Kiss Across Chaos (Kiss Across Time #10) - Tracy Cooper-Posey Page 0,40
the fucking lane. Now.”
Aran rested his hand on her back, encouraging her to move. “Just hold your breath for a moment, dear, while I sort this out.”
Jesse would have laughed at his patronizing attitude except she was already trying to figure out how he wanted to play this. She let him shepherd her into the position he wanted her to take, while moaning at the stench and waving her hand in front of her face.
The man trod heavily behind them, a dozen paces into the aromatic laneway. The earth squelched under her feet. Jesse’s toes wanted to curl up inside her boots. She didn’t want to know what was making it squish like that.
She swallowed, tasting copper, and turned as Aran did. It put her on the man’s left, where his gun was, and where his right hand rested inside his jacket, ready to pull the gun. Aran was on his right.
Suddenly, she knew what to do. It was right there in her mind. Finally.
Jesse didn’t stop to reconsider or wonder if she might have guessed wrong. Acting fast was always tactically advantageous.
She waved her hand weakly and closed her eyes. “Oh, dear god…I can’t breathe…” She let her knees fold, sinking toward the ground.
The mobster was both experienced and without empathy. He let her slump into the foul dirt and didn’t automatically step forward to save her, as Aran did…which put Aran a pace closer to the man.
Jesse thrust out her foot and surged toward the man.
His gun hand jerked in reaction, but it was already too late. She gripped his elbow and his forearm and bore down on them grimly, holding his arm in place so he couldn’t pull the gun.
Aran was already turning. He used the impetus from his spin to drive his fist into the man’s stomach.
The mobster grunted, expelling hot, garlic-ladened breath. His head jerked forward. Jesse moved out of the way, still gripping his wrist and pushing the gun back into the holster. The jacket yanked aside to reveal their tug-of-war, while Aran followed the blow to the stomach with an upper cut that took the man off his feet.
The gun was drawn out of his holster by his backward movement. Jesse plucked the gun out of his now nerveless fingers as he fell back, his eyes rolling in his head. He landed heavily in the wet earth and groaned.
She bent carefully from the hips and pressed the muzzle of the heavy Colt against his temple. He grew still.
“Carotid is quickest,” she told Aran.
“…the fuck are you people?” the man muttered thickly.
Aran pressed his finger and thumb around the man’s neck, against the pulse points.
Fifteen seconds passed, then the man slumped, his eyes closing.
“That will give us only a few seconds,” Aran said. He took the gun from her, crack it open and shook out the shells into his hand and pocketed them. Then he pulled the gun apart and threw the pieces deeper into the alley. “We’ll jump from here.” He pulled Jesse against him, hard enough to make her breath gust from her. “Sorry,” he added and bent his knees.
She sucked in her breath as time swiped at them.
Chapter Nine
Still warmth. Silence.
No, she could hear the nearly silent hum of her laptop. Jesse glanced over her shoulder, her post-combat shakes already settling in. It was the house she was sitting. The dining room. Her computer. The cup of tea she had been drinking sat beside it, still steaming.
The time on the bottom right of the screen said it was three minutes past eight.
Just as he’d promised.
Aran was still holding her upright, until she oriented herself. She glanced up at him, at his eyes with the long lashes and thick black brows.
“Do you know how my mother discovered she could time travel?” he said, his voice very low.
“I…uh…what?” She couldn’t get her brain to work properly.
He kissed her and his hand pressed her against him, as the kiss deepened and heated and grew into something hot and hard and panting.
Survivor high, she thought stupidly. Everyone felt it, after a battle or close call. It was why there had been a baby boom after the war. It was why the soldiers in her unit had to cool off with alcohol and parties and adrenaline-induced hysteria. There had to be a venting. An expression of relief.
But she had never felt it like this. Not this irresistible need to tear off her clothes and fuck, as hard as she could, as much as she could handle…