Of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (11 page)

After several seconds of silence, she finally snapped, “Well, what is it?”

“Um … ” he tore his eyes away to look back at her briefly before gazing through the hole again. “It’s … a sword.”

Jericho gawked at it in a trance. Green and gold flames traveled up and down the blade of the sword, casting wavering light around the inside of the hole. With the utmost caution, he snaked a hand through the jagged concrete and gripped the handle. Jericho knew everything there was to know about guns, but not swords. However, even he could tell that this weapon was old. Way older than either of them; way older than anything he’d ever seen.

Holy fuck. What had Major Taylor been up to?

“What
is
it?” Dahlia asked.

“I think it’s a broadsword.” Jericho’s said.

Okay, so Major Taylor had hidden a flaming broadsword in the basement of his evil lair. That did not bode well.

Jericho leaned forward and squinted his eyes. “There’s writing on the blade,” he said. He ran his fingertips along the broad edge of the blade. “I can’t read it. The writing’s in a different language.” And then he snatched his hand back with a hiss as pain flared.

Dahlia shone her beam on Jericho’s hand and gasped as she took two stumbling steps toward him. He halted her with a quick, “Stay back!”

She stopped.

“It’s just a little knick,” he said, trying to assure her with a smile. “It’s sharp, and I was careless, that’s all.”

She obviously didn’t believe him. Jericho leaned over at the waist and placed the sword gently on the ground, and then he backed away from it. “We’re going to leave this right here, okay? I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

He grabbed her hand, the Knowledge that she was
good
quickly flaring, and tugged her toward the staircase where she finally tore her eyes away from the sword to watch where she was going.

“We can’t just leave it here,” she protested.

“Absolutely right,” he said. “I’m calling it in. Eli needs to know about this. Someone way more qualified than me needs to come in and collect that with the proper equipment.”

She snorted. “Proper equipment for
that
?”

They’d reached the top of the stairs, but Jericho didn’t slow down as he pulled her through the remainder of the facility.

When they reached the outside, Jericho kept walking, pulling her right to the truck, where he opened the passenger door and handed her in. He felt the oppression of the building slip from his shoulders in the open air, and watched as Dahlia rolled her own shoulders and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Sorry, I just had to get you out of there,” he mumbled. “I didn’t want you anywhere close to that thing. It was bad enough looking at you standing in the middle of that room.”

Dahlia closed her eyes, her expression betraying a sense of defeat, but Jericho didn’t pause to ponder it. He pulled his cellphone from his back pocket and dialed Eli’s number. “It’s me,” he said into the phone. “The weapon is a flaming sword,” he said, still in shocked disbelief.

Eli took over with a barrage of questions that Jericho answered without thought. They arranged for pick-up in full hazmat suits.

The conversation wound down and then there was dead silence on the phone for several seconds. Finally, Eli asked, “Okay, so is there anything else? Anything to keep you from bringing her back right away?”

Time stood still. Jericho’s eyes flew to Dahlia’s again, and — just his luck — she was staring straight at him.

Jericho paused, a feeling of heavy responsibility falling on him. His eyes flicked away from Dahlia. “No, I haven’t found out anything else. But I think I could. I’d like permission to pursue further intel.”

From his peripheral vision, he saw Dahlia snap to attention, but he couldn’t focus on what she was overhearing. The sickness that swept in with his lies nearly debilitated him.

Eli said nothing for several more seconds. “I can’t promise anything,” Eli said slowly.

Jericho would take what he could get. “Okay, thanks,” he said as he hung up.

He braced himself and then looked at Dahlia, silently begging her to say nothing with his eyes.

“You lied for me,” she said in a whisper.

Jericho nodded.

“Why?” she asked.

He looked at her for several seconds, and then he shifted his eyes to the ground, studying his boots. “I don’t know,” he said in a small voice.

He continued to look at the ground, studiously avoiding her gaze. But then, her hand moved through the space that divided them from each other. He watched as her hand splayed on his chest.

His head shot up, instant heat flaring through his body, the Impulse kicking to full life.

