Page 40 of Craved

He opens his jacket, and I immediately imagine him pulling out a gun.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he pulls out some sort of freakish gizmo.

“What the hell—” I begin, as Maxim cries, “Oh, fuck! The injection!”

Then he’s pulling out the gun he’s holstered under his jacket and he’s firing at my father. Grabbing my arm. Tugging me toward him. Everything is happening so fast I barely have time to notice that he’s shot out the window.

And I definitely don’t have time to scream when he pulls me toward it even as the glass is still falling. We go sailing through, then we’re falling, falling, falling until we land with a splash in the rooftop diving pool.

I paddle furiously in the water, working to stay up as my soggy dress tries to drag me down. I lean back and look up as I see someone—Brax?—drag my father away.

I turn, to look at Maxim. “What the—”

“The injection. The tranq I gave you. It had a bacteriophage, too. One triggered by a different frequency than the kids. I didn’t know. Not until I thought about what he said to you. And when he realized that we’d foiled his plan to take out the kids—”

“—my father decided to take me out.”

“I’m sorry,” Maxim says, holding out a hand and pulling me toward the side of the pool. He hugs me close. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I’m not,” I say, then smile at the way his brow furrows in confusion. “I got you back, didn’t I?”

His smile blooms wide, and he leans closer. “Yes,” he says. “And I got you.”

And then, thank heavens, he kisses me.

Chapter Eighteen

“I guess he’ll do,” Brax says, swinging one arm around me as he nods toward Maxim, who’s on the far side of the pool ordering my third drink of the afternoon.

“Oh, yeah, he will,” I say.

We’re on the roof of the Stark Century Manhattan, and Maxim is appropriately dressed for the occasion. Or undressed, depending on your point of view, and I’m thoroughly enjoying the view of his exceptional ass in a pair of navy-blue swim trunks.

Beside me, Brina snorts with laughter, though I don’t understand why until Brax starts to protest. “I did not mean it that way,” he says. “I meant he’s a good match for Cami in general. Not because he looks good in a bathing suit.”

“But he really does look good,” Brina adds, giving me a thumbs-up.

“Oh, believe me,” I say. “I know.”

Brax just rolls his eyes.

“You do, too, sweetie,” Brina says, reaching over to pat his hand as we both crack up again.

“So do I pass?” Maxim asks, returning from the bar and passing me a fresh glass of wine. Then he slides his arms around my waist and kisses the side of my neck as I sigh with pleasure.

Brax cocks his head. “From what I can tell, all you need to do for approval from these two today is deliver drinks and look good in swim trunks.”

“Which I will happily do,” Maxim promises. He releases me long enough to nod toward an oversized chaise, then to pull me down beside him. As I snuggle close, he glances at his watch. “What time is this party starting?”

“Ryan said four,” I say, lifting his arm so I can look at his watch. “So another forty-five minutes. I can’t wait for you to meet everybody.”

We didn’t have to come early, but with Brax and Brina being in town and pretty much saving the world, de-stressing seemed like a wonderful idea. Especially since I also want to celebrate the fact that the kids and I all received an antiviral injection this morning. The antidote was specifically engineered by Killion’s team to neutralize both bacteriophages—the one I’d been dosed with and the one that had contaminated the children. Killion had kept the cure in a refrigerated lock-up on the off-chance that he’d ever need it himself.

Of course, the odds were slim that the kids or I would ever stumble across the particular deadly frequencies. But I still feel a lot better knowing that I could swim in a sea of radio frequencies and still be just fine.

“And Ryan’s really making a formal announcement?” Brina asks, turning my attention back to the main reason for this party.

“That’s the rumor,” Brax says. There’s been mumbling about a New York office of Stark Security opening up. Now there’s a rumor that, today, Ryan is going to formally share that news and either tell us who’s staffing the place or ask for volunteers.

“I wonder if he’s talked to Curtis Blaze,” I say. Blaze is the former Green Beret whose skill behind the wheel of a Porsche managed to not only keep the Jeep that was carrying the RF transmitter far enough away, but also sent it tumbling into a construction site, ripping the transmitter to shreds in the process.

“I think Ryan’s chatting with him tomorrow,” Brax says. “He seems like a good guy. Quiet, but good.”

Maxim squeezes my hand. “And what about you? Are you hoping for the transfer up here? Or are you and Gimble happy at the beach?”

I prop myself up and brush a kiss over his lips. “I love the beach,” I tell him. “But I love you more. So let’s just play it by ear and see where we land.”

“That’s a plan I can live with,” he says, and as Maxim draws me closer, I meet Brax’s eyes. He smiles back at me, and I know he’s thinking about how lucky he and I are. We both lost the loves of our lives early on. And then we both found them.

And now we’re all living our happily ever afters.

* * * *