Page 33 of I Dream of Danger (Ghost Ops #2)

Her brows drew together, a faraway look coming into her eyes. “I saw them,” she said in a whisper. “I saw them coming down the street, coming to the motel. And I saw…” She focused on him, searched his eyes. “I saw you , Nick. I thought I’d gone insane. What happened?”

“Later. I’ll explain everything later.” Much as he hated leaving her, forsaking the touch of her, Nick moved away, sprinted around the front of the hovercar, slid into the driver’s seat. “Hold on tight.” He put himself in wheels mode and took off north, just as fast as the hovercar could go.

“Where are we going?”

Nick slid his eyes over to her. Goddamn, she was beautiful.

He knew she was beautiful but when he thought of her, it was the golden waif he remembered.

Lost and thin and frail. Lovely, because nothing would change that perfect bone structure and coloring, but soft and vulnerable.

Sitting next to him was a woman who would turn heads every time she walked down the street, but who looked strong and capable.

Though bruised and dazed, she was composed.

When he found himself sneaking peeks at her, looking at her elegant pale hands folded in her lap, memorizing that perfect profile, following that long white neck down to where her coat fell open to show a vee-neck sweater, he realized he could crash them at the speed he was going.

So he gripped the accelerator stick with white knuckles and turned his face resolutely forward.

“We’re going to a place no one will find you, honey,” he said grimly. “I’m taking you home.”

Was it magic? Was she a witch? Had she somehow conjured Nick from thin air? Was she still in Dream mode?

Well, that she could answer. There was very little sensory input in her dreams/projections. Even when her spirit hovered over that facility in what must have been the Free Republic of Mongolia, an ice-bound facility on fire, she’d felt neither heat nor cold.

But now she felt it all. The cold, as she came up to find herself in a strange type of car with the door open, and Nick— Nick!

—bending over her. The touch of his hand to her face, his fingertips rough, the touch soft.

A kiss! A kiss she actually felt, and not the thousand kisses she’d dreamed of over the years until she forced herself to stop.

Those had been Nick’s lips on hers, no question.

This wasn’t a dream, this was real.

And this wasn’t the Nick she remembered, not at all.

That Nick had been like a young panther.

A man, yet with traces of the boy in him.

This dangerous-looking Nick had no boy in him at all.

He was hard, scarred, bulked-up even more.

His face was harsh, lean, the skin weatherbeaten, pale lines fanning out from his eyes.

She knew he was 33, but he looked older.

They were driving at an impossible speed, though she felt safe in Nick’s hands. He clearly knew what he was doing. And though the vehicle they were in was odd, it seemed to respond well and hug the road tightly even though they must have been going 200 miles an hour.

Anything she had to say would have to wait, because Nick needed all his attention to drive.

He said he was taking her home. Where no one would find her.

Where was home? North, clearly. They were up on the freeway, heading north. Elle didn’t really care where they were going, as long as they were leaving danger behind.

She tried to think about the situation, about the warning Sophie had given, about the tracking device, but it was no good.

As always after a projection, she was exhausted.

Completely depleted. She couldn’t reason in any way, all she could do was live each second exactly as it came up, with no past and no future.

It was frightening as hell to be in this state.

She’d been yanked back just as the men in black on the street had stopped at her door at the motel.

She’d seen Nick, but there were no emotions in her dream states.

She’d simply recognized him, somehow known he was there for her.

He followed the men into the lobby, down the corridor and then it was all mostly a blur.

Except for one thing. When Nick stepped into her room, there were four corpses in the corridor.

She’d seen that very clearly. He’d dispatched the men coldly and mechanically, like a surgeon excises a cancer. She’d never seen anyone move like that—blinding speed and power and violence, and at the end, four dead bodies.

She shivered.

Nick flicked a glance at her but said nothing. He reached for a button on the strange-looking console, and the air in the cabin warmed up even more.

They sped in the night. There was very little traffic. The few cars on the road seemed to be standing still as Nick flew past them.

Elle looked out the window and thought she recognized a few landmarks. What difference did it make? They were going where Nick wanted to take her.

He swooped down from the interstate on an exit ramp. They’d passed the signs too fast for her to make out exactly where they were. He threaded a fast, complex route through a number of side streets until they reached what looked like a dead industrial park.

