Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 (10 page)

“No.” Tim’s hand slid down her side and his fingers circled her wrist where it rested against her hip. “Not yet.”

Sarah’s eyes popped open and met his sober gaze.

“Shh. It’s okay.” Tim lifted her hand and pulled it slowly forward. He settled her hand on his cheek, rested it there a moment and moved her touch to the space behind his ear, to his scar. “It’s okay.”

She heard his words. The heat of his flesh melted her insides until she was a hot jumble of zinging nerves encased in skin. But her entire concentration focused with laser-like precision on his mouth, inches from her own.

His gaze held her frozen, waiting for some outward reaction to his movements, to his touch.

She had none to offer. Her entire reason for existing in that moment became to stare at his lips and imagine them pressed against her lips, her skin…everywhere.

Beneath her palm, his Shen pulsed and hers answered, shooting desire straight to her core. His hand covered hers, trapping it in place while his heart leapt to life in his chest. She could hear its frantic pounding as Tim gasped and arched his back off the bed like he’d been shot with a jolt of energy.

“What are you doing to me?” Tim’s grip was like iron holding her in place.

“I don’t know.” Sarah tore her gaze from his lips to stare into his heated gaze, his eyes were half open. He looked half asleep, or half drunk. Either way, she wanted to kiss him. Scratch that. She simply wanted…

“Sarah.” His attention focused on her like lasers. “Tell me who sent you. Why are you really here? What do you want from me?”

Her heart hurt at his words. He didn’t believe her, not even with Luke and Alexa as backup. Not even when they’d disappeared right in front of him. He still thought she was lying to him. Using him. How could she trust him with her heart when he thought she was a liar?

“I told you everything. Why can’t you believe me?” She sighed, and tugged in an attempt to free her hand from beneath his. “Who do you think I am?”

Tim sighed and broke eye contact to stare up at the ceiling, but he didn’t let her go. “I don’t know. CIA? Department of Defense? A spook or a plant from another country? One of the Rear Admiral’s recruits from the CP?”

“I’m not a spy. Are you kidding me? I’m a volleyball player. Not James Bond.” He thought she was a spy? What a joke. “And, even if I were a spy, why do you think I’d be after you?”

Tim’s entire body tensed at her question so she pushed.

“What’s the CP, Tim? And why would they be after you? What are you hiding?” Her irritation pulsed through her like a wave of fire and sizzled her fingertips with pain where they rested against his neck. He moaned, in agony or need she couldn’t say, but when he turned to look at her she was trapped like a deer in the headlights.

“The Casper Project is top secret, run by the Rear Admiral, a man named Walter Burroughs. He tried to recruit me not long ago. But his methods leave something to be desired.” His free hand moved to caress her cheek. “They took me in the middle of the night, drugged me and interrogated me for hours. When I wouldn’t talk, they sent someone in to rough me up.”

His thumb traced her full lower lip and she struggled to remember to breathe.

“They gave up. Dumped me back in the barracks with both a warning to keep my mouth shut, and an invitation to join them. The only face I ever saw was the Rear Admiral’s, the entire project is Black.”

“Why? What the hell is it? And why did they want you?” She wanted to kill the men who dared hurt Tim like that, and Tim’s back arched off the bed again, another moan escaping his gorgeous throat.

“God, woman. You’ve got to stop that.” Tim was panting now, and if he was feeling anything close to what she was, it wasn’t with pain. It was with gut-wrenching need.

“Sorry.” But she wasn’t. Not really. If turning Tim on was the only way to get him to open up, she’d zap him until his brain was mush and the only thing he wanted to do was touch her. His gaze returned to her mouth, and she fumbled for her last question. “What is the Casper Project? Why did they want you?” The last two words were more a whispered entreaty than a real question, but he answered.

“I see things, sunshine. I know things I shouldn’t.” He closed his eyes and she released a pent-up breath at being released from the intensity of his gaze.

“Like what? Like me?” She flicked her tongue out to wet her bottom lip and was rewarded with the barest taste of him as she made contact with his thumb. He tasted like earth and strength and man.

