CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lara woke on her stomach, the masculine, wonderful scent of Damion filling her nostrils—on her skin, on the pillow, in the air. God, she loved how he smelled, all spicy and deliciously male. Her lips lifted, satisfaction filling her. For just a moment, she simply lay there, drinking in a few moments of the naughty, wonderful, intimate things she and Damion had done together. Trying not to let herself think beyond this instant, beyond last night, not wanting to accept what, on some instinctive level, she already knew. She remembered nothing beyond a certain confined circle of information. That meant her headaches wouldn’t be gone, not if things were as they were before her recent sleep. Cautiously, she resisted the urge to move, waiting a moment to see how her head felt, and then sighing with relief when there was no pain. In the background, she registered the sound of the television, and what she thought was the voice of a sports announcer.
“Morning.”
Lara lifted her head at the brandy-rich male voice and turned to her right to find Damion sitting beside her, his long, muscular legs, stretched in front of him, and pressed to her side. He was touching her, and instantly her heart softened. He was trying to keep her headaches at bay so she could heal. Too bad, she thought, that her memories were still at bay as well.
She rolled to her side to face him, taking in his cleanly shaven square jaw and his handsome face. He wore faded jeans and an army-green T-shirt that told her she’d outslept him once again. She’d never thought army-green was sexy, but, oh man, had she been wrong. On Damion, army-green was downright sinful.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Seven hours,” he said, setting the computer that was in his lap on the nightstand.
“Seven hours?” she gaped and sat straight up, ignoring her nudity. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen everything about ten times over. She didn’t feel shy with Damion, and she knew that meant something, but she couldn’t focus on that right now. Urgency rose inside her. She had to find Powell. She had to find answers. “I can’t believe I keep sleeping so long.”
“Easy,” he said, catching her wrist and pulling her to him, his hand sliding around her butt cheek as he molded her to his side. “You need the rest to heal. And don’t panic. You didn’t miss the NFL draft. I recorded it.”
“NFL draft?” she asked, confused a moment, before she laughed despite herself, remembering the argument about football she’d shared with Damion and Chale. “You know that’s not why I’m panicked.” She shook her head. “And you recorded the NFL draft to prove you were right and I was wrong about the top picks, didn’t you?”
“That’d be a yes.”
“And was I right, and you were wrong?”
“I haven’t watched it. I was waiting for you.”
She had no idea why that announcement meant so much to her, but it did. Maybe because it felt like such a normal thing to do, and she felt so far from normal. Or maybe it was simply that he’d waited for her, that he was sitting by her, caring for her.
She kissed his cheek. “I’ll kiss you right—once I have a toothbrush.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” he said, and released her. “And considering you’re driving me crazy pressed up against me with nothing on, I highly suggest you go now, if you’re going to go at all. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about your toothbrush.”
Lara bit back a smile and scooted off the bed to hurry toward the bathroom, all too aware of his eyes following her every step. She was about to shut the door when he called out, “I’ll get you some food and call Cassandra, so we can get you tested again.”
She stilled in front of the vanity. Another brain wave test. She didn’t want another test. She wasn’t taking another test. She felt fine, and even if she wasn’t fine, there was nothing anyone could do for her. She didn’t reply. She’d wait until she was dressed and ready to take on a real battle, be it with Damion, or her real enemy, Powell—the man who she was now certain had stolen her life, and all those she’d loved with it.
And no matter what Sabrina’s role in all of this, no matter how much Lara wanted her blood, it was Powell she wanted the most, Powell she was going after. Determination formed inside her, and Lara quickly turned on the shower, praying Damion wouldn’t join her, and then praying he would. No. She didn’t want him to join her. He distracted her and made her want things she didn’t dare want—a fairy tale of some happily-ever-after story that she clearly didn’t have in her cards. She pulled back the curtain, and suddenly Damion was there, smacking her on the ass. Lara yelped and glanced over her shoulder. “Hey!”
“I owed you that from last night.” He disappeared from the room.
