Page 13 of Breaking Danger (Ghost Ops #3)

CHAPTER FOUR

Mount Blue

Haven

Elle Connolly sat on the couch in her comfortable living quarters, arms around her knees, trying to control the trembling. She waited until she was sure of her voice. “How can he make it, Nick? Did you see those images?” A shudder shot through her.

A mass of writhing red creatures in IR, whole city blocks long and wide. Thousands and thousands of those…things. Not human any more. Merely claws and fangs and rage. That’s what Jon and her best friend, Sophie, had to battle their way through.

Nick sat beside her and picked up her hand in his. His hand was huge, scarred. Across the back of his strong, wide wrist was a jagged looking scar. Catherine had Dermaglued it shut but it had been deep and had bled badly. Nick was lucky he hadn’t sliced a tendon.

His body was full of bruises, too, from the grenade he’d thrown in the basement of Arka headquarters, where friends and colleagues of Elle’s had been held prisoner. And where her spirit had been trapped in a Faraday cage.

They’d all been very special prisoners, with special powers, and were now safe here in Haven.

As was she. Elle could astrally project, a power she was only coming to grips with now, at the age of thirty.

As a child, her dreams had scared her. And even when she discovered that what she thought were very vivid dreams was actually her ability to project herself to other places, it had been hard to control the ability.

Only at Arka had she found people willing to study the phenomenon, together with other extrasensory abilities, scientifically.

But Arka had betrayed the people with abilities. Caged them.

They’d trapped her in the Faraday cage when she’d accompanied Nick and his warrior friends to the headquarters in San Francisco to free the gifted prisoners. When her astral projection had been trapped, her body, back here in Haven, had started dying.

Nick’s grenade had shattered the cage, setting her free.

He had refused to leave until he’d freed her spirit.

The virus had just erupted, crazy violent monsters were running screaming down corridors, Mac and Jon had left him, but he hadn’t left her.

He wouldn’t budge until he found her and find her he did.

He loved her.

They’d lost each other ten years before but now they were together, forever.

Or maybe until next month, when everyone died.

Who knew?

Nick rubbed a callused thumb over her knuckles, then brought her hand to his mouth.

He was always making romantic little gestures like that, and Mac and Jon kept looking at him as if he’d grown two heads.

Because, well, until he’d found her again, apparently romantic gestures hadn’t been Nick’s thing.

Not much had been Nick’s thing beyond soldiering and, after they’d been betrayed by a four star general for money, the creation of Haven, a hidden high tech city and now, possibly, the last hope of mankind.

He kissed her hand gently then brought both their hands down to rest on his massive thigh. But today, not even his thighs could distract her from her misery.

“I know you’re worried, but Jon’s the best, honey. Simply the best. At this kind of thing maybe—maybe he’s even better than me.”

Huh. She blinked at him. “Did that hurt?”

A corner of his mouth went up. “A little. I’m a shooter.

One of the best. But Jon—Jon’s a strategist and he is cold as ice.

He was undercover for two years in a Colombian cartel known for its brutality.

He impersonated a California dealer and they bought it, because he looks the part.

If they had had even the slightest inkling that he was undercover, they’d have strangled him with his own intestines and it would have taken him a week to die.

Or hanged him on a meat hook till he bled out.

They’d done it before, it was one of their specialties.

But Jon kept his head, got tons of intel and melted away one night.

Two days later their enemies had enough information on their security arrangements to try to take the whole cartel down.

The upshot was real satisfying. Bad guys were butchering each other all over the place and the DEA and the Colombian cops mopped up the survivors and put them in jail.

You can thank Jon’s intel for your fancy research lab, too. ”

She’d been astonished when Catherine had shown her where she worked. They had absolutely everything in the lab, top of the line. “Yeah? How so?”

“Jon got their bank account numbers before getting away. The few members of the cartel that are left get their accounts depleted by a couple million dollars every other week or so. Keeps them agitated and suspicious of each other. Keeps us happy.”

She searched his eyes.

Nick’s eyes. It still thrilled her that he was here, that they were together.

They’d come together again under such unusual circumstances, when he’d saved her life by a margin of a few seconds, that she couldn’t help but think it was fate itself that had conspired to unite them again.

