Ruthless Temptation (18 page)

“
Yes. Oh my God. Of course I’ll marry you.”

He
held her so tightly she could hardly breathe. When he slipped his dick into her
pussy again, this time he fucked her slowly, tenderly, kissing her mouth, her
neck, and her breasts the entire time.

Madison’s
moans turned into one long soft whimper as another climax overtook her,
spreading slowly through her body until every inch of skin contracted in
pleasure. And still he thrust in and out with unbelievable control. The absence
of the condom heightened every sensation, and she was lost in his arms, his
touch, his scent, and the exquisite feeling of being skin-to-skin with the man
she loved.

When
he finally came, he drew that out, too, to the point Madison wasn’t sure she
could handle one more second. They were both covered in sweat now, and she
never wanted to leave this room. She only wanted to stay here, wrapped in
Viggo’s embrace.

He
wanted to marry her. And she had said “yes!” She was engaged to Viggo Ingram.
It was too much to take in. She needed time to get used to that. To roll it
around inside her mind and savor it.

Would
they tell the others? Would he want to wait? No matter what happened upstairs,
this was the happiest day of her life.

Chapter
Twenty

Viggo
groaned when his phone rang, then nearly jumped off the bed when he remembered
why anyone would call him right now. It was Blaine. Merrill had found storm
activity that looked like it might last a while. “We’ll be right there.” He
glanced at Madison who was already pulling on her clothes. “No time to clean
up. Sorry.”

“
I don’t care if you don’t.”

He
pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “I love you.”

She
tried to squirm out of his embrace. “I love you, too. Now let me get dressed.
Let’s get upstairs. I don’t want to miss this.”

“
If this works, I’m buying you a ring. The biggest
engagement ring you’ve ever seen. And then I’ll ask you properly.”

She
giggled. “Viggo, let’s go! You’ll never forgive yourself if you miss this.”

“
You did mean it, right? You will marry me?”

“
Yes, but not if you don’t let me go so I can get
dressed!”

They
finished dressing and raced upstairs. Viggo was sure as soon as anyone got
close to them they’d smell sex, but he didn’t care. Madison had agreed to marry
him. If anyone had told him a month ago he would fall in love and propose, he’d
have told the person they were crazy.

He
crowded in among the others, still holding Madison’s hand, and watched while
Merrill pointed his camera at the radar screens. “Two big ones, side-by-side,”
he said.

They
were indeed big ones. Two supercell thunderstorms marched across the screen
toward what used to be south Texas.

Dave
typed. “I’m telling the program to execute the command.”

His
voice shook, and
Viggo
understood why. If this
failed, they were out of options. The only thing left to try was to reverse the
fields slowly enough that it didn’t trigger the massive earthquakes that Harold
and Corbin believed would collapse the underground cities. And if
that
failed, it was game over.

He
glanced down at Madison, whose face glowed with excitement. Or was that from
the hot sex they’d just had? Either way, could hardly take in what had happened
downstairs. She had agreed to marry him! The words had tumbled out, and they’d
felt so right. He’d never been one to imagine asking a girl to marry him.

He
hadn’t made a plan for doing so, but he did want to do this the right way once
things were settled, one way or the other. He didn’t want her telling their
children that their father had asked her to marry him while they were having
sex in a warehouse.

Viggo
glanced around. He’d ask Dominic for advice. He was the only Weatherman who
wouldn’t chide him for falling in love like the rest had done. Dominic had
recognized that he was in love with Madison even before Viggo had been able to
admit it to himself.

Madison
had changed him, but in a good way. In a way that had been a long time coming.
He’d always loved his life, but as the years had gone by, it felt increasingly
empty. For the first time since he could remember, he felt complete.

Now
he understood why Dominic looked at Angela the way he did. He understood why
Addison had asked Nadine to marry him in a cave as they hid from a storm on the
surface, while searching for her father. And he understood the giddy way Ace
acted whenever he talked about the twins Harper was carrying, and how they both
couldn’t wait to hold them in their arms.

Viggo
had never wrapped his head around it. Not around any of it. Not until now. Not
until Madison had strolled into his office, thinking she was blowing the lid
off a great story. If he was being honest, he’d been smitten from the first
second he laid eyes on her. His fate had been sealed with one look at her face.

“
Fuck me sideways!” yelled Dave. “It read the command.”

“
What does that mean?” asked Madison.

“
It means the program has acknowledged it.”

“
But will it execute it?”

He
didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was too mesmerized by the sudden cessation of
storm activity on the radar in Merrill’s bunker. All of them were talking at
once, until Dominic whistled loudly and they quieted down.

“
Repeat that, Merrill,” said Ace.

“
I said the fucking storms disappeared. Both of them.”

“
How do we know this isn’t simply the unpredictability
of the storms?” asked Blaine. “They do this all the time.”

Dave
stood and faced the group. “We know because of the line of code the program
just typed to me.”

Viggo
held his breath as several of them asked Dave to tell them what it said. He
honestly thought Dave was about to cry. If this had worked, they’d likely all
shed a tear or two.

“
It says, ‘Command acknowledged and executed. Activity
ceasing for fifteen minutes, then will resume.’”

Pandemonium
filled the room. He barely heard Madison ask him if it had really worked. He
shouted it had, then picked her up and twirled her around until she begged him
to stop, laughing the entire time. He placed her back on her feet and kissed
her, oblivious to everything around him.

Was
this real? Had they really stopped the program from its mass destruction cycle?

Another
loud whistle from Dominic had them focused once more on Dave and Merrill. “Hold
on!” said Dominic. “Let’s wait it out and see what happens. There should be no
storm activity at all. That’s the only way we’ll know whether it’s a fluke or
the real thing.”