Dahlia licked her lips, fisted her hand in his shirt, and dragged him to her.

Before he could realize what was happening, her lips were crushed against his, and she was licking at their seam.

He opened his lips automatically, without thought, and was immediately rewarded when her tongue slipped inside his mouth and swept hungrily across the roof of his mouth.

He groaned at the sensation. All of the stress of the last few hours released him from its grip, and his arms flew up and surrounded her. He jerked her to him with no finesse, sliding her across the truck’s seat, needing to feel her flush against him, needing to forget what he’d just done. One hand splayed in the small of her back, the other hand rose up through the cool waves of her hair to grab a handful and wrap it around his wrist.

He tugged gently, pulling her head further back, and he knew her neck would be arched beautifully. He pulled back from the kiss to glance at it, and then he lowered his head again to nibble down her neck from ear to collarbone.

She squirmed against him and tried to lean back on the truck bench and pull him back with her, and for some reason, this movement was enough to bring him back to where they were. Maybe it was the desire he had to crawl atop her, part her legs, and drive himself home that made him remember that they were out in public.

With more strength than he thought he had, he pulled from Dahlia’s kiss, forced his hand to release her hair, and glanced up and over the dashboard to find two very amused guards watching them from the gate.

“What?” Dahlia asked from her propped up position on the seat. “Why’re we stopping?”

Jericho returned his attention to her again, and smiled at what he saw. Her lips were kiss-swollen, her hair was mussed from his hand, and somehow he’d managed to raise her shirt over her bra without realizing it.

She looked delectable, confused, and frustrated.

“We have an audience,” he said and nodded his head toward the guards.

Her expression didn’t change, and he realized she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to care. He leaned down and gave her one brief kiss — anything more would try his control — and pulled her shirt down. “Scooch up,” he told her gently. When she didn’t move at all, he chuckled and helped her sit up and turn around. He shut her door and jogged around the hood to his side of the truck, the movements of his body causing a rather insistent body part to rub painfully. He pointedly ignored the guards and slid into the driver’s seat.

As soon as the door was closed, Dahlia scooted over to him, her hand falling directly to the crotch of his pants where she closed her hand over his length.

He hissed in a breath through his clenched teeth. He had to get them somewhere private. Now. He started the car with a violent crank of the key and reversed so quickly he spit up chunks of asphalt.

He left the facility like a man possessed while Dahlia leaned in further and bit down on his neck, sucking hard. Her hand moved up and down his length rigorously, and Jericho thought briefly that there was a very real possibility he was going to crash the car. He made it about half a mile down the road before finding an abandoned neighborhood to pull off into.

The car was barely in park before Jericho lost control. Dahlia let out a quick squeak as Jericho turned on her, launching them back into the bench and cramming his hips between her legs.

“God, Dahlia,” he knew he was being too rough, just like the last time. It had never been this way with Emily. He couldn’t figure out why he had no control over his actions, why he mauled Dahlia whenever he got the opportunity.

But, thank God, she didn’t seem to mind. She gave him an answering moan and wrapped her arms around his shoulders and sifted her fingers through his hair. “You’re back,” she whispered against his lips. “Thank God.”

Yep, she liked it. The quarters were cramped, but Jericho didn’t care. His boots hit against the driver’s side window with percussive thumps, and already their heavy breathing was fogging up the interior of the car, making the air thick.

He’d never done anything like this in a car before, and he vowed right there and then to do it repeatedly in the future. But only with Dahlia.

She was nibbling on his lower lip, her hands traveling from his hair to trail over his shoulders, down his biceps, skittering over to his lower back and then down to his ass, where she grabbed him hard, her finger tips digging into the flesh through his pants.

His hips kicked forward, thrusting into the heated center between her legs. She moaned and arched her back. “God, yes,” she muttered, biting down on his lip harder.

A harsh noise sounded from the back of his throat, and his thrust again. And again. He was spiraling out of control, and he quickly realized he had about one and half more thrusts before orgasm.

