by Cherry Adair
Her heartbeat stopped along with Maza’s.
This was it.
Navarro, head bowed over the laser cutter, said quietly, “Start the countdown.”
“I’ll do it,” Gideon said, before Control started. “T-minus sixty.”
Riva’s heart began its own countdown in a rapid triple-time for each tick. It felt as though it was leaping around her chest in heavy boots, threatening to kick through her ribs. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Didn’t her heart remember she was a trained operative? She’d faced life-and-death situations before. This is part of your job, Rimaldi. All the intense training, and numerous ops, were forgotten.
She wanted to live, damn it.
She sucked in another breath. Let it out slowly. Another breath…
“Cellular respiration declining,” Wright said. Calm. Professional.
Holy crap. Hurry, Navarro. Do this. Don’t let me die.
“Fifty-eight seconds.”
With her job, she’d never imagined any kind of future. Never allowed herself to imagine sharing her life with anyone. Now that she had only seconds to live, it was all she thought about. It didn’t matter that Gideon wouldn’t stick around. She suddenly realized that in her heart of hearts, she’d hoped they might have a chance. A slim, crazy, small chance. Hell, any chance.
It was gone now.
The reality of them working out should never have existed in the first place.
He’d changed that. In the last couple days, she’d come to understand that. It didn’t matter that Gideon wouldn’t stick around. Hope for such a future was foreign to her. At least it had been foreign, before him.
The frigging bomb made her see that, when it was about to splinter her, and everyone around her, into tiny fragments. The clarity came with a price, because the bomb also obliterated her vague, nebulous slice of hope.
Hell, reality? Never existed in the first place. She’d known that all along. Of course she had. Gideon Stark and Riva Rimaldi? Never happen. Her wildest dreams had never taken her so damn far out of the realm of possibility. She was pragmatic, sensible, and above all a realist.
“T-minus fifty-four.”
Were the last two visions she’d had reflective of what was about to happen? She tried to see into her own future. But as usual, her needs didn’t equate into seeing her own outcome. Was that what they’d been about? Swirls of jagged red. Massive emotional pain… Unbearable agony.
Shorthand for her own death? His?
Dying wouldn’t give her unbearable pain. Emotional or physical. She’d be freaking dead. So, not her own death, then.
Then whose?
Gideon’s death?
While she’d seen only violent and painful colors, that felt closer to the truth. Dios, his death would give her unimaginable pain. She’d rather die herself.
The device didn’t cover the razor-thin white scars on her wrist. Maza had pulled off what she’d been too chicken to do herself all those years ago. But she’d lived life between then and now. She’d learned and grown. She’d known happiness, but never love.
The thought of not existing any longer had not crossed her mind in over twenty years. Now she was faced with that reality. But for different reasons.
“Navarro.” Control’s even tone indicated a tension Riva hadn’t heard before. “Not to rush you, but we have the small matter of a thermobaric bomb out there to contend with.”
Riva started to get up. A hard hand on her shoulder pressed her down, as tight fingers steadied her arm. Gideon. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Turning her head, she looked at Gideon through the visor. “You saw the demo at Maza’s compound. My piece of jewelry here is about to take down this house and every other building in a thousand-foot radius. Hundreds of people will die. But that’s small potatoes compared to what a thermobaric bomb will do. Navarro has to go!”
“Sit your ass down, Rimaldi,” Rafe Navarro said. “And that’s an order. We’re almost done here.”
Since she’d barely lifted a cheek to get off the chair, Riva hesitated, then settled back. “You know I’m right.”
“You know how damned good I am,” Navarro informed her, eyes down, saw showering her arm with sparks like fireflies dancing on a hot summer’s evening. “I’m excellent at multitasking. The team has to find the device before my team and I are called in. Let them do their jobs, and I’ll spend the next few minutes doing mine.”
Gideon’s voice sounded calm and controlled as he continued the countdown. “T-minus fifty.”
“Tell you what.” Navarro’s head was so close to her wrist, Riva saw golden fireworks reflected in the lenses of the loupe visor. “If we make it, due to my prowess, brilliance, and dexterity with all things that go BOOM, you owe me a hundred bucks.”
