His smile was slow as his eyes crackled with banked but still burning heat. "I'm still holding on to you, aren't I?"
He kissed her, and Mira couldn't curb the dread that rose in her when she thought of losing him again. She didn't want to let the awfulness of her vision ruin this moment, but it was there just the same, refusing to give her any peace. She drew back from Kellan's sweet kiss and tipped her head down, closing her eyes as he rested his forehead against hers, still holding her close.
"Kellan," she said, then pulled away, looking up into his amber-flecked hazel eyes. "Tell me again about the vision you saw. About the charges leveled against you."
His handsome face sobered, jaw going a bit tighter as he clamped his molars together. "They were capital charges, Mouse. Just like I told you."
"Yes, but what were they, specifically?"
"Conspiracy," he said evenly. "Treason. Kidnap and murder."
Her pulse skidded on the last one. "Murder. How many people have you killed, Kellan?"
"Too many to recall," he replied, no apology in his voice. "You know about all of them. You were there with me for far too many, when the streets were red with spilled lives."
"No," she said. "That was wartime, not murder. How many unsanctioned kills, Kellan? How many times since you became Bowman have you taken someone's life?"
He stared, considering. He stared for a very long time, then gave a resolute shake of his head. "There is no way of telling how far into the future the vision is destined to occur. We only know that it will, because your visions never fail, Mira. They haven't, in all this time." He paced away from her, raking a hand through his dark copper hair. "Besides, that doesn't negate any of the other charges that I am guilty of: kidnapping Ackmeyer, the relative of a high-ranking GNC government diplomat, and, in so doing, conspiring to disrupt a peace summit. By doing both of those things, I've knowingly led myself and my crew into an act of treason."
"But not murder," Mira stressed. Now that she had a shred of hope in her grasp, she wasn't about to let it slip through her fingers. "You aren't guilty of the last charge. That's something in your control now, from this moment forward. And if the vision is wrong about one of the charges, it can be wrong about any of them. Maybe we can change the course of this, Kellan. Together."
He came back to her, standing right in front of her but saying nothing. His eyes bore into hers, his face gone utterly still except for the sudden tick of a tendon in his jaw. She could sense the wheels turning in his mind. She could feel his pulse throbbing hotly, vibrating the air in the scant inch that separated their bodies.
He swore, vicious and raw, under his breath. Not a sound of anger but one of relief.
Of hope.
His hands shot out and he pulled her to him, kissed her hard on the mouth. Then he let go and spun away to grab for his comm unit on the bureau next to his bed. He checked the time, swung a fierce look on her. "It'll be sundown in thirty minutes." He grabbed a dry pair of boots from nearby and stomped into them. "I'm heading into Boston. I need to find Vince and bring Ackmeyer out of this alive."
"I'm going with you," Mira announced, already wearing one of his T-shirts and yanking on her black jeans. She reached for her combat boots, but Kellan stopped her with his hand coming down firmly on her wrist.
"You stay put," he said. "I'm not putting you in harm's way. Besides, I can cover more ground faster on foot."
She got right up in his face, just like when they were kids. "Either I go with you, or I go alone, Archer."
That tendon that had been ticking in his jaw before now started to pound. His eyes were blazing, searing her with their sharp flashes of amber. She didn't cower. She glared up into those dangerous eyes and held them steady. It was a look he had to recognize, one he had to understand meant she was not about to back down.>A tide of possessiveness swamped him. Unbidden. Undeserved.
Yet undeniable, especially when Mira was melting for him so sweetly.
He swiveled his head back to admire the flushed pink temptation of her sex. A brief kiss made her shiver. His lips and fangs teasing the juicy petals made her suck in a sharp breath, sent her hands into his hair, holding him steady as he cleaved her flesh with his tongue and brought the intoxicating taste of her into his mouth.
"Oh, my God," she rasped brokenly. "I'm going to come."
"Not yet," he murmured. Then he reached around to grasp her firm little ass in both hands and hauled her to his hungry mouth.
He buried his face in her, drinking her in, drowning in her. In that next instant, she shattered against his mouth, hips bucking, spasms rippling through her in pretty waves. He lapped her up, thirsty for more.
As her climax began to ebb, she swung her leg down off his shoulder and grabbed at him. Her fingers were demanding, twisting in his soaked T-shirt, trying to yank it off him. "Inside me," she panted. "Now, Kellan."
He rose without argument. Pulled off his shirt and tossed it to the shower floor in a wet heap, then kicked off his boots while Mira worked on the buttons of his drenched jeans. She fumbled more than once and he took over. No sooner had he opened the last button, Mira pushed his pants down over his hips, freeing his engorged cock into her wet, waiting hands.
She stroked him a few times, and God help him, it was all he could bear.
Gathering her up in his arms, he lifted her thighs around his waist and drove home in one deep thrust. Both of them grunted with the force of their joining, both of them shuddering as he seated himself to the root, filling her, stretching her like a silken glove around his girth. He pumped his pelvis a few times, but he was too far gone to take it easy.
He fell into an urgent rhythm, holding fast to Mira, watching her face as the crest of another climax rose up on her. She clutched at him, heels digging into his ass, fingernails scoring his shoulders. His own orgasm was coiling at the base of his spine, heat shooting through his veins.
Mira gripped him more fiercely, her pleasured sighs turning into rapid pants as the first tremors of her release coursed along the length of Kellan's shaft. He plunged deeper, harder, pushing her toward it. Holding back his own need until he felt her start to splinter around him. She let out a throaty cry as she came, her breath blowing like a furnace against his ear.