Page 26 of Red Zone Awakened

Keiko rubbed her face against Mace’s shirt, the smooth cotton soothing her.Slowly, she became aware that her hands were curled into the blue fabric, and her legs were wound around his waist as he held her tight.A mountain of a man, surrounding her with his strength.

“C-can’t stop sh-shaking.”

He nuzzled her hair.“I know.Just stop crying.I can cope with the shaking.”

Impossibly, against all the odds, a smile broke through her tears.She bit her bottom lip in an attempt to keep her words in, but they came out anyway.“I fell.”

It was there in her mind.An unspoken accusation.He’d let her fall when he promised she wouldn’t.

Obviously, he heard the accusation she couldn’t quite voice.“Only a little bit, princess.No more than a foot or two.I caught you.I told you I wouldn’t let you fall to the ground.I didn’t promise you wouldn’t slip.”

Keiko didn’t know why she did it—perhaps because she didn’t have the words she needed.It just happened.She opened her mouth and bit him.Hard.Punishment for letting her fall—just a little bit.

“Hey!I saved you.”

“You let me fall.”

“We’ll argue about this when we’re inside.”

She froze.Of course, they were still outside.She felt the breeze in her hair and heard the sounds of the city.She just hadn’t been able to face it yet, and part of her still couldn’t.But Keiko definitely didn’t want to be outside, on the ledge, inches from repeating the most terrifying experience of her life.Her shaking increased, and she held him tighter.

“I need to get you inside.”His voice was soft.An apology in it.

“I can’t.”It was stupid and illogical, but it was also the truth.She couldn’t let go of him.She couldn’t look out into the night.She couldn’t stand on the ledge.She just couldn’t.“I really can’t.”

With a shake of her head, she burrowed into his shirt, breathing in the fresh scent of air-laundered cotton along with the musky aroma of man.Not any man.This man.His scent was imprinted on her now.Even blindfolded, she would know him.

Mace.

Her arrogant, strong, sexy, lying Viking of a man.

“You don’t need to do anything,” he said.“I’ll hold you, just like this, and thread you through the window.You don’t even have to turn.Just lift your legs over the window’s ledge when I tell you.We can’t stay out here forever.Especially with a camera pointed straight at us.”

With his words, she heard the helicopter rotors.“Not Enforcement?”

“No.I think they’d have tried to help by now if it’d been Enforcement.”

“My fall was on the news.”It wasn’t a question.There was no way footage that dramatic hadn’t made it to the news.Her stomach knotted at the thought.The world was used to seeing her as the confident, put-together face of CommTECH.Now they’d always think of her as the screaming woman who almost fell to her death.

“Hate to shatter your delusions,” Mace drawled, “but your fall wasn’t on the news.My heroic save was on the news.”

“Idiot.”She sniffed, and then another awful thought occurred to her.“Is the bat gone?”There was no way she could look around to see if it was still there.She couldn’t open her eyes at all.

“Flew away,” Mace said in a strange, tight voice.“Probably hunting some dinner.”He shuffled around until her back struck the window ledge.“Lift your knees up high, and we should be able to get your feet through the window.”

Keiko took a deep, shuddering breath, curled her fingers tighter into his shirt, and released her legs from his waist.“I’m ready.”Her knees were up at her chest.

His strong arm lifted her higher, angling her back through the window, feet first.

“That’s it.You’ve done it.Put your feet down.You’re inside now.”

Slowly, she lowered her legs and felt the solid floor beneath her bare toes.As a rush of unadulterated relief almost overwhelmed her, she clung to Mace.

“You might want to open your eyes too,” he whispered against her ear.

Until he said it, she hadn’t realized her eyes were still scrunched shut.Cautiously, she opened them and looked straight into his.For a minute, there was nothing else on the planet except for the man in front of her.The huge mountain of a man who managed to drive her crazy and make her feel protected all at the same time.A man she knew she couldn’t trust but somehow felt she should.Every second spent in his presence made things more complicated between them.

And right then, staring at him, she wasn’t sure she cared.