Beyond the Edge (13 page)

She heard footsteps coming toward her and held her breath. Maybe she’d changed his mind. But then she felt him tying a scarf around her eyes.

“What are you doing? I didn’t look.”

“And now you can’t.”

She groaned. “Don’t you trust me to keep my word?”

“Now you don’t have to fight with yourself. You have absolutely nothing to do except think about how much pleasure I’m going to give you.”

Every cell in her sparked.

“Ah, Fallon, Fallon, Fallon.” His voice swept over
her like a silken caress. “Your body is so adorable. Your breasts are exquisite. Your sweet crease is already filling with moist honey and the scent is driving me wild.”

Fallon sucked in her breath. Sweat broke out on her forehead and she twisted against her bindings. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t move.

Suddenly, an icy bead of fluid dropped between her legs. At the cold, she jerked. “Kane?”

He didn’t answer.

But he was there. She tensed. Icy drops spatted on her nipples, dribbled over her breasts. And then three mouths closed on the cold with fiery heat. With a mouth on each nipple and one between her legs, every muscle in her body tensed in expectation of more cold.

“Is it champagne?” she asked.

“Yes,” was his curt reply.

Then with no warning, warm hands soothed a fragrant oil over her shoulders and neck, her belly and thighs, her arms and feet. Six hands caressed and stroked, moving as one, moving in unison, and as the oil heated her flesh, she began to tug against her bonds.

She wanted to touch. She wanted to see. She wanted to reach out and draw Kane against her singing flesh.

But the tight bonds kept her exactly where he wanted her to be. And then once again, the icy cold droplets pricked at her nipples and mons and she tensed, praying his mouth would return too and
warm her. She didn’t know how, but she was certain Kane’s was the breath blowing between her legs. And when the heat followed the cold, she lifted her hips into him, wanting more of his magical mouth. His hands slipped under her bottom, holding her to him.

He ran his tongue over first the outside of her lips, then delved to the inside. As scrumptious as he felt, he ignored her sweet spot where she wanted him most. And as he directed the Hard Copies’ mouths over her breasts, she realized he was deliberately keeping her from going over the edge. She needed more, harder, faster.

Kane gave her slow, sensual, seductive.

And as her slick flesh became more slippery, he increased the tempo, as did the Hard Copies, but never quite enough. And between the hands and the lips, every inch of flesh on her body received simultaneous caresses, creating incredible sensations.

She hadn’t known she could absorb this much stimulation without release. But Kane had carefully stoked the heat, the increments so tiny that her body kept adjusting, then requiring more. She pulled on the bindings. Her ragged breath barely filled her starving lungs.

And Kane and the Hard Copies kept upping the friction. Her breasts swelled and each flick of tongue on her nipples shot fire straight to her core, where Kane matched fire with more fire, building a conflagration. Kane was pushing her beyond her limits.

If she hadn’t been bound, she would have been
clawing at him to enter her. She would have been twisting and turning to capture his sex between her thighs. And as more droplets trickled over her flesh, she was going out of her mind with need.

“I can’t take…much more.”

Silence answered her.

And yet even as she bit back a few choice swear words, her body leaped to a new place—a plane where every puff of air, every twist and clenching of her muscles rippled pleasure over her skin. Not enough for release, but her own movement caused further arousal. Her own breathing caused her nipples to tighten. Just thinking about the heat between her thighs fed the fire.

He’d caused this marvelous sensation. And now it was time for him to finish.

“Kane?” His name on her lips came out more whimper than demand.

“Yes?”

“I need you.”

“Okay.”

She felt tugging at her wrists and her hands were freed. Other hands on her ankles freed her feet.

She shoved the blindfold from her eyes. Kane knelt on the bed, frowning as the Hard Copies disappeared, melting into their components and flowing like a river back into the red case.

“It’s your fault.”

“What?” She tackled him and he rolled onto his back. Without hesitation she straddled him and took him inside her.

He lifted his hips to meet her halfway. His hands closed over her breasts. “Maintaining the Hard Copies…takes concentration.”

“So?” She rode him, leaning forward, allowing his sex to rub her sweet spot. Nothing had ever felt so delightful.

“So…all I could think about was…you.”

