Between Darkness and Daylight (25 page)

"She's gone, Nova."

"Yes."

"You see it every day on television, in the news. Kids killing kids.

Columbine, the Interstate sniper… But you just never think it can happen to one of yours. Never think that your kid will get up one morning to go to school and never come back. Because no matter how bad things get in the world, kids our supposed to outlive their elders."

"You're not blaming yourself for this, are you?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter one way or the other who's to blame. She's gone."

"That's right. It doesn't and she is." Nova took her keys out of the ignition and got out, circling her SUV to meet Zane on the passenger side as he got out. She took his hand and led him like a little boy inside and upstairs to his loft, wondering how they were going to face Ransom if he was still awake, what would they say to him.

Turned out they didn't need to say anything at all.

Ransom rushed to meet them at the door, eyes wide. "Is it true, what they said on TV?" he asked. "Is she really…dead?"

Nova just looked at him, couldn’t bring herself to respond.

Ransom backed away from them when neither of them answered,

shaking his head, desperately looking around the room as if for escape. He finally just turned and ran to his room, slamming the door in his wake.

Nova almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Ever since leaving the hospital, she’d felt like she was reliving the entire day all over again, taking the same steps, saying the same words—like an actor in the movie
Groundhog Day
. It was her own personal hell, because everything that came after she’d gone rock climbing with Zane and Ransom that morning was something she didn't want to relive, ever; going through it once had been more than enough.

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"I am so tired."

He might as well have said he was so empty. It would have sounded the same, emitted in a voice so desolate and torn from a place so deep and far away that she barely recognized the words as coming from him.

Zane plunked in the middle of the sectional, his face in his hands, and Nova went to sit on the edge of the sofa beside him. She was afraid to touch him, afraid to intrude on his equivocal mood, but wanted his touch, wanted to be with him regardless of the consequences.

"It's not fair."

"You of all people know life's not fair."

Zane dragged his face out of his hands to glare at her. "Knowing it doesn't mean I have to like it, Nova."

"You want to attack me, don't you? Because I'm here, because there's no one else to take Manuela's death out on? Fine, I'm all yours.

Take your best shot."

She didn't really expect him to act on her words, and when he roughly caught her by the shoulders she gasped. He jerked her forward at the same instant she leaned in, pressing his mouth against hers in a brutal heated kiss that set her insides on fire and sparkles shooting off behind her closed eyes. He pushed his tongue between her lips, forcing her mouth open as he nipped her full lower lip, and snaked a hand under her blouse to rasp a thumb over each already pebbled nipple.

Nova thrust out her tongue to meet his and slid a hand down to the hard bulge in his jeans, firmly caressing his cock. He moaned raggedly before he pushed her back on the sectional and covered her body with his.

She moved her hands to his waist, tugged his shirt out of his jeans, and ground her lower body against him, wanting to feel his skin on hers, wanting to touch him in ways she'd never touched another human being.

"Take this off."

Zane growled into her mouth, moving away from her only for the second it took him to pull the shirt up and over his head. He flung the garment at the adjacent recliner with such force, Nova was sure Ransom had heard the thud all the way in his room.

"I want you." She wanted to let Zane know that he wouldn’t be taking anything she wasn’t offering. She sensed his hesitation but knew he 174

Gracie C. McKeever

wouldn't be gentle when they made love, that he needed the release more than he wanted her. She didn't care.

Zane stood, and for a moment Nova thought he was changing his mind, that her forwardness had turned him off so badly he wouldn't go through with this. But he extended his hands, arms spread wide, a sad smile lighting his eyes as she got up and went to him.

She splayed both hands across his chest, skimmed her fingers down his body, thumbs brushing his ribs, fingertips reveling in the warm skin and hard rips of his torso before he groaned and pulled her into his arms. She went willingly, sliding her arms around his waist and burying her face against his chest.

