Lethal Reaction Read online

  He thrust his hips to my ravenous rhythm, sinking deeper in my hunger. I drove punishing fingers in his glutes, a warning not to draw away, not before I had my way, my fill.

  He didn’t. He knew I’d curtail the liberties he needed with me in return. The crazy man had actually feared there was a limit to the intimacies I needed with him. I appreciated the selfless consideration and all but—argh! As I said, he’d learned his lesson.

  Problem was, relinquishing inhibitions had morphed what had started as phenomenal sex into a rising addiction. One neither of us could, or wanted to fight.

  Uh—and the problem was…?

  A convulsive hand in my hair and the suns of his eyes going supernova told me. He was climaxing. So was I, just causing his pleasure, taking it, witnessing it in glorious sight and sound, just rubbing against him to the rhythm of his release.

  Then I was draped over him, sharing the torment of the pleasure overload. I reached for him again, needing to feel him and—whoa.

  I’d once commented his erection must have an online hook-up to his steel will and rock-hard muscles. His response had made me ravish him in a nightlong frenzy.

  It’s just a symptom of all the things I feel for you, each one unbending, unending.

  His words echoed in my head now, in my flesh. He was plastered all over me yet too far. Separate. And it was no longer about hunger, and all about him and being merged with him.

  “Damian—fill me…”

  I could see the sequence of emotions unspooling across his face as my whimper shattered him. He flipped me around, bore down on me, opened me around his hips, raised mine off the bed, held them in one hand, the other supporting his angle as he rose halfway on both knees.

  Then he plunged.

  He knew. That I was suffocating for his unsheathed flesh in mine, the razing friction, the beyond-my-limits expansion, the mutual domination and captivation. And he gave it all to me. Impaled me all the way to my heart.

  He slammed into me and I screamed for more, knowing he had more, as hard and as long as I could survive. Then the tidal wave was cresting again and it didn’t seem I would, the brutal build-up, the crashing implosion. He’d once said he’d die in my arms, of a pleasure overdose. Every time with him felt like his prophecy would come to pass. An ecstatic end.

  And I pleaded his name, begging him to join me in oblivion. He did, in jets of completion, roars of surrender. The sensation of his release inside me, the concept, overloaded my system on another heaving orgasm.

  I waited until he filled my arms, murmuring his inventive litanies of love and satisfaction, his mass the anchor I needed to tether our magic into reality. Then I let go of it all.

  I floated back into this realm to steaming vapor and passion. To Damian all around me, cleansing and soothing. Then he carried me to bed, sprawled beneath me, kneading out my last tatters of pain and stress.

  I was counting the scary-slow cadence of his heartbeats, when a rumble filled my head. “Bad day?”

  Sudden pressure seared my eyes, my chest. I pressed both into him, trying to assuage the burning. “Hell.”

  Two months of so-called recuperation and Matt, my co-leader, my powerhouse of a big brother was still a blurred shadow of himself. He’d been hit the worst, but Ayesha, Fadel, Ishmael, Doug and Megumi weren’t that much better. Spending my days in what was looking like a futile struggle to rehabilitate them was my own personal definition of hell.

  A gentle caress heralded a gentler prod. “No improvement?”

  “None.” This was sobbed.

  He traced my profile with a thoughtful forefinger. “They’re healing more than flesh and bones like us, amor. And they’ve come a long way from raving messes or comatose masses. I’m a more objective judge than you here. I’ve seen them almost everyday for the past two months and they are getting better. You just want them in fighting form all at once not gradually.”

  Which was probably right. I wasn’t known for my patience. Or my ability to watch my loved ones suffer from the sidelines. I nuzzled his neck in gratitude. That he understood. Existed.

  Then in an afterthought, I bit him. “Have I told you lately how I hate smartasses who’re always right?”

  He threw his head back, the mane he’d let grow halfway down his neck fanning a swathe of raven satin on the dark green linens, giving me a better bite. “I love the way you hate me.”

