I Dream of Danger (23 page)

She ate.

All it took was a bite or two for her eyes to open wide with astonishment. As a scientific experiment she took a bite from everything on her plate and confirmed her first hypothesis.

“This is the best food I’ve ever eaten,” she blurted. They’d been watching to see her reaction to the food. Catherine sat back and looked at her husband and Jon with a smile. Both men nodded. Nick didn’t meet their eyes because his were fixed on her in an unblinking stare.

Everyone but Nick was transferring food to their plates. Nick’s plate remained empty as he continued watching her. It didn’t intimidate her, though. She’d suffered worse things than having someone watch her eat. Not to mention the fact that eating this amazing food was no hardship.

Huge ricotta raviolis with a wild mushroom and cream sauce, the most succulent
tagliata
in the history of the world, dusted with arugula and parmesan flakes. The lightest possible fried artichoke slices. Sautéed escarole with plump raisins. Frisèe salad with hot bacon. Steamed broccoli with garlic and a balsamic vinegar reduction. A freshly baked ciabatta to soak everything up.

Simple fare, done absolutely perfectly.

Nobody talked. Nobody should. The food was a religious experience and required proper worship. Elle had eaten a couple of times at Chez Panisse before Alice Waters retired, and this food was arguably better.

There was tiramisu—what looked like the platonic ideal of tiramisu, frothy and creamy and chocolatey—in a big glass bowl in the corner. Just for encouragement.

When she was stuffed, Elle sat back. “Is this a secret five-star restaurant? The kind that never advertises and you have to be a foodie and pass a test to find? Though”—this with a slanted glance at Jon—“hooding clients is taking it a bit far.”

“Good old Stella.” Jon had eaten with unswerving fervor and wasn’t finished. He heaped a third helping of everything onto his plate. “I love her experiments, but when she does the basics . . . man. No one does it better.”

“Stella?” This Stella person was obviously the chef.

Jon grinned. “Yeah, you wouldn’t believe who the cook is. She’s—”

“Jon!” Mac’s deep voice was like a whip lash. Jon’s blond eyebrows shot up.

“We might want to discuss this, and other things, tomorrow.” Catherine placed a hand on her husband’s huge one and gave Elle a smile.

There was another painful silence.

Secrets. Deep secrets that weren’t going to be shared with her.

O-kay.

Nick had spooned some of the tiramisu onto a dessert plate and put it in front of her. “Eat.”

Elle set her teeth. “Is that all you can say? Eat?”

“Oh no.” Nick gave a smile that showed his own teeth, but wasn’t friendly. “I’ve got a lot of other things to say, but not right now. Later. When we’re alone.”

Curse her fair skin. Heat rose from her chest and she knew she was turning pink. Because it was very clear what he meant.

And curse her obsession, because instead of making her angry that he was assuming she’d just sweep aside ten years of abandonment to go to bed with him, her body reacted to his words and to the images his words conjured up with enthusiasm, completely out of her control.

Right now, with Nick so close to her, his shoulder rubbing hers, his body heat like a force field around him, his fierce eyes locked on hers—her body remembered what it had been like to make love to him.

She’d spent the entire night with him in a state of arousal, just like now. A flush of heat prickled through her body as if she’d suddenly stepped out into the blazing sun. Her breath grew shallow, her breasts felt heavy, swollen.

Her sex . . . wept with pleasure. Incredibly, it suddenly felt as if Nick’s penis were in her and her sex clenched around it, stomach and groin muscles pulling hard. Her heart was knocking against her ribs so hard she was sure someone could hear it.

Certainly Nick could. Or he could hear something because his gaze narrowed and tightened, his nostrils flared, and two white lines of stress appeared around his mouth. His eyes were focused on her face then abruptly dropped to her chest. It would be pointless to cover her breasts with her arms, he’d seen her hard nipples.

Oh God, this was so humiliating.
It was like being stripped bare of all defenses, rendered down to bedrock, open and vulnerable when she’d worked so very hard all these years to make herself strong and protected.

All it took was Nick’s presence and she morphed back to that helpless, grieving girl who’d been full of hopes and dreams for one night.

