He nodded, and his gaze grew shuttered. “On the day I first met my dad—Salvatore.”
There was no denying how difficult it was for him, remembering that day. But then he surprised her, and maybe even himself, by saying, “I think I’ve seen those energy balls before. When Salvatore found me. Before I forgot who I was.”
“Forgot who you were?” she questioned, seeking clarification, because she didn’t want to misunderstand what he meant.
“When I woke up, I had no memories of who I was or where I came from. I still don’t, except…”
“You remember the energy. The way the men tossed it. The way you returned fire,” she put out for him to consider.
He nodded and screwed his eyes shut, as if forcing himself back to that time and those memories, but then he expelled a harsh sigh and shook his head. “I can’t remember any more.”
“It’ll come to you.”
“It hasn’t come to me in twenty years, Bobbie. What makes you think it’ll happen now?” he challenged, obviously frustrated.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose. Maybe now it’s time for you to figure it all out,” she said, paraphrasing an old scriptural passage she’d heard in church.
“You expect me to have faith, but I’m not a religious man,” he warned.
“Hasn’t there been anyone in your life in whom you had faith?” she asked, but as a river of emotions washed over him and transferred itself to her, she knew the sad answer to that. Because she didn’t want to press and cause him more heartache, she rose from the couch.
“It’s time I went home.”
“Stay,” he said, but quickly added, “I’ve got half a dozen empty rooms, all beautifully decorated by some famous designer whose name I can’t even remember. Just choose a room.”
Insanely, she knew what room she wanted to choose, but tempered that rashness. It would only create more issues, and much as she had told him, there was a season and a time for everything.
It was not yet time for that. It might not ever be, since the last thing she needed was to get involved in another conflict. But accepting his offer of hospitality was only common sense considering the lateness of the hour and the way her body pained her.
“I’ll take you up on that,” she said, and a relieved smile erupted on his face.
He rose from the couch and held out his hand. “Let me show you to a room.”
CHAPTER
18
If the designer had been going for all-out luxury, he or she had accomplished that admirably.
The sleekly modern stainless steel variation on a four-poster bed was decidedly decadent, possibly because of the plush mattress and gazillion-count sheets. Or maybe it was just the comfort of Adam’s well-worn MIT T-shirt, which he’d lent to her as sleepwear.
Not that sleep was coming easily as her mind raced over all that had happened that day. Much as she had after each mission, she considered every event that had occurred, and catalogued the mistakes she had made so as to not repeat them in the future—like exposing herself by standing beside Adam without regard to a possible enemy just yards away.
She had no doubt about that any longer. Whoever was after Adam was the enemy. Her actions had jeopardized not only her, but Adam, who had absorbed the second blast from their foe, protecting her after she had been hit. He might have been killed. For that matter, she might have been killed.
She had thought that when she returned from Iraq she would be safe; she had already paid too dear a price for God and country. She had hoped to put the past behind her and rebuild the fragments of her life, to lead a peaceful existence. A home-with-a-picket-fence kind of life. Maybe even one with kids, if she adopted, since she could no longer have any of her own.
Meeting Adam threatened that idea big-time. He obviously had enemies. Powerful ones, judging from the number of men at their command and the very expensive mansion they had made their command center. And given the events of the last two days, it was obviously war, which meant the risk of casualties.
Luckily, both she and Adam were fine. This time. She wasn’t sure she was ready to sacrifice more. But she had never been one to turn tail and run when the fight was justified.
But was the fight the right thing to do this time? she wondered and ran her hand down the arm Adam had healed. Even now her skin came alive as she recalled his touch and the current that had alternated between them as Adam had saved her life. Those superhuman capabilities were clearly the reason the men were after him. Who wouldn’t want to know the secrets of a human energy source like that? Especially one that could heal or hurt or seemingly allow one to vanish into thin air?
No one, except maybe her.
Even with all his apparently fabulous powers, she remained more intrigued by Adam the man. Although he had been alone most of his life, she sensed there was a well of deep emotion, cosmic in size, behind his enigmatic façade. The time she had spent with him over the last two days had made her want to explore the vastness of those emotions, but with caution, because she didn’t want to get caught up in the turmoil surrounding him.
As her mind continued to churn, she decided she needed something more to help her sleep. Something to quiet the demons creating such unrest within her. That nervous energy drove her from the bed.
Maybe a soak in the gigantic Jacuzzi in the room’s private bath, she thought as she opened the door to reveal polished marble and gleaming chrome plumbing and accessories.
Then she rethought it and stalked as best as she could to the well-stocked bar tucked into one corner, thinking a shot of liquor might quell her nerves, but she couldn’t choose her poison. She had never been much of a drinker.
Possibly a novel or DVD borrowed from the entertainment center across the way from the massive four-poster bed? she mused. But as she faced that bed, looming large in the space, its loneliness provided the potential remedy she sought.
Adam lay on the chaise longue on his balcony, soaking up the free-floating energy and feeling the weakness in his core disappear. Opening his eyes, he stared at the midnight sky as dozens of fragmented thoughts and images pummeled his brain. One kept on repeating endlessly: the image of the energy ball striking Bobbie.