“No.” Tim shuddered and she needed to hear his next words like she needed air to breathe. “Nothing could have prepared me for you.”

Chapter Five

She was aware of his gaze locked on to her face, of the bowstring tightness of his muscles. She knew of the pounding of her heart and the burning tingle at the base of her spine. But none of it mattered.

He twisted toward her, lowering his lips to cover hers in a nearly mindless rush. The world faded away and her body simply flowed toward him like an ocean tide rising to meet the sand. She parted her lips beneath his, accepting the kiss even though the rational part of her brain was screaming a warning. His name would be seared into her consciousness forever. There would never be another kiss to match this. No man would ever measure up in her mind against this.

He pulled her atop him until she was lying over him like a blanket, trapping him beneath her exploring mouth and hands. She wrapped her fingers around the sides of his head, locking him to her with a single-minded passion she’d never experienced before. He was suddenly her air, her heartbeat. Nothing existed but his soft lips moving against hers, the intensity of his invading tongue, and the feel of his strong hands gripping her hips so tightly she was claimed…completely.

Or was he simply unsure of what to do with his hands while she lay on top of him molesting his mouth?

He’d started this. He was kissing her back. His tongue invaded her mouth to duel and dance with hers, mimicking the act of making love until she was prepared to rip her clothes from her body and beg him to take her.

And perhaps he would. Evidence of his arousal pressed against the sweetest spot and she fought back a groan as she pulled her mouth away. What the hell was she doing? Any red-blooded male would get a hard-on with a woman draped all over him. She had discovered his “automatic arousal button” by touching the Mark on his neck. It was chemically and biologically programmed into him now, right? But that didn’t mean he wanted her.

Just like that her brain started functioning again. Time to end the fantasy and get back to real life.

Unable to resist one more sweet moment of bliss, she rested her lips against the side of his neck and inhaled the electric scent of him. The hot spice of his skin surrounded her and she closed her eyes to savor it before facing the music. A few seconds became several minutes. Even as she damned her weakness where he was concerned, she couldn’t pull away yet. She needed to absorb as much bliss as she could to take out and savor later, to give her strength when she stood facing the monsters who would destroy Chicago.

Her old life was gone. Her grandmother, dead. Her friends were old women now. Even her extended family, her cousins, wouldn’t recognize her. And if she found them, they wouldn’t be the same people she’d left behind. Everything was different now. She was different.

“Are you all right?” Tim’s hands stroked up and down her back in a slow, tortuous glide as his breathing slowed to normal. So gentle. So kind.

So not real. She’d thrown herself all over him, and now shuddered against him like a weakling child in need of reassurance. Saving Chicago was her duty. No one else could do it, no matter how much she wished otherwise. She had no doubt that mister military hero would volunteer if he could. But impossibilities didn’t interest her right now. And that included fantasizing that this man could actually have feelings for her after a few hours.

Was she all right? Hell no. But she’d learned how to put on the public face a long, long time ago. And no matter how much she wished otherwise, he was still the public. “I’m okay.”

“Hey in there! Wake up, sleepyheads! It’s time to get moving.” Luke’s loud voice and quick double knock at the closed bedroom door threw off the last of her sensual haze and she jumped in shock, then quickly rolled to sit beside Tim on the bed.

“Thanks. Be there in a minute.” Tim answered as he made a grab for her wrist before she could get up. He missed and she quickly moved across the room to where she saw her shoes at the base of an overstuffed reading chair.

Lowering herself into the plush seat, she reached for her shoes and wobbled for a moment as the buzzing pain hit her again. After several hours of rest, the shock and pressure of the energy flowing through her made her gasp.

Tim rose from the bed and moved toward her, but she put up a hand to stop him as the light bulb in the decorative lamp sitting on the bedside table exploded. Then the alarm clock on the opposite table went off.

“No. I got this.” Sarah closed her eyes and shut the flow of energy down the way the Archiver had taught her. Focus through the pain. Control the flow. Send it where she wanted it to go.

