In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(60)

“Make love to me,” she whispered.

Oh, God. Please. He was the flicker of an eyelash away from just jerking his jeans down and falling on her. Taking what was his to take.

He wrestled that urge right back down into the dark, primordial ooze whence it had come. This was too goddamned important.

“No,” he said gently. “You should sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

“I don’t want to sleep, Sam,” she said in a small voice. “He’ll come back. I hate it. I just . . . hate this.”

“He’s not here,” he said. “He’s just a thought pattern in your mind. Those can change.”

She snorted. “You make it sound so easy.”

He just shook his head and twitched the cover over them. “Let’s try a new technique. Go to sleep being worshipped for the spectacular goddess that you are. See if that vibe helps with your nightmares.”

She giggled. “And just how do you intend to worship me?”

He smiled at her and started kissing her hands.

It was a strange revelation, like the one he’d had about her feet. He’d never noticed hands before, but now, hers had suddenly become a shining, beautiful metaphor for her body, her soul. Elegant and well-formed, slender and strong. Her hands broke his heart and blew his mind and made his cock ache. They made tears well into his eyes, too.

Fortunately, by that point, she was asleep.

He didn’t stop kissing her hands even then. Let her sleep rocked in a cradle of passionate appreciation. A shield against nightmares. That strange ring Liv had given her looked good on her hand.

He just wished it was his own ring gleaming there.





CHAPTER 12

Sunlight strobed hypnotically through the conifers lining the highway. Sveti stared out of Sam’s car. She was exhausted, in spite of the fact that she’d slept through the night with no Yuri dreams. A fact so startling, she dared not even look at it too closely. She might jinx it.

Miles and Kev were in the car behind them. Lara, Edie, and little Jon had remained behind up at Cray’s Cove. This was the compromise: an armed escort, a night in Sam’s family home protected by Petrie Investment Industries corporate security staff, and Miles and Kev escorting them to the airport security gates the next day. Sam had proposed the plan this morning at breakfast, and put a blessed end to the awful, grinding fight with Tam, Val, and Nick. Thank God.

“Your family is not going to be thrilled,” she said. “Bringing me to their home to stay the night without permission?”

“They’ll hear about it after the fact. My father and sister are in Hong Kong, my grandmother is at the ranch in Wyoming with my sister’s kids. Nobody’s home but the staff. And it’s only one night.”

Sveti’s smartphone buzzed. It was Bruno, Kev’s adopted brother. She punched the button. “Hey, Bruno.”

“Yo, Sveti. I’m in your apartment. Lily coached me through clothes and toiletries, but where are your travel documents?”

She talked him through the gathering of her passport, credit cards, and driver’s license. The deal she’d made involved not going near either her or Sam’s residences, which necessitated that Bruno pack her lingerie, clothes, and makeup for her. Not ideal, but whatever.

She thanked him and ended the call. “He’s got my suitcase packed,” she said to Sam. “He’s heading to your house.”

Sam grunted. “I’d rather have him rummaging through my underwear drawer than yours.”

“You don’t even have an underwear drawer,” she said. “Just boxes. Why is that? Do you not feel at home in that house yet?”

“I don’t know. Just lazy, I guess.”

“Like hell you are. Anything you think is worth doing, you do, without hesitation. Even if a bullet through your flesh comes with it.”

He glanced at her, looking vaguely alarmed. “What’s your point?”

“No point. Just don’t try to make me underestimate you.”

“Ah. Well, speaking of bullets through my flesh,” he said. “Rachel told me you came to the ICU to see me, when I got shot last year.”

Her stomach clenched, as if she’d been caught doing something shameful. “Of course I came to see you. I was worried. Everyone was.”

“Everybody didn’t come sit with me for nights on end while I was unconscious,” he said. “That was just you, Sveti.”

She looked at the dense wall of trees. “So? What’s your point?”

“No point,” he said softly. “Just saying.”

He tried again after a few minutes. “Is that ring weaponized?”

“There’s a tiny blade that snaps out of it,” Sveti said. “It doesn’t have poison or explosives or corrosive spray. But it still saved Liv’s life, and Sean and Cindy’s, too. It’s a big deal that Liv gave it to me.”

“You’re not going to try taking that thing on the plane, are you?”

“Tam designed it with airline security in mind. Don’t worry.”

The thick, ornate ring made her hand look so delicate. “Just don’t cut yourself with it,” he muttered.

They arrived at the Petrie estate as dusk fell. Sveti stared around once they’d been buzzed through the gate, startled speechless. The grounds were amazing, starting from the drive through the forest, then the rolling green hills with white-fenced horse pastures and stables, leading to an enormous home on the hill built to resemble an Irish country manor in a beautifully landscaped garden.