Blindside (6 page)

He walked through the hallway dark and full of ghosts. The students running down to class, kids he thought of as his and tried to teach confidence and inner strength to deal with never ending pressure. And always Lana with her quick smile, curls spilling around that heart-shaped face, her gold eyes full of laughter.

 
“You gonna ask me out for a drink?” She looked at him over her shoulder, water from the drinking fountain sliding over the delicious curve of that full lower lip.

The damp curl teasing the erotic line of her slender neck beckoned him to move closer. “I’m scared of your big brother,” he said, unable to tear his gaze away or give her the real answer.

She turned toward him, her body hidden under the bulk of the heavy-duty gi top, a blue belt wrapped around her waist. “I have a feeling you could handle my brother,” she murmured, and wiped that decadent mouth with the back of her palm. “You keep looking at me in class. I figured….” A sliver of disappointment flashed in her eyes. “I always end up sticking my foot into my mouth. Sorry if I embarrassed you.”

He still had time to turn around, go back to New York and fight for cash and drugs. Then he brushed by the same water fountain she‘d pinned him with her gaze years, eons ago.

As if she heard his thoughts, Lana walked toward him in the semidarkness, her neck gleaming under the muted light. She looked down at the floor, and Mac took a selfish moment to watch her lift a bottle of water to her lips.

For the past three years, he’d fantasized about that lush erotic mouth.

“No longer use the fountain?”

With a jolt, she shoved huge wraparound shades over her eyes to look at him, her stance that of a deer frozen in headlights.

“Lana.”

Her upper lip curled up in the left corner. Her eyes stayed hidden under opaque pieces of glass. “Mac.” Same voice, satin edged in steel. “Why are you here?”

He watched nerves hammer a tattoo inside the fascinating hollow in her throat. “I had to see you.”

“Yeah? Here I am.” Smooth words to go with a sweep of her arm, sarcasm laced with sweet poison.

“I saw you at Flamingo’s last night. Didn’t think it was your kind of crowd.”

“Did I surprise you?” Cool, polite, with a small hint of bring-it-on.

“I want to help you.”

“I’m not a fucking invalid.” She ripped the shades off, those eyes of bruised gold burning with sudden fury. He hated the way his body went ramrod hard. In silence, Lana pushed past him, her heat beckoning him with a delicious, taboo scent.

“Hold on.” Mistake to touch her. Mistake to take hold of her wrist and feel all that smooth heat trembling against his skin.

“Let go. Right now.” Quiet command, sharp-scented fear.

“Somebody up there?”

Shards of light sprayed through the darkness. She jerked against him, grunting with pain, her body going down, tense and heavy. She doubled over and Mac grabbed her arm, clutching her elbow, then something wet and warm scalded his fingers before she ripped her arm out of his hands.

“Turn the damned lights off!” He knelt beside her, forcing himself not to touch her again. She took long, calming breaths, head bowed, gold curls hiding her face, her sunshades on the floor beside her.

“Sorry.” Ryan, the green belt, looked at them with open-mouthed fascination. “Just needed something from my locker.”

Lana rose, damp hair curling wild around her neck, her eyes once again hidden by dark glasses. Her lips were tight and pale with pain. “It’s fine. I’m done here.”

The green belt disappeared into the locker room. Mac rubbed her blood between his fingers and watched her walk away.

***

So much for the
did he or didn’t he know
question
.

Lana concentrated on the deceptive simple skill of putting one foot in front of the other in the bright glare. The wooden banister felt smooth and cool under her fingertips, and she focused on its surface as a way to calm her pounding heart.

He knew. He had to. And stupid idiot her couldn’t get past the thrill of having him touch her with those firm hands and strength born out of discipline and spirit. In that swift nanosecond, she’d been thrown back into another time, when he held her against his pounding heartbeat, his large palm cradling her head, his voice calling her name from a searing blind darkness.

“Lana. Wait, damnit. Wait.” His velvet voice had her muscles clenching, her body yearning for something she couldn’t have.