She gave him a weak smile, which he couldn’t see since she wore the helmet. “How will you pay me if I win, Navarro?”
“Don’t you worry, Rimaldi. I never lose.”
Dr. Wright butted in. “Crap. Here’s a new wrinkle we didn’t anticipate—”
Oh God. Now what? It couldn’t get any worse than it already was.
“There’s an integrated microscopic probe into a vein,” Wright continued evenly. “Fiber microchannels relaying info. The device won’t work on anyone else. This fucker is calculated to his blood type as well as his blood oxygenation levels.” He said something to someone else in the room, his voice muffled. Then came back. “We’re going through records of local operatives to see who’s a match. Someone with small wrist like his.”
“T-minus forty-seven…” Dios. Under a minute to kiss her ass good-bye. Desperately, she needed Gideon to hold her, tight. Needed the feel of his warm skin. Needed his mouth on hers. Needed…more damned time.
“Almost there.” Gideon’s voice was strained as he tried to assure her that it was almost done.
Riva didn’t believe him. She wished she could see him, but he stood slightly behind her and she felt his presence. But then, maybe not seeing his face, not reading his fear was better. It was enough that she had to deal with her own.
“What’s his blood type?” Gideon asked. “I’m O neg.”
“No go,” Wright told him. “Need someone B Rh positive. One in about twelve have it. We’re looking—”
“I’m B Rh positive,” Riva told everyone listening.
At the same time Control inserted, “Rimaldi’s a match.”
“My hands are small enough,” she finished. “I could slip into his device while Navarro works on mine.”
“T-minus forty-four. Where’s the surgical room?” Gideon demanded. Riva wanted to reach for him. To grab his hand and promise him everything would be fine. These men working around her were the best at what they did. But right now her entire focus was on watching the sparks fly as Navarro attempted to liberate her from the device, hot on her right wrist.
“Minute. Less if we haul ass.” Navarro took her by the forearm, and stopped sawing. “Up.”
They all knew they no longer had a full minute.
“T-minus forty-two. Haul ass.” Gideon yanked open the door. They ran through the kitchen and down the hall.
“This way,” Navarro still held her arm, but the sparks had stopped while they ran.
“T-minus forty.”
With Navarro in the lead, they slammed into what had been a dining room. Maza was stretched out on the table, arm strapped to a board. All Riva could see was blood. Blood, and people moving about the room in slow motion.
“T-minus thirty-eight,” Gideon stood beside her as someone shoved an IV stand out of the way, then pushed her into a chair next to Maza’s body. “T-minus thirty-seven seconds.”
The helmet gave her limited visibility. Blood. Maza’s hand. Blood. The blurred spin of the bone saw. Blood.
Thank God she couldn’t smell anything beneath the helmet. At some point, someone had placed both her arms on a small table. She’d hadn’t been aware of the action at all. Odd. She was there. But not
. Peripherally she noticed Navarro, back to grinding and sawing at her device. The sparklers showed up against the black of his LockOut as he bent over her hand.
“T-minus thirty-one.”
Watching a man’s hand sawed off his body was grisly business. Riva wanted to look away. She’d seen people blown to bits, people decapitated, limbs lost—all in the line of duty. This was a hell of a lot more personal, and she couldn’t look away.
Her life hung on every red liquid spin of the blade. It was easier to imagine she watched a movie through the small view finder, than know it was a human being chopped up inches from her face. Even if that human was Escobar Maza.
“T-minus twenty-eight seconds.” Other than Gideon’s calm voice in her comm, no one said a word.
Tangentially, people moved around the table. Orange sparks floated over her wrist. Someone shoved back the bomb suit sleeve and managed to shove the LockOut sleeve up her forearm, baring it. Large drops of blood scattered before the saw applied to Maza’s wrist. Mouth dry, Riva felt the itch of a drop of sweat trickle down her temple. Felt the hard, rapid thud-thud-thud of her heartbeat, pounded in her ears. Felt the burn behind her unblinking eyes.
