“Happy.” He pressed his face into her hand. “More than I ever thought possible.”
“Keep saying stuff like that and I’m going to get all weepy on you.” As it was she almost burst into tears delivering the good news.
“You can do whatever you want to me.”
“Are you saying that because I’m going to get huge while carrying our baby and you’re worried I’ll be miserable?”
He had the smarts to wince. “A little.”
“Very nice.”
“I’ll take care of you no matter how big you get.”
“Thanks. I think.”
He gave her hand one more kiss. “I’m saying it because I love you more than anything in this world.”
“Have I ever told you how happy I am you had such a crappy time at Deana’s wedding?”
“We should have put that on the gift card.”
“I was the server at the time not a guest.”
“Ah, I remember that skirt well.” The sexy smile told her he did.
“Not that you saw it on me for more than five seconds.”
“Good times.” He nodded. “Still, it’s a lovely sentiment.”
She gave him a light shove in the shoulder. “Without that day, without Deana and Josh, we never would have found each other.”
Katie could say the other woman’s name now without cringing. She’d actually grown to like Deana. It helped that Deana went all anal retentive and bossy in her push to get Eric elected. And she loved Josh enough to wipe out any doubt of her being stuck on Eric.
Eric’s mouth traveled over her collarbone and headed south. “Somehow we would have.”
She started losing track of the conversation. When his lips moved like that. “How do you figure?”
“You’re the one.” His mouth found her breast.
The tugging and caressing ripped through her. “I’m going to hold you to that, you know?”
“I’ll sign anything.”
“Now?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Sixty years from now, you’d better be saying the same thing.” Somehow she knew he would. Eric was solid and sexy, decent and smart. He was her man and she would never let him go.
He smiled up at her. “I’ll say it every day if you let me.”
“Count on it.”
Be sure to look for
A DARKER SHADE OF DEAD
by Bianca D’Arc out now!
“This blows.”
Dr. Sandra McCormick’s voice echoed around the morgue. Well, it wasn’t really a morgue. At least it hadn’t been. The large room had been a perfectly good laboratory until the senior team members had decided to perform tests on cadavers. Now it was a morgue.
The temperature had been lowered to near freezing, and Sandra shivered in her lab coat. She’d donned her heaviest jacket under the lab coat she had borrowed from one of the men on the team who wore a much larger size, but it still wasn’t enough. She was cold, dammit.
Cold, miserable, and all alone on night shift because she was low man on the totem pole. The science team had been together for a few months, working for the military on ways to improve combat performance. Specifically, they’d been trying to come up with substances that, when injected into people, would improve healing and endurance in living tissue. They were at the point now where they’d graduated from in vitro testing in petri dishes to something a bit more exotic.
They weren’t ready to try in vivo testing on living animals or people. Instead, the senior scientists had decided to take this grotesque step, administering the experimental regenerative serum to dead tissue contained in a whole, deceased organism. Personally, she would’ve preferred to start with a dead animal of some kind, but only human cadavers would work for this experiment since the genetic manipulation they were attempting was coded specifically for human tissue. They didn’t want any cross-contamination with animals if they found a substance that actually worked.
As a result, she was stuck in a freezing cold lab in the middle of the night, watching a bunch of dead Marines. It was kind of sad, actually. Every one of these men had been cut down in their prime by either illness or injury. They had all been highly trained and honed specimens of manhood while they were alive. Some of them had been quite handsome, but their beauty had been lost to the pale coldness of death. They were here because they had no next of kin—only their beloved Corps—and their bodies had been donated to science.
The room was dimly lit. Sandra only needed the individual lights over each metal table on which the bodies rested to do her work. She’d holed up at a desk in the far corner of the giant lab space, entering the data she collected hourly for each body into a computer. Her fingers were already numb from the cold, and it had only been three hours. Five more to go before the day shift would release her from this icy prison.
She heard a rustling sound in the distance as she blew on her fingers to try to warm them. Her chair swiveled as she lifted her feet, placing them on the runners of the rolling office chair.
“That better not have been the sound of mice scampering around in here.”
Contrary to most medical researchers, Sandra had never really been comfortable with mice. Little furry rodents still made her jump, and she shied away from any lab work that required her to deal with the critters.
The room was dimly lit. The only illumination came from the computer screen and desk light behind her and the single light over each table. The whole setup gave her the creeps.
Deciding to brave the walk to the bank of light switches on the far side of the room near the door, Sandra stood. If she had to sit here with a bunch of dead bodies all night, the least she could do was put on every light in the damned room. Why she’d ever thought the desk light would be enough, she didn’t know.
She’d gone on shift at midnight and was slated to take readings every hour until 8 a.m. when her day-shift counterpart would relieve her. Scientific work sometimes required a person to work odd hours. Experiments didn’t know how to tell time. When the researchers were running something in the lab, she usually got tapped for the late-night hours. Normally she didn’t mind. The lab was usually a peaceful, comforting place.
