Vigilante Mine (42 page)

So much more.

Cool air touched her abs. His palms massaged her sides, stomach, the underside of each breast, electrifying every nerve ending along the way.

She rubbed her cheek against his. Stubble. Their tongues danced. Mint. Rugged, sexy, intense. Klepto and Ryan, one man, and all hers.

He took care with her clothes this time, sliding each sock, her pants, her shirt off and setting them over the side of the couch, avidly watching her face. Fiendish, sensual purpose lit those incredible, dark eyes. He bent his head and warm, attentive lips traveled down her body, tracing her skin, kissing her curves. Down, down . . . his tongue swirled in a tortuously slow circle around her belly button.

"Ryan." She tugged gently on his hair and he smiled against her skin.

"What do you want, Amanda?" he asked, his voice passion-rough. He sat up, straddling her thighs, and his eyes gleamed with need.

Searing need. The kind that she echoed to her marrow.

She pulled him down by the front of his shirt and tugged on the hem. It had to go. And it took far too long to expose the rippling muscles across his chest to her roving fingers, but only because he wouldn't stop touching her long enough to yank it over his head.

"Oh, Ryan, yes," she panted, then, unfortunately, "Condom?"

Ryan froze with one hand on the undone clasp of her bra and the other rasping over a nipple.

"Damn. It." She groaned the words and squeezed her eyes shut against the maelstrom of sensation in her core, between her thighs, desperate and demanding attention. Relief. Ryan, inside her, where he belonged. Right this minute. "Damn it!"

Ryan tucked his chin against her shoulder and chuckled. "Guess that answers my question."

He licked, then kissed, the scar on her right shoulder, nuzzled the one across her left cheekbone. He fit here, with her, and he'd taken her for a partner when he'd chosen to stay by her side. She rubbed her heel over the back of his knee. His cock jumped behind his zipper, pulsing against the place she craved a deeper touch. Amanda kissed his bicep.

Then, as if they'd had the same exact prayer, they turned as one to stare at his suitcases.

Ryan dove into the mass of bags and came up victorious, hefting two new boxes with a reckless grin on his face.

Amanda snorted as he shredded the lid on one. "Your brothers are
—
"

"Thoughtful, I know," Ryan said with a laugh. "Come here."

She was off the couch and in his arms before her next breath, and then she was lost to what had to be the most talented lips in Relek City. When he finally freed her, she backed him against her living room wall.

"My turn." She feasted on his mouth, exploring the decadent expanse of tanned skin and toned muscles with the pads of her fingers. Devouring inch by inch of him with her eyes, her lips. Loving the rasp of dark temptation that tapered from his pecs down to the button on his pants.

He took the look she gave that infernal button as a cue, not a request, and he stripped between heartbeats.

That heartbeat thundered under her palm. "I want you, Amanda."

"I'm yours." In an instant, Amanda found her back to the hallway wall with no idea how he'd turned them, and not a care to find out, so long as his hands kept touching her
there
. And there.

And, "Oh, yes!" there.

They made it to the bed.

Somehow.

Amanda nibbled on his earlobe as he filled her. She licked the skin underneath it and ground her hips against his. They both gasped. Her legs wrapped around his and she gave up control to a pounding rhythm.

Moaning his name, she clawed at his shoulders.

Ryan kneaded the small of her back. A deep, knowing touch. An uproar of bliss through her limbs.

Sizzling. She pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his shoulder.

He moaned, thrusting harder. Faster.

A wild, perfect ride.

Amanda nipped at his skin, swirled her tongue over the tiny bite. Lost. To sensation, his touch, the entwined scent of their furious love-making, the riotous beating of her pulse and his.

"Amanda," he shouted, coming with a final thrust that sent her into the stratosphere.

Her head buzzed, her toes tingled. Her fingers dug into Ryan's back, unwilling to let him go, and the orgasm rolled on and on through her body. Pleasure, so much pleasure she barely caught his next words.

"I love you."

They stole time, questions, answers, about their lives, the people in them, what they enjoyed most on a "normal" day. But it was pillow talk on high speed, as if there wasn't enough time left in the world for them to know the lighter, everyday kind of secrets. A crazy, stolen, desperate treat in the middle of chaos.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Ryan joined Amanda
in her detective mode through the night, puzzling together Jackson's phone calls, old cases, the vision of his endgame. They checked in with Dale and his brothers on the hour, every hour. They hadn't intended to fall asleep, but he opened his eyes to a living room lit by only an end table lamp, Amanda curled against his side. She woke when he stirred, and stroked his cheek with possessive fingers. He had time to nuzzle a kiss to the side of her neck and realize they'd missed the last two check-ins before Romeo's link snapped taut in his head and ruthlessly hauled him into darkness.

The Listening dumped him in what felt like a wet snow bank. Fresh snowflakes pattered onto his face and melted.

"This is the place," Romeo said, and he heard it like speech.

"What are we listening for?" Amanda asked.

"Amanda?" Cold realization cut through Ryan's veins. "No, Romeo. Let her go. Last time
—
"

"Last time, this saved us from a sniper." Amanda's hand landed on his arm, and her fingers slid down until they entwined with his. "He asked first. It's okay."

At her touch, the chill abated. It wasn't okay. His spirit guide had gone behind his back, endangered Amanda . . . but he'd ultimately saved their lives. They were still safe. While their minds were Listening, Ryan held Amanda on her couch, in his arms. In reality, they wouldn't fall, or crash, or be targeted by syndicate thugs.

He let out a slow, even breath. "Where are my brothers, Romeo?"

"Busy. They can't Listen."