She was a scientist and shouldn’t believe in fate.

But there it was. She did.

“Sophie is very dear to me,” she said.

Nick bent forward to kiss her cheek. “I know she is, honey. She’ll be safe with Jon.

That story about him undercover? It was to make you understand that he is smart and quick.

He’ll get them out of there. And once they’re back here, you brainiac women are going to have to start working around the clock on that vaccine.

At least enough for all of us in Haven. Then as soon as we’re inoculated, we’re going to start canvassing for pockets of normals to inoculate. ”

She nodded. “We can start mass producing right away.”

“Good, we’re going to need it. Snyder found another community that has fortified. So far the community’s intact. They’re well armed and they are vigilant.”

“How many?”

“About two hundred.”

“Are we okay on supplies?”

“So far, yeah. And Manuel’s hydroponic vats are coming online. I heard there was a two ton tomato harvest. Start counting on lots of pasta and tomato sauce.”

She tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work. “I’m so worried, Nick,” she confessed.

“Yeah.” He leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers. “I know.”

“I’m scared they won’t get the virus and vaccine to us and we’ll live the rest of our lives behind ten foot walls, terrified of strangers. I’m scared Sophie won’t make it. I’m even scared for Jon, though I know he can handle himself.”

“Tomorrow night Jon and Sophie and the virus will be here. Count on it. And you and your genius girlfriends disappear to the lab, will work day and night to manufacture the virus and then mass produce it. I won’t see you for weeks.

So how about a little hanky panky right now? Like a little advance payment?”

A laugh bubbled out of her, then a sob, then a laugh.

Love. Making love. In the middle of mass death. Yes. She and Nick had been separated for so long, and the future looked so dark.

Life in the middle of death, oh yes.

She ran her hands over his broad shoulders, loving the vital, strong feel of him. Life pulsed in him, strong and steady. She linked her hands behind his neck and pulled him to her.

“Now,” she whispered against his mouth. “Now, Nick. Hard and fast. Make me forget all this. Make me feel alive.”

He kissed her, hard, deep, one big hand holding her still for his kiss as if she would pull away from him. The idea was ridiculous. She would never pull away from Nick, turn her back on him. She loved him.

Nick lifted his head for just a second, the hand cupping her head becoming a cradle.

Watching her eyes, his other hand slowly unzipped her hoodie, brushing it off her shoulders.

It slid softly to the couch behind her. His large, warm hand brushed her back and in a second her bra was off, too.

She knew he loved seeing her naked and truth be told, she loved it too.

His dark eyes grew hot, his face tightened, the skin over his cheekbones flushed.

Arousal was all over his face, but instead of a big grin—the grin of a man about to have sex with a woman he desired—his face was somber.

He held her, tightly, so tightly her ribs protested. His face dipped to her neck suddenly and she felt wetness on her neck. Tears? From Nick Ross?

His voice was muffled against the skin of her neck but she understood every word.

“Nothing bad will happen to you as long as we’re together, Elle. I promise you that. As long as I’m with you, you’ll be safe.”

San Francisco

Beach Street

“If you want to take that shower, Jon, go right ahead. There seems to be plenty of water.”

He dipped his head. “In that case, I’d love a shower. I’ll make it fast.”

She smiled at him. “I don’t have anything that would fit you, but I have the new FastWash combo. Give me your clothes and they’ll be washed and dried by the time you get out. And then we’ll eat something and then we’ll talk.”

Jesus. Hot shower. Clean clothes. Food.

Sex.

Jon tried to keep that last thought out of his head. He had to practically nuke it out because that’s what he wanted, much much more than the shower and the food. Just dive right back into luscious Sophie Daniels, slide right into that tight warm sheath and forget about the world.

Oh yeah.

Thank God he had a poker face. Came in real handy when undercover.

Jon never let anything he didn’t want anyone to see show on his face, so right now he plastered a pleasant, polite smile on it and thanked her.

A proper hostess offering comforts to a guest. She didn’t know that the guest was planning on getting back inside her just as fast as he could and that the shower was to make him more acceptable to her and the food was going to be fuel because—the way he felt right now?

He was going to fuck her all through the night.