She kept on moving with small, steady steps, waving in Wojo’s direction and forcing her face into a pleasant little grin. Relief hit her when she reached the back door and pushed outside into the misty air. San Mike was never completely dark, but she felt better in the fogged up parking lot, under the dim streetlights.

“Hang on.” Once more his fingertips brushed over her arm, and she was hurled back into memories.

 
“I said hang on.” Warm fingers closed on her upper arm. “I didn’t say I was embarrassed.”

She wouldn’t play tug of war with him. “No problem. It’s all fine.” The parking lot was bright with the setting sun, the clouds pink and purple above them. She loved dusk, the burst of color. The way the dying rays of light lit up the sharp green of his eyes
.

Despite the shock of pleasure at his touch, she snarled. “When you’re an invalid, people think they need to touch you in order to help. A hand on your elbow, fingers on your shoulders. A helpful arm around your back.” She ripped her arm out his grasp. “I don’t like being touched.”

In the low lights, she could barely make out his harsh features.

“You’re no invalid. But you’re bleeding.”

“I’ll live.” The words came out before she could stop them. She braced for what came next: the anger, the demand for answers. Answers she would have loved to have herself.

 “Look, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

She forced herself to give him a bright vicious smile. “Hey, I’ll live.”

His eyes flashed, a dark fire that made him dangerous, made her pulse take a hard leap. “I just can’t…date right now.”

She shrugged and hoped her cheeks weren’t bright red. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“No, guess I don’t.”

She didn’t know how or when he crowded her against the door, not touching her, his heat a physical caress between them. Under the crossover folds of his uniform top, his chest gleamed from a recent workout, his skin a polished gold, crisp hair dusting over rock hard muscle.

“You’re the Night Rook.” His damning words weren’t a question.

Her pulse jackhammered in her throat. “What makes you say that?”

She should have run, like a voice inside her head demanded. And yet, Lana allowed Mac to push her coat sleeve up over her arm, her body trembling, frozen. Under the light of fog-clogged streetlamps, the Kanji tattoos on her wrist gleamed dark streaked with thin rivulets of blood.

“I cut myself.” She lifted her chin and dared him to call her a liar. “Can’t see, remember? Just a helpless invalid.”

Her breath caught when his thumb gently traced over the letters.

She could partially see him, that mouth granite hard.

 “You think I don’t want this?” He still didn’t touch her, the promise of his mouth hovering less than an inch above her lips. Palms against the door, he had caged her between cold wood and heat of his massive body. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t—” He leaned closer, each rapid heartbeat pulling him down toward her.

Then someone pushed open the door, and even as she was teased with his taste on her lips, the moment was already broken.

“You need stitches.” In a swift move, Mac slid her sleeve up to expose the medical tape she’d stuck to her skin.

“I don’t like hospitals.” The memory of one sliced through the déjà vu.

“Last night, the Rook got cut. Right here, above the elbow.” He let go of her arm to thrust her cape at her, the action a sharp jolt.

Lana pressed the wadded fabric against her wound and used the sting of pain to keep herself focused. He knew—the thought was a sharp thrill. “I just told you, I cut myself.” Sunshades in place, she walked toward the street, knowing he followed right behind her, his presence as much a threat as comfort, the passing car lights quick and vicious jolts of pain.

“You looked damned good in leather.”

That silk whip of a phrase sent chills down on her spine, and Lana clenched her thighs against the rough seductive onslaught. Just like her cape, the leather outfit was practical as much as vain. No fibers for the cops, and no need to worry about seep-through bloodstains or bulky layers to hinder her movements. And the invalid part of her wanted to look hot.

Yeah, you’ve succeeded
. “Why are you here, Mac?” She hadn’t meant for her voice to come out breathy. Instead she focused on her steps, putting one foot in front of the other on the wet concrete, occasionally glancing up despite the pain.

“Have dinner with me. A drink. A cup of coffee.” A plea and a velvet demand. The words stopped her in her tracks despite the people swarming around her, pushing her sideways. His hand steadied the non-injured elbow, keeping her safe in the crowd.

His touch fell away and Lana resumed walking, knees weak, shame and a secret thrill buried in her heart. “A little late to ask me out, don’t you think?”

