by Jade,Amelia
It was then that Jared noticed her lips were still moving.
“I’m still going to use the washroom though.”
“Yes, yes of course,” he said. “No problem there.”
The woman continued to stare at him with her green eyes. “Do you mind letting go of the door then?”
He yanked his hand back like he’d been stung, having totally forgotten he was still holding the door open.
“Of course,” he repeated once more. “Sorry.”
With one last nod of his head he turned and made his escape as the door closed behind him.
Idiot. Getting lost in her eyes like that. What if we’d been in a combat situation?
His mind raced back to their escape that morning. He’d been mesmerized by her eyes even then, the first time he had seen them, but he’d not fallen victim to them then. So perhaps it was only now that they were safe for a while that he was allowing himself to become aware of how entranced he was by everything about her.
He was standing in the storage area, where there was a microwave, sink, and miniature fridge, when Nadia emerged from the washroom.
“Would you like some tea?” he asked, already pouring himself a cup, having heated the water in the microwave.
“Oh, please,” she said.
Jared’s spine straightened at her voice, and he put the mug of hot water down as he dashed from the room.
“Jared?” Nadia asked weakly, looking over at him, pale as a ghost before her knees began to wobble, and she toppled over.
“Got ya,” he said, his arms catching her at the last second, easing her down onto the floor where she then lay on his lap, held tight to him.
That was when the tears came. Her shoulders bounced slightly in his arms once, and he thought she might have sneezed or tried to hide a cough. But then it happened again, and several moments later he felt the drip of her tear as it slid off her cheek and onto his bicep.
“It’s okay,” he whispered gently into her ear, bringing his free hand up to softly caress her head.
The drops became a torrent at that point and she began to heave in his arms. This was what he had been afraid might happen if she were left alone in shower.
Nadia mumbled something he couldn’t quite make out, so he told her to hush and continued stroking her hair, hoping he was coming off as comforting and not going too far. Frankly, he’d trained for this type of situation in terms of knowing what to look for, and what would happen next, but nobody had told him how to behave if it was a female in his arms. There was no guidebook for this scenario.
So when she pushed away slightly, he hesitated, unsure if she was calm and ready, or trying to escape to do something else as the adrenaline left her body. She tried again, gently, and this time he relinquished his grip a bit, but not enough to let her go. Something told him she still wanted to stay in his arms.
“You were right,” she managed to get out through a haze of tears and wet hair that was now stuck to her face.
“I was?” he asked, confused. “About what?”
“About me, and the shower. If I’d been in there, I would have fainted and hurt myself badly.”
Her voice was small, but there was a strength in it that surprised and impressed him. There was a core to this woman, something beyond her exterior that had an impressive resolve. He had expected her to need to sleep it off, but as she spoke, he got the understanding that she had just needed to sit down and cry, take a few deep breaths, and regroup. That was what he expected from a combat veteran. Jared wanted his tea. That was his way to calm down.
Speaking of which…
“Come on,” he said, gathering her into his arms and easily standing up with her snug to his body.
“Okay,” she said, though she had no choice.
He put her down on the small counter in the storage room, keeping her close to his eye height.
He studiously ignored her plumped lips, and how much he wanted to touch his own to them, to feel her skin under his kiss. Now was not the time. He would definitely not be taking advantage of her. Despite whatever inner strength she had, Nadia was in a vulnerable state right now, and Jared wasn’t going to use that against her. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t who he was.
But that didn’t stop him from wanting it. Badly. His bear growled and his nerve endings sang with a desire to touch her, to feel her, to taste her.
No.
He reined it all in, grabbing his desires mentally and yanking them out of the driver’s seat, which included removing his hand from her thigh, where it had somehow found its way. Nadia thankfully didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t acknowledge it, much to his relief.
“Here,” he said, handing her the now-drinkable tea, the heat having cooled to an acceptable level while he had held her.
“Thank you,” she said, taking it in both hands.
He noted the way she held it, as if trying to steal the warmth from it.
“Are you going to be okay on your own for a moment?” he asked.
She nodded hesitantly.
“I’m not leaving the safe house, just the room,” he reassured her, bringing a relieved smile to her face.
He ducked back into the main room and grabbed a little box-like object from its spot near the bed. Placing it on the floor in the storage room he plugged it in, turned it on, and angled it up at Nadia. A few seconds later she smiled.
“Oh, that’s nice and warm,” she told him as the space heater began to do its job.
He finished making the second cup, and the pair of them sipped in silence, letting the warmth wash over them and reinvigorate their minds. Jared used the time to begin planning the next stages of their escape.
“I’m going to have a shower now, I think,” Nadia said as she put the empty cup down. “I could use the clean feeling. Did you find any clothes that will fit me?”
Jared nodded. “Yes, I forgot I had added some when Madison became the leader of our group. She’s a little taller than you, but I’m not sure it will make that much of a difference in the long run.”