  “Yeah, you would.” I bit him again, licked the sting away, overflowing with thankfulness that his injuries had been reversible, that nothing had taken him from me. “So how was your day? Besides doing thousands of push-ups, handstands and squats?”

  “I went out.” Uh-oh. I shouldn’t have asked. He “went out” and we ended up arguing. “I wanted to tell you about it as soon as you entered, but Lizzie was there. Then I touched you, tasted you and everything else ceased to matter.”

  I nuzzled him, almost dissipating in him again. Yet somewhere in my testosterone-irradiated brain something echoed.

  He bit my nipple. I convulsed in his arms. “Damian…”

  “Sí, amor, sí.”

  He thought I couldn’t wait for an encore. And I couldn’t. But there’d been something in his eyes before passion had overridden all again. It worried me, enough to subdue my arousal. “You had something to tell me…?”

  He relinquished my nipple with a long, reluctant suckle. “Sí. I had a breakthrough today that makes a positive ID of our enemies imminent.”

  Figured. Damian was obsessed with finding out who’d corrupted The Order for Peace, PACT’s parent organization. Those who’d financed Jake and turned Damian’s own outfit against him.

  “I’m already starting to plan our pre-emptive strikes,” he added.

  “Uh—you lost me somewhere. What pre-emptive strikes?”

  “So which orgasm short-circuited your brain?”

  I poked the arm attached to the hand caressing my right breast. “It’s functioning well enough to recall that the plan was to hide, Damian, not strike first and risk exposure.”

  “Then who was I talking to when we agreed that exposure is a matter of time?” I shook my head, had it caught in his grip as his eyes tried to cow mine into embracing his logic. “With Ed working for them, it’s a certainty. Ed wasn’t just my second-in-command, he was my best friend and is almost as good as I am. He knows everything about me and you, knows most of what happened in Colombia. He’ll eventually put everything together. Then he’ll know how to find us.”

  Damian’s reversal towards Ed was fully justified. He’d sold our secrets and Damian’s life to Jake in return for the experimental treatments that had saved his lover, Anna.

  At first Damian had excused him, had said he’d have done the same for me. But as his betrayal had sunk in—let’s say I wouldn’t wish to be in the area when Damian caught up with Ed. I had no idea how I’d extracted his promise not to hunt Ed down. Or how long it would be before he broke it, too.

  “Ed was desperate with Anna fast succumbing to a rare and incurable illness and pregnant. Now she’s out of danger, why should he betray us anymore?”

  “What if she’s no longer receiving the treatments Jake secured now he’s dead? What if they stop working? You think Ed won’t sell us out again to whomever will keep on treating her?”

  “It wouldn’t only be us he sells out this time, Damian, but the whole world. I don’t think he’d go that far.”

  He doused my optimism in scorn. “He’s already sold out the whole world. He knew full well I was the only one who could stop your madman ex from annihilating untold millions and he got me captured. I would’ve been killed right off if Jake’s obsession with you didn’t make him keep me alive long enough to gloat and mess with your mind.”

  So he was right. Still… “Ed has no way of knowing what happened after we boarded that plane. I can’t see how he’ll put everything together and pose a further threat to us. And then there were no raids of our old Sanctuaries or attacks on anyone we left behind, or on those c
onnected to us who didn’t go deep undercover. I’m starting to believe they’ve given up on the whole thing, that what happened in Colombia is forever buried.”

  His lips twisted. “Amazing what rosy conjectures you’re coming up with. If not more amazing than your willingness to gamble on them.”

  “Whatever they are, there’s no urgent danger here, not to us, not to the world. The agent’s secrets are buried with Jake. He kept critical research info in his mind and destroyed the manufacturing Colombian plant to make sure he remained indispensable to his sponsors. No one will be able to fill the gaps any time soon to make more agent.”

  The only danger was the tons of agent already in existence. But I’d thrown the responsibility of hiding it into my former GCA patron and mentor’s lap. With Sir Howard Ashton’s clout as a billionaire humanitarian/activist/industrialist/I-don’t-know-what-else, I had every hope its existence would be kept a secret until he found a safe and final way to dispose of it.

