The End Game

Mike took Nicholas’s sleeve. “Dillon, Nicholas and I will be with you in a moment.”

When they’d left, she whispered, “Listen, Nicholas, what Vanessa said, it’s a good idea. Vanessa can’t do it, but I can, I can be bait. I’ll get a red wig, crawl in bed with my Glock, yes, we can do it. Fast, we have to do it fast.”

Nicholas grabbed her arm and jerked her around to face him, pulled her up close.

“You want to be bait? You want to take Vanessa’s place in that bed with a red wig?” He shook her. “Listen to me, I am your partner. Absolutely, one hundred percent, no. We’ll find another way to get him. I forbid it. Do you understand me? I am not putting you at risk. I don’t care if I were lying on top of you, covering every inch of you and—”

He stiffened, his eyes went hot.

Mike felt strangely calm, no urge at all to smack him for what he’d said, for shaking her. His anger came from fear for her. She looked at his eyes, stark, dangerous, and his face was hard, no give. She didn’t say anything, simply raised her hand and touched his cheek, traced the bruise on his jaw.

Nicholas didn’t move as her fingers lightly passed over his face. He closed his eyes when her fingers were smoothing down his hair.

He felt her fingers now resting on his mouth, opened his eyes, met hers. His control, his anger, all his fear for her came together, and he knew it was all over for him.

Mike cupped his cheek, pressed her lips to his cheek. “Nicholas,” she said. Nothing more, and it was enough, it was too much.

Nicholas pulled her tight against him, felt her heart pound against his, and kissed her, all his fear and the deep well of feelings for her, burst out, and his mouth was hard and urgent. When she leaned up and kissed him back, he went wild, but it didn’t matter because she did, too, gripping his arms, his neck, then his face, her fingers touching him, and the kiss deepened and she opened her mouth. He lifted her off her feet and pushed her against the wall, pulling her against him, never once breaking contact. His hands moved down to the small of her back, over her hips, traced around her thighs, pressed her legs open.

His beard scraped her face and Mike could feel every bruise on her body, and who cared? She wanted more, she wanted everything. The taste of him, of Nicholas, the hardness, the power of him, and she tried to press closer, wanting all of him, and she moaned into his mouth.

There was a groan from the bed, six feet away from them.

His mouth, hot and fierce the instant before, stilled. Then he jerked back as if he’d been shot. He looked at her mouth like he wanted to weep, and very slowly, Nicholas eased her back down, his hands on her waist, holding her steady. The feel of her—no, he stepped back, and his eyes were nearly black.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, it was a mistake. I know we have to talk, but—” He shot a look over at Vanessa, quiet now, and he was out the door like a man ru

60

BISHOP TO D5

He was a clod, he’d practically attacked her. It didn’t matter that she was all over him, too, he was embarrassed and he didn’t know what to do.

“Nicholas Drummond!”

He whirled around at her ear-shattering yell to see Mike standing, outside Vanessa’s door, her blouse pulled out from the waist of her pants, her ponytail straggling over one ear, and how had that happened? If he wasn’t mistaken, her eyes were still glazed, and that was nice, but—

Her hands were on her hips, then she actually shook a teacher’s finger at him. She was now standing not two feet from the crowded nurses’ counter, surrounded by techs, doctors, nurses, and there was an orderly standing in the doorway of a room, holding a bedpan. No one was moving, every eye on them. Craig Swanson stood behind her, and the bastard was smirking.

Time stopped.

She took one step toward him, drew up, shook her finger at him again. “How dare you say you’re sorry, that it shouldn’t have happened, that it was a mistake, and then you bolt?” She shook her finger again at him and yelled, “Bad dog!”

The silence was deafening.

No, she hadn’t said that, she couldn’t have. He cleared his throat. “Bad dog? I’m a bad dog?”

“You’re worse than a bad dog, but that’s not the point. Now you’re all sorry you smashed me against the wall? Sorry you had your hands all over me? You regret turning into a wild man? You want to talk? Talk? Well, forget that, Special Agent Drummond, because that will not happen. I will never talk about this, do you hear me? I will pull my own tonsils out through my ears if I’m ever even tempted to talk about this. Do you understand me?”

“You’re yelling, of course I understand you.”

“Good. So that must mean your brain is functioning again.” She looked neither to the right nor to the left, marched right up to him, saw him open his mouth, and shoved him back. “No, you keep your mouth shut. We need to get downstairs. I believe Dillon will be there, although I don’t exactly remember what we’re going to do with him, but it will come to me.”

She smacked her hand again against his chest. He started to grab her wrist, but didn’t. Nicholas stared at her furious face, saw the pounding pulse in her throat, the snap and fire in her eyes, and couldn’t help himself. He laughed, then cleared his throat and called out to all the staring hospital staff, at all their now-blooming smiles, the stirrings of laughter, “As you were! No charge for the show,” and he punched the elevator button and they waited, silent, side by side. Nicholas heard Craig Swanson hoot with laughter, and others joining him, talking, laughing, a couple of them even shouting suggestions to the Bad Dog. He even heard a bark and a woof.

When the doors opened, a nurse stepped out, humming the theme from Frozen, “Let It Go.” She took one look at them and said, “Whoa,” and hurried off.

“What!” Mike yelled after her. “We have our clothes on! What’s wrong with you?”

As the doors closed, they heard more rolling shouts of laughter. A couple more barks.

He opened his mouth.

“Be quiet unless you can verify that Dillon is meeting us in the lobby.”

“I believe so. It’s about the video feeds from that diner in Baltimore. I think. Then we’re going home with him to have lasagna for di

“No.”

“Would you like me to call Savich? Verify?”

She shook her head, kept staring at the slow-moving numbers. The elevator stopped on the second floor, the doors opened, and there stood two white-coated doctors talking about nausea. One look, and by mutual unspoken agreement they turned and walked quickly away.

When the bell dinged and the doors opened onto the lobby, he watched Mike march out of the elevator, head high, never looking at him, not looking at any of the dozens of people in the lobby. She spotted Dillon, waved, and continued her march toward him.

She had to stop when three teenagers, one of them with his arm in a brand-new cast that was already covered with lewd drawings and scrawls, blocked her way. She couldn’t knock the kid out of the way, he was hurt and drug-addled.

“Wait,” Nicholas said, and she ignored him, then reluctantly slowed.

Mike could smell him, that fine Nicholas scent that was his and his alone, but more than that, she felt him, felt him drawing closer to her. She knew he was leaning in, felt his warm breath on her cheek.

“No, not a word, do you hear me? No pathetic excuses, no going on about what a mistake that was.”

“Okay. Shall I?”

“Shall you what?”