“Amazing. These are towels?” she asked, pointing at some fabric on a shelf behind him.
He glanced over his shoulder and nodded. “Yep. Keep your underwear though. There aren’t spares of those, sorry to say.”
She giggled. “I think those came through mostly unscathed,” she told him with a wink, then flung the towel over her shoulder and walked from the room.
“Now what the hell did that mean?” he asked himself out loud, blinking in confusion. It certainly seemed like she was giving him signals, but Jared’s mind was already being pulled in several different directions. He couldn’t be sure.
Plus there was the fact to consider that she was hiding something. He was fairly positive she hadn’t lied about anything. She was just not telling him something, something that she seemed to think would make him treat her differently. He wasn’t sure how that could be, but for now she was an enemy of the Agency, and that made her an ally of his, if not quite a friend. A gorgeous, lust-inducing ally, who also happened to have an inner strength that would make many jealous, but an ally nonetheless.
“I wonder if things were just as confusing for everyone else?” he muttered aloud to himself, thinking back to the other members of his team as they paired off with their mates.
He regretted poking fun at his friends now. It was all coming back to haunt him, even if it was in a positive way.
“They’re never going to let this rest,” he sighed, then gathered himself.
It was time to get back to work.
***
The first thing he did was move to the back of the storage room, sliding aside several stacks of clothes. There behind it all was a silver hard-shelled case that he tugged free, then he carefully set the clothing back the way it had been.
He moved to the desk and sat down, keeping an ear open for the sounds of the shower. Setting the case in front of him, he keyed in the four-number code. The case popped open and he
slid the laptop from it and plugged it into the wall. Next he grabbed a blue cable and hooked that up to the laptop and a matching port on the wall. Now that he had internet, he pulled up a secure program and proceeded to activate it. A box appeared after roughly a minute.
All teams report.
Then he sat back and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
This was taking too long. There should have been a response by now from someone at least. Each safe house was equipped with a laptop and the encoded program. If anyone had made it, they should have been in earshot of the laptop to hear its soft ding when someone sent a message.
Had they been the only team to make it out alive?
Jared swiftly buried that thought, refusing to accept such a possibility. Someone had to have escaped safely. He checked the time, but it was still only mid-evening. He supposed that people could have been asleep, but he didn’t buy that for a second. Something was going on.
“Jared?”
He spun at the voice, realizing with a start that at some point in his distraction Nadia had finished up in the shower.
“Clothes, right,” he said, acting as if he’d forgotten.
“Please,” she said with a thankful look.
He moved into the other room and grabbed them from where they had been hung on hangers.
“Here you go,” he said, handing them over.
Nadia took them.
“They’re so warm!” she exclaimed, holding them tightly to her, even with the wet towel wrapped around her.
“I hung them over the space heater, so they’d be warm for you when you got out of the shower,” he said, giving her a smile as he pulled the door shut so she could get dressed in private.
He returned to the laptop, but there was still no response from any of his team.
“Is everything okay?” Nadia asked as she emerged from behind him. “You looked stressed.”
He did? Jared frowned, wiping the expression from his face as he turned around.
“Yeah, everything is fine,” he reassured her, getting up from the chair.
Nadia rolled her eyes. “Do I look like I just got off the train?” she asked, crossing her arms. “Don’t bullshit me.”
He thought about telling her that it applied to her just as much as it did him, but he decided against it. Now was not the time to be petty.
“I’m trying to make contact with the others,” he explained. “But nobody is responding.”
Her expression clouded over. “Nobody else made it out?”
Jared shrugged. “I find that hard to believe. My team is very skilled. There is no way they caught all of them.”
Nadia came and sat on the edge of the desk. The black denim pants and white T-shirt were a little baggy on her, as was her preferred hoodie that she had draped over her once again.
“You’re allowed to be worried for their safety,” she said, looking into his eyes forcefully. “It’s not a bad thing to admit that. You’re their leader, I gather?”
He nodded.
“Exactly. You trained them, you’ve looked after them. They’re more than just part of the team. They’re part of your family,” she said, pushing off the desk and forcing him back down into the chair.
He didn’t fight it, and sat down heavily. The metal-framed chair squeaked and protested under the sudden weight addition.
“So it’s okay to express your concern,” she continued, moving behind him.
Jared sat upright as strong fingers dug into his tense shoulder muscles.
“You told me that I would come down from the adrenaline high, that I would need to relax. But I don’t see you doing the same,” she admonished, kneading his muscles firmly, forcing him to sit back and relax.
“Better,” she said in a softer, gentler voice, though her fingers didn’t stop moving. “If these men are anything like you, with your abilities and skills, I have no doubt that they would all have escaped. Perhaps they just weren’t able to get to the safe house?” she suggested.
