“No. Not with her.” He pulled Carina closer to him. Though he was a skinny seventeen-year-old, he was strong. He had to be, Carina thought, to carry dead bodies around.
“You let the boy go,” Carina said, “they’ll go easy on you if you just surrender.”
“No!” He hit her over the head with the gun. She faltered, trying to fall to the floor so Nick could get a clean shot from the door, but Brandon wouldn’t let her drop. He backed up to the counter, close to his original position.
Blinking back the pain in her skull, she assessed the distance between her and the knife on the butcher block.
The knife was gone.
She darted her eyes toward Kyle. His face was blank, but he had one hand behind his back. Brandon didn’t seem to notice.
“Okay, this is what we’re going to do,” Brandon said. “Kyle, you’re going to call the police. From your office. And tell them that I want a car. You’ll drive it, and I’ll keep her in the back with me. They won’t shoot as long as we have her.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, Brandon.”
Brandon shook his head, his fingers crushing her arm as he held tight. “Why are you doing this to me? It’s the only way.”
“It’s not the only way,” Kyle said. “Good-bye, Brandon.”
Kyle brought out the knife and held it in both hands, the blade facing his own stomach.
Brandon was as shocked as Carina. As Kyle brought his arms up to stab himself in the chest, he caught Carina’s eye. She nodded.
She grabbed her twenty-two from her waistband at the same time that she kicked back and up, aiming right for his hairless balls. Direct hit. Brandon released her and doubled over, his face a mask of ferocious pain and anger, as he jerked the gun around toward her. She dove to the left, out of the line of fire that she expected from Nick’s position in the hall.
Nick rolled into the kitchen and shouted, “Police! Drop it!”
Brandon whirled around, his gun now aimed at Nick. Brandon fired. As Carina depressed the trigger of her gun, she saw Nick take a direct hit in the chest and fall back.
Carina fired again at the same time Nick did.
But it was the knife Kyle threw into Brandon’s back that hit first.
He fell forward, seemingly in slow motion, until his head smacked against the tile floor, eyes open and un-seeing.
Carina retrieved Burns’s gun as the SWAT team ran in through both entrances. She crawled over to where Nick was struggling to sit up, a pained look on his face.
“You okay?”
“Damn, that hurt.”
Thank God for Kevlar. She kissed him, helped him remove his shirt and flak jacket. A large purple bruise was already forming. She kissed his chest lightly, tears rushing to her eyes now that they were safe. “How are your ribs?” she asked, trying to sound casual, her voice cracking at the last moment.
“Intact,” he said as he exhaled and Carina helped him sit up. “I’m fine.”
He stared at her, touched the top of her head where Brandon had hit her with the gun. He came back with blood on his fingers. The worry on his face matched her own.
“Are you okay, Cara?”
She nodded. “I’m okay.” She wrapped her arms around him. “I’m okay.”
They sat there in the corner and watched the SWAT team leader lead Kyle Burns out of the kitchen. He stopped at his brother’s dead body.
“I’m not sorry you’re dead,” he said to his brother’s inert form. “I’m only sorry I didn’t see you for what you were.”
THIRTY-FIVE
CARINA AND NICK were medically cleared at the scene and left together for Carina’s house. First thing, Carina called her parents.
“I’m fine,” she said into the phone. “Nothing big, just a couple bumps. I’m going to be late for dinner because I really need a shower.”
When she hung up, Nick said, “I was so scared, Carina,” pulling her gently into his arms. “When he had the gun on you…I can’t lose you.” Her brown eyes melted at his voice and he knew she wanted him just as much.
He lightly touched the purple bruise on her face, kissed it. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” Tears fell down her cheeks and Nick brushed them away with his thumbs.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“I-I know. It’s just catching up with me.” Her body started shaking. “I was just as scared for you.”
“And you rose to the occasion. We make a good team.”
He held her close to his chest, stroked her hair, touched her, until the shaking stopped. Until her hands started reaching for him.
He wanted to be gentle, but his slow kiss grew deep, hot, needy. Carina wrapped her arms around his neck and returned his embrace with the same intensity.
He closed his eyes, sank into her lush mouth. She was alive, in his arms. Her heart beat rapidly against his chest, proving her existence.
Carina moaned into his mouth, nipping at his lips, dueling with his tongue. He teased her by pulling back, then diving back into her mouth. Their tongues mimicked sex, in and out, wrapped around each other, urgent.
Carina backed into the shower, taking him, fully clothed, with her. He stripped, leaving his soggy clothes on the shower floor. The hot water pulsed over their skin, an erotic, wet caress.
He took the soap in his hands, lathered it up, massaged it all over her shoulders, her neck, her breasts. Down between her legs and she gasped. He went down on his knees, washed her muscular thighs, her slender calves, her sexy little feet.
“Oh Nick.”
Her hands grabbed his hair, kneading, as his tongue trailed up her slick body, behind her knee, scraping over her hot center to her navel. She shivered and moaned, brought his mouth back to hers. Reached down and touched him, making him moan in response. He leaned into her body, pushing her gently against the cold tile wall. She clung to him, one leg wrapped around his waist.
“The bed,” he whispered in her ear.
“Here. Now.” She sucked the lobe of his ear, kissed his neck, nibbled his shoulder.
He held one thigh up with his arm, and she guided him into her.
“Fast,” she said. “Fast and hard and don’t stop.”
Her words were as sexy as her voice, deep with arousal. He gave her what she asked for, and together, too quickly, they peaked.
“Now, we go slow,” he told her as he turned off the water and carried her to her bed.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Carina asked Nick as they lay in bed later that night.
“Not until I met you.”
Her heart flipped and she felt light-headed. “My parents fell in love right away.”
Nick raised his head, propped it on his left hand, while his right hand played with her hair. “Really?”
“My mom escaped Cuba when she was twenty. This was in the mid-sixties, when it was harder to escape. Not that it’s easy now, but then…many died trying to reach Florida.” They still did, but not in the same numbers.
Carina told the story as if it had happened to her. The tragic and happy tale. “My mom bribed a captain to take her and her younger sister to Florida. He only took her halfway, dumping her on a dinghy with my aunt in the middle of the ocean. My aunt didn’t survive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was wonderful, my mom said. Always happy. But at sea…three days with no food and only a gallon of fresh water to share. There were sharks in the water, and every once in a while they’d bump the bottom of the boat.
“My father was in the army, but he was on maneuvers in the Keys. He saw the boat in the distance and took a motorboat to meet it. You know the general rule, right? If Cuban immigrants make it to land, they have amnesty. If they’re apprehended at sea, they’re taken to a military base and deported.
“My mother would have been severely beaten had she been returned to Cuba, probably killed, because of her escape. Made an example. She had embarrassed her father in front of his commander, Castro.” She tensed, knowing the pain her mother had endured and the emotional pain still in her heart. Nick rubbed her arm and she relaxed. It was so nice to have him in her bed.