  As for my extralegal humanitarian/vigilante/medical aid operation, we’d vacated our Sanctuaries from day one, removed all evidence of our activities there and moved to the hiding places and identities Damian, my Dad and Sir Ashton had arranged for us. And so far so good. Why stir things now?

  Damian told me why. “The only scenarios to consider here are worst-case ones. That’s the only way to remain alive in this business. I have to assume Ed is keeping his knowledge of those of your team he knows survived as a trump card. By now the enemy must have realized the agent wasn’t dispersed through the plane’s reported explosion since no epidemic has swept Russia. Even if they think Russian authorities are suppressing news of it, it should have spread to neighboring countries by now. Once they realize Russian authorities don’t have it, they’ll do anything to find out who does. If they work out we’re alive, it will cost us our one advantage now. Even if they don’t, they’ll think the survivors have it, and turn to Ed. He’ll use his trump card if he needs it, and with Anna at their mercy he surely will. And even if we destroy the agent, good luck convincing them of that. A one in a billion hope of retrieving it will keep them coming after us and ours till the end of time.”

  “OK, so everything you say is possible. But I can’t condone going out on your proposed pre-emptive strikes. You and me are the only two barely back on our feet. My responsibility is to keep my people safe while they continue recuperating. If we can continue escaping our enemies’ notice, I won’t incite them into an all-out war none of us is in shape to wage.”

  His gaze leveled on me, tempestuous, frustrated.

  Then he let out a laugh that almost grazed me. “Ms. Jump-first-and-don’t-even-bother-looking-later trying to be Check-all-side-mirrors and All-bases-covered Woman. Too funny for words.”

  “I’m just saying our smokescreens are working, and we should gather resources and strength before we make any move…”

  “And I’m saying the time to strike is as soon as I get a positive ID. You’re well enough, the rest of your team, apart from your big brass are OK. I’m saying if we don’t make our move the moment we get a chance, we won’t get a second chance.”

  “Holy role reversal, Damian! Where’s the cool black ops agent who gets results at a minimum cost to his team?”

  “You’re damn right I’m not cool. My best man is out there, a loose cannon. You want to imagine his damage potential? Imagine me as one. Imagine yourself. You made me promise not to eliminate him and now he’s out there coming up with answers to sell to the highest bidder. While I was forced to send my loyal people out there on their own, to protect them from retaliation meant for me. Now I can’t even get intelligence on any of them…”

  “Are you sure that’s not the real reason behind all this? You’re not just going crazy doing nothing, thinking that your career is over, that no one remained loyal to you?”

  He went still. Didn’t even breathe. For a whole minute.

  Then he rose off the bed, his movements measured as he reached for his pants, his eyes as he looked down at me unfathomable. “You think I’m ego-driven and fragile? That I’m feeling lost without my team?” A disgusted huff escaped him. “Why am I even asking? You’ve been giving me enough heavy-handed hints. But now you’ve said it straight. You already made it clear you’ll never believe anything I say ever again. But now it’s even worse. You believe I have nothing to contribute now I’m cut off from my past resources, that I was all about those. You think I’m deadweight, professionally and personally.”

  His statements fell on me like a hail of whiplashes. I jerked, in denial, in horror. Had I made him think that? Feel that? Did I think or feel any of that?

  Reeling, I struggled up on my knees, reached for him. “C’mon, Damian, don’t be like that…”

  He took a step back, out of reach. “I am like that, Calista. But that’s not what you respect and value, is it? I understood you have priorities and that I’m not among them. I agreed you should call the shots where your team is concerned, but I thought you knew me enough to know I’d always act in your best interests, that I’d do anything to keep you safe. But you insist on not knowing me, on mistrusting me, on giving anyone but me, even our enemies, the benefit of the doubt. I’ve been trying to sweep it all under the rug, and like a fool, I thought maybe passion would bring us closer. But it hasn’t, has it? It just made it all worse, compartmentalized me—objectified me even. Outside of bed, being your stress reliever, you don’t want me in either your business or your life. And you know what? I don’t think I want to be in either, anymore.”

