Page 6 of Breaking Danger (Ghost Ops #3)

Suddenly, there was the softest of sounds, a gentle rap-rap-rap.

Someone knocking! An infected could never knock, they’d just beat themselves bloody against the door.

Heart pounding, Sophie rushed to the door, tapped out the security code to unlock it just as she heard a deep male voice saying, “Dr. Sophie Daniels?” There was another sound now, a deep bellow, the sound of a heavy body crashing against something.

Oh God, an infected!

The monitor came to life. Most of the wall sconces had been ripped away but a couple still functioned.

There was a little bit of light, enough to show a tall man outside her door.

Very tall.Too tall for her monitor. She could see a strong chin with blond stubble and not much more.

He brought his mouth close to the intercom at the monitor. “Dr. Daniels? I’m Jon, Elle said?—”

Jon! Oh God, not dead! Alive, right outside her door!

On the monitor, his head swiveled to the right. There was another bellow, pounding footsteps…

Sophie pulled the door open, yanked the man in, falling backward.

A ton of man fell right on top of her. He kicked out and slammed her door shut.

It automatically locked just as the thuds of an infected’s fists could be felt as well as heard.

From what she’d seen on the street, the infected could beat themselves to death against doors and walls, like the bonobos.

Butting their heads, banging fists and feet until they broke bones and teeth. It was terrifying to see.

One of the infected seemed to be doing just that.

Massive thuds and terrifying screams, sounds no human should ever make, filtered through the heavy door.

Vibrations carried through the floor, though arguably Sophie was the only one feeling it.

Jon was on top of her and the only thing he was feeling was her.

Another massive thud, two, and the infected sped off, screaming. Presumably he’d seen another victim.

Sophie let out her breath in a rush, realizing that the danger was over.

She shuddered. It had been such a close call.

When she’d pulled Jon in, the infected monster was reaching out and had almost touched Jon’s shoulder.

The man who was lying on top of her was heavy with muscle, visibly strong, but infecteds didn’t fight fairly. One bite and Jon would be gone.

So he was here on top of her by a split second miracle.

Breathing and alive .

All those hours staring out at the window at the world ending, wondering where Jon could be—and here he was.

A living, breathing ray of hope in a world where hope had fled.

She could feel her body pulse with hope, could feel the blood rushing to her face.

“Jon,” she breathed, tears springing to her eyes. “You made it!” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder to hide the tears.

It was no time for tears. Tears were weakness and weakness killed.

His body was stiff for a second, the tension of battle. The tension left him in a rush. He relaxed his body and hugged her back.

The world was burning outside her door but inside her apartment, right now, for just a second, there was life and hope as she and Jon held on to each other desperately.

Oh God, he was so big, so strong. The strongest man she’d ever touched, ever seen. She was touching something hard, resistant. It was only when he tapped something on his forearm and hard panels fell away with a thunk that she realized she was feeling body armor.

But—even after the body armor fell away, he was still seemingly just as hard, muscles thick and unyielding.

Her arms couldn’t meet around his enormously broad shoulders.

He was wearing some kind of slick flight suit that did nothing to hide the muscles underneath.

Every inch of him was huge, hard as steel.

Something else was huge and hard, too.

He’d fallen backwards, but had flipped in midair onto her.

In the twisting, turning movements, somehow she’d opened her legs and he was now lying on her in the most intimate fashion possible, mouth to mouth, breasts to chest, hip to hip.

If they hadn’t had clothes on, they’d be making love because he had the biggest erection she’d ever felt.

That flight suit was probably for protection and might even be made of Balist, a new ballistic material she’d read about that could withstand bullets.

But it was thin and underneath he couldn’t be wearing much because she could feel every hard, muscled inch of him and could especially feel that steely erection. All of it.

He was so heavy. She had to work to inflate her lungs, bringing her breasts even closer to his chest and it had an immediate effect on him. His penis moved, lengthened, became somehow harder.

From her breathing in.

Oh God.

She breathed out heavily, mouth against his ear and that made him lengthen another bit. It would seem impossible but there it was. Between them, his penis surged with every movement she made.

