Night Whispers: ShadowLands, Book 1 (31 page)

He thrust deep and held still, a long groan leaving his lips. Looking away wasn’t an option. That fairytale-prince face was hard and set, lines of tension bracketing his mouth. As satisfaction replaced his single-minded focus, he relaxed, contentment softening each muscle.

His head sank to her chest. The soughing of their breaths was loud in the silent room.

“I’m going to have to build us a sturdier bed,” he finally muttered. “Mine won’t be up to the task of handling us.”

She scraped her nails down his back, exultant at the responding twitches in his body. “You’re presuming I’m going to be in your bed, then?” Her tone was consciously light.

He must have heard the seriousness underneath it, for he lifted his head and studied her, his face somber. “If you don’t actually care for me, that’s fine, I’ll let you go. But if you care for me nearly as much as I do you, please stick by me. I promise, we can handle whatever happens. I won’t leave you. And you won’t hurt me.”

“You were right. I’m scared.” The words were as difficult to say as she’d imagined. Admitting weakness was never easy. “I don’t think I know how to be in a relationship with someone without always thinking they’re going to book it someday. It’s easier for me to function without needing anyone or anything.”

“I won’t take your independence away. You can still do whatever you want.” James leaned down and licked her nipple. “I’ll just be right behind you. Guarding your back.”

“I mourned hard when I lost Erik. What if something happens to you?” Her voice dropped, as if to prevent any jinxes.

“I can’t promise you something won’t happen to me. But if it does, I’ll be content knowing I made the choices that would make me happiest. I choose you, Jules. Let me.”

“If I end up killing you, I will be really pissed.”

“I’ll haunt you if you do. Mostly so I can scare off anyone else you try to bed.”

They smiled at each other, even though Jules knew the topic was morbid. Undertaker’s humor.

“I can’t handle a long-distance thing, Jules. With this kind of danger, it’s way too much stress. What do you say?” Those earnest eyes would be the death of her. His feelings for her were practically bleeding out of his pores.

“What if I don’t want to come to Raven?”

He inhaled and cupped her chin, bringing her gaze up to meet his. His right hand linked with hers. She could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “I think you should reconsider it, because Hema—she’s our resident researcher—might be able to help you figure out what you’ve been given, if that’s something you want to do. Please don’t think like Erik, that anyone there would cage you or hurt you. But if you decide you’d rather not, then I’ll go where you go.”

She knew he cared deeply for her, but she was speechless. “But your family and friends are at Raven.”

“Yes.”

“You would leave them for me?”

“In a heartbeat. We can go to California or anywhere else you want.”

“You’d resent me.”

“Love, never.” He brushed a gentle kiss against her lips. A healing kiss. “As long as we’re together, I’m fine. I am not chasing you around the country anymore.”

His quiet firmness made her believe that everything was simple. They were together, and they would stay together, no matter where they went.

She would have to trust that he wouldn’t voluntarily leave her and that he could protect himself. He would have to trust she wouldn’t turn into a ravaging beast and eat him someday. The stakes were unbalanced, but as he said, they could take each day as it came.

For the first time since she’d woken up strapped to that gurney, Jules breathed easy. She stroked her hand over his shoulder and arm, the puckered flesh of his scars catching on the calluses of her palm. She traced the raised skin.

“Tell me,” she said, and loved that she didn’t need to explain any further.

Jules watched James’s eyes, steady and solid. Sadly, he rolled to his back, probably to spare her his weight. He pulled her up so she lay on top of him. His feet were entangled with hers. “The plan was always to go underground and come out when things had stabilized so we could cobble the country back together, not to stay there as long as we did…are. It sounds cowardly, and maybe it was, but once it was determined that the Illness was untreatable and other countries had declared open warfare, we had no choice but to retreat.”

“I don’t think it was cowardly.” Jules shrugged. “Maybe I should, because I was a nobody who didn’t get one of these special invites, but beyond the shelters they did try to set up, I don’t know what the government could have done to save everyone. I’m just grateful you were included in it.”

“Well, on my own, I may not have been.” Embarrassment colored his cheeks. “My grandfather was a general. He demanded my mother and I come with him. And since I was an analyst, it wasn’t quite as much of a stretch for me to be accepted.”

She covered his hand with hers. Survivor’s guilt was something she was very familiar with, and she was certain he often times thought of his colleagues who hadn’t been lucky enough to have a well-connected grandfather. “Grateful,” she repeated firmly.

He stroked his hand over hers. “Anyway, there was a methane gas explosion in one of our structures a few months in, just when we were starting plans to come back out and take control. It happened at night, and it was the area where most of us slept. Most people died right away, while others lost limbs or were badly burned. Lots died later.”

“You were injured in the explosion?” His burns didn’t look that horrible, for what he’d suffered through. She’d never seen a gas explosion, but she assumed it was like a bomb blast.

His eyelids flickered. “Afterward. My grandfather and I were tinkering in my office. When I heard it, when I felt that boom go through the whole bunker, we went running along with the dozen or so other people who were lucky enough to not be asleep.”

“You went into the explosion?”

“Tried. My mother was in there. Some of the others came with me, and they rescued a handful of people. I found Gabriel laying in the hallway. I pulled him out, and by that time the fire was too bad.” He shook his head, his gaze far away. “There wasn’t much left to do except contain it. I was burnt, and too weak to fight my grandfather when he pulled me back. We didn’t have enough manpower to risk anyone else.”

Jules knew that if he could have, he would have found a way to go after his mother. “I’m so sorry.”

His smile was heartbreakingly sad. “Me too. My mom would have liked you.”

