Time Eternal (14 page)

With a frustrated growl, Skyla lowered her weapon and turned away from him to retrieve her clothes. His heart almost leaped out of his chest from seeing her lean, completely naked backside. So smooth, so seductive, and she was his to claim. Her sensuality was so honest, so blatant. It was as if she had walked around naked in front of strangers all the time. She did not hide her body or act coy. She moved gracefully, with confidence. And she had no idea how sexy that was, her confidence, her comfort in her own skin—her very naked, very sensual skin.

Facing away from him, she dropped the towel and bent down to pull on a pair of black tights over long legs and then up over her killer hips.
No underwear. Interesting.
His mind’s eye seized the moment and fantasized tearing the tights off her, bending her over the bed, and doing all sorts of wicked things to her, which most definitely involved warm, wet, tight spaces. He stifled a groan before he could censor the uncontrollable images in his mind, like a gentleman would have. And of course, his hard-on just got impossibly hard yet again.

Now she was raising her arms, elongating her sexy back while pulling on a thin, black sweater. Her pose was more erotic than any Renaissance master’s paintings he had seen, and he had seen them all, up close and personal. He clenched his fists and kept them at his sides so he would not charge at her like a starving man and make his fantasy come true, claiming her.
Shit and double shit.
He decided she needed to know that she should not be tempting a hungry man.

As she turned around, he rushed her and pressed her up against the nearest wall. He added an extra dose of manic to his voice to show he meant business. “Don’t flash your naked body at me again.” He held both of her wrists above her head with one hand and used his other hand to reach for her right breast, thumbing the already taut nipple. “It’s been far too long since I had a taste of you.” He pressed his cock against her stomach and pushed his lips down on hers like an avenging angel. Just like when they were at the Agency, she struggled against him for a moment, but her body quickly softened against his. And this time, she yielded to him sooner than back in the Agency. Good. It was a good sign her body was remembering him, remembering them faster than her too damn logical and independent mind. He needed her to remember who she was and to accept their past together.

His kiss was meant to show Skyla his dominance, his control. However, it was his control that was rapidly evaporating due to the skin-to-skin contact. His body wanted her now, no matter what it would cost between them. And it would cost a great deal if he did not stop himself. His always-strategizing mind and his body were raging a fierce war. It would have been so easy to coax her into submission. Her sweet body instinctively ached for him and remembered them being together. But her mind still would not accept the truth about them, about their past. Manipulating her body into submission now would be no better than what that bastard Fernando had done to her.

The thoughts of what the bastard might have done to her broke him out of his lustful haze. Swiftly, he pushed away from her. “Next time you show me even an inch of your naked body, I will take you right then and there, whether you remember us or not.” He winced at the tension in his voice.

Without waiting for her reply, he turned and walked out of her room. Before he slammed shut the connecting door, he told her, “I’ll see you downstairs in ten.”

Rei went straight to the shower, praying the frigid water would cool his aching cock and raging soul. The first powerful spray of icy water cooled off his anger, but it failed to calm his desire for her or his guilt for not being there when she needed him the most. With a loud roar, he punched the shower wall. A few tiles were shattered, scattering down just like his heart had been when he thought Elizabeth had died, when he saw his father and brothers perish in the battlefield.

•●•

Skyla’s heart was still racing from what just happened with Rei. Just one ferocious, soul-searing kiss, and she was almost pudding in front of him. Her body remembered him, remembered them together. There was not a shred of doubt about that. Yet she was resisting the idea of losing herself to him, a man whom she just met. She nor the Agency knew his true motive yet. It couldn’t be just about her…or could it?

A loud thud from Rei’s room startled her from her conflicting thoughts. Her body wanted desperately to go to his room and finish what he had started, but her mind refused to give up who she had become. She wouldn’t go back to being a meek, helpless girl having no choice but to run for her life. Even after the director confirmed with her that the life she had known these past twelve years was just a government cover, her heart wouldn’t accept that it had all been a lie—because it hadn’t been. She had lived it and known it. And if she were truly the Elizabeth that Rei told the director about, it would explain her relentless drive to be strong physically and mentally. Elizabeth was weak and helpless. She had been physically and mentally threatened by a psycho. To the girl’s credit, she hadn’t just rolled over and accepted the hand that she had been dealt. Elizabeth was actually ballsy, taking on the unknown risk of the time machine and escaping to the late twentieth century.

