The next morning, Kiera shot awake with a gurgled scream.
Sweat chilled her forehead as her heart hammered inside her heaving ribs. She crumpled the blankets in her shaking fists. Brady. Mateo. The exploding house in Atlanta. The baby.
Beau’s too-handsome face, twisting into an expression of sick lust and deep hatred.
Breathe.
Thin morning light straggled into the room and flung eerie shapes off unfamiliar furniture and plywood walls. Tree limbs swayed outside a small square window, casting shadowy claws on the walls.
The baby. The virus.
Another wave of terror hit her, and she gulped back a second scream.
The door flew open, crashing against the wall. A huge silhouette blocked light from the hallway.
Bicycling her feet on the sheets, she shoved herself back into the wall behind her.
The dark figure strode toward her.
She sucked air, drew her knees up, and wrapped her hands around her belly.
“Kiera?” That sleep-roughened tone sounded familiar.
Swallowing, she concentrated on the sound of his voice, even as nightmare and reality swirled together.
The figure took several deep breaths. “You’re safe,” came soothing words with a familiar southern accent. “Kiera. I’m here. You’re in the compound. You’re safe.”
“Jake?” Even to her ears, her voice came out high and tight, like a guitar wire stretched within a half turn of its breaking point.
Heat burned its way up her neck to her cheeks. Of course, she was at the Morpheus Squad headquarters. A breath shuddered out of her. She dropped her head forward onto her palms. Memories of the past two days tumbled through her mind.
Look around. The plain room they were in had a bureau in the corner. She cowered on a full-sized mattress on a bare bed frame. See? Normal, utilitarian items housed in one of the buildings on the compound. Nothing scary here.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” He took deliberate steps until he reached her side. The familiar masculine scent of aftershave and hickory she identified as uniquely Jake wafted over her. He stepped forward, and the morning light illuminated him in gray tones. She looked up.
And choked.
Boxers. That was all he wore. She locked her gaze on the floor, but she couldn’t help herself when her line of sight rose. Good God, the cords in his muscled calves and thick thighs rippled right up to tight knit boxers. The night they had last summer … it was dark. She hadn’t truly appreciated all of Jake 2.0.
He really had grown since she’d last seen any part of him unclothed. Was it the virus making him this large or was it simply Jake?
Who cared? Wow.
She took in the view of his rumpled hair. Somehow, he managed to be sexy and adorable at the same time. The hard line of his jaw was clamped tight while he scanned the room. He sported an aggressive, wide-spaced stance, as if he wanted to tackle something.
Realizing that her own bare legs were on display, she yanked the sheets up, but not before she caught the hitch in Jake’s breathing.
The need to hide was strong. She dropped her forehead back into a palm and groaned. Once she’d settled her heart rate down, she took stock of the situation: one frazzled pregnant woman going to pieces and a perplexed former Special Forces soldier clad in nothing but boxers that fit his … service weapon … so well. The attire should be banned per Geneva Convention rules.
The wary way he sidled up to her, like a safari guide approaching a wounded and unpredictable water buffalo, made a giggle burst from her mouth. Poor guy probably didn’t know if she was about to punch him or scream again.
Shoving her hair back behind her ears, she said, “Sorry. I’m fine now, thanks.”
When he touched her shoulder, she yelped. Okay, not totally fine. Damn it.
This high level of sustained fear and stress could not be good for Little Bit. Under the blankets and over the borrowed t-shirt fabric, she smoothed a hand over the active baby.
The baby. The virus. Half of her brain needed to know her child would be okay. The other half couldn’t deal with any alternatives. Right now? Nothing she could do except concentrate on staying healthy herself. Like she had done last night, once more she shoved all of her unrelenting terror regarding the virus and her baby into a mental box and shut the lid. She would deal with the unknown when she had the emotional bandwidth available. Not right now.
She took another big breath in and let it out, bit by bit, willing her tension to seep away.
When she peeked up at Jake, she stifled another bubble of laughter. Poor guy hadn’t moved an inch. He stood there like a Roman statue. His damned muscled chest looked as hard as carved marble. Her fingers itched to trace the ridges and see if the skin was as velvety soft and taut as she remembered. Oh, God. The mere thought dumped out a truckload of inappropriate scenarios.
Concentrate.
Unfortunately, she did. Kiera studied his thick pecs dusted with light-brown hair and followed that line of hair lower, right down to his … boxers. She swallowed and pressed her thighs together. Anything to reduce the throbbing need building there. Damned hormones. All that prevented her superheated libido from spontaneously combusting was the presence of a small article of thin cloth covering the healthy bulge between his legs. Who the hell put stretchy material in boxers anyway?
Jake sure wasn’t that guy from high school anymore.