She laughed and stepped behind the curtain, thinking of all the ways she’d teased him mercilessly. He was right. He owed her. God, how she wished she could turn back time and just live that night one more time. But she couldn’t, and forty-five minutes later, Lara inspected herself in front of the vanity, ready to face the one real thing in her world outside of Damion. She was involved in a war, and not the one where she took orders from Powell, but the one against him.
Still, she found herself studying her reflection in the mirror. “Who are you?” she whispered, no answer coming to her beyond the superficial. Her skin was pale, her long dark hair straight and silky, compliments of her favorite shampoo and conditioner, which she’d been shocked to discover were available on the Sunrise Strip. Actually, she’d been as surprised by the development of this underground world as knowing that the coconut hair products were her favorite. It was just so darn odd that she knew so many things about herself, but had no idea where they originated.
Her gaze skimmed her slim dark jeans and black T-shirt with a light blue butterfly, still seeking some hidden secret to her identity. She liked butterflies. They meant something to her, something special. She sighed in frustration, about to dismiss the butterflies as another mystery yet to be unraveled, when she saw a flash of Skywalker’s face—a strong jaw, a deep, familiar scar down his cheek that was as much a part of him as were the creases around his eyes and thick, graying hair. Lara saw herself, right there with him, a younger her, a teen maybe—yes, nineteen. She was nineteen.
Suddenly, Lara was in the past, in a karate studio, everything so vivid, down to her pink sweats and T-shirt, and Skywalker’s gray sweats. Her feet were bare, a padded cushion beneath them.
She punched at Skywalker, then kicked. He avoided impact. She punched again, her brow damp, her determination strong. This time, she would take him down. This time wouldn’t be like every other day this week, when she’d wound up on her backside. No sooner had she made that silent vow, than she had landed on the mat on her backside. Lara let out a frustrated sound, shoving herself to a sitting position.
Skywalker bent down in front of her, and she stared into a face of a fifty-something man, with intelligent gray eyes. He offered her his hand, and she glanced at his wrist, noting the familiar tattoo of a bald eagle with an American flag behind it. “Get up, my little caterpillar.”
She ignored his hand and pushed to her feet on her own. He chuckled. “I’ll make a butterfly out of you yet.” She wanted to be that butterfly. She wanted to make Skywalker proud. Lara bent her knees and went into ready position. Skywalker grinned and did the same.
Then suddenly, the room shifted, and Lara stumbled. Shadows filled her vision, and then she was standing in a doorway, and Skywalker was tied to a chair, a gun to his head. “No!” she screamed. “No!”
Damion was standing in the kitchen when he heard Lara scream several times. Fear tore through him with the sound, fear for her carving a hole right in his gut. He took off running to find her, even as she went silent. The silence was worse than the scream. The silence that meant she could be—he wasn’t going to consider where his mind was going—that anything could be wrong with Lara.
He charged into the bathroom to discover her sitting on the floor against the bathroom wall, her hands over her head and shaking. She was alive. Only then did he allow himself to fully realize what his fear had been—that he would lose her. That doing so would destroy him. That he had done what he’d sworn his entire adult life he wouldn’t do—he’d allowed himself to care for someone, to feel responsible for someone, even if that person didn’t see him that way. He couldn’t lose her, no matter what that meant, whatever he had to do to keep it from happening.
“Lara, sweetheart,” he said, squatting next to her, knowing he had the answer to the question that had been running through his mind. Sleep had not healed her. Sleep had not made this hell go away for her. “Lara.” He gently eased her hands back from her face. “Lara.”
“Damion?” she asked, looking confused, her eyes going wide. “What happened?”
“You started screaming.” He brushed his thumbs over her cheeks. She was pale. Too pale. “Are you okay?”
“I screamed?”
He nodded.
“God.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Will this ever end?” She started to get up, and he held her down.
“Maybe you shouldn’t get up just yet,” he warned, “Let me call Kelly and Cassandra before—”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I don’t need Kelly or Cassandra. I’m sick of being a wimp. I’m sick of being sick.” She pushed to her feet, and he let her. “Really. Every second I spend sleeping and resting and complaining of headaches is time wasted. I’m the best shot we have of finding Powell. There has to be something in my head we can use to find him.”