Tim hovered like a mother hen, but she ignored him and pulled the energy back to bearable levels. The alarm clock stopped and she put Tim’s flip-flops back on. The plastic helped stem the flow of energy as well. That was good to know. When she wanted to get crazy, she could stand on metal barefoot.

But not today. Today that would just make her head explode. The loss of more than one vital organ in one afternoon would be more than she could take. She was a fighter, not a liar. And since her parents’ and her brother’s deaths, she’d never lied to herself. No doubt her heart had officially surrendered to that earth-shattering kiss. The traitorous organ was no longer hers. But unless Tim suddenly decided to claim it, the poor little muscle would have to deal with the fact that they were down thirteen to one in the final game and didn’t have the serve.

“Okay. I’m ready.” She looked up at Tim to find him waiting at the door. He nodded and held it open for her.

Time to get to work and figure out how to save millions of people in the real world. Time to get over delusions of romance. A kiss was just a kiss.

A hot kiss. An all-encompassing, body-burning, make-her-want-to-rip-his-clothes-off-right-now kiss.

But she didn’t get to do any of that. And she wasn’t sure he wanted her to. He was a certified, grade-A, American hero. He’d do anything to save the lives of nine million people. And he’d play along with her if he had to. So, how was she supposed to know if he liked her, or if he was just doing his job? Did he find her attractive, or did the “auto-on” switch on the side of his neck simply scramble his brain into a thoughtless, lust-filled mess?

There was no way to know until after. She couldn’t put her heart out there on a maybe and get it stomped on again. She had enough end-of-the-world doom and gloom on her plate without risking a broken heart. And didn’t that just stink?

<><><>

Tuesday, 7:45 p.m
.

Sarah leaned back in the passenger seat of Alexa’s sleek sedan. Alexa waved and accelerated. Tim let the girls pass by and take the lead on the highway. Alexa had insisted on some alone time with her fellow time-traveler, and Sarah had jumped at the chance to put more distance between them.

Tim rubbed his hand over his bald head and cursed himself six ways to Sunday. He’d been a damn fool moving on her like that. But God help him, he’d woken the moment her breathing changed and held himself still while her touch hovered and tempted. The force of his need for that simple caress on his face had shocked him and he’d stopped breathing, waiting for it, until he felt her emotional withdrawal. Her sad resignation and rejection of her own desires.

How he knew what she was feeling, he couldn’t say. It had been odd but so instinctive, he hadn’t questioned it. The flash of fire in his veins when she’d finally touched him drove all thought from his mind. In that moment, he hadn’t questioned anything. She’d simply been his. Gorgeous. Smoking hot. Kissable. His.

Then she’d run like a scared rabbit.

Sarah’s face had twisted in pain when the energy hit her. His damn head still buzzed like a hundred fat flies were dive-bombing his ears from the inside. He couldn’t imagine what must be going on with her. But she’d distanced herself from him after scorching his insides with that kiss. Despite the fact that he’d probably regret it, if Luke hadn’t knocked on the door, he knew he could have seduced her, buried himself inside her so deeply she’d never get him out.

But that was bat-shit crazy thinking. He had nothing to offer her but hot sex and his tactical skills on this mission. The longing he felt in her, the sadness, could only be healed by fairy-tale bullshit, and he just didn’t believe in fairy tales anymore. People lied. People died. And he had nothing to offer a woman but a lifetime of looking over her shoulder and waiting for a sniper’s bullet.

They’d figure it out. Eventually, when someone finally deciphered his equations and realized he’d corrupted them all, they’d come for him. Until they did, he had to pretend to be normal, innocent, and rock solid. Lies. Lies. Lies. No woman deserved that.

To add insult to injury, the most annoyingly happy human he’d ever met whistled nonstop from the passenger seat of his truck since they’d left the house. Twenty-seven minutes parked outside the mall while the girls shopped and now the drive to Hancock Observatory. Alexa had insisted that Sarah have some clothes that actually fit her. He liked her just fine wearing his. It was stupid and absurd to want to keep her in them when they had to go out in public and present the façade of normal, everyday tourists. But damn it all, that was what his irrational brain wanted. Evidently, he was now officially thinking with his dick.