But not now. Not when it had been turned into a morgue. Or maybe it was more like Dr. Frankenstein’s dungeon, only without the bug-eyed servant named Igor. She’d definitely seen that old Mel Brooks movie one too many times in college. Thinking about some of the funnier lines from the comedy classic made her smile as she walked down the aisle of tables toward the door and the light switches.
“It’s alive…” As she walked, chuckling to herself, she did a quiet imitation of Gene Wilder from the scene where he’d given life to his monster.
On either side of her were slabs on which the cadavers rested. A breeze ruffled one of the sheets that had been pulled over the body on her right.
It must’ve been a breeze. The sheet couldn’t move on its own, right? She quickened her step, a creepy feeling shivering down her spine as the smile left her face.
A hand shot out of the dark and grabbed her wrist. She screamed. The fingers were cold. The flesh was gray. But the grip was strong. Too strong.
It pulled her in. Closer and closer to the body she’d checked only forty-five minutes before. He’d been dead at the time. Immobile. Now he was moving and—oh, God—his eyes were open and he was looking at her. His stare was lifeless as he drew her closer.
She did her best to break free, but the dead man was just too strong. She beat against his fingers with her other hand. When that didn’t work, she tried pushing against his cold shoulder. Nothing seemed to help. She hit his face, his chest, anyplace she could reach, but he wouldn’t let go.
He drew her closer until she was leaning across him, her arm over his head. Then he opened his mouth…and bit her. She gasped as his teeth broke through her skin. Blood welled as the icy teeth sank deep. Dull eyes looked through her as the dead man chewed on her forearm.
She went crazy, struggling to
break free. She must’ve twisted in the right way because after a moment, she felt herself moving more easily. The next second, she was free.
He sat up, following her progress. She heard noises all around the lab now, echoing off the shadowed walls. She looked around in a panic. Other bodies were rising all around the makeshift morgue.
“How in God’s name…?” She gasped, clutching her bleeding arm to her chest as six tall bodies slid off the laboratory tables to stand in the dim, chilled room. She was so scared, she nearly wet her pants. The fear gave her a spike of clarity. She had to get out of there.
She ran for the door. Hands grabbed at her lab coat. She stumbled but caught herself before she could fall to the cold floor. She let her arms slip backward so the oversized lab coat came off, held in those strong hands that had come at her out of the darkness. She had no idea what had gone wrong with the experiment, but she wasn’t about to stick around to ask questions. These guys were huge. Big Marines who were easily twice her size. And they didn’t seem friendly.
If she could just get to the door. She ran, dodging and weaving around the tables and the reaching arms. They tried to grab the jacket she’d worn under the oversized lab coat, but they had a hard time getting hold of the slippery nylon fabric, thank goodness.
She crashed through the door, running for her life. She had to get help. She had to rouse the entire team. She had to get the MPs, the Marines, and, hell, the National Guard if she could, to stop these guys.
She turned to look over her shoulder just once as she ran into the fringe of trees on the heavily wooded outskirts of the base. What she saw chilled her to the bone. In the dark of the night, she could see the dim, yellow, rectangular glow of the open doorway. Outlined there were the hulking shapes of dead men. The dead Marines were following her path outdoors at a slow, steady, lurching pace.
Try Karen Kelley’s
THE WOLF PRINCE,
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Her mind was a blank. What had she been dreaming about?
Her face suddenly flooded with heat when she remembered. She’d been dreaming of a sexy, very naked, male god, worshipping at his feet like a horny woman who hadn’t been laid in over a year. That wasn’t true. She’d actually had sex eleven and a half months ago.
Except the man she’d drooled about in her dreams might very well be a corpse right now. Her heart began to pound.
Had Ms. Abernathy buried the body? Did the housekeeper know that would make her an accessory? Darcy grimaced when she thought about sharing a cell with her. Not that she disliked the housekeeper. She’d been almost as much of a mother to Darcy as her adoptive mother. Hmm, and bossy, now that she thought about it. But still, she didn’t want Ms. Abernathy to go to prison because she was being overprotective.
Darcy flung the cover aside and jumped out of bed, glancing at the clock. It was barely six. She rushed toward the closet, but stopped at the French doors that led to her balcony. Her room was directly across from the guesthouse. If something had happened to Surlock during the night, she would be able to tell from her room—maybe.
She opened the double doors and rushed out onto the balcony, then stumbled to a stop. The swimming pool was between her room and the guesthouse. Surlock stood on the diving board, his arms raised. The sun peeked over the horizon, casting everything in a hazy early morning light. There was enough light that she could see him, though.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. The man was truly magnificent, and very naked. Right now, she didn’t really mind that he disliked clothes. Boy, did she not mind!
His muscles weren’t so big that he looked deformed. No, they were just right. His chest was broad with just a sprinkling of dark hair. Her gaze dropped lower. Nice. Very nice.
A burning need grew inside her. For just a moment, she wondered what it would feel like to lie naked in his arms, to have his body pressed against hers. The ache inside her grew until she trembled with need. Her last few dates had been losers. She had a feeling Surlock would be good in bed. He would know how to please a woman.
