“Me either.” He moved a little closer to her on the picnic table and laid their joined hands on his muscular thigh. They were touching at hip and shoulder now, and she had to force herself not to lean into him as he continued, “I wasn’t looking for anyone, you know. I don’t have room in my life for a friend, never mind a lover.”
“You slept with Jane.” She hadn’t meant to go there, but how could she not? She might’ve suspected the relationship before, but the moment she’d seen them together she’d known for certain. It was in the way they’d looked at each other, the way they’d leaned close to talk, well within each other’s space.
“We had mutually agreeable sex. That doesn’t make her my lover.”
She winced. “That’s cold.”
“This isn’t.” He lifted their joined hands and pressed his lips to her knuckles, sending a frisson of heat radiating through her. “This is different, whether I want it to be or not.” He paused, then admitted, “I hated leaving you here, but I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t about you calling the cops, either. Not really.”
She didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to let him weaken her. But the feel of his body against hers and the good pressure of their fingers intertwined had her saying, “What was it about?”
“I was afraid.” He said the word like it was a curse. “When I saw your police detail go down and I knew Muhammad and the others were out there, gunning for you, I couldn’t handle it. I was scared and furious, and I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”
His voice was so raw, the emotion etched so clearly on his face in the moonlight, that her heart turned over in her chest. She squeezed her fingers on his. “You did get to me. You got me out of there, kept me safe. I’m fine.”
“You might not be the next time. These guys are killers, Chelsea. If they want you dead, you might as well already be in the meat wagon.”
Her blood heated, not just at his words, but at the emotion beneath them, which was more than she’d expected, more even than she’d hoped for on the few brief occasions she’d allowed herself to hope.
Which didn’t change the way his face had lit when he’d seen Jane in the doorway, or the way the two of them had leaned close together, shutting the others out, including her.
“Why are you here, Jonah?” she said quietly, wishing he would go away, because if he didn’t she was likely to do something she’d regret.
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Damned if I know.”
“You should be with Jane.”
“What if I’d rather be with you?”
“Can you honestly say that?”
His silence was answer enough, and Chelsea felt something wither and die within her. She pulled her hand away from his and stood. “I didn’t think so.” She turned to face him, her throat tightening a little at the moonlit sight of the man who had become too important to her in too short a time. “Let’s not make this any harder than it already is, okay?”
She didn’t really expect an answer, didn’t get one. A moment of silence drew out as they stared at each other, knowing there really wasn’t any answer to the gulf separating them—one of experience and priority, of lifestyle and goals.
Then she turned away, her eyes filling with angry tears as she returned to her room alone, leaving him in the darkness.
SHE WAS RIGHT, damn it. Fax knew it, knew he should leave things well enough alone. They’d had their moment and it’d been a good one, but neither of them had thought going in that it was going to be more than a flash in the pan, a night or two in the midst of chaos. He wasn’t the sort of guy for more than that.
So why did he feel like kicking the crap out of the picnic table and howling at the moon? Why did he want to follow her and pick a fight, argue the impossible?
“You were in prison, idiot,” he muttered as he dragged himself off the picnic table and headed back toward the scattered lights coming from the motel. “You were bound to get hooked on the first woman you saw.”
Which sounded logical enough. Too bad he couldn’t convince himself it was the truth. He’d gone longer between lovers before. Hell, after Abby died, it’d been more than two years before he’d taken Jane up on her no-strings offer, and they’d only been together maybe a dozen times total, and then only when it made sense.
He and Chelsea made no sense whatsoever. Yet damned if he didn’t hesitate when he reached the front of the motel, knowing he should get some sleep in his own drab room, but wanting to knock on Chelsea’s door instead.
Let’s not make this any harder than it already is, she’d said, and he knew she was right. Thing was, he wasn’t sure he wanted to take the easy way out this time.
“Looking for company?”
He turned at the question, feeling a complicated mix of emotions at the sight of the woman backlit in her motel-room doorway.
The wrong woman.
He summoned a smile for Jane, one that felt like respect and trust, and nothing more. “Hey.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’” She didn’t look like it bothered her one way or the other, but her expression hardened as she approached him.
She was wearing a T-shirt and yoga pants, no doubt borrowed—or more likely commandeered—from one of the other women. Even in the casual clothes, she looked like a leader, like a warrior in the battle against terrorism.
Tilting her head, she looked at him long and hard, then said simply, “You’ll want some time off after this, to make your decision.”
“I made my call a long time ago.” Or rather, circumstances had made it for him. Maybe back then he could’ve gone in a different direction, made a different choice, but he’d seen and done too much in the intervening years.
He couldn’t go back to real life now. He could only protect it for others.
“Are you sure? If your head’s not in the game…” She let the sentence trail off, but he had no trouble filling in the blank. If he wasn’t for her he was against her, and she’d leave him behind rather than let him interfere because of conflicted loyalties.
