by Joss Ware
Stepping back from him was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but she managed it. Disappointment flared in his eyes, but he made no move to follow her.
“I think it’s best if I get a good night’s sleep,” she managed to say, even though her insides were hot and fluttery and ready. Besides, you were a jerk today.
A flicker of his charming smile warmed his eyes and showed a brief flash of white teeth. “I can help with that,” he promised, and reached out to gently caress her lips with a broad fingertip.
“I suspect that what you have in mind will keep me up all night,” she countered. Her lips tingled from his touch, still full and moist from the kiss.
“Actually,” he replied, his hand easing away, “I meant . . . I could give you a back rub. Very relaxing.” He showed her his big hands, and she could already feel their smooth, long, easy strokes down her back.
Ana’s heart lodged in her throat. “Yeah, right,” she managed to say around the lump. “A back rub. That’ll change about five minutes after I let you in.”
“Only if you want it to,” he said. “I swear on my mother’s soul.”
She remembered the grief in his eyes when he’d mentioned his mother earlier, and decided that was a pretty solid vow.
She also realized that if he wanted to be down in the pub, making eyes at that blond woman who looked as if she’d jump into his pants at a moment’s notice, he could be.
But he was here. Trying to convince her that he wanted to be here. And only here.
She believed him. She wanted him here too.
“All right,” she said, and stepped back.
Chapter 17
Fence awoke, as he always did, at the first rays of sunlight. This time, though, he had an armful of sun goddess to greet the day with him . . . and it was after a full night’s sleep.
Not one damned nightmare, for the first time in . . . forever. Whoa.
As he looked down at Ana, her golden-brown hair tumbled all over her shoulders and the pillow, facing away as he spooned her from behind, and his heart gave that unfamiliar lurch he’d noticed last night in the pub.
She could be the One.
True to his word, hard as it had been—in more ways than one—once she admitted him to her room, he hadn’t done so much as cop a feel or try to turn their doorway kisses into anything more than what they’d been.
Instead, they talked—both of them. And he even kept the off-color jokes and puns to a minimum, though she always seemed to find them funny. She laughed even when he knew they were terrible jokes.
He’d told her a little about his mama and dad, taking care not to mention anything that would reveal his true age—at least not yet. She had enough on her mind; he could see the strain in her eyes. But when they returned from this mission, if they did—and he was determined they would—he was going to tell her all about his experience with the ley lines in Sedona.
As he massaged her slender, tense shoulders, Fence had described some of his more harrowing experiences in the wilderness—some of which happened even before there were zombies.
And to his surprise, he wasn’t even tempted to take it any further—even while rubbing her back, massaging her shoulders and neck, and trying to ignore the biggest damned hard-on he could ever remember having. He just enjoyed the intimacy of touching her, listening to her, talking to her.
Even now, when Ana shifted in her sleep, bumping against him in an enticing but innocent way, he merely closed his eyes and thought of cold showers.
Last night, as they talked, he’d run his hands over her long hair, feeling its silky waves, keeping his actions acutely platonic. He’d even slept in his shorts—and he couldn’t remember the last time he actually slept in anything other than his bare skin when he wasn’t on the trail.
She could be the One.
She might just be the One.
Terror washed over him. How could he fall for a woman whose life was the ocean, when he couldn’t put his big toe in without pissing his pants?
What the hell kind of punishment was this?
Hell, he’d only known her for a few days.
But despite his misgivings, despite his abashment about the episode on the beach, something had compelled him to go to her last night after he finished working with Sage.
He could have gone back down to the pub, scouted out some willing companionship. He’d made friends with quite a few of the ladies—and there had been a new possibility in that bed-headed blonde.
Or he could have hung out with Vaughn and Elliott and tossed back a few with the broody Simon. “Drink tonight for tomorrow we may die,” and all that.
Their task was going to be risky and difficult, possibly even deadly, if they reached the stones as he anticipated they would. He’d seen the tightness in Ana’s face down in the computer room, and the worry remained in her eyes even when he joined her in her room. Not fear, but apprehension.
He didn’t want her to be alone.
He didn’t want to be alone.
And . . . it was Ana he’d wanted to be with, and he wasn’t exactly sure why. He just knew he did—and not because he wanted a “We’re going off to battle, so let’s send ourselves off right, sugar” evening.
He just wanted to be with her. He recognized, too, a temptation to be honest with her. To tell her everything.
But the very thought made his belly tight and unsteady.
She stirred again, more insistently, and damn it all if she wasn’t sliding that curve of her ass right where it could do the most damage.
Fence gritted his teeth as she bumped against him. He kept his hands from moving, even though one arm was around her waist from behind and he could slip fingers down between her legs—don’t think about that—and the other could easily maneuver around to cup a breast.
Yet at the same time, he found that he couldn’t release her and move away, which would have solved the problem.
Ana yawned, stretched, and managed to snuggle her tail right up against him even harder, and then as she moved and stretched, half turning toward him, her bare breast popped out from beneath the blankets—right in front of his face.
Right there.