She went to the bathroom to put some cold water on her face. Her reflection in the mirror still showed the face she thought she knew intimately—until Rei showed up. Now it felt like a stranger staring back at her. Letting out a loud sigh, she headed downstairs for their little evening breaking and entering endeavor.

“Skyla, run!” Rei pushed her forward and reached for the lever at the same time, releasing the crates suspended above them to stop the guards for at least a few moments. His men had scouted the loading dock over the past week and reported that the number of guards remained the same each night. But tonight there was a second set of guards waiting for them. His original plan had been to quietly break into the warehouse and retrieve the device he had taken from the bank vault. An easy job, neutralizing Mr. X’s assassination plan for the time being and gaining Skyla’s trust. A firefight had not been part of his plan.

The crates came crashing down just as the first group of guards caught up behind them. The loud crashing noise muffled some of the screams.

He grabbed her arm and rushed them forward even faster. “Go! Go! Go! The crates will not hold them long.”

“The warehouse door is open. We should double back to get the device; otherwise, there will be more men on guard next time.” Without waiting for his response, the hellcat shrugged off his hold and skipped around the corner, back to the warehouse direction.

“Shit.” He would have yelled for her to come back, but he knew there was no use, so he ran after her instead. No doubt there would be more guards waiting for them. Evidently, someone had tipped off Mr. X about their plan. When he caught up with Skyla, she was hiding behind a car about fifty feet from the back of the warehouse. Taking a defensive crouching position next to her, he kept his voice low, barely audible. “Skyla, forget the device, we’re out-manned and out-gunned.”

“No, they’ll move the device now that they know someone wants it. We don’t have the time to track it down again. For all we know, they could be using it tomorrow to assassinate the congressmen.”

Again, the infuriating woman did not wait for his lead. She simply moved toward the warehouse using the surrounding crates and heavy machinery as cover. As he feared, shadowy figures emerged from their left almost instantly. Without any second thought about the stretch of open space between him and Skyla, he kicked up his legs and ran for her. Just as he was pushing her to the ground behind a block of concrete, a round of rapid gunfire thundered around them. Debris from the grounds and cement blocks rained all over them like an angry hail storm. Then a searing pain rocketed through his left thigh. “Dammit.” The velocity of whatever just hit him was so strong it almost knocked him to the ground.

“Rei!” She tried to pull him away from the stretch of open space, but he was a good hundred pounds heavier than she was. There was no way she could drag him away fast enough from the continuous rain of bullets. He leaned on his good leg and pushed backward with all his strength. With Skyla ferociously pulling him, they quickly reached the cover of the concrete slab.

In the next heartbeat, she was ripping open his pants, which were already soaked in blood from the bullet wound.

“This is not good. There’s no exit wound.” Skyla calmly pulled off her thin black thermal sweater, using it as a makeshift bandage and wrapping it around the bullet wound, attempting to stop the gushing blood flow. That left her in only her utilitarian black sports bra. The sight of her silky smooth skin, the contours of her breasts, and the indent of her narrow waist was enough to tempt him even now. Unaware of his heated stare, she continued on. “I can’t use the blood clotting plasma to stop the blood flow. We need to get you out of here fast so Knox can get the bullet out.”

“Dammit, woman!” He clenched his teeth in response to the pressure she exerted on the wound. “What did I say about the next time I see even an inch your of naked body?” He wanted to reach for her, to make sure she was not hurt, but he was losing more blood than he realized. His vision was becoming blurrier by the second, and a chill was slowly spreading through his body. The last time he felt the chill, he was dying on the battlefield with his family and his countrymen.

