Rush (Phoenix Rising) (7 page)

“I miss seeing you.” His lazy gaze slid down her throat, lower to her chest and rested on her breasts. She knew that look. The hungry one. The one that made her skin tighten and her nipples harden. Like now. “Why were you gone so long?”

Confusion. Desperation. Suggestion. That’s what this was about. Because if this was truly Quaid, those comments didn’t make sense.

“Look at me.” She lifted his chin. When those brown eyes were on hers again, she just pushed out the words before she couldn’t. “Who am I?”

His smile grew wider. His lids grew heavier. The man was half drugged out of his mind. This was a ridiculous effort. Then his arm tightened around her, drawing her closer. “Woman of my dreams.”

She frowned. This was crazy. She was starting to believe
she’d
gone crazy. Or she was about to. Those eyes had to be a fantasy. A trick of the mind. Something she saw because she so desperately wanted Quaid. Or because she so desperately didn’t want this to be just another dream where she would wake up to the stone-cold reality that her husband was in the grave and she’d never touch him again.

“Who’s with you?”

His whisper brought her gaze up from full lips surrounded by several days of dark stubble to find his eyes filled with a liquid heat that made her body ache in ways she’d forgotten.

“No one.” Which reminded her of what a mess she was in. “It’s just me.”

“Then . . .” His smile faded. His gaze darted past her, scanned the room, and came back. “Why are you here?”

What kind of question was that? And why the hell
was
she here? And where the hell was
here
? Her mind wobbled on a razor-thin tightrope wire.

“To find you,” she only half-lied. “I came for you.”

“You came . . . for me?”

The astonishment in his voice, the surprise in his eyes, made guilt resurface for having refused Keira and Teague. “Yes.”

“I’ve waited so long to hear you say that.”

The sexy timbre of his voice was still caressing her when he lifted his head and pressed his lips to hers. Jessica pulled back, an instinctive move made out of confusion. But his hand slid up her spine and cupped her head. And his lips moved over hers, firm and warm and oh, just . . . so . . . right.

His lids fell closed, and those long lashes lay just millimeters from her own. Her brain clouded. Her body softened. A fresh undercurrent of power flowed between them, sending adrenaline to her heart and energy to every cell in her body.

His kisses lengthened, deepened, until his lips caressed and suckled hers as if he were exploring them for the first time. And like waking from a deep, refreshing sleep, everything inside Jessica lifted, stretched and filled. Each press, pull or slide of his mouth erased a shadow from her past.

A sound floated from her throat, one of pain and loss, disbelief and hope. She tried to remember if Quaid had ever kissed her so perfectly when the slow sweep of his tongue along her lips stole her breath. Then he tilted his head, opened his mouth on a groan and fully tasted her.

And she knew.

This was her husband. This was Quaid.

Jessica whimpered, tightened her arms around his neck and kissed him hard and deep while a tidal wave of emotion flooded her chest. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t let go, couldn’t open her eyes for fear he’d evaporate into the mist of a fading dream. Nor was she able to conceive what she’d done to him by believing he’d been dead all these years. Guilt and pain and fear prowled like starved beasts waiting to attack, but she had to do whatever it took to remain strong long enough to get Quaid out of here. Then she could feel all she had to feel. Deal with all she had to deal with. Then she could spend the rest of her life making it up to him.

When she broke for air, Quaid’s dark eyes burned with lust beneath heavy lids. His lips were wet, his mouth open and ready for more. He breathed hard, his muscles straining as he pulled against the restraint to bring her closer. “I knew you’d taste amazing.”

“Don’t talk.” She pressed her fingers against his lips. His words were messing with her head, and she needed to stay focused. “You’re not making sense right now. It’s the drugs. I just want to get you out of here and then we can talk, straighten everything out. Oh,
my God
.” All those emotions crashed in another heavy wave. She took his face in both hands and pressed her forehead to his. “Then we can be together forever. I won’t ever leave you again.”

He grinned—all straight, white teeth and uneven crescents curving deep on either side of his mouth.
Her
Quaid. She’d never forget his grin as long as she lived. Her heart blossomed, so big, so beautiful, she was sure her ribs would crack.

“I knew it would be like this with us,” he whispered before taking her mouth again with vital, life-affirming passion.

She was completely lost in Quaid when he turned his head sharply, breaking the kiss.

“What the fuck are you doing awake?” Another man’s voice came from the direction of the door.

The man lifted his foot and kicked out. A tingling rush zipped through Jessica’s whole body as his boot passed through her. She gripped Quaid tighter, trying to protect him, but the boot hit his chest, dead center, as if she weren’t even there. He jerked hard and flew back against the wall.