A flash of the gun attack on him burst before her eyes and before she could react, right on its heels came a vision of the two of them coming together, Zane beneath her and pounding into her body with frantic need.

Nova gasped and he cupped her face with both hands.

“Are you okay? Do you really want this?” he asked.

She wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug, as if keeping him so close would keep him safe, as if she could prevent her vision from coming to pass.

Zane curved his hands around her ass and squeezed before he lifting her off the floor. Nova flung her legs around his waist almost in the same instant as he carried her to his bedroom and closed the door. He stood at the door for a long time, silently looking at her, searching her face as if he could find answers there to all that had happened to them today.

Nova palmed his face in both hands, trying to erase his doubt even as she tried to sate her hunger at his mouth, darting her tongue in and out, teasing him with her lips, desperate for his musk and taste, desperate for his cock to fill the emptiness inside her. She trailed her fingernails over his back and shoulders, leaving light red welts and strong tremors in her wake as she unwrapped her legs from his waist. Zane put her down and worked free the buttons on her shirt while she slid her hands down to undo the button on his jeans and help him out of them.

He pushed aside lacy tangerine cups and bent his head to lave her nipples to rigid, painful attention before taking one between his teeth and nipping her.

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Nova moaned, arched her neck, her panties sopping, her cunt

quivering with anticipation. She slid her hands up to his hair and plunged them into the raven waves, pulling him closer as she pushed herself further into his mouth, welcoming the pleasure-pain, welcoming his turbulent emotions. She pushed him back towards the bed, needing him inside her now, needing him to take her.

Suddenly aware he'd undone her jeans, Nova hastily stepped out of them and her panties. She shoved him back onto the mattress and Zane went down with a whoosh of exhaled air, pulling her on top of him, laughing for the first time that evening, the first time since forever, it seemed. He held her against his burgeoning erection and stared up into her eyes for several long moments.

She leaned forward to kiss him, grasping his wrists and pulling his arms up over his head. He allowed her free reign for that moment, let her do what she wanted to him, whispering, "Take the pain away, Nova.

Please just take the pain away."

"Yes. I will, Zane. I will…" She straddled his hips, sliding her hands down his shoulders, bracing her palms against his chest. She eased her sex over his hot erection, teasing the moist tip with her heat as she bent her head to take his mouth with hers.

He returned her kisses with equal fervor, driving in his tongue as he grasped her hips, fingers pressing into her skin just short of pain, as if taking a pound of her flesh would make up for what had happened to Manuela.

Nova would give up her flesh to save his.

He pulled her down onto him before she could react, thrust his hips up and impaled her on his hard cock.

She gasped and bit her bottom lip. He was so big and so solid, it surprised her to finally have him inside her, filling her completely, his dick throbbing, his hips circling and thrusting deep with his need.

Nova tightened her pussy muscles around him and he moaned and ground his hips against her faster, more furiously, moving as if he was trying to start a fire in her cunt with the friction.

He needs to get off. He needs to come.

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God she needed it, too, more than ever; needed to know that she was enough for him, that she could save him not only in the bedroom, but outside of it.

She picked up her pace, building her intensity to match his, rolling her hips and riding him rough as he drove into her with an anguished cry.

He jerked to a sitting position, flung his arms around her and dragged her close, knocking the wind out of her with his force. Nova burrowed her hands in his hair, fisted the rich soft strands, and held him as he pressed his face against her breasts and shook with the force of his sudden climax.

She felt him now as fiercely as she had ever felt him, warm vibrations radiating out into her body, filling her as his seed gushed into her. All his pain and sorrow and frustration of the last several hours, the last several years, washed over her like a tidal wave.

Zane flipped her beneath him, hugging her tight, still inside her and semi-erect. He began moving his hips again, rotating slowly at first, then pumping faster, harder as he pressed her into the mattress.

Once again, Nova followed his lead, despite fearing for their emotional safety. At that point, he could have led her into the fires of hell and she would have gladly followed him.