He walked alongside her, no longer touching, and yet his presence offered some comfort. “I want to help you, Lana. I know exactly how you feel.”

She forced a bright and vicious smile. “Do you? Do you really?”

A crush of fingers through his hair. “Look, I’m sorry. About you, about Nicky—”

Arousal withered and died under her brother’s name. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

The eight o’clock crowd streamed through and around them, boots and sneakers slopping the mist and rippling the lights reflecting in the puddles.

“I
am sorry
.”

“I never blamed you.” The truth stuck in her throat like a fist clenching raw tears.

“I blame me. And I have to live with that.” He crossed his hands over his chest. “Why are you doing this?”

The game had gone too long to keep pretending. “Maybe I get off playing hero.”

This time, the hand clutching her arm wasn’t nearly as gentle. He pulled them both out of the stream of people, into a small alcove at the entrance of The Red Sage café. She could see more of him in the shadows, the hard eyes, the grim expression. The passing cars lit up his face with harsh streaks of gold.

“Being a hero is about saving innocents. It’s not about judging. You’re a cop, you know all this.”

She laughed at that. “I haven’t been a cop for the last three years. Before then, I didn’t last a year on the street.”

“Doesn’t change what you are.” Once more, he pushed a hand through short black hair. “I keep dreaming about that night. The smell, the screams. The fire. I prayed I’d get there in time.” He shook his head as if pushing away the razor sharp emotion. “I didn’t.”

“I’m alive, Mac.” She sharpened her voice. “You saved me. I blamed myself for Nicky’s death for a long time but, I swear, I never blamed you for anything.”

“You should have.” His ravaged voice floated over the crowd surging past them, pushing her closer to him while his gaze focused in the past. “I sent shields to you. And you absorbed them. That only happens to those of my kind.”

“Better alive and blind then burned and dead.” A lame attempt at humor, because the real question charred her throat. She’d wondered how and why it happened, for a long time considering his gift a curse. “I’m not one of your kind.”

His mouth stretched into a bitter smile. “You were adopted.”

“So?” Another shower of chills sparkled down her back. “What does that have to do with anything?”

A hard shove from behind sent her into his chest.. Time stopped, a frozen moment strung out with pain and longing.

“Everything,” he muttered. “Has to do with everything.” And with a groan, Mac lowered his mouth.

Run. Run before it’s too late
.

Lana couldn’t move, trapped by his palm holding her hand over his heartbeat, his skin calloused and hot….

No choice but to rise up and meet his lips, his taste a silent promise. Her hand fisted over the lapel of his jacket, dragging him closer, the thrill of touching him pulsing inside her veins.

The world stopped for a breathless moment. She reveled in his taste on her lips, coffee and man, his mouth relentless, hungry. And then he broke the kiss with firm palms over her shoulders to set away.

“You have to stop.” Low, guttural voice, as if the words shredded him from the inside. “Stop before someone gets hurt. Before it’s too late.”

She blew at the damp hair in her eyes, confused, aroused, and angry. “I’m doing what I have to.”

“Why? For Nicky?”

“Yes.” Simple as that.

He shook his head, the stubble on his cheeks making his face appear even harsher. “He was a cop, Lana. Like you. Think he would want this?”

She crossed her arms against the chill and forced a smirk. “Doesn’t matter what he wants. He is dead.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“It’s all I have now.” The mist around her became a shower of icy water. “You have no real evidence as proof. If the cops ask me anything, I’ll deny it.”

“Williams wants you off the street. I doubt he’ll be doing any asking.”

Shock was another sticky layer over a mess pit of emotions. “You’re working for him?”

Unreadable, hard gaze. “I am.”

She lifted her chin and dared him to touch her. “You going to arrest me?”

“Like you said—no proof. Yet.” His voice lashed over her, dark and silken promise. His hands were once again inside his pockets, his long coat whipping with the wind. “Be careful.”

She gave a snort, as fake as it was arrogant. “Is that a threat?”

His smile devoid of all mirth, Mac turned away to walk into the mist.