Midnight Rescue: A Killer Instincts Novel (16 page)

“Ridiculous,” she said again. “I’m not sparring with—”

He came at her without warning, his fist slicing toward her face.

Her arm instinctively shot up to deflect the blow.

“Seriously, Kane—”

Another attack, this time a lightning kick that swept her legs from under her and had her falling onto the mat.

“What the
hell
is the matter with you?”

She was torn between cursing and laughing, but both impulses died as he pounced again. This time she was prepared for it. Exploding into action, she scissored her legs and locked his ankles together, bringing him down. He grunted as he fell, then laughed and shot up to his feet like an agile gymnast. She bounded up off her butt just as he retaliated with a string of impressive karate moves that left her gasping for air. She blocked each one, avoiding the use of her injured wrist, and surprised him with a roundhouse kick to his gut that made him groan.

He recovered quickly and attacked again, nearly landing a blow to her abdomen, which she stopped by latching onto his wrist and twisting.

“You’re good,” he said breathlessly.

“I know.”

She twisted harder, but he got out of the hold, his foot connecting with her shin as he moved out of her reach.

She pounced on him with a kickboxing move she’d
perfected over the years. He caught her foot in midair and sent her stumbling backward.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she admitted, sucking in oxygen.

“I know,” he replied, mimicking her.

Their breath came out heavy, filling the room and heating the air around them. Adrenaline sizzled through her veins as she fought him off. God, this felt liberating. Kane was a formidable opponent, as well trained as she was, and like he’d promised, he stayed away from her wrist, as well as her bruised ribs, which were beginning to ache. But still she matched him move for move, brought him down again and jumped up, only to have him kick at her ankles and bring her down too.

Sharp gusts of air barreled out of her chest. Sweat coated her skin. It felt good, despite the pain in her ribs.
She
felt good. Alive. How had he known this was exactly what she needed?

“You’re slacking,” Kane taunted, wiping the sweat from his brow before charging forward again.

“Like hell I am.” She landed an uppercut to his chin using her uninjured hand and, without letting him recover, executed a nifty little jujitsu move to send him crumpling to the ground.

He tried to roll away but she sank down and pinned him with her knees, her hand poised in a karate chop against his throat.

Kane released a panting chuckle. “Very nice.”

Her heart nearly pounded straight through her rib cage from the strenuous workout. She sucked in a few deep breaths, ignoring the streak of pain that shot through her chest. As she allowed her pulse to slow and
the adrenaline flooding her veins to dissipate, Abby suddenly became very aware that she was still straddling Kane. Then she became very aware of the hard bulge pressed against her core.

She quickly slid off him. “Control yourself,” she grumbled, rolling onto her back. She was out of breath again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

“You and your control,” he grumbled back, his voice raspy from their sparring session. “I’m really getting sick of it.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw him shift over. She turned her head and met his gaze. Heat scorched her cheeks when she saw the glint of dark desire in his green eyes.

He stretched out on his side, inches from her. Without breaking eye contact, he rested one warm hand on her hip and stroked. She shivered, tried to slide away, but his hand curled over her waist and kept her in place.

“How long are you going to shut yourself off from the world?” he murmured, trailing his fingers up her hip toward the underside of her breast.

She swallowed. His fingers had nearly reached her breast when she finally found the courage to swat his hand away. She stumbled to her feet. “Thanks for the workout. I think I’ll have no trouble falling aslee—”

He was on his feet before she could finish the sentence, both of his hands now tightening over her hips and pulling her toward him.

In a matter of seconds Abby’s entire mouth went dry. Gulping down the lump of cotton in her throat was hard, but not as hard as stopping her body from sizzling the second it came into contact with Kane’s. She could feel his rock-hard erection against her stomach and her brain
screamed “betrayal” as the spot between her thighs pooled with moisture.

She hated this. Hated feeling so out of control. Not having any power over her hormones or the thoughts that kept floating into her head.

“You lied to me the other day,” he said, pinning her down with a forceful stare. “You said you didn’t feel anything when you were on your knees in front of me.”

“I didn’t,” she whispered.