"Fate was wrong." Muffled, as if the voice came from behind a wall. Jackson? "But I didn't let the enemy have her, did I?"

"What the hell happened to you, Price?" Another man's voice, but this one quaked with grief.

Amanda's breath caught. "Not Charlie. No. I sent him out there, Ryan."

"I died." Hinges creaked. Metal crashed against metal.

Ryan pulled her close in the darkness.

"Where are they?" Amanda's fingers gripped his like a lifeline, but her heart thrummed a steady, calm pace. "I can hear church bells, but not the rail."

Ryan focused on the sensory details and the ambient street noise. Smooth, clean pavement. The intermittent hum of an unreliable street lamp. A homeless cat. Seven o'clock chimes from one of the city's churches. He shook his head. Not enough.

"First, the mission." Jackson snapped something plastic against a desk or a table. He sighed. "Physical therapists who think they're cops."

"Romeo, do something!" Amanda cried.

"Destiny is after bigger pretenders than you," Jackson said.

A deep, warning bark rattled Ryan's teeth, then rail car brakes squealed in his ears. A door slammed open, echoing into the street.

"No wonder she kept you around." Charlie's voice shook with a mixture of anguish and relief. "How are you with knots, pal?"

Footsteps hurried down concrete steps.

"He's safe," Amanda whispered, and at the same time Ryan said, "Stop Jackson."

Romeo abruptly released the connection.

"They're near the 16th." Amanda tumbled out of his arms and off the couch. "That corner of track drives us crazy at the precinct. We have to warn Dale."

He tossed her his phone as he tapped on the comm control for his earpiece. "Romeo found Jackson."

Nothing but silence.

She yanked the cell phone away from her ear and eyed the display. "One bar, but it's not connecting."

She dialed the landline and Ryan tried again. "Hey. Jay? Zach?" Icy fear hit the bottom of his stomach.
He said they were busy.

Even if they were in snoop-mode, switching on a mic would be akin to checking in. Ryan would hear breathing. "Come on."
Romeo, where are they?

"You want them, or the bad guy?"

Jackson. Stay with Jackson.
He slipped into his shoes, trying to distract himself from the pounding behind his eyes. What if they'd run into Shiv?

Amanda slammed the phone down. "Nothing's getting through, Ryan."

"Same." He rubbed at one of his temples. Amanda didn't want to go after Jackson without her badge, but they had no way to get warning to the others and he had a tail
—
literally
—
on her former partner. "Amanda
—
"

"We've got to go after him. He's moving
now
, and Romeo's the only one who knows where he is." She stopped long enough to grab her Taser and her boots, then ran barefoot out the front door. Golden hair winked at him from the doorway. "Coming?"

Ryan grabbed his keys and her coat from the front closet. She strapped herself into the Mustang, he tossed the warmer covering into her lap, and the car reversed into the road. She was tugging her boots on as he tried the in-vehicle comm.

Static.

His brothers were silent.

Inside his ribcage, his heart shook with sudden violence. Was this what Brennan's prophecy had meant? Silence, not from losing his hearing, but from losing connection with everyone else?

Romeo's frustration peppered into his head as Ryan pushed the speedometer to eighty.
What's wrong?

"He has wheels,"
Romeo said.

"That'll make him simple to spot," Amanda said aloud.

"Did you lose him?"
Ryan asked through the telepathic link.

"Not yet,"
Romeo said, but even the thought sounded faint and out of breath.

The dog would never catch a vehicle, but vehicles on the road were rare. This late at night, all they needed was the right straightaway and they'd have him.
What's it look like? We'll find him. Peel off and get the others.

"Van. White, ladder on top,"
Romeo sent back.
"I'll let you know when I've got them."

Ryan relayed the information to Amanda. She was already nodding. Romeo had been broadcasting the information to both of their minds. Simultaneously. As if the separate telepathic links between the dog and Amanda or Ryan had fused into one.

Spirit-mate.

Was the link getting stronger? Ryan tightened his grip on the wheel and focused on dodging uneven pavement on the darkened street. He wasn't about to test any mind-to-mind communication theories while driving. Been there, got the head wound.

"Dale can send out the patrol cars," Amanda said.

"Most of them went on that stake-out. How many would still be at the precinct?" Ryan asked.

She nibbled at her bottom lip. "Not many, but more than one Mustang and a couple of civilians with a Taser."

"Backup it is." Ryan reached for her hand and squeezed.

Amanda chewed on
the inside of her cheek as Ryan's phone rang Dale's desk, then disconnected. "Cell tower isn't responsive. That's all."

The lone bar vanished.

"Or it's down," she added.

"It's not just the cell," Ryan said. "My comm frequencies are full of static, if I get anything at all. Was your partner technically inclined? Computer viruses, that sort of thing?"

She frowned. Jackson had known his way around explosives. But software? "I don't know. I don't think so, but I didn't think he was willing to commit murder, either. I can't count on anything I knew about him. Maybe he blew something up."

"Then he's been busy."

"He's trying to destroy the city. I imagine that takes a lot of effort." She tried for light, but her throat tightened around the words. Her nerves, her muscles, even her bones jittered with panic. Narrow threads of hope in her chest frayed, thin as spider webs.

Wordlessly, Ryan tucked her fingers into his.

She'd fallen hard for the simple comfort of his touch. Ryan McLelas had a head full of secrets and responsibilities, so many of his own worries and fears, so many roles to play, but still he reached for her. And he meant it. When he touched her now, he left all of his masks behind.

Amanda squeezed his hand. "Romeo will find them."

"I've never been completely cut off. They've always been here." He cocked his head to indicate the earpiece he couldn't cope without and returned his hand to the wheel to take a sharp corner.