He knew, because it was what he would’ve done in her shoes. At least it would’ve been a few weeks earlier. Now, he couldn’t be entirely sure what he would’ve done in her place. He only knew that he damn well needed to be in on al-Jihad’s takedown—not just because he’d spent the past two years working toward it, but because the bastard was after Chelsea and her friends, and the residents of Bear Claw.
He couldn’t give Chelsea the commitment and the caring that she needed, but he could damn well protect her, and the people she cared about.
“I’m so far into the game it’s not even funny,” he grated, letting Jane see the determination in his eyes, and an edge of threat. He was in this one whether he went with her or through her. It was her choice.
Her lips curved ever so slightly and she nodded. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” She turned and headed back to her room, but paused at the threshold and looked back. “You’ve always been my best. After this, we’ll rebuild, and you’ll be in it every step of the way. Two teams—one mine, one yours. You have my word.”
His own team. It was an honor, a promotion. And it would consume his every waking moment from there on out.
Fax nodded. “I’m flattered.”
“And?”
“I’m in.”
“Good.” She didn’t say another word, just headed into her room and shut the door at her back.
Fax just stood there for a moment. Then he said, “You heard that, I take it?”
Three rooms down, Chelsea’s door opened from the cracked position it’d been occupying. She stood framed in the doorway as he crossed to her, trying to read her expression and failing.
Wearing bike shorts and a plain T-shirt, she should’ve looked soft and vulnerable. Instead, she looked supremely self-contained as she tilted her head and said, “I heard.”
“And?”
“What exactly is it that you want me to say?” Her eyes glittered, but with temper, not t
ears. “Congratulations?”
“Say you understand,” he said, the words coming from nowhere, from somewhere deep inside him, emerging before he knew he was going to ask.
She smiled with zero humor. “I understand that leading a team will be far easier—and way more comfortable—for you than trying to make a change.”
Anger flared, more familiar than the nerves that shimmered too near the surface. “That’s low.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Truth hurts. You didn’t—still don’t—want to trust me or my friends, because that might’ve proved that the way you live your life isn’t the way it has to be, that you’ve got other options if you’d only be brave enough to reach out and grab for them.”
“I’m not the one who thinks of myself as a wimp.”
“Neither do I. Not anymore. No,” she said softly, her focus turning inward, “I’ve given up too many times because I was afraid to try something I might not succeed at. But not anymore. I’m done wimping out.”
“Is that what this is about?” he snapped. “Leading your friends up the mountain on the basis of zero evidence isn’t exactly going to prove that you’re brave. Seems to me you’re heading away from the fight.”
“You’re getting nasty. That means you know I’m right.”
He stepped closer, until he was in her space, crowding her, breathing the same air she was. “It means I’m getting annoyed with this conversation. What exactly do you want from me right now, Chelsea? Another apology?”
“No. I want you to come inside.” She stepped back, into the motel room where he’d left her cuffed that morning, thinking it might be the last time he saw her.
She’d been unconscious, her eyelashes lying on her pale cheeks, her lips curved faintly on some dream he could only guess at, and envy.
His brain locked on the memory and on the invitation.
“You want…” He trailed off, sure he’d misheard.
But she crooked a finger. “I want you. Inside. Now.”
His feet moved before he knew he’d made the decision, propelling him into her motel room. His hands worked of their own volition, closing and locking the door, and putting the pitiful chain in place. But before he could touch her, he forced himself to stop, forced himself to be sure this was what she wanted.
He lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her mouth, in a gesture of tenderness that felt both foreign and right. “I can’t be what you need.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You think I haven’t figured that out? Please.” But she caught his hand in hers, and pressed his palm to her cheek. “This is it, Jonah. It’s been a hell of a week, but as of tomorrow, it’s over. Back to real life for me, back to the shadows for you. This is our last night. I’d rather not waste it being mad at each other for things we can’t or won’t change.”
He knew he should do something, say something; knew he should either move in or away from her, but he couldn’t do a damn thing. He didn’t trust himself to get it right, didn’t trust himself not to hurt her in taking what he wanted more than he wanted his next breath.
He’d nearly talked himself into being the gentleman when she leaned up on her toes and touched her lips to his.
And he was lost.
CHELSEA KNEW she was making a big mistake, but she had to believe it’d be a bigger mistake to let him walk away without taking what she could get of the magic they made together. If it was just sex, then that was all it would be. And if, deep down inside, she knew it was far more than that on her part, she’d deal with that heartache tomorrow.
Tonight she wanted the man, her man, for this one final night they had together. So she kissed him, and was prepared to hang on tight if he tried to pull away.
She wasn’t prepared for him to kiss her back. Which was exactly what he did, grabbing on to her and leaning in hard, taking her kiss from an invitation to a demand in the space of a second.
Heat speared through her. Want. Longing. And raw, no-holds-barred lust.
Whereas the night before had at least been cloaked with the illusion of romance, now there was none. He bent her over his arm, ravaging her lips and throat, his grip on her so tight she could do little more than sag back and moan with the feel of him, and the heat that spiraled up within her.
