Pure feeling. The ground seemed to shift beneath her, colors whirled and blended. Her body was no longer her own, familiar, under control. It flamed into life, craving, crawling with the need to be touched, caressed. If any man in her life had ever kissed her before, Jess wiped him from her mind for all eternity. His mouth was on hers, hot and hard, so that her brain melted into mindless compliance, branding her as irrevocably his.
Saber moaned softly in despair. She was losing herself, clutching desperately at his heavily muscled shoulders to anchor herself to some reality.
Jess lifted his head reluctantly. She was so beautiful, staring up at him with such sensuous confusion he nearly ignored her distress. Saber pushed at the wall of his chest with her small hands, her strength easily overcome, but he obediently straightened, leaning back against the solid tree trunk. She sat up hastily, scrambled what she thought was a safe distance away, and kneeling, faced him.
"Lord, Jesse." She breathed his name in awe. "We can never do that again. We don't dare. We nearly set the world on fire."
A slow smile curved his mouth. "Personally, I was thinking it would be a good idea to repeat the experience. Often."
She touched her full lower lip with a cautious fingertip. "You should be outlawed, a woman isn't safe around you."
He resisted the urge to caress her face with his hand, not wanting to destroy her illusion of safety. "It wasn't just me, angel face."
She shook her head in adamant denial. Jess ignored the gesture, intrigued by the play of light in her shining hair. God, he wanted her. It was far more than a relentless physical craving. It was everything wrapped into one. He'd had beautiful women and flash affairs, but he'd never felt like this. Not where love and lust met, intertwined, and became so tightly woven together they were one and the same.
"This can't be," Saber said. "I have to go, Jess. Things are getting out of hand and I can't control them. I don't want to control them."
As she started her retreating move, Jess's hand snaked out with lightening speed and shackled her wrist. "Oh, no you don't, baby, you're not getting away from me." His grip was immensely strong, but he didn't hurt her--he never did.
Blue eyes flew, startled, to his dark ones. Dragon king, she always called him. He was wreaking havoc on all her senses. "Jesse," she made a breathless little protest, already feeling lost.
"It's too late, Saber. You're in love with me, you're just too damned stubborn to admit it to yourself."
"No, no, Jesse, I'm not." She sounded more frightened than convinced.
"Sure you are." Relentlessly, he drew her back to him until she was so close the heat between them threatened to erupt into flames. Beneath his hands he could feel her trembling. "Think about it, honey. Who makes you laugh? Who makes you happy? Who do you run to when you have a problem?" His fingers found the nape of her neck, sending little tongues of fire licking along her spine.
She took a deep steadying breath. "It doesn't matter. Even if you're right, which you're not, it wouldn't matter. I have to leave."
His fingers curled over her shoulders, gave her the gentlest of exasperated shakes. "Stop saying that. I don't want to hear it again. Don't you think I'm aware you have some deep, dark secret in your past? Somebody you're running from? That's what doesn't matter. You belong here, Saber. In Sheridan, Wyoming, with me, in my home, right by my side."
She went pale. "You don't know what you're saying. Jesse, I don't have any deep, dark secrets, I just like to travel. I can't help myself. I just get restless and pick up and go." He knew. He knew about her. How? Or maybe he didn't. Maybe she was panicking and he really thought she had a creep for an ex-husband and she was hiding from him. Let it be that. Please, please, let it be that.
He released her with a smile. "You can't lie worth a damn, Saber."
"Really?" She stuck her chin out at him. "Well neither can you. You have a few deep dark secrets of your own."
He nodded. "I'll admit it. I have a high security clearance and can't talk about my work much, but that shouldn't affect the two of us or our relationship."
He was admitting it. Her heart went into overdrive, pounding so hard she pressed a hand to her chest to alleviate the ache. He was a GhostWalker, highly trained in dealing death. And he was skilled in psychic abilities. Wheelchair or not, she wasn't safe with him. Pressing her lips together, she ducked her head. She didn't want to pursue the matter any further. Not now. Not today. Most of her life was pretense. This was her one chance at a day with Jess. The only one she might ever have.
