Night Shadow (30 page)

was rejoicing in being alive. Being together.

“That’s it,” he said gutturally, through clenched teeth, as he thrust

powerful y again. “Take. More. Take it al .”

She watched him as she climbed, closer and closer until she just couldn’t

focus on his features anymore. Her breath tore on a strangled sob as she

peaked. With an inarticulate cry, Alex joined her release.

After several minutes where the only sounds in the room were their

ragged breathing and the snap, crackle, pop of the fire, Lexi managed to

lift her head from his shoulder. “My assets are freezing.”

He lifted her away from the window, running his hands down her back,

taking the chil away with each stroke. “Better?”

She nodded, too filled with emotion to talk. With apparent reluctance he

helped her lower her legs to the floor. Lexi slid her arms around his waist

and stood on her toes. “Take me to bed.” Her voice was soft. She loved

him so much her chest ached with the sheer size of her emotion.

“Take me to bed and make love to me again until I can’t think straight.”

“You mean like this?”

Cool sheets beneath her, hot Alex on top. Perfect.

Lexi wound her arms around his neck. “Yes,” she murmured against his

throat. “
Exactly
like this.”

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This time they made love slowly. They were both physically and mentally

exhausted. Wrung out.

He pulled the cool silk sheet over her shoulders, tucking Lexi against his

side.

“Know when I first saw you?” He trailed his fingertips up and down her

back.

“Sure.” The moment had changed her life forever. “Your Chilean op four

years ago.”

“No. Beijing. Two months before that.”

“No. I distinctly remember doing your research for the Chile op. You

wanted intel on
Movimiento de la Izquierda Revoluciónaria,
remember?”

“I was walking down the corridor on my way to Accounting, when I heard

a woman laughing. It sounded . . . Man, I can’t tel you what your laugh

sounded like to me right then. Free. Pure. Uninhibited.” He brushed a kiss

to her forehead. “Joy.”

“Joy?”

“Everything you are was in your laugh that day. Everything. It was like

standing outside on a cold day and looking through a window at a fire. So

near, and yet so far. I wanted your heat. Your . . . joy.”

Lexi sang very softly. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make

me happy—”

Alex chuckled and for a moment Lexi understood what he meant by joy.

Pressed against his side, she drifted in a rosy postcoital glow.
This
was the

kind of magic she understood. Alex had left no part of her body

untouched, unloved. Whether he felt as she did was stil a mystery to her.

Loving Alex was too frail and new an emotion to take out of the secret

recesses of her own heart and share. But for now, Lexi was too happy, too

replete, to try to decipher the workings of this particular male mind.

Cradling the back of her head, Alex lazily combed his fingers through her

damp hair. In turn she stroked her foot up his hairy calf. “I’m sorry about

Knight,” Lexi told him softly. “But I stand by what I told Edge—who by the

way might be kind of good-looking and the most powerful wizard in the

world, galaxy, whatever, but he’s ruthless and only a little charming. Still,

I’m glad he’s on your side.

“I suspected Mason was behind the dust bunny tangos before I went into

that room. A logical process of elimination and taking into account al the

facts, Mason is the
only
person who connects all of you, she said.”

“I had the same gut feeling a few days ago. So did the others. Damn. I

hate that he’s the one . . . Fucking
hate
it.”

“You trusted him, loved him, and he betrayed you.”

“Pisses me off.”

“Look, let’s not talk about this anymore tonight. You need to sleep so

you’re sharp and at your best tomorrow.”

He lifted her chin on two fingers, the wicked glint in his eye making Lexi’s

heart do a samba beat in her chest. “Operatives don’t need much sleep.

Didn’t you train for it?”

“I excel ed at it,” she said primly.

He smiled, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “Of course you did.”

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Night Shadow

“There might be more. I mean different ones that aren’t copies of you

three.”

“No. Just us lucky ones.”

“You’l find and destroy him.
And
those Vitros of his.”

“I wish to God kil ing him was the answer. But until we uncover what his

master plan is, until we know the
how, where,
and
why
of these Vitros,

even if we find him, we can’t
kill
him.”

“The odds of the three of you, with your combined powers, focused on one

man gives you a seventeen percent edge over Knight and his Vitros.”

“Seventeen percent, huh? We’re meeting the others in a few hours. Close

your eyes and get some sleep. We have a busy time ahead of us.”

“You’re taking me with you?”

He hesitated a second. “Any reason I shouldn’t?”

“No—no reason. I want to be with you when you capture this guy.”

“Scratch that.” His chest rose and fell beneath her splayed hand as he

blew out a harsh breath. “I lied.”

“About what?”

His eyes turned hard. Glittering chips of green glacial ice. “Taking you with

me. Lexi, I can’t think of you as an operative when I’m lying here naked

with you. Do you get that? I can be dispassionate, and expect you to be

the same. Mason Knight has turned into someone, some
thing,
I don’t

know. He’s going to be unpredictable. Dangerously unpredictable. He’s a

very powerful wizard. And I need to use every ounce of concentration to

best him.”

“I totally understand. But I know you. Better than anyone else. Fox and

Blackthorne know you as friends. I know you as your lover. I can

anticipate your wants and needs. It’s a different kind of knowing. I’d know

the nuances if those things take over your mind again.” She brushed her

fingers through the dark hair at his temple. “Better, we can apparently

perform telepathy.
That
skil , that
connection,
might save your life.

“I won’t get in your way. And God only knows, I won’t do a damn thing to

stop you. He has to be stopped. Stopped cold. And soon. Do you have any

idea where he might have gone to ground?”