“Quaid!” She reached for him. The coin flew from her hand, hit the wall and rolled across the floor.

The man stood over Quaid, where he’d slumped onto the mattress, coughing and wheezing.

“No!” She froze, torn between going after the man and saving the coin. Deciding she couldn’t harm the man, she scrambled for the coin. On hands and knees she crawled and lunged just as the thin metal dropped into a gap between warped floorboards. She pulled at it with her fingers, but it had wedged itself into the tiny space.

“Shit.” She pried at the metal, dug at the wood, grasped the coin’s edge. It wiggled but didn’t come free.

Quaid coughed, then groaned. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see him roll to his side and fall still.

“I’m here, Quaid. I’m right here. Hang on, baby. I’m going to get us—”

The big man kicked Quaid again. Jessica screamed. Dropping back on her heels, she covered her mouth with both hands, unable to breathe.

Quaid groaned again. Jessica let out the air she’d been holding. Relief eased the sting of terror, but rage grew in its wake. She was going to kill that man—she didn’t care who he was. She was going to find him, hunt him down and kill him when this was over. But she had to get Quaid out first. She went back to work on the coin.

The man rolled Quaid onto his back and pressed his boot to his sternum. “You know what I think, Q? I think you’re just more goddamned trouble than you’re worth.”

Pain chewed at Jessica’s fingers and still she couldn’t get the coin loose. The scene flickered. Chaotic horizontal static patterns blocked her vision.

“No, no, no!” she screamed and pulled harder at the coin. Complete static overtook the scene just as her body went weightless. “No!”

“N
o, no, no . . .” Jessica choked out the words and rubbed the coin like a genie lamp, even though she knew that’s not how it worked.

Her throat burned from screaming. Her mind turned inside out. The gapped wooden floor of the cabin had transformed back into the dove-gray commercial carpet of her office. The water-stained sheetrock walls back into sleek floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Capitol building.

“Jess, what’s wrong?” The voice startled Jessica and she jerked her head in that direction. Keira crouched next to her on the floor. “What happened?”

Jessica stared at Keira, her mind chugging to a stop. She looked up. Around. Her office. She was in her office. Kneeling on the floor. With the coin in her fingers.

Her gaze blurred as her mind struggled to draw a line between fantasy and reality. Tremors overtook her arms, crawled down her back. Pain beat at her temples to the rhythm of her heart.

“Jess?” Teague’s big hand pressed against her shoulder from behind. “Honey, are you okay?”

What in the hell . . . ? That couldn’t have been merely a vision. Could it? It had all been too vivid. Too
real
. She couldn’t have glimpsed Quaid only to have him taken again. That couldn’t happen. It just
couldn’t
.

“I have to get back,” she murmured. “I have to . . .” She pushed to her knees, lifted the coin toward the window and screamed,
“Take me back!”

“Back where?” Keira’s hand squeezed her arm. “Where are you trying to go?”

Jessica didn’t answer. She didn’t know. God, she didn’t know anything anymore.

The coin was dull and the dismal weather outside didn’t provide any reflective light. Even the furious desperation whipping up inside her was answered by nothing more than a distant roll of thunder.

“We can’t stay here,” Teague said to Keira over Jessica’s head. “I didn’t think it would take this long.”

Sweat broke out on Jessica’s chest, her face. Her heart thudded against her ribs. She couldn’t get enough air. She didn’t know what was happening. Her brain wasn’t working and it hurt. Her stomach hurt. Everything hurt.

A cramp tore at her stomach, and Jessica doubled over, clutching her belly. She could only stare at the carpet until the twisting pain passed. Her gaze caught on a pill bottle at the foot of her desk. Her mind turned, searching for its identity, and it hit her just as the cramp released and the shakes kicked in. Her Xanax.

And that’s when she knew what this was—withdrawal. This was one of those rare, bizarre, phantom withdrawal episodes. She’d had two others since rehab, and even her doctors didn’t understand them. But it was as if the mere consideration of taking drugs had corrupted her system into believing she’d actually taken them, then she had to go dry all over again.

“This isn’t fair,” she moaned, closing her eyes and sinking into a ball. Still, her mind struggled with questions from every angle. Pain built inside her head until she couldn’t think. Expanded in her chest until she could barely breathe.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Teague murmured. “I’ve got you.” He dragged her up from the floor and lifted her into his arms. “Easy now, sweetheart.”

The movement brought on a wave of nausea. Jessica moaned, squeezed her eyes tight and pressed her mouth against Teague’s shoulder.