At the end of a trash-strewn street was a gate, and Nick headed straight for it at top speed.

Elle barely had time to gasp as the gates slid open just in time for them as they sailed past. She turned in her seat.

Behind them, the gates were closing fast. Everything about the place spelled abandonment, but those gates had worked perfectly.

Nick stopped the car and tapped a point on the console.

“On site,” he murmured, and she looked at him, startled.

“Roger that,” said a disembodied voice, deep and loud and clear. “Incoming, ETA five minutes.”

Nick looked over at her and ran the back of his index finger over her cheek. “Hang in there, honey. We’ll be home soon.”

She was a fool, because just the sight of him in the penumbra, face strong and sober, voice tinged with tenderness, nearly undid her. This was so dangerous. He’d brought her to her knees ten years ago. It had taken years to recover.

Granted, she wasn’t the na?ve and needy young girl she’d been then, but he still had the power to affect her deeply. If someone had asked her, she’d have sworn that Nick Ross was dead to her, and yet here she was, shivering and susceptible all over again, melting at his touch.

Never again.

She stiffened, pulled back.

She’d projected twice in one day. She’d been pursued by men who had taken many of her friends prisoner. She was lucky to be alive. She had Nick to thank for that, but that didn’t mean she owed him anything but gratitude.

Certainly not love.

When she pulled back, Nick’s face turned blank and his hand dropped. His voice was brisk and business-like. “I need to get the hovercar under cover. Can you stand?”

Stupid question. Or maybe not so stupid.

Elle pushed down on the floor with her legs. They didn’t tremble. Okay. Good to go.

“Yes, I can.”

“Good girl.” In a second he was at her door and helping her down. Elle moved slowly. She wanted to make sure she’d been right about being able to stand. The idea of fainting was too awful to contemplate. She wasn’t weak and needy. She wasn’t the Elle he’d left. She was strong.

It was just that it had been a very bad day.

Her legs held, thank God. Nick handed her her purse. “Look up.”

A wind had suddenly blown up and she wondered if she heard right. “What?”

“Look up.” Nick put a finger under her chin and tilted her head back. “Our ride’s here.”

Oh my God. A helicopter! Coming down almost right on top of her, and she hadn’t heard a thing!

The helicopter was barely discernable in the gloom and the cockpit was dark.

Instead of the deafening roar of helicopters in the movies, it barely made a low buzzing sound as it veered off a few feet and neatly landed, like a cat after a jump.

“Come on!” Nick practically picked her up and hustled her over.

The helicopter looked eerie—made of some sleek, dark, matte substance, with no apparent windows. Just as she determined that there was no way in, a door slid open showing a dimly lit interior. Four steps unfolded from the side.

Elle walked up into the cabin and sat down in one of the seats. Through the open door she could see Nick driving the odd car into what looked like a warehouse and then running back. He leaped into the body of the helicopter without using the steps, shouting “Go go go!”

The steps retracted, the door closed, and the helicopter lifted off abruptly, leaving Elle’s stomach behind. It was utterly quiet inside the body of the helicopter. In every film she’d ever seen, people wore headphones to mask the noise, but inside it was like a cathedral.

There was no way to see outside, but there were four big monitors showing what looked like the real view, the brightly lit interstate off to the right, and infrared images, thermal images, and GPS coordinates on a moving map.

They were continuing their way north, destination a blue cross to the northeast. Elle couldn’t make out where they were heading.

“Name’s Jon. Pleased to meet you.” A partition had slid to one side and the pilot stuck his hand through.

Elle awkwardly reached forward to take it.

“Really glad Nick found you before his head exploded.”

The hand was big and rough and belonged to a man who looked like he’d just come in from surfing some big waves.

Though it was freezing cold outside, he had on an unbuttoned aloha shirt over a blindingly white tee shirt.

The aloha shirt had bright blue parakeets flying among bright yellow palm trees, echoing his bright blue eyes and long sun-bleached hair.

He had a big black gun in a well-used shoulder holster.

Everything about the man was breezy and easygoing except his ice-blue eyes, which were cold and hard, and his gun, equally cold and hard.