Talk
about deflating the balloon, but Dominic was right. They watched the radar
screens Merrill had set up in front of the camera. They only showed the radar
images he was able to pick up in the USA, and some of them blinked on and off,
but that was because the satellite feeds were no longer consistent. So many of
them were non-operational now.

As
the minutes ticked by, Viggo thought about all the things they’d need to do on
the surface. Trees would have to be planted. Homes and businesses would have to
be rebuilt. Governments would need to establish bases of operation on the
surface once more, and keep them going underground, too, until everyone could
move topside.

It
could take years to restore order on the surface. Who knew how long it would
take to rebuild everything. Decades, more than likely. When they’d all moved
underground, everything had to be set up in a hurry out of necessity. This
time, they’d have the luxury of doing it right and spending as much time as
they needed.

He
wondered whether some people would choose to stay underground out of fear it
could happen again. He also wondered whether The Madeline Project would be shut
down permanently. It would be a shame to lose it because it
could
work. There had been a successful
real time test. The program could be tweaked to work the way it was designed
to. But he could easily envision groups springing up, demanding it be disabled
forever.

And
what would happen to Dave and the others? Who really had jurisdiction over
this? HCS was the likely agency, but would the public demand a different kind
of justice? Was it really fair now to send Dave to prison for the rest of his
life? He hadn’t done the hacking. Not technically. And in the end, he’d be the
one who would save them all.

“
Ten minutes to go,” said Ace.

****

This
was the longest fifteen minutes of Madison’s life. Her hand hurt from grasping
Viggo’s so tightly, but she was afraid to let go of it. Was this real? Had the
program really shut itself down on Dave’s command? Would it stop everything if
he told it to, once it resumed activity again?

What
would happen then? Would Viggo still want to marry her? She glanced up at him,
his face filled with as much apprehension and hope as everyone’s. He hadn’t
only asked her out of desperation, had he?
No
.
She was being ridiculous. He loved her. She was sure of it.

As
if sensing her fear, he glanced down at her and smiled. She returned the
gesture, her heart overflowing with joy once more. Everything was fine between
them. She needed to concentrate on this program being shut down. This had to
work.

“
Five minutes.”

There
was no storm activity on the radar. It was almost too good to believe. Could it
really be possible that she’d be on the surface once more, and that the weather
would return to normal? She swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her
throat as an image of her family floated through her mind. She wished they were
here now to see this.

So
many people in this room had lost family members and friends almost eight years
ago. Madison wondered whether they were all thinking about them now, and
wishing they could witness the end of the chaos. For she knew it was over. She
knew it as surely as she knew she would spend the rest of her life with Viggo.

“
One minute.”

No
one moved. She couldn’t even hear anyone breathing. She glanced at the digital
clock on the wall, and when it flipped over to the next minute, a collective
gasp went around the room. She cut her gaze toward the screen showing the radar
images, and watched as storms formed again, as quickly as they’d disappeared.

Excited
chatter broke out among the group, and this time it was Dave who shouted for
silence. “It’s not quite over yet. Now I’m going to tell the program to cease
all activity and give me back manual control. This is the real test, right
here.”

Madison
couldn’t take it. She was sure she’d faint. Viggo released her hand and put an
arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “No
matter what happens, I’m here with you forever.”

“
I love you,” she whispered back.

“
I love you, too.”

Dave
typed in the instructions and then stood, waiting with the rest of them.
Madison counted the seconds in her head. Ten … fifteen … twenty. She saw
writing on the screen in front of Dave, but couldn’t read the words.

“
Yes! Oh my fucking lord
yes
!”

“
It’s shut down!” shouted Ace. “Merrill, look at the
radar!”

The
storm activity disappeared once more, and all Madison saw through the others
crowding in were normal clouds.

“
It’s gone,” said Merrill. “It really worked! Hang on.
I’m going topside and taking the camera.”

Dave
stared at the screen in front of him, shaking his head. His back was to
Madison, but she swore he was crying. Ace and Emmett stood on either side of
him, shaking his hands and clapping him on the back over and over.

“
Did he tell it to shut down for good?” asked Madison.

“
No, but it ceased activity like he asked it to, and he
has manual control.”

“
Do you
want
him to have that?”

Viggo
smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure that out in a minute. Let’s watch Merrill go
to the surface.”

Merrill
showed them the surface, which was always a shock to Madison when she saw
pictures of it posted online. It was a barren wasteland compared to what she
remembered, and her heart broke at the sight of it. Then Merrill pointed the
camera toward the sky, where all she saw were light, wispy clouds. What month
was it? December. He was in what used to be Tennessee, so it should be cool,
and there might even be snow on the ground, under normal circumstances.

“
Nothing up there,” he said. “Only a few clouds. And
listen.” He stopped talking for a few seconds. “That horrible howling wind
sound is gone!”

“
That was likely the echo of the fields,” said Dave.

“
Thanks, Merrill,” said Ace. “Your name will go down in
history.”

Merrill
chuckled. “If you say so. What happens next?”

“
I need to call the President.”

Madison
cut her gaze toward Viggo. “He knows the President of the United States?”

Viggo
grinned. “We all do, love.”

“
Holy shit.”

“
Sit tight, Merrill,” said Emmett. “There are a lot of
decisions to be made now.”

“
You know where to find me.”

Viggo
pulled Madison into his arms. “It’s over, love. It’s really over.”

“
But what happens now?”

He
grinned down at her. “Now, we wait for everyone else to arrive. And then, we
have the biggest party this world has ever seen.”

“
But I mean, what
happens
?”
She glanced over at Ace who was already on the phone. “Is he really talking to…
”
She shook her head slightly. All the power in this room
made her dizzy. “What will all of you do now? Will you move back to the
surface? Who has jurisdiction over The Madeline Project? Who is going to tell
everyone what happened here? What happens to Dave? What about—”