“One minute,” Teague said, “and I’ll get you to the car.”

Car?
She pried her eyes open, but couldn’t focus on anything, which made her head swim again.

“Fuck.”
She clamped her head between her palms and squeezed her eyes tight again. “My head.”

“Hold on, sweetheart.” He jostled her down stairs. “Just hold on.”

“Teague.” The splitting sensation grew worse by the second. She’d never experienced this kind of sharp, biting, all-consuming pain. “
Stop,
damn it!”

They passed from dry warmth into freezing rain. Jessica gasped and curled into Teague. The movement sent the pain in her head stabbing down her neck. “I hate you.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m a prick. Ask anyone.”

“He is,” Keira said.

“Is your name anyone?” Teague asked. “I think not.”

He stepped inside a darkened space and the rain stopped pelting Jessica. Teague eased her into a seat and she forced her eyes open to slits, but everything spun. They were in the back of a vehicle; that much she knew.

“What’s happening to me?” She couldn’t clearly remember why Keira and Teague were there.

“We’ll talk in a second.” Teague leaned over and pulled a seatbelt across her body. “Let me get your head settled first.”

The engine rumbled and they started moving.

“Teague,” Keira said from the front, “brace her. I’ve got two shadows I need to lose.”

Groaning, Jessica fisted her wet hair and planted her elbows on her knees. There was no way she could handle a swerving car right now.

“Come here.” Teague gripped her shoulders and turned her toward him.

He sandwiched her knees between his, then pried her hands away from her head. An instant later, his big palms and long fingers covered her skull. Warmth instantly penetrated her head. And like an eraser, Teague’s touch wiped out the torment, calmed overzealous nerves and relaxed bunched muscles. Blood rushed into her head, opening constricted vessels and feeding her brain.

The jostle of the vehicle as Keira braked, turned, gunned it, swerved and then did it all over and over again didn’t cause even a ripple of discomfort. Without Teague, Jessica would have been curled on the floor, puking.

She didn’t understand how Teague was able to heal with his hands, but she’d heard about the positive thermo-kinetic effects from nearly every member of the team, his own wife and daughter included. Now, she appreciated them firsthand.

Chancing a glance through her fingers, she saw Keira in the driver’s seat and Teague next to her in the back of an SUV. The relief Teague had brought left her with a migraine-type hangover, but allowed brain cells to connect.

“What just happened?” She stood on the cliff edge of sanity. “Someone might want to start explaining before I go postal.”

“Tell us what you saw, Jess,” Teague said, his voice soothing, but insistent. “Let’s start there.”

“Let’s start with that sleazy stunt, Teague,” Jessica said, her head too heavy to lift from the seat.

He shrugged, but sincere regret showed in his eyes. “It was a last resort, honey. I was desperate.”

Desperate people did desperate things. Jessica knew that fact all too well.

“It was still wrong.” But she couldn’t stay mad about it. She hurt too much—physically, mentally and emotionally. Jessica leaned forward in her seat and rested her head in her hands. “Where are we going?”

“Speaking of sleazy,” Teague said with a smirk, “Mitch has a place for us to use as a base camp for the moment.”

“Mitch?” She lifted her eyes to Teague’s. “As in your brother-in-law Mitch?”

“Is there another Mitch?”

“Not like him, that’s for sure,” Jessica muttered and returned her stare to the carpeted floor, trying to sort out and prioritize all the main events with a low thud rolling behind her eyes and fragmented memories of the . . . hallucination . . . vision . . . whatever thrumming through her heart. “Why is Mitch here?”

“Because he has abandonment issues,” Keira said, “and can’t be left out of anything.”

Teague laughed. “Save the good ones for when he’s around.” Then to Jessica, he said, “Mitch is here because he’s in this up to his eyeballs, and he’s a worrywart about Alyssa’s pregnancy, and he”—Teague shrugged and grinned—“can’t be left out of anything.”

“Thank you,” Keira said.

Their banter carried on in one ear, but Jessica’s mind drifted.
I knew you’d taste amazing.
The memory of that kiss created an ache down the center of her body. She pressed her fingers to her lips, unsure if they were tingling because of the freezing rain or—

She stopped herself. Looked out the window where droplets darted diagonally along the glass.
This
was reality—the rain-soaked streets of Washington. Teague. Keira. This trouble. Her lips had to be tingling from the rain. Or maybe lack of blood supply to her head, because if she believed she’d actually kissed a real man, let alone her dead husband, she really
did
need that asylum she’d been considering in jest earlier.

Leaning on the armrest, head braced in her hands, she said, “Who are you running from?”