But in his mind the powerful orb was coming for him. Driving him back into a hard stone wall. No, not stone. Adobe. Breaking behind him from the force of his impact.
He had collapsed then, onto dry, arid earth. Dazed. His fall stirring up dust that filled his nose and throat, choking him. Making him cough. A metallic taste had filled his mouth.
Blood.
He had battled past the grit making his eyes tear and the dizziness in his head to find the world aflame around him. Fires had dotted the night. Debris littered the ground beside him, beneath him, rough against his skin.
Bodies, he had thought, blinking his eyes to make sure he was really seeing them.
Adam remembered the bodies now, illuminated by the glow of the flames. So many bodies and parts. And the cries of others, not yet dead. His own plaintive wail of fear as the darkness had danced in his vision before claiming him.
Whatever had happened had been far away. In a place hotter and more desolate than the Jersey Shore. A desert.
Maybe close to where Salvatore had taken care of him in the weeks after he had first regained consciousness. It had been a tiny home, not much bigger than ten by twenty. Devoid of many personal touches, much like the homes they would later occupy. But then again, his father had often been gone for long stretches of time in the years after Adam had been adopted. Those absences left little opportunity for decorating, and the absence of any woman in their household had only added to the lack of comforting touches.
As he had over the last twenty years, Adam wondered about the parents who had left him out in that desert. Why they hadn’t tried to find him in all that time.
Why his father, with all his connections, claimed not to have been able to locate the people who had birthed him. Or maybe Salvatore h
ad and they were dead. Maybe they had been lying on the sandy ground not far from him, two of the many corpses littering the desert night.
Would those lost parents have been different from Salvatore? Aware of Adam’s unique gift and able to deal with it?
His father hadn’t been able to handle it or the many demands of a young boy. He hadn’t been overly demonstrative physically, and maybe with reason. A few unintentional shocks from Adam had taught him the dangers of his new young son, as had the incident with Spottie, Salvatore’s beagle. The dog had recovered, but the fear from that event had lingered for years.
But Adam had to acknowledge that Salvatore had been caring in his own way, recalling the many days Salvatore had spent with him whenever an assignment was over. The nightly calls when his father was on duty, sometimes just a minute long, to wish him good night or find out how Adam’s day had been. Not to mention the visits to an assortment of museums and science centers to satisfy Adam’s almost insatiable thirst for knowledge.
A caring man like that might keep secret the fact that Adam’s real parents were dead, wanting to spare a young boy distress. But would a man like that keep other secrets? Did Salvatore know more than he was letting on about Adam’s origins? Maybe even about the group of men who had attacked him, not once but twice?
The squeak of a door opening had him sitting up on the edge of the chaise.
Bobbie stood at the French door to his room, his T-shirt swimming on her thinner physique, but barely reaching to midthigh, since they were almost of a like height.
She had beautiful legs. Long, lithe, and strong. As he tracked his gaze up their length, he noted the first hint of scars on one thigh, and as she discerned what had his attention, she pulled at the hem of the cotton T, attempting to cover the evidence of her wounds.
“No, don’t,” he said, and walked to where she stood just inside the French doors to his bedroom.
When he was before her, he reached down and placed his hand on her leg, at a spot just below the first hint of injury. He started to brush it upward, but she quickly snared his hand, preventing him from his goal.
“I think a strategic retreat makes sense right about now,” she said, and began to turn, but he placed his other hand on her waist to keep her with him.
Wanting to defuse the increasingly tense situation, he said, “He who fights and runs away—”
“I don’t want to fight another day, Adam. Which makes me wonder what I’m doing here,” she admitted and wagged her head, as if trying to shake the thoughts loose so they might leave her.
“I don’t want you to have to fight or run,” he said, and inched his hand upward until the first awkward ridge of scar registered against his fingertips. She applied more pressure then against his hand, trapping it against her thigh. He looked up, locking his gaze with hers. It was fraught with emotions he wanted to understand. “Tell me about it. About how you got hurt.”
With a stiff hunch of her shoulders, she said, “Not much to tell. Bomb go boom.”
He shook his head in exasperation. “If it were only that simple.”
“It is that simple,” she urged, but the tone of her voice was strained, belying her words.
“I remembered something tonight,” he began, wanting her to understand and to share in the hopes she would do the same. Maybe by doing so they would both begin to heal. As they had said before, they apparently had a good deal in common.
“I remembered an attack. Or at least that’s what I think it was. Someone blasted me with one of those power orbs and I went flying.”
She narrowed her eyes as she contemplated him. “But you couldn’t have been more than five or six.”
“Probably, but suddenly the memory is here in my head,” he said, motioning to his forehead before continuing. “The feel of hitting the wall as the discharge threw me. The bodies around me and the smell of fire. Gritty sand, clogging my mouth and nose. Blood. I could taste blood. It’s as alive now as it must have been twenty years ago.”
And as alive as it still was for her after only several months, Bobbie thought, and reached up, cradling his cheek, as she detected the hurt in his eyes. She shared her own pain, as she suspected he had intended by revealing his own wounds.
