Born to Darkness (11 page)

Shane woke up to find himself alone in the bed, still in the dark.

Or near dark.

A little bit of light was still streaming in through that crack he’d made between the bottom of the shade and the window frame. And then he realized that there was a glow coming from the main part of the apartment, too.

From here, it looked like candlelight.

He pulled off the blanket someone—Mac—had put over him, and found his jeans where he’d dropped them. He stepped into them and was still fastening the buttons as he went into the kitchen.

Where Mac had, indeed, lit a candle.

She was wearing his T-shirt. And even though he would’ve liked to believe that she was wearing it because it belonged to him, it was probably just the first thing she’d grabbed off the floor as she’d gotten out of bed.

Still, it looked great on her. It hit mid-thigh—she was that short—and he liked the idea that she was wearing it with nothing else beneath.

Holy shit, he was hot for her. Again. Already.

Although, if they were keeping score? She’d had three orgasms to his two. Which kind of meant he was winning, didn’t it?

“Hey,” she greeted him in that husky voice that belonged to a much bigger woman. “It was getting cold, so I, um, came out here to …”

She’d gotten the heat working again. Shane reached out toward the ancient radiator, which was definitely living up to its name.

“There must’ve been some kind of power surge,” she continued. “All of the circuits in the box were thrown.”

She had the built-in microwave running, but the light was off inside of the thing, so it was just whirring as the LEDs counted down from forty-seven. Forty-six, forty-five …

“I got the thermostat and the appliances back on line,” she reported, “but the lights …” She shook her head.

“Bulbs might’ve burned out. Power surges can do that,” he said, as part of him stood off to the side and gave himself a skull-duster at the inanity of their conversation. Why wasn’t he falling to his knees before her, and pledging his unending devotion and adoration?

Why wasn’t he over there next to her, kissing the hell out of her, and lifting her up onto the counter, which was the perfect height for him to push his way inside of her again?

She wanted him to do it. He could see it in the way she was standing, breathing, looking back at him—her nipples already tightly peaked beneath his T-shirt.

But the microwave dinged, and she turned away and reached up to open the door, which made his shirt ride up and …

Yeah, she was not wearing anything under there.

As she set her mug of tea on the counter, she glanced at him and he could see his reflection along with a whole lot of heat in her eyes. But then she sighed and said, “I have to go. There’s a situation at … Work.”

Her hesitation before saying that—
work
—made
him
hesitate. Was he reading this—and her—wrong? Was it really trepidation in
her eyes that he was incorrectly interpreting as heat? Was she looking for an easy excuse to get him to leave?

He kept his voice level, easygoing. “Okay. I’ll walk you over there.”

But she was already shaking her head.

“I’ll walk you to the T?” he tried, hoping that she’d say,
I won’t be that long. It’s kind of obvious that you woke up with a hard-on, and since I know just what to do with it, why don’t you wait right here until I get back?

But a woman who didn’t want to give him her full name wasn’t going to be comfortable with him hanging here, alone, at her apartment—assuming it was her apartment, as temporary and impersonal as this place appeared to be.

Instead she said, “I’ve got a bike,” which could have meant Trek, but probably meant Harley, as she brushed past him with both that candle and her mug, down the hall and into the bedroom.

The fact that she hadn’t offered him some tea of his own was another hot clue that she didn’t see him as anything more than a trick—a one-night hook-up. A quick shag and then
Have a nice life
.

But Shane had learned that if you didn’t ask the question, the answer you got was an automatic
no
. So as he followed her, he said, “I’d love to see you again.”

She didn’t respond right away, and he stopped in the doorway to the bedroom, watching her as she put both the candles and the mug down on the bedside table, and then pulled his shirt up over her head.

Mac.

Naked and candlelit.

Holy shit.

He was struck, again, by the fact that her breasts were fuller than he’d thought back in the bar. And he knew from experience that her skin was smooth and soft. All over. And—as she’d pointed out—completely unmarked. Which was unusual for a woman her age.

And for some reason, even though he loved seeing art on women, Mac’s lack of a single tattoo was a turn-on. Maybe because it was part of her mystery. Why
wouldn’t
she get one? When he’d asked her about it, she’d shrugged it off. But, she must have had a reason, and he was intrigued.

And how old
was
she, really? Her body screamed early twenties, but her attitude was older. And that attitude was another pretty hefty turn-on.

Along with her size. Which was weird. Shane had always been drawn to tall, slender, willowy women, while Mac was petite and compact. But even as small as she was, she was strong. Her shapely arms and legs were muscular—her thighs a little too big because of that. Too big, that is, according to the dictates of today’s screwed-up, looking-for-perfection world, where beautiful women regularly went under the knife.

Her hair was too short—also according to the world’s current interpretation of beauty—and her face … In certain light, she was breathtaking and almost angelic. In other light, she was what some would call quirky-looking, but others would use words that were far less kind.

Still, it would be hard for anyone to claim that there wasn’t something unique and compelling about her. Something that Shane found utterly appealing.

She glanced at him as she reached down to get her panties from where she’d tossed them onto the floor. As she met his gaze, it was all he could do not to crawl across the bed toward her, pleading for her not to leave.

She smiled then, a touch ruefully, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking, as she pulled her panties on. And then she reached for something that was on the bedside table, and said the words that made his heart leap. Truly. The damn thing did a full workout in his chest. “You got a cell?”

She wanted his number. She was standing there, holding her phone in her hands, ready to input his info into her address book.

Fuck
.