“That’s not entirely clear yet,” Teague said. “What happened with the coin, Jess?”

She lifted her gaze to his. Held it. Road noise filled the silence for long seconds as Jessica tried to form an answer. She finally exhaled a heavy breath, slid her hands over her face and groaned, “I have no idea.”

“Then just tell us what you saw,” Keira said.

Jessica sat back and closed her eyes. The weight of hopelessness that always came when she thought of Quaid’s loss slowly filled her chest even as she battled it back. This was why she did everything she did—the move, the job change, the drugs, avoiding her abilities—because after coming so far in both life and rehabilitation, she was convinced there was only one thing that could break her: having to face that kind of loss a second time.

But she wouldn’t have to face that—because the man she’d seen . . . imagined . . . envisioned . . . had not been Quaid. She could recognize that now in hindsight. And she could even understand why she’d thought—for that blissful moment—it had been.

“One car,” she said, closing her eyes to aid the memories. “A few men . . . three, no four . . . wearing dress pants, shirts and ties. They were working together, but arguing like they didn’t get along. I saw another man, and he was a prisoner. But before you ask, I can’t even believe I’m having to answer this question seriously.” She straightened and held up a hand in warning. “No, it wasn’t Quaid.”

Keira and Teague remained silent. They shared a look in the rearview mirror.

Keira opened her mouth and Jessica cut off her next question with the answer, “Yes, I’m sure.”

Jessica glanced out the windshield as Keira turned toward an upscale neighborhood. Teague leaned in and took her hands. “How do you know?”

She pulled away, pushed her hands between her knees, and held tight to her last strand of sanity. “I know because Quaid is dead. I know because I’ve been living alone for
five years
.” She paused, and banked her temper. “The man I saw had a shaved head covered in scars. And he was small. Even if Quaid had lost fifty pounds, he’d still be a big guy.

“His nose was too straight, his chin and cheeks too square—” She shook her head, the prisoner’s image flitting out of her memory when she tried too hard to recall. “His face . . . it just . . . was all wrong. Damn it, I would have recognized my own husband.”

“He’s been gone a long time, Jess,” Teague said. “I know my memories of Suzannah started to fade as early as six months. By the time she’d been gone a year, I had to look at a photograph to remember the details, the unique things that made her Suzannah.”

Jessica couldn’t remember the last time Teague had spoken of his former wife. Suzannah’s depression-induced suicide would always be a deep wound for him, which made his mention of her now especially unsettling.

Keira glanced in the review mirror, meeting Jessica’s gaze before saying, “You told me you hadn’t looked at a photo of Quaid—”

“In four years. No, I haven’t. It’s too painful.” She wouldn’t be able to hold her temper much longer. Or the pain already tearing at her heart. “And what about
him
not recognizing
me
? Do you have an excuse for that, too? Because he didn’t know who the hell I was. Why do I feel like I should be tied to a chair under a spotlight? I’m not the one acting crazy here.”

Keira and Teague fell silent, and Jessica’s mind drifted right back to that cabin.

The more Jessica thought about it, the more surreal the memories became. She had scryed a time or two early on, when she’d been developing her abilities, but whatever she’d done today had not been scrying. And she’d never interacted with others when she’d scryed. But that man had seen her, engaged with her.

Or she’d been hallucinating.

Judging by the dryness of her mouth, the uncontrollable trembling that came and went and the deep craving for a hit, Jessica leaned toward the explanation of withdrawal-induced hallucination. This felt a lot like withdrawal to her and that wasn’t something a person forgot.

The car slowed, then stopped.

“Did you leave your body, Jess?”

The seriousness of Keira’s voice even more than the crazy question pulled Jessica’s head up. Keira stared over her shoulder at Jess from the driver’s seat. A red traffic light shone through the rain-splashed windshield behind her.

“Did I . . .
what
?” Quick bursts of sensation, like sparkles, flashed through her body, making her feel light and dizzy, like she’d suddenly experienced a head rush.

“You looked like you . . .” Teague started. “It’s hard to explain, but it was like you were gone and your body was a place holder. There’s a power called astral projection—”

“Holy shit, Teague.” Jessica leaned away like he might be contagious. “Like I don’t have enough to deal with?”

“Okay, you’re right,” Teague said in his ever-patient voice. “Listen, Jess, there is a lot we need to tell you, but you’re going to have to keep an open and clear mind to hear it, and it’s important stuff.”

“Fine.” Jessica sat back in her seat and crossed her arms, her gaze intent on Teague even though she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and fade into oblivion. “I’m ready.”