didn’t see it, but he sensed it coming, and he stepped away. “Don’t touch me just yet, darlin’. Dangerous until I blow some of this off.”
That mental probe came back, and Tucker shut himself down just before it could connect.
Sweat was dripping off him as he swung around to Dru. In the gilded moonlight, she stood there silently, but not very patient, her eyes glittering, hands clenched.
“Is it done?”
He smiled.
“Taking that as a yes, then,” she muttered. “Bloody dark now. Didn’t think of that.”
“Don’t worry. I always think of that.”
Swinging his pack off his back, he pulled out two sets of night-vision goggles.
As he slid his pair on, he was treated to the pleased smile curving Dru’s lips.
“You, Tucker, are fast becoming my very favorite person in the entire world.”
* * *
“YOU gotta leave.”
Joss glared at the man in front of him, tried to restrain the edginess burning under his skin.
“I have the next delivery for him and you want me to leave?”
“We’re having problems. Deliveries have to be postponed.”
“Hmm.” He started toward the back and gestured to the back of the SUV. “Come look at this.”
Jerking open the door, he said a mental prayer that Nalini would at least try to look scared. Or something other than, I’m going to eat your eyes the second I get my hands on you.
One of the men peered inside.
Nalini lay there, a sex-kitten smile curving her lips.
“Ah . . .”
Closing a hand around Nalini’s arm, he jerked her out and shoved her at the guard. Reflexively, the guard’s hands closed around her.
His face went slack.
In the next second, he started to smile.
And the second after that, Joss felt the weirdest damn thing happening . . . it wasn’t inside his head, but it was happening on a level that wasn’t exactly physical. Almost the way his ears popped when he was on an airplane. Pop, pop, pop.
Seconds passed as he shook his head and tried to process it. The hair on his arms rose, stood on end.
The guard stumbled back against the SUV. “Hey, Bruce . . . gotta come help a minute,” he called, his voice thick, rough. And he stared at Nalini like he’d never seen anything so amazing.
“Sanchez, we’re not supposed to be doing anything but watching the gate,” Bruce snarled. He came around the back of the SUV, glowering. Took one look at Nalini and went to shove her back into the SUV.
Joss could barely process it. He was too aware . . . something. A mind. He realized. There was somebody out there. Pop, pop, pop. And then screaming . . . darkness.
All the lights around them exploded into darkness.
“What the . . .” Bruce began. But the rest of his words died as he laid hands on Nalini.
And she stole away his will.
“There we go, boys,” she said, pleased. “Into the back, if you would.”
Joss ignored them, turning his back, trusting her to deal with his. He focused on the woods around them, reaching out. He felt it, damn it. He’d find whoever it was—
But then that mind, cagey and adroit, deflected him, swatting him away with relative ease. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
When he went to try again, though, it was gone.
Whoever it was, Joss couldn’t sense him again.
Him . . .
Swinging around, he stared at Nalini, who was in the process of cuffing the two guards. “What in the fuck is going on?”
She lifted a pale brow at him. “Are you asking me or just snarling to snarl?”
“I . . . shit.”
Behind him, he heard the faintest sound. Heard the rustling of trees. He had his weapon in hand before he even turned, edging so that he had Nalini behind him.
“You know, it’s nice in theory to have a man doing that, but I’m as capable as you are,” she said coolly, moving out from behind him.
He never even noticed.
The moon shone down, casting its full light on a face that hit the very heart of him.
Her . . .
Her . . .
It all came rushing back.
The elation, the dizzying need, want, and love. The misery.
All of it, gone. Not for long. But it had been gone.
However Nalini had taken it away from him, he didn’t know. She’d stripped it away, though. Thoughts of everything and everybody but finishing this job. Including his knowledge of Dru, replacing all of that edgy, troubled misery with false lassitude.
The last vestiges of that calm shattered into a million tiny little pieces, withering to dust, drifting away on the