Jess could sense the panic in her, the confusion and reluctance. He sighed and let it go. "We'll drop it for now. Just make me a promise; give me your word of honor you won't ever try to leave without discussing it first with me."
"You won't discuss it," she said in frustration. "You'll stop me."
"Promise me."
"That's not fair."
"Saber." He tapped her chin with his index finger.
"Oh, all right. I promise," she gave in with bad grace. "I'm hungry. I didn't have breakfast, lunch, or anything else in between. Are you going to feed me or what?"
Jess would take his small victory. Backing off, giving her space, seemed the lesser of two evils. Saber's mood swings were mercurial. He could easily read her rising panic. He needed to soothe her, alleviate her fears. She was desperately hiding the truth from him, but it didn't matter, because he already knew she had to be one of Peter Whitney's experiments.
Whitney had taken girls from orphanages around the world, kept them locked up, and performed psychic and genetic experiments on them long before he had done the same to grown servicemen. He'd given them the names of flowers and of seasons--Winter. She used the name Saber Wynter. Winter was more than likely what Whitney had called her.
He had entered the GhostWalker program of his own free will. And he'd known when he'd made the decision to enhance his psychic abilities that he would remain government property for the rest of his life. Wheelchair or not, he was still a powerful and dangerous weapon. No one was going to just forget about him and let him live his life out in peace. He had agreed to the bionics experiment partly for that reason.
Okay. He'd agreed to it because he missed the action of combat. Riding a desk just wasn't his thing and never would be. But then along came Saber and he suddenly wasn't thinking about saving the world anymore. Settling down seemed much more appealing, and she'd been with him long enough now that he couldn't imagine his life without her. But he'd made the choice as a grown man. Whitney had taken these girls, these infants, and instead of giving them a decent home, he'd made them into science projects.
He felt the hot surge of anger and deliberately forced it down. "You're closest to the picnic basket, angel face," he said very gently. "Pass me a sandwich."
Saber, grateful for the change of subject, dug into the wicker basket. "Cream cheese?"
"That's yours. I get ham," he said.
The color was slowly coming back into Saber's flawless skin, the tension easing out of her. She avoided touching him when she handed him his sandwich. He let her get away with it. "Drink, woman," he commanded. "Where's my drink?"
Saber handed him a mug of hot chocolate. "Tell me about Chaleen."
He nearly choked. "Why would you want to know about her?"
Because she was still hanging around and Saber didn't trust her for a moment. But she didn't mind playing the jealous woman if it got her what she wanted. "She's after you. I think that was made pretty plain. She gave me the look women reserve for competition. So tell me about her."
"If you want to know about Chaleen, I'll tell you, although there's really not all that much to tell." Because he had to be careful.
She could tell he was reluctant. "You don't have to." She tilted her head. "But I did overhear part of your conversation and it sounded as if she was warning you about an investigation you're conducting." She held up her hand when his piercing eyes went flat and cold. "I'm not fishing for details, but I think she's a lot
more than she wants you to know. She's coming off as your friend warning you, but I could feel..."
She had a million secrets she couldn't tell him, so it seemed unfair that he would have to reveal something obviously private to her--but she did want to know. She needed to know, because Chaleen was a dangerous woman, and she had to figure out just how dangerous she was to Jess.
Jess shrugged. "I met her skiing in Germany. It seemed innocent enough and she was beautiful and intelligent and loved doing all the things I did. She seemed perfect. Of course she was too perfect and I should have seen that, but I was too wrapped up in the sex to be thinking I might have been set up."
Saber winced. Sex. She didn't want to think about him having sex with perfect Chaleen, but she'd asked for this. She bit her lip hard to keep from interrupting.
Jess leaned back, pressing his head against the wide base of the tree. "It was so stupid, really. I knew better. I wasn't some dumb kid. She began asking me questions about my work. Nothing big, nothing to raise alarms, but still, it should have. I just took it that she was interested, and believe it or not, I actually felt guilty that I couldn't tell her anything."