“You did,” he corrected. “And I think you feel something now.” He didn’t loosen his grip on her waist, only strengthened it, and the warmth of his hands seared through her flimsy boxer shorts. “Your skin is hot to the touch, Abby. And I can see your pulse throbbing in your throat. You’re turned on.”

“I’m… not.” The words awkwardly stumbled out of her mouth.

He took a long breath. “Control issues again.”

“I
don’t
have control issues.”

He lifted one hand and placed it on her chin. Tipped it up so she had no choice but to look at him. “It makes you feel powerless, doesn’t it? You want me, you can’t fight it, and it makes you crazy.”

The cotton returned to her mouth. She swallowed it down. “Maybe I just don’t treat sex as casually as you do.”

“Oh no, it’s all about control.” He dipped his head so that his breath tickled the bridge of her nose.

She didn’t know where he was going with this, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. “Kane…”

“Control can be a very good thing to have, but sometimes you need to let go. Why don’t we try to see if you can let go, Abby?”

A tremor of fear scurried through her. “I…”

“Please.” His voice became rough. “Just close your eyes and let me make you feel good. Who will it hurt?”

Me!
she wanted to shout.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said quietly. “For once in your life, lower your guard and let yourself feel something, damn it.”

Before she could register what was happening, his mouth covered hers in a kiss.

Abby’s body turned to jelly. Knees buckled. Heart pounded. Kane’s mouth was hot and firm and terrifying.

He rubbed his lips over hers, once, twice, soft little brushes that sent shock waves sizzling through her nerve endings. The heat of his lips slithered into her mouth and down her chest, warming her breasts, hardening her nipples, settling into a pool of liquid between her thighs.

He deepened the kiss and she nearly burst into flames. His tongue coaxed her lips open. She tried to clamp her lips together, restrict his access, but her mouth wasn’t responding to the furious orders of her brain. Kane’s tongue slid inside with one sensual stroke. Her heart thudded. Her mind screamed for her to pull away, but she couldn’t. She was helpless to stop this, and she felt herself drowning in his mouth, in his kiss, that greedy and wild and all-consuming kiss.

He caressed the small of her back, then moved lower to cup her bottom. His touch was electric. It burned, teased, drawing out her pleasure as his tongue explored her mouth. The attraction she felt for him transcended common sense. She felt dizzy. Powerless.

It was like nothing she’d ever experienced in her entire life.

And it scared the shit out of her.

Breathing hard, Abby wrenched her mouth away
from his and stumbled backward. “Why did you do that?” she stammered.

“Because I wanted to.” He studied her face. “You liked it.”

She wanted to utter an impassioned denial but the words refused to come out.

He went on, his voice hoarse. “I could feel your heart pounding against my chest. I could feel you trembling. I could taste your need. Let me kiss you again, Abby.”

Yes
.

“No,” she blurted out. No, she couldn’t let that happen again. Couldn’t lose herself in that strange rush of pleasure again.

She thought he would push the issue, force another terrifying kiss on her, but to her surprise he didn’t. He just exhaled a resigned breath, then bent down to gather up the mats before carrying them across the gym and placing them on top of the stack. Abby stared at him in bewilderment. Maybe he hadn’t liked the kiss enough for a repeat performance. The thought brought a flicker of relief and a weird jolt of irritation.

As he walked back to her, a question she hadn’t planned on asking—one she hadn’t even considered before—flew out of her mouth. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

His eyes immediately became shuttered. “Relationships don’t interest me,” he said in a light tone.

Suspicion flooded her gut. “Why not?”

“Because they don’t.” He headed for the door. “Come on, let’s go upstairs. I’m beat after that workout.”

“No way.” She marched after him, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’ve been trying to pry into my psyche since the day we met. And I—” She took a breath. “I told
you about my mother, about the day I—” She forced aside the memory. “Don’t I deserve some answers of my own?”

He didn’t respond.

“You expect me to open up to you, yet you’re not willing to return the favor.”

“So we’re back to that, exchanging favors?” Bitterness hardened his face. “What, you’ll go to bed with me if I share my deep, dark secrets?”