He leaned against the sink and pulled her close. Every instinct told him she was in trouble, and Dorian’s words replayed in his head. Do the blood exchange. Damion had been scared shitless at the idea of doing the blood exchange. One mistake that could get him killed could get her killed. He’d spent his entire adult life making sure no one depended on him to survive, except a fellow soldier who lived to die, just as he did. He’d thought Chale was going to die, and he’d thought he’d caused it. When he’d heard Lara scream, he’d been afraid he’d already let too much time pass without doing the exchange, been afraid he’d already lost her. The bubble he’d been living in wasn’t so secure after all, and he had a whole lot more to lose than he’d allowed himself to believe.
He ran his hands over her slender waist. “We have to run the brain wave test again.”
“It won’t be good. We both know that, Damion. Clearly, when you touch me, it eases the pain, but it doesn’t solve whatever the problem is.”
“There could be improvement,” he said. “We need to know if what we’re doing is working.”
“I was just screaming and didn’t know it. So the answer is no. It’s not working. So let’s move on to more productive things than worthless tests that do nothing to help. Do you have a karate studio? Or a gym for training?”
“What?” he asked. “Why?”
“Because I need to stimulate a memory now, before I lose it.”
“You have to eat to feed your metabolism after sleeping so long, or you’ll fall on your face.”
“I’ll eat on the way to the gym.” Her voice softened. “Please, Damion. This is important. I have to do this.”
He ground his teeth, fighting the urge to throw her over his shoulder, as he had once before, and carry her to the hospital. “What memory are we talking about here?”
“Of Skywalker and me when I was younger. If I can remember him, really remember him, maybe everything else will fall into place as well. I just know it. I feel it, Damion. I just know he was my father, which is crazy, because I have this memory of a family, a mother and a father and siblings… only they don’t feel real anymore. Skywalker does. He feels like the key to everything in my life. My trigger. The piece of history that will make everything fall into place.” Her eyes softened, and she touched his face. “And you—you are my rock. The only person who’s keeping me sane. Please don’t pull back now. Don’t stop helping me because of a medical condition you can’t change.”
But he could. If Dorian was right, Damion could change things. He could save her. “After the gym, we go to the hospital?”
She opened her mouth to argue. He saw it in her eyes, and he cut her off. “You can’t win this one.”
She clamped her lips together a moment. “Okay. After the gym, we’ll go. I want to throw on some sweatpants really quick.”
“You really intend to work out in your condition?”
“I don’t have a condition, but you will if you don’t know karate, because I have every intention of sparring with you, and this time, you won’t get the best of me just because you’re bigger.” She arched a brow. “You do know karate, right?”
“Something tells me I should be thankful the answer is yes.”
A statement proven fifteen minutes later in the gym—empty but for the two of them—as Lara came at him with fierce determination. Kick, block, punch, block. She was fast and sharp.
“You’re pretty good, for a girl.”
“You’re pretty good, for a GTECH,” she said with a grimace, and threw another kick and punch, this time taking her game up a notch. Thirty minutes later, she was still coming at him, but he could see the pain radiating in her face, the tension in her lips, in her expression.
“Enough,” Damion said, taking her to the mat beneath their feet, and laying her flat on her back before going down on top of her. She immediately tried to get up. He pressed her arms over her head. “Enough, Lara. You can’t do this. You—”
“Damn you, Damion,” she hissed. “Don’t say ‘can’t.’ I need to remember. Can’t isn’t an option.”
He could see the desperation in her, and he didn’t miss the slight twitch in her right eye that she couldn’t seem to control. “Have you remembered anything else since we’ve been sparring?”
“No, but—”
“And you don’t say ‘but.’ We need to get your exam done.”
“I don’t—”
“Another bad word,” he said, before releasing her hands and resting his elbows on either side of her face. “The words ‘don’t,’ ‘can’t,’ and ‘but,’ are hereby outlawed for both of us. And I know you want to remember, which is why I’ve been doing some digging while you were sleeping.” She started to speak, and he quickly added, “Don’t get your hopes up. All I can really tell you at this point is what I’ve researched and ruled out as possibilities.”
“I thought ‘don’t’ wasn’t allowed?”