Saber drew up her knees and rested her chin on them. She could see clever Chaleen manipulating a man into feeling guilty.
"At least at first I felt guilty. Somewhere along the line I realized she really didn't like all the things she pretended interest in. She was only acting."
Chaleen had probably studied him, found out his every interest, and become the person he would be attracted to before she'd moved in on him. Chaleen--black widow spider. Saber twisted her fingers together, already afraid for him. If the woman had come back, she'd come for a reason.
"An assignment went bad. I was taken prisoner, and tortured. I'd been shot in both legs so they smashed what was left of my lower legs to try and break me. They wanted me to give up a colleague." He looked at her, wanting her to know what kind of man he was. "I didn't."
She rubbed her palm over his thigh in silent sympathy.
He still felt it sometimes, those blows landing on the raw gaping wounds, felt the bones shattering inside his skin. His stomach knotted and for one moment bile rose. He fought it down. "I stared at the ceiling for three straight weeks after they brought me to the hospital. Just stared at it, without seeing or speaking."
Instantly her eyes clouded and she caught his hand in both of hers. "Oh, Jesse, how terrible for you. I didn't mean for you to relive a horrible memory." She knelt close to him. "I'm sorry, so sorry I brought this up."
His hand shaped her face, caressed her soft skin, traced her delicate cheekbones. "Don't be sorry. I wanted to tell you or I wouldn't have."
"Were your parents with you?"
"I wouldn't see them, I couldn't. I had to decide on my own what to do with the rest of my life. I didn't want anyone to pressure me one way or the other. The decisions I made had to be mine, ones I could live with. But Chaleen came. And went. I wasn't of use to her anymore, or to her bosses. I couldn't give them anything, so there was no point in our engagement."
Her heart dropped. He'd been engaged to Chaleen. Had he loved her? Really loved her? Perfect Chaleen was probably perfect in bed. Saber was so far from perfect at everything there wasn't even any contest.
His thumb slid over her mouth. "I realized that I didn't love her, that I never really had. So I didn't retaliate. I just let her go and chalked it up to a lesson learned. I have a job that someone out there is interested in--a lot of somebodies. And they want to know what I'm doing." His fingers slid to her curls and fisted there, holding her still while his gaze drifted over her upturned face, inspecting her expression.
His eyes went flat and cold. "I won't be so nice if I find out you're deceiving me, Saber. You, I care about. You got under my skin. So if you're working undercover, now's the time to tell me, because if you ever betrayed me, I would break your neck."
The tone of his voice and the look in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. She didn't doubt that Jess would come after her if she deceived him in the way Chaleen had.
"I don't care about your secret life, Jess, not the way you mean it. I care about you."
His smile was slow in coming. He was probably the biggest fool in the world, but damn it all, he believed her. He believed those large, beautiful eyes, even with the shadows in them. Deliberately he glanced at his watch. "We'd better eat if we're going to. The temperature out here is dropping rapidly."
Instead of drinking the warm liquid, Saber put the mug down and stretched out, snuggling under the cover, close to him. "I think I could take you in a fight."
"Oh really?" Amusement crept into his voice, and his arm curved around the top of her head, fingers tangling in the silken strands of her hair. "You could take me?"
Her fist thumped his hip. "Don't say it like that. Do you have to make everything sound sexual?"
"I'm feeling that way." His hand stroked her temple. "You drive me crazy."
He'd never just come right out and said it before. She wasn't stupid. She certainly knew he was physically attracted to her, although after seeing Chaleen and knowing she and Saber were complete opposites, she wasn't certain why.
She tapped her fingers on her knee and stared at the surrounding mountains. She had to give him something of herself. It wasn't fair otherwise. He'd told her things, hurtful things that mattered, that were real, and just once, she wanted to give him something of herself.
Saber was silent and Jess remained so because of the little giveaway nervous tattoo of her fingers.