A roar filled her ears. Her muscles clenched around his hardness and she spasmed so violently that streaks of bold red and slashes of oranges seared through her. Talk about seeing stars. She saw an entire galaxy.

And beneath her Kane took control, holding her hips, thrusting into her with powerful lunges. Somehow he maintained the exact angle she liked most and kept the pressure on her pulsing core, until one explosion expanded into a series that took away her breath and blew away her thoughts.

Unbelievable pleasure caught her in a vortex, shooting her higher, bursting, then rocketing her higher again. Her fingers and toes went numb. Her body turned electric, sensation zinging from head to foot and back again, feeding on itself, escalating, extracting every iota of energy from her in order to fuel the explosions.

She writhed wildly. Her body shattered. And she lost all sense of time and place. She no longer knew where she began and Kane ended. It was as though they’d merged into one.

T
HEIR NIGHT TOGETHER
might have started with incredible orgasms but it ended on a tender note. Fallon had no idea how long it took her to recover from those first series of orgasms, but afterwards she dozed and woke up sometime in the middle of the night wrapped in Kane’s strong arms.

Sensing that he was awake, she snuggled into his warmth. His proximity reminded her that the time bubble was collapsing. However, if that kept them close during their remaining time, she certainly wouldn’t object. She loved waking up with his scent on her skin, his heartbeat in her ear as she cuddled against his chest. “You are amazing.”

“
We
are amazing.” He smoothed her hair back from her face. “If there was any way at all that I could stay with you, I would do so.”

“I know.” She didn’t want to think about him leaving. “If there was a way for me to go to the future, I would do it.”

Surprise lightened his tone. “You’d leave your family? Your business?”

“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. This time had shown
her that her family had to learn to manage without her. She’d always believed they’d needed her, but perhaps she’d had to believe that to make up for what lacked in her personal life.

Even after Kane left, she was determined not to repeat her mistakes. She needn’t be so ready to solve her family’s problems. She needn’t be so available. She needed to let them stand on their own. And she had plenty of work to keep her busy. While so much of the recent cancer work looked promising, there was more money to raise, more scientists to whom she wished to offer grants. Work had always satisfied her, but now she wanted more.

If only Kane could stay. Or she could go. But wishing that they had a lifetime couldn’t alter the laws of physics. The time bubble was shrinking.

“I have no regrets.” She spoke past the lump in her throat. “I would rather have loved you than never loved at all.”

He groaned and rolled on top of her, supporting his weight on his elbows, his hands cupping her face. “I want you to live a full, happy life. Will you do that for me?”

“Yes.” Heart breaking, she wound her arms around his neck. “I shall miss you terribly. But you have given me something precious.”

“Wonderful orgasms?” he teased.

“That too.” She tugged his mouth close. “But you’ve taught me that I can’t ignore the part of me that loves. Even if I find another—”

“And I hope you will.”

“It will be because you taught me how to trust that part of myself.”

She spoke softly but her inner thoughts churned with turmoil. She didn’t want to find another man. She wanted Kane. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She wanted to bear his children. She wanted them to grow old together. Damn it. Of all the men in the world to love, why did she have to want the one who had no choice but to leave her?

She had too much self-control to let him know how much she was hurting. For his sake, she would get a firm grip and hold it together. After he left would be the time to grieve and heal.

And she could no longer hide the truth from herself. Losing him would be the same as death. And, in fact, she’d be dead decades before he would be born. Her stomach rocked and pitched. Despite her effort to hide her churning thoughts from Kane, her body was protesting. Recognizing she was going to be sick, she dashed to the bathroom and slammed the door.

Kane opened it to find her heaving. Another man would have closed the door and left her alone to her misery. Kane calmly ran water over a washcloth, wrung it out and handed it to her. “I’m sorry. You may be suffering from residual effects of the shrinking time bubble.”

She spat in the toilet and wiped her mouth. Shaky, she used a toothbrush by the sink and rinsed with mouthwash. To his credit, he didn’t pester her with questions and she used the time to pull her thoughts
in order. If he thought her sickness was due to the time bubble and not the thought of losing him, she had no intention of enlightening him.

He might not be able to give her even another twenty-four hours, but she could give him the peace of mind that she would be fine going on without him. Drawing on an inner strength she’d used whenever life didn’t go her way, she took his hand and led him back to bed, determined not to let her nausea get in the way of what might very well be their last night together.