He bore her to the bed where he’d chained her that morning. Chelsea had a brief flash of wishing Sara hadn’t disposed of the cuffs, followed by a hard blush brought on by the thought.
Fax’s rusty chuckle let her know he’d read her expression, or else his mind had paralleled hers. She opened her eyes to find his face very near hers, his eyes gone flinty with passion.
He was breathing hard, with quick rasps—they both were. They were twined together on the yielding surface of the mattress, although she wasn’t sure when they’d gotten there or how. Her T-shirt was up around her throat, and his hands were on her breasts, chafing them, working them until her entire body was a coil of sensation.
She arched back and cried out, dragging at his clothes, at his hard body atop hers, needing more, demanding more.
They parted only long enough to shed clothes and pull aside the cheap bedspread he’d stolen from the airport hotel, and for him to don the second and last of the condoms she kept in her purse. Then they were back on the bed straining together, chasing each other through the flames that licked around her, inside her.
He thrust into her without preamble, a tremendous surge that had her biting back a cry. He buried his own shout in her mouth, both of them aware that they weren’t alone at the motel, yet at the same time unaware of anything but the slide and slap of flesh and the raw need that drove them together and apart, together and apart.
She came fast and hard, clamping around him, vising her calves behind his hips and driving him deeper and deeper still. He plunged into her again and again, spurring her onward, prolonging the pleasure until it passed beyond her comfort zone to something that wrenched her gut and warned that she would never be the same, she would never have another lover who could measure up to what she had experienced with Fax.
Then he cut loose, going rigid against her and muffling a long, hollow cry against her throat. She felt him pulsing within her, felt the long, drawn-out shudders that wracked his big, strong body, and she wrapped herself around him, giving herself to the moment, to the man, as she came again.
Tears tracked from the corners of her eyes and mingled with the sweat that prickled her body and then cooled, binding them together as surely as their flesh was united.
She’d been lying from the start. It hadn’t just been sex for her. Not by a long shot.
Fax shuddered one last time and went limp against her. He looped his arms around her waist and hung on like he never meant to let go, and she allowed it because she was helpless to do otherwise, helpless to stop another tear from building and breaking free.
“Crushing you,” he muttered thickly, and rolled to his side, taking her with him, rearranging them so they were spooned together, her back to his front. Then he pulled the coverlet over them both. He murmured something else, low and sweet, and too slurred for her to understand.
Within minutes, he was asleep.
Chelsea, on the other hand, was wide awake. She knew what she had to do and hated it. She wanted to stay in his arms, wanted to draw out every last precious second they had left together. But, really, their time had already run out. She was already using borrowed hours, time stolen from the people who trusted her, who needed her.
Slipping out from underneath Fax’s sleep-heavy arm, she rose from the bed. Forcing herself not to look back, not to regret, she got dressed in her jeans and heavy shirt, and carried her shoes to the door.
There, she did look back. And immediately wished she hadn’t.
Fax looked fierce even in his sleep. He’d pulled her pillow to his chest, cradling it as though he was still trying to protect her, trying to keep her close. Only, he’d protected her well enough, but he’d never let her close, never let her inside.
“Now it’s my turn to say I’m sorry,” she said, hanging on to the door frame to keep herself from going back to the bed and touching him, kissing him the way she wanted to—the way that would be guaranteed to wake him, guaranteed to give him a chance to stop her. Which wasn’t an option. So instead she touched her fingers to her sex-swollen lips and blew him a kiss. “Goodbye, Jonah.”
She closed the door quietly behind her, and tiptoed away from Jane’s room. The other woman couldn’t know what they planned.
At her quiet knock, Seth opened the door to the room he and Cassie were sharing. He was dressed for action, and the others were gathered at his back. “Thought you weren’t going to make it,” he said, his eyes narrowing on hers.
“I’m here now,” she said, refusing to explain, or make excuses. “Let’s go.”
A KNOCK ON THE DOOR roused Fax an hour past dawn. He was alone.
More than that, the sheets beside him were cool to the touch, and something inside him said that Chelsea had been gone for a while.
She went for breakfast, he told himself, knowing it was a lie and hating the dismay that shot through him, the worry.
After yanking on his pants and shirt, he opened the door. He was unsurprised to see Jane on the other side, and equally unsurprised to see that she was alone. “They’re gone,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Jane nodded. “Around 2:00 a.m.”
Fax stiffened. “You heard and didn’t stop them? Didn’t come get me?”
“What would you have done?” Faint scorn laced her voice. “Get your head out of your pants and into the game, Jonah. If they’re not fully on board with the plan then we’re better off without them.”
“What if they go to the cops?”
“They won’t. They bought into that much of it.” She jerked her chin in the direction of the mountain. “They’re on their way up there, which is just as well for us. It’ll get them out of our way while we do the real dirty work.”
She held his gaze, awaiting a response.
Manhunt in the Wild West Page 15