She raised her head and kissed his cheek. “When you were in the car…” She stroked him again because he had stiffened. “You said you hadn’t left the bunker in a while. Was that because of the explosion?”

“I can’t even begin to relate how much I hate that you heard that.”

“Is it true?”

“Yeah. I was always kind of a homebody. Like I said, my dad died in combat in Iraq. I guess I grew up thinking that if I kept myself safe, I would be okay, so I was careful when I went out. After the incident, I was too busy recovering and helping the others recover. Once we were limping along again, weirdly enough, even though the explosion happened inside the bunker, that’s where I felt the safest. There was no reason for me to leave.

“You— You made me want to be with you. For a while, it was enough to be with you virtually, but lately…” He shook his head. “If this hadn’t happened, I would have come to you regardless. This just kicked my butt into gear, that’s all.”

Her heart melted. “Or I would have come to you. Why would you think I wouldn’t want to know this about you?”

“It’s like the scars, I guess. I mean, I wanted you to think I was this awesome guy, not a scarred, scared, weak person.” He grimaced. “I’m not proud of it. Every time you talked about how amazing I was, I died a little inside. I’m never going to be completely normal. I still don’t like being outside of walls. It makes my skin crawl to not have some filters between me and everything else.”

“How were you planning on running away with me?”

“I’d deal with it if it got me you,” he said simply, and then made a face. “But I’d try hard to find us someplace to go to ground, and I might insist on hunkering down for long periods of time.”

Warmth expanded in Jules’s chest. She laid her palm on his forearm where the worst of his scars were. “Do they still hurt?”

“Nah. I got off light. I don’t even notice anymore…unless I want to badly impress a pretty girl.” His words were careless, but there was a sudden tension in his shoulders.

“You don’t have to impress me.”

He glanced at her from under his lashes. “I don’t?”

“No. I’ve always been impressed by you. In the beginning I was even intimidated by you.”

He gave a loud guffaw. “Intimidated. Yeah, ’cause my scars and borderline agoraphobia are so damn intimidating.”

His self-deprecation irritated her. “Seriously. You were all smart sounding and assured and had this really sexy voice.”

“Meanwhile, you were cocky and brash and had this really sexy voice.”

“Ah, but now my blood is all messed up, in addition to my being a former drug addict. You still think I’m sexy?”

“How can you even ask that?”

“Same way you can think I’d be turned off by a few battle scars.”

He paused. “Touché. You have to admit, they’re pretty ugly.” He lifted his arm, as if in evidence.

She held out her arm and placed it, palm up, next to his. Her faded track marks showed silver on her skin. “Now that’s ugly.” She grinned like a fool when he sat up and kissed the inside of her elbow. She shifted and did the same to the worst of the puckered skin on his biceps, and he gave her an equally foolish grin back. “I guess it’s a good thing you don’t mind my screwed-up blood since I don’t mind your screwed-up arm.”

“Yup,” he said comfortably, before said arm pulled her closer. “It’s a good thing we have each other.”

Chapter Seventeen

The knock on the door startled them out of any further canoodling. They both froze, as if they’d been caught naked by a parent.

Jules cast him a sidelong glance and bit her lip. “It’s not my dad. Relax.”

“I doubt your dad was a superhuman mutant.”

“You’re going to start thinking of me as an X-Man or something, aren’t you?” She stood from the bed.

“I am so excited you know who the X-Men are, I might drag you back here. And, duh, of course I’m going to pretend you’re an X-Man. Your hair would make you blend in with them perfectly. I think when I die, the sight of your ass in the sunlight will flash in front of my eyes.”

She turned back to him in time to catch his flush.

“Damn it. Did I say that last part out loud?”

Jules bit the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing. Give the man ten seconds and he could swing her mood. “Very much so.”

“Eh.” He rolled up to a seated position. While he wasn’t flaunting his nudity, he was as comfortable with her as she was with him. “You need to know what you’re getting into.”

She pulled her panties and pants on and tossed his pants at him. He caught them. “I think you’re the one who doesn’t know what he’s getting into.”

The knock came again. She strode to the door. She knew Erik would be standing out there, but she flushed to find him on the other side. For the life of her, she had completely forgotten the other man was in the house. Had he heard them? She stepped outside and closed the door partway, blocking his view of James, who was probably struggling into his pants.

Erik had once been like a big brother to her, and while things had obviously changed, she still felt a weird craving for his approval.

His expression was neutral. He handed her a plate of cooked meat. The scent of it made her stomach rumble, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since yesterday.

“You didn’t have to bring us this.” She accepted the plate.

“It’s fine.”

“Sorry. We’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Stay,” he said, surprising her. “I am going to start preparing for the evening. I couldn’t adequately barricade us last night.”

“We’ll eat and be right down,” she said.

He had already turned away. “Take your time.”

Jules had the prettiest butt James’d ever seen. Not that he’d seen a lot of butts. At least, not an excessive amount. But a case could be made that her butt was superior to most others. James, wearing only his pants, lounged on the bed and stacked his hands behind his head. He felt unselfconscious in a way he never had before.

She couldn’t possibly know. Couldn’t possibly understand how he wanted to take her and wrap her up in cotton. It pained him to think of anything ever happening to her.

Sadly, he didn’t think she would take to being coddled very well. Whether she decided their next adventure lay in the direction of Raven or elsewhere, she would demand to stand on her own two feet. As much as it scared him, there was no denying that it was part of her sexy charm.

He felt like he was on more sure footing now than at any time during the past couple of days. He had the feeling that Jules wasn’t completely soothed, that she was still skittish, but at least now he had a better idea of what was going on. Information was his stock in trade, after all. With knowledge, he could figure things out.