They snuggled for a while and her stomach settled. They made love again. Slowly. Gently. Tenderly. This time there was no further use of the Hot Copier. There was simply one man, one woman. And she cherished every moment, adored the way he could change from domineering to playful to tender. Loving this man was always an adventure, never routine. And she would miss him with every cell in her body. But despite wanting to capture every precious moment in her memory, her body had its own demands. She could stay awake for only so long.

And when they awakened in the early hours of the morning, she would have liked to have made love once more, but Kane was all business. “Sorry. But I have to find Nigel, today.”

“How?” she asked, padding naked to the shower and wishing she’d brought a fresh set of clothes to change into. Although this was Vegas and the casinos were open 24/7, the shops didn’t have those same hours. Not even the concierge could send up new clothes this early.

“He’s running out of time. Can you arrange for someone else to take care of buying this technology?”

“Sure. I’ll make certain it’s a high enough bid that I can’t lose.” She stepped under the water and let it sluice over her. One of the advantages of running an empire was she had bankers who were more than willing to help and lawyers on the payroll to oversee the transaction.

“Nigel has to convert the funds to hard assets and then store them someplace that won’t be disturbed for over a century. With the help of the Shey Group we can follow the money trail.”

“What will they do to help?” she asked as he joined her in the shower. She wanted to distract him with her hands and her mouth, but he soaped, rinsed and shampooed, all business, and she understood that time was of the essence.

“Logan Kincaid assured me that he can follow the funds. He has computer specialists who can tap into your systems. And once he informs me where the money is and where it’s going, we should be able to intercept Nigel.”

“And how will you stop him when he has strength-enhancing implants and you don’t?”

Kane chuckled. “I have a…machine…that will ice him.”

“You’re going to kill him?”

He shook his head. “I’ll literally freeze him at a cellular level.”

She frowned. “Cells are made of water. When
water freezes, it expands and ruptures the cells. You’re going to kill him.”

He shook his head. “Science has come a long way since…now. I don’t understand the process myself. All I know is that I point the gun, pull the trigger and a direct hit prepares his body to go forward to his own time.”

“But he’s going forward anyway. Why do you have to send him?”

“Because my device will put him in a detention center. If he goes back on his own, finding him will be almost impossible. We have many privacy laws to protect us. Unfortunately, they also protect the guilty. Hiding in my time is actually much easier than here.”

Fallon got the idea that there was much Kane wasn’t telling her. For all she knew, once Nigel returned he could change his DNA along with his appearance. She supposed it didn’t matter. All she really needed to understand was that today might be Kane’s last chance to complete his mission successfully.

Although he’d remained closemouthed about so much of the future, she understood that Nigel was a serious threat. But even if she hadn’t, she would have helped Kane—because she loved him.

F
ALLON DROVE
the rental car, following Kane’s directions. The desert sun heated the car and she turned up the AC. Kane hadn’t told her that the closer they got to his departure time, the faster the bubble would
collapse. She had to stay within ten feet of him or the nausea would kick in.

In the car, maintaining the close proximity was obviously easy. But she feared that once they confronted Nigel, she might slow Kane down. They’d returned to their hotel room earlier for a weapon and he’d donned the suit he’d worn when he’d arrived. While he hadn’t specifically said he needed to wear the special material to time travel, he also didn’t speak about the weapon he shoved into a holster at his hip, which then disappeared. If she hadn’t already bought vanishing technology she might have doubted her eyes or her sanity.

Fallon’s cell phone rang and she hit the speaker button so Kane could hear. “Hello.”

“Ms. Hanover,” her banker spoke crisply, “we transferred the funds as you requested.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s our pleasure doing business with you. If there’s anything else, please don’t hesitate to let us know.”

She ended the call. “Done.”

“You understand that it’s essential that the Hot Copier and all the documentation is destroyed, don’t you? Logan Kincaid will help you do this.”

“I understand.”

At that moment, another call came in. “Hello.”

“Logan Kincaid, here.”

Speak of the devil. “Logan, I have you on speakerphone. Kane is next to me.”