He held his breath and looked down at a luscious, tempting breast, a bit larger than a navel orange, ivory-gray and tipped with a blue-gray-hued nipple in early dawn’s light.
I’m so fucked.
Just then she opened her eyes and looked right up at him.
Even in the faulty light, he saw the mischief in her gaze. And then she shifted her ass once again, deliberately grinding backward into him, and he was suddenly flooded with uncontrollable need.
He bent forward and took that perky nipple between his lips, lightly at first, tasting her warm skin and gently tracing the tip of his tongue over the delicate rise. She gave a little sigh that shivered her breast against his mouth, and he opened wider, covering her, sucking and licking as he drew her nipple and its crinkling areola deeper into his mouth.
His arm, curved around her waist, was trapped by the bed, but he was able to move his hand down over her crystals to slide between her legs. The little bit of cotton panty was no match for his deft fingers, and he slipped beneath it.
She gave a little jolt when he found her, found the hot dampness at her core, and began to slide and coax and play. Ana was slick and full, and that made him surge even harder. And when she came, throbbing and undulating into his hand, her body shuddering against him, he nearly lost it himself.
Greedy and impatient now, he released her breast and used his other hand to work at the buttons of his shorts. When Ana reached around behind to help, he gave up and let her finish the work while he used his fingers to explore and coax her along again. The scent of her filled his nose as her warm, damp skin brushed against his, her hair tickling his face.
She freed him from the tight confines of his shorts and then turned away from him again, her breathing rising, her skin rushing even warmer against him.
He yanked away
the panties from her ass and slid into her sleek heat, both of them groaning in tandem when he fit into place. Oh, yes.
With long, easy strokes, he shifted, keeping his hand and fingers in place as he moved from behind. Ana sighed and shivered in front of him, her soft moans erotic to his ears.
“Now this is what I call a very good morning,” he murmured, easing all the way in with a sharp little thrust at the end. She gave a soft, gaspy moan, and he smiled into her hair. “Jeez, Ana, you’re so freaking hot . . . but I’ve gotta make you cry a little louder than that, sugar. All this sweet honey down here’s making me crazy.” He moved his fingers around her swollen center to emphasize his words, feeling her skin dampen with heat.
“How about that, baby?” he whispered, hearing the unsteady rasp in his voice. “How about if I just take you all the way, right now?”
She was doing that short, sharp breathing that he’d come to learn portended her orgasm, and he shifted his rhythm and his fingering to take her there. “How about a little scream this time, love? When you slide right up against me? Hmm . . .” He chuckled deeply. “Oh, yes, I know you can do it just as good as a guy can . . . come on, sugar . . . let me take you, mm—mm.” He bit off his words as she made it, giving a loud cry of release that nearly sent him over the edge.
Smiling big and happy against her hair, he held her as her shivers subsided against him. “All right, then, Ana-sweet,” he said. “Now it’s a good morning.”
He had to close his eyes as he felt that familiar, sharp, hot rise, and knowing he was near the point of no return, he forced it off, until it built so hot and hard that he thought he’d lose his mind.
He barely had the wherewithal to pull free just as he came, and stifled her surprised cry with the convulsing, stroking of his fingers, finishing her off as he sagged into warm bliss.
The light was brighter when he opened his eyes again, although the sun had still barely begun her rise.
“Good morning,” he said in her ear.
“It is,” she replied, stretching sinuously against him.
“You trying to get something started again?” he asked hopefully, his fingers bumping over her crystals. Mad sexy.
She kind of turned in his arms, looking up with deep hazel eyes. “Much as I’d like to, we should probably get up.”
She would have pulled completely out of his arms, out of the bed, but he tightened his grip . . . all at once sure. And afraid.
Afraid, and yet compelled.
His mouth started moving before he thought it through. “I’ve gotta explain something. About the water.”
She stopped moving, and he realized he’d come to another point of no return, this one much more ominous than the one earlier.
A shudder rippled deep inside him, but he kept going, like he had the football in his arms and three linemen had their hands on him, trying to bring him down on the last play of the game.
But he kept on, pushing the words out through a desert-dry mouth. “I . . . I can’t go into the ocean. Or lakes or rivers.”
How the hell am I going to explain this without sounding like a complete pussy?
He closed his eyes, glad she was facing away and couldn’t see. You can’t. You are a pussy.
Ana had stilled, and lay there silently, as if waiting for him. But he didn’t know what to say.
I’m terrified of it.
I’m afraid of water.
I have a phobia.
“That’s why I wigged out at you yesterday. I’m . . . I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I was . . . out of line. I should never have spoken to you that way.”
Ana hadn’t moved, and Fence was aware of the horrible sound of his heart beating, thudding like a death knell in his ears.
He waited, and she remained silent, and the thudding in his ears became harder and faster and more menacing, and at last he said, “Ana?”
“I was waiting . . . to make sure you were finished,” she said. Her voice was mild, not accusing. “I didn’t want to interrupt. It was obvious you were having a difficult time saying it.”
“That’s it.” His palms were damp against the sheets.
“Can I ask you a question . . . without you—um—wigging out?”