Her hands curled into fists, nails biting into her palms as she stifled the groan that threatened to explode from her. She needed good sex. Maybe Surlock was a gift from the sex gods and she was meant to have him. It could happen. Before she could get too far into her fantasy, he dove into the water, causing barely a ripple.
She leaned over the balcony. Nice ass. Firm. Hmm, with a tattoo on the upper right cheek. Or a birthmark. Odd, she had a birthmark in the same place. She squinted her eyes, but he was too far away for her to tell exactly what it was. What were the odds it would be the same as her birthmark? She quickly dismissed the thought as she lost herself watching him swim the length of the pool.
The muscles in his back tightened and relaxed as he reached forward in the water. He swam to the end of the pool, then turned and swam back. His movements were those of a professional.
Maybe that was what he was—a swimmer.
Yeah, right, he’d been running around naked in the woods looking for a pool. With a wolf at his side.
What if he’d been raised by wolves? He’d growled at Dr. Wilson. Surlock did come across as a little wild, untamed. A fantasy formed in her mind. Surlock was Tarzan of the wolves, and he was looking for a woman he could steal away and take back to his den.
She shook her head. Ridiculous. Besides, since she had hit him over the head, Darcy kind of doubted she would be in the running as someone he would whisk away. The thought of spending time lying in his arms was nice, though.
Surlock popped out of the water, levering himself to the side of the pool, slinging his wet hair out of his face. He sat there for a moment, catching his breath, before getting to his feet. Rather than go immediately back to the guest house, he looked up, their gazes locking, as though he’d known she had watched him the whole time. He seemed quite unconcerned he was naked.
He didn’t smile or wave. Not even a nod. He only stared at her for a long moment, his gaze slipping down her body, caressing her with his eyes, causing goose bumps to pop up on her arms. For a brief moment, something passed between them. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him.
Don’t miss Elizabeth Essex’s Brava debut,
THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE,
coming next month!
“I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.” He wanted to steer their chat to his purpose, but the back of her neck was white and long. He’d never noticed that long slide of skin before, so pale against the vivid color of her locks. He’d gone away before she’d been old enough to put up her hair. And nowadays the fashion seemed to be for masses of loose ringlets covering the neck. Trust Lizzie to still sail against the tide.
“Yes, you could.” Her breezy voice broke into his thoughts.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Help it. You could have helped it, as any polite gentleman should, but you obviously chose not to.” She didn’t even bother to look back at him as she spoke and walked on but he heard the teasing smile in her voice. Such intriguing confidence. He could use it to his purpose. She had always been up for a lark.
He caught her elbow and steered her into an unused parlor. She came easily, without resisting the intimacy or the presumption of the brief contact of his hand against the soft, vulnerable skin of her inner arm, but once through the door she just seemed to dissolve away, out of his grasp. His empty fingers prickled from his sudden loss. He let her move away and closed the door.
No lamp or candle branch illuminated the room, only the moonlight streaming through the tall casement windows. Lizzie looked like a pale ghost, weightless and hovering in the strange light. He took a step nearer. He needed her to be real, not an illusion. Over the years she’d become a distant but recurring dream, a combination of memory and boyish lust, haunting his sleep.
He had thought of her, or at least the idea of her, almost constantly over the years. She had always been there, in his brain, swimming just below the surface. And he had come tonight i
n search of her. To banish his ghosts.
She took a sliding step back to lean nonchalantly against the arm of a chair, all sinuous, bored indifference.
“So what are you doing in Dartmouth? Aren’t you meant to be messing about with your boats?”
“Ships,” he corrected automatically and then smiled at his foolishness for trying to tell Lizzie anything. “The big ones are ships.”
“And they let you have one of the big ones? Aren’t you a bit young for that?” She tucked her chin down to subdue her smile and looked up at him from under her gingery brows. Very mischievous. And very challenging.
If it was worldliness she wanted, he could readily supply it. He mirrored her smile.
“Hard to imagine, isn’t it, Lizzie.” He opened his arms wide, presenting himself for her inspection.
Only she didn’t inspect him. Her eyes slid away to inventory the scant furniture in the darkened room. “No one else calls me that anymore.”
“Lizzie? Well, I do. I can’t imagine you as anything else. And I like it. I like saying it. Lizzie.” The name hummed through his mouth like a honeybee dusted with nectar. Like a kiss. He moved closer so he could see the emerald color of her eyes, dimmed by the half light, but still brilliant against the white of her skin. He leaned a fraction too close and whispered, “Lizzie. It always sounds somehow…naughty.”
She turned quickly. Wariness flickered across her mobile face, as if she were suddenly unsure of both herself and him, before it was just as quickly masked.
And yet, she continued to study him surreptitiously, so he held himself still for her perusal. To see if she would finally notice him as a man. He met her eyes and he felt a kick low in his gut. In that moment plans and strategies became unimportant. The only thing important was for Lizzie to see him. It was essential.
But she kept all expression from her face. He was jolted to realize she didn’t want him to read her thoughts or mood, that she was trying hard to keep him from seeing her.
Impulsive Page 23