"I was trapped in a sort of hole in the ground once. It was completely black." She watched his face carefully. She was giving him...too much. Enough to hang herself, yet there were abused children every single day. He would naturally think that of her, rather than something so bizarre and coincidental as that she was also a GhostWalker.
Jess went still inside. He could hear the catch in her voice as she revealed a traumatic event in her life. There was the faintest of tremors in her body. This was the real thing, not something made up to appease him. The suppressed emotion in her said it all and he felt rage--ice cold rage. He wasn't certain he was prepared to hear this.
"I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face. After a while I thought I was going crazy. I couldn't even breathe."
She didn't look at him, but kept her gaze on the mountains. "There were bugs. Oh God, so many bugs. They crawled on me." She brushed at her arms and face as if to remove them. He saw her throat convulse as she swallowed hard and knew she was unaware of the tears gathering in her eyes. "I didn't think I could stand it. I lost track of time. A minute, an hour, days. I could hear myself screaming, but not out loud, only in my mind. I didn't dare make a sound. I would have never gotten out."
The silence stretched between them. He was afraid of speaking, afraid his voice would break. He couldn't touch her, couldn't move his hand those scant inches separating them. He was shaking with anger unlike anything he'd ever experienced, and if he didn't stay in control, the results could be deadly.
Saber became aware of the ground undulating beneath her. The trees trembled and the water in the fountains shot up like geysers. A branch in a nearby tree cracked ominously. She leaned into him, laid her head against his shoulder, and put a calming hand on his thigh. Instantly his hand covered hers and he took a deep breath.
"It's all right," she soothed. "I'm all right." He was furious on her behalf, close to a loss of control--no good thing for any GhostWalker. It should have reminded her that Jess was dangerous, in or out of a wheelchair, but all it did was make her happy.
"How old were you?" His voice was very quiet. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, trying to find a way to make it all better.
"I think I was about four the first time. We weren't allowed to show fear and I was afraid of closed in and dark places. That sort of weakness just wasn't allowed where I grew up."
He didn't have to ask who had done such a thing to her. Whitney, damn h
is soul to hell. Peter Whitney had taken this child and tortured her to make or break her.
"That's why you like every light in the house on."
Her hand clutched his shirt, fingers curling around the edge of the material, brushing his bare skin. She didn't seem to notice so he left it there, covering her hand once again with his own and pressing her palm into his chest.
"I guess they never managed to scare the fear out of me," Saber admitted. She touched his leg with the tip of her nails.
"Bastards." He was careful not to ask who "they" were.
She had no idea why his reaction sent a heat wave crashing through her entire system. She took a breath and let it out, catching at his wrist to distract them both. She looked at his watch. "I need to get ready for work."
"You have hours, take a nap."
"Out here?" Did she dare when they might be under surveillance?
"Sure, listen to the water, you were just saying it was peaceful. You tell me something from your past and immediately get nervous and want to run." He slid down, pillowing his head on a rolled-up blanket. "Come on, mystery lady, get over here where you belong."
Saber hesitated only a moment, then snuggled close to his side. The feel of his body curved protectively around hers was fast becoming familiar, comfortable, as if this was where she belonged. She was tired and the fresh air and absolute beauty of their surroundings, along with Jess's presence, made her intensely happy. She cradled her head in the hollow of his shoulder, one slender arm flung across his broad chest, and closed her eyes. "If you hear or see anything suspicious, or anyone else comes near us, promise you'll wake me up."
So she felt it too, then, Jess noted. He let his gaze drift around them, quartering the area to make certain no one was near. "I will. Go to sleep."
Jess held her, caught somewhere between heaven and hell. Having already tasted the honeyed sweetness of her mouth, he craved more. His mind was at peace, holding her in his arms, but his body was crawling with need. Slow, he reminded himself, slow and gentle. Saber was worth every ache, every sleepless night. She needed protection whether she knew it or not, because if Whitney had put her in a hole in the ground and she had escaped, then he would be coming after her.