  “Damian, don’t say that. I love you…”

  “I don’t want you to love me now. I want you to trust me.”

  “I do! It’s just…”

  “No. No justs. I’m the one who’s been studying this, who knows our enemies, who’s been through this kind of scenario a thousand times. I know what I’m saying. I know this is the right thing to do and the time to do it. Trust me, Calista. Trust me.”

  “I can’t…”

  His eyes died.

  My heart imploded, a black hole of dread inside my chest.

  Unuttered words crashed into a pileup. I can’t take the decision for my team, not when they’re still devastated. If it were only me, I’d follow you. No matter what.

  But I was mute. Incapacitated. Lost. For the first time ever, he’d shut me out. Gone beyond my reach.

  Without another look, he turned away, dragged his suitcases out. I sagged back on my heels, naked, numb, watched him removing all evidence of his presence in our bedroom. Methodical. Final. He was really leaving.

  Leaving me.

  Say something.

  I couldn’t. Until he was heading for the door. Then I found myself wrapped around him.

  “Damian, just—just stop. Don’t—don’t—oh, just come back to bed…”

  And could I have said a worse thing at this crucial moment?

  Something slithered in his smile as he shrugged out of my containment. Scary. Sad. “Get a vibrator, Calista.”

  My lungs emptied. “You bas…” Breath deserted me again. He’d once commented he was a bastard for real, depriving me of the refuge of the generic insult forever. I choked on, “If-if you even think for a moment this is what I need you for…”

  He shrugged. “You never needed me, Calista. Not after I finished training you. You’ve been resenting the hell out of my presence in your life ever since. You hated everything I did to help you, my so-called intrusion and manipulation. You only cared that it was against your wishes, no matter how willful or self-destructive those were. But cheer up. You won’t have to put up with it ever again. From now on, you’re on your own.”

  I’d been shot before. Every word felt like the bullet that had torn through me, perforating my flesh, rupturing my insides.

  I couldn’t collapse in a bleeding mess now. I threw on my clothes, stumbled after him, caught him at the door.

  “Damian.”

  He turned, one daunting eyebrow raised.

>   Agree to his plans. Stop him walking through this door.

  But we both knew this was out of the question. That even if I did, the damage between us had already been done.

  Consistently and over a long period of time. And I’d been too wrapped up in myself and my team to notice.

  “Don’t I get a last request?”

  Something blipped in his eyes, extreme, possessive, protective. Then it was gone. “I’ll leave executing ex-lovers to you, Calista. You don’t get last requests when I’m setting you free. Setting both of us free.”

  Another bullet. Through the heart. “Seems all we do today is disagree.” His shrug was all what-else-is-new. “You’re not setting me free. You’re punishing me, hurting me.”

  “While I’m not so elevated I don’t wish it won’t hurt you, that’s not why I’m ending us. This isn’t punishment. Or manipulation. This is a decision. A long overdue one.”

  It was then tears came. “You really mean it? It’s over?”

  He surveyed my tears, receding further. “Seven years are enough time to know it’s not working, don’t you think?”

  The tears came faster. “It’s been barely seven weeks.”

  He shrugged again, his eyes no longer mine. “We started the moment our eyes met. I should have known better. I did. And I couldn’t help it. No more. We both have things to do, and from now on we’d be standing in each other’s way. Goodbye, Calista.”

  Screams fermented inside me. No. Not goodbye. Never that. I’ll only say that if one of us dies. And not even then.

  Out loud I said, “If this is goodbye, then take me to Mel.”

  I knew he visited her regularly. I always knew when he left me to go to her grave. He was going tonight.

  He’d refused my request pointblank. And I’d grown those tentacles. He’d leave me and I wouldn’t cling. But this meant this was my last chance to find out where Mel was buried.

  And here we were.

  The thud back to the here and now was even more agonizing than our hours-long drive here, when I’d had the time to believe this was really happening.