Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(38)

The ground sloped sharply beneath her stumbling feet. A chain-link fence reared up. Miles veered to the left, leading them sharply downhill, pulling her behind him, so swiftly that she plowed right into his hard, crouching body when he stopped.

He pulled metal bolt cutters from somewhere on his belt, and sliced through the bottom of the chain-link fence with feverish haste.

Floodlights snapped on, illuminating the grounds with brilliant light, making the shadows sharper, blacker.

“Shit,” he hissed. “Now! Go! Slide under! On your back!”

She wiggled on her back, feet first, under the fence. The cut ends brushed across her face and her naked chest, claws raking, just hard enough to sting. Rocks and dirt tugged at her trailing hair. The hill got abruptly steeper on the other side of the fence, and the moment she was through, she lost her bearings and her balance and tumbled, rolling and bouncing down a steep, jagged gully, along with a generous shower of rocks. She landed with a gasp on the nearest place flat enough to break her fall, and clung there, bruised and disoriented.

He landed like a cat beside her a moment later, so gracefully, it was as if he had floated down. “You okay?” he whispered.

She dragged herself up, taking stock. “Not sure yet.”

His hands moved gently over her, assessing the damage. He’d taken off the gloves, and his bare skin was warm, calluses rasping, but his touch was very delicate and careful, sliding over her bare shoulders, goose-bumped in the chill. “You’re cold,” he said.

“I’m okay,” she said, and realized from the wobble in her voice that she was shivering violently.

He peeled off his jacket and his black sweatshirt. “Here,” he whispered. “Take these.”

She shrank back, but he shoved the sweatshirt over her head anyway, wrestling it down until she lifted her arms to help.

It was huge, the neck dangling loose over her bare shoulder, the hem hanging to mid-thigh. So warm. Like being hugged. The back was damp with his sweat. It smelled like a man who’d been running and fighting. Imbued with his vital energy. Shudders racked her chilled body, and her nipples tightened. Tears started into her eyes.

He tried to put the jacket on her, too, and she batted it away.

“No way!” she whispered fiercely. “You use that!”

He muttered something impatient, and yanked the jacket back on, then took her arm and pulled her to her feet.

The first step she took, she stumbled with on the sharp rocks, and fell onto her knees again. He crouched down and touched her bloodied feet with a hiss of dismay. “Shit, Lara!”

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“What happened to Anabel’s shoes?”

Lara shook her head. “Dropped them when I fell.”

Miles looked around. She couldn’t imagine what he could see in the pitch darkness, but after a few seconds he crouched, grabbed her arms and turned, draping them over his shoulders. “No time to look for them,” he said. “Grab on. Legs around my waist.”

She opened her mouth to protest that absurd idea, but the shouting voices swelled, getting closer.

“Lara.” His voice was gravely with exhaustion. “Please. I don’t want to die here.”

That jolted her into movement. She wrapped her arms around his huge shoulders, fingers tingling. He hoisted her legs up.

She hung on with all her strength. It felt so strange, to touch someone again. His contracted muscles were steely hard beneath her face, her hands, her clenched thighs.

She’d never held anyone that desperately close, not ever. Not even ex-lovers. It had been so long, since anyone had touched her at all, other than to slap or yank or kick.

Miles ran headlong down the steep hill in pitch darkness. The rays from the floodlights from above did not penetrate the thickets of foliage below, and he kept to the shadows, zigzagging deftly across the wide, deep gully. Every footfall was light and sure, even on the broken tumbled boulders and the steep rocky hillside.

Her voice jolted jaggedly out of her throat, broken by his thudding footfalls. “How do you see to run so fast?”

“I can see in the dark,” was his reply.

Oh, please. “How?” she demanded. “What, are you a vampire or something?”

Miles’ chest vibrated. “Like I don’t have enough problems. Can we talk about it later? I promise I won’t suck your blood.”

“Sure.” She hid her face against his neck, abashed. His sweaty hair was salty against her lips. He had a hot, animal taste. She liked it.

She hung on, as tightly as she could, her hands locked over the taut muscle and hot, naked skin that his open jacket revealed.

His hair tickled her nose. His body felt so vital, wiry and dense, so intensely concentrated. The bodies of her few ex-boyfriends had not felt remotely like this man’s body. He was a whole new order of being.

His flying strides created a headwind, as if she were galloping on a horse. They tore through thickets, boughs thwacking against their faces, her arms, his chest. She buried her face against his neck. His hair dripped with sweat.

Tears leaked out of her eyes. She tried to stop them, but she shook inside. Something frozen inside her was starting to melt. Just because she was touching another human being.

The first twinge of pain was like a tension headache. It intensified quickly, like a band of steel around her skull tightening.