Midnight Fever (Men of Midnight #5)(78)

       
         
       
        

Bud's face tightened. "Bio-weapons, huh? Give me a gunned-up mobster any day." He shuddered. "Don't ever want to puke up my insides."

"I think that's Ebola, but what this guy was messing with was potentially worse. Could have caused a pandemic. Millions dead."

Bud made a sound of disgust deep in his throat. "Then we owe Kay our thanks."

"That we do. Okay. We done here, Bud? I'd like to-"

"Get back to her," Bud said. "Yeah. Get out of here. If we need you again, we'll call. Get back to your woman, she's been through a lot. We might need to depose her, but not right now."

"Not right now." Nick pulled out his cell. "Felicity, Nick here. It's all taken care of."

"I heard." Nick could hear the smile in her voice. "I imagine you want to know where Kay is."

"Like my next breath."

"She's waiting for you back in her room at the hotel. I heard mention of room service and champagne. If I were you, I'd get there before she changes her mind."

"Oh, yeah. I think I can hitch a ride with the PPD." He raised his eyebrows at Bud. Bud nodded. "Great." And he took off at a run.

"Nick!" He turned at Bud's call. Bud held his thumb up. "Good work!"

Nick gave a thumbs-up in reply and ran.



Kay was just lighting the candle on the room service dinner table when she heard a sharp knock on the door. No time to ask who it was because she heard Nick's voice.

"Kay! It's me! Nick!"

As if she wouldn't recognize that deep voice.

Smiling, she opened the door, held her hand out. "Hi. I ordered dinner. I didn't know what you'd want so, I just went with steak and-umpf!"

Like before, like that night that changed her life, Nick backed her up against the wall and took her mouth in a kiss that she felt right down to her toes. As before, ferocious and hungry, but this time with something else.

He'd killed three men, Felicity had said. Kay led a scholar's life, but something deep in her DNA told her that coming straight from a kill meant his blood would be up. Mankind was about a hundred thousand years old, and had only been civilized for about two thousand of those years.

Right now, Nick would be in a pre-civilizational state. His movements were jerky, fierce, fast. Totally unlike the cool operator he usually was.

He was pressing against her so hard, she found it difficult to breathe.

Kay put her hands on his shoulders and pushed, just a little.

He pulled away, head back, eyes closed. "Sorry," he whispered, then brought his head back down to look her in the eyes. "Sorry, sorry. I don't want to be out of control." 

She could see that. She could see that he was fighting a fierce battle with himself. "It's okay." Kay smiled at him. "You're just back from the wars."

Nick leaned his head forward until his forehead touched hers. "That's why I love you. One of the reasons why I love you. You're both beautiful and wise."

"Hmm. Let's try this again, from the top."

He cupped the back of her head and kissed her again, more tenderly, less ferociously. "Like this?" he murmured.

"Exactly like this."

He kissed her from every angle. He'd plunge into her mouth, tasting her, then lift and kiss her again from another angle. She welcomed him, glad that he was here with her, alive and safe.

It could have gone differently. He could have been shot, as two police officers had been. Nothing about what had happened had been safe. She could right now be looking down at Nick's dead body in the morgue, mourning him and mourning what might have been.

She didn't have to mourn him now. She would, one day, about seventy years from now if they were lucky. But not today.

"I'm so glad you came back to me," she whispered when he lifted his head.

"Always." Those dark eyes looked deeply into hers. "I'll always come back to you. So." He winked at her. "Are we done talking?"

Kay laughed. "Yeah, we're done talking."

"Good," he said, and started unbuttoning her silk shirt, focusing narrow-eyed on the task as if he were defusing an atom bomb. Slowly, taking infinite care with each button, down to the last one. He looked up into her eyes, asking permission.

Kay said nothing, just held her arms slightly out from her sides.

He brushed it off and it fell fluttering to the floor. One of her expensive Ralph Lauren pastel-silk blouses from the suitcase Portland PD had delivered back to her. She glanced down at it, at her feet. Normally Kay kept her things well, but right now, the sight of the soft sage-green silk abandoned on the floor pleased her, a symbol of her normally fastidious organization gone a little loose because she had Nick in her life.