Deadly Game (GhostWalkers, #5)(123)

She nodded. “Sit down. Let me look at you.” Already her hands were sliding over his body, searching for damage. She touched his face with gentle fingers. “I was afraid for you, Ken, and I needed to be with you, not stuck down in a tunnel somewhere.”

“I’m sorry, baby.” He brought her hands to his mouth. “I know what you’re like, and I should have tried harder to see your point of view. I swear I want to see your point of view, but the thought of your life at risk . . .”

“Is how I feel when you risk yours,” she said. “You have to accept what I really am, Ken. I see you with your need to keep me close, and to protect me. I love that in you. I can even accept the fact that you’re going to be an idiot every time a man looks at me, but you have to accept me for who I am. I was raised practically since birth as a soldier. That’s who I am and you’re not going to change that. I’m not going to change that. You’re going to have to take me on as a partner. Eventually, if you do, your brother will. All three of us can protect Briony and any children our two families have.”

“What if I can’t get there, Mari? What if I don’t have that kind of courage?”

“You do,” she assured him, “or I would have kept running down that mountain. Come on.” She tugged at his hand. “You need a shower. Why don’t you let Jack take care of all the details, and let me take care of you?”

“Say it again.”

“What?” Firmly she closed their door, and began to peel the ragged shirt from his powerful shoulders.

He caught her in a hard, bruising grip, gave her a little shake. “Stop teasing me. I’ve waited a long time.”

“We could always compromise,” she offered sweetly. “You give me what I want, and I’ll give you what you want.”

He lifted her into his arms. “You’re going to say it a hundred times before we’re done here,” he warned.

And she did.





Turn the page for a sneak peek at Christine Feehan’s upcoming paranormal romance,

SAFE HARBOR

Available in July 2007 from Jove!

“ You want to tell me how the hell we got into this mess?” Jackson Deveau demanded as he whipped his arm around Jonas Harrington’s waist and half-dragged him toward the flimsy cover of an industrial garbage container. “We have a nice comfy job on the Mendocino coast and you decide you’re bored out of your mind, which is pure bullshit by the way. You’d think getting shot once was enough for you.”

If he could have answered, Jonas would have sworn at Jackson, but he only managed a glare as he forced his feet to keep moving. The pain was relentless, stabbing white-hot like a branding iron. He could feel the breath rattling in his lungs, bile rising and reality fading in and out. He had to stay on his feet. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let Jackson pack him out on his back—he’d never hear the end of it. Jackson was right. They’d made new lives, lived good, found a home. What the hell had he been thinking?

Why wasn’t it ever enough for him? Why did he have to keep going back, over and over, dragging Jackson and other men down into the muck and garbage of the world? He was no noble crusader, yet time and again he found himself with a gun in his hand, going after the bad guys. He was weary to death of his need to save the world. He didn’t save anyone; he only got good men killed.

The alley was dark, the shadow of the surrounding buildings rising above the small lane turning the edges black. They kept the garbage container between them and the street where it seemed everyone with a gun and a knife was hunting them. Jackson propped him up against a wall that smelled of times Jonas didn’t want to remember, where blood, death, and urine all mixed together into one potent brew.

Jackson checked their ammo situation. “Can you focus enough to shoot, Jonas?”

That was Jackson, all business. He wanted to get the hell out of there and was going to make it happen. The men hunting them had no way of knowing they had a tiger by the tail. When Jackson used that particular tone of voice, men died, plain and simple.

They had to get past the entrance of the alley and it was blocked by the Russian mobsters. It had been a recon mission. Nothing more. They weren’t supposed to be seen—damn it, they hadn’t been seen—but someone had tipped the Russians off and it had all gone to hell fast, turning into a bloodbath, their driver down, and Jonas taking two bullets. Neither hit was serious, but he was losing enough blood to make the wounds fatal. Jackson had two knife streaks across his belly and chest, evidence they’d gotten just a little too close to the hornet’s nest. Whatever they’d managed to get on film, the mobsters wanted it back.

No way.

Jackson slapped a full clip into Jonas’s gun and shoved it into his hand. “You’re good to go.” He slammed home a full magazine and shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet. “I’m going up top for a few, Jonas. You put another pressure bandage on the wound in your side and no matter what, stay on your feet. All hell’s going to break loose in a few minutes and you’ve got to be ready to run.”

Jonas nodded. Sweat dripped off his face and beaded on his body. Yeah. He was ready to run—and fall flat on his face—but he’d keep his feet and the gun and back Jackson in whatever crazy scheme he had. Because, in the end, he could always count on Jackson.