“The funds that you wired to a Las Vegas bank were immediately transferred to a bank in the Cay
man Islands, then Switzerland, Bulgaria, Singapore and then back to Las Vegas. From there, Nigel made significant purchases all over town. Ten million in precious gemstones, twenty million in art, ten million in security bonds backed by the U.S. government and another ten in miscellaneous quit claim deeds.”

“Can you pinpoint Nigel’s location?” Kane asked.

“He’s hired armored trucks to pick up the loot. The drivers don’t know their destinations. However, we have located and are tracking every truck by GPS. Satellite imaging analysis projects with eighty-five percent certainty that the trucks will converge in one hour at the Hoover Dam.”

“You’ll continue to track and notify us if there’s any changes?”

“Of course. Would you like backup?”

“Thank you but that won’t be necessary.”

Kane hung up the phone and must have read her thoughts.
She
would have liked backup. “The fewer people around Nigel, the less likely he’ll change the future. I can’t take a chance of him injuring or killing anyone.”

She knew that included her. All along Kane had been worried that keeping her with him would place her in danger. She patted her purse and the gun inside that the Shey Group had provided. Thanks to her CIA training, she could handle herself.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked.

“We find Nigel. I ice him and send him back where he belongs.”

“And then you leave?” She glanced at him and his total stoicism told her he was fighting his feelings as much as she was.

“Then I leave.” He turned to her then. “I wish I could say I was sorry for getting you into this mess, but I’m not.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at his admission. And she wished she could say something sassy or saucy to lighten the moment, but she didn’t dare speak for fear her voice would crack. Instead, at a red light, she reached over and squeezed his hand, letting go after it turned green.

Kane didn’t speak for several minutes and when he did, he changed the subject. “Nigel will be there to unload the trucks. Hopefully he’ll be distracted and I can take him out before he sees us. But if not, I may have to move fast. Try and stay with me and I’ll do my best to protect you.”

“Got it.”

Kane’s tone hardened. “I intend to keep him too busy to notice you. So don’t do anything to draw his attention.”

“Understood.” She spoke firmly but hadn’t agreed to anything. She thought he hadn’t noticed but he frowned at her and she pointed to the road. “Do we turn here?”

He checked the map. “Keep going straight.”

When Hoover Dam came into view, the amazing sight of thousands of tons of concrete holding back all that water wasn’t what drew her eyes. She’d been here before as a tourist. It was the giant traffic jam
that made her wonder if they’d arrived too late. Four armored trucks blocked part of the highway. Instead of police officers ticketing the trucks, they seemed to be directing traffic to wait. With the road a virtual parking lot, they were at a complete stop and going nowhere.

“Pull onto the shoulder,” Kane directed. “Let’s hope he’s not monitoring and doesn’t pick up the signal from my high-tech equipment.”

Fallon thought that unlikely. Nigel knew Kane was on his trail. He had to be aware he was vulnerable while he saw to all the treasures he’d bought.

After exiting the car, they sprinted past the stopped traffic, keeping the vehicles between them and the other side of the highway where a man was signaling for the trucks to use an off-ramp onto a side road.

“He’s likely found an old tunnel into the dam or the mountain where he intends to store his loot.” Kane spoke easily as he ran, not the least bit out of breath.

Fallon wished she could say the same. She needed to make time to work out more. No way was she in the same kind of shape as Kane. Still, she didn’t think she’d be this badly off from running a quarter of a mile. Although she’d already broken into a light sweat and her breath was labored, it was the simultaneous feeling of hot and flushed on the outside and cold and trembling inside that warned her she couldn’t keep up the pace much longer. However, Kane had told her one of the key elements to his plan was surprise. She didn’t want to slow him down and give Nigel a chance to see them on his monitor.

Kane found a spot where they could leave the highway, hopefully unobserved. He cut swiftly into the shadows of the steep bank alongside, his steps as quiet and lethal as a mountain cat’s in search of prey.

He must have sensed her lagging because he stopped, although he kept his gaze following the trucks that rumbled into the mountain. They traveled along what looked like an old railroad spur that hadn’t been used in decades. She speculated that the original contractors might have used the spur to carry materials over the tracks during the initial building of the dam. It was one of many government projects designed to employ workers and help the country out of the Great Depression. Likely, the tunnel had stood for almost a century and would last undisturbed for another—an excellent hiding place.