She groaned as another pulse warmed her pelvis.
Clearing her throat, she tried to distract herself and unfreeze him. “Well, that was a heck of a wake-up call. I’m so sorry. You needed your sleep. I know you must be exhausted.” She was babbling but couldn’t help herself. Anything to fill the silence between them. Anything to distract from his presence.
“No more than you need the rest.” His expression softened. “It was time for me to get up, anyway.” The lightest touch of his hand on her shoulder didn’t make her jump this time. “You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s been a rough past thirty-six hours.”
“Okay. Well, then…” Self-conscious in her t-shirt and underwear, she tucked the blankets around her hips, unwilling to get out from under the covers.
His eyes grazed her face and body, then back to lock onto her face. She squirmed. He leaned toward her. “Are you okay? Leg doing better?” The boxer fabric strained above his corded legs.
Do not look down. Do not look down. “Oh, sure.” The stupid quaver in her voice betrayed her.
“Can I—” He shoved his hair off his forehead. “Fuck it.” Sitting on the bed, he hauled her onto his lap, moving her like she weighed nothing. The extra-soft mattress dipped under their combined weight. She clutched the blankets on the way to perching sideways on his warm, muscled thighs.
Good God, the heat pouring off his body warmed every inch of her. He cradled her head in his palm and eased her cheek to press against his upper chest. Warmth flowed from his skin to hers. Safe inside the circle of his arms.
“What happened?” His low voice vibrated through their connected bodies.
Ripples of happiness swirled right into her core. If she moved her head one inch, she would taste his skin. She inhaled faint aftershave and hickory again, and the spicy, vital scent of strong male: Jake.
“Besides the obvious?” She gave a weak laugh. “I think everything caught up with me.”
“What can I do?”
No way could she answer that question with a real answer. Heck, she was sitting two inches away from his … Geneva Convention.
“Um, besides get a crystal ball?” When in doubt, deflect. Unfortunately, her laugh caught on a scary gulp. “You’ve done way more than anyone else would have. I’ve put you and the whole team at risk. My family, too. Oh, man. The virus and this baby.” Air shuddered out as she exhaled. “This situation keeps getting worse and worse. What was I thinking?” The rat-a-tat of her heart sped up again.
“Hey.” He tilted her chin up. “First of all, this is our situation now. Doc said the baby looks good on all the tests.”
True. But the unknown. They wouldn’t know everything until the baby arrived.
“Don’t worry about the guys,” he said. “They can take care of themselves and your family. They’ve been looking for a project.”
“A project? Like knitting a sweater?”
The vibration of his low chuckle made her ribs tingle. “It’s what we’re trained to do. Helping other people gives meaning to everything we went through.”
“Sure.” She leaned back and studied his sincere expression.
“Seriously. No one’s upset.”
“You sure? Because I got some pretty angry vibes from some of the fellows last night.”
“When it comes down to it, they’ll do the right thing. They’ll take care of your family, too.” He leaned his head back on the wall and pinned her with those steady, gray eyes.
It sounded so simple. “What about Beau coming after me? Which means he’s coming after you all, by the way.”
He shot her a terrifying, tight-lipped smile, chilling her to the bone. “Any one of us would be honored to pulverize that bastard. And we’d sure enjoy helping him rearrange his priorities when it comes to vets. In addition, we’ll gladly cut off … his participation in his father’s senate races and snip his … ties to Bratva. As a bonus, it would be fun to remove his ability to walk and talk.” He brushed his lips over her forehead, creating tiny tingles. “I’d love to render him incapable of harassing women ever again.”
“All women or any in particular?” she asked, pulling back.
The determined slash of his mouth triggered a quiver in her stomach.
It also made her want to taste his lips to see if they were as unyielding as they appeared and to find out if they would soften under her mouth.
“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll never bother one particular woman. Ever. Again.” The flash of a lethal smile came and went, like the quick blast of an acetylene torch.
“Good to know.” Question was, did he care because of a sense of duty or did he care because he cared? His thigh muscles clenched under her butt. Next to her hip, his hardness pressed against her. Right now was probably not the time to parse motivations.
She swallowed.
“You’re safe here,” he murmured, brushing hair back from her shoulder.
She barely suppressed a shudder. “I know. But I am truly sorry to have turned your life upside-down.”
He glanced at her belly. “You should have told me sooner.” The hint of a growl made her shiver.
“Early on, I didn’t know where you were.”
He pulled a face. “That’s valid.”
“In my defense, I did try to tell you a few times.”
“I know.” His finger drifted down her cheek. “My life needed to be shaken up. You showing up in the middle of the night, with my baby on board, kicked me in the ass, gave me a purpose.”