•●•

Before Skyla could tell him to stop talking nonsense so she could think of how to get them out of this blunder, another set of gunfire came from their right. She lifted her head just a little above the barricade and saw Rei’s second-in-command, Sloan, charging into the area with his men. They were firing at the warehouse guards methodically, clearing the parameters and forming a protective circle around Rei and her.

As Rei’s men continued pushing back the guards, Sloan came over and lifted Rei over his shoulder without a word. He motioned for Skyla to follow him. She was about to refuse, just as she had a few minutes ago when Rei told her the same. However, his cold, broach-no-argument stare was enough to change her mind. Sloan would have no quarrel leaving her behind if she refused to follow his orders. Reluctantly, she gave him a consenting nod and started moving out with him and Rei. She stayed behind them, covering their backs. To her amazement, Rei’s men had already taken down most of the guards. Very efficient. Even though the danger was not as overwhelming as before, Skyla remained on alert and continued scanning the area, making sure there were no more surprise attacks.

Soon after, they reached the car that was parked in a deserted alley on the outskirts of Chinatown, about a quarter mile north of the docks. Sloan laid Rei down on the backseat and took a quick look at his injury. “The bullet is definitely inside his leg, and the bleeding is coming faster than he can heal himself. We need a surgeon, fast.”

The odd comment about Rei healing himself registered in Skyla’s mind, but she was more concerned about the extent of Rei’s injury and her guilt over causing it. “It should’ve been me. Rei used his body to shield me from the bullets.” She looked down at Rei, and her voice was low.

Sloan tensed. “I am not your priest to absolve your sins. Let’s go. He is bleeding out fast.”

Ouch. His accusatory tone was harsh, although not uncalled for, especially since she had decided to go back to the warehouse against Rei’s order. He could have lost his life back there. But she didn’t want Rei’s second-in-command to think he held any power over her mission. She drew up her smaller frame to give Sloan a piece of her mind when she suddenly noticed how similar Rei and Sloan looked. They could have been brothers. Both were tall, over six feet, with the same stubborn, square jaw, and thick, ink-black hair. The differences were in their eyes and builds. Rei had cold, steel-gray eyes, and his muscles were lean like a panther’s. Sloan had aquamarine-green eyes, which sparkled with mischief and easy laughter, and his build was bulkier. In his aqua-green eyes, she saw genuine concern for his commander. She decided to let his rudeness slide, instead choosing to quietly say, “I didn’t ask him to protect me. I could’ve protected myself.”

A feral sneer left Sloan’s throat. “Dollface, I hate to give you a rude awakening. Rei would die before letting any harm come your way ever again—” He was about to say more, but their attentions were drawn to Rei’s grunts.

Sloan frowned deeper at the continued, rapid blood loss from Rei’s leg wound. It had already soaked the makeshift bandage from her sweater. Dammit. Why was she wasting time arguing with his thick-skulled second-in-command when she should’ve jumped into the driver’s seat and gotten him to Knox already? She was about to do just that when Rei managed to partially sit up. “Stop.” He took a shallow breath. “Both of you.”

“Lie down, you fool.” She went to him immediately and tried to get him on his back again. Rei’s face was as white as a sheet. He winced at the pain from trying to sit up. Yet he gave her a reassuring smile. He covered her hand, which felt so small underneath his. Then he turned to Sloan. “Someone gave away our plan tonight. There was a second set of guards armed to the teeth waiting for us as soon as we passed the gate.” A deep rumble sounded from his heaving chest. His tone was laced with cold fury.

Sloan nodded curtly in agreement. “Yes, someone called the townhouse fifteen minutes after you left and told us to move our asses or you two would die.”

“Any idea who made that call?”

“No, the voice was disguised, and there was no background noise.”

Rei tilted his chin forward slightly, signaling to Sloan to start the car before he turned back to her. “Love, you can let go of me now. I’m okay.” He gave her hand a firm squeeze. “I promise I won’t die from this.”

Skyla realized too late that she was bending close to him, fussing like a mother hen. Quickly, she stepped away from the backseat. “Good. I’d hate to have to fill out paperwork for the Agency explaining why you were dead.” Not sparing him another glance, she went to the front seat.