The Darkest Corner (Gravediggers #1)(28)

       
         
       
        

"Hurts like a bitch," Axel said. "Like molten lead going through your veins. You can actually feel yourself dying. Feel your heart slowing, even though your brain is working just fine."

"Yeah, she doesn't explain that part to you," Deacon agreed. "Now I have to go convince this guy we're not actually here to harm him, and hope like hell I don't have to fight him. I'm getting too old for this shit."

"And you might lose, mate," Axel said, grinning. "He's fucking Kidon Mossad."

"Thank you," Deacon said dryly. "That's very helpful."

"Hey, mate, that's why you're the team leader," Axel said, saluting him with two fingers.

"I'll give him another thirty to cool off while I take a shower."

"Good luck."

Deacon tossed his water in the trash, took the stairs to the second floor, and walked to his suite of rooms. Once the new guy was acclimated, he'd take the rooms across the hall from him. Axel and Colin lived up on the third floor. All four suites were identical to each other, but Deacon's was larger since he'd been the first.

His heart rate had finally slowed and the paralyzing fear had ebbed. He hated the weakness-a weakness brought on by what Eve had put him through when he'd been reborn as a Gravedigger. The serum had still been in development when it had been tested on him, and he hadn't had the luxury of coming back to life in a room aboveground where oxygen had been readily available. He'd woken up trapped in a seven- by two-foot box, buried six feet underground.

He'd have preferred a real death.

When they finally dug him out of the ground, he'd been more animal than man. Fear like nothing he'd ever experienced before had seized him as he'd clawed and pushed at the sides of his cage, his every breath growing more shallow.

He shook himself from the memory and stripped out of his clothes, and then turned on the shower. While it heated, he took a moment to shave. He'd barely nuzzled Tess's neck that morning, but when he'd stepped back he could see the marks from his beard. And he couldn't say it displeased him to see them there, especially with the sheriff knocking at the door.

Cal Dougherty would've had to be an idiot not to notice, and Dougherty wasn't an idiot. Deacon had run a thorough check on the sheriff when they'd first set up headquarters, and Cal was so overqualified for his job it was laughable. But the sheriff had secrets he wanted to keep, and Deacon was more than happy to let him keep them. Until it was no longer convenient.

What Deacon didn't appreciate was Cal's interest in Tess. He'd sniffed around for the last couple of years, but fortunately Tess was pretty oblivious when it came to men noticing her. That was one of the things he liked about her. She had no idea of her appeal to the opposite sex, and she seemed to cloak herself with an invisible sign that read "Keep Away." 

That fiancé of hers had done her a favor by calling off the wedding, and Tess hadn't seemed to notice men even existed since then. Until that day he'd almost kissed her in the kitchen. She'd most definitely noticed him then, and he'd almost laughed at the surprise that had come into her eyes at the realization that he was very male and very interested. Fortunately for both of them, they'd been interrupted before things could go any further.

He'd wanted her to wake up. To see him as a man. But he hadn't thought things through on what he'd do when she finally did. They had rules as Gravediggers, and it wasn't a job conducive to relationships. Sex, yes. But relationships, no. For all intents and purposes, they "worked" together. She was their cover, and seducing her for the sake of a few moments of pleasure that could never lead to anything else wasn't fair to her.

Now, if only he could get his body to listen to his mind. The second he'd started thinking about that kiss he'd gone hard as a rock, and he shook his head as he looked down at his undisciplined body. He stepped into the hot spray and let out a sigh as the heat pounded against his muscles.

It would've been easy to bring back the taste of her-the way her breath caught when their lips met. It had taken every ounce of control he had not to put his hands on her. And when she'd touched him . . .

He groaned and turned off the hot water so only the cold blasted across his heated skin. It wouldn't have taken much more than a touch for him to relieve the god-awful need that had been building inside him since he'd kissed her. But if he couldn't control those basic needs, he couldn't control anything.

He showered quickly and dried off, cursing the erection that had a mind of its own. He pulled his hair back into a stubby tail while still wet, dressed in khaki BDUs and a black T-shirt, and laced up his boots. When he looked at his watch, he was satisfied to see that he still had two minutes left of the thirty-minute reprieve he'd given the newest recruit.