“T-minus fourteen.” No longer calm, Gideon’s voice sounded strained and tense.
Maza’s hand, flaccid and bloody, dropped into a bucket with a dull thump.
“T-Minus three seconds.”
Competent hands slid the device off the stub of Maza’s arm, and efficiently slid the Titanium band over Riva’s fingers. It was still warm, and wet with Maza’s blood and slipped over her knuckles, then aided by quick hands, seated on her wrist. The small prick of the probe piercing her flesh went barely unnoticed.
“Two seconds to spare,” Gideon murmured, voice thick.
Thud-thud-thud-thud. Riva closed her eyes. T-minus two seconds. T-minus one second.
Thud-pause-pause-thud-thud-thud.
“Done!” Navarro said, with surreal calm. “Trigger cut. Hot shit, you’re free. I’m a fucking genius!”
The second the device was removed, her arm felt as though it was filled with helium. Light and insubstantial.
A hot numbness swept over her entire body. Sagging, she realized Gideon hadn’t left her side. Even encumbered as he was in the bomb suit, his arms were wrapped tightly around her, holding her upright as someone gently removed Maza’s device, swiping her skin with a disinfectant pad as the probe slid out.
Her burning eyes met Navarro’s. “Thank you.”
“You’re just too good of an operative to go kablooie, Rimaldi.”
“Navarro.” Control’s voice sounded far, far away. “Chopper waiting on roof. Go. Go. Go.”
“Gone. And Rimaldi? You owe me a hundred bucks.” Navarro shot her a grin and disappeared from view.
Riva’s scalp tingled as she tried to swallow, but her throat muscles didn’t work. “Helmet!” she pushed out, as claustrophobia swamped her. Cool air brushed her face as the bomb helmet was removed. She gasped for breath like a fish out of water, allowing all the pungent and metallic smells of surgery and death to overwhelm her senses.
Bile rose hot and acidic in the back of her throat, and she gagged. Prickly heat blanketed her body as she started to shake.
Gideon held a glass of water to her lips, tilting it so she could sip. Someone poured water over her arms, washing away the blood. Water, cold, and crisp, hydrated her throat, and reactivated her laboring lungs.
“Need a shower.” Somewhere small and private, away from the eyes of her fellow operatives. She just needed a few minutes to be a scared woman before she went back to being a kick-ass operative. Just a few minutes…
The glass disappeared, and strong arms scooped her up out of the chair.
“Upstairs.” Whoever spoke sounded far away and muzzy. “Second door on the right.”
Dropping her head to his padded shoulder, Riva shut her eyes and let Gideon play the hero and get her the hell out of there.
The second Gideon kicked the bedroom door closed behind them, he grabbed her up in a tight hold, and said raggedly into her hair, “Jesus, woman! I aged twenty-years down there. I thought I was going to lose you.”
Riva pulled his head down and kissed him as she’d been longing to do for what felt like freaking eternity.
Their hands tore at the bomb suits as their mouths fused, tongues greedy.
“Turn around!” Riva demanded, grabbing his arm. The suit was thick, hard to maneuver in, but he turned so she could attack the clasps in back. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
She spun around, and let him open the back of her suit just as fast. “Oh, freaking hell.” LockOut. “I know where the— Move your arm. Stop helping.” Breathless, she laughed as their hands tangled in their haste. “Now. Stand still. Let me do it.” There was a trick to getting a LockOut suit off, and she didn’t have the time or patience to show him.
Finally, they ended up naked and fell onto the bed in a tangle of lips and limbs, Riva on the bottom. Grabbing a handful of hair at the back of his head, she jerked his head down, then kissed him as she wrapped her legs around his hips, locking her ankles at the base of his spine.
He positioned himself at her entrance.
They came together fast as he buried himself in her. The act of penetration, over and over again, shoved their bodies across the width of the bed. He groaned with the force of his effort. She braced her hands on the headboard as she lifted her hips to meet each of his thrusts, half-sighing, half-panting with delicious pleasure as he rode her, hard.
They were both breathless as they came.
Now on top, when she could move again, Riva framed his face with both hands. She smiled. “Awesome thank-God-we’re-alive-sex, Mr. Stark.”
