Hot Zone, page 8
He hauled her against him.
Skin to skin.
Bare breasts to his chest.
Hips to hips, with too many barriers between them. And one very important barrier missing.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I need for you to wait one second.”
“Why?” she gasped.
“I need to get a condom.”
“You carry them with you to earthquake rescues?”
“Believe it or not, they’re part of the gear in a survival vest—the most efficient way to carry water.”
“Water carrier? Like a balloon? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Afraid not.” He knelt, scooping his vest off the floor. “But I’m really not in the mood to discuss survival training right now.”
“Me either.” She tugged his vest from him. “And I have a better idea than you using up the ‘water jugs’ stored in your vest.”
Amelia pointed past his ear.
He turned to look at the metal shelves behind him and found… an industrial-size box of condoms. “Holy crap. Somebody’s got ambitions. Although if we were out of this hell and had a long weekend, maybe…”
She yanked the box from the shelf. “How about you stop bragging and start proving?”
“Roger that.” He took the carton from her, tore open the top, and dug around inside.
“Hurry,” she demanded. She shoved the box back on the shelf quickly, toppling it sideways. A half dozen rained from the box onto the floor.
But he had one firmly in hand. Urgency hammering through him, he slapped it on the small corner desk behind her, put his gun safely aside on a shelf, and devoted his entire attention to Amelia.
She met him kiss for kiss, touch for touch. His hands dipped inside her pants, cupping her bottom, lifting her more fully against him. The soft pressure of her rocking her hips against his hard-on threatened to send him over the edge.
He dipped his head, taking her nipple in his mouth. Her gasp, then purring moan, sent a fresh bolt of lust shooting through him. She sagged in his arms and he secured his hold, shifting his attention to her other breast, licking, nipping, teasing. Her head fell back and she mumbled breathy encouragement, urgent requests for more.
He completely agreed.
Distantly, he heard a rattle beyond the door, low voices. His body tensed until the sounds continued past their locked haven.
Amelia rubbed her cheek against his. “No more waiting.”
Her fingers worked the fly of his pants until she freed him. For two labored breaths, she held him, her fingers enclosing him like a cool silken glove. Then she stroked and he lost his footing for a second.
He braced a hand against the table behind her. Her lips curved in a knowing smile that she grazed along his neck, up to nip his earlobe.
Reaching behind her, she groped along the table until she located the condom. She tore it open with her teeth and sheathed him quickly, efficiently. So very thoroughly. The caress of her hands down the length of him threatened to undo him right then. He reined himself in, reminded himself of all she’d been through—
She bracketed his face with her hands and stared straight into his eyes, her shoulder-length blonde hair a tousled, sexy mess around her face. “I don’t want tenderness and I don’t want some sort of fake romanticism. We both know what this is about.”
“You’re—”
“Tired of talking.” She urged his head to hers and kissed him, full-on and full-out, demanding with her mouth and her hands.
He’d been planning to say she was bruised and exhausted from her ordeal. That this was crazy and they needed to be levelheaded.
Sanity be damned. If this was insanity, he was all in. Literally.
Nudging down the pants of her scrubs, he cupped her butt again, lifting her, settling her on the edge of the desk. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels digging in, urging him forward until…
He pushed inside her.
Teeth gritted, he held still. “Okay?”
“More than okay, but I could be better if you would…”
She dug her heels into his ass and urged him closer. Deeper. Her eyes stared back at him in the dimly lit room, the same sweet blue drawing him in as completely as her body held his. He thrust and her forehead fell to rest against his, her sigh filling the air around them.
The tension that had begun building since the first time he saw her, that had only continued and increased, grew teeth inside him. The need, the hunger, gnawed at him, demanding he move inside her, meet the wriggle of her hips in just the right way to take her as high as she took him.
Growling, he kissed the curve of her neck, up, up, until he took the lobe of her ear between his teeth the way she’d done to him, guessing she’d done something to him she liked for herself. Her purr of pleasure rewarded him, and damn, making her feel good made him feel even better. She rocked against him and clawed at his back as the table inched backward, ramming the wall, rattling the bottles on the shelves with each thrust. She buried her face into his shoulder, muffling her cries of pleasure from anyone who might pass by their closet.
A closet, for God’s sake.
He wanted to take her again in a bed, in a shower, anywhere more civilized than a fucking broom closet in an earthquake zone. He wanted to stretch her out naked and taste every inch of her again and again until she came apart. And damn, damn, damn, he was the one coming apart as he pounded inside her.
Still, every time he tried to go slower, easier, she demanded more. She writhed against him, faster, breathing in his ear how close, so close, she was.
Her orgasm squeezed around him, harder and harder in a velvet vise. He thrust harder and faster, finally free to give in to his own release. The tension uncoiled, expanding, pulsing through him as he came and came again inside her. The force of it convulsed his arms around her, damn near buckled his knees like the demolished world around them.
And before the haze of pleasure faded, he felt her pulsing again. Her teeth sank into his shoulder and he reveled in the pain brought on by the satisfaction he gave her.