“You got me on that one,” he said. “Take the brain wave test, and then we’ll sit down and go through what I’ve covered so far and where that leaves us.”
“Tell me whatever you discovered now,” she said urgently. “Please. I need to know now.”
“Take the test first.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“Yep,” he agreed. “Sure is.”
She grimaced. “Asshole.”
He brushed the hair from her eyes and kissed her. “I can live with being your personal asshole, sweetheart.”
“Apparently, everyday.”
“If that’s what it takes to keep you safe,” he agreed, and pushed off her and to his feet. He offered her his hand. Lara sat up and stared at it for a long moment, and then glanced at him. “Skywalker had an eagle tattoo with an American flag on his wrist. I need to get to a computer and see if I can find the image.”
“You don’t need a computer,” Damion said. “I’ve spent a good part of my army career finding people who didn’t want to found, and helping people who didn’t technically exist find those people. That’s a Spook’s tattoo. As in, a CIA operative that hunts down rogue operatives. That makes Skywalker one of the deadliest of his kind.” He arched a brow. “No wonder Powell wanted you on his team. You were trained by a Spook.”
She rested her weight on her hands, behind her long, silky hair that lay in a sexy, rumpled disarray around her slender shoulders. “Do you think that makes me a Spook? And Skywalker? Will this help us find information about him?”
He bent down in front of her. “Spooks are called ‘Spooks’ for a reason. They’re ghosts even when they’re alive, and they never existed once they’re dead. And do I think you are—or were—a Spook? I don’t know. My instincts say no, that Skywalker feels like family to you, so he probably was, but at this point, instincts are just that. They aren’t facts. But I can tell you that I haven’t found a ‘Lara Mallery’ or ‘Lara Martin’ or ‘Lara’ anything for that matter, who remotely matches your identity.
“And none of Caleb’s government contacts confirm any involvement with General Powell. He’s still MIA as far as they’re concerned, and that includes our trusted contacts, who tell us what they aren’t supposed to tell us. Both myself and Sterling are looking for your identity and that of Skywalker. We’ve checked out the name ‘Luke,’ hoping that Skywalker is a nickname, and have come up dry at every turn, in every facet of the government.” He ran his hands down his jeans. “And now that I’ve pretty much told you everything I know when I didn’t intend to…” He reached for her hand and stood up, pulling her to her feet. “It’s time for medical tests.”
“I need a computer first,” she said. “I have some ideas, and maybe I can—”
He kissed her. “A deal is a deal. Test first. Computer later.”
She pursed her lips. “Fine. A deal is a deal. But I get a computer and Internet access when the test is completed, no matter what the test says.”
“I promise.”
Sunlight would soon pierce the horizon, too soon for Jenna’s comfort, considering the nastiness of the task ahead of her. She backed her car into the woods behind the rundown Mexican bar, her heart thundering in her chest, her fingers curled around the steering wheel. She inhaled the scent of Logan still lingering on her hair and in her clothes, a reminder of an amazing night, of why she was about to do what she was about to do and why.
For several seconds she just sat there, breathing in Logan, remembering the hours with him, and finding strength in those memories. She shoved open the car door and stopped at the trunk of the Ford Taurus before popping the trunk. Then she stared at the sheet-wrapped body of Opal, and suddenly wondered what she’d been thinking.
She wasn’t Sabrina, not outside the bedroom diva fantasy she’d lived the past few hours. She could hardly believe she’d said and done some of the things she’d done with Logan. That character she’d played wasn’t her, not really, and she wasn’t a person who dumped bodies behind bars.
She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking of how good it had felt to control Logan, how amazing it had felt when he’d looked at her the way he’d looked at Sabrina. Her lashes popped open. Opal was dead. It wasn’t like Jenna had killed her. Opal hadn’t liked Sabrina any more than anyone else did, except Logan, of course. Jenna ground her teeth. She was doing everyone a favor by getting rid of Sabrina, and that meant she had to toughen up beyond the bedroom and the GTECH super strength.
She’d get rid of Opal’s body, and then she’d get rid of Sabrina, so she and Logan could do their research, so they could stand together and make Serenity better. Powell would be happy. Logan would be happy. And finally, so would she.