The Last Mission of the Living (The Last Bastion #2)(58)

“What was that for?” he wondered.

“You looked sad,” Lindsey answered.

“I’ll look sad more often then,” he teased her, grinning.

She gave him another firm kiss. “I like kissing you when you’re happy.”

“So I’ll do that more often, too!”

“That’s the spirit!” Looking about his bedroom, she bit her bottom lip. “So... now what?”

“How about I make some fake tacos for dinner and we can watch vids for a bit?”

“After,” Lindsey said, her fingers playing with the buttons on his coat.

Taking her hands into his, he stared down at her sadly. “We can’t keep doing this when we go out there. We have to put distance between us.”

“When we’re on duty and doing our job. Not now.” Lindsey’s eyes looked dark and mysterious in the lighting of his room.

Kissing her fingertips, he nodded. “Okay. I just don’t want to make it harder for us.”

“Harder how?” Lindsey raised her eyes, and the look within them seemed to warn him to caution.

How easy it would be to spill his heart out and hope she accepted the offering. Instead, he gave her a cocky smile. “Well, you’re going to have to break the habit of giving me those come hither looks and trying to get me naked every chance you get.”

“I’ll break it later.” Lindsey slipped her hands free from his and started to unbutton his coat again. “For now, I insist on you getting naked and f*cking me senseless.”

Torran didn’t argue further.



*



Feet propped on the low table set in front of the older, yet still very nice leather couch, Lindsey regarded Torran through her lashes while he finished dinner in the kitchen. He was chatting away about special spices and his cooking expertise, but she was admiring him and not really paying attention. She was pleasantly sore from exercise and sex and wanted to pretend all was right with the world for the rest of the evening.

On the vid, the news was discussing the mission to retrieve food. It was the biggest story, even removing Admiral Kirkpatrick’s upcoming trial from the main headlines. Dressed in one of Torran’s black undershirts and her panties, she stretched her legs out, admiring the new limb.

“...that is how I get the protein to taste almost exactly like meat.”

The news changed to cover a small food riot at one of the distribution centers. Lindsey frowned as she watched the footage of the SWD security forces shooting electroshock discs into the crowd of frightened people. According to the reporter, a false rumor of the warehouse nearly being out of food had resulted in terrified parents rushing to the facility.

“...so it gets just the right consistency. Salsa is a very delicate process...”

Recordings of the continuing clearing of the valley took the place of the riots. The mesh walls now stretched across large swaths of land and Sci-Tech teams were dispatched to test the soil and approve areas for planting.

“...it’s really very difficult to find an avocado...”

“Torran,” Lindsey called out.

Glancing up, Torran lifted his eyebrows. “Yes?”

Lindsey slid off the couch and walked over to him. She loved the way his eyes followed her. It was if every movement she made mattered to him. Staring into his brown eyes, she knew they’d made a terrible mistake, but that there was no going back.

Tilting her head, she gazed at him through her eyelashes. “Can we really do this mission together?”

He returned to warming up tortillas on his small stove. “You said we could, remember? So, yeah, why not?”“

“Because we’re falling in love with each other.” There. She’d said it.

“Yeah,” he drawled out in an especially thick Scottish accent. “What of it?”

“So you admit it?” It had taken Vaja until their break up to swear his love to her.

Torran glanced at her. “Yeah. I do.”

“That you’re falling in love with me?”

“I admit you’re falling in love with me.” He flashed a devilish smile at her.

“Asshole.”

“Nah, not an *. I just planned to say the words at a little more appropriate time. Earlier, in fact.”

“I know. I stopped you.”

“With sex.”

“Mind-blowingly good sex,” she amended.

Torran finished warming up the tortillas and started scooping the brownish protein mush he’d concocted into the center of them. “It really, really was. But, yeah, I was going to tell you earlier because—”

“We’re complicating things.”

“Exactly.”

Lindsey sighed. “We could tell them we’re involved.”

“They’ll pull one of us off the mission.”

There was no way Commandant Pierce would allow them to remove Lindsey, so that meant Torran would be removed. The idea was tempting.

“I want to go,” Lindsey said, and meant it. She was scared, but she knew she had to keep Maria and Dwayne out of the hands of the SWD.

“I do, too.” Torran finished making the tacos and set them on small plates.

Lindsey stared at him and wondered when or if he’d know about the Sci-Tech’s mission. Maybe he already knew. She wanted to ask him, but didn’t dare. A hard knot of sadness formed inside her as she realized already the mission was dividing them.