He pulled his lip from her teeth and looked at her anxiously. She needed more than he could give her if he didn’t quit moving. He groaned and pulled his erection from its favorite place. He needed an idea. God, he hated not knowing what he was doing. She was obviously experienced, and he wasn’t good enough for her.

She moaned in protest when he moved from her, licking and biting her lips. His eyes zeroed in to her mouth, and the idea suddenly hit him. The idea was so tempting, he almost didn’t need the extra thrust and a half to finish, and he gritted his teeth and prayed for control.

He scooted back further, and fit his arms beneath her body, lifting her gently to prop her up against the passenger side door.

Then, with shaky fingers, he reached for the button of her pants. She saw the direction he was headed, groaned in excitement and added her fingers to the task. Four hands fumbled with her fly until her pants were open.

She lifted her ass quickly, and Jericho grabbed her pants and began sliding them down her hips. When her pants moved to reveal red lacy panties that he’d only felt this morning, Jericho cursed and all semblance of gentleness evaporated.

His vision tunneled. He distantly heard the fabric of her pants rip, and — thank fuck — her pants were off. He dove to the bench, landing on his belly and chest between her legs and face-planting on those delicious, lacy panties.

Dahlia cried out above him, her hands flew to his hair and grabbed two handfuls roughly. The pain from her grip felt wonderful. He buried his face further between her legs and inhaled slowly, her arousal the best perfume he’d ever smelled. He pressed fevered kisses to the fabric covering her cleft, and she squirmed beneath his touch.

His hands flew to her hips and gripped tightly as he held her still so he could swipe his tongue from bottom to top over the lace. She bucked in his grip.

“Jericho, please,” she begged him.

He licked her panties again to let her know he’d heard her, and then he moved his fingers down from her hips to the waistband of her underwear. He continued to press kisses to the crotch of her panties as he slowly rolled her underwear down until his mouth halted its progress. He drew back to pull the panties the rest of the way off. Dahlia bent her legs to accommodate him in the small space, and soon, the skimpy red lace was dangling off his index finger.

He looked at her, the panties between them. She was panting against the door. A few locks of her wavy hair had traveled over her shoulders and in front of her face, and her breaths puffed them out in rapid succession. Her eyes were glazed over with passion and hooded.

He made sure she watched as he slowly brought her panties to his face. He pressed them over his nose and mouth and inhaled, his eyes closing slowly at the pleasure of her scent.

He heard her suck in a breath, felt her legs jolt on either side of his knees. He opened his eyes again and looked at her solemnly as he placed the panties in his pants’ pocket. He hoped they weren’t her favorites, because she was
never
getting them back. That business handled, he finally allowed his eyes to look at her exposed sex.

She was sprawled before him. Her knees were slightly bent and wide open, one resting on the dashboard, the other wedged between his hips and the seat back. Her lips were spread and glistening. She was completely hairless.

Jericho felt his mouth drop, and he groaned from deep in his chest. “Holy God, Dahlia,” he whispered, his fingers traveling with a mind of their own to brush over the hill of her mound reverently.

She shuddered with his unpracticed touch, and Jericho felt a burst of pride that even though he was completely clueless, he seemed to be pleasing her. Greatly. She grabbed his hand frantically and pressed it more fully against the very top of her cleft, right over the achingly swollen bud he could plainly see throbbing.

He jerked his hand away quickly before he could lose his purpose. Her skin was smooth, slick. If he touched her for one second longer, he would forget what he planned to do. And he
really
didn’t want to forget.

He smiled at her slowly and shook his head. He was nervous as hell, but he didn’t want her to know, so he simply said, “Not what I had in mind, sweetheart.”

And then he fell to his belly again, putting his face right where it had just been, only now, there was no barrier between his lips and her core — just the way he wanted it.

He knew the moment he kissed her, he was a goner — would have no finesse, would simply devour her — so he vowed to take it as slowly as he could here at the beginning.

Her hands were already in his hair again, tugging him forward. He lazily brought one of his wide palms to hers, enclosing both of her wrists in one hand, and pulling them gently to his lips, he kissed her finger tips and then directed one hand to grip the back of the seat, the other to the dashboard. “Patience,” he whispered.