A light sheen of sweat slicked his torso, sealing their bodies together. He stayed inside her, knew he should pull out, clean up, say something… nice?
Damn, he was the king of postcoital platitudes after his dead-end relationships of the past five years. He knew dozens of ways to reassure a woman she was sexy and rocked his world, but he understood she needed someone different.
Then he could walk away with a clear conscience to hang out with his memories. His grief.
Yeah, that was a screwed-up cycle, but he didn’t know any other way to live without becoming a monk. Not an option.
Right now, really not an option.
So he scrounged for those words to give her, to somehow make sense of what they’d done.
She placed two fingers along his mouth. “Don’t talk.” She pressed her lips to his tenderly, briefly. “Don’t mess this up with words or half-meant promises that will feel awkward when we’re both clearheaded. This is what it is—an incredible culmination—and I thank you for that. It’s something I suspect we both needed and now it’s done.”
Before he could pick his jaw up off the floor, she’d gathered her clothes and dressed. She rested her cheek against his back for a heartbeat… and left.
The door closed softly behind her.
The silence echoed around him, the scent of her, of them, and sex mixing up with the disinfectant in the air. She’d actually walked out on him. She hadn’t even given him a chance to roll out some face-saving words for both of them.
He yanked up his pants, tugged on his T-shirt, and shrugged back into his survival vest, wondering why in the hell everything still felt so off-kilter. She’d said everything he should have wanted. Exactly the sort of words he’d spoken to women over the past five years. Sex. Just sex. No commitment or messy emotions. He’d seen she and the kid were okay. And all crazy sex aside, she’d still given him the free and clear to walk away. Except for the first time in five years, he didn’t want to walk, he didn’t want to forget.
And that scared him shitless.
***
She would never forget him.
How could she?
He’d saved her life—not to mention just given her earth-shattering sex, making her forget she was in a broom closet, for crying out loud. She’d learned one thing for sure. Her ex had been right in dissing their chemistry, because she’d never felt anything like this during her entire marriage.
Her ex was a serious dud in comparison to Hugh.
What if she’d met Hugh Franco during a true Bahamas holiday? Maybe she could have indulged in more than one impulsive encounter in a broom closet. But life wasn’t normal even when it was normal. She had a crummy marriage behind her and a dead father who’d left his kids with a crappy legacy of heavy-duty baggage.
All that aside, she had practical worries and concerns in looking after whatever family she had left. Tears burned to be set free but she held them back. She’d been selfish enough stealing the past twenty minutes for herself.
Time to focus solely on Joshua and finding the rest of her family.
She rounded the corner to the quiet pediatrics hall, weaving past crates and stacked supplies. The corridor was deserted, other than one nurse or doctor walking away with a toddler, the little guy sleeping on her shoulder.
The baby wriggled awake, eyes blinking wide and staring down the long hallway, straight at her. Something stirred inside Amelia. A sense of recognition.
Joshua.
She wasn’t sure how she could be so certain after only spending such a short time with him. But his little face seemed imprinted on the back of her eyelids… even deeper on her heart.
Why was the nurse taking him away? Was he sick after all? Or was it a doctor? The unfamiliar woman wore surgical scrubs like everyone else, her cluster of thin braids gathered into a low ponytail. A two-way radio was clipped to the waist of her pants.
Amelia raced down the hall, her borrowed tennis shoes squeaking against the tiles. “Excuse me.”
The woman didn’t turn, didn’t seem to have heard her at all. But her feet moved faster… Amelia’s heart sped with the first inklings of fear.
“Ma’am? Stop, please or I will find a guard.”
The woman turned slowly, holding Joshua so tightly he began to squirm. “Yes?” she said with a local accent. “What do you need, Doctor?”
This woman thought she was a physician? Amelia looked down at her own surgical scrubs. With medical personnel from different groups working together, it wasn’t unusual not to recognize the staff, and they were all wearing the same clothes stacked up beside the tarp shower stalls outside.
Still, alarms jangled in her head. The woman’s body language seemed off, and anyone could have picked up a set of the surgical clothes. “Is something wrong with him? Where are you taking him?”
“To give him a test. I am a nurse.”
Then why hadn’t she been told? And why was the woman who called herself a nurse wearing leather sandals? “In the middle of the night?”
The woman paused, then said, “There are no set hours during a crisis. Now if you’ll pardon me…”
Amelia walked closer, faster, holding out her arms. “Let me carry him so he won’t be frightened. He’s more familiar with me.”
The woman’s body tensed, her eyes going hard. “I think not, since I am his mother.”
Shock rooted her feet to the floor. That couldn’t possibly be true. Could it? “Your baby?”
“Yes, this is my son. I thought we had lost him in the earthquake, but see now?” She cradled the back of his head possessively. “He is fine. Is he not, Doctor?”
This woman’s timeline just didn’t add up, since Aiden and Lisabeth had already adopted Joshua before the earthquake. Amelia considered calling the woman on the lie right then and there, but the woman was holding Joshua in a fiercely tight grip. Risking a scene, anger, and God knows what else didn’t seem wise.
So, what to do?