His mouth hovered an inch from hers.
Did they still have a connection?
Before she could test her theory, he closed the space, crushing his lips to hers as he held her in place with the iron bands of his arms. The tight grip was protective, not painful. Twisting on his lap, she reached as far around his back as she could. Velvet skin coated hard muscle. He roved over her mouth with ever-changing nips and licks until her head spun.
When she clutched at him to stay upright, he groaned against her mouth. Their harsh breaths rasped in the small room.
“Kiera,” he gritted out. Angling her face up, he dropped kisses over her jaw and neck.
Under where her hip rested, he hardened even more. When she shifted, wanting to get closer, he took her lower lip between his teeth, and fireworks sparked in her vision.
“It’s been so long, Jake. Too long,” she breathed.
With another groan, he slid his hands down her back and sides, brushing against her breasts. Oh, God, his touch felt so good. He pulled her shirt up and ran a fingertip over a sensitive nipple. Her gasp rode on top of a moan.
Little Bit caught the excitement and kicked against his palm pressed against her side.
Jake froze. Then he snatched his hand away.
After kissing his hard jaw and mouth, she leaned back when he didn’t respond. That blank stare made her eyelids sting.
“This is a mistake.” His voice serrated the space between them.
“What?” Her brain was still lust-fogged.
“I shouldn’t be right here.”
“All right.” No, it wasn’t all right. There had to be a much bigger problem.
“Nothing about this situation is okay. We shouldn’t have … done that. Now or last summer.”
She flinched.
“You and me?” he said. “We’re the poster children for why people are supposed to learn from their mistakes.”
“Seriously, Jake?” She lightly smacked his hard chest, making her hand sting. He didn’t even flinch. “What just happened here?” Seesawing emotions threatened to bring tears. She breathed through her mouth. No way would she give him the satisfaction of knowing how his words hurt.
His nostrils flared. His chest heaved. “This was another mistake.”
“No. It was two normal people having a normal and enjoyable moment.”
“I don’t get normal moments.” His voice came out hollow and flat. “Not anymore.”
“But—”
“Please don’t make it worse. This whole situation.”
Like the baby? Deep in her chest, an ache stole her breath. “I haven’t asked you for anything.”
“I promise I will provide for you and this baby.”
“This”—she waved a hand at herself—“isn’t an obligation. It’s a family, but only if you want it.” She could imagine him as part of her family, pushing their daughter on a swing, going on drives in the Smokies during fall colors, and sitting down to dinners together.
“Not sure I’m the family kind of guy. This situation with my messed-up brain and uncertain lifespan won’t allow me to be that kind of guy, even if I wanted to be. That’s the problem.”
“What?” Her head spun. She’d never considered … Jake … not being here.
“No one knows how long we’ll survive.”
The picture of her fantasy family shattered along with a piece of her heart. “Jake—” She bit her lip. How terrible had his life become after the experimental virus? It had taken so much more than his freedom. More than his humanity.
His defeated frown triggered tears threatening to spill.
“Don’t,” he said. “If you pull the sympathy card on me, I might say something un-gentlemanlike, Kiera.”
Sliding her off his lap, he scooted over and stood next to the bed, his erection still stretching the boxer fabric. He didn’t bother to cover himself, but instead rubbed both palms against his face. Every inch of him quivered with barely contained power. Sweat shone on his forehead.
She swallowed.
He did the same. Tight cords moved in his neck. “I’ll meet you out front in ten minutes. We’ll get to work collecting the information you have. Make a plan to take care of Lequire. Get this situation over with.” Cold. Clinical. Like a switch flipped. Like nothing had happened between them. Had ever happened.
She had offered him a future only for him to remind her that, out of all the people on this Earth, he didn’t get a choice.
Maybe she didn’t understand his entire medical situation, but Kiera understood duty, and Jake was steeped in it. However, she and the baby wouldn’t be another mission for him to complete or an obligation to fulfill.
But she couldn’t push him. Wouldn’t. She had too much leverage. No way would she abuse the situation.
“Okay,” she managed. A sucking vacuum pulled at her ribs, threatening to cave her chest in with the pressure. She wanted to say more, but she couldn’t get any words out.
He turned on his heel.
Damn him. The chiseled view as he exited the room was as good if not better than his entry. As the door closed on the image of his toned butt, she curled up on the bed and with a groan, pulled the blankets over her head and pressed her palms to burning cheeks.
Shame, lust, and sadness. What a winning combination of feelings. Oh, and fear.
Rubbing her face as if she could swipe away all the bad things in her life, she sat up and squared her shoulders. No more wishing for something that didn’t exist now and likely would never exist.
Time to get down to work.
Time to avenge her brother.