ll make her pay for every moment she even thought about hurting you.”
“Word is that’s what you were doing when she ran off,” she said, going to him to slide her hands up to his shoulders. “Don’t be blinded by your hate, my love. That’s living in the past, you never do that. Celebrate that we have each other. Celebrate the future we can have.” Rising on her tiptoes, she moved around him to brush her mouth over his. “Celebrate with me, Flame.”
Curling her fingers around his solid arms, she guided him to the bed, and held his hands on her waist, bringing him down onto the mattress with her. He scooped a hand under her jaw and tried to guide her mouth to his, but she pulled back.
“Did we lock the door?” she whispered, breaking eye contact for the first time.
But he grabbed her chin to pull her focus back to him. “I cuffed Torres. Doesn’t matter anyway, in a minute your screams will keep everyone out of here.”
Her smile grew but worry made her catch her lip in her teeth. “I don’t trust myself not to scream your name too loud.”
He kissed her, a slow but hard press of his mouth onto hers. “I trust you, Ro,” he said and parted his lips to plunder her mouth deeper.
Kissing him really did have the power to set her alight, just like Bella had once said, except now this mouth, this man was hers. He belonged to her and had proved that her happiness was more important to him than even his own.
“I need you,” she said, her fingers not working fast enough to free him from his jeans.
The moment he slid into her was the most freeing of her life. This joining was more significant than any they’d ever had before because as her body locked around his, Rora knew, no other man would ever occupy her like this again.
With his fingers digging into her ass, he pulled her up to meet every one of his thrusts. Rora let him take control of her body and instead focused on stroking him, kissing him, feeling him, enjoying every second with this man she’d missed so much.
“Fuck, baby, you feel good,” he said and pulled her pelvis to his, clamping them together.
She was still writhing beneath him when he coiled his fingers in her hair and p
ulled her head back to open his mouth on her throat, dragging his teeth against her skin. The sensation of his wet mouth and the scrape of his teeth made her shudder.
“Strike,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”
His teeth went deeper, and she grabbed for his waist, digging her teeth into his arm when orgasm clenched her whole body. He groaned and pulled out to drive himself back into her again.
Air was pushed from her throat as their bodies clashed together. Her whimpers became moans until the overwhelming pleasure was making her scream out.
“Fuck, yes, I need it. I need you!”
“You’ve got me, baby. You’ve got me,” he groaned, shoving his dick into her and meeting her climax with his own when she called out until her throat grew hoarse.
He began to withdraw, but she grabbed for his shoulders and pulled him back to her. “No, no,” she whimpered. “I’m not ready for you to go yet. Don’t leave me, Strike.”
Stroking his face, she tempted his mouth back to hers, but he leaned back when she tried to slip her tongue into his mouth.
“I’m not going anywhere, baby,” he said, moving his lips back and forth over hers. “I’m yours, and any time you want me, you can have me.”
“Any time?” she asked, running her hands down his arms. “And what if I want to touch you or flirt with you?”
Pushing her chin up with a fingertip, he kissed her lower lip. “Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven.”
Laughing at his use of such a cheesy line, she patted his chest. “We’ll work on that, baby.”
Lying in his arms, she began to relax. They’d never really done this, never just held each other. But then they’d probably never appreciated the importance of their connection, not until they almost lost it.
“What changed your mind, Ro?”
That was a loaded question and wasn’t an easy one to answer. “You weren’t wrong, I was. I mean, you were in your methods, but I was wrong too,” she said. “I thought I wanted to do the right thing because this is dangerous and that’s what people do. But people are selfish. They go after what they want and say fuck the world. That’s what I want to do, Strike. I want to say fuck the world.”
Kiss Chase (Exile Book 2) Page 19