What a triumph it must be for Nick. That he could disappear for ten years and she’d still be so lovesick his mere physical presence turned her on more than any number of courters ever could.

Nick didn’t look triumphant and cocky, though. He looked stressed, almost in pain.

“Goddamn it,” he said suddenly, grabbing her hand and standing up. He walked fast to the door, pulling her stumbling behind him.

Elle looked back and saw Catherine half rise and her husband reach out to her and shake his head. She sat back down, looking troubled, and then the door opened and Nick pulled her into the corridor as the door slid closed behind them.

Elle stopped, frozen. The first thing to strike her was the smell. The smell of a vast garden, of lush vegetation, sweet and fresh. The corridor was curved, one of many circling a huge central space filled with plants. Trees, bushes, flowering plants, leaves thick and glossy, thriving. The space was . . . amazing. Huge, like a city square, rising up to a ceiling. Or—a roof? A transparent roof studded with bright lights against the black night sky.

Down on the ground level someone walking on a path looked up and waved at Nick, who paid no attention to anything but getting them to the elevator at the end of the corridor.

She stumbled again, but instead of stopping, Nick put his arm around her waist and speeded up.

Elle didn’t know where they were going but wherever it was, they were going there fast.

N
ick barely made it to the quarters Red and Bridget had just vacated because they had a brand-new baby. The first Haven citizen.

He felt like any minute now something would explode. His head. His skin. His cock. Something. Just itching to go up in flames. Something inside him that couldn’t be contained and was ready to blow.

He had to draw in a deep breath to be able to function even on the most basic level.

He tapped on the wall beside the door and a keyboard lit up. He turned to Elle and tried to keep the rasp of strong emotions—anger and relief and, well, horniness—from his voice. “For the moment, this is where you’ll stay, if you don’t want to stay with me.” He ignored the huge pump of his heart that those words and the very idea created in him—that Elle, finally with him again, wouldn’t want to stay with him, be with him. He punched in a four-digit code. “I’m putting in a temporary code. 1993, your birth year. You can change it later if you want.”

He looked at her, the implication a dark cloud between them. She might change it and not give him the new code.

The door whooshed open and he held his hand out. She ignored it. She crossed the threshold and he marched in right behind her.

That lovely face turned indignant. “I don’t know if I made myself clear, Nick, but I do not want to sleep with you.”

As soon as the door slid shut, he backed Elle up until her back hit the door with a thud, then moved in close. He was behaving like a real dick but he couldn’t help himself. No way he could have stayed in the war room eating and talking with Elle right beside him even one second more.

Right now she was here, with him. So close he could touch her if he dared.

Nick slammed his hands on the door right beside her head. She was caged in by him, though he wasn’t touching her anywhere. If she really wanted to get away from him, he’d let her. It would kill him, but he could do it.

He hoped.

He wasn’t touching her anywhere, but it was as if his skin had developed some other sense or was able to reach out to her. He dipped his head, his nose shifting her hair away from her ear. “You don’t have to sleep with me, but damned if I’m going to leave you alone in here. You were comatose when I found you. You’ve been through hell. If you need something in the night, you don’t know how this place works. You won’t know how to call for help. And I’d just stay awake worrying about you. So if you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t. But I’ll be goddamned if I leave you alone here.” He pulled away and looked down at her.

Jesus, why did she have to be so fucking beautiful?
She was even more beautiful than the last time he saw her. Over-the-top gorgeous, supersmart. A doctor no less. Someone Catherine admired, and Catherine was one of the smartest people Nick knew.

Nick had thought of Elle almost every day since Lawrence. He’d memorized her. The last image of her sleeping in bed was one he’d carried inside him for ten years.

The supersoft pale blond hair like a cloud around her head, the light blue eyes that looked like shards of summer sky, the high cheekbones, the shape of her head, that narrow torso, the puff of pale hair between those long, slender legs . . . every inch of her was in his head.

But there was a new Elle now, all grown up; and if anything, she was even more perfect than the young girl. He eagerly drank in all the new details of this new Elle because though she was never leaving his sight again, if he could help it, life had this funny way of whacking you in the head.