“We were sent to defuse bombs to protect the civilians in the area. We hadn’t taken more than a few steps from our Bradley when the IEDs went off.”
She paused, emotion tightening her throat to the point where it was almost difficult to breathe. Somehow she dragged in a breath, and when she did, it smelled of fire and smoke. It smelled like that Baghdad morning all over again and it was her undoing.
She screwed her eyes shut against the tears and fought back the sobs, her body trembling from the force of her grief.
Adam pulled her tight to him and laid his face against hers. He lovingly whispered in her ear, “It’s okay to let it out.”
She did, shedding hot tears against his bare shoulder as she haltingly recounted the rest of her story.
“I flew high in the air.” She gulped in a rough breath, forcing herself to continue. “When I landed there was so much pain. I couldn’t hear because my ears were ringing from the blast. My skin was burning hot.”
“There was fire all around you,” he said, trying to help her along with her tale.
She nodded. “Fire and the pieces of my men and our equipment. The heat I felt was from some gasoline burning on me and the shrapnel in my arm and leg. From the blood spewing out of my gut where I had been torn to pieces. Then I blacked out.”
He eased away from her, cupped her face between his large, powerful hands, and wiped away the trails of tears from her face, his touch amazingly gentle. A calming wave of power drifted into her with his touch. “You survived. No guilt there.”
She sucked in another shuddering breath and expelled it roughly. “I was responsible for those men. I ask myself a thousand times over, ‘How could I have prevented it? What didn’t I see?’ ”
“ ‘And why did I live?’ You ask yourself that as well, don’t you?” He leaned his forehead against hers and that simple contact made her feel not so alone.
“Yes, I do. I feel guilty that I’m not dead, too,” she admitted and with that confession, a weight seemed to lift from her soul.
“You said before that there was a time for everything. A purpose. Maybe your purpose was to be here,” he said, the sincerity of his words resonating within her.
“Maybe,” she said, and finally did what she had been wanting to do all night long.
CHAPTER
19
His lips were warm and hard beneath hers, giving as he accepted her kiss and returned it, loving her mouth with his. She darted her tongue along the edges of his mouth and he groaned, wrapped one powerful arm around her buttocks, and crushed her close. He opened his mouth and invited her in, dancing his tongue along hers, tasting her and moaning as she ran her hands along the sloped line of his powerfully built shoulders.
As she did so she experienced the flush of power leaking from him beneath her palms. Seeping into her from the contact, traveling along her nerve endings to first bring peace before it transformed into more and passion grew.
Trembling, they eased apart, each of them searching the other for any signs of uncertainty. But there were none, Bobbie realized. It was their time, for however long or short it was meant to be. But despite that, she needed him to understand one thing.
“I haven’t since… My body…”
“Just say the word and I’ll stop,” he said, and brushed a kiss along the back of her hand. The action created a trail of glimmering sky blue and heat where his lips touched her.
“Thank you.”
With a nod, he twined his fingers with hers and led her to the massive bed in the equally large room. So much room for just one person. Too much room, she thought, imagining how alone one could feel in so great a space.
The comforter and sheets were in disarray, a testament to his earlier restlessness, she assumed. With a f
ew quick tugs, he had them back in some semblance of order and turned to face her, his hand held out in invitation. His aura was just a hint of color surrounding his body, but as she slipped her fingers through his, it grew larger and seemed to vibrate in time to the beat of her heart and the growing throb deep between her legs.
His eyes, those amazing eyes, darkened with passion while beginning to shimmer with the first hints of electric green.
She didn’t move any closer, wanting to appreciate the sight of him, because the light show nothwithstanding, he was a beautiful man.
He was bare-chested, as he had been the night before, and she didn’t think that the sight of him would ever fail to arouse her. She had seen her share of beautifully sculpted men in the Marines.
Adam eclipsed them all.
He was so exquisitely formed, big, long, and lean with defined muscles that just ached to be touched. She did that, running the pads of her fingers all along his chest before drifting them down the center of him to circle around his navel.
As she did so she left a trail of glittering pale blue and heat. So much heat as their power melded, beginning a union that would soon be completed by the joining of their bodies.
Adam sucked in a breath as she drew her finger around his navel, and the ridges of his abdomen became even more pronounced with the motion. Tracing those valleys, she then dipped her hand lower to the low-slung waistband of his cotton pajamas.
Inching her finger beneath the edge of the fabric, she ran it back and forth along his skin, relishing the flare of heat that was visible in the expanding flush of the royal blue aura moving to envelop her, evident in the very human response as his large, long shaft jutted against the cotton and the softness of her belly.
Her nipples puckered in reaction, and between her legs, dampness pooled in anticipation of that length entering her, filling the emptiness, as her muscles clenched in anticipation.
She covered his erection with her hand at the same time he raised his and cupped her breast through the fabric of the T-shirt, riding his thumb along the sensitive tip. A shudder of pleasure worked its way across her and she glanced at him, offered up a smile.
The Lost (Sin Hunters) Page 13
