Page 66 of I Dream of Danger
Nick didn’t look triumphant and cocky, though. He looked stressed, almost in pain.
“Goddamn it,” he said suddenly, grabbed her hand and stood up. He walked fast to the door, pulling her stumbling behind him.
Elle looked back and saw Catherine half rise and her husband reach out to her and shake his head. She sat back down, looking troubled, and then the door opened, Nick pulled her into the corridor, and the door slid closed behind them.
Elle stopped, frozen. The first thing to strike her was the smell. The smell of a vast garden, of lush vegetation, sweet and fresh. The corridor was curved, one of many circling a huge central space filled with plants. Trees, bushes, flowering plants, leaves thick and glossy, thriving. The space was…amazing. Huge, like a city square, rising up to a ceiling. Or—a roof? A transparent roof studded with bright lights against the black night sky.
Down on the ground level someone was walking down a path, looked up and waved at Nick, who paid no attention to anything but getting them to the elevator at the end of the corridor.
She stumbled again, but instead of stopping, Nick put his arm around her waist and speeded up.
Elle didn’t know where they were going but wherever it was, they were going there fast.
* * *
Nick barely made it to the quarters Red and Bridget had just vacated because they had a brand-new baby. The first Haven citizen.
He felt like any minute now something would explode. His head. His skin. His dick. Something. Just itching to go up in flames. Something inside him that couldn’t be contained and was ready to blow.
He had to draw in a deep breath to be able to function even on the most basic level.
He tapped on the wall beside the door and a keyboard lit up. He turned to Elle and tried to keep the rasp of strong emotions—anger and relief and, well, horniness—from his voice. “For the moment, this is where you’ll stay, if you don’t want to stay with me.” He ignored the huge pump of his heart those words and that idea created in him. That Elle, finally with him again, wouldn’t want to stay with him, be with him. He punched in a four-digit code. “I’m putting in a temporary code. 2007, your birth year. You can change it later if you want.”
He looked at her, the implication a dark cloud between them. She might change it and not give him the new code.
The door whooshed open and he held his hand out. She ignored it. She crossed the threshold and he marched in right behind her.
That lovely face turned indignant. “I don’t know if I made myself clear, Nick, but I do not want to sleep with you.”
As soon as the door slid shut, he backed Elle up until her back hit the door with a thud, then moved in close. He was behaving like a real dick, but he couldn’t help himself. No way he could have stayed in the war room eating and talking with Elle right beside him even one second more.
Right now she was here, with him. So close he could touch her if he dared.
Nick slammed his hands on the door right beside her head. She was caged in by him, though he wasn’t touching her anywhere. If she really wanted to get away from him, he’d let her. It would kill him, but he could do it.
He hoped.
He wasn’t touching her anywhere, but it was as if his skin had developed some other sense or was able to reach out to her. He dipped his head, his nose shifting her hair away from her ear. “You don’t have to sleep with me, but damned if I’m going to leave you alone in here. You were comatose when I found you. You’ve been through hell. If you need something in the night, you don’t know how this place works. You won’t know how to call for help. And I’d just stay awake worrying about you. So if you don’t want me to touch you, I won’t. But I’ll be goddamned if I leave you alone here.” He pulled away and looked down at her.
Jesus, why did she have to be so fucking beautiful? She was even more beautiful than the last time he saw her. Over-the-top gorgeous, supersmart. A doctor, no less. Someone Catherine admired, and Catherine was one of the smartest people Nick knew.
Nick had thought of Elle almost every day since Lawrence. He’d memorized her. The last image of her sleeping in bed was one he’d carried inside him for ten years.
The super soft, pale-blonde hair like a cloud around her head, the light-blue eyes that looked like shards of summer sky, the high cheekbones, the shape of her head, that narrow torso, the puff of pale hair between those long, slender legs…every inch of her was in his head.
But there was a new Elle now, all grown up and, if anything, she was even more perfect than the young girl. He eagerly drank in all the new details of this new Elle, because though she was never leaving his sight again if he could help it, life had this funny way of whacking you in the head.
He would have sworn he would live the rest of his life in Ghost Ops. When his past had been wiped out and he’d taken the oath, with Lucius Ward and Mac McEnroe as his commanding officers, he knew this was to be his life forever more. And then Ghost Ops died, its forces scattered, accused of treason. What he thought would be an undying commitment proved to be short-lived.
So, yeah, you never knew.
So he drank in every detail of Elle, because life being what it was, she could disappear on him in a heartbeat.
Her skin was still ivory perfection. The few lines around her eyes did nothing to detract from her beauty. She’d filled out so she no longer had that lost-waif look. She looked strong and capable and held herself with authority.
God, he loved that.
He was just barely keeping himself from touching her. He had to keep his hips pulled back because his dick was pressing against his pants. It wanted to be inside her. Smart dick.