He lifted her hand, held it tight, then pressed his lips against it. “Bears repeating. Thank. God. We’re. Alive. And Navarro. And the team of T-FLAC operatives.”
“And you,” she whispered as his lips found hers.
“And you,” he said, pulling away from the kiss.
Sliding her leg over his hip, she slipped from the bed. For a moment she turned to look out of the window, trying to contain the intensity of her feelings.
Dusk fell in a translucent apricot haze over the city. Arms braced on the sill, she looked out over the rooftops of Santa de Porres. Picture postcard pretty, the city spread below in stair steps of vibrant color with the peaks of Qhapaq rising commandingly in the distance as a hazy blue backdrop. From this vantage point, none of the poverty, squalor, and corruption was visible.
“Riva?”
She turned, her heart clutching at the sight of him. Naked, he stood on the other side of the bed. The gloom carved shadows on the planes of his face, and delineated the muscles of his chest and ripped belly. Her eyes lifted to his face. Mouth somber, his eyes swept over her taut body as she remained backlit by the sky.
The very air seemed to shimmer with sensual heat.
She padded across the carpet, holding his gaze. Stupid to waste a single moment with doubts and insecurities. “Now,” she told him cheerfully. “A hot, hot, hot shower. Come along, sir. I want to wash all your tasty parts, and see if we can take a more leisurely tour.” Riva tugged his hand until he smiled. Slapping him on the butt, she dragged him into the bathroom.
The three-piece bathroom, small, utilitarian, and windowless, was en suite. As Gideon turned on the shower, she ran her hands down the curve of his back. “You have a lot of scars for a pencil pusher.” Many of which looked older than the length of time he’d spent in Cosio. Perhaps many of them had occurred in Venezuela before he’d been taken by Angélica? Would he ever find out all the pieces that had brought him to this point in his life? She reached up and back for her braid, undoing it with practiced ease.
“Clearly pencils weren’t the only things I pushed.” He gave her a little push into the shower. “In, woman.”
The molded plastic stall was barely large enough for the two of them to squeeze in side by side. The glass door didn’t close,
and a sliver of cold air crept into the steamy shower. The water was hot and plentiful, and felt incredible as it pounded down on Riva’s head.
She tilted back her head and let the water sluice through her thick hair and run down her back. Riva was careful not to look at the water as it went down the drain. She knew that some of it would be red, and she’d seen enough red to last her for a long, long time.
He reached for the liquid soap and poured too much into his hand. He washed himself efficiently and fast, not aided in any way by her marauding hands as she committed his body to memory. Gideon laughed when she moaned at how great the hot water felt pouring over her. “That good, huh?”
“Right now? Aaalmost as good as sex.” Riva loved the way his nipple hardened as she stroked her hand over his chest. She lingered, fascinated by the streams of water snaking through the hair on his chest and dripping off his beard. “Of course, I can say that because we just had amazing sex.”
IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.
“And are about to again.” Putting the bottle back on the little shelf, he said, “Turn around.”
There was no way to avoid touching him, even if Riva wanted to, which she didn’t; the shower was too confining. Maneuvering her feet, she faced the wall. The brush of his erect penis made her moan in anticipation. But mixed with her arousal was an unbearable pressure of loss welling inside her.
The adrenaline that had held her together for days seeped out of her, and there was nothing left to hold her emotions together. I’m a goddamn T-FLAC operative. I will not cry. I. Will. Not. Freaking-well. Cry!
She tried to force a vision. A dress rehearsal for her future. But nothing came. Just the residual ache of the swirling red and the death of she didn’t know what. She didn’t need a damned vision to tell her that there was no them ahead of her.
Gideon was alive and well, his heart beating with life and vitality. And they had this moment.
IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou.
Lifting her face, she let the hot water stream over her. It took several moments for her to feel confident that she could speak without breaking down. “You know, if we tried to do it in here, we’d both dislocate our assorted body parts or potentially break through the stall wall.” She added just the right amount of humor to her voice. “What do you say we speed wash and go back to bed?”