She sifted through all the information coming at her when her balance was already seriously compromised from her encounter with Hugh. Guilt swamped her. If she hadn’t indulged herself so selfishly, she would have been with Joshua. None of which she could change right now.
Shoving aside the distracting guilt, she narrowed her focus, calling up her prosecutorial skills to get to the bottom of what was going on with this mystery woman—if she could possibly be Joshua’s real mother. “If you’re his mama, then why did you pretend to be hospital personnel?”
“Because of your paperwork.” She picked at her scrubs nervously.
Instincts shouted that the woman was holding something back—and she had Joshua in her arms, which made confronting her more than a little problematic. Amelia looked around for help in the deserted hallway. Crap.
The case file on Joshua stated his mother had died and his father had taken him to an orphanage. She had no reason to doubt the adoption agency. She had been laboriously thorough in researching them, knowing there were definitely some suspicious operations out there.
But she’d heard horror stories of babies being stolen from their mothers. Or mothers persuaded to give up a child for money or a so-called better life for the baby.
Or the woman could be grief stricken, mistaking Joshua for her own lost baby. In which case, she would be unstable. Volatile.
Joshua whimpered, reaching out a chubby fist. Amelia’s heart twisted with love—and fear. She gauged the distance between them and decided to continue to bluff rather than risk an all-out confrontation.
“Actually, he is not okay. That’s why he had the IV in.” Oh God, the woman must have pulled out the needle. Where were the nurses? Why hadn’t someone stopped her? “You need to give him to me now so I can get him hooked up again.”
She kept her voice low and calm, her body language as loose as possible with every cell within her screaming out in protest.
Amelia held out her arms. “I’ll be careful with him and have him right back to you. In fact, you can stay with us if you would like.”
And, please God, they would find some other hospital staff, maybe even one of those guards carrying around a big machine gun. Or better yet, this would be the perfect time for Hugh to come around the corner—unless he’d already left through another exit to avoid her. He could already be long gone.
The woman hugged Joshua closer with one arm and called over her shoulder. “Oliver?”
Another person? The time had come to act before the odds went against her. She needed to grab Joshua and start screaming bloody murder.
As Amelia lurched forward, a man stepped from behind a stack of pallets and shoved the woman and Joshua behind him. He wore dirty camouflage with patches from some other country, his red hair slicked back, and long, for someone in uniform.
Amelia opened her mouth to shout—
A survival knife gleamed in his fist, jagged blade kissing her neck. “The boy belongs to us now, and if you want to keep your pretty face unscarred, you’ll shut up.”
The other woman peered around his shoulder. “What are you thinking, Oliver? The Guardian gave us our orders. Get the kid and get out. Now kill her, and let’s go.”
Oliver’s grip on her arm tightened while he stroked back her hair with the blade. “The Guardian understands the importance of a profit margin to keep a business going, and this woman’s worth almost as much as the baby. The blonde bitch? She’s coming with us.”
Chapter 7
A distant shriek echoed down the corridor, stopping Hugh in his tracks as he stepped out of the closet. A cry of pain? Certainly not unheard of in a hospital. He moved deeper into the hall, peering around a corner. A solitary nurse in an open office filling out charts merely lifted her eyes for half a second.
The hall was all but deserted, just as it had been when he stepped from the closet after shaking off the shock of Amelia’s rejection and hauling back on his clothes. Most everyone was asleep, and no new patients were coming to this full-to-capacity makeshift school-turned-hospital. He jogged past the gymnasium crammed with beds sectioned off from one another with extra wrestling mats and uneven bars.
Hugh shrugged away a crick in his neck and pushed through the front door into the warm haze of post-earthquake dust. He must just be on edge because of the impulsive, crazy-as-hell hookup with Amelia. What had he been thinking? One thing was clear. They both needed space to get levelheaded again. Then he would contact her and… What? Hell if he kn—
Another shout echoed. Louder, rippling through the quiet night. The scream ended abruptly, as if cut off. And God, his head must really be screwed up, because he could swear that sounded like Amelia.
Crazy or not, he had to check it out.
He scanned the dark lot, a mess like the rest of the area. Cars lay on their sides, some crashed into each other, the asphalt cracked. None on the lights worked. Two poles had fallen on top of a storage shed and corner of the school. Still, there was no activity other than a couple of displaced cats scurrying under cars, no doubt in search of the rats that had already started scuttling through the aftermath.
Which only left the back of the schoolyard to search.
A deep gut sense of premonition drove him forward. He broke into a jog, his boots pounding along the cracked asphalt, onto the soft earth. When he rounded the corner, he would probably find another cat shrieking or someone laughing. The scream had to be his imagination. Everything inside him was a jumbled-up shit pile of the past and present melding together since he’d rescued Amelia and the boy.
The back lot resembled the front, a broken mess. More rats scampered. A kitten screeched beyond the tree line. Could that be what he’d heard?
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the lot, past the cars and a spindly fallen palm tree. He squinted through the darkness lit only by a half moon above. Damn, but it was dark. He would give his left nut for NVGs right now.