He squeezed his eyes closed. Hell, he deserved that. He nodded, realized she couldn’t see him, then said, “Yeah.” His throat was tight.
“I saw you in the water. Twice. I don’t understand—what do you mean, you can’t go into the water? Does it . . . hurt you? Or what?”
This was where it got dicey.
This was the real point of no return.
“I almost drowned when I was younger,” he said in a rush. “Twice. And now I can’t go in without . . . remembering that. I get really . . . uh . . .”
“Wigged out?” she suggested.
“That’s one way to put it.” He realized he was clutching the cotton sheet and made his fingers relax. “I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I go a little . . . it just . . . takes me back to those other times. I think I’m drowning again. It’s my head, messing with me.”
Now Ana moved at last, sliding away, making his heart leap up into his throat again. But when she turned to face him, his apprehension eased a bit. “Now I understand. Thank you for telling me.”
He tried not to let out his breath in a great whoosh of relief. She didn’t look disgusted or shocked or disbelieving.
He struggled desperately to find something to say that would ease his tension, make her laugh . . . but there was nothing even remotely funny about the situation. Even in his warped mind.
So he just watched her, and hoped he didn’t look as pathetic as he felt.
She seemed to take this as an invitation to speak. “We were together in the ocean. I thought . . . you seemed to be breathing. In the water. That’s why I couldn’t understand . . .”
Fence’s body went still. Even his thudding heart stopped cold. “That’s impossible.”
“But I saw you, I’m sure of it. You weren’t drowning. And you weren’t holding your breath.”
He shook his head. Whatever it was, it sure as hell felt as if he were drowning. “I thought it was you, saving me. Your crystals, helping me to breathe.”
“They don’t work that way,” she said. “You were breathing under water.”
He shook his head again, but doubt crept into his mind. Simon could turn invisible. Quent could touch things and know their history. Elliott could read the inside of a body with his hands. Hell, he himself had just had sex with an Atlantean.
But the very thought of breathing underwater, of putting his face in and allowing the salty, cold sea to come in, was enough to turn him cold with terror.
“It’s just not possible,” he said. And even if it was, he sure as hell wasn’t fixing to test it out again any time soon. “Whatever happened must have been some sort of miracle.”
Ana looked at him with a long, steady glance. “I don’t believe that. I know what I saw.” She leaned closer and pressed a gentle kiss on his cheek, her eyelashes brushing his temple, then eased out of bed.
Time to leave.
Somewhere in the wilderness
Ian Marck looked down at the crumpled body with more than a hint of satisfaction.
Dead: neck neatly slit, eyes blank and staring at the dawning sky. Served the bastard right.
At least the son of a bitch hadn’t been turned into a zombie. Nor had his flesh been torn away and devoured by one of those pitiful, abhorrent creatures. That was good, because it meant there were remains for him to search and acquire anything of value the man might have. Including his boots. Ian’s were trashed.
All in all, he had no sympathy for the bastard. Roofey was dumb as the night was dark, and greedy on top of it. Not a good combination.
Especially since Roofey had a tongue that flapped without prudence or discretion. He’d been blabbing to anyone who’d listen that the Jarrid stone was missing from Mecca, and that Parris Fielding’s son had it. It just so happened that he’d
been one of the grateful recipients of that information as he sat in the corner of Madonna’s, drinking—not sipping, not nursing, but definitely drinking—a healthy dose of whiskey.
Not only that, but he had actually met Quent Fielding some time ago and thought he knew just where to find him since he’d taken up with that bad-ass zombie hunter named Zoë.
Ian would have smiled if it hadn’t hurt so much, even when it was a smile without humor. His body was still recovering from the beating and unexpected flight down the side of a deep ravine into a river, courtesy of that bastard named Seattle.
He knew he was lucky to be alive, and figured whatever he had left to do on this earth must not be done yet. Pity. Because he was fucking tired of living with an empty soul and a big hollow spot where his heart used to be.
But knowing that Quent had the valuable Jarrid stone gave him something to work toward. An opportunity. He was a bounty hunter, after all—the best and most feared. He was always looking for the next opportunity.
Finding and acquiring the Jarrid stone was only one of several distractions he could use to pass the time until someone actually did the job right and put him the hell out of his misery.
If Seattle hadn’t already had his throat torn out by some wolf or dog, he would have hunted him down and done it himself. And maybe the bastard would have actually finished what Seattle started a month ago when he had his cronies beat the shit out of him and toss him into a river to die. All because of a woman.
Actually, two women. Ian sneered as he looked down at Roofey. As if he’d sully his hands or any other part of him with Lacey, a woman Seattle had wanted.
Now, Remington Truth . . . she was a different matter.
She was nearly worth getting the shit beat out of him. And she had a ferocious dog who’d tolerated if not liked him when they were together. He suspected Seattle had met his demise most fittingly at the jaws of that dog, which indicated that Remington Truth was likely still alive and kicking, out here somewhere.
He’d find her again, sooner rather than later. He’d take her to Envy with him.
And once he had her and the Jarrid stone, he’d be exactly where he needed to be.