Usually, a man’s penis rising signaled pleasure but there was no trace of that in his face when he lifted his head from her shoulder. If anything, his expression was grim, harsh, pale blue eyes blazing into hers. He moved, big callused hands rising to cup the sides of her face.

It was as if he were two people. A big man grimly frowning, and a happy penis, ready for action.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” His voice was so deep she could swear she heard it in her diaphragm.

Was she hurt? Yes. No. Maybe.

Sophie was so transfixed by him, she had to actually think about it.

Take stock. She wriggled fingers and toes.

No damage to her extremities. So probably no nerve damage.

It was hard to breathe, true, but then she had a huge man lying right on top of her.

No pain anywhere, though it was hard to tell because she was so mesmerized by the man whose nose was half an inch from hers.

She’d probably have to have a compound fracture to register pain over the fascination he held for her.

He was beautiful. That was the only word for it, yet it was the wrong word.

Beautiful because his features were pure Nordic God perfect.

Ice blue eyes, sharp high cheekbones, straight, narrow nose, sculpted jaw, firm full mouth.

That gorgeous face framed by longish sun-streaked blond hair.

If not for the lines of stress bracketing his mouth, the weather-beaten skin and the crow’s feet around his eyes, he could have been a Calvin Klein model.

But beautiful couldn’t be used to describe a man whose face wore that expression of grim awareness, of unspeakable weariness.

Beautiful also didn’t cover his extreme…

maleness. Few men nowadays didn’t color their hair, shape their eyebrows, laser away wrinkles, use moisturizer.

The usual enhancements. That was what was considered male beauty—someone who worked at his appearance.

That wasn’t this man at all. He looked like he’d time jumped directly from a Viking boat in 1100 AD.

He was beautiful. And hard and dangerous.

And he’d come through hell to find her.

She couldn’t even imagine how he’d gotten here.

She’d been at her window on and off all day and she hadn’t seen one healthy man or woman.

The healthy had deserted the world and left it to the infected.

She couldn’t imagine how a non-infected had been able to walk for more than a minute with all the monsters out on the streets, let alone make his way here from far away.

And yet, here he was.

The despair that had gripped her heart eased, just a fraction.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered, eyes locked on to his.

Dead, or worse. The thought had been tearing at her all day.

That the man coming to her rescue would fall, and turn.

A tear slipped down her cheek, completely against her will.

She wasn’t crying. The stress of the past two days was seeping out of her eyes, that was all.

“I thought you would never come, and that I would die here alone.”

Those strong arms tightened around her. What with his weight and his arms crushing her to him she could barely breathe.

She didn’t care. Who cared about breathing when she held life itself in her arms?

She thought she’d go out alone but here she had this amazing man, alive down to his fingertips, strong and vibrant, and she wasn’t alone any more.

“No,” he whispered back. “I wouldn’t let that happen. I was coming for you. Nothing could stop me.”

Their eyes met and held. His eyes blazed with light and purpose. Beyond the vivid coloring and movie star good looks there was something deeper there. Strength, power, determination. Her gaze drifted over his face, the tight features holding back some strong emotion she couldn’t identify.

She was so intent on his face that his words penetrated moments later. Nothing could stop me.

And nothing had.

Sophie knew what was out there. She’d spent the past day watching the streets.

What was out there was chaos and danger on a level so outrageous it would have been safer to walk down the streets of Baghdad during the Iraq War thirty years earlier than along pretty touristy Beach Street in downtown San Francisco.

How had he arrived here? However it was, he’d undertaken a monumental task, an impossible one. As far as she had been able to tell, no normal survived out there, could survive out there.

And yet here he was and she might not die today.

More water leaked out of her eyes. “Oh God,” she whispered and tightened her arms around his neck again. Was she touching the last human left? Was she holding the last sane man in the world?

Sophie shuddered, an uncontrollable shiver raking her body and he tightened his arms even more, as if in taking her shudders into him, he could absorb her fear and panic and despair.