“Blackthorne has been to every location Mason might be. It’s as though he

never existed. No papers, no personal effects. Nothing. And yeah, before

you ask—our forensic SCI teams are all over each one of the locations. If

there’s anything to find, they’ll find it.”

Lexi wasn’t sure if she’d managed to persuade him to take her with him.

Al she knew was that she had to be there. Had to be with him for the

confrontation. She didn’t know why, other than she didn’t want to see the

man she loved hurt—either physically or emotionally. No, this drive went

deeper than that.

Whatever it was, Lexi wasn’t going to ignore it.

For several minutes they lay silently, their hands stroking each almost

absently. After a while Lexi said softly, “I’m sorry about your parents.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” His fingers stilled in her hair.

“They died in a plane crash, right?” Hardly loverlike conversation, but she

wanted to give Alex anything—
everything
he needed right now. She could

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only imagine what he must be feeling after the blow of Knight’s betrayal.

She couldn’t fix his past, but she could be here for him, and try to ease

his hurt in the here and now.

“Yeah.” He went back to stroking her hair. Lexi loved his gentle touch and

brushed a whisper soft kiss to his shoulder. “Tory and I were six. Our

father was a stuntman. Good at what he did. He specialized in aerial

maneuvers and was in high demand. That particular movie shoot was in

Spain. Apparently it was his day off and he took my mother out in one of

the planes used in the movie. The single-engine, propeller-driven Yakovlev

Yak-52 crashed in an alfalfa field. And all these years I thought it was an

accident.”

His eyes were closed, spiky black lashes masking the pain in his beautiful

green eyes. Lexi’s heart ached for him. Lines of strain bracketed his

mouth, and his skin looked tightly stretched over his bones. She laid her

open hand on his cheek.

She attempted to block her thoughts, hoping she was successful, but

knowing.
I love you Alex. I’l always love you. No matter how you feel. No

matter what happens.

He took her hand and placed a kiss in her palm without opening his eyes.

Had he heard her? She’d never been touchy-feely before. She hadn’t been

brought up that way. She was uncomfortable with public displays of

affection—hell, she was a little uncomfortable with
any
displays of

affection. “Investigated, I’m sure?” She pitched her voice low as his

breathing became slower and more even.

Sleep my love. I’l take the first watch.
She didn’t give a Continental hoot

where
they were. Nothing and nobody was getting anywhere near Alex

until he was good and ready to confront them. In the meantime, Lexi

planned to guard him. With her life if necessary.

“The Spanish equivalent of our National Transportation Safety Board did a

thorough investigation.” He yawned, the arms supporting her head

tightened a little, and he tugged her the last eighth of an inch closer until

their hearts seemed to be beating in syncopation.

“I’ve read the report a dozen times, there was
nothing
suspicious about it.

A private investigation company, hired by the film company, also did a

meticulous examination at the crash site. No foul play suspected.”

“And yet—”

“Yeah—and yet. Lexi?”

On the precipice of sleep, she murmured, “Hmm?”

“Don’t.”

Seventeen

Alex left Lexi sleeping in the giant bed. Fuck. He had a bad feeling about

Knight’s plans for his Vitros, hell, for all of them. A gut-deep premonition

seemed to have taken residence beside his heart. Ticking away the

seconds to detonation. His detonation. Halfway to the door, he turned

back.

One more look. One more—

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Night Shadow

Standing beside the bed, he allowed himself to take his fil of this woman

who’d turned his life upside down in another way. For such a fierce

warrior, she looked shockingly small tucked between the rumpled silk

sheets, her kiss-reddened mouth soft and lax, her serene features nothing

like the animated woman she was when she was awake.

She was spectacular both ways.

Very gently he brushed a strand of sunny hair off her eyelashes, allowing

his finger to trail briefly across the silky skin of her warm cheek. A strange

ache permeated his chest.
Lexi.

He wanted to grab her, hold onto her warm supple body, feel the beat of

her heart, see those soft gray eyes light up when she looked at him. It

was good to want things, he thought, curling his fingers into his palms to

prevent himself from being a selfish prick.

Soundlessly he turned, striding back to the arched bedroom door. Thing

had been locked last night. Better damned wel not be locked this

morning.

Lexi was going to be pissed he’d gone on without her. Pissed and hurt, he

knew. Couldn’t be helped. He wanted—hel —needed to talk to Lucas and

Simon. If the damned door was still locked—The elaborate iron handle

turned easily this time. Nice, really frigging nice to lock up a guest.

Place was a castle. Enormous. Corridors and staircases every which where

with no rhyme or reason. He figured he’d wander around until he found

someone who could tel him where he was and where he was supposed to

go. Because while this entire Vitro-Cyborg, mind-meld shit affected pretty

much the entire goddamned planet, it was the three of them who were the

last defense before the shit hit the fan.

Three men against whatever the fuck Mason had up his sleeve.

He didn’t have to look far for roadside assistance. Lark waited for him in

the wide-paneled corridor as he closed the colossal oak door quietly

behind him. “Sleep all right, did you?” She tilted her head, her curling

black hair falling across a skin-tight, bright red T-shirt that she’d paired

with a black leather miniskirt and knee-high red-and-black leather boots.

Across her chest, spel ed out in two-inch-high, black-sequined letters was

what he imagined was her mantra:
I tried being good but I got bored.

She bit into her glossy red bottom lip as her kohl-lined eyes dissected him

as if checking to see to the second how much sleep he’d actual y

managed.