Jared nodded, his eyes closing as her fingers rubbed against his skin. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled slowly before replying. “They have the skills, and the training,” he told her. “They’re the best of the best. But the Agency aren’t slouches. Their men aren’t at the same level individually, but with enough of them, they could take any one of us down.”
He scowled. “They hit us with far more men than I thought they had this morning. Obviously our estimates of their strength were incorrect. There were almost six full teams of men there, double our earlier estimates.”
“Perhaps they pulled everyone from their building downtown?” she asked. “Would that give them enough?”
He shrugged. “It’s entirely possible. Ever since they firmly established themselves in town, we’ve never been able to get an accurate count of just how many men they have in there. It could be that they’ve had more teams all along, and we’ve just never known about them, or never seen them.”
Nadia moved around him, her hands dragging across his back as she did. At one point her fingernail dug into him just a little, pulling across his skin and sending a shiver down his spine. He looked up at her and their eyes met.
The room seemed to shrink in size almost instantly, until it was no more than the size of a circle around them. He tried to breathe in, but his lungs refused to work. Their gaze became a stare, and Jared realized that she was swaying closer to him as she stood there. Her tongue flicked out, licking her lips.
He suppressed an urge to surge up from his seat and kiss her, fighting it down with all of his considerable mental strength. Fingers tense, they closed around the edge of the armrests on the chair until his knuckles went white.
The spell was broken when his grip continued to increase until it was so strong the armrests snapped.
Nadia giggled as he looked down in surprise. By the time he looked back up she had pulled away, the moment over. He flexed his arms to try and stop some of the flow of blood to his cock, hoping she didn’t notice the bulge between his legs. After several seconds of that and intense focusing on nonsexual things, he felt comfortable enough to stand up. With a helpless shake of his head he tossed the snapped-off ends of the armrests onto the desk.
“I hope you weren’t too attached to your life here in town,” he said at last, bringing up a subject he’d been avoiding so far.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowing at the sudden change of topic.
“I mean, since you were seen with me, and fled with me, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to go back to what you had,” he said delicately, knowing that breaking this news would be tough for her to hear, but that it had to be done.
Perhaps it will help put a barrier between us, so that we don’t fall victim to our hormones. If she hates me for ruining her life, perhaps it will make all this easier.
Jared didn’t actually believe that, nor did he want for it to happen, but he knew it would inevitably be easier this way. If he could do anything to make her life smoother, he would. Perhaps he could play it off like he had kidnapped her, so that she wouldn’t lose everything she had.
But even as he thought about pushing her away so that she wouldn’t end up in trouble alongside him, Jared knew it wasn’t what he actually wanted. He’d already had visions of the two of them doing various activities. Of him properly introducing her to his team, and showing her Genesis Valley, where he had lived for most of his life. Of learning more about her, and seeing her home as well. So when she began to speak, he braced himself for the outburst of anger.
But once again she surprised him.
“I know,” she said bluntly. “I doubt I truly understand, or comprehend what it means. But I’m aware that I can’t go back to anything I had.”
He shook his head. “So why, then? Why throw it all away?”
Nadia hesitated.
“It’s okay, I won’t judge you,” he assured her.
She smiled faintly. “You’re going
to think I’m crazy, trust me.”
He shook his head. “No, I won’t. I’ve probably heard crazier things.”
“Okay. But I warned you,” she said, then sat back onto the couch and began to speak.
“Ever since I hit puberty, around twelve or so, I began to have very strong hunches. Gut feelings. Instincts. Whatever you want to call it. At first I thought everyone experienced this sort of thing, that it was completely normal and part of growing up, but nobody really talked about it. So I didn’t say anything. But they got stronger, and I noticed a pattern.”
“A pattern?” Jared was intrigued now. He’d never heard of such a thing.
“Yes. If I listened to my hunch, things would inevitably work out for the better for me. It wasn’t always instantly visible, but looking back I was able to see how. But if I ignored it…” she trailed off.
“Something bad would happen,” he finished.
“Exactly,” Nadia said, looking away. “So this morning, I got an urge.”
“To come to me?” he asked curiously.
She shook her head. “Not at first. At first it was simply to get out of the building. No matter what it took, to get out and never, ever go back. But as soon as I was out, and they began to follow, my mind recalled you guys. And suddenly I knew where I had to go.”
She sat back, arms crossed. “Still think I’m not crazy?”
He smiled. “I can change my shape into that of a nearly two-ton bear. It can communicate with me as a separate entity, in a very simple sense. So no,” he reassured her, “I don’t think you’re crazy. I have a friend I want to ask about your hunches, to see if he knows what it might be about, but other than that, I don’t think you’re too crazy.”
An old dragon, one who had seen everything, came to mind. If anyone would know, it would be Ferro.
“Well, this is a relief,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Most people I’ve told this to think I belong in a nuthouse.”
“I’m not most people,” he told her firmly.