“I don’t,” he had to admit. Jesus, he was a loser. But she said
she liked honesty, so … “It was too expensive, so I, um …” He cleared his throat, in part because she was giving him her full attention, which was pretty darn distracting since she was still bare-breasted. “But I’ve got a freemail account. You can always reach me that way. I mean, yeah, there’s lag-time, because sometimes it’s not easy for me to get online. Except I’m betting I’ll have access to the Internet at this new place, where I’m … sort of working …”

“So … you gonna give it to me?” she asked.

And Shane met her eyes and smiled, because even though he knew she didn’t mean it
that
way, he couldn’t not smile at the images her words conjured up.

Mac realized, too, what she’d said and how it had sounded, and she laughed. “I meant your e-mail address, Navy. But believe me, if I had the power to stop time, we’d be back in that bed, and you’d be rocking my world again.”

Thank you, Mighty Creator. He’d rocked her world. He’d suspected as much, but it was fan-fucking-tastic to know for sure.

“Doberman7580 at gmail dot com,” he told her.

She spelled doberman, glancing up questioningly as she keyed in the address.

“Like the dog,” Shane said, shrugging. He had nothing to hide. Not from her. “It’s a random word and number. I had to change my address because the men in my old team were trying to contact me, and that wasn’t healthy for them.”

Mac nodded as she stepped into her pants, and stashed her phone in one of her many pockets. “I thought it might be some cute nickname leftover from … What’s that training called …?”

“BUD/S,” he told her. “Basic Underwater Demolition slash SEAL training.” There was nothing about the SEAL teams or their insanely competitive training that was even remotely cute, but Shane let it slide as he tossed her her sports bra. It had ended up on the floor on his side of the bed.

She pulled the bra over her head, then put on her tank, but then she said, “Shit, I almost forgot.”

She hurried around the bed and past him, back into the living room, and at first Shane thought she was … going for his jacket?
But she moved it aside and he saw her pick up a plastic Pharma-City bag, which she opened and …

She had a fresh box of the drug that had been nicknamed
the pill
. It worked as an STD annihilator, and the women’s version doubled as a powerful contraceptive. It didn’t matter when you took it—before, during, or after sex. It was good for a solid twenty-four hours in either direction. She cracked the box and tossed him one of the little baby-blue foil packets.

“Thanks.” And, huh, he just now realized that the entire box she was holding was blue—which was code for male only. The women’s pill was color-coded pink. They usually were marketed and packaged in combo packs—a pink with a blue. Of course there were blue/blue and pink/pink packs available, just as there were pinks without contraceptive, and blues that contained some bonus Viagra. He’d never paid much attention to them, other than to make sure he didn’t grab them by mistake when he was in the store.

The pills containing contraceptives had been outlawed in forty-eight states, with a forty-ninth coming fast, but the black market demand for them was still booming.

Mac took the blue box and the entire drugstore bag back into the bedroom with her as Shane opened the packet and swallowed the pill. She’d obviously already taken one, and okay, as he followed her, he didn’t want to think too much about that because the questions generated weren’t helpful. When had she taken hers? Recently, after getting out of bed? Or up to twenty-four hours ago, when she was with someone else?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that
was
jealousy he was feeling, and he tamped it back down. He didn’t even know this woman’s real name, so it was unlikely she’d be okay with him expressing his desire to own her.

So Shane kept his mouth shut and just breathed and watched while she stuffed the box and the bag into the drawer of her little bedside table. And when she bent down to pick up first one and then the other of her socks, he realized that she’d been walking around barefoot, and she hadn’t been limping.

At all.

“Your ankle seems much better,” he said as she sat on the bed.

“Yeah,” she said. “It is.” She rubbed her foot, then rotated it, and even seemed kind of surprised herself at how little it was bothering her. She looked over at him. “Thanks.”

“Hmm,” he said. “I’d like to think I’m responsible for, I don’t know, maybe … Relaxing you? So in that spirit, you’re very welcome.”

She didn’t laugh. She just sat there looking at him, almost as if she were trying to get inside of his head and read his mind.

Shane let her look, trying to emote a calm lack of desperation. Come on, Mac. Ask him to stay …

But then she said, “Shit,” almost under her breath. And she picked up his T-shirt off the bed and tossed it to him, before returning her focus to putting on her boots.

So much for his hopes of hanging here until she came back from work. But despite that ominous-sounding
shit
, the battle had not been lost. In fact, it had barely begun. He just had to be cool. After all, he knew where she lived, knew the bar where she hung out.

Shane breathed in deeply as he pulled his shirt over his head. God, she smelled impossibly good. He sat on the other side of the bed to put on his own socks and boots. “Can I ask you what you do?” he asked.

“You can ask,” she replied, “but I can’t answer.”

Can’t
was better than
won’t
. “So … CSO?” He was teasing, but he felt her stiffen, so he added, “It’s a lifelong fantasy. Gorgeous Covert Security Org operative takes me home, lets me rock her world …”

She did laugh then. “Yeah, sorry to disappoint but I’m seriously not CSO.”

“Which is what you’d say if you
were
.”

“For all I know,” she countered, “
you’re
CSO.”

“Yeah, well,” Shane said, “the CSO
is
where former SEALs tend to go, but that door kinda slams shut with the whole blacklisted thing.”

“That still seems surreal to me,” Mac told him. “You’re so …” She searched for the right word.

“Don’t say cute,” he requested. “Or anything with the word
boy
in it.”

She laughed and crawled across the bed toward him. He turned to meet her. To kiss her back. And Jesus, just kissing her was better than most of the full-on sex he’d had in his entire fairly long life.