Abby tightened her jaw. “Forget it,” she muttered. “I don’t want to know your secrets.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yep.” She gave him a sugary smile. “And I don’t want to kiss you again either.”

Without another word, she walked out of the gym.

It was a scorching-hot morning, the humidity suspended in the air like a thick fog. Abby drank her coffee out on the terrace, warily glancing over at Luke, who was devouring the plate of bacon and eggs Lloyd had prepared for him. With Isabel and Trevor in the living room coordinating cover stories, Ethan in town picking up some documents they’d need, and Kane, D, and Morgan off doing God knows what, Abby was alone with Luke, who’d popped a pair of iPod earphones into his ears and was bobbing his head as he ate.

Why weren’t any of them sitting down to plan the extraction? She’d given Kane the entire layout of Blanco’s compound yesterday and he hadn’t done a damn thing with it. Was she the only one who actually cared about the well-being of those girls?

She looked at Luke’s dark head, moving to the beat of his music, and let out an annoyed breath. “Seriously,” she said loudly. “Don’t you have a rescue to plan?”

He pulled out his earphones and shot her a quizzical look. “Huh?”

“I said, don’t you have a rescue to plan?”

Luke grinned, his straight white teeth gleaming in the sunshine. “Izzy said you were impatient. Guess she was right.”

Izzy? He was now on nickname basis with a woman he’d met only yesterday? The thought brought a flash of envy to her belly. How did Isabel do it, charm every man she met? Abby could charm too—when she was pretending to be someone else. But as herself, she was unable to form the kind of connections Isabel did.

“We can’t do anything until Trev and Iz score an invite to the auction,” Luke added, his voice oddly gentle. “We have no idea where the girls are going to be when it all goes down. We need our eyes on the inside giving us the proper details before we figure out the best way to extract.”

His words made sense, but did nothing to alleviate her impatience.

“Don’t worry. The second we finalize anything, you’ll know,” Luke assured her.

She offered a cool look. “Good.”

Spearing some scrambled eggs onto his fork, he popped them in his mouth, chewed slowly, then said, “So, where’d you grow up?”

An alarm went off inside her. “Why do you want to know?”

He stared at her for a moment as if she’d grown horns. “Because that’s what people do, ask each other things.
Where’re you from, do you like your job, what’s your family like
…” He trailed off, wrinkling his forehead. “Haven’t you ever had a conversation with another person?”

Embarrassment crept through her. He was right. That
was
what people did. Normal people, anyway.

“California,” she said reluctantly.

He looked pleased that she’d answered. “LA?”

“Until I was eight. Then all over the state before I was adopted. My adoptive father lived in Bakersfield.”

“Jeremy Thomas,” Luke said with a nod. “Morgan told us about him.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, but not much. Morgan said he was an ex-Ranger, made him sound like a legend or something.”

“He was good at what he did,” she admitted.

Luke hesitated for a moment. “How did he die?”

A lump of pain lodged in her throat. “Lung cancer. I always told him he needed to quit smoking, but he thought he was invincible.”

“Everyone thinks they’re invincible.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

A short silence fell, interrupted by a loud vibrating noise. Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, frowning. “Not mine.”

He leaned over to the chair next to his, which Kane had occupied before heading off with Morgan. “Shit, Kane left his phone here,” he said, reaching down and lifting a sleek Motorola flip phone from the chair. A glance at the screen deepened Luke’s frown. Slowly, he opened the phone. “Kane’s phone,” he said curtly. A pause, then his frown twisted into a grimace. “Devlin.”

Abby felt the color draining from her face. Devlin? Why the hell was Devlin calling Kane’s phone? And why didn’t Luke seem the least bit surprised?

“Kane already told you, there’s no woman here.” Luke’s
voice had changed from careless and teasing to utterly frosty. “You’ve been misinformed.”

Despite the sudden trembling of her body, Abby found herself reaching out her hand. “Let me talk to him,” she said.

Luke shot her a
no way
look. “Stop calling us, Devlin. It’s getting fucking annoying.”