She bucked her hips as much as she could against his powerful thrusts, gaining some satisfaction at the pressure and friction his roughness created against her wanting clit.

Zane cuddled his face against her throat, soundly sucking and nibbling right before he stiffened then shuddered in her arms and shouted her name.

Nova whimpered and he pulled her flush against him, as if he was trying to climb in her skin.

He lay on top of her for a long silent moment, panting, drained, cock finally flaccid inside her. After a while, he released her and pushed up on his palms to look down at her with wide eyes, his expression conveying his shock at what he had done, at his lack of control.

Nova reached up to stroke his lightly whiskered jaw, caressing one high chiseled cheek with her thumb.

"We didn't use anything."

"It's okay, Zane. Really it is."

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This wasn’t how she’d planned it, was nothing like all their sensual and tender mergings in her dreams. It had just been raw, unchecked passion, the way Zane had needed it. The way she'd needed it.

She didn't know how to tell him, but she knew they were okay, knew
he
was okay. And even if he wasn't, she had already taken a gigantic risk coming to New York to find him. And she had just taken the biggest risk of her life leaving the hospital an hour ago, when she'd fallen completely in love with him.

178

Gracie C. McKeever

Chapter 16

Ransom woke early the next morning—early for him, and for a

Sunday—hadn't really gotten that much sleep to begin with.

He'd listened to his uncle and Nova into the wee hours. It had been mostly talking, and even some crying, though there had been plenty of making out, too. Most of the time he hadn't known where his uncle's voice began and Nova's ended, their sentiments and cries fused together so tightly that they drifted out to him on one frightening wave of emotion.

Half the time he thought he could sense what they were feeling, which was just plain creepy.

She was dead. The girl whose mother had tried to end Uncle Zane's life was really gone.

He still didn't believe it, didn't
want
to believe it, that someone not much older than him, someone he went to school with and even peeped every once in a while, was gone.

He felt bad for Manuela and her family, but he felt worse for Uncle Zane. He knew how much the guy cared about his kids, knew how much he had cared about that girl.

Ransom wished…hell, he wished the man were half as dedicated to him as he seemed to be to a bunch of strangers' kids, wished his uncle cared about him half as much as he cared about all of
them.

He didn't like the bitter taste that self-admission left in his mouth.

Uncle Zane was doing the best he could, and he wasn't a bad guy. Human, but not bad.

It didn't mean Ransom had to like what was going on, what his uncle did, though. It didn't mean he had to accept the sacrifices and risks his uncle took every day and not be scared spitless worrying whether some loony who didn't like the way his uncle got his job done might decide to
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come after him. Sheesh, the guy might as well have been a cop or a fireman, come to that!

Ransom didn't know what scared him more—his uncle's job or the total lack of control
he
had over his own destiny.

What would happen to him if Uncle Zane got killed? Where would that leave him?

He didn't like thinking about his uncle's not being here, but it was a real possibility, especially after what had happened with Manuela's mother. He didn't like thinking about Uncle Zane's death because he didn't want to be without the man. He couldn’t imagine a life without him, couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, or with anyone else in the world. A year ago, his uncle would have had to kill him to make him admit that he liked living with him. But not now.

Nova drifted into the kitchen from the hall as Ransom pulled his favorite cereal bowl down from one of the kitchen cabinets.

"Hey, Ran-ma—"

He turned from the cabinet to catch her wince, instantly feeling guilty.

He’d only told a half-truth about the nickname. His grandmother and his mom both had called him Ran-man, but he hadn’t wanted to make Nova feel even worse than she had by mentioning his mom. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to talk to her about Mom, just that it felt wrong somehow to mention her in Nova’s presence, felt too soon. Mentioning Mom as a memory only, as someone who no longer was, would be like admitting she really was gone, and he hadn’t yet admitted that to himself, not really. Maybe later… “It’s okay.”