Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
The pancakes were vanishing at a good clip, the eggs were all but gone, and the oranges had been reduced to peels and seeds. Hungry meant she’d survived, and that was just fine by Reese.
Still, Holly was far too quiet. Eating in starveling bites, those big blue eyes distrustful, and that glorious scent coming in waves. Mixing with the bacon Cal was putting a dent in as well as the richness of coffee, her scent was more intense. More alive.
More like an agent’s.
And there was something else—that metallic yellow streak, gone.
It had been so much a part of her aura before, no wonder he’d thought it intrinsic.
Had she been really sick, as she’d feared?
Being distracted by her at every turn might have covered something up.
She kept folding a hand over the right side of her abdomen as if it hurt, but nothing sounded wrong, and she didn’t smell like pain.
She also wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. She kept quiet as Cal kept talking about absorption rates and virology, every once in a while throwing the goddamn man a glance just a little too fearful to be inviting or even thoughtful.
When she finally stopped eating and stared into her coffee cup, even Cal seemed to notice something was wrong. At least, his explanations trailed off, and he kept looking at Reese as if asking for direction.
Too goddamn late. It was all right, though. It meant Reese didn’t have to explain, and whatever anger surfaced would probably fasten on the interloper.
Finally, the silence turned absolute. He poured himself a cup of coffee. There wasn’t a third chair at the tiny table, so he leaned against the sink and watched her.
She was alive. Dependent on him, maybe even more thoroughly than before. She still smelled so goddamn good it made his eyes water and his hormones rebel. And he’d been with her long enough to know that there was trouble brewing on the Holly horizon.
She pushed her chair back, gingerly, as if expecting it to fall apart.
Stood up, with that same finicky care. The tank top did nothing to hide the shape of her breasts, and his throat had gone dry by now.
A crackleglaze of dried sweat all over her, and every fresh drift of her scent made him remember touching her in the dark.
“I think I should take a shower now,” she said, very quietly. “Is there hot water?”
“Ah.” Reese had to swallow, twice. His imagination was just too good. “Yeah, there should be plenty. Holly—”
“Okay.” She turned, grabbed at the back of the chair as if going to overbalance—and he found himself right next to her, his hand closing around her elbow even as she tried to twitch away.
She flinched. Halted, staring at the floor.
Cal cleared his throat. “I, uh… Can I use the head before you go in there? Thanks.” He scrambled off his own chair with unseemly haste and vanished into the bathroom, slamming the door and turning both the sink faucets at once.
As an attempt to give them privacy, it only half worked. The place was so small he couldn’t help but hear whatever would happen next.
“Holly.” He wasn’t hurting her elbow, he was pretty sure. “Are you... are you okay?”
“Is he your friend?” She was very pale. Her pulse kept wanting to rise, and his, hitched to it, was difficult to keep down.
How did he even begin to explain? “He’s...another agent.”
“He found us?”
Yeah, I’m going to have to think about that. Predictable is dangerous. “They tried to kill him, too.”
“How do you know? Never mind.” She tried to pull away, he didn’t let her. “Reese, stop it.”
Not until I’m sure you’re okay. And not going anywhere. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. I just didn’t know what you’d do, and...” He ran out of words. Come on. Give her something reasonable. Something she can relate to.
His brain chased everything he could possibly say around on a hamster wheel and promptly vaporlocked.
It didn’t help that he was practically drooling, because the musk of a healthy black-haired woman threatened to dial everything in him over into the red.
With that goddamn yellow-metal component gone the fragrance was even more fascinating, and it was a damn good thing it hadn’t been this intense before. It could knock a man out.
Just like those big blue eyes of hers.
“You kept changing the subject.” Her lips were chapped, even though she’d been pouring down the fluids. With her hair mussed and her pajamas incredibly disarranged, it could have been the morning after a completely different set of events.
In a way, it was. “I had to,” Reese mumbled, numbly.
“Let go of me.”
He did. She rocked back on bare heels, as if she hadn’t expected that, and a flash of something—was it resignation?—crossed her face so swiftly he almost missed it. The water shut off in the bathroom, and they were running out of any approximation of privacy.
“It fixed the cancer,” she said, quietly, almost tonelessly. “I can feel it.”
“There wasn’t any—”
She shook her head, so quickly her hair made a whispering sound. “I feel it,” she repeated, the glint in her eyes daring him to object again.
“Okay. That’s good enough for me.” His hands ached to touch her; he had to concentrate to keep them at his sides, nice and easy.
She must have been pretty far gone by the time I caught wind of her.
Why wasn’t she in treatment? Why wasn’t it in her medsheets?
How thin and tired she was, too, and her hair, lusterless not because of stress but because her entire body was starved of nutrients.
How had she been able to walk, for God’s sake?
Reese, you idiot. Maybe he really was degrading. That would be painfully ironic.
She still stared at him, as if he were a stranger. “Did you know it would do that?”
“If there was anything wrong with you the virus fixed it, Holly. You survived.”
“Guess that makes me lucky. Ninety percent casualty rate, right?”
He damn near winced. “That was for me. Not you.”
“Not...” Another quick shake of her head. “Reese, look. Did you know? That it would... infect me?”
He shook his head. Christ. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you now.
Did she look disappointed? He couldn’t think, not with her standing so close and the last few days crowding the inside of his skull. Digesting Cal’s lump of new information was going to take a little while, maybe because Reese had been so dumb to start out with.
She’s going to end up smarter than me. Maybe Cal is, and that’s how he found me. He can’t be thinking I’m going to save him, for God’s sake.
Except I have to, because it means saving her, too.
“Reese.” Hugging herself now, the movement showing even more interesting slices of soft pale skin through her tank top. “Did you know?”
“Does it matter?” Harshly, because the lump in his throat wouldn’t retreat. “It’s happened. The weather’s turned, we have to get out of here.”
Holly tilted her head. Even covered with sweat and sickness, she was still so beautiful. “It’s all melting out there.”
“Warming up. I can smell it, too.”
“Do I still smell good to you?”
More than good. “Yeah.”
“Are you... is this Cal guy...” She pursed her lips, maybe not knowing what she wanted to ask.
Cal chose that moment to step out of the bathroom, the picture of sheepishness, slicking his hair back with damp fingers. “Sorry about that. I’ll, uh, just start the dishes.”
Holly backed up a step. Two. As though she was waiting for Reese to say something.
He opened his mouth to try a plea, an apology, God only knew what, but she whirled and headed toward the couch.
She handled the new suitcase carrying her clothes easily and vanished into the bathroom, slamming the door a little harder than necessary.
He could probably chalk it up to not understanding her new strength.
Which brought up an interesting question: How strong was she likely to get? She felt just as soft as ever, without an agent’s leashed force. There hadn’t been much on the female subject in the files that wasn’t crossed out, but—
“She okay?” Cal started stacking plates, and Reese wrestled down the urge to walk over and give the man a shot to the kidneys.
“Don’t know. Rough time for her.” The bathroom door was a blank face, giving nothing away. Deathly silence before the shower gurgled into life. “Adjusting, I guess.”
“That’s one word for it.” The other agent balanced a pile of sticky plates in one hand, his back broad and tense under a flannel shirt. It had to be a deliberate movement—you just didn’t turn around like that, especially when you knew someone else was armed and twitchy. “She’s gonna bolt, man.”
As soon as Cal said it, Reese knew he was right. “I know.” And I’ll bring her right back, goddamn it.
There’s no way she’s getting rid of me.