He would have sworn he would live the rest of his life in Ghost Ops. When his past had been wiped out and he’d taken the oath, with Lucius Ward and Mac McEnroe as his commanding officers, he knew this was to be his life forever more. And then Ghost Ops died, its forces scattered, accused of treason. What he thought would be an undying commitment proved to be short-lived.

So, yeah, you never knew.

So he drank in every detail of Elle because life being what it was, she could disappear on him in a heartbeat.

Her skin was still ivory perfection. The few lines around her eyes did nothing to detract from her beauty. She’d filled out so she no longer had that lost-waif look. She looked strong and capable and held herself with authority.

God, he loved that.

He was just barely keeping himself from touching her. He had to keep his hips pulled back because his dick was pressing against his pants. It wanted to be inside her. Smart dick.

He could barely remember his last hard-on. Some waitress down in Bakersville. She’d been nice enough. Lonely, like him. The signs had been unmistakable. Nick had become the world’s greatest expert on lonely and could sniff lonely people out in a crowd. They’d gone to a nearby motel and she’d been older and more used up than he thought, and his cock had gone a little limp. She noticed, had smiled sadly, and started buttoning her blouse back up.

Nick had willed his cock back up and forced himself to give her an extra good time and afterward, when she’d left at dawn, he’d stared at the ceiling until the sun rose over the windowsill, thinking of absolutely nothing at all.

That had been six months ago and he hadn’t had wood since. Hadn’t seen a woman who even vaguely interested him, and hadn’t jerked off.

Right now, it felt like his cock would never go down, ever again.

He bent again, his lips almost but not quite touching that long, pale slender neck. “So like it or not, Elle, I’m staying here. I’ll sleep on the couch, I’ll sleep on the fucking floor, I don’t care. But you’re not leaving my sight.”

Elle gave a long exhale.

“You bastard.” Elle’s voice was the barest whisper.

“Yeah. No argument there.” There wasn’t. He was literally a bastard. He doubted his mother even knew who his father was. Apparently there’d been plenty of candidates. But over and above that, in Ghost Ops you lied and cheated if that’s what it took to get the job done. He’d been undercover and lied about himself so much it was hard to remember what was the truth. He and his teammates fought for survival not for goodness. There had been very little of that in his life. The judge and Elle herself had been the only good people he’d ever met.

So yeah, he was a bastard.

He turned his head so his ear was close to her mouth. “So in a second I’m going to step back, though it’ll cost me, and let you settle in. But I’m not going anywhere and you’d better get used to that. Because from here on in, I’m sticking to your pretty tail.”

Her skin flushed. He could almost feel the heat. She pulled in a deep breath and gave him a hard shove. If he didn’t want to move, no shove of Elle’s could ever make him move, not even an inch. But he stepped back.

“You bastard!” Her pale blue eyes shot fire. “You son of a bitch! You leave me—twice!—without a word and now I’m supposed to let you just stick close to me? Until the next time you leave?”

Nick fisted his hands in her soft pale hair, pulled her head back a little and kissed her. Finally. It was what he’d been craving since she’d woken up in the hovercar. Not before. Before he’d been too wild with terror to think of kissing her. In fact, if he’d thought of it and if he believed in God, he’d have taken a vow of chastity in exchange for a living, breathing Elle. He’d have given anything up, promised anything on earth to find her alive. Kissing her had taken a backseat to that.

But he hadn’t promised anything to anyone. He’d found her, saved her, won her. Fair and square.

Her mouth still tasted wonderful—fresh, clean, enticing. She was holding herself back, her mouth cooperating but the rest of her stiff and unyielding. She stiffened and shoved him again, sliding away from the wall.

He was angry, frustrated, still humming with adrenaline. He wanted to hold her, protect her, fuck her. But even through the huge waves of emotion roiling through him, emotions he hadn’t the foggiest idea how to handle, a small part of him, the non-dickhead part of him, rejoiced.

This was the real Elle now. She’d somehow regained her footing. He’d found her nearly dead, she’d been hooded, taken to an unknown location, met people she’d never seen before